The Cross Chronicles: Elementary Endeavours

“Seriously? An elementary school?” I huffed with my fists in front of me. The man before me snickered.

“You don’t know how good the little ones taste…” a guttural laugh emerged past his lips, alongside rivers of spit.

“God, I need to put you in the ground soon, your personal hygiene is enough to kill anyone who walks in room,” I muttered under my breath while he came closer, pushing desks and chairs aside.

“Oh and you think you can beat me, little girl?” he spat. Literally. I could feel a few drops hit my face. Alright. This bastard was dead.

“Come here and find out, you useless underling,” I smiled as I saw my insult dive deep into his cracking, grey skin as he launched himself forward, his fist aimed at my chest. You idiot, have you heard anything about form? I took one step to my left, grabbing his wrist as it flew past me and using his momentum to launch him back where he came from. Desks and chairs crumbled beneath his weight and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Is this all she has to throw at me, really? Someone get me my after-kill cigarette and shot of bourbon already.” 

“D-don’t question her, you stupid human. She’ll tear out your insides and feed your organs to all us ‘useless underlings’. Then we’ll see whose laughing.” He scrambled to his feet, black blood oozing from his forehead. 

“Demons are demons. You’re all the same to me. My job is to send you back to the fiery wakes that you came from, that’s it.” I walked forward, my boots crushing slivers of broken wood on the tile floor. “And if she’s as dumb as you, the idiot who came to an elementary school at midnight to find kids to munch on, well then I really don’t have much to worry about, do I?” I grinned and quickly revealed my dagger from inside my jacket… “And Crosses don’t quit, I’m sure you know a bit about that…” 

“C-Cross?”

In moments, my dagger zipped through the air and into his chest. It glowed a deep sapphire as it pierced his skin, the blue light framing his defeated face as the weapon began to purify the demonic presence out of his body. Within moments, his skin began to fall away, and the humanity in his previously dead eyes sparked for just a second before they fell out of his skull and into ashes.

Always hated that. Seeing the human come back in them for just a moment before they become dust. Wonder if one day I’ll exorcise the demon out someone and they’ll come back, bleeding, my dagger in their chest, their death by my hands. Never happened before, but I don’t know why it couldn’t. That’ll be the day that I send myself to AA, because you can only drink so much bourbon to ease the pain…

“Well. The janitor is gonna get a kick out of this in the morning…” I sighed and retrieved my dagger from the remains of the demon. It still glowed with blue light, and pulsated hungrily in my hands. Not only did this thing sense out demonic souls, but it was literally made to devour them, inevitably sending the demon back to Hell. Silver glyphs were written deep into the metal, wrapping their way around the hilt. Whenever I picked up the dagger and held it, I could feel the glyphs shudder beneath my skin, as if they were giving me praise. At least one of us felt happy… 

I made my way outside of the school and met up with my ‘getaway partner’. She insisted I call her that, aside the fact that she was just my ridiculous best friend, Olivia Walker, who was way more excited about my demon slaying endeavours than I was.

“So…Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?” She said when I slid into the passenger seat of my Dodge Charger, its engine rumbling a little less subtly than I’d like.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s done, let’s get out of here…” I sighed and looked out the window. Liv grabbed my shoulder.

“Aw, come on Vivian, nothing exciting happened then? You obviously kicked ass, and you’re out in one piece, why are you so…blah?” She pursed her lips to the side, her perfect eyebrows furrowed as she gave me her famous ‘tell me everything that’s going on in your head’ look. 

“Mmm, this one just left me thinking, is all…”

“Thinking? I know how you get when you think…” Liv paused, grabbing a bottle of bourbon from the backseat and placing it in my lap. 

“You know me so well…” I said, unscrewing the bottle and taking a long, much needed swig. 

“Well, aside me continuously promoting your lovely addiction…let’s just get home, alright? We can watch that stupid sitcom we like with ice cream and laugh like typical girls in their twenties,” Liv smiled, and patted my shoulder. I nodded with a forced smile, putting the bottle to my lips once again. 

“That’ll be nice.” I said, and we drove off.

To be continued…

Hi everyone! If you’ve enjoyed the first snippet of “The Cross Chronicles”, please feel free to share or comment! This character and idea just suddenly came to me so I had to write it. I hope to build the story within scenes like this, and compile them together in little “episodes” – hopefully I can keep with it, because the characters are already so vivid to me. Thanks again for reading – remember to comment/share!

With everlasting encouragement,