Seer
Chapter 45

Natalie’s

My worst fear manifests. The child is utterly under the dominion of Demon, and is wrestling with Natalie on top of the bars, high above the ground. If she falls she could be seriously injured. Her brother already has been hurt as he fell. Aaron tries to find words to help him, but the situation is so out of control that it appears to be beyond any of our ability to help.

As soon as Demon sensed Jonathan begin to accept Natalie’s words, he was consumed with fury. He will never permit Natalie to bring such knowledge to Jonathan, because that would diminish Demon’s control over his Guarded. Demon renewed his use of power instantly, increased a thousandfold, flooding Jonathan with a blinding rage, using Jonathan as a tool to stop Natalie from continuing. Gabe intervened, only to be hurled to the ground, where we all heard his bone break with a sickening snap.

Despite this, her brother is trying to get back up to Jonathan, to protect his sister, but it is clearly futile. Jonathan has seized Natalie’s arms and is shaking her, trying to dislodge her from the bars of the jungle gym. Her long hair flies about her head as she attempts to resist him. “Jonathan, no, stop!” she cries, but it is no use. Jonathan is not hearing anything but Demon’s deafening commands. In a moment, Natalie will inevitably lose this battle and suffer dire harm.

Her peril focuses the attention of all. Each of the Guardians in our family have been closely following these events. Even Knight and Lady are fully present here while the children’s parents are heading to their places of employment. I cannot help Natalie physically defeat Jonathan. There is only one thing I can do.

I generate all of the dark energy that I can command, and using every bit of power I have ever known, I bellow “STOP!” at Demon. Immediately, Guardian and Aaron follow my lead, and do the same. In a split second, Knight and Lady have added their voices.

Five Guardians, all screaming STOP at Demon, has an impact. When I experienced this the first time that Guardian yelled at me, the effect felt almost physical. Amplified five times, it appears to be literally physical. Demon’s appearance, in fact his entire being, wavers, fractures. He is distracted from his commands to Jonathan, and stops shouting at the boy.

The five of us continue, incessantly shouting with all of the energy we can muster, to prevent Demon from renewing his assault. He is stymied, outraged, filled with fury, but unable to take any action under the combined power of our voices.

Jonathan, however, is already too lost in the commands he had received to reverse course. He falters briefly when Demon falls silent, confused, but the anger that had already been set into motion by Demon persists. He continues grappling with Natalie, even as she pleads with him to listen. She slips further, one of her legs losing its place on the bar beneath her, and she is an instant from falling.

Timothy, still too far away on the jungle gym to reach Natalie, adds his voice to the chaos. “Stop!” he screams, and with his mind he reaches out to Jonathan. He uses the method that he had tried and discarded weeks ago, before he learned that to hear Guardian he must passively open his mind to the contact.

This reaching is aggressive, purposeful, dominant, violent. Timothy deliberately thrusts his consciousness forward, seeking Jonathan’s, attempting to overpower the other boy’s mind.

Driven by the panic that he is feeling for Natalie’s safety, and enhanced by the power flowing through Guardian as we all shout at Demon, it works. His mind touches Jonathan’s. Overwhelmed by Timothy’s mental and verbal scream to stop, Jonathan freezes. He becomes silent. His face goes slack. Suddenly, his eyes roll back into his head, and he goes utterly limp. His hands fall from Natalie’s arms, and he slips backwards through the bars of the jungle gym, plummeting headfirst to the ground.

Natalie manages to catch herself on the bars before falling with him, and shrieks to her brother, “Catch him!”

Gabe, with an unnatural boost of energy given to him by Aaron as he continues to draw on excessive power, lunges across the sand beneath the jungle gym, with outstretched arms. Just as Jonathan’s limp body is about to crash to the ground, Gabe reaches his arms beneath him to soften the blow. They collapse together in a heap.

I stop shouting at Demon, as do the others. The silence seems deafening. Gabe extricates himself from beneath Jonathan’s still form. Jonathan is not moving.

Natalie and Timothy clamber down from the jungle gym and approach the boys on the ground.

The entire incident, from the moment that Jonathan began shouting, has only occupied a minute or two of time. The attention of the teachers, in the usual morning uproar as the students arrive for class, has only just been attracted by the altercation at the playground, and some of the adults begin to move forward to intervene.

I look more carefully at Jonathan. I see him breathing raggedly, but he is unconscious. He did not suffer a head injury as he fell, because Gabe was able to prevent that. It is unclear why he is not awake. I look to see Demon’s reaction to these events, and wonder if Demon feels any remorse at having caused this disaster. Perhaps instead Demon is too angry for remorse?

I am puzzled, though, as I look in Jonathan’s direction. I do not see Demon. Natalie is kneeling at Gabe’s side, grieved at the injury he has suffered, her hand on his shoulder as he clutches his ankle. Timothy, surprisingly, is the one trying to help Jonathan. He is kneeling next to Jonathan, pressing a hand to his chest to check his breathing, peering closely at his face to see if he is awake.

But Demon is somehow not next to Jonathan. I glance at the others, and see that they have made the same realization. Each of us scans the area, listening, without success. Jonathan’s Guardian is nowhere nearby. Jonathan, of all the humans on the campus, for that matter on the planet, is alone.

I have never heard of this phenomenon. A Guardian is, necessarily, always together with their Guarded. They are tied to the soul that lies within. This is impossible.

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