The Overlord

Camille…

Blonde, petite, limber with curly braids hanging down her temples, trimmed bangs dangling over her forehead and an arresting freckle perched harmlessly against her supple neck. She had ocean blue eyes with a magnetic pull emanating behind them. 

Located somewhere between the heights of social rank and the peak of teenage life; she was riding her youth hard and rocking her world with paranormal vigour.

Girlie had a smile of sorts, tantalizing, effortless and vibrant like the beam of a billion suns. She was an angel and demon, a beauty with a dark side. She hated like she loved and loved like she meant it. She was literally an ordourless, invisible fire raging deep in a lake of brimstone, under a fuzzy cloud of gasoline.

 On this windy night she was gonna morph out of her cocoon and shed her skin. All her life she’d lived like a normal girl crashing parties, flunking in chemistry and barely surviving math tests.

What she didn’t know was she was royalty, embedded directly in the lineage of Arthur the Great, the most renowned hybrid of all time. She was a Yonra, a rare species among the hybrid world. Talk of vamps, weres, fairies and witches- some mind-boggling manifestations of the human world merging with the animal kingdom in a previously impossible amalgamation of dynasties. The Yonra were substantially more lethal than any of the creatures known in the hybrid world. They were faster than vamps, stronger than weres, and immune to magic. One of these wonder creatures could take on an entire pack quite comfortably. It bewildered even the best of mystical masterminds how the Yonra came to be- it still does.

No one was aware of Camille’s mystic abilities, not a soul. Werewolves couldn’t sniff it off her. Not even the shrewdest of witches could enchant their way around her cloak. Like a cold draught in the dead of the night, a premonition had raged through the land of the creatures at a speed matched only by a Yonra; a deep, shuddering dread that a warlock would rise and rule over the hybrid kingdom- an Overlord. Arthur had died trying to unite the underworld, and his prophecy that an Overlord would one day pick up the gauntlet and march gallantly onto the throne was thought to be the last kicks of a dying horse.

Galway…

Sitting silently somewhere in the grid North, with frequent hikes by the mountainside and picnics deep in the woods, was Galway. With a woody, undulating terrain and highways meandering around unapologetic hills; this neighbourhood was known to be hellish during the dark hours. Still people loved it here; the mild winter, the enthralling flowery fall, the emerald spring, the merry summers and the Martini- ooh they loved that one. Party after party went down every chance that presented itself, winding down the calendar like a rattle snake.

Tonight all roads led to an antique shop at a crossroads behind a ridge separating the eastern slopes from the western valley. A freeway snaking its way around the mountain stopped here before turning right and disappearing effortlessly into the canopies down the Great Divide. Wisps of clouds sailed far up the cerulean sky, cluelessly creasing against the faint, gray moon. A whip of wind whooshed by ferociously, screeching madly against the tall firs. A whirlwind stirred somewhere around the lobby, picking up spin as it gyrated away at top tilt. Specks of dust settled back onto the hoods of a classy Camaro and a glossy convertible parked a little way off to the left of the entrance.

Auntiecuties…

The antique shop, owned by one Harriet Portland, was colloquially named Auntiecuties. It stood on about five acres- most of it fallow and forested. A vinyl billboard was draped above the entrance to the complex, with some witty words weaved out of dark humour welcoming everyone. Some sinister graffiti paintings were inscribed on the high walls. Neon lights lit up the hallway in a rainbow of colours, flickering, winking and shifting every few heartbeats. A winding staircase climbed up at the end of the narrow corridor. A parking opened up under it and stretched to the east wing. Up the stairs, a pub was buzzing with activities under the light of an ornate, multispectral chandelier. To the left was a café, a sauna and a beauty parlor towards the end of the hallway. The antique shop itself sat in isolation somewhere far right.

Down below the back door opened into the backyard. It was mostly open with short stubby blades of ryegrass. A bush of japonica stood steadfast to the left, a group of azaleas overgrowing into the faint paths and a family of fine spruce further down the field collecting into an orchard. This was where the magic was happening tonight. Like the sparkle of fireworks in a clear night sky this party was gonna be lit.

Harry Potter…

 Harriet Portland; diva, cheerleader, feminist and socialite, was always on her high horse, riding her way above everyone else. Life to her was rounded down to fun.

Daughter of a famous congressman, sister to a rude rapper and friend to none; the only buddies in her corner were those too afraid to be her enemies. Everyone else just came for her riches, and she really was affluent this one. The antique shop was just another one of her corny plots to stay socially relevant. People like her literally fed on the limelight.

Harry Porter was a self-awarded dub to her name.

As a benevolent host, she was waltzing around the carnival, making sure the rivers of Martini, gin and Hennessy kept on flowing in abundance. She wore a fake smile on top of her excessive makeup, looking like an under-dressed Barbie.

People smiled back for like a second until she was gone, then the backbiting she had interrupted would carry on with some new fuel.

The Blood Moon…

…When the underground streams of the moon break their banks, blood would flow over the surface and subdue it. Then a King would rise out of the ashes…

 11.59; it was getting really cold out here and goosebumps sprouted in numbers. Clusters of teenagers gathered around a bonfire; drinks in one hand and tinder in the other. Camille had her neck starting to hurt from the strain of looking up the sky. She waited eagerly for the moon to turn red; hoping the Astronomers hadn’t miscalculated the time- not again.

Midnight was heralded by the chime of a monastery bell that soared through the still night like marbles from a shotgun. The gong sent icy tentacles crawling down Camille’s back, reminding her that she was at the edge of a precipice, running the danger of landing in hell.

Five minutes on top of the unholy hour, the moon was still grey against the background of the exosphere. She was really starting to get bored and the cold touch of the night was starting to bug her, so she turned around to find somewhere with a furnace… and holy sheep! Harry Potter was making straight for her. She briskly glanced around for a hideout; the only options were behind her own back and under her own skin. So she leveled her look, tugged some of her locks behind her left ear and counted the heartbeats. Three, two… thunder struck and startled the hell out of her.

About a quarter past, no words, just a staring contest. The difference between the two was discernible. Harriet’s curvy figure, red lips and dark eyes contrasted Camille’s lithe, almost scrawny body with no cholesterol. Harriet disliked, correction, hated Camille with all her heart. Camille liked her as much as she liked a grain of sand in her boot. No one had spoken for what seemed like eons, so Camille cleared her throat to break the awkwardness of the moment.

“The hell!” Harriet went first; her Polish accentuated timbre coming out laden with strife. There was clearly not a lot of love lost between them. Harriet abhorred Camille because she was magnetic; everyone just liked her for no reason. Camille just returned the favour. The bad blood had gotten sour lately.

Camille said she liked the view of the blood moon from here. That got the host fuming.

“Sweetheart you can watch the moon from elsewhere. You are not invited!” Harriet squawked, her tone shrilly.

Camille took a long sip of her wine, glanced up and saw the moon still wasting her time, then let out a lungful of air to relieve the tension catching at her throat.

“So you still don’t get it Harriet. I ain’t fighting you; you keep losing because that’s what happens when you’re at war with yourself. The world is definitely big enough for the both of us; you should just learn to stay in your lane. Excuse me sweetheart.” Camille uttered wisely as she nudged her way past the disgruntled Harriet, a smirk playing on repeat across her cute face.

The Wicked Witch…

Something eerie happened when Camille was a couple of yards away. She heard Harriet chant some barely audible phrase in Latin while crossing her middle fingers over her index. Thunder rumbled up close like the roar of a thousand angry lions. Then a bolt of lightning streaked across the grey sky, reaching down for Camille with jagged slivers of deadly energy. She reflexively ducked as she instinctively shielded herself with an elbow, a yelp of horror escaping her. The next thing she saw was a couple of spruce in the grove slashed in half and a dozen tree tops ablaze. She looked again and this time she got a clear image of Harriet.

A film of red light encased Harriet while spiking daggers of fire danced around her fists. She seemed to have grown bigger, her eyes a shimmer of fiery red touched by a tinge of yellow. Terrified to the bone; Camille reeled back, tripping and crashing to the wet grass. Things were dire, and Camille was dying from gut-wrenching fright.

Kicking and yelling, she hauled herself on all fours in a frantic scramble to clamber away from the sinister sister from hell. Everyone else seemed mindless of her plight. No one was coming to her aid, no one.

“They can’t help you now. I am second tired of a mere human taking my place, you don’t deserve it!” Harriet’s voice was now a husky conglomerate of overlapping sonic frequencies, scary as hell if you asked Camille.

Camille, now reclining on her hands, was trembling vigorously. Her heart thumped hard against her small chest as a rivulet of cold sweat meandered down her temple. When she finally found her voice from somewhere down her pharynx, she strived to speak.

“What are you?” was all she could gather from her scattered vocals. Harriet snarled like a wolf then snorted awkwardly.

“What I am is beyond the grasp of your feeble mind. Besides, if I told you that I will have to kill you.” She chuckled boisterously. “But I don’t have to kill you popular girl,” She paused again. “I want to kill you. You got it wrong at the party, the world isn’t big enough for the both of us, and you are in my lane!” She snapped and a cloud of fire leapt for Camille in one gigantic apocalyptic wave. The dose headed for Camille was the equivalent of a flare of energy spewing from a pulsar.

There was no escaping this, in a second she would be obliterated from the face of wherever this was. In that kind of hellfire she would simply sublime. So she firmly shut her eyes in despair, counting down seconds until contact. Two, one…

The Overlord…

From inside the ball of a person Camille had shrunk into, something high up the azure sky caught her attention a fraction of a second before she vapourized. The immense heat had started licking her sore back. Her right eye had opened slightly from the brain-blasting pain, and she had espied something- the damn moon was starting to turn red…

She cursed vehemently to herself as she felt an arrow punch through her heart. She had been waiting for that son of a gun to turn, so she could see a blood moon- a celestial occultation that happens very rarely. But the bloody thing had to wait until she was dead to start turning, it really bothered her.

‘Those astronomers should all be shot, and the telecasters jailed… no, shot as well.’ A pained thought popped up in her brain, even with her neurons going haywire and her sinuses collapsing under the pressure of the scampering glial cells. Wait, why wasn’t she dead yet? Or is this how death looked like? Just an endless sea of thoughts, a world where the mind is a free entity and it is all that there is?

She slowly unfolded from the human ball she’d rolled into, gradually letting her eyelids slide up as her field of view widened. She looked around as her rods adjusted to the light. She was still in her muddy pants, her tattered lacy blouson and her hair was a mess; except she was somewhere else. It was mostly white with nothing in her radius- just a lot of nothingness straddling to oblivion.

“Hello!” She called out, “Anyone home?” She tested her mic, it was working. Her voice bounced around whatever it was here and came back to her in a thousand echoes. She took a shaky step in whatever direction then turned around and freaked at the sight of something magically manifesting out of thin air. She briskly backpedalled in fright and found her ground somewhere a couple of feet away. She watched in awe dissolved in bone-deep terror as shimmering gilded lights crafted something that gradually coalesced into a human form. Camille was really getting tired of trucks being dropped on her like this. Just hours ago she was a naïve, skeptical little girl who cared only about her hair.

“Oh, the blood moon is out already. Weren’t you here just the other day?” It was a man; short in stature, like five foot four. He had a skin tone previously unknown to Camille’s optical receptors. He looked yolk-yellowish, except he was glowing in some kind of paranormal glamour and he was dressed in some downy linen hard to find anywhere on earth. His fractal beard was clinically done into one long braid that touched his torso. He walked around with authority and spoke like an ancient High Priest.

“Who…” Camille yanked her mouth open but he brusquely cut her short.

“I bear no personal designation, and no I am no freak or idiot.” He took a pause, a magical smile touching his fleshy lips.

“I am not that either so you can stop thinking of more names to call me.” He added tartly and sat, literally on nothing materially visible- but the freaking dude sat anyways. He then started answering the questions she hadn’t asked yet.

Apparently this was a timeless realm, like the bubble Harriet had whisked her into using dark magic and she was here by virtue of the Blood Moon. He said she was the last surviving Yonra, a species borne out of angels and humans. Since magic was an angelic creation, it could not in fact be used as a weapon against them. Camille wanted to ask in some vulgar dialect including ‘the hell’ and another stronger offensive swear; but the super host was aggravatingly way ahead of her. He elucidated elaborately that the reason why Harriet could hurt her was because she hadn’t activated yet.

The Yonra, once a detested abomination, had found their place amongst the humans since they were less of angels. Until they were found useful when the gods realized they could be guardians of magic, prevent people like Harriet from spiraling out of control. However, it took about two blood moons for them to be fully activated, and most were destroyed before they got the chance. In fact Camille had died several times. The gods had her host here change the timeline a couple of hundred times. That’s how she had been here before, even though it wasn’t in her recollection.

“Now if you will, touch the holy seal on the wall and be enlightened.” He said after he’d explained enough. She wavered for a second, then sauntered over there and shoved her open palm at the sacred seal. She was suddenly integrated into the timeless archives, with hundreds of years of memories streaming through her brain in real time. She saw death, her death, hundreds of times, and annihilation of whole worlds. She kept being born again and again so she can find a way to stop the underworld from self-destructing, going nova and taking the whole world with them. She was supposed to be the Overlord Arthur spoke of.

After the debrief she immediately whisked herself back in time to the party and disabled Harriet in one snap of a finger. One moment Harriet was a Wicked Witch, the next she was a pathetic loser.

“What the...!” Harriet’s mouth went agape as she tried adducting her fingers together to summon her magic.

“Wrong timeline sweetie, sorry...” Camille said; a wry smirk painted on her face.

“What are you?” It was Harriet’s turn now.

“Well, if I told you that I’ll have to kill you. But I don’t want to, so I just took your magic, I promise to put it to good use. I need you to do one thing for me though, kneel before your Overlord!” She commanded; her voice sharp and intimidating. Harriet, upon seeing the unflinching blue glow behind her eyes, half-heartedly went down on one knee. Camille stifled a victorious smile, damn she was gonna be killing it at being an Overlord, scratch that- The Overlord.