DEMON CRY

58.

The First Warrior was sitting in the wagon anxiously waiting for the demon to appear. From time to time, she kept peering through the cracks in the walls of the wagon and every moment that passed her anxiety and mistrust grew. 

She clenched her fists before she wrapped her arms around herself. 

She despised her current predicament- away from her newborn, her family and forced to side with a demon who claimed that he had 'talked' to the Dithrai Prince. 

Her face twisted with distaste. 

All she desired was to go back to her son safe and sound. 

The horses snorted softly. Many demons passed the alleyway and as much as she wanted to deny it, she was afraid. 

Felicia was not used to feeling vulnerable. Being raised in a castle under her father's wing, she was used to being the authority everyone looked up to. 

She closed her eyes and tried to reign her unsettled mind. 

She pulled her knees close to her chest and rested her head on it. 

But her misplaced rage was forgotten when a powerful voice rattled the wagon. 'There are you, you filthy boy!' 

A blood-curdling scream echoed in the alleyway. Felicia was not the one to get intimidated easily but her current predicament invoked it before she had the time to comprehend anything. She adjusted herself so that her eye was in line with a tiny hole in the wagon wall. From where she was, she could see a tall man bent over a tiny figure hurling his burly arms at it. 

'I'll kill you! You stupid piece of shit!'

Cries of pain resonated in the air. Demons passed by them but none of them made any attempt to stop it. 

'You son of a bitch!' 

Her heart clenched as the helpless cries resonated in the wagon. 

Why would anyone want to hurt a child? 

Tears burned her eyes. She could hear the heavy punches that the boy suffered. Her heart ached as if she was at the receiving end of those merciless blows. 

What could one possibly get from hurting a helpless child?

What if that was her little boy?

Her nostrils flared as she raised the cowl over her head. 

No!

She would not allow it!

Picking her weapons, she shot out of the wagon. 

Without a warning, she charged at the burly man. Her speed provided her with the strength to topple him over. The demon was taken by surprise and he stumbled away and fell. 

He almost took the boy down with him. 

Fearing the boy might suffocate under the weight of the fat man, Felicia grabbed the collar of his torn shirt and pulled him out of harm's way. 

The boy flinched and curled into a ball, covering his small face with his skinny arms.

'You bitch!' The fallen demon cried, clutching his ankle. 

Felicia almost smiled. With the amount of extra weight he carried around him, something like that was bound to happen. 

She watched him, amused, as he tried to act tough by rising to his feet. 

'Get away from him, you bitch!' He warned her. His face was twisted in pain. 'He's mine! He owes me money!'

The boy wrapped his tiny arms around her legs. He was trembling against her. She hated it. She wanted to hurl insults at the demon who had dared to hurt the little child but had to refrain from it as her accent would give her away and possibly scare the child as well. 

When she did not heed the man's warning, he launched an attack on her. 

Felicia could fight him in her sleep. He was that bad. 

Raphael anxiously weaved his way through the crowd. He had a bad feeling about leaving Felicia alone. 

When he turned into the alleyway he had parked the wagon, he was taken aback. 

A burly demon was hobbling toward a hooded figure. 

Raphael recognized her instantly and wanted to scream at her for being so careless. A small slip up and all three of them would end up dead. He thought he had made that plenty clear to the Frisir. 

He was sure he saw her smirk beneath the shadow of her cowl. She had spotted him. 

She made a fist as if to say watch this and threw a powerful punch across the demon's head. Raphael shuddered when he saw the way the big demon fell with a loud thud. He even heard a loud crack. 

He received her message well. If she found out that he was involved in some funny business, she'd do worse. Ironically, Raphael wasn't involved in any such affair and all Felicia was doing was drawing attention to herself which could get them killed. 

The former General was about to open his mouth to scold her for such a careless display of her strength when he heard broken words of gratitude. 'Th-thank y-you,' the soft voice echoed in the alleyway. 

It was then that Raphael saw a little demon boy pressed against her legs. What followed took him by surprise. 

The First Warrior patted the demon boy's head, affectionately. 

He moved toward them. 

The boy shrank away in fear when he saw Raphael approaching.  

'I told you to stay in the wagon,' He told Felicia. 

She snorted and folded her arms but did not say a word. 

'Do you want to come with us?' He looked down at the demon boy. 'We have some food and clothes with us.' 

The boy looked at Felicia was confirmation. 

If the boy's state hadn't been so pitiful, Raphael would have found that funny. 

She bobbed her head. 

Raphael smiled at her. 

He didn't know why she helped the boy but he was glad that she did. Despite her bias toward his kind, she wasn't that bad a person. 

She tried to act nonchalant and shrug it off as if she hadn't done anything at all. 

Maybe helping the Dithrai Prince was the right thing to do, Raphael thought. Someday, he told himself as he watched the two of them disappear inside the wagon, our kinds will laugh together. 

It was a far fetched dream- but they had taken the first step toward it. 

That day will come, he grinned widely. Soon.