Page 72 of Demons & Damnation

“Is that a bad thing? Surely, it’d be nice to mix with others from your own world?”

Malcolm chuckled. “Remember, Marmalade, there is no smoke without fire. Vampires and werewolves—really not so hot on each other. Demons and witches—pretty much the same. All of the teeny-tinies hate each other—pixies, elves, fairies and so on. Ghosts hate everyone and everything. They’re stuck lingering here to let go of all their rotten resentment before they can crossover for judgement. Problem is, that makes them madder and the vicious circle carries on and on.”

“Oh,” Kyla said, her head whirling to try and keep track of all the information. “Sounds about as fun as normal life then.”

Lily gave her granddaughter a withering smile. “If anything, it’s much more dangerous because of the abilities and power that we can all tap into. Humans tend to battle with words or weapons. Supernaturals are the sort to use a grenade to kill a fly.”

Kyla struggled not to smile. Something within her liked that idea. It made a point, showed whose boss, and made damn sure no-one would fuck with you unless they didn’t care for their life.

“So how do I shield my mind?”

Over the next hour, Lily and Malcolm taught Kyla how to envision her mind as a bank—a bank of information that needed serious, round the clock protection. She cleared a space in her mind, an empty round room so to speak, that would give her a ‘working area’ to deal with and process anything that needed specific attention.

Around the edges of this circular room, cast in the shadows of the single lightbulb lighting her ‘work area’, were the contents of her life—memories, facts, education, subconscious catchments. Kyla arranged everything like a library. Beautiful dark wooden shelves from floor to ceiling encircled her conscious ‘work area’. Kyla split everything down into books, and each book then homed in the correct corresponding section.

A two-inch thick Perspex shield sealed them inside their shelves, keeping them from harm as they faced into the centre of the room. Seeing the contents of herself all around her but safely nestled away gave Kyla a sense of organisation in her jumbled mess of a mind.

Behind her mental library sat a six-inch thick wall of steel, interspersed with diamonds. To anyone attempting to hi-jack her thoughts, they would face a gleaming wall of silver thickness combined with shining gems harder than anything on earth.

Cut through that, motherfuckers.

Both of her grandparents tried their utmost to penetrate her defences, but after several unsuccessful attempts, finally gave in.

“You’ve done a fantastic job, dear,” Lily said. “You’ve caught on very quickly. It will be draining for you, at first, to always be thinking of keeping your shield up, but like anything else, it will become an automatic action soon enough.”

Kyla grinned, a sense of empowerment, of being unstoppable, and a force to be reckoned with filling her from top to toe. She knew in that moment that satiating her cravings for revenge would be so much fun now she had all this power coursing through her veins.

Chapter 30

“Are you staying for some tea, dear?” Lily asked, looking at the clock. “I need to start preparing something to go in the oven.”

Kyla looked at the time, shocked to see it was already past four o clock. She shook her head. “No, thank you, Gran. I should go home. Lots to think about and I need to ring my insurance company as well.”

Lily frowned. “What for?”

“That earthquake the other night?”

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