Chants: Chapter 2- The Praetorium

A Fantasy/Adventure book about a 17 year old girl who wakes up to find everyone she loves is missing and the whole world, at least until she meets a mysterious figure in the shadows.....

"That was for kidnapping me!" she screamed, it was ridiculous that she had to explain herself. Well she didn't have to but...

"Technically I carried you, but I still don't know your name.", he finished with a questioning look that made her think he didn't trust her. Maybe he didn't, she didn't trust him.

"Cami and I don't think I heard your name in your mumbling yesterday, what was that- sonen sile-" She was cut off by that all too familiar voice.

"It's Theo and that was a chant, we use them to give us power and affect others. The one I used on you was a silencing chant but it also knocked you out, I had to bring you here."

"And where is here exactly!" She looked out the old faded window, "It looks like the middle of nowhere!".

"England, somewhere near Windsor I think-" He proceeded to the grand double doors, of what looked like a bedroom, and he pulled them open to reveal a huge hall with  two identical doors on each side, it was elegant and old looking, as if it was a castle. Pillars flowed on the 'V' shaped ceiling towering higher and higher,creating patterns.

"The Praetorium."

*   *   *

They were now in an even bigger hall which was littered with see-through TV screens showing maps of London and South East England dotted with moving red dots as if they were tracking something, or someone.

"Where are we going?" it seemed like he had been almost showing her around but they were walking in silence, he's not much of a tour guide, she thought.

"I'm taking you to the library where you can meet August, she's the head of the Praetorium, and my mother. Well adoptive mother but I've known her my whole life.". He jabbed his head in the direction of two doors, even bigger than the ones in the bedroom she had woken up in. They were mahogany and had stained glass surrounding them like a frame, it seemed to tell a story of an angel. Next thing she knew she was being nudged into the library, it was easily the biggest room she'd seen so far. She counted five floors to it, each had it's own set of stairs and matching mahogany ladder to reach the chained books at the top. She loved to read at home and she could have sworn that she had seen this before. Dreamt it.

"Welcome back, Camille Decour. Admittedly I hoped, when I heard there was a Decour here, that it was your father. He is one of our best, but, I am curious to why you are here alone. Enlighten me ?"

"Well I didn't exactly come of my own will, Theo basically kidnapped me. But, where is everyone, I woke up and no one was at home or in the streets. Where have they all gone!". She heard August give a low chuckle.

"Your Father is one of our best-" She repeated," he must have blocked your memory. Turned you into an Ordin.". She let out another chuckle but stopped to explain when she must have seen Cami's puzzled look. What is an Ordin ?

"We call people 'Ordins', it's short for ordinary" She let out a sigh this time. "Your father must want to protect you from all of this, no worries, it's seemed to have worn off now, let me guess, it's your birthday.".

"Past tense." Cami was filling up with terror, August was talking about her parents in present tense, they had been gone for two years now. Surely she knew. "My father and mother have been dead for two years.". Dead.

"Oh, I am deeply sorry, to lose both ones parents must be horrible, and at such a young age. Theo was given to us as a baby, he doesn't remember his parents and neither do we, so we raised him as our own. He didn't lose them however, he just never really had any.", she let out a quiet cough and continued - "Anyway, that would explain why it's wearing off and you didn't see them. We can only see others of our own kind and those that we hunt unless we use the hominum chant to allow them to come into view."

"Why, isn't that just inconvenient.".

"Well actually it helps us focus on the hunt rather than humans, also some demons can shapeshift to look like humans, it helps us single them out."

"What do you mean us?"

"We are The Protectors, The protectors of man kind.".