Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 17:52:23 GMT
From: Shade . <ensstyenlc@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Daemon Gate Chapter 6

Yes, it's been a long, long time...School is great but it takes up so much 
time that I haven't had chance to even think about writing this. A lot of 
things have changed but I'm happy, so I don't care. I'm not making any sense 
either, I think...my mind stopped functioning half an hour ago...but it's 
only temporary. Anyways, I'm supposed to be going to the thanks section now, 
aren't I? Okay, here goes!
Many thanks to Susan, Mags and Jason for the friendship and emails and 
whatnot. Also to Marcus and Kenny, you two are the weirdest! And that's a 
compliment! To my best friend David L.Z, I wouldn't be who I am if it 
weren't for you...are ya feelin' bad yet? ;) To David C., thanks for the 
support when I really needed it (though the other David was there more 
often, but I don't hold that against you). To the love of my life, David 
L.Z. again...can't stop thinking of you, thinking about you, thinking for 
you...heh ;)
And of course thanks(?) to Neto for pestering, nagging, badgering, harrying, 
yelling, complaining and basically begging for this next chapter to be out. 
Now please stop! It's out already!
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This story contains homosexual content and should not be read by anyone 
under the age of 18. Also, this story does not imply anything about the 
sexualities of anyone from Nsync, Westlife, Backstreet Boys, a1 or any other 
celebrity mentioned here. I do not know them and their characteristics. This 
also does not imply anything about any other people mentioned in this story. 
Their names and descriptions are there but that doesn't mean that their 
characteristics are the same in real life. And none of them possess any 
special powers of any sort and this is totally fiction! And now you may read 
this next chapter! Happy reading!

For David L.Z. (Was there any doubt?)
______________________________________________________________________________
|The Daemon Gate - Chapter Six|

"Rematch?" Estel asked, confused. "There was a fight?"

"Yeah, Charmaine's a traitor!" Peter yelled. "She loosed our plans to the 
malenti and got you guys captured. She's probably shocked that you're all 
free and alive and she's not showing it!"

"You call yourself a psychic?" Charmaine said coldly. "Ask Estel whether 
what I did was treachery!"

The room began to burst fresh with arguments flying everywhere, neither side 
hearing, only speaking. Estel looked around the room and raised his hands in 
frustration.

"QUIET!!!!!" he yelled. The room fell into silence. He looked at everyone in 
the room and pointed at Lalaith.

"Tell me what happened," he said, trusting his sister to be impartial since 
she was thousands of years older than the others, and much wiser.

"We waited for you to return and when you didn't, we went in to save you," 
Lalaith explained. She pointed at Leo and David. "We saw the two over there 
carrying you away and assumed they were working for the malenti. He fought 
both Peter and Justin at the same time and won, and left. He must have 
assumed that we were malenti workers."

"I did not assume anything," Leo said. "The malenti presence was thick in 
that room, emanating from your group. It surrounded everyone in your group 
except that guy over there."

"Brian," Brian said. "Go on."

"Okay," Leo said. "It surrounded everyone except Brian. Usually we can tell 
who it originates from, but this time it was so strong that we had to assume 
that all of you were working for the malenti. We left the room empty of all 
psychic imprints except for our names, which the malenti know and hate. This 
is not the first time we've fought them."

"Interesting," Estel said. "What type of magic did you use to do that?"

Mark punched Estel in the arm. "Keep to the subject."

"Is the malenti presence still here?" Shadow asked. "You may have felt it 
because a large group of malenti came not long after you left."

"It's still here," Tara, a fair, slim girl with golden brown hair and cat 
eyes, spoke. "But it may just be psychic leftovers. It's not as strong."

"Right," Justin said sarcastically. "You can't tell and you still wanted to 
fight us?"

"You attacked first," David said. "We defended ourselves."

"STOP!" Estel shouted. "We will NOT have another argument with each other 
anymore, clear?"

"Why should we trust them?" Peter asked caustically. "They have great 
powers, greater than mine. How do we know that they're not daemons 
themselves?"

"Maybe we made a mistake in coming here," Charmaine said. "Since they can so 
obviously take care of themselves, they don't need us."

"That's right," Leo said. "They don't need us... we're just some piddling 
weaklings that they can't even defeat in fair combat. Let's go."

"Wait," Brian said, stopping them. "Don't go. We do need all the help we can 
get."

"You speak for yourself, I'm certain," Jason, a tall blonde with a muscular 
build and a British accent said. "The Celtic Conjurers help only where they 
are fully wanted."

"Conjurers?" Estel and Lalaith said at the same time, looking at each other. 
The same thought raced through their minds.

"Could you help us with a little problem that we have?" Lalaith asked. "It 
seems that three of our friends here were in jail recently for a crime they 
didn't commit."

"How can we help with that?" Kenny asked. "We're not policemen."

"No, but you're conjurers," Lalaith said. "You know about summoning 
spirits."

"Yeah," Kevin said, catching on. "Maybe you could help us solve what 
happened to the summoner that died, what killed him, where it is now, what 
it does to kill, and maybe how to stop it as well."

"Then you can clear our names," Neto said excitedly.

"Yeah! Right now, we're sorta like jailbreaks," Paul said, grinning. "Could 
you help us?"

The Celtic Conjurers looked at each other. They talked amongst themselves 
for a while and then turned back to Estel's group.

"No problem," they said at the same time. Paul, Kevin and Neto grinned 
happily.

"What in the world is that smell?!" Sidney, a guy with long black hair tied 
in a ponytail and a demeanor that reminded Estel strongly of a kender, 
exclaimed. He took another deep breath. "That smells just like Leo and David 
after a long night of..."

He was cut short by Jason clapping his hand over Sidney's mouth. Leo and 
David blushed bright hues of red. Charmaine, Kenny and Marcus sniggered into 
their hands. Lalaith suddenly noticed that Denny and Nick were blushing 
furiously as well.

"What's going on?" Joey asked confused. He took a deep breath and instantly 
recognised the smell. "Oh my goodness."

Everyone in the room who had not understood what the fuss was about sniffed 
the air. It was filled with a scent familiar to all the guys. Lalaith looked 
at Denny and Nick, fire in her eyes.

"You did THIS?!" she shrieked. "IN MY ROOM?! ON MY BED?!?!?!"

"I am not here, I am not here, I am not here," Nick chanted to himself with 
his eyes closed.

"OUT!!! EVERYBODY OUT OF MY ROOM!!! SHOO! SCAT!! SCRAM!!!!!" Lalaith 
screamed at the top of her breath. She picked up a hairbrush from her 
dresser and flung it at Nick. "OUT!!!"

The room cleared in three seconds. Lalaith sat on her floor angrily, Brian 
trying to comfort her.

"Now I'm going to have to wash everything," Lalaith growled. Brian grinned 
sheepishly.

"At least you know they were having fun while we were gone," he joked. 
Lalaith narrowed her eyes on Brian. Brian winced. "It's not like the room 
would have smelt any different from this after we were through, right?"

"AARRRGGHHH!!!" Lalaith shouted. Brian fled the room and ducked a 
swift-flying hairdryer.

"Looks like Sidney opened his mouth too wide again, huh?" Veron whispered to 
Lydia, who nodded heartily in agreement.

"He's a kender of a guy, isn't he?" Estel looked at the guys who were at 
Nirnaeth Arnodied.

"Definately," Lance, Kevin, Nick, Joey, Justin and Brian agreed. "Most 
definately."


"Do you have any idea of what can happen now that the Celtic Conjurers have 
joined up with the sithi force?" the Boss screamed at her people. "Of course 
not, you're all too dumb!"

"We didn't expect it to happen," a young malenta. "You can't blame us."

"FOOL!" the Boss shouted, pointing her finger at the cocky youth who turned 
into a pile of dust. "You were supposed to sacrifice the sitha and his 
companions to the daemons and make it look like the Wiccans did it! Now they 
have joined forces, we don't stand a chance!"

"Maybe we do," a female malenta carefully offered. The Boss looked at her 
inquisitively.

"Go on," the Boss said.

"Well, as you know, a dabbling human summoner who botched his ritual was 
killed yesterday," the malenta said. "At first glance, it seemed that his 
circle of protection prevented anyone from entering to rescue him, but that 
was not the case."

"Then whatever he summoned kept everyone out until he was dead," the Boss 
caught on. "Then what happened?"

"It seems that the entity entered the body of the summoner because the 
summoner was reportedly alive in the ambulance, though he was dead when the 
paramedics came. The humans passed it off as human error," the malenta 
explained. "The entity is now loose in the human world. If it killed the 
summoner like that, it is most likely evil and not to mention powerful, and 
we may be able to enlist its help."

"Finally!" the Boss exclaimed. "It seems one of you actually has a brain in 
her head! Do we know what the spirit's name is?"


Ian wandered through the air, floating freely. She was not sure which 
apartment it was, so she floated slowly to every floor and every house. 
Finally she spotted the one with a police barrier outside. She walked 
through the barrier and the door and looked at the center of the room. She 
could see the dried blood on the floor where the summoner had been killed. 
Slowly she floated down, resting a few inches above the floor. She looked at 
a nearby wall and began to scry, unafraid that anyone coming in would see 
her. She was already relaxed enough for her astral projection that she had 
no problem beginning the scrying exercise.

<What happened here?> She asked softly, scrying at the wall to see what had 
happened. She waited for a while, examining the pictures flashing quickly on 
and off the wall. Though she heard no sounds from the pictures, she managed 
to get a good description of the entity that had attacked the poor summoner.

<Ariel?> Ian turned to see who had called her. Jason floated into the room.

<Seraph!> Ian greeted him. <What are you doing here?>

<I'm supposed to check out what items that guy used in his summoning,> Jason 
explained. <Maybe figure out what sort of entity he summoned. Maybe has some 
clues to its name, too.>

<I'm getting a description of the spirit,> Ian said. <It may not help us 
much since most spirits aren't photographed, but at least we'll know what 
we're up against.>

<Good thinking,> Jason said.

<Not really,> Ian muttered. <The spirit is loose in the world and may come 
back here. I don't want to fight that spirit on the astral world.>

<That powerful?> Jason asked. Ian nodded her head slowly.

<Hurry, we'll both take notes and descriptions,> Ian said. <We'll hopefully 
be more accurate and leave before the entity comes back. If the entity 
required some certain implement to be summoned, it may be back to get the 
astral remnants of it, and I don't want to be here when it does.>

Jason nodded, taking note of the layout of the conjuration. He sniggered a 
little, trying to contain his laughter.

<What's so funny?> Ian asked.

<Considering that we conjure spirits and work with them, this conjuration 
layout basically sucks,> Jason chortled. <I mean, come on...what person 
summons spirits into the cirlce with them?>

<This one apparently,> Ian observed. <How did he summon the spirit without a 
sigil, though?>

Jason stopped laughing and peered curiously at the circle the summoner was 
in. There was no sigil on the floor to summon the spirit at all.

<Seraph?> Ian's scared voice said above him. Jason floated up to where she 
was and followed her finger.

<Brighid help us,> Jason said, seeing the weird formation of the blood. He 
realised that the sigil was carved lightly onto the floor and that the 
summoner's blood had filled it like a drain. The sigil could be seen clearly 
from their overhead view. <Brighid help us all.>

<You know what the entity is now?> Ian asked. Jason nodded slowly, his eyes 
wide.

<I'm quite certain,> he said. <I've seen it before and if I'm right, we're 
all in big, big, big trouble.>


"Dagda!" Leo exclaimed. "Are you sure?"

David gave a slow whistle, shaking his head slowly. He looked at Ian and 
Jason again, then at the piece of paper they had drawn the sigil on. He had 
recognised the sigil immediately, and he had named the entity. Leo looked at 
David uncertainly. He knew that David was not kidding, and that fact sent 
shivers down his spine. David was able to laugh at almost any situation and 
yet remain serious throughout, a trait that both attracted and infuriated 
Leo. For David to not make a practical joke about the issue was cause enough 
for Leo to begin to worry.

"We're in huge trouble," Leo shook his head.


Nick was the only person at the hideout when Leo, David, Ian and Jason 
arrived. He was lounging on the couch, relaxing and eating potato chips. He 
explained that the rest had all gone off to do different errands, some of 
them shopping and sight-seeing (after all, Nick explained, quoting Peter, 
"What's the use of coming to fight what may be our last battle in a foreign 
country if you don't get to see the sights before you die?").

"So what's the news?" Nick asked. "Should I be taking notes?"

"If you want," David said absently. "Just tell Estel that we've identified 
the spirit."

"Okay, cool," Nick said. "Maybe I can tell Estel what its name is or 
something so you don't have to come back later. We have to meet early 
tomorrow morning anyway, and maybe Estel can get some work done before you 
come. It saves everyone's time."

"Okay," Leo said cautiously, remembering how Kevin had described Nick as 
someone confused easily by too much information. "Just tell Estel that 
Ghaunadar is on the loose."

Nick choked and blinked his eyes rapidly, dropping his bag of chips. He 
looked Leo straight in the eyes. "Say that again?"

"Ghaunadar is on the loose," Leo said, taken aback by Nick's strange 
behaviour. David, Jason and Ian exchanged glances. Nick's shoulders dropped. 
His stomach felt terrible, as though he had eaten too much (which he 
probably had, but that was not the reason for his nausea).

"Oh my God," he finally managed to say. "We're dead."

"You've heard of Ghaunadar?" Jason asked.

"Hello! I used to be a necromancer," Nick exclaimed. "Of course I know who 
Ghaunadar is! Damn! One of the oldest and most powerful evils in the world, 
more powerful than six billion mages put together!"

"Err...six billion?" David asked slowly. Nick rolled his eyes.

"Okay, so I was exaggerating a little. But I still think six thousand mages 
is still a high number," Nick said sheepishly. "Even my teacher feared to 
speak its name more than three times for fear of accidently summoning the 
creature."

"No worries of that," Leo said. "That's an impossible happening."

"Considering the power of Ghaunadar, I don't really want to put that to the 
test," Nick said. "Call it superstition or whatever you want, I call in 
plain fear. And fear is something not easily ignored."


The Boss stared at the billowing, bulbous, sickly-green, phlegm-like 
creature, barely containing a gasp of fear. She steadied her gaze at 
Ghaunadar and cleared her throat.

"Will you help us?" The Boss asked the demon with as much force as she could 
muster after she explained the situation to the demon.

"What's in it for me?" Ghaunadar croaked.

"What do you wish for?" The Boss asked, hoping it was not an impossible 
task.

"I only have one request," Ghaunadar said in its croaking voice. "The 
followers of the Celtic ways are mine to kill. The Celts imprisoned me and 
those who follow the ancient path of the Celts will suffer for it."

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Yes I know it's not very long, but that's all I could think of to write at 
this time...
anyways, I still haven't heard a thing from anyone at all! I need feedback, 
please! Email me at ensstyenlc@hotmail.com
You may save a life... ;p