Elyon by Ted Dekker

Johnis.
    “I’m sure, albino,” he snapped.
    “There are things stronger than amulets,” Darsal whispered back, ignoring his jibe. “Stronger than Leedhan and bats.”
    Johnis didn’t respond. He led them on foot through thorny brush and thick, black mud, traveling along a streambed. Even Sucrow held his silence. All remained pensive and still. The stream rushed into a waterfall, and Johnis led them around the dark, bubbling water.
    A shaman once had told Darsal that bodies of water were living things. They laughed and played along the shore. This water was different though. This water cackled like a villain about to take his prey as it spilled over a hillside and splashed into a cauldron below.
    A shallow clearing opened up, creating a kind of bowl. Headstones rose up out of the water, wrapped in mist. In the middle of the small lake was a platform.
    An eerie, purplish haze enveloped them. Darsal pressed against Marak, then remembered Cassak’s warning and shifted away. All around them the trees were weighed down by black bats with glowing red eyes and sharp claws and teeth.
    Memories haunted her mind. She had to work to push them aside.
    Johnis looked at Silvie, then Sucrow. “I need some water. And the rest. You’ve brought it?”
    Sucrow nodded. He withdrew from his bag a silver bowl that Silvie took from him. She waded into the water. Next came a clay bowl and a small leather pouch. The priest began to chant.
    Johnis took a silver knife from Sucrow; then they both followed Silvie out to the platform, their supplies held over their heads.
    Darsal and Marak waited on the bank. Johnis couldn’t hear her. Darsal sank into a crouch and put her chin on her fists, elbows on her knees.
    Bloody Leedhan.
    Johnis stood sentinel, his face white, while Sucrow and Silvie made preparations. Silvie filled the silver bowl with water and placed it in the center. Sucrow took what looked like a makeshift altar and set it out. Incense soon wafted through the air and flooded their nostrils.
    A nauseating stench. Where had she smelled that? The priest’s invocation continued, witnessed by hundreds of red-eyed Shataiki with visions of carnage in their heads.
    What was Johnis doing? It was supposed to be a simple incantation.
    Darsal could barely watch. So Johnis had needed Sucrow after all. Sucrow withdrew a bird with bound wings from a small cage she hadn’t seen earlier and killed it, pouring its blood over the altar. The bats swarming around them began to thrum.
    Johnis placed the medallion around his neck in open view and waited for a signal from Sucrow. By his expression, something like terror had overtaken him, but was it his or the Leedhan’s?
    Silvie took the knife from Sucrow. She would never relinquish it, Darsal knew. The slender, lithe woman looked more serpentine than ever and kept eying Sucrow as if judging the distance for a successful death throw.
    Sucrow stopped chanting. He held aloft something silver and round in his right hand for the bats to see.
    Johnis found his confidence and stood to one side of the altar. He puffed out his chest, raised his chin high, and spoke clipped words in a language Darsal didn’t recognize. He reached into his robe and withdrew a yellow, rotted, maggoty fruit that was bigger than his palm and held it at arm’s length in both hands.
    The bats fell quiet.
    “I come seeking audience with your guardian!” Johnis demanded of the Shataiki. “I come with a gift, should he desire such! Or is Derias a coward?”
    Dissention and arguing rustled through the ranks.
    A Shataiki twice the size of the others flapped overhead, circled, and swooped down onto the platform, landing directly across from Johnis before the altar, his wings partly folded.
    “Who comes to my home?” the beast asked. His eyes didn’t leave the fruit. He ran his long, pink tongue over his black lips and sneered. “So you survived. And returned.”
    Johnis raised his chin. He started to change. To turn completely