"We're surrounded," Tescadji said, glancing at Jenius. "Chief, you might want to do your disappearing act for us."
"It takes time," Jenius argued. "And I can't take you all back with me at once. Using that much magic would kill me long before I arrived at the exit point. You'd all be trapped between time and space."
"Well, they're going to burn up our house!" Sedriil said, indignant as he was frightened. "What other choice do we have?"
"We can fight," Skori said.
"That wouldn't be advisable," Tescadji warned. "They have the place surrounded. And we're outnumbered about five to one."
"I think I understand Skori's point," Aldrec said, approaching the front door. "But no one said that we all had to fight. And …" He nodded towards Skori, who followed, " …there are two beings in this house who aren't all that they seem."
Three, actually, Skori thought, with a quick glance towards Tescadji. But he knew that his talents were best kept an unknown for the time being, as he and Jenius -now herding the rest of the family into the house's interior- would be better suited to protecting non-combatants.
Aldrec and Skori stormed towards the front door after the family was brought to relative safety. The door slammed upon its stopper with a loud thump as Aldrec threw it open; the sound was nearly drowned out by the jeers of the crowd.
Each member of the mob brandished a weapon of some sort, from kitchen knives and blocks of wood, to Molotovs and bolt caster pistols. Eerily, this brought forth in Aldrec a memory of a thousand years ago, during the vampire plague, when people were so frightened that they sent lynch mobs to anyone even suspected of being a carrier of the dreaded plague. But this was much worse. Even during that time, actual vampires traveled in groups. Moreover, no one ever sent a mob after just one or two people.
"At least the elves decided to do it quietly," he muttered as Skori came to his side. "All this, because I happened to fall in love with your sister," he said with a derisive snort.
"Don't blame yourself," Skori replied. "Love needs no purpose. Trust me; I know."
"What do you want with us?" Skori called out to the rabble.
"This doesn't concern you, you walking tin can!" A stocky, dark-skinned, bald man replied nastily. "This is about the elf, and his little girlfriend!"