by Mark Eller
* * * *
Anithia dozed in her rickety rocker. In the morning it and the beds and the table would be sold when they left for Grace. She had wanted to get to sleep early, but sleep was not to be found. Curled and comfortable, about to drift off, she stiffened.
The night became quiet. Absolutely silent.
Ani sat up slowly in her chair, wide awake, the hairs on her arms standing on end.
With a crash, the front door burst open. A blurred shape rushed in. Ani leapt to her feet and reached in her pocket for the knife, intending to thrust it into the intruder’s heart. She wasn’t fast enough.
Before the knife came clear, a cold, taloned hand wrapped around her throat and squeezed, lifting her high into the air. She gasped for breath, tried to pry the fingers loose, but the grip was too tight. A burning sensation started deep in her throat and traveled further, burying itself into her soul.
Completely helpless, Ani dangled with her feet inches from the ground.
“Where isss it?” A venomous voice, full of death and visions of pain, hissed from near her left ear.
She tried to speak, tried to answer, but could not. The only sound issuing from her mouth was a gurgle.
“Oh yesss, you humans need your vocal chords to speak.” The grip on her throat loosened as the arm lowered, and her toes touched the ground. Air flooded into her burning lungs.
“Now speak!” the creature demanded. It shook her thin frame. The bones in her body jarred together painfully. Inside her, the burning sensation grew as if it consumed her like poison.
“Where is what?” Her voice sounded like nothing more than a frog croaking. She gasped as the hand spasmed on her throat. Talons dug painfully into her neck’s soft flesh.
“It. The spawn you had living in your shed.”
Ani’s heart beat loud and hard. It had finally happened. Something had come for Jolson. The only problem— Jolson was gone!
“Jolson is—” Ani coughed. Her vision began to cloud. She was losing consciousness.
The thing shook her again. “What? Speak up, damn you!”
“Mommy!” A scream echoed through the tiny shack. Missa. Missa was here. In this room!
Anithia panicked. Fear tore through her mind, lending her newfound strength. She kicked her feet out wildly and swung her fists as hard as she could. Each blow felt like she struck concrete, but she didn’t stop. When Missa was in danger, Ani would fight until she no longer drew breath.
A bright light exploded, filling the room. Singing filled the air. The almost sentient pain traveling through her body hissed, recoiled, and then retreated. Ani’s vision cleared.
Before her stood a demon wearing a look of shock and wonder on its deformed face. Gold eyes sparkled in the strange light. Row upon row of razor sharp teeth caught in mid-snarl. Staggering back half a step, the demon lost its grip.
Ani fell to the floor, bruised and weakened, only to have the sound of many boots thudding on her porch bring her struggling to her feet.
Oh gods, she prayed, let it be help.
The light disappeared. The singing stopped.
Ani staggered in the darkness, blinded by the sudden loss of vision. “Missa! Run baby run!” She lunged in the direction she last remembered seeing the demon, willing to sacrifice her life to save her daughter, but all she grabbed was air. Stumbling over something she could not see, she fell to the floor. Pain shot through her knees.
“Kill it! That’s the demon who murdered Larson!”
An oddly familiar voice shouted commands while the room erupted into chaos.
Anithia blinked repeatedly, trying to clear her vision. Around her, swords clashed and men cursed.
Missa! She had to find her baby.
“Missa! Missa! Baby, where are you?” Ani got to her feet again and knocked her thigh into the rocker’s arm.
Wood cracked from near her window. Breaking shutters. Unfamiliar voices shouted epithets, echoing off bare, dirty walls. A horrible screeching tore through Ani’s brain. She clutched at her head and cursed the pain.
“Damn it all! You let him escape! What the hell do you think your weapons are for?”
The familiar voice came again, demanding, angry, and full of ice. The room quieted.
“Calto, please. They are new recruits, barely trained. Patience must be exercised.”
Was that Sulya?
Her vision returning, Ani saw the dark outlines of five people. None were short enough to be Missa.
“Where’s my daughter!” Ani scanned the room again and still didn’t see Missa. Where was the girl?
Cold, icy fear traveled the length of her veins.
One of the shapes walked over to her, curvaceous, long and slender. Sulya.
“There was no one else in the room when we entered, Anithia. We can check her bed?” Sulya’s voice was soft and cultured, as if she were talking to an addled old woman. Insulting.
Praying to the gods she had forsaken, Ani turned and ran into Missa’s room, hoping her baby had slept through all the noise. An impossible dream. Nobody could have slept through the bedlam.
Bursting through the half-rotten door, she expected the bed to be empty. It wasn't. Missa lay curled in its center, lightly snoring. Ani stared in confusion. Only minutes before she would have sworn Missa had been in the sitting room, singing.
Anithia shook her head, not understanding. She had heard Missa call to her, had heard her scream, and then heard her sing. It had to be Missa she had listened to. There was nobody else, but there Missa lay, oblivious to the chaos around her.
“Is she well?” A man carried a lit candle into the room, his face draped by shadows. His voice sounded like the man they had called Calto.
He stepped closer. The shadows shifted, moved away, and Ani stared in shocked disbelief. Swept with weakness and faint, she swayed. She almost fell, but Calto caught her with his free hand. Ani stared into his impossible face while iron muscles held her. The face was hard-planed, unforgiving, and angry in a perfect cruel caricature of her husband.
Her heart stuttered. Her throat constricted. This man had to be a figment of her lonely mind, only the arm holding her was solid, real, his face mere inches from her own.
"Seven and Two,” Ani choked, gasping for air. “Who–who are you?"
The room grew hot. Vertigo engulfed her. Too many people, too much strain, and not nearly enough air. She saw his mouth move, Larson’s mouth, but she couldn’t hear him. Ani struggled to remain conscious, but sight and sound left her world as did his answer.
