by Cora Choi
Chapter 12: The Fight
I fought my way through the dense crowd hovering about Drev. There was a buzz about, and I heard “Slayer” being whispered by several of the phantoms that I was pushing aside. When Siren said “the one,” did she mean that she and the rest of them thought Drev was the Slayer? If so, they were sorely mistaken. I knew the characteristics of the Slayer, and Drev did not qualify.
When I finally reached Drev in the center, I was surprised to see he had a young woman on his arm. She had porcelain skin and sleek raven hair down to her calves that swayed as she tipped her head from side to side.
“So you see, Drev, I will come to you when it snows,” she said with a breathy voice. She looked at him adoringly, making it seem as though he was the only one there.
“In the winter, it snows here on the island—at the peak, not at the base where the Five Ring Road begins. I know that the first-year students’ dormitory is at the base, so you will have to walk up for over an hour to reach the top. But I promise you, it will be worth it.
“When the snowflakes begin to fall, look for me at Stauros Hall after midnight and wait. I promise to show up right before the frost has iced your hair and the wind has sunk its teeth so far into you it no longer hurts.” She smiled. “I will come to soothe you and make everything better.”
I saw Drev’s eyes soften into a mellow, doe-eyed look that forced me to look again.
I tried to place the woman in the myriad stories running through my head. Was she treacherous or virtuous? Was she an animal spirit transformed into a woman, or was she really human?
“Let him be,” boomed a familiar voice. I glanced to my right and saw Ravana, his ten heads staring fiercely at the woman. “He’s tired of your story, Yuki.”
Yuki-Onna, the snow maiden! Her tale ended with the ominous: no man could resist her advances—not many were fortunate enough to survive them. Suddenly, I was afraid for Drev. I squeezed myself in between them and freed Drev from her clutches.
“Excuse me, mademoiselle.” I coughed as politely as I could.
I saw Yuki glare at me, and I knew I would have to pay later. Although I was already dead, the thought of her having a grudge against me made my head light.
“There are many others you can seduce, Yuki. You don’t want this one.” I forced out a halfhearted chuckle. “He’s not the easiest person to get along with.”
“But there’s only one Slayer,” she pouted. She then immediately switched to a smile that curved like a crescent moon and leaned toward Drev. “There’s only one, Drev.”
“He’s not the Slayer,” I said bluntly.
“Take a look,” said Ravana, handing me a crumpled, folded paper. I recognized it immediately as the letter that Drev had read to his roommates. I took it, scrunching my eyebrows at Drev.
“They asked me for a story,” he said, shrugging.
“That’s what they do,” I said. “They ask everyone for their story, so they can then tell theirs. But this letter isn’t your story.”
“I didn’t have anything—I mean, nothing as interesting as these guys have,” he said, looking around him as he shook his head. “These guys have great stories.”
Drev’s jaw muscles clenched and his voice tightened. “And, well, I felt like I had to give them something interesting in return, so I read that letter to them. They all liked it.”
“Those words describe the Slayer!” a voice in the crowd called. “Hugh, didn’t you say something like that once?”
Many of them nodded, and I saw Yuki’s eyes spark with a rekindled fire.
I spoke before the nonsense went any further. “It sounds like I said something like that, because they’re my words!” I pivoted 360 degrees on my heels, to make sure that the message spread to everyone. “They’re from my book that I wrote centuries ago. They don’t have anything to do with him.”
“Yes, they are your words, Hugh—words describing the Slayer, the one you devoted your life and death to,” said a Graeae. The hunchbacked woman pulled back the gray, stringy hair that covered her face, revealing eyes without pupils.
The Graeaes were one of the oldest and wisest phantoms on the island. Their unique power to see the future earned them a respect most of the phantoms did not easily give. I pushed out my chest and stood taller, for I had a powerful person as an ally. But she then lifted a finger covered in boils and directed it at Drev. “And your words describe him. He’s the one. I can see his destiny—it’s written all over his face!”
The crowd hooted, whistled, and clapped wildly. Yuki-Onna latched herself onto Drev’s arm again. I stared at the old witch with my mouth open. She revealed a single-tooth smile to him. I saw distress spread across Drev’s face. But he didn’t move or make a sound. The hoorah died down gradually.
Despite having known these creatures for centuries, I always found myself having to explain why things were not what they thought they were. There was a monstrous difference between us, even though we were all phantoms. They all had endings to their tales, but I didn’t yet. Once I had my ending—which would culminate in my finding the Slayer—I would be free to rest eternally among the dead and no longer be a phantom. Perhaps that is what made me see things differently—more clearly—than all of them. I sighed and looked around me. Despite my arms weighing as heavy as lead pipes, I waved the letter above my head.
“These are my words. These are the last lines I wrote while I watched the Order of the Shrike murder my fellow members of the Order of the Crane and burn the books from the library. But just because someone reads it out loud—because he doesn’t have anything else better to say—doesn’t mean that he’s the Slayer.”
I looked at Drev, waiting for confirmation from him that there was no way he could be the Slayer, but he just stared back at me. I was flabbergasted. The crowd flung insults about my dimwittedness and mental instability. I groaned and held up my hand, signaling them to hear the rest of what I had to say.
“If he were the Slayer, I wouldn’t still be here,” I said, trying to make eye contact with as many of the phantoms as I could. “I’m different from all of you. I’m the only one who won’t be a phantom for all eternity. Please recall, I was once a living man. But when I died, I chose to stay on as a phantom because I needed to find the Slayer—make sure he knew who he was and the duty that lay before him. Until then, I can’t rest in peace.
“My story is unfinished. The moment I died and the deceased abbots of the Order of the Crane came to retrieve me, I made a pact with them that I wouldn’t enter the afterlife until I found the Slayer. For I could rest in peace only after knowing that there was someone to combat the Shadow of Fear on behalf of the people. Once I found the Slayer, I promised I would immediately take my place in the afterworld. But, as you see, the abbots have not come for me, I am still here, and Drev is still Drev. And nothing has changed.”
The party had taken on a somber tone. Loud whispers rumbled through the crowd as they continued to disagree about what I had just said. I didn’t want to explain any further. I knew what I knew—Drev was not the Slayer.
“Hey!” shouted a grouchy voice. “Why don’t you ask Drev if he thinks he’s the Slayer?”
I didn’t see who had spoken, but whoever it was directed his question at Drev. “Drev, do you think you’re the Slayer?”
Drev looked at me, his eyes wide, as if searching for an answer. I kept a poker face.
“Slayer? I’ve never slain anything.” He paused. “Besides school, the only thing I’ve ever done was work as a mortician’s assistant.”
“What’s that?” asked the woman with backward feet.
“Did he say ‘magician’s assistant’?” came another voice, from the back of the crowd.
I exhaled loudly and rubbed my hand against my forehead before yelling, “Mortician’s assistant!”
There was a breath of silence, until another creature blurted, “Is that what you are right before becoming the Slayer?”
“He’s not the S
layer!” My voice cracked on the last word, but I continued to speak. “Will you all stop beating the dead horse already!”
I heard the crowd whisper to one another
“Careful. He’s angry . . .”
“Temper, temper.” Tongues clucked with disapproval.
“I think it goes back to when he was with that de Galard girl.”
“What a shame! Still hasn’t gotten over her.”
I’d had enough. I thrust the crumpled letter back into Drev’s hand. He scowled and shoved it into his back pocket. I wanted to get as far as possible from this insolent group, but before leaving, I warned Drev about pretending to be anyone but himself.
“You’ve got your own story,” I spat out. “Why don’t you tell them that?”
“What story?” he said, glaring back at me.
“Tell them how you want to be part of the Order of the Shrike—that’s your story, right?”
A gasp went through the crowd as they took a few steps away from him. Yuki untangled her arm from his and backed away.
“Tell them how you think that’s going to earn you the respect you want, because you’re going to single-handedly bring down the system the Order of the Shrike has been working to establish for four hundred years!” I paused as I was panting. Drev’s jaw muscles tensed to the point where he was shaking, but I kept going.
“Tell them how you came here with hate and spite, and that’s the lens through which you look at the world—the same lens as the Order of the Shrike—yet you think you can destroy them. Ha!” I said, staring straight into his face, but he didn’t let me look at him for long.
Before I knew it, I heard my face crack. A moment later, I was on the ground. There the cold, smooth surface of the worn cobblestone was an instant relief to my throbbing cheekbone. I couldn’t make sense of what had happened until I heard Ravana’s excited voice.
“It’s a fight! C’mon, everyone, come closer! It’s going to be a great one!”
I rolled my face upward to see what was going on and saw Drev standing over me, his head blocking my view.
“You’re right, that is my story,” he growled, his black dagger eyes piercing into mine. “I hate this world and everything in it—especially you.”
I then felt my robe being tightened as he grabbed fistfuls of cloth near my chest and lifted me off the ground. I may have been socked, but my senses returned immediately. As I was being hoisted upright, I found my footing, planted my weight, and plunged my fist into his gut.
“Umpf!”
I heard the air go out of him, and he released his grip on my cassock. The blow sent him back a few steps, but he stayed on his feet. His chin was close to his chest, and his eyes were darting out from under his eyebrows, I knew he wanted blood. I pushed up my sleeves but kept my eyes glued to his face. I was ready, too, but the shouts around me were disconcerting.
“Charge him, Drev! Ram into his chest; that’s where he’s weakest!” bellowed a phantom in the crowd.
“Hugh’s got bad knees,” said another. “Aim for his legs!”
Others were heckling me in hopes of distracting me so that Drev could take another whack at my head.
Although I didn’t want to lose my concentration, I couldn’t bear it, and I turned to them. “Will you all shut up! Just shut up!”
My outburst did nothing but raise the volume on their rumbling. I turned back to my belligerent opponent, who was now squinting at me and moving slowly to his left. I, too, moved to my left. Left foot, pause, right foot. Left foot, pause, right foot. The shouts around us were becoming more cacophonous as the tension rose. Beads of sweat were dribbling down my face.
Then it all came to a sudden halt.
“Stop,” said a calm voice. “You have both learned what you needed to learn from this. Stop.”
Ahura Mazda stepped between Drev and me.
“It was Hugh’s fault, sir,” came a slimy voice from the crowd that I recognized as the vampire’s. My blood began to simmer. “He was making a mockery of Drev’s story.”
“No one’s story should ever be mocked,” replied Ahura Mazda.
“He taunted Drev,” said another voice in the crowd. “So Drev clocked him! I would’ve clocked him, too.”
I opened my mouth to explain to the wise man what had really happened, but the Graeae stepped forward and began whispering to him. She spoke with her hand covering her mouth, so I had no idea what she was saying. I saw only old Ahura Mazda nod, grunt, or pull slowly on his beard and say, “I see.”
When they were finished, Ahura Mazda walked over to me. I waited calmly—as calmly as I could—to be assigned my penance. But I grew nervous at the last minute and spoke up. “Th-they’re all wrong, sir,” I stammered, bowing my head at the same time. “He’s not who they say he is. He’s not the Slayer!”
His green robe swished to one side and then to another as he studied me with curious eyes.
“No, not now, he is not. With help, he will become the Slayer.”
The response numbed me into silence, but not the other phantoms.
“Yes! We’ll make Drev the Slayer!” shouted Sun Wukong, waving his arms wildly in the air, as though he had discovered gold. His enthusiasm was contagious, and a dozen others caught on.
“Yes! We can make him into the hero of the story! Aren’t we all the heroes of our own stories? We know how it’s done.”
“Works for me; as I see it, he’s a living young man—that makes him the only one here qualified to be the Slayer!”
The crowd whooped their approval.
“You’re all lunatics!” I shouted. “Either you are the Slayer or you aren’t. You can’t take any random boy and make . . .” Their cries and shouts drowned my voice.
“And because he’s a living young man, that also makes him qualified for you know who,” added the woman with the backward feet. She winked, and the others nodded eagerly.
“Oh! Yes!” They all seemed to agree at once. I expected an explanation to follow, but there was none. Who was you know who?
“Onward! We’ll take him to the Forgotten Cemetery immediately!” ordered the woman with backward feet.
I looked to Ahura Mazda for clarification but stopped when I saw Ravana and the headless gray knight grab Drev by his arms and half pull, half carry him up the Five Ring Road toward Stauros Hall on their way to the Forgotten Cemetery.
Why were they taking him to the cemetery? I was at my wit’s end with this group of lunatics.
“Why are you going to the Forgotten Cemetery?” I finally asked. “No one goes there except me.”
I heard the other phantoms snicker.
“How do you know?” asked Siren.
“Well, I’ve never seen anyone go there, and whenever I go there, there’s no one there.”
“It’s been nineteen long years since the last time you were there, Hugh. How do you know it’s still like that?”
“You mean others go there now?”
The phantoms exchanged glances with one another, as if they all knew a bit of information that I didn’t. It was also clear they weren’t going to tell me what they knew. I had to find out for myself.
I sighed and watched as they skipped and pranced up the road. The mob bypassed the stairs to the courtyard and maneuvered around the drab, twisted oak trees that blocked the Forgotten Cemetery from being seen from the Five Ring Road. I trailed behind them. It had been a while since I had gone to the Forgotten Cemetery. I braced myself to be reunited with the old abbot and the dead members of the Order of the Crane.
