Where the Devil Says Goodnight

by K. A. Merikan

  “You can’t have him,” Adam choked out and loosened the collar of his cassock. “But if you promise to never hurt him, you can have me.”

  Sin was hot in his veins. Occultism. Greed. Forbidden love. He embraced them all, because in this valley, in Dybukowo, there was only one god to set the rules.

  Them.

  Chort let out a croak and leapt at Adam. Pain seemed unavoidable in the split seconds before impact, but the beast splashed onto him like a wave in a tropical ocean, and his mouth filled with a flavor that was somehow both salty and sweet. The majestic form dispersed, but when Adam took a deep breath, Chort’s essence entered his heart, at once chasing away the nighttime cold.

  His blood turned into liquid gold, his lungs expanded, his muscles thickened, and as Adam grew taller and more powerful, his horns curled above all-hearing ears.

  The world around him snapped back to life.

  Mrs. Golonko screamed, covering her face as she fell into the leaves, but Koterski and Mrs. Janina remained on their knees, both roaring with manic laughter as they kept on praying. And this time, he understood their words.

  Oh Terror, come out!

  Oh Wonder, come out!

  Oh Might, come out!

  Come out of the woods, of the dark depths

  From your domain where no man can enter

  Where no bird can fly uninvited

  Lord of the Forest

  Come out, come out, come out of the woods!

  So tall he could take in the entirety of his sanctuary, Adam looked around with a new set of eyes. Mr. Nowak was a grub crawling at his feet until it found the dagger. He scrambled back to his feet and dashed for the altar. He raised his hand to strike the blade into Emil’s chest.

  “Here is your offering! Take it and let us prosper!”

  It was as if time slowed down again. Adam breathed in the scent of life booming around him despite the murky color of the dead leaves. Everything, from the worms under his feet to the humans kneeling before him, was subject to his will. Far off, a group of deer watched him through the trees, ready to bow to their master and, unlike the people so intent on bringing him back for their selfish gain, they didn’t expect anything in return.

  Those four bugs did not deserve a place in his green cathedral.

  Adam fell forward, protectively bowing his body. He ripped off Nowak’s arm with a single snap of his jaws.

  Red, vital blood flooded his tongue, and as he crunched down the bone and swallowed the whole thing along with the dagger the world around him became rich with color.

  Nowak screamed, falling back as Mrs. Golonko stumbled in her efforts to run from the clutches of the god she claimed to worship.

  The fat morsel whetted Chort’s appetite, making Emil’s scent so potent hunger became like spikes drilled into his innards. He couldn’t have him though. Not yet, at least, but the flesh and blood of the wastrels who’d for years benefitted from all their misfortune falling on Adam’s beloved was his to take.

  “Please, no! I just did what my father told me to!” Koterski yelled, but Chort knew that this man’s heart had no conscience or morals. He’d been the one to set Emil’s house on fire, and so Chort wouldn’t have mercy for him either.

  He blocked Koterski’s way in a single leap and drove a horn through his midsection, digging claws into the soft, delicious insides. The maggot who’d deceived Adam just to drive him away from his lover and cause strife did not deserve to prosper.

  Koterski’s scream was cut short when Chort ripped him off the horn and crushed his head between his jaws before digging into the torso. The young meat was a treat on his tongue, and he threw the lower part of Koterski’s body into the air before swallowing it in one gulp when it fell into his wide open mouth.

  He went for Nowak next, tearing into the plump flesh before sinking his teeth into meat marbled with fat. And his soul? Delightfully corrupt with bribery and blackmail as it sizzled into nothingness in the pit of Adam’s fiery belly.

  He wouldn’t let the women go either, but was struck by Mrs. Golonko’s vile nature when he saw her pushing Mrs. Janina over to get ahead. The older lady fell, but even in the mud, Mrs. Janina still screamed with fury and grabbed Mrs. Golonko’s ankle to bring her down as well.

  Adam used to see Mrs. Janina as a bitter but decent enough woman, but no amount of cake or occasional support could make up for the fact that she’d been ready to make a human sacrifice out of Emil. Chort tore her in two pieces, and as the fragrant blood splashed Emil’s chest and the altar, Adam sucked more out of her juicy flesh before satisfying his hunger with the meat too.

  Mrs. Golonko had already made it out of the sanctuary, but he took his time chewing through ligaments and bones before leaping above the thuyas, out of the sacred grove. The withered leaves cushioned his landing, and once he caught the fugitive’s scent—nauseatingly sweet with perfume—no amount of offerings and prayer could save her.

  She was just past a nearby hill, cowering under a fallen tree in the hope that he might miss her presence. The pathetic wretch had no idea that Chort could hear her every breath. Every heartbeat.

  The expensive things she used to elevate her station in the eyes of other people meant nothing to him, and they wouldn’t help her once he’d decided on her fate. He couldn’t help himself though and intended to play with his food. Pretending he’d been duped, he looked the other way at first but spun around when she tried to crawl away, and dragged her through the mud as soon as he reached the pathetic hideout.

  “No! Please! I never wanted to participate in any of this! Janina pulled me into it!”

  And yet she’d benefitted. She gloated about her wealth and rubbed it in Emil’s face while he bore the brunt of all the misfortune that would have otherwise fallen on her and her family. She’d known for years but had shown Emil no compassion, only throwing him enough scraps off her abundant table so that he didn’t leave Dybukowo.

  “Is that so?” he asked, holding her up by the one leg. The fox mask had long fallen off her face, leaving it exposed, with traces of tears blackened by mascara. “Please, I will give you anything you want. You can have my daughter, if you want. You can have everything. Let me g—”

  Adam’s jaws opened so wide it should have been physically impossible. Terror twisted her features just before her imminent death. Like the others, she didn’t deserve a grave, but she would be the last of the four-meat feast he’d been destined to celebrate tonight.

  Emil had foretold this. Whisperer blood had been strong in him, and he’d been able to see into the future when even Chort hadn’t known what awaited them tonight. The meat of a pig, a wolf, a fox, and a deer—a four course meal of sinful souls.

  Smaller than the others, Mrs. Golonko fit into his mouth whole, but despite the bitterness of all the bile in her body, her meat left him sated by the time he glanced into the sky, where a crescent moon cast a spotlight down at him.

  The rush of bloodlust was gone, but there were other desires he longed to satisfy.

  Adam blinked, looking far into the distance, taking in all his subjects, and roared into the sky. A choir of howls, hoots, and bawling answered his call, celebrating him with a different prayer.

  Lord of the Forest, you came back.

  This was his domain, and once he understood that the soul of every living being in the valley and beyond belonged to him, it became clear he would no longer waste his life on foreign superstition. If other gods existed, they weren’t here. But Chort was. Adam was. They were.

  He didn’t need to rein in his instincts or feel guilt over loving the wrong person, because nature made no mistakes. Nature had nothing to do with morality or belief, but a man could only be content if he made peace with who he was. Adam’s love for Emil had never been a mistake nor was it a sin, and the doubts of the narrow-minded man he used to be dispersed when he finally saw the world with clarity.

  His place was here, in Dybukowo, with Emil at his side, bound to the mountains forever.

&
nbsp; Chapter 25 - Emil

  Words couldn’t describe Adam’s transformation, but when one of his eyes clouded to resemble a polished coin, Emil knew he’d lost him.

  He pulled on the binds until his wrists hurt, his will to live growing with each drop of blood spilled in the sacred grove. For all the love he had for Adam, he would not just lie there and invite the beast to rip into his naked chest.

  He’d heard stories of this creature all his life, he’d seen it in fantasy drawings, but nothing could have prepared him to see the beast in the flesh. Taller and more muscular than any man Emil had ever seen, Chort was covered with gray fur, denser on legs, which had large hoofs and were shaped like those of a goat’s, and thinning on deceptively human-looking pectoral muscles. The thick, ribbed horns were as large as a man’s arms, and the monster’s features, stained with the blood of his latest victims, expressed a wild palette of ever-changing emotion.

  The ground shook upon Chort’s approach, but as the mountain of a beast stopped a few paces away from its human sacrifice, hope drained from Emil’s heart.

  Emil yanked on his restraints a final time but then fell back, resigned to his fate. He’d come here ready to offer his freedom so that Adam could leave, and he would have given his life for him, no questions asked, but this imminent death would be a waste, because there was no one left to save. He’d be Chort’s dessert, forgotten and missed by no one.

  He imagined Adam’s parents coming back to Dybukowo twenty-six years since their initial visit, desperate to find their son. And as he looked up at the horned monster with burning eyes, his hope was that they wouldn’t find him.

  Adam was gone, consumed by the beast that had twisted his body into its own beastly shape, and if it wasn’t for Emil’s bad advice, none of that would have happened. Just this past morning, Adam had been desperate to leave, even if that involved borrowing Father Marek’s car without permission. It had been Emil who persuaded him not to make such rash decisions. It was fitting that he’d pay for his transgression in blood.

  He tried to be brave as the monster approached, but his teeth clattered when Chort leaned over the altar, hovering its huge paw over Emil’s form. It huffed, watching him without earlier urgency, as if its appetite for blood and violence had been sated for now.

  Or maybe he liked to play with his food. Emil closed his eyes, unable to handle the tension anymore. He didn’t scream, just wheezed as the beast rubbed its wet nose up his stomach. Maybe it would really go for the heart first and Emil didn’t have to suffer for too long?

  The enormous body radiated heat that was in such direct contradiction to the icy surface of the stone that Emil found himself leaning into it against his better judgment. The velvety nose briefly stopped at his breastbone, but as he tensed, prepared for the huge teeth to bite him, Chort continued his exploration, eventually settling his warm muzzle at the side of Emil’s neck.

  Fear mixed with a strange sense of relief. He was at the end of his road. He no longer had to struggle. By the time Chort pulled back, Emil breathed out.

  He was ready.

  “You fear me,” the creature said in that same strange voice that sounded like a piece of breaking wood sliding over the strings of a dissonant violin.

  Chort still had one of Adam’s eyes, but it had become somehow more brilliant, like a cloudless sky at the height of summer, and looking at it shining right next to the one that was brassy and alien had Emil on the verge of sobbing with despair. If there was still a part of Adam left in the creature, Emil hoped he was at peace at least.

  “If you’re going to fucking eat me, just do it!” Emil whined, ready to face his doom. But there was nothing even remotely aggressive in the shining eyes watching him from above. He flinched when the tips of Chort’s claws slid down his chest, but they did so without piercing the skin.

  “I would never hurt you. Chort cannot hurt you. He promised,” the creature said, leaning in again to breathe in Emil’s scent.

  Emil swallowed, and as the implication of what he’d heard sank in, clear air flooded his chest until his mind got fuzzy. He hadn’t dreamt up this nightmare. The supernatural was really a part of nature, and the proof nuzzled his pec.

  “You won’t?”

  The beast lowered its head and sat back by the rock, pulling his knees up to his chest in a surprisingly human gesture. “Of course not. I love you.”

  Emil’s eyes went wide and he tried to sit up in shock only to be pulled back by the rope around his hands. “Adam? What? How?”

  The goat-like features twisted. Just like that, the monstrous presence didn’t seem to take up nearly as much space, and its face gained a vulnerable quality that was so reminiscent of Adam Emil wanted to scoop him into his arms. But he couldn’t move. Chort—no, Adam—reached out and cut the rope with his sharp claws. “We’ve reached an agreement.”

  Emil frantically pushed the loosened binds off his limbs and rolled off the altar, curling his toes when his feet landed on the damp ground that sent a flash of ice up his legs. “No. You shouldn’t have. You should have just—” What? Cut Emil’s heart out and eaten it as steak tartare? Blood thudded in him faster with each passing second and reached a crescendo when he looked at Adam, who sat next to him, face buried between his furry knees.. “You said you l-love me?”

  Adam’s eyes opened. Their colors were bright like the neon hues of exotic fish, but the sadness they expressed—painfully human. “I’m sorry. It was the only way. I couldn’t let him have you.”

  “You could have walked away from all this,” Emil whispered, rubbing his wrists, because he didn’t dare step closer yet. The screams of the four cultists were still alive in his ears yet he couldn’t find it in him to pity them. They had used his affection for Adam and lured him here under false pretenses, perfectly content with his death as long as it did not disrupt their own prosperity. They had gotten what they deserved.

  Adam exhaled, sending vapor into the cool air. “No. I couldn’t have.”

  Emil hugged himself as the cold stabbed his skin, a reminder that he was naked. He still couldn’t believe this was real, that he was talking to Chort himself, that Chort was really Adam, and that Adam had just eaten four people. But the insanity of it all didn’t make it false.

  “I know how all this must have looked like to you, but I had nothing to do with this. I didn’t know about their schemes,” Emil uttered, finally daring to approach the massive creature that somehow had the expressions and mannerisms of the man Emil loved.

  Adam shrugged, which made the beast look painfully like him. “I know, I’m sorry, I should have trusted you. I was so wrong to accuse you. I panicked and didn’t know any better. After everything I said to you, you still came back to offer your heart…” He went silent for a few seconds before picking up the fallen coat he’d earlier covered Emil with. “You’ll get ill.”

  “Are you saying it no longer fits you?” Emil laughed, but felt like a shit right after it came out of his mouth. There was nothing funny about their situation, and while Adam was putting up a brave face, he was surely devastated, even if he felt he’d done the right thing.

  The coat couldn’t stop the tremors running up and down his body, but it offered some relief, and as Emil zipped it all the way up, his gaze met the mismatched discs Adam now had for eyes. Tenderness climbed from the depth of Emil’s chest and up his neck, and he stepped closer, first hovering his fingers over the furry arm, then sliding them into the soft pelt.

  Adam flinched, as if the touch hurt him, but he didn’t pull away. “I will walk you out of the woods. It’s a dangerous night.”

  A part of Emil wanted to take Adam up on the proposition—have a bit of time to rest and regroup, but the thought of leaving him alone had Emil’s heart trembling with regret. Only days ago, he’d been ready to leave behind the one home he knew and follow Adam wherever he needed to go. That was still the case, no matter the fear and anguish of tonight.

  He took a step forward and wrapped his arms aroun
d the neck of Adam’s monstrous form. “I have nowhere to go,” he whispered. Whatever Adam was now, he still had the same mind, and Emil would stay by his side.

  He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of pine and moss clinging to the fur as if it hadn’t been sprayed with blood just minutes ago.

  Adam hesitated, but the tension in his muscles dispersed when he gave in and closed his big arms around Emil. His touch was gentle, as if Emil were a delicate glass figurine that might break with too much pressure. “I don’t know what happens to me now,” he whispered, but as they clung to one another in the sacred grove that still faintly smelled of blood, the sense of belonging filled Emil’s heart with warmth that soon replaced the numbness in his limbs.

  “We will work it out. Whatever happens, I will be there for you.” He stroked the thick neck, slowly adjusting to the fact that this was really happening. That Adam’s body changed, but that he was the same person and needed Emil more than ever. “Thank you. For, you know, not ripping my heart out.” He was desperate to bring normality to the situation, but the flash of hurt passing through Adam’s eyes told him his efforts were for nothing.

  “I might stay like this forever, so maybe you shouldn’t make any rash decisions,” he said, shifting so both his legs were on one side of Emil’s body. A deep tremor ran through his entire form, and he gave a choked gasp, rubbing his velvety cheek against Emil’s like a cat begging for attention.

  The heat radiating from Adam rushed through Emil at a fast pace, as if it had somehow seeped into his arteries and buzzed through his bloodstream, chasing away the unpleasant cold until he could no longer feel it, perfectly comfortable despite his bare feet still touching damp moss.