In the Arms of the Beast

by K. A. Merikan

  A tiny hand out of proportion to the size of the egg emerged from blood-like liquid inside, and Magpie let out a tiny whine of wonder. Laurent couldn’t think of anything but the sight in front of him. As the membrane under the hard shell tore, the goo drizzled down the sides of the egg, the tiniest of fingers moved against Magpie’s digit.

  With his heart unable to handle all the love he felt for this small human being, Laurent kneeled next to Magpie and stroked the back of the miniscule hand, ready to pull Marcel out of the shell.

  “I’ve got you,” he whispered, despite knowing that the child wouldn’t understand language yet. Perhaps it could at least feel the love of his parent in the tone of his voice.

  Baal couldn’t spoil this moment in the midst of the infernal storm, even though Laurent choked up thinking of Beast fighting for them so far away. His absence was a hole that couldn’t be filled, even by the tenderness blooming in Laurent’s heart.

  As this new life was emerging right in front of them, somewhere out there, Beast could be dying. And even with Marcel, without Beast his life could never be complete again.

  Malachite remained a steady presence behind Magpie. His face expressionless behind the reflective shades, and he didn’t even flinch when a rock flying his way broke the glass covering one of his eyes. Instead of running off like any normal person would have, he opened a large beach parasol and directed it toward the collapsed part of the building, more interested in his master’s comfort than safety.

  As surreal as that was, Laurent was soon too taken by the sight of Magpie pulling apart the shell and more of the thick juices leaking out on the robe. There was another limb in sight, but just as Laurent took in a deep breath of sulphur-scented air, ready to pull his baby into his arms for the first time, the membrane that to this point had held the egg in one piece ripped, and the contents were laid bare before him.

  Laurent still held the gasping child’s hand, but he blinked several times, afraid his eyes were deceiving him despite successful surgery.

  Six more tiny human beings stirred in the reddish pool soaking through the elegant robe among shell pieces. Some reaching out for the shell, two already crying, another rolling its head from side to side. Wrinkled, red, one with a full head of hair, they were all so perfect Laurent couldn’t comprehend it, but as another one of the babies started crying, his mind absorbed what he was seeing.

  He pulled Marcel into his arms in the way he’d learned newborns should be held.

  “Wha-what is this?” he asked Magpie, afraid to look away from the goo-covered limbs, heads and chests. “Seven. There’s SEVEN! Why is there seven?” his voice got a high pitch he couldn’t fight, terrified and amazed all at once.

  Magpie, who must have also woken up from the stupor, looked up, with his bare chest working frantically. “I’ve never given birth before! How was I to know what would happen?” he asked in a voice almost as high as Laurent’s. “You must have given me too much blood.”

  Laurent took in the sight before him once more, unable to breathe. “You told us to give you more!”

  “I also told you I don’t know how everything works!”

  Marcel cried out, and just like that, Laurent forgot about the argument, about his fear, and everything else. The tiny being was so vulnerable and helpless without him, and he wished he had enough arms to hold all the children at once. “There, there, it’s all right. You have many brothers. That’s perfectly fine,” he said, rocking the baby in his arms. At this point, he was convincing himself more than anything else. This was insanity. Only fitting for the end of times.

  The ground rumbled under them again, and Magpie held up the head of a child that had started choking. He patted it on the back, and at last it gave a cry, wrinkling its face into a mask. He placed it back onto the damp robe and rubbed his thumb across the flushed forehead.

  “This one. He has my eyes,” Magpie whispered.

  Laurent wanted to protest, even if in silence, but when he saw the color blinking at him from beneath the newborn’s eyelids, it became clear it wasn’t Beast’s pale blue but a kaleidoscope filled with sapphire shades.

  Laurent let out a trembling exhale and sat closer to the endless tangle of limbs. He’d never felt as helpless. Not in William Fane’s basement, and not when Baal had almost taken him away from Beast.

  He sniffed, forcing himself to focus on those final moments he could share with family. “He does. I hadn’t really wanted to acknowledge it, but there is no denying it. There is a piece of you in them as well. I can’t even blame you for not knowing how the pact would work. I am both happy, and the most devastated I have ever been.”

  Magpie was at such a loss Laurent pitied him. But then Magpie blinked at Malachite, his face tensing. “Don’t just stand there. Sit here with us and watch over each one as if your life depended on it.”

  The man didn’t hesitate. He released the parasol, which got carried off by the sulphuric wind, and kneeled by the robe, watching the babies twitch from behind his tinted glasses.

  A future that would never happen flourished in Laurent’s mind like a flower opening its petals to the sun. A family of nine. He, Beast, and their seven boys on a camping trip, gathered around a fire. A life in which Laurent was a part of something so much grander than himself, where he cared not only for his husband and friends, but for these children of his blood.

  “I wish Beast could be here,” Laurent whimpered when blue lightning ripped the sky apart yet again, and a sob tore out of his chest no matter how much he fought against it. “He might never know.”

  He might be dead, a vile little voice suggested in his mind.

  “At least you got to see our children,” Laurent whispered, and grasped Magpie’s hand. No longer was this demonic creature something to be wary of. Magpie did care. He really did, so maybe throughout the long years of his existence, he had become human after all. “It is a great privilege to be with family as death approaches.”

  Magpie stared back and squeezed his hand in return. “I’ve been excited, curious of what will grow in this shell, but it’s so much more than I imagined. I never even hoped for what I now know is true. I...” A strange vulnerability appeared on Magpie’s face. “I’ve never understood love before this.”

  Laurent just listened, cradling the child in his arms, because there was nowhere to run. He got choked up when he stared down at his flesh and blood, knowing that he’d selfishly brought them into a dying world.

  He shut his eyes and kissed Marcel’s head when the child started whimpering again. The ground shook, warning them of things they couldn’t stop, but when Magpie’s warm hand slipped out of his own, he clutched at it in a frantic grasp.

  “Stay,” he begged, opening his eyes to look at the creature who had given him this wonderful and terrible moment.

  Magpie shook his head, his face perfectly neutral. “Give them a good life.”

  Laurent didn’t understand. But now that he’d opened his eyes, it was impossible to ignore the gash in the ground nearby, already growling and releasing the pale blue light that meant death.

  “Where are you going? Have you come up with something? Can I help?”

  But Magpie stretched, watching Laurent from behind streaks of wet hair. “No. You need to stay. Those children? They are me, so take care of them. I could never truly understand humanity, while always wanting to be a part of it. I think… that I’m now one of you,” he said softly and pinned Laurent’s silver brooch to his vest.

  Laurent choked out a sob. “Take it, I want you to keep it.”

  Magpie smiled at the boy held by Malachite. “Give it to him and I will.”

  Malachite moved as if he intended to follow, but Magpie stopped him with a gesture.

  “Master?” the man croaked in a raspy voice that sounded as if it hadn’t been used for years. Laurent only then realized that he’d never heard him speak. This was the first time.

  “The child with my eyes. He will be your master once he is of age,”
Magpie said, pointing his long finger Laurent’s way. “Until then, you will obey his father. Do your duty until the end of your contract, and you will be rewarded like I promised.”

  Understanding hit Laurent like a stab to the heart. “Thank you for being their godfather,” he choked out.

  The violent wind combined with thunder caused Laurent’s ears pain. It would have been right to try to stop Magpie from what he was about to do, but Laurent knew better. The sacrifice Jasper was going to make was an act of love, not empty courage. So he lay on the damp robe to hold all the children close when another tremor shook the earth and made the infants squeal. The goo that had surrounded them in the egg was now dampening Laurent’s clothes, but all he wanted was to keep the babies warm

  Magpie hesitated, squeezing his hands and taking slow, laborious breaths as he faced the upcoming destruction. “Thank you for letting me be a part of this, for making me understand,” he said. His body remained rigid, but he eventually looked at the widening hole beside the collapsed wall and approached it in silence.

  Dust floated into the red-tinted air, and for the briefest moment, Laurent saw a tall shadow with horns and long claws reach for Magpie as he descended into the abyss.

  Chapter 25 - Beast

  The howling wind pulled threads of fire off the tree, sending kindling particles into the air. In the infernal chaos of scorch, howling, and fumes that bit into noses and throats, the burning wooden fingers elongated, reaching for Beast’s aching flesh. The dust flew into his eyes like hail, but despite the all-too-familiar panic, this time, Beast knew he couldn’t run from the fire. For Laurent. For Marcel. For all his family and friends.

  He still flinched when the tree turned into a giant torch. Jake’s gargoyle form was only a dark figure above, but so was the surge of liquid from the canister he was holding. Gasoline combusted the moment it splashed the inflamed branches and soared, reaching Jake just before he dropped the container, but there wasn’t a fire in this world capable of penetrating his stone skin. If any civilians had stayed behind and were now witnessing the creature in action, Beast refused to care. It wasn’t like police mattered anymore when the end of the world could swallow them all.

  “Now burn it!” Beast yelled, stepping even farther away to avoid the splash.

  He tripped and fell when another rumble shook the ground under his feet, but as soon as he opened his eyes, a flaming branch descending from the tree above made Beast frantically roll over the dry moss. Like the paw of a dying monster, it fell with a loud thud but didn’t follow Beast when he froze, looking at it while his brain tried to cope with the magnitude of the danger he’d avoided.

  The ground shook again. He didn’t even want to imagine Laurent driving in these conditions. Alone. Frantic. With no one to support him. But the truth was that he wouldn’t have been any safer here, no matter how much it hurt Beast to admit his own ineptitude.

  He’d sent his men off to the other trees and could only hope that their desperate attempts to halt Baal’s plan would at least give Laurent and Magpie more precious time, but that was all he could hope for. Without answers or guidance, Beast was lost and slowly succumbing to the realization that he might not live past this day.

  The roots, thick as elephant legs, bulged to the surface, but Beast’s mouth dried when he realized how far they reached. Deep gashes ran in all directions, emitting the sickening blue glow as far as in the distant woodland that hid the clubhouse. The loud echo of sirens blaring from Brecon proved how much damage must have already been done.

  The ground was all rubble and crushed remains of the picnic, which had been swallowed during the heavy tremors shaking the entire area as if the plates deep under them were about to clash until the Earth itself cracked open.

  Beast held his breath when Jake breathed fire on the gasoline-soaked branches, circling it in the air like a fighter jet on steroids. Beast wished he could turn his head back and run. Be with his family. But instead he watched the symbol of destruction emit more light in the blurry smoke.

  The tension in his body was so unbearable it felt as if his tendons were about to snap when the tree let out the screech of a wounded monster and moved. Its branches shook in fury, sending down a rain of burning gasoline. Beast couldn’t move any faster, yet he still dropped like a log. His brain rattled in his skull, and it took him precious seconds to realize that one of the roots had emerged from the dirt and grabbed his leg. Like a tentacle of a kraken, it wouldn’t let him go out of scorn, because nothing about this action could help the tree extinguish itself.

  The pebbles scattered all around Beast rattled like seeds being toasted in a pan, like a prelude to… what exactly? A scream tore out of Beast’s throat when the ground right next to him cracked open, and he tried crawling away, his elbows digging into the soft flesh of rotten black apples.

  But the tree wouldn’t let go and pulled him with the ease of a cat playing with a captured mouse. No matter how he twisted and how he dug his hands into the dirt, the wooden tentacle pulled him into the crack and toward an invisible mouth that surely had several rows of teeth.

  Blue light flashed into Beast’s face, and he pulled out his gun, shooting into the crevice that was to swallow him whole, but as stabbing heat flowed into his lungs from beneath, so close to roasting him from the inside, he was thinking his goodbyes already, the monster below gave a choked cry, and the root loosened its grip on Beast’s limb.

  Shocked that the bullets had worked, Beast rolled back to the surface, catching his breath as he stood up and opened his eyes once again, only to freeze at the image before him.

  The clouds above were dispersing as if God’s hand had pushed the fast forward button, and the sun that had been obscured by a red fog was once again sending its rays to lick his face. The tree twitched. It moved like a stabbed animal before hunching forward in an avalanche of dry black leaves that fell off its branches in one shocking moment.

  Jake landed nearby and spoke in his inhuman voice, eyes focused on Beast. “Did it work?”

  Maybe.

  But Beast wasn’t sure. Everything they’d done so far managed to anger the tree rather than hurt it, but now it was drying at a rapid pace. Was it possible that at any of the other trees someone had shown virtue so pure that it countered the wrath exposed during the murders?

  The black wood flaked into the wind like ash. The blue light dispersed, but the many fractures that now crisscrossed the ground weren’t still yet. Hair rose at the back of Beast’s neck when the one closest to him gave a gurgle. When black lava rose to the surface, he stepped back with a strangled cry. But it didn’t spill out, nor did it chase him, instead filling the crack and solidifying into matte-black rock.

  Beast looked around, hearing only his own pulse beating in his ears. The sky completely cleared, revealing more of the cracks in the earth to be filled with black rock that resembled raised scar tissue.

  A hand squeezed his shoulder, and he pushed it off before glancing at Vars, who studied him with a deep brown. “You fine?”

  Beast’s lungs had become a vacuum but now they finally filled with air. He sat in front of the charred tree, confused to see the being that had threatened the lives of everyone he knew die.

  Jake roared, stretching as the goo that made up the gargoyle form returned inside his body, but he soon got up on shaky legs and approached them, still looking back as if he expected the tree to crack open and swallow him with a wooden mouth in a final act of hate.

  “It’s… is it over?”

  Vars hugged Jake and kissed his forehead. “I think so.”

  The distant sound of sirens died, and as the sky slowly changed color in anticipation of the approaching night, Beast pulled out his phone and chose Laurent’s number. His hand shook when he thought of all the things that could have gone wrong, and he barely held back the urge to smash the cell into the dirt when he found there was no connection.

  “I-I need to go,” he said, breathing hard and already bolting for his bik
e. “To the clubhouse,” he added, stumbling over words as if his tongue was wood.

  Now that immediate danger was over, the idea to send Laurent home on his own no longer seemed so reasonable. As an inexperienced driver, Laurent had issues in the best of conditions, so how was Beast to expect him to withstand an earthquake and all its consequences? For all Beast knew, he might find the car squashed by the black rock, or crashed in a ditch. All the grim possibilities sent bile up his throat.

  Vars’s nostrils flared when he took a deep breath of air, pulling Jake even closer. “We’ll see how Knight and Rev are doing first. Their tree was the largest.”

  Beast felt his mouth go dry, because Vars was right. Their friends were out there, and with the cell connection dead, they couldn’t get in touch.

  “I’ll see you at the clubhouse,” Beast said and walked off with a strange emptiness in his head. There were dark clouds floating inside his skull, until he found his motorcycle tipped over, but safe in a thatch of bushes by the road. At least it hadn’t ended up squashed like some of the equipment used at the picnic.

  Beast picked it up, but as he was preparing to mount, he was startled by a merry bird song announcing to the world all was well. The damaged asphalt and fallen trees he could already see in the distance were signs of destruction, but the fauna was enjoying the aftermath.

  Beast exhaled with relief when his machine came to life. Otherwise, he would’ve had to run, because with each minute of not knowing Laurent’s fate, his brain produced more horrifying scenarios, most involving crashed cars.

  He drove as if the devil was still chasing him, and as he entered the woods, he saw the same black rock crisscrossing the landscape. The landscape that used to be familiar, was now a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Beast refused to think of Baal any longer as he slalomed around the rips in asphalt and fallen branches. He was past the gates already when the front of his bike thrashed, and he barely kept himself upright when his tyre burst. His bike skidded down the slope by the damaged road. Beast took a deep inhale but didn’t hesitate to leave the vehicle behind.