Reaver of Souls

by Stephanie Burke

  Alone in her cell, Sable waited and thought. Thought about Torn, what he was, what he had become, and came face-to-face with one immutable fact. While he wasn’t a Faeroe and she could not be under glamour, she still loved him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  This night air was so cool.

  Torn was amazed as he felt the airflow below and above his wings. He watched as treetops became purple-gray shapes and forms. Saw the ground as if it was cast in shadows, hidden from the world. He watched strange creatures leap into the darkness, becoming nothing more that a pair of glowing eyes that stared at him in confusion. Yes, he was different, and different meant alone. Never more had he been aware of this than now.

  You always have me, the Reaver purred in his mind.

  “I have no one!” he shouted back, missing a beat with his wings and faltering in the sky.

  Knowing that he had to land to puzzle through his dilemma, he picked a mountain that seemed devoid of all life and headed for it.

  Beating his wings rapidly backwards against the air that carried him, he began to descend towards the solid ground. Landing on bended knees, he quickly folded his wings to his back and slowly rose to his full height.

  You are never alone, the Reaver whispered, and he felt his skin tingle.

  “What do I have?” he shouted silently. “I am a creature that scares people, drives them away. I remember the look on Sable’s face, and I know that I am lost!”

  You are found! the Reaver insisted. You will never be alone again! Don’t you realize what you have?

  “I have nothing!” he shouted, his words ringing out loud and clear in the cool night air. “I have nothing,” he repeated quietly as tears begin to fill his eyes.

  So you are going to feel sorry for yourself now? his alter ego sneered. You are going to tuck tail and run!

  “Because of you, I have a tail!” he returned as depression began to descend on him like the gates to a castle.

  Shoulders drooping, wings hanging listlessly, Torn spotted a large boulder and made his way over to it. With a sad little sigh, he sat and rested his elbows on his knees. That gave him the perfect perch to rest his head upon, while he tried to hide from the world.

  You have it all! the Reaver argued. You have everything in the palm of your hands and you are letting it slip away.

  “You keep saying that,” Torn muttered. “But you are mistaken. What woman would have me? What men would let me join them! I scare people! I frighten them, and it is my job, our job, to do that! I am meant to be alone, yet my foolish heart will force me to forget that.”

  You—we—only frighten those who deserve it.

  “Did you not see Sable’s face? Did you not see the men I fought beside? Tell me what you saw on their faces. Tell me what you saw.”

  Confusion.

  “Fear!”

  Disbelief.

  “Betrayal!”

  You betray yourself! Those last words hurt!

  Torn pulled his head up and began to walk. He knew that he could not leave the voice behind, but he had to do something.

  He walked through the tall cool grass, instinctively avoiding the marshy bogs, until he came to a small clear stream.

  Never, he thought, had he ever seen such beauty.

  The running water was surrounded by tall marsh grasses that swayed in the gentle night breeze. Strange insects that lit up dove and flew through the grasses like stars of the heaven. A strange chirping sound, rather relaxing, was also emanating from the base of these grasses, he noted, as well as the sensation of the water flowing over flat rock seemed to glow in the moonlight. A large tree rested near the banks of this stream, its branches dipped low as if taking a drink while its leaves provided a small canopy, inviting the weary to stop and rest.

  If ever there was a weary man, it was Torn.

  Man, the Reaver repeated his thoughts to him. You are a man!

  “A man,” Torn breathed, then snorted. “This is a man?”

  Walking to the water’s edge, he peered into it, to see his distorted visage.

  Slanted red eyes glowed back at him. Slanted red eyes surrounded by a dark blob that defined description.

  “I am a beast,” he said slowly, as he bent closer to the water. “A horrid beast that was created out of shame and malice to do the dark work no one else could.”

  You were created out of love, the Reaver insisted.

  “Where was the love as I grew?” he retorted sharply, staring at his image in the water. “My own father could not stand to be around me.”

  His problem, not yours!

  “And my mother, where was she with her Magic Realm magic when I needed her?”

  Loving you from afar!

  “And Zultha? What about my beautiful almost-mate? She never knew what I was, saw me as a man, and still the bitch plotted to kill me!”

  Bad luck?

  “Bad luck?” Torn shouted.

  When looking back on the past paths with present eyes, one’s vision is nearly perfect. Plus you learn where not to step in the future.

  “And that means?”

  You exercised poor judgment.

  “Poor…” Torn roared with laughter at the understatement, but it did serve to knock him out of his blue funk for a bit.

  Zultha never looked at you the way Sable does.

  “I am her student,” Torn argued. “She sees me as a child to be taught,” he said almost wistfully.

  Then you are blind, the Reaver retorted. She looks at you with desire in her eyes.

  “Well, it is disgust now!” Torn shouted loudly, slamming a fist into the image of himself in the water, sending cold droplets splashing on his body. “Now she will never want to see me again. She will hate me, what I am, what I have to do. It will kill me to see that hate in her eyes as she stares at me. And I can do nothing about it because I am a freak! I am an unnatural creature that will only cause her grief. I wish I had never met her! I wish that I had never thought to believe for once I had a place to fit in. I wish I had never been born!”

  Torn jumped to his feet, eyes wild and hair flying around him. He stared at the rippling water, saw his reflection, and slammed both hands through his hair. The pressure building in his chest had to be released; the pain in his heart needed an outlet.

  “I am nothing!” he screamed as he threw his head back and roared his pain to the world. “I am nothing! I am nothing!”

  Tears rolling down his face, he looked around as his options flew through his mind.

  Go back to Sable, watch as the kindness in her eyes turned to distrust and fear? Go to Jillian and Jack and watch as they turned their backs on him? Go back to the drinking place with the leather men and watch as they turned their backs on him? Surely the liar and murderer would have spread his tales by now. All that he had achieved on this foreign and strange plane was now gone, destroyed because he had to protect!

  But who was there to protect him?

  He had no one, was no one, would never have anyone, and he was tired. Tired of being alone, tired of having nothing, just plain tired.

  Don’t do it! the Reaver hissed as it read his thoughts.

  “Nothing!” he breathed, his chest rising and falling with his rough, tearing breaths. “I have nothing; I am nothing!”

  Turning, he began to run, flying on the ground, feet pumping as he moved rapidly across the damp green earth.

  “Nothing!” he roared as his feet carried on towards a sudden cliff, a large break in the lush earth.

  He had nothing left to live for. He had nothing on this plane of existence or on any other. He had more than proven that. No one could accept his differences. No one could accept him. He was alone, a waste of space, and unwanted. There was nothing left for him.

  Folding his wings tightly to his body, he raced towards that cleft and prepared to leap.

  * * * * *

  Terror sat straight up in his bed, sweating as his eyes went wild. He opened his mouth and screamed so loud, his voice echoed arou
nd the whole of his castle.

  “Nooo!”

  Chapter Twenty

  “They have found him?” Zultha purred as she stared at her servant. “Quickly, tell me where?”

  “I have no idea,” the woman stuttered as she cowered at her mistress’ feet. “But there was a disturbance this morning. Terror is planning on retrieving Lord Torn,” she added quickly, hoping to salvage her life.

  “Very interesting,” Zultha said lowly as she ran a dirty hand through her equally dirty hair. “And when shall they make their move?”

  Her eyes looked a bit wild with her dust-stained face, but there was a keen intelligence behind the insanity as she fastened her gaze onto her servant.

  “As soon as Terror hears from his search party,” she added as she sank down lower upon her trembling knees.

  Upon entering the room, she prostrated herself as low as she could get, a precaution against inciting her mistress’ wrath, but even that humiliating gesture failed to appease her mistress.

  “When will he speak with them?” she asked as she twirled one lock of red hair around her finger, as a child would, while an innocent smile played upon her lips.

  But her servant was not fooled. Those innocent lips could spew forth such venom that a normal person would be reduced to tears.

  “Later this morning, Lady,” she added, feeling a cold fear sinking bone deep within her body.

  “Then why are you here?”

  The soft question was so gently asked that she knew that some horror awaited her.

  “I-I thought to bring you news, Lady,” she stammered, burying her face in the dirt while hoping that a mortal blow would not fall.

  “You diseased piece of human flesh,” Zultha said just as gently as she reached low and grasped the trembling woman by her hair to raise her face. “You are, what, thirty-eight? You are not old enough to think.”

  Then with a mighty jerk, she ripped several locks of the now screaming woman’s hair from her scalp.

  “Go,” Zultha purred as she ran the painfully stolen hair across her face, disregarding the spots of blood that left crimson trails across her white skin. “Go back and come to me when you have something important to tell. Do not fail me again.”

  Even this was said in an almost sickeningly sweet voice as she stepped over the cowering woman as if she were a spot of garbage in the road.

  “Go now!” she purred as the woman lay there, sobbing. “Off with you now! That’s a good girl! Run along and do your duty.”

  Still on her knees, her hands clutching at her throbbing scalp, the servant scrambled from her mistress’ sight, before rising to her feet and taking to her heels.

  Her moans of pain and fear were held until she was out of the secret caverns, then raising her head to the sky, she roared out her pain and anguish. Would this hell that was her life ever come to an end? Tears flowing freely down her dirt-streaked face, she raced back towards the castle. Back towards the man she was supposed to betray, but secretly wished would discover her and put an end to this miserable existence.

  * * * * *

  Sable sat alone in her small cell and thought about the Faeroe-not-a-Faeroe that she had given her heart to. “I guess it wasn’t glamour,” she said to herself as she absently plucked the fuzz off a stiff gray blanket.

  She was learning to love institution gray, she thought with a sigh. She had better learn to love it. It was all the rage in the more popular mental asylums.

  Sighing, she thought back to the creature that she had seen her Torn turn—­­­­­morph rather—into.

  It was like that black beast had dwelled within his person all along, just waiting for a moment to be free. Was that the creature that had tested Jack and Jill, and found them acceptable?

  Well, it was the same creature who tested the lunatic with the gun and had pierced his dark heart with a feather. She had never seen such a hardened criminal turn stoolie so quickly before in her whole life.

  Yet, all it did to Jack and Jill was to ease them of their burdens, cleanse them, as Jack had said.

  But where did that leave her?

  Okay, she thought, as she rolled a fuzz ball into a tight knot of fiber and flicked it across the room, Torn could not be evil. Hadn’t he spared the life of that miserable Garth who was so intent on causing problem for Jase? That proved that he wasn’t evil, she considered.

  No, he didn’t even kill that scumbag who had started rattling off names and places as fast as he could inhale air! Names and places where he had killed, maimed, and stolen, no less.

  That was good work, she thought, but not a guarantee of an un-evil person.

  Well, then there was Torn himself.

  She thought of the way his eyes seemed to light up whenever she was around. She thought of the way he had looked at her while feeling comfortable doing a drunken striptease in a room full of gay leather-clad bikers, as if they had not existed. And in truth, they had not existed for her either.

  From the moment his gaze connected with hers, the world faded into the background and his precious innocent and oh-so-sexy face demanded the foreground.

  Then there was the way he had sighed while she abused her artist’s privilege and made him sit in uncomfortable positions for hours on end. And the way he looked pleadingly up at her as if he needed her permission to experience life.

  Not to mention the way he made the average things that she was so used to seeing seem so…extraordinary.

  She had been rediscovering the world through his eyes and she had loved the feel of it.

  But most telling was her heart.

  Her heart was weeping with the loss of him.

  She almost felt physical pain as he looked back at her stupefied face and took off into the night.

  Now her Torn was out there lost and alone, not knowing where to turn to for warmth, understanding, or help.

  He was so innocent, her Torn, so unused to the people here. He could be hurt and confused right now. He could be in danger! What if the circus found him? Or even worse, government agents!

  They would rip him apart to see what made him tick!

  Disregarding the way he fought in the bar, taking out a good number of armed bikers, Sable lapsed into panic for his safety.

  Her Torn could not survive without her. She had to get out of this cell!

  * * * * *

  Torn opened his eyes, wanting to see the end coming. The cold Scottish air whipped past his face, tangling his hair, ruffling the feathers he refused to extend to save his life.

  His tears were dried in the sharp breeze that no longer held him upright, his body shivering with desperation and fear.

  He watched as the dark ground rushed faster and faster towards him, the earth extended its hard stone arms open in a welcoming embrace. Then he closed his eyes and waited for the loneliness, the confusion, the pain to end.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There are so many ways to face death.

  Some people see their lives flash before their eyes, others see nothing but escape. Some face their final solution with severe gravity as if the life that rejected them had no right to real emotions.

  And then there are those who change their minds.

  A split second before Torn hit the hard stone, a moment before he “gave up the ghost”, a millisecond before all the mysteries of death would be revealed to him, he discovered he couldn’t do it.

  “Coward!” he inwardly screamed as he opened his eyes and sent out a blast of energy, a blast so concentrated that it hit the ground, bounced into his body and propelled him backwards, away from that death-giving plunge. He flopped backwards only to land on his backside several feet away from the drop site.

  Torn groaned as his bottom slid across the pebbly damp surface of the ground until he came to rest up against the base of the cliff from which he plunged.

  “Ouch,” he muttered as he settled against the earth, waiting to catch his breath and realign his thinking.

  Fool, the Reaver hissed at him
. We cannot die! Our mission is still incomplete.

  With that, a transformation began to occur. Slowly, almost as slow as the dew collecting on the heather, Torn began to change.

  Every aspect of the Reaver began to melt, to merge with his true form. The dark skin lightened slowly, turning purple, then blue, then gray before settling on the golden tint of his skin.

  His eyes, red and fierce, gently faded into a deep violet, a color only seen in rainbows. His feathers, those angel’s wings as black as sin, began to recede, pulling back into his body, leaving no outward trace of their existence.

  His body began to shrink into itself, bringing him back to his normal height that was still rather impressive to humans, but such an oddity in his realm.

  Finally with one long full-body shudder, Torn shook free that outer energy, the aura of menace that surrounded the Reaver, and once again he was just Torn, a man lost and alone in a strange world.

  Groaning under his breath, he struggled to sit up, ignoring the pulls and twinges of discomfort from his abused muscles and the sore spot where the bullet had stuck and then healed over with his transformation. Brushing his tangled hair out of his face, he began to survey his surroundings.

  “I am in the middle of nowhere,” he sighed as he painfully pulled himself to his feet, hoping his muscle aches would end soon. “I need to…to see her,” he sighed as he dropped his head and let his tangled curls cover his face.

  Then he recalled seeing Mace, his father’s second-in-command, just after seeing the look of sheer terror on Sable’s face.

  He had to discover what they were doing here. Were they searching for him? A new urgency filled him.

  “But first, I have to find her, I have to find my teacher,” he mused. “I need her to… I just need her.”