Deliverance

by Véronique Launier

  My other consciousness has information about Ramtin but I don’t let her through. Nothing she has to say can be worth losing myself over. I have information about Ramtin as well. The thought catches me by surprise. Leyli. How could I have not been thinking about Leyli every second of the day? Maybe she made her choice to be with Ramtin, or maybe she, like Aude, is in trouble.

  “Do you think Aude is in danger? How did she end up with Ramtin? Is she a groupie too? What happens to girls who disappear with Ramtin?” My hands are clenched tight around the steering wheel and I jerk aggressively to avoid traffic.

  “We aren’t sure how Aude disappeared. Ramtin should have been here when she went missing from Montreal. I don’t know what he wants… Something to do with what she is.”

  Why is he looking at me like this? Like there is something wrong with me. I slam the brake to narrowly avoid hitting a motorcycle. “What is she?”

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  “No, not really. What is she?”

  “She’s an essencialist. Basically, she can handle life energy.”

  I free one arm from the steering wheel to rub the other. It’s suddenly cold in here. The shivers crawl up my arms, along my shoulders and come sliding down along my spinal cord. No one should be able to control life energy, whatever that means. Again, the other consciousness tries to fit her way to the forefront, but I don’t let her. I have control now.

  “So your brother’s girlfriend is a Jinni?”

  “No, not at all. The Jinn are made of pure essence. Pure energy. Smokeless fire, they say. But everything alive has a measure of life energy. An essencialist is someone who has a much larger amount of energy and can control it.”

  “Control how?” I’m avoiding the obvious question: What is he?

  “She can share it.”

  Is this what he is? I can’t get the words out to ask him. Why can’t he just tell me?

  A text message comes in so I grab the phone from my pocket and check it while still keeping an eye on the road.

  “You know that’s illegal where I come from.” I barely hear him.

  I barely see the road in front of me. All I can see is the text. Those three words from Amir-Reza:

  “Roxana is dead.”

  The growing silence and quietude of the mountains suited our mood. Nakissa’s suggestion that we come here this evening made sense. Neither of us were in any mood for conversation after we found out about Roxana last night, and we had needed time to digest everything. But time was of the essence and now we had to talk. There was something about the isolation of the mountains that made me feel like we could be ourselves here.

  The crowds of people thinned as we hiked up the trails past Darband. Most were happy to simply enjoy the nice weather perusing the shops and restaurants at the foot of the mountain. But what we needed was solitude.

  We didn’t speak much as we made our ascent. We each had our own guilt about Roxana’s death and though I wished I could comfort her, I wasn’t quite ready to come to terms with the part I’d played in the tragedy.

  If only I hadn’t given her that money, she wouldn’t have been able to run to her dealer the second she felt upset and buy enough drugs to kill herself. We weren’t sure if she’d committed suicide or if it had been an accidental overdose. Either way, Nakissa blamed herself because Roxana had been so upset to see her sing for Farâsoo. I knew it was illogical to look at it that way. I knew the decision had been hers and not ours, but I understood how Nakissa felt, because I felt it too.

  I stumbled on some lose rocks and held on the old rickety broken railings. This was a little bit less safe than I was used to. Normally my sense of adventure would have awoken by now, but I was tired of it. I just wanted to lay low. I wanted to go to parties for the sake of partying instead of chasing down a star who may be trying to end the world. I wanted to flirt with a cute girl instead of investigating her for what she has to do with an ancient Gargoyle who may or may not be dead. I wanted to dress well without worrying what supernatural encounter might ruin my clothes.

  I continued to follow Nakissa as she climbed effortlessly. I was supposed to be the one with grace and agility. I needed to gather my wits. I just didn’t feel like myself these days. The landscape didn’t do much to lift my spirits either. Now that we had passed the bright and festive feel of the town, very little interrupted the brown on brown landscape. Even right now in mid March, Mont Royal in Montreal would be painted with more colors than just brown.

  “We’re here.” Nakissa interrupted my bleakness by showing me to a ledge overlooking the city.

  Even with the weight of her thoughts, Nakissa seemed looser in the mountains. Less stressed. Her stride had been long and confident. Not like Nagissa's, though. There were as many differences as there were similarities between the two. But I couldn't exactly see them as two different people. Nakissa kept her heart open while Nagissa held hers closed, and yet, almost contradictorily, Nakissa lacked the confidence she used to have as Nagissa. She was vibrant, lively. She wore her scarf loosely over her head, so it was barely there. She was a vivid contrast against the hard landscape. Only her mood was somber.

  I took in the view. From horizon to horizon, the city was all we could see. From this vantage, it shared little of its charms. It was more like a monster stretching itself along the land. Once spring fully bloomed, its abundant green spaces would dot the landscape and call its people to the many parks and gardens for picnics and relaxation. For the time being what little green we saw just teased us with its promise of life.

  She sat on the ledge and I joined her. We let our feet dangle and said nothing for several moments.

  "Who is Nagissa?" she asked. "Why is she trying to take over me?"

  I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. We had been skirting around the issues for so long. At first, I didn’t know what she was and if I could trust her. After that, it just seemed difficult to bring up. I didn’t know what she knew. Where did I start? At least now I had a question to answer. And I had a theory.

  "I don't think she is trying to take over you. I think you are one and the same person."

  She shook her head.

  "Hear me out?" I took her hand in mine. It was cold, but warmed quickly. "You and Nagissa are so similar; it is more just than your names. I think you are Nagissa reborn somehow. I never put stock in the concept of multiple lives or anything like that, but then maybe it isn't impossible. If our essence is our soul, then maybe it is possible to transfer it somehow. Maybe Nagissa found a way to transfer her essence to you before she died. Do you know how she died?"

  "She was executed during the revolution." She furrowed her brows. “How did I know that?”

  “Because you are her.”

  “I feel like she just wants to take me over.”

  What if she was right? What if by encouraging Nagissa to surface, I was killing Nakissa? Could I choose which lived and which died?

  She shifted her posture, but didn’t take her eyes from the vista ahead of us. "Well, your theory doesn't even work. I wasn't alive when Nagissa died, how could she have transferred whatever to me?"

  “I haven’t figured out that part of it yet. But there is a lot that my kind doesn’t understand about essence.”

  She hugged her arms tightly against herself. “That’s not very comforting.”

  It didn’t exactly make sense, but at the same time I knew it was the only answer. As soon as I'd said it, I’d known it to be the truth. Nakissa was Nagissa reborn. The differences were accounted by her environment. She'd been raised differently; of course she would be different. Her old memories were re-surfacing and this was causing conflict in her. But it wasn’t someone else she was fighting. It was herself. A version of herself that seemed separate because she compartmentalized it and refused to accept it. It wasn’t only me who needed to talk to Nagissa, Nakissa did as well.

  I needed to draw her out and hope I wasn’t wrong. Hope I wouldn’t lose Nakissa, because if truth be
told, I liked her a lot better than her counterpart.

  “Do you know the details of her death?”

  She shook her head.

  “Are you sure?”

  She looked at her feet, she looked at the clouds. She looked at a couple of other climbers that walked on, looking for their own semi-secluded spot. She looked everywhere except at me.

  “She knows,” she whispered.

  “That means you know.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t. I can’t let her tell me.”

  “Yes, you can. She doesn’t mean you any harm.”

  “She wants to be me.”

  “You are her.”

  “No, I’m not.” She took a few breaths and pivoted to face me. “Listen, Garnier, even if you’re right, how can you say that my experiences and memories are not what makes me who I am? How can you be sure that by embracing these centuries of memories, my personality won’t change? Centuries. There are centuries of memories. How can it be? What was she?”

  “Nakissa was a Gargoyle.”

  “A Gargoyle?”

  I nodded. “Like I am.”

  She moved away from me a few inches. “What is a Gargoyle, exactly?”

  “Do you want the proper definition of the word or just want to know what I am?” I grinned at her.

  Her face didn’t change. Her eyes were wide. Her lips set tight. She was frightened but determined. I didn’t know how to tell her. Suddenly, it seemed ridiculous to be a man who can transform into a beast or a statue of that beast. It was more than just hard to believe, it was absurd. If she wasn’t scared away, then she would laugh at me. Is this how Guillaume felt when he revealed himself to Aude? My heart warmed at the thought of them. Aude had accepted him with a sense of wonder.

  I decided then, that I wouldn’t show myself to her. I’d explain it and she would either understand or she wouldn’t. No reason to leave myself vulnerable.

  “I used to be a human like you. When I was eighteen, I agreed to protect a family. A family that was rumored to have magical powers. They were what people referred to as witches. Essencialists. They created me by killing one of their own.”

  “You killed one of them?”

  “No, she sacrificed herself. It’s considered a good investment. One mortal life to make an immortal one that will go on to protect the family.”

  “So someone died and now you live forever?”

  “Well, more or less. I mean there are other things about it too.” Like the fact that without essence fed to me, I turned into a statue permanently. Or the fact that I had a beast form. But she didn’t ask so I didn’t tell her. Maybe it was best for her to understand the truth gradually.

  “So Nagissa was immortal like you…”

  “Sort of like me, but she was made by sacrificing a Jinni instead.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yes, in theory, it made her very powerful.”

  “So I have that power?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh. Ramtin? Is he one like you?”

  “He is one like Nagissa was.”

  “He has my best friend…Leyli.”

  My heart sank. “What? She’s still with him?”

  “We fought when she went with him.”

  “I remember.”

  “I knew she was making a mistake. But she was acting so immature about… I don’t know? Me ditching the party? Ramtin wanting to hear me play? I didn’t even know what she was mad about, so I just left it alone.”

  “I did too.” I hadn’t even thought of asking after her. I knew how dangerous Ramtin was and that the last time I had heard of the girl she had been with him. Yet, I had been so pre-occupied with everything else, I hadn’t even given her a second thought. Not even when I had tried to call her and couldn’t reach her. I put my head in my hands. I wasn’t a hero.

  “I thought Leyli should make her own mistakes, you know?”

  I nodded.

  “She texted me a few days ago. It was short, but I just thought she was mad at me. But since I heard about Aude, I keep wondering if she’s really okay. Do you think she is?”

  “Yes, I think that for now both she and Aude are okay. He has a purpose. Does Leyli have supernatural powers?”

  She laughed without humor. “Until recently, I would have said no. Now, how could I tell?” She furrowed her brows. “Well I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but she does have a knack for telling fortunes.”

  I shrugged. It could mean something, or nothing at all. It wasn’t always easy to recognize some of those creatures.

  “Can you tell me how Nagissa died?” I asked again.

  I didn’t know if it was because I caught her by surprise with the question, but this time, she answered.

  “Ramtin. He was there. He was a guard when she was executed. She was shot, but she died before that. I don’t really understand… “

  “When did Nagissa become a Gargoyle?”

  “It was in the Sassanid dynasty, when she was a court musician for King Khosro II.”

  If I didn’t give her time to think of anything but Nagissa, she couldn’t block her. “Where was Nagissa born?”

  “Cteciphon. It was the capital at the time.”

  “How did Nagissa become a Gargoyle?”

  “It was Ramtin’s fault. We were in competition as the favored court musician. I was better than him, so he felt threatened by me. He made a deal with the Jinn. They turned him into a different creature… Still the same in essence, but with a body of stone. Changeable. I didn’t know what he was then. Just that the Jinn had made him like that. I approached them I asked to be made one of them, and I was.”

  It had worked. I was now talking to Nagissa.

  I’m with Garnier again. After he’d left, I never thought I would get another chance with him, but here we are together again and there are even more obstacles between us than before.

  “I need your help, Nagissa.”

  How I love to hear my name on his lips. I love hearing he needs me, even if it’s just to vanquish Ramtin. Maybe especially if it is to vanquish Ramtin.

  “You need me to fight Ramtin.”

  He pulls out a locket from his pocket and shows it to me. I gasp. It is an antique. A miniature painted of me. It had been given to me at court. I reach for it, and then pull away. There’s something ancient and powerful about it. I’m not stupid enough to touch it until I know what that is. “Where did you get it?”

  “A Jinni gave it to me.”

  Doesn’t he know how dangerous it is to deal with the Jinn? What is he trying to prove? Why does he need to get to Ramtin so badly? The answers are here. Nakissa has them but even now, I’m fighting myself.

  When I transferred my essence to that woman, waiting for her to be ready to carry a child, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know it would even work… and I certainly didn’t know my memories would remain dormant until my host became too stressed to hold them back.

  “He has…” I pull at the memories, but she’s resisting me. I’m resisting. I take a deep breath. I am not just Nagissa, I am also Nakissa. I’m not afraid of her. She is me. She can’t do anything to me. I just need to give her a little control. “…a friend of yours. Aude. And a friend of Nakissa’s. But there’s more isn’t there?”

  “You have trouble with Nakissa’s memories. Just like she has with yours. Are you two different people then?”

  “Not exactly. It’s complicated and I’m not even sure I understand it myself. She… well, I’ve created a sort of barrier. It doesn’t matter right now, tell me about Ramtin?”

  Garnier explains the events that transpired in Montreal. He tells me about Aude’s part in it, and Ramtin’s involvement.

  In a way, it doesn’t surprise me that Ramtin still thirsts for power. What surprises me is that I don’t at all anymore.

  “If I was still a Gargoyle, I might be able to take him on. I was very powerful, myself. We always matched each other. Followed each other and c
ompeted together. What power he had, I had. But not now. Now, I’m not much more than human. I was weak when I transferred my essence. Maybe I could have made a witch, otherwise. I don’t know how that works.” I sigh. “The Jinn would know more about this.”

  “The Jinn wanted me to find you.”

  What did the Jinn want from me? The sound of loose rubble interrupts my thoughts. I turn and expect to see a couple of hikers, but instead I’m faced with something I thought didn’t exist anymore. A brand new stone monster. Someone sacrificed the essence of a witch or a Jinni.

  Nagissa crouched and clenched her fists but she didn’t change. She couldn’t change. She was human and I had to protect her now. I took half a moment to be grateful that I had a set of spare clothing in my car before I grabbed hold of my essence and released it until my muscles tightened in that familiar way.

  I jumped between Nagissa and the stone creature. It lunged for me and I attacked back. It was slow. Young and inexperienced. This creature had only recently been made. It was safe to assume that Ramtin was the one creating them. I remembered how he had both Aude and Leyli captive. Was one of them sacrificed to make this creature? I felt sick. I backed away two paces. This made the creature confident and it came for me again. But this time I let my anger coil inside me and released it, pounding myself into its stone armor.

  I needed Aude. Fighting a stone monster without a witch to drain essence was a lengthy and painful process. I could keep Nagissa safe. Protecting was what I had been created for. But I didn’t know if I’d be able to do much more.

  The creature was uncertain though and losing ground. Each time we collided, it backed a few paces. My shoulders ached from the constant impact but I continued. He now was a safe distance from Nagissa.

  ‘Run!’ I screamed at her with the mind voice I used with my family. But she wasn’t a de Rouen. She didn’t hear. She stood there. Still crouched. Infinitely beautiful. The impact jarred me. I’d let myself get distracted. I couldn’t do that. I picked myself back up and went after him again. I remembered what Aude told me. How she would catch a snag of essence from these creatures and unravel it until they were nothing but dust.