Realm Wraith

by T. R. Briar

  A clawed hand grabbed his shoulder and lifted him away. The screaming reapers around him warped and melted into the ether, and the crushing heat was swapped out for a cold rushing wind. He stood on a mountaintop, away from the citadel now, one lone reaper standing beside him. Rayne knew, just from his movements, the familiar sneer, who had saved him in the chaos.

  “I was wondering where you were,” he remarked.

  “This makes the favor you owe me even bigger,” Darrigan leered, a playful expression on his skull-like features.

  “You’d best come to collect soon. In a few hours, I won’t be able to do you any favors.”

  “That’s a pity. I thought for sure you’d go right after Gabriel, and finish him off first.”

  “Nothing would bring me greater pleasure right now, but until I wake up in the material world, my soul is stuck here.” Rayne sighed. “Even if I did stop him, Tomordred’s going to eat me for a snack. I let his secret get out.”

  “You can worry about Tomordred later. For now, you’d best find a way to wake up.”

  “How?” Rayne asked. “I’m just a Realm Wraith. Gabriel has the power of a demon god on his side; he’s free to do as he damn well pleases! I’m bound by the rules of this place.” He kicked at a rock on the ground, watching it bounce away.

  Darrigan laughed at him. “You? Bound by rules? What rules?”

  Rayne stared out over the cliff into the gaping chasm of the mountainside. “You didn’t just save me as a favor, did you? Why are you so interested in me?” He looked back at Darrigan. “I know you lied, about the fire, about seeing me as a child.”

  “Fine, I lied. I knew you’d figure that out eventually. The truth is, I’ve been watching your soul for several lifetimes. We first met about fifteen hundred years ago.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Now’s not the time for stories,” the demon sighed. “You have to go and wake up now, and stop Gabriel from being your world’s catalyst. Kill him before he kills you, and his soul will return here. He may wield Azaznir’s power, but he is not a demon yet. Destroy his physical body, and he will lose all awareness. Azaznir will have no more use for him then.”

  “How do I wake up on my own?”

  “You’ve done it before.”

  “I have?” Rayne thought back, trying to remember when he’d ever instigated his own awakening. He remembered then, his first battle with Tomordred, when the demon had been just about to eat him. The memory became clearer, the same sensation of his body seizing and trapping him, just like when Darrigan had taken his soul away during the day. It was easy to remember, as he found the feeling incredibly unpleasant.

  He called on that memory now, feeling out towards his physical form. He sensed it reaching for him, pulling him in. A shiver of disgust wormed down his spine, but there was no turning back now. Darrigan faded from sight, the Abyss melted away, and he was pulled out from the domain of nightmares, back into reality.

  * * *

  His eyes snapped open, and he stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom. He could hear rain falling outside his window again, a soft sound in an otherwise still household. Groaning, he rolled over and looked at the clock by the bed. Four in the morning. David would have left for work already, and Levi should be in bed, he rationalized. For a moment, he experienced a faint joy in realizing he no longer had to suffer as a prisoner, now free to leave the Abyss and wake up whenever he pleased. But that thought was short lived, as he remembered why he had awakened in the first place.

  Rayne didn’t even have time to move to his chair. A noise echoed at the front door. The sound of a doorknob being rattled, checked, followed by faint pounding, as if someone were accessing just how solid it were. And then, to his surprise, the sound of clicking and a creak, a door being swung open.

  “Oh, it’s you, mister,” a child’s voice chirped.

  Levi? Rayne thought. His son shouldn’t be up at this hour.

  “Well, if it isn’t the little master,” Gabriel’s beastly tone made Rayne’s hair stand on end. “I need to speak with your father. It’s very urgent.”

  Rayne fumbled in the dark for his chair, his heart racing. He couldn’t find it, and rolled over in bed to search the other side.

  “Daddy’s asleep right now. I could wake him up for you,” he heard Levi say.

  “Oh no, I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble. Just point me to his bedroom, I’ll wake him up.”

  “I don’t think Daddy would like that. I shouldn’t let you in.”

  “It’s very, very important that I speak with him. Come on, kid. I’m a good friend of your father’s. I wouldn’t be here so late at night if it wasn’t important.”

  “But Daddy said I’m not to trust you. He says you’re—”

  A sudden, high pitched scream filled the apartment, followed by the sound of a body being thrown. Rayne flinched, aghast, and a father’s rage took over him at the sound of his son in distress. He rolled off the bed into a heap on the floor by his wheelchair, and dragged himself up to the seat, making his way across the bedroom. He threw open the bedroom door ready to charge out, but a sinister face greeted him.

  “Well, well. Look who’s up,” Gabriel leered. His fist flew inhumanly fast, colliding with Rayne’s chest and toppling him out of his chair

  “What did you do to my son?!” Rayne screamed, struggling to crawl back to his seat. His bloodied chest burned right where Gabriel had struck him.

  “I tossed him aside. He looks like a tough kid, I doubt that killed him. But I’ll bet it hurt like hell!”

  “Monster!” Rayne grabbed his chair, but Gabriel kicked it away. “He’s just a child! Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Man, woman, child. They’ll all become twisted and corrupt when I’m through with this world. He’s better off dead; he’ll go back into limbo before his world becomes an inferno. Wouldn’t you prefer that for him too?”

  “I’d prefer you left my planet alone!” Rayne exclaimed. “You’re a traitor to your own kind!”

  “I serve a higher purpose!” Though Gabriel’s form was human here in the waking world, a demonic orange glow burned in his left eye. Rayne could see the soul within the flesh, something far more inhuman to behold.

  “Your new master’s just a shallow imitator!”

  “It’s not about imitating the work of his kin,” Gabriel hissed, striking Rayne again. He knelt above him and pressed a hand against his face, letting its burning power char the flesh of Rayne’s cheek. Rayne shrieked in absolute pain as every nerve in his body reacted to the intense heat. “He has no interest in this planet’s soul. Sending every soul on this world to hell is just a bonus,” Gabriel continued, ignoring his enemy’s suffering. “This world is a prison. He intends to turn it into a raging orb of flame to ensure that it stays a prison.”

  “A prison? For what?!”

  “Who cares? All I want is the freedom and the power to do in the Abyss as I please.”

  Rayne smashed Gabriel in the chest with his elbow, knocking him out from on top of him. He grabbed the side of his bed and dragged his body on top it, clutching at the burned skin on his face. The pain was unimaginable, but he refused to feel weakened in this moment.

  “Under the eternal domination of some horrific, unknowable god?” Rayne cried out.

  “He’s not that bad, once you get to know him a little better.”

  Rayne grabbed a chair beside the bed and used it to block Gabriel as the latter rushed at him. He brushed it aside, setting it aflame as he did so. As it became too hot for him to grasp, Rayne hurled it into the window, smashing it through the glass with a resounding crash. The wind and rain poured through the new hole.

  “Is that really all you’ve got? In the Abyss, you seemed so much stronger, like you could freeze my very core with just a look. But here, in the real world? You’re just a weak human, powerless. You can’t even walk! You couldn’t even stop me from striking your own son!” Gabriel laughed. “But me? It doesn’t matter what univers
e I’m in! My god’s power is all reaching! I command fire through pure will! Watch me!”

  He reached out his hand, the glow in his left eye brightening. Flames erupted from his hand, a blaze that jetted across the room, singeing Rayne, and igniting the curtain behind him. In seconds the entire wall combusted into red and gold, spewing orange sparks that alighted on the bed and sparse furniture, setting them aflame as well. They burned with an unnaturally high temperature, higher than normal fire. Rayne could feel beads of sweat pouring down his face, and he began to choke on the smoke, unable to breathe. He lay there helpless on the bed, incapable of doing much more than waving his arms.

  “You see?” Gabriel taunted. “Look how weak you are? Those frail little legs of yours don’t even work! You’re pathetic! You couldn’t even save your suicidal little friend! You’re going to die, and nobody is going to care!”

  “I may be frail, but I’m still a better man than you.”

  The rain still fell around him, but not with enough conviction to quench the blaze, and Rayne collapsed from the bed to the floor as the fire spread over his bedsheets. He willed it to him now, that eerie calm he’d felt in the past, the cold fury, focusing it around him. The flames within the room diminished in the intense chill that radiated from his body, creating a freezing breeze to drive away the smoke and fire. He became more aware of the falling rain and called it toward him, pulling the water as if it were a part of his own being. He shifted and manipulated it, intensifying its flow from mere drops to a pressurized stream that fell upon the fire in his room.

  “What the hell?” Gabriel gasped as the fire diminished. Rayne sat up, still overtaken by the focused stillness. He glared at his foe.

  “I suppose I’m not that weak,” he said.

  “You think that’s going to impress me?! My power is the power of a demon god! You think whatever freakish abilities the Abyss gave you can hold a candle to my unholy flames?! You think you can kill me? I’ve taken a life before, but you don’t have it in you!”

  “Daddy?!”

  They both turned to the doorway, where a panic-stricken Levi stood. He had a cut on his head and his pajamas were singed, but otherwise he looked fine.

  “Levi!” Rayne exclaimed. “Get out of here! Run down to the neighbor’s place and call the police!”

  The child stood, frozen.

  “Now, Levi!” his father screamed. Levi bolted out of sight. Gabriel moved, ready to strike, to take the child as a hostage. Rayne wasn’t about to let him do that, grabbing him by the ankles and yanking his enemy off his feet, pulling himself across the floor so he could wrap his hands around Gabriel’s throat. The two rolled on the floor amidst a flurry of clashing rain and fire, until they crashed into the back wall beneath the window.

  “So, your son got away,” Gabriel spat. “But it won’t save you.” Grasping Rayne around the neck with one hand, he lifted his victim into the air with inhuman strength, pressing him up against the shattered window. “Are you ready to face your death, Rayne?”

  Rayne’s eyes rolled back in his head as Gabriel’s hand crushed against his windpipe, struggling to breathe as the heated fingers burned away even more of his flesh. The broken glass of the window cut into his skin, stained with his flowing blood. Behind him lay a sheer drop of many stories into the street below him. Above him, the unforgiving skies poured torrents of rain upon him. But the calm was still there, the sense of focus. He sensed his limitations against the flames Gabriel wielded. His human body was too frail to fight this monster, half his body nothing more than dead weight he couldn’t even control. He could only channel so much of the power he felt within his soul, and he despaired for only a moment. But his grief turned to defiance, and he grabbed Gabriel’s hand with his own as it clutched his neck.

  “If you kill me,” he hissed. “I will drag you down to Hell with me. I promise.”

  Gabriel’s eyes glinted in his moment of triumph. “You don’t say.”

  Rayne heard the snapping sound first, felt his neck breaking, followed by immense pain as his brain screamed from death’s equalizing touch. It became difficult to think. He felt his awareness fading as his foe shoved his limp body the rest of the way out the window, and felt himself falling with the pouring rain, landing on the sidewalk with the decisive crack of shattering bones. A fall no man could survive.

  Everything turned dark and empty, and ice ran through Rayne’s veins. His body felt so light, like a water droplet no longer bound to this world’s rules. A chilling rain splashed over his face, and his eyes opened. He was still in his bedroom, and there was Gabriel, staring out the window, his hair drenched by falling water. He seemed to be enjoying his victory.

  He turned, and his smug expression changed when he saw Rayne standing there, an imposing specter from another world. Rayne let a cruel smile cross his lips.

  “Did you think you were done?” Rayne’s dark voice shook with a deep timber that made even the wind and rain around him shudder. He drifted around Gabriel, stopping at the window long enough to glance outside. Far below, his body was just a mangled pile of limbs lying in a pool of blood that was swiftly washing away in the storm.

  “Why are you still here?!” Gabriel demanded.

  “Because I have unfinished business.” A hand flew forward, socking Gabriel right across the jaw, and he flew backwards into the corner.

  “You—you struck me? But how? You’re dead! You’re just a ghost!”

  Rayne uncurled his fingers with the sound of cracking bones. “Did you think that I’d just cease to exist if I died? I’m still here, aren’t I? My presence can still be felt!”

  A strange new energy stirred within him now. He was free. He stood upon two legs, looming over his surprised enemy. He knew what waited for him beyond death. But not yet. He would return once his business in this world was finished, and no sooner.

  The air around Rayne froze as Gabriel scrambled back to his feet and called forth his flames. Rayne reached out and extinguished them before their heat could even touch him. The power he felt inside grew stronger, screaming to get out, a pure raw force that surged through him, and his enemy seemed weaker in his eyes with every passing moment. He felt his form changing, bone, muscle, and flesh stretching outward, increasing in size, even though he no longer had true flesh or bone. He towered over Gabriel, enjoying this new sensation that twisted through his soul.

  With a maddening howl, Gabriel lunged at him to set him ablaze directly, and his hands tore into Rayne’s form with fervent heat. The burning of wicked flame sent waves of overwhelming pain through Rayne. He held Gabriel up in a clawed hand, forcing him to eye level.

  “And you call me a monster!?” Gabriel screamed.

  Rayne tried to compose himself after the agony of that fire, and he glowered at the other man. Intense fury stirred inside of him as he stared at this thrashing bastard. He let his mouth fall open in a lingering hiss, his fingers tightening his grip on Gabriel’s neck, experiencing a sick enjoyment as he tasted the man’s fear and desperation. A strange stinging sensation spread throughout his mouth, but in his state of hate and rage, he chose to pay it no mind. Gabriel gasped in horror, breaking his struggle to stare. Rayne’s teeth distended, sliding farther from his gums and growing sharper. His canines protracted even further, becoming long, slender fangs. Icy fury blazed in his eyes.

  “You’re a—” Gabriel struggled to find words.

  “I’m what?” Rayne growled, lightly aware of the changes he was undergoing. He could feel it, but his focus was on his enemy, on how he was going to end him. “For a man who likes to talk about how he’s going to end the world, you’re awfully silent. Something got your tongue?”

  Gabriel’s mouth suddenly dropped open and his lower lip trembled as his terror grew. He renewed his frantic efforts to free himself from Rayne, but the latter’s grip was like stone.

  “How does it feel to have the tables turned?” Rayne cackled at his foe’s distress. “You killed me. But I’m not going back to the A
byss until I’ve returned the favor. Nobody threatens my world!”

  Gabriel didn’t answer. He gripped Rayne’s hand and unleashed more flames, burning him. Rayne shrieked a piercing, completely otherworldly cry as he let go of his prey.

  “You’re going to suffer for that!” he screamed. But Rayne did not get his chance to grab him again as he intended. The reason for Gabriel’s panicked face made itself clear in that moment when a shrieking serpent head burst out from the darkness and wrapped itself about him. Rayne started and stumbled backwards, while Gabriel struggled in the snake’s crushing grip.

  “Not that thing again,” Rayne gasped. His vision became disoriented, confusing. It was a sensation he couldn’t comprehend at first, until his mind began to embrace an understanding.

  He was seeing from two different perspectives at once. As if his sight came from two entirely separate heads.

  His shoulders felt heavy, dragged down by an immense weight, and he whirled to see a long, narrow tendril growing from his back, a lithe serpentine neck suspended from his left side. A new sensation forced him to turn his head, and he saw a gaping hole appear on the right side now, not only widening, but also pushing outwards. As he continued to stare, shocked, he watched the hole grow teeth, and it pushed up harder against his flesh until it at last ruptured out, becoming a long, narrow appendage that rapidly swelled in size. The end of this worm-like thing turned to face him, and he saw the mouth once more, hissing and shrieking as the flesh around it formed into a diamond-shaped, reptilian head. A serpent’s head, though far more monstrous looking than its natural counterpart, suspended from a long neck growing directly out of Rayne’s own body. It writhed about, clenching and unclenching its jaw. Its eyes were black as shadow, like a deep pit into the heart of hell.

  Rayne’s vision distorted once again, and he found himself seeing from three viewpoints. He saw the snake head before him, but he saw through its eyes, and gazed upon his own face, which still looked somewhat human, but his skin had become a deep, azure-tinted grey that darkened into the indigo of scaly necks. His pale hair moved with a life of its own. He saw his mouth, full of razor sharp teeth and four long fangs. And his eyes were black pits, just like the serpents’. He screamed, while the beast growing from his back let out an equal cry.