Shadows of Humanity

by J. Armand

  The long-haired man’s lightning was overpowered every time by Rozalin’s dark version. He pulled out a spear strapped to his back. A strange choice against an incorporeal phantom, but I soon saw his strategy. When Rozalin unleashed her streams of black electricity, he blocked them with the metal tip of the spear. He aimed and threw the spear – charged with her energy – through the pillars of flame, setting the wood portion alight. The weapon passed through her as expected, but her dark powers turned against her on impact. This was the same method we had used to defeat her years ago; only something from the Underworld can harm a being from there.

  She vanished in a puff of black smoke like one of Gianluca’s creations. I wish he was here, but calling for him would only prove he was right – that I can’t handle the war.

  “You cannot stop death!” Rozalin screamed upon reappearing in a roiling mass of shadow. “I AM DEATH!”

  She let loose the wail of a banshee. Her cry shattered the remaining windows of the chateau and rocked the ground. My ears bled and I went deaf for a moment. The remaining spirits were equally as jarred, holding their ears and dropping to their knees. The geisha attempted to hide behind her barrier, but it too shattered like glass as soon as she erected it.

  “End this.” Aurelia spoke for the first time. Her voice was stoic and quiet, but there was never a problem hearing her no matter the circumstances. “I grow bored and have other matters to attend to tonight.”

  “Your guests have all been slain. What matters could be of such importance?” Rozalin balked. “I am just beginning the real festivities.”

  Rozalin opened a portal to the other side and released a swarm of spectral reapers clad in black robes and wielding scythes to assail the spirits. The water woman was the first to fall, overwhelmed by the dark forces and Rozalin’s unholy fire and lightning. The spear-equipped warrior shifted his focus to Aurelia. Bad move.

  She had just turned to go back inside when the man called a bolt of lightning from the sky to block her path. She sidestepped the bolt effortlessly and ignored the attack. Again the man called more lightning for her to walk around. A minor annoyance at most for Aurelia, until a bolt came too close and clipped the tail end of her purple ball gown.

  “Are we having fun yet, sister?” Rozalin laughed.

  Aurelia looked over her shoulder with murder in her eyes. She faced the spirit toe to toe and grabbed him in her dainty porcelain hands. In one motion she ripped him in two at the torso and crushed his skull under her heel on her casual stroll back to the chateau.

  The wind spirit next to me got to his feet. Part of me wanted to call for help, but I knew I wouldn’t get it and I still couldn’t move. He bent down and said something in Korean that sounded angry. He reached out to grab me by the hair, but his arm fell off at the elbow, followed by his head. Noah appeared behind him looking healthy again and dropkicked the body as it faded away.

  “Too bad for him the wind only looks in one direction at a time or he would’ve seen that coming.” Noah picked me up by the back of the shirt and flung me over his shoulder. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that? Why would you use a move like that if it leaves you incapacitated? You could’ve died.”

  “I was trying to buy you time while you got your beauty rest.”

  “Ahh!” He dropped me back on the grass and then fell to his knees, clutching his head. Aurelia was standing before us.

  “Why don’t you leave him alone, you-” Noah stopped me from finishing that sentence with a hand over my mouth.

  “Clean this mess,” she commanded him. “Then-”

  “Dorian!” Gianluca appeared. It was more of a relief to see him at that moment than had he shown up during the battle.

  “I told you he would come, sister!” Rozalin returned next and circled us. “The Senatus Tenebris’ own herald returns to our world! I kneel to you in worship, my lord.”

  “How unbecoming.” Aurelia addressed her sister’s flamboyant outcry. “You mentioned darkness, but you did not mention the handsome form it would take.” She placed a hand over her mouth to hide a coy smile aimed at Gianluca.

  “Eh, I am sorry, do I know you?” he asked Rozalin.

  “My lord, we have not yet met, but there is time for that.” She floated around him, putting her ghostly hands all over him. “I have waited oh so long for the Herald of Shadow to reclaim the lands rightfully yours. The world has grown tolerant of darkness, I fear, and must be reeducated to cower under your might.”

  “I… do not understand.” Gianluca brushed her hands away. He could actually touch her as if she were a solid object like any other person. “I am not here for this.”

  Rozalin stared at him, then laughed flirtatiously. “Oh, you tease me, my lord!”

  “Gianluca, what she is talking about?” I asked.

  “I do not know. I have not met this woman.” He seemed more nervous than confused. I couldn’t imagine him being scared of Rozalin and she was practically dropping to her knees for him. “She has the wrong man, I think, no?”

  “No… no. I make no mistake.” She smiled. “The legendary Dreadlord himself stands before me, devourer of the innocent and conqueror of the pure. I have been a fan of your work for centuries! The way you cut a swath of death across the Earth. The Underworld has much to thank you for, and I, as its humble representative, wish to show that appreciation in any way you desire.”

  “Come, Dorian. We go now.” Gianluca held out his hand to me.

  “Oh, I see now,” Rozalin continued. “You have taken an apprentice. This makes perfect sense! I would agree wholeheartedly with your choice. The creature does have potential, but so do I. We can all work together! Darkness and destruction welcomes allies with open arms!”

  “Come now, sister. The so-called Nether Lords rejected you enough in the past to remember your hideous face. Why do you think it would be any different now?” Aurelia mocked, but kept her eyes on Gianluca with a sultry look. Rozalin spoke in Latin to Gianluca, who grew increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation.

  “What is going on?!” I shouted. I looked to Noah who shrugged.

  “I don’t speak Latin.”

  “You haven’t told the boy, have you?” Rozalin provoked further feelings of anxiety from Gianluca. “How dastardly! I am impressed. You still have not lost your brutal sense of fun after all!”

  “Told me what?” I had a really bad feeling that everything Vance and Noah had warned me about was about to come true.

  “The man before you is none other than the glorious harbinger of darkness so many of us have awaited. Had I known he would choose you as a disciple I would not have tried to reap your soul!” She giggled. “Maybe.”

  “You are the ancient evil?” I yelled at him.

  “I told you so,” Noah mumbled. Aurelia shot him a cold look that stopped him. Gianluca wasn’t answering. If it wasn’t true he would deny it.

  “There is no mistake! The Dark Senate makes no mistakes. Isn’t that right, Gaius Belisarius?”

  “Who the hell is that? Gianluca, what is going on?” He wouldn’t answer me. His face was frozen in shock.

  “Gianluca? Is that what you go by now?” Rozalin questioned. “Why cast off such a noteworthy reputation? A challenge perhaps? To start anew and outdo yourself?”

  “My name is Gianluca Belisardi,” he stated, but he didn’t sound too sure. “I am my own master. The ones you call Dark Senate are dead. I kill them many years ago.”

  “Fascinating! A coup!” Rozalin cheered. “Your malevolence outshines even my own! This explains your rise in power. Tell me, what did their souls taste like? How loud did they scream? Did they beg for mercy like all the other innocents you gutted like pigs?”

  Gianluca took my hand. “We must go. It is not good for us here.”

  “No! Mutilating innocent people? I’m not going anywhere with you.” I didn’t know where else to go, but far away from all of them was a start.

  “You are always welcomed here, ‘Gianluca,’” Au
relia offered with a meek and humble smile. With that, we fell through the shadows and into his world. Fighting back was hopeless, I knew that. We didn’t stay in the shadow realm. He brought us to an open field in a place with a much warmer climate.

  “It is not me,” he said.

  “Don’t lie to me. She knew who you were. I saw your face when she said your real name.”

  “It was me, yes. It is not me today.”

  “Just tell me what she meant!”

  “You are very stubborn… so much like him.” Gianluca’s voice drifted with his thoughts.

  “Like who? What are you talking about?” Nothing he said was helping me put any of this together. It was a puzzle with more and more pieces and no end in sight.

  “You will not like me if I tell you.”

  “I won’t like you if you lie, either.”

  “Then I am in trouble both times.” He turned away from me with a half-hearted smile and shook his head.

  “How bad were these ‘bad things’ you said you did when we met? You were a soldier. I figured you killed people. How many could you have killed to make someone like Rozalin worship you?” Grilling him wasn’t getting me anything but frustration. I wasn’t about to give up if he was going to take me captive.

  “Many… many people.” I stood there waiting in silence for him to continue. There was nothing else I could do to make him talk. “Please. No more. I do not want to talk.”

  “Then I guess we have nothing else to say to each other,” I told him. I started to walk away. It was only symbolic; I knew he could pull me into the darkness.

  “Wait,” he called back. “You will leave no matter what I do, so I will tell you. I owe you this.”

  “Let me make that decision. I just want the truth.” Suddenly, the ball was in my court again. It was like he wanted to tell me.

  “I was a soldier, you know this. In the army I meet a boy like you: very, very stubborn. But, he was not, ah, vir, the free man, like me. He was a slave, but I love him. I teach him the sword and I protect him. He sleeps in my arms each night even when many other soldier want him because he was very beautiful, like you too. Because he is a slave he cannot say no to the other free man for the pleasure, so I keep him with me to be safe because we are in love.”

  “Wait, all these soldiers slept with other guys? What kind of army was this?”

  “Yes, why does this matter? There is no woman in the army. But, you do not have to be the soldier to like a man. Even the Caesar or the scholar can. This is the same, no?”

  “Uh, we’ll get to that another time. How does this boy make you a bad enough person to get that kind of reputation?”

  “He does not. He makes me the man I am now. Before I only want the gloria, the glory of the battle, but when I love him my heart fills with passion to protect. As a free man I only have to serve the army for short time, then I may choose another life. But he is a slave and cannot choose, so I stay to be with him.

  “The other soldiers, my brothers, know I love him so after some years they do not try to take him from my arms. One night I return from the battle and cannot find him so I am scared he is hurt. My friends, they tell me the centurion has him in his-” Gianluca made a box shape with his fingers to try and describe what he was saying, then created it from the shadows.

  “Oh, a tent?”

  “Yes. The centurion takes him there for his pleasure. He is a cruel man, but many like this because he is strong in the battles. I knew I should not stop it because the centurion is my leader, but I am angry and my heart is hurting. When I go there I see my love with no clothes and holding the sword in the centurion’s body. He is crying because he know that he is a slave and rape is only the crime against free citizen. When the guards come I say to spare him because I am the one who killed the centurion, if I do not he will be executed. I know I will be killed too, but it does not matter.”

  “You two really loved each other to make that sacrifice.” This was making me feel sick. Somehow I could sympathize with the futility both of them must have felt, but my own negative experiences seemed more insignificant by comparison. I had been through great physical pain, but always recovered without a scratch. I had lost people, but sooner or later, everyone dies in the mortal world and I would have had to come to terms with it. Being enslaved, raped, tortured – I had never experienced these things that even mortals suffer through every day. I can understand now why Gianluca is so passionate about protecting what he likes.

  “Yes. He is in my heart today too.” Gianluca looked so sullen, but a smile appeared on his face as he recalled another memory. “After the battles he would cry ‘Gaius! Gaius! You are hurt!’ and come to clean me, but he is always the more hurt one. He was very stubborn and would not let me help him first. I think when I am hurt he has the strength of all Roma. I tell him, ‘Do not worry, my little love. Every battle I come back to see your face I grow stronger. One day I promise I will be so strong I will not bleed.’

  “I worry because the slave, they do not fight with the other soldier. Many wear the light armor, or no armor sometimes, and they are the first in the battle to fight. Sometimes they do not get food and are weak, so I save mine to give him.”

  “What was his name?” I asked.

  “I do not speak it. He is resting in the heavens now.” Gianluca took a moment and closed his eyes briefly before continuing.

  “So, what happened when the guards found you two in the centurion’s tent?”

  “I was put in the jail and beaten while the senate decide to kill me or not. My brothers in the army try to say I did no wrong, but the guards beat me so I cannot speak and change my mind. The centurion was very much liked so I know I have no chance to live, but I was happy that my love would be safe.

  “At night before I die, five of the senate come to me. They say they know the truth and they believe the soldiers that I am innocent, but if I admit this I know what it means for my love. They make an offer because they say I am brave and strong to stand against the face of my death. If I say yes, they will release me as a secret and I will work for them to protect the people of Roma by killing the men like the centurion. When I agree is when they drink my blood and give me the dark power.

  “They did not tell me what I was, but only I can work at night. They say I cannot just kill the bad men, but I must make others fear the crimes so it will not happen again. I will use the darkness to scare the people around the men I am told to kill. Then I am told to go to check my love because he is in danger. When I find his body… it was burn all over and his eyes and tongue cut out. The Senatus tell me the soldiers do this because he is traitor and they know he killed the centurion. I cannot control myself and I kill the soldier, my old friends, in their sleep. My heart knows only anger and because I am dead I cannot cry.

  “The Senatus give me more and more men, then group of men, soon entire village and cities across the empire. I even destroy the temples to give them no hope. I was to show them no god could excuse their crimes. For the glory of Roma I think. I am the devil that punish the wicked. But it is not true. I am just the monster. I kill the women and the children, the innocent and the old. I break their bodies and drown their souls. The Senatus poison my mind so I cannot think. They tell me these people are touched by evil and must be taught the lesson, but soon I do not care and kill for no reason. I cannot count the faces of all the victim, there is too many. I see them all when I close my eyes, I hear their screams in the darkness they were swallowed by. My beautiful Roma I once loved now fear me.

  “When the Senatus say to darken the sun, kill the humans so only we will live and start a new empire, I find strength to say no, it is too much. The sun should fear no man, but I was no man anymore. I did not deserve this world, but I could not die. This is why I hide in the darkness for many years. I was a coward, but there I could not hurt the people.”

  “You didn’t have a choice, but you stopped the ones making you evil. You’re a different man now.”

 
“It does not make me the good person. You know who I am now and you do not like it.”

  “I like the Gianluca I know today. You can’t bring back the people you killed, but you can help save others. Hiding and sleeping won’t make up for it.”

  “I try this, but you do not let me. I want to protect you. My heart feels the passion again when I look at you. I feel I can do anything, I can save the innocent people from the Eastern ones.”

  “I understand why you don’t want me in battle, but I’m not him, Gianluca. If you’re really different now, we should work together and do good.”

  “Yes, this is what I want.”

  “Then let’s get Noah and go to Japan. He has something that can stop them.” I would ask Gianluca to help free Noah, but I know Noah would never accept. I can’t just ask Gianluca to kill Aurelia for me either. Not only is that overstepping our friendship, but I’m not even sure he could kill her and I wouldn’t want to endanger him too. The sisters were enamored with him, but I knew it was his power they wanted, as per the usual in this world. He could bargain for Noah’s freedom peacefully, but Aurelia would keep her mental hold on Noah. It looked like the only way Noah was to win his freedom was by the end of a sword, the Muramasa to be exact. I wouldn’t give up on him.

  “No, you are hurt.” Gianluca rolled up my shredded sleeves and inspected the cuts from the glass.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. It hurt more now that the adrenaline was gone. I tried not to wince when he touched me even though he was being extra careful. My regeneration had totally stopped after releasing so much of my energy.

  “This is not good. You are too stubborn.” He used his thumb to wipe away a droplet of blood from my face that I didn’t even know was there. “I will take you a place for healing. Then we will go. This is okay?”

  “You aren’t going to let me say no, are you?”