by David James
Blood.
Blood.
Her body twisted.
Blood.
Violent shudders moved down her spine and back again. Her smile danced from pain to glory, need to loss, as though she missed the taste of blood on her lips. As though it was the one thing that kept her alive, her tongue frantically searched for more.
Blood.
As her eyes found mine, her lips became a half-smile and she said, “You next, boy?”
“Kate?” I turned to her, trying to meet her eyes, but even when I did they were blank and lost. And, as the blood cut her face down the middle with a red line, it looked like she was wearing a mask, hiding behind someone I didn’t know.
Magda stuck a finger in her mouth and sucked until her lips disappeared. She said, “It does things to a person, the blood. Can show us truths we can’t take back. The girl knows that and she’s paid her price. Let her be while you take your turn.”
“No,” I said. “Not if it’s like this. Look at her! It’s not worth it.”
Magda’s smile slithered at the edges. “No? Not worth it to know the truth about the prophecy? To know the secrets you hold deep in your blood? This is the only way you’s both will ever know what is real and what is not. You don’t think that’s worth it?”
I shook my head, but said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Magda crawled slowly to her feet. “Truth or secrets? Which one would you like to know?”
“Both,” I answered. “I need to know what the prophecy says. And I need you to unbind me from the spell you cast.”
“Truth, then,” she said. “You want to know the true you, find out who he is. Truth takes the most blood, they say. Cuts through the veins like poison. Hurts the most, too. You ready for that?”
“Yes.”
“Give me your hand then,” she said, grabbing it and pulling me toward the round table. She snapped her fingers and the candles flamed again. When she let go of me, she moved in front of the leather book, flipping the pages like wind. “Take that candle, boy.”
“Which one?”
“The black one there,” she said raising a finger toward a tiny, unlit candle, blacker and smaller than the rest, and wrapped with a blue twine ribbon. “That’s the one I used on you so long ago. It’s made of your blood, boy. It’s the only thing in this world that can free you from what I did.”
She smiled, as though I should be proud. “Now, let me see your right hand.”
I stuck my hand out, palm up. Before I could pull it back, I felt the cool blade of a knife cut across it, coaxing warm blood up and out.
“Now hold the candle in that hand just over your heart,” Magda told me. “Hurry, boy. Do as I say.”
I moved my hand to my heart, clutching the black candle tightly, and I felt a sudden pull from within me, as though I had been here before.
Magda leaned forward and lit the candle.
Suddenly, helplessly, I felt myself falling back, lost to a world I couldn’t see.
Leaves falling.
No, they seemed to scream as if they were dying. All were red, as deep and crimson as fresh blood, falling from the sky like tears, or tiny angels.
When the first one touched the ground, I felt the earth move. My entire body vibrated with the pain of its death. I shook, terrified. Each brought an earthquake. Each brought a tear and soon my face was flooded. Another, and then another came crashing down, until I realized that these weren’t falling leaves dying at all.
They were people.
They were like me.
Falling stars.
“Save us,” they said. “Save us.”
-Kate-
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood-
pulling at me-
dragging me under-
calling me.
All I wanted was the blood.
More of that sweet blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
-Calum-
I remembered.
The mist crawling through the forest, shivering. The wolves howling, and the wind whispering. The red leaves as they fell.
I remembered my wish. Just that one.
A hand brushed my shoulder. A smell like rancid bodies burning filled the air around me. “Do you feel it, boy? What you must do? Do you understand your true gift now that you’re free?”
“My gift? What do you mean?” I asked.
Magda waved her fingers at me, coughed, frowned. She rolled her eyes, and instead of white all around her pupils I could see lines of red, blood. “Since the beginning, the Women have passed down a story that tells of a boy, the Dreamer, the Caeles. His soul, yours, is different. Your ti bon anges, your soul, has the power to step through the lines of time. Unlike humans, the Caeles’s ti bon anges belongs to the stars; it’s how you are born time and time again. Your spirit lives in your ti bon ange and knows nothing of rules, of death. It can be killed in ways, but it is not trapped like the others, not bonded to the earth, and cannot be taken by the likes of the Orieno. This is how Morphis has possessed the damned; he has taken control of their ti bon anges. Without their souls, they are empty vessels.”
“Is that why Morphis couldn’t touch me in my dreams?”
She nodded. “And it’s why you need to fight back. Your ti bon ange can touch the future. You’ve seen it, boy. You can change it.”
“All those people...”
“Dead,” she said. “If you’s don’t get their ti bon anges back to them, all they’d be is dead.
I asked, “What will happen if we can’t return their souls? To the world, I mean.”
Her voice was no more than a whisper. “Been said that when there is no more room in the deepest depths of Hell, then the damned will forever walk the earth. Without a ti bon ange, people have nowhere to go but bad. This is only the beginning, Caeles. Only you can stop the Siblings. Only you and the girl. Remember, you are not the Caeles yet. Almost, but not yet. You still need a key to unlock your full power. You’s need each other to finish this.”
“But how?” I asked. “I don’t understand! Don’t you get that? This whole time people have been telling me little details about myself, but never the whole story. Always what to do without showing me how to do it. And it doesn’t help. It never does.”
Magda walked over to table that had fallen, picking up the tan bowl on the way. She stepped in the red liquid that covered the floor, leaving bloody footprints as she walked around the room. Setting the bowl on the larger table, she went to search a cabinet that was against the far wall. Smiling, she pulled out a black velvet pouch and went back to the table.
“Then it’s time for you to know the true prophecy. The Order has always known of the prophecy you seek, though they have never known how it ends,” Magda said. She waved her hands over the bowl, muttering something in a language I didn’t understand. Then, without warning, she pulled a dagger out of the folds of the velvet pouch and drew it across her wrist. Blood flowed freely from the cut to the bowl, filling the bottom of it crimson.
Magda said, “Blood does not have the power to hide anything. It tells the truth, even when it shouldn’t.”
After what seemed like too long, she put the knife away and tied a piece of cloth to her wrist. Her hands moved like the tongues of serpents, licking the air as if it were tangible. Magda touched her forehead, then her left and right shoulders, and finally her heart, making a cross on her body.
“Give me your finger,” she said.
“Why?”
“Your blood holds the words of the prophecy, but mine is what gives them a voice.”
I held out my finger and, before I could register the pain, her knife slid across it and my own blood dripped into the bowl. Red against red, the two were indistinguishable.
“We must drink to know the truth,” she said. She brought the bowl of blood up to her lips and drank deeply. When she t
urned to me, her lips were crimson. I felt my stomach drop as she licked them, her black tongue searching for every last drop of blood.
She lifted the bowl, tilting it toward me. “Drink.”
The church was quiet, so her voice echoed. Her breath sounded painful. Or was that mine?
“Drink, boy,” Magda whispered.
I took the bowl from Magda, brought it to my lips and tasted the metallic liquid as it flowed down my throat. At once I felt warm, and wondered if it wasn’t so much blood as it was poison.
“We are now connected,” Magda said, taking back the bowl. “A part of you is me, and I you. It is with this lifeblood that we will see the truth of the prophecy and hear its ageless voice of reason.”
Magda set the bowl on the table and started to flip through the old book.
“Light, light, light,” she spoke, each time a flame on the tall white candles flared bright. The words blended together like a hiss. “The blood binds our souls. With it our ti bon anges have become one. Light.”
Turning to face the book she raised her hands. I felt her blood inside me start to ignite, burn. My chest grew hot. My heart felt like it was about to burst.
The witch screamed. “Blood of my sisters. Blood of the fallen. Light. Light. Burn. Burn. Turn my eyes to see the truth, and break the bond of life and death. Light. Light. Burn. Burn...”
I felt my heart slow-
and then almost stop.
Magda’s voice slammed into me from all sides. It was all I could hear. “Turn my eyes to see the truth, and break the bond of life and death.”
My vision grew white, then black. I tried to speak, but words failed. I could hear the blood bubble in Magda’s throat, and I felt it in my own. I realized, terrified, that I was screaming, too. My mouth was moving, the words flooding out just like Magda’s. My throat burned with pressure.
But still, no sound came.
There was only Magda screaming, and words dancing in the air like leaves in an autumn wind.
“Light floods over all,
Stars of the dream filled minds
Smile like white pearls above-
Until- They come,
Three kin with hearts so black,
Weaved tightly within dark.
Stars twinkle and fade,
So lost in the rising darkness,
Sun too weak to rise.
Then is hope, the time of the Dreamer.
The one who is lost but will be found.
The soldier who once was and will be always again.
Hope is dangerous.
Darkness will rise to meet it,
Wild and burning and cruel.
A commander will fall in blackness,
Leaving behind a ruling of false order.
They will be deceived and deceiving.
One will be two,
Heavy mind torn between those of truth,
And those of savage trickery.
Truth will be found for two,
Destroying all that was before,
And the heart of thieves will be clear.
Hope will come by two:
Two souls born as one,
Two hearts beating as one.
For one of two, shadowed heat of red will wage,
A future angered by the dwindled fire storms,
Vast as the Destroyer.
For two of one, a path not found will be taken,
Lost in dark places,
Found in light escapes.
Then, when all is lost, the time of hope is near.
One action will save them all.
One action to save the world.”
I heard her body collapse, bones crack. I moved my hand around the floor and felt a wet, sticky liquid.
The world seemed darker than before, less clear. Dim light cut through the dust in the church at odd angles.
My eyes searched the room until they found Magda. My breath caught in my throat. She lay on the floor. Bones, white and red, were sticking out of her arms and legs. Her eyes, once such a bright violet, were completely white and glazed over. Blood dripped from her mouth and down her chin, forming a puddle on the wood floor. Her tongue lapped in and out, reaching for the blood.
Always for the blood.
A bone moved. Magda’s hand tried to reach forward, but it was caught against the bone that was protruding from her leg. Her hand fell.
“Boy...”
I wasn’t sure if the witch had really spoken, or if it was the wind against the church. I wanted to put my hand against Magda’s face, but I couldn’t. What was left of it was nothing more than hanging flesh upon old bone.
“Boy...” she whispered again. “Come... close.”
I had no choice. With my stomach in my throat I crawled towards Magda, not daring to stand. I didn’t trust any part of me.
Her hand twitched, or her foot. Bone. It was the bone that twitched. Bone grinding against bone.
“You must... run. Nothing... will protect... you now. Find the key. Do not be afraid of it, boy. Your soul might be yours now... but you need the power of another to keep it. Do not be afraid. Be brave... Run!”
-Kate-
“Girl,” Magda whispered. Her breath bubbled out of her. Thick blood crawling up through her throat and out. “Kate...”
I ripped myself from the need for blood, away from the desire to do nothing but suck and lick and drink it. I felt myself break in two: Me and the blood.
For a moment, I was destroyed, and I knew what it meant to be what I was. This pain ran through my family’s veins; the blood would be my burden, just like it had been Magda’s.
“Magda,” I said stepping slowly toward her. One foot followed by one foot, always wanting to go back. “What can I do?”
She blinked, her eyes once more violet than mine now shone a dull, faded blue. “Nothing, child. This is what must happen now that you’s know the truth. I’m almost gone, but you still have time. You must run now before it’s too late. You must ignore the blood. Run. It’s not your time just yet. Destroy Morphis before you can’t leave this place no more. Run.”
I touched her, my fingers feeling dense, bloody bone, and said, “I can’t.”
“The blood calls to you,” she said. “I know. But you have a different path than I. Follow it now, and come back to this later.”
I felt a bone break in my hand.
Magda smiled, fresh blood covered her chin red, and said, “Girl?”
“What?” I asked.
“Drip the blood into my mouth. I need to taste it one last time.”
I dragged my palms across the floor, scooping up everything red, and cupped them before Magda’s face. Slowly, I dripped her own blood into her mouth and watched her eyes flash violet once again.
This was life, the blood.
Soon, it would be mine.
But not now.
Not yet.
-Calum-
Kate put her hand on my shoulder, then slowly moved it down in a line of red so she held my wrist.
“Your birthmark is glowing, Calum,” she whispered.
I looked to my arm and saw the softened light of my mark. Even through my sweater, it twinkled like the stars I knew it stood for.
Why was it glowing?
Kate’s voice drew me away, the quiet timbre of it too heavy inside the church. “We can’t run anymore, Calum. You’re the Dreamer. I’m the Destroyer. We don’t have a choice. We have to fight this. I have to while I can, before the blood takes over.”
I stepped closer to Kate and felt the room buzz with heat. I took her hand in mine and held it tight, hoping that somehow it would always be there. “I don’t know if we can save them all, Kate.”
“But we have to try,” she said against teeth so gritted her full red lips fell together and turned white. When she looked at me and her lips opened, I could feel her breath hit my face, so sweet in this stale room. “What if today’s the day you die? Don’t you want to fight? Don’t you want to live a little louder, just for
this moment when you’re so close to the end?”
I squeezed her hand.
Just for a moment, I forgot all about the war, that I was the Caeles and Kate was a deadly Warrior. Dreamer and Destroyer. The lost and the found.
Again, just for a moment, all was well.
I was just a boy. Kate, just a girl.
And then without warning, like so many of the worst things, normality was lost to silence; one so quiet even the lack of noise echoed in my head like an explosion as the church fell around us.
Chapter Seventeen
A Dark and Savage Light
-Calum-
The light was luminous, seeping through every crack of the old church, slowly at first, then faster until all I saw was a frenzy of blinding white.
Silence. Silence.
I held Kate’s hand as our bodies tossed against the church wall and through it; limp dolls in a hurricane. Our bodies never touched the ground, but flew in the storm. At first, I felt nothing when we collided with the falling pieces of old glory. Then, all at once just as our hands broke apart, the pain and the sounds fell forever.
The white light exploded. The sound of wood cracking, walls crashing down. Glass shattering and falling like rain against my face.
I hit the ground hard.
I couldn’t breathe.
Sharp pain stuck in my chest. I looked around but the world was a mixture of blurred vision and dust. Still, I heard screaming.
I tasted blood.
“Kate?” I called. Felt slivers of church in my throat, choking.
I pushed myself up, splinters poking through my skin. I touched a finger to my lip and felt the wet stick of blood. “Kate?”
A voice made its way through the sky still falling, “Calum...”
“Kate!”
