by Dani Hoots
My eyes widened. “No…”
“Indeed. They were calling out the name ‘Renee’. You don’t happen to be called by that name, do you?”
I didn’t say a word. My parents were probably worried sick looking for me.
“Well, don’t worry. I took care of them.”
“No, you didn’t. They can’t be.” I felt as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest.
“They are dead. I killed them myself. They tried to call out to Admiral Flowers but I couldn’t let him know I made it to the city, now could I? Then again, I took care of him in the end as well. You shouldn’t have left your family, their fate is on your hands.”
I dropped down to my knees, feeling sick. I couldn’t go on, not after knowing that because of my irresponsibility, that they were dead. I shouldn’t have been so curious, I shouldn’t have looked for the demon. It was all my fault they were dead.
Captain Thomas bent down to me. “Now, tell me. Where is the tree?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, why would I know?”
“Because you were following the soucouyant, and tonight is a full moon. That is where they had to have been. Just show me the way and your life will be spared.”
Although I didn’t want to help these pirates, I knew that I also didn’t want to die. I nodded. “Fine. I will take you to him. But be warned, he is a demon and has much more power than the tree looks to have.”
He grabbed me by the hair. “I don’t care, child, I just want that power. Then I will be able to defeat Admiral Flowers and sail the seas once more without interference.”
I screamed as he dragged me into the forest. He demanded that I point the way to the tree, not letting go of my hair all the while. He wanted me to understand that if I didn’t show him where it was, even more pain would come. I wanted to cry, I wanted to run away, but there was no escape. I had to show them where this tree was. But in the end, I probably deserved the pain, after betraying Nia and Thandi, and then leaving my family to have to search for me while the pirates attacked. Their death was all my fault and I would have to live with that fact.
Though I doubted I would really be among the living that much longer. I would see my parents soon and we would be united once more.
We came to the tree, the same cold aura hung around it like a miserable fog. Captain Thomas simply gazed at it in awe. I couldn’t believe he wanted to find it, did he not understand the horrors it could bring to him?
He let go of me, but before I could try and run, the other two pirates grabbed my arms. I struggled but it was no use.
“Well, well. The demon Bazil. What power you must hold in this tree.” There was no answer. “Show yourself to me so that I may possess your power!”
There was still no answer. Captain Thomas became frustrated and drew his sword and thrust it into the tree. “You cursed creature, show yourself!”
Instead of the creature coming forth, the two fire orbs appeared in the sky and flew down upon Captain Thomas. He swung his sword wildly at them.
“No! Don’t hurt her!” I screamed as I pulled my arms free. The two pirates that held me back were too preoccupied with trying to figure out what to do about the soucouyant that they forgot all about me.
I ran up to the tree as Captain Thomas kept swinging at the fire orbs. “Please stop! Don’t hurt her.”
Captain Thomas kept swinging his sword, and didn’t see I was right behind him as I was trying to prevent Nia from getting hurt. I didn’t need another death because of me. I felt the metal pierce through my stomach, sharp pain shooting through my body. I fell to the ground, warm liquid draining out of my body and onto the ground seeping into the very accursed roots of the tree.
“Yes! Yes! The last of the blood I need!” the demon from the tree yelled out. The ground began to shake.
“What’s going on?” Captain Thomas yelled.
I couldn’t move, the injury to my stomach still pouring out blood. I felt as if I was weakening, darkness overwhelming me. Everything that was happening around me seemed like they didn’t matter, as I looked up towards the sky, where I would once again be reunited with those I loved.
“Renee!” I heard Nia call out frantically.
Instead of the heaven I thought I would appear in, two orbs floated over me.
“I’m… sorry…” I whispered.
“No, Renee, you can’t die. Not now.”
My eyes started to close when I felt something enter my body. A fire, warm and bright. I gasped as another entered my body through the wound in my stomach. It was the two soucouyant, they had gone into my body through my wound.
I never have experienced such a feeling of fire, of both intense energy and power. I felt as if I could do anything. I opened my eyes to find the world spinning around me. I was still dizzy, but my body was trying to adjust, to almost come back alive.
But that’s what was happening, wasn’t it?
The body of Nia and Thandi were destroyed. I saw Captain Thomas and the pirates put something lethal in the mortar. Did that mean that they gave me their powers to save my life since they had no life to go back to? I wondered if Thandi only simply helped due to her sister wanting that of her, and because I had ruined everything for them.
It was all my fault, everything was. All the people I loved were dead and it was because I couldn’t sit still. It was because I had to know the truth, because I couldn’t be a proper French lady. I should have just died, then it would have been all over, but that didn’t happen.
No, I was given a second chance—a chance that I couldn’t let go to waste. I had to stop the demon, I had to stop the pirates. It was what I was meant to do.
I wished for an adventure, after all. This is what I got.
As I came back to the world of the living, I watched as the demon stepped out of the tree in a ghastly form. It appeared like a shadow of a man, but the physical form was not actually there. Captain Thomas kept shooting at it, as if that would do anything. The demon grabbed Captain Thomas around the neck and snapped his neck in two. The two other pirates just stared in horror.
The demon didn’t stop at that. He opened the mouth of the dead pirate and the shadow entered the body. It was just like what the soucouyant did to me.
The once dead pirate stood up, examined himself.
“Hmm, this is quite the change.” He moved his arms, enjoying their flexibility. “But adequate. Better than some tree. Yes, this body will do quite well.”
“C—Captain?” One of the other pirates said.
Captain Thomas turned. “Yes. I am your captain. You shall take orders from me.” He lifted his hand and fire appeared. “Or you shall die.”
They nodded quickly. “Yes, yes captain.”
He turned to me, the demon that possessed the captain. “As for you, foolish child, you let these men destroy my two servants, and both their powers now reside in you. It was quick thinking on their part, as they would have faded away in minutes if you hadn’t spilt all of your blood before them. If you think they were just doing it to save you, think again.” He grabbed me by the throat and pulled me up off the ground. “They knew I needed a new servant, and with them two being the last of the soucouyant, they couldn’t just disappear. You will serve me until the day comes where you must give your life to another for me. You understand.”
I quickly nodded, even though I had no idea what that even meant. I truly believed that Nia did it to save me, but if what he says was true, she was just thinking about this demon, her master’s will.
The demon threw me to the ground. “Now, where is my ship? I must leave this place so that I can control the world once more and bring destruction upon the humans who thought they could rule this planet.”
The two pirates scrambled to answer the question. “Captain, your ship is under attack by the Admiral. We have no way off this island.”
He smacked them both for saying there was no escape. “Silence! You think a mere human can hold me hostage on this island for lon
g, one that has no idea the magic that exists here? Gather the men, we will escape this island once and for all!”
They nodded and ran off. I started to get up to follow them, when the demon grabbed me by the back of the neck. “Not so fast, little girl. You are not leaving my sight. You are the only one who knows the true powers of the soucouyant, I can’t have you telling anyone what has happened. No, you are destined to serve me, to bring me the blood of these mortals so that my strength can return fully.”
His strength hadn’t returned as I had thought. I nodded quickly. “Yes, yes captain.”
The captain threw me down on the ground. “Now, let us head to this ship.”
I kept quiet as the rest of the pirates got on the ship. No one noticed that Captain Thomas was now possessed by a demon. They just went on being pirates, I supposed, as Admiral Flowers had prepared his military defenses back on the island. I wondered if the rest of the crew knew why they had come on this island in the first place, because Captain Thomas wanted to claim the power of the demon Bazil. However that backfired, now he was possessed by the creature. I don’t think the other two pirates could have even tried to explain what had happened, as they were too afraid of both their captain and the fact that no one would believe them.
As for me, I sat near the wheel of the ship, out of the way, huddled in a ball, appearing as if I was just a scared little girl, but honestly I was thinking about the way I could bring the demon down. He said he needed me in order to restore all of his strength. Even though he was able to escape the tree, that didn’t mean he had his complete power back. I had to do something before it was too late, I had to bring an end to this demon before none of us could do anything to stop him.
On the way to the pirate ship, he had said he wanted to take over the world, bring his demonic rule back, let the creatures of the night come out of the darkness and live once again. He mentioned others that we would revive, creatures scattered throughout the world, and that he was only the first of many who could take this world down. I simply listened silently, realizing if I wanted to avenge my parents, if I wanted to use the powers that Nia and Thandi gave me for good. I would have to not follow in their steps by serving this monster, but actually destroy him once and for all.
Even if I didn’t want to destroy Bazil for revenge, I knew I couldn’t let him take rule over the world. There was too much goodness to let such an evil creature to take power. There was so much more I wanted to endure, so much more I wanted to explore for him to just go and destroy it. There were also so many people who would suffer, I knew, under his rule and I couldn’t allow that to happen.
I made a wish for an adventure and this was it. I had to see it all the way through.
It would be hard, I knew, for he was much more powerful than I ever could be. But from what I could tell, there were many pirates on the ship that did not like his authority. They didn’t know their new captain was a demon, but whatever Captain Thomas was like before they landed on this island, they did not care for his rule now.
From the whispers I heard from among the other men, landing on Tobago had left them to suffer many casualties, which I didn’t care much about because they had killed my parents. Apparently Sir Admiral John Flowers had been searching for Captain Thomas for a while, and that it hadn’t been their first run-in. Captain Thomas had gotten in a fight with his leader Captain Bartholomew and many men reluctantly sided with Captain Thomas, thinking he would be better, but in the end it wasn’t. Now some of the men under his rule wanted him dead and I would use that to my advantage.
Just as Captain Thomas said, we were able to get away from Admiral Flowers’ men before they could gear up their own ship and come after us. He had shot Admiral Flowers, but rumors of him surviving the wound spread to the pirates before we had left the island. I didn’t know if they were true, whether or not he was alive, but I prayed to God he was. I didn’t want another death on my conscience. If I hadn’t been there, Admiral Flowers would have been able to stop Captain Thomas and none of this would have happened.
The ship itself looked like it also faced a lot of destruction from cannonballs that the Admiral and his men had caused by firing at their ship earlier, when they were first sailing onto the island’s shore. I was surprised that it was still in one piece, though, and hoped something wouldn’t happen to leave us stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Once we were in the clear, Captain Thomas, Bazil really, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the captain’s quarters. Shutting the door behind us, he flung me into the corner.
“Now, little girl, we will have our little talk.”
I stayed in the corner, wrapping my arms around my legs, afraid of what the demon could do to me. What he would do to me.
“Don’t be scared, I’m not going to hurt you, not unless you disobey me.”
Yeah, that wasn’t reassuring. I didn’t know what to believe when he talked, whether or not he would just lie to get his way and then kill me in the end.
“Now, you are going to promise to serve me, give me your oath that I am your master, and when I create the new world, the world that this place should be, you will have all the power that you desire. Anything you want, just name it. All you have to do is follow me until the end of time.”
“And if I refuse?” I whispered.
He slapped me across the face. “There is no other choice. If you refuse me, you will suffer such a fate that you could never imagine.” He held out his hand just as a ball of fire appeared. It wasn’t the same as the soucouyant’s fire orb, the soucouyant’s fire was a life force, a living thing. This fire was just pure energy, pure dark power.
And I could feel the burning heat coming off of it.
Bazil let go of the fire and flung it towards me. It hit my skin, burning my flesh. I screamed out in agony. It was worse than the pain the sword had brought me, which I didn’t think was possible. I looked down at the skin where it burned. It was black, scorched and smelled worse than anything I could have ever imagined. Moments later, the wound was healed.
My eyes widened. “How, how is that possible?”
He laughed. “You are a soucouyant. You can heal within seconds. The only time you can’t heal is when someone puts salt in the bowl of which your skin lays.”
I looked at him quizzically. “Salt? That’s what the pirates used? That’s it?”
“Salt is very powerful against demons like us. It is pure and we can’t handle it.”
So that was his weakness. Salt.
“Now, wait here just a moment.” The captain left the room and within a few brief minutes, he returned with the two men who had seen him become possessed by the demon. They appeared frightened, which I was as well. What was Bazil’s plan?
He sat the two pirates down. “Now, my dear Renee, drink their blood.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“Become a soucouyant and retrieve their blood for me. Only you can do it.”
The pirates tried to leave, but Bazil was stronger than them and held them in place.
“But I don’t know how.”
Bazil nodded to the bowl that was beside me. “Dump your skin into there and feast off the flesh of these humans.”
I looked anxiously at the mortar. I had no idea how I could even begin to take off my skin, it wasn’t like I could do that as a human anytime I had wanted. How would one even go about that?
I shook my head. “But I don’t know how.”
“Will it! The demon inside of you will make it possible.”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to hurt these two men, even though they could have been the ones who helped kill my parents, but I had no choice either way. This was the only way I could bring down Bazil, making him think I had submit to his control.
The only way I figured I could release the soucouyant inside of me was to close my eyes and just think about the fire I felt inside. After that, I didn’t quite remember what happened. All I knew was that I felt disoriented, as if it wa
s all just a dream. When I opened my eyes, there was blood before me, and the two pirates were dead.
Bazil stood, there was a grin on his face. “Good, good. You are as strong as I had hoped for. Nia had picked well.”
“What do you mean?”
He laughed. “The reason she worked for your parents wasn’t because she wanted to, it was because she knew you would be a strong woman some day, and could become a soucouyant just like her. And she was right, but too bad you weren’t able to grow any older. You are stuck at this age until the end of time.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She had this planned all along? How could she have deceived me like this, how could she have acted like she wanted to help me when this whole time she was just trying to make me become just like her. A creature of the dark.
