The Deception Dance

by Rita Stradling

  “Do not worry, Raven, after I open the gates, I will probably get the five million souls I need to bring you back in a month. Those Tapper brothers ruined everything I wanted for us, we need a fresh start.”

  Of course it would end this way. For a demon, the ends always justify the means. Stephen knew, knew the moment he was thrown beside me, that Andras would murder me to get his 'ends'. He wasn’t signaling for me to stop Chauncey, he was telling me to escape.

  For every two steps I take backward he takes one forward but he’s keeping pace with me, his bloody sword drips at his side.

  “I confessed my sins, I’ve been absolved,” I lie. “I’ll go to heaven!”

  He shakes his head and says almost tenderly, “That is not true, and even if it were, it would not matter, Raven. You have been marked: you promised me that if I went to Hell, you would follow me; and I’m going to Hell, now.”

  The dream, I said that in my dream. I touch the back of my neck, “That...that was just a dream.”

  “It was not a dream. You said it, promised it to me...”

  “Not in this lifetime!”

  “That does not matter, it was binding for eternity. You are marked, you are mine, for eternity.” His arm reaches out to my neck but I dodge him.

  “I dreamt it...” I inhale, “…we were lying together, and you had a different face. We spoke Swedish. I told you I’d challenge the devil for you...”

  My back hits a wall.

  Something, everything clicks, like a key fitting into its lock. “I dreamt it while I was in Leijonskjöld Slot...”

  He swings the sword up.

  “Where you couldn’t influence me...”

  Andras hesitates, his black blade stabbing the air, while glaring down.

  “Those dreams, those memories, they came from me. I remembered our past lives in my dreams; you didn’t give me those memories.”

  He is surrounding me, the wall at my back, his wings at my sides and his sword above me, but it doesn’t matter; he’s no longer leading this dance.

  I know, now; I know exactly what to say, how to take the lead. “I remembered you with love, so much love...”

  His sword lowers, not at me, to his side.

  “It was your eyes; I remembered your sparkling eyes. That’s why, in this life, I thought to trust you; that’s why I wanted to love you, because of my dreams... my love dreams.”

  Andras takes a step back. A smile flickers across his face.

  “You’re right, Andras, we do need a fresh start.” I step forward. “You do it; you bring your blade down.”

  He shakes his head, he’s walking backward now, losing ground, and I match his steps.

  I demand, “Give me a new life, Andras. Give me a new life!”

  He sheathes his sword back into nonexistence.

  “And I’ll have new dreams... dreams of hate!” I bite the word at him.

  He halts, the tip of his nose singeing while his body moves up and down with heavy panting.

  “And when I see your emerald eyes again I’ll only think one thing...I’ll think: run!”

  His sparkling eyes open wide.

  I smile a cruel unforgiving smile. “And then, finally, I’ll be free of you!”

  Andras’s giant black wings burst into flame; each feather igniting white-hot, popping into flame one after the other. Andras’s head thrusts forward elongating and morphing. The bird features and feathers bubbling out. He looks like the fearsome gargoyle masthead of a boat with sails out and flaming. Where his face had been a giant black beak opens.

  I only get my hands up in time to muffle the screech he directs at my face. I can feel the floor shake underfoot. His rage is palpable, emitting from him hotter than the fire. A pillar crashes down from the colonnade smashing down and spaying marble behind Andras. It is followed by three more.

  His caw is deafening, even muffled by my hands on my ears.

  I’ve had enough. I scream right back into his face. This scream, the scream that’s been lodged in me since Andras came crashing into my life, rips out of me.

  We stand there, screaming into each other’s faces. Our rage, our frustration, burns like the fire in Andras’s skin.

  How I hate him.

  How I’ve loved him.

  How I want him destroyed.

  Destroyed like this building, Copenhagen City Hall, which is crashing down around us. Hell might have swallowed up Chauncey and father Dixon and Denmark and Sweden and millions of innocent lives but I’m not letting it take me.

  When Andras’s features snap back to human, he slumps down to the floor.

  I don’t stop screaming. I let my hands curl into fists and drop to my sides, I scream until the sound disintegrates in my mouth. It feels fantastic.

  Andras pushes back to his feet. The burns have crept up to his eyes, down to his fingernails and have encircled his toes. The little bit left of his once giant wings still flicker with flames.

  He coughs out, “You told me, you would make a deal.”

  “Yeah,” my voice is also choked and croaky, “That was before you stabbed Stephen.”

  He slumps farther, almost toppling toward me, “You will, or you will not?”

  I don’t have a choice, really. I nod, “I will. But these are my terms: you can’t kill me and you have to not open the gates of Hell!”

  His eyes, the only part of him beside his hair not blackened, fix on me, “And for that, if I do what you say, you will not fall in...” He coughs, “Fall in...”

  “Fall in...love,” I supply.

  “...with anyone, until I return.” His voice, movements, everything about him seems unsteady; he probably doesn’t have a minute left until he will burn out entirely.

  “Alright!” I nod, “If you leave me alive, do not open the gates of Hell, break the seals of Solomon, or ascend in your demonic form I will not fall in love with anyone until you have returned to earth.”

  “And you will give me another chance. When I have a new body you will spend a month with me...”

  “No.” I say, pleading, “Maybe, a week...”

  “A month. You will spend a month with me, I will not negotiate.” His eyes blaze into me but his body teeters from side to side.

  I bite my lip and inhale, “Okay, it’s a deal.”

  “If I do leave you here alive and do not open the gates of Hell, do not fail me, Raven. If you do, I will ascend in my true form and the first person I will murder is the man you care for." He grins; his face is completely charred and webbed with fissures. His green eyes stay fixed on me. “Don't even dare to hope that you will ever escape me."

  "That's what you think," I say, lowering my head to glare at him, “We’ll see. I will never love you.”

  Andras eyes narrow on me, and then he stumbles closer. He’s all but burnt out, even his halo of blond curls smolder. He straightens his body to its full height. “Now come. Would it not be fitting to seal our deal with a kiss?”

  Do I need to? I didn't need a kiss to seal that deal before. I have no doubt that kissing him will sear like hot coals on my lips. But … He probably only has a few seconds left, at best. If I don’t kiss him will the deal be off?

  I close my eyes, lean forward and kiss his broiling mouth.

  Automatically, his fingers tangle into my hair, pulling me into him. I beat at him, struggling to get back.

  I’m burning. My hair is on fire. I smack at his arms, kick at his legs, trying to pull free… to struggle out of his grasp. I scream. He either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.

  Large chunks of my hair burn off, sizzling in the air.

  Andras clasps me tight to his flaking chest, he whispers, “If there is no chance to change your mind, I don't want to leave you. No, I think I will take you with me.”

  Then he erupts into a blazing column of fire.

  All I see is a blazing white light. Somehow, I don’t feel any pain, I’m beyond feeling anything. I think I’m dying… again.

  Then I see fire lick
along my skin like a thousand sharp tongues, yet, I feel nothing. Where I had before smelled rot and ash, now, I smell nothing. I taste, and hear nothing. The individual flames coalesce and all I can see is white, a blazing light, all around me.

  My senses extinguished, all I am is individual thoughts in a column of Hell fire. But, my thoughts are clear, loud in this inferno. I know I am in a blazing column of Hell fire, strangely, I recognize Hell fire as easily as I recognize water or ice or air. And, I know Andras is still here; even though I can’t sense him by any of my five senses, but I know that he is still present. Perhaps he has no corporeal body, but his malevolent spirit still waits; waits for me to die, so he can drag me into Hell.

  I feel another presence too, not a conscious one, a vacuum nudging against my unfelt body, an energetic hook.

  I’m not afraid. Strangely the vacuum feels comforting, familiar.

  Andras’s spirit suddenly beats against my consciousness, and I feel his hunger. No not just hunger, a fathomless misery and emptiness that starved for me as if I could fill it, save it. But the more his spirit hammers against me, the more I see it, conceive it... his presence claws into me, wraps around me.

  His spirit clings on and drags my soul toward that vacuum. But my body isn’t releasing my soul, and suddenly I feel something. Air. I’m breathing. It fills a chest I can now feel. And then there is a steady rhythm, a heartbeat, in my chest.

  Then, yet another presence emerges, not Andras, not the vacuum, neither sentient nor devoid of sentiency. Me, but not me. Alive, but not alive. Without my permission, my mouth opens, and then stretches, larger and larger, so impossibly large. The vacuum seeps inside me, and for whatever reason, I let it. I feel the void, the emptiness within me; my eyes are pits, my mouth a cavern.

  I hear my voice (though I am not speaking) say clear echoing words, “Silly demon, Hell fire can’t burn me. I am the lies, the void, and the dark; you want to find a way into Hell? You’ll find one through me.”

  From Andras I feel a clear, pulse of emotion, shock; right before I let the coils of his spirit sink into me. I consume him, he doesn’t even resist.

  The void pulses, pushing at the confines of my body, making me aware of every inch of myself. I flex my fingers, and then use them to scoop at my chin, which feels as loose and boneless as a rubber sheet (if such a thing exists). I gather the folds pulling them up to my upper lip. I close my eyelids millimeter by millimeter over the pits where my eyes should be, until my upper and lower lids connect.

  “Let me out,” my voice says; but, as I am literally holding my mouth closed, I know I’m not speaking. It whispers, “Open me.”

  No. I think at it.

  “Aren’t you curious?”

  No, no, no, no, no…

  “You are so weak, so pathetic, your body fragile and aging. Any human can kill you. Don’t you want to be strong?”

  No, no, no, no…

  “I will be unleashed, it is written. If you are the one to unleash me, I can give you everything you want.”

  No!

  My chin, that had been rubbery folds in my fingers, merges together, bones solidifying under my touch.

  The presence, or more the absence, that had filled every inch of my body snaps closed; it’s existence, in me, extinguishing.

  When I feel my eyeballs reform completely, I open my eyes; they are weighed down with a chalky powder.

  At first, there is only the color white; but colors emerge, surfacing as if they float up from the bottom of an ivory pool. First I see the orange, red and blue of fire, then the grey of ash. The ash piles on my eyelashes, I feel it sliding off me. I am surrounded in it, like a perfect even circle of snow, with me at its center.

  I stand, feeling powder slide down my back, chest, legs, and arms. I step through the circle, leaving footprints in the soot. Without really understanding, I step into something wet and look down to where powder is drifting off me and settling into Stephen’s pool of blood.

  When I look down to where Andras’s fire had been, only a ring of soot remains, with my foot prints leading from the center. There is nothing of Andras, not even a surviving feather. Stephen and I are alone.

  Stephen, the name wakes me like a punch to the cheek.

  I half fall, half crawl, down to Stephen. He’s lying sprawled out on his back. His shirt is balled up and held over his wound, he must have managed that while Andras and I were fighting.

  I lean in over his face, hands on his chest, searching for any sign of life. But he doesn’t seem to be breathing.

  I almost jump back as he rakes in a breath. His eyelids flicker; his chest expands. I lean in to hear his breathing; his breaths are shallow with a definite gargle sound to them. I’ve heard (from movies) that stomach wounds take a long time to kill a person…maybe…

  “He...”

  I lean my ear in, not sure if he actually spoke or if it was just his breath.

  “He...” Stephen’s words are quieter than a whisper. “He called your bluff.” His eyes slide open to shift unfocused to the top of my head.

  “It wasn’t a bluff,” I place my hands on his shoulders, “Or at least I don’t think it was. I said something really stupid at the end...”

  “I heard you bargain...” He swallows, “You did beautiful … you were amazing.”

  “Stephen, we have to get you out of here.” I say, “You’ve lost so much blood; we have to get you to a hospital.”

  He breathes a chuckle. “Don’t be ridiculous, Raven. I’m not going anywhere.”

  A large chunk of balcony meteors into the marble knocking over a burning trashcan and flinging the embers in to the air, they fall down like rain (from Hell). I cover Stephen with my body but the embers fall short. “Stephen, the building is collapsing; we’re going to be crushed.”

  He coughs. “There’s only one thing I want you to do for me, before I die...”

  “Stop ... just stop talking, we have got to go,” I say.

  “No please, Raven,” he grabs my wrist. “I only have one last request. All I want is for you to give me a ... could you please just give me one ... cigarette.”

  My laugh comes out more like a sob. He’s joking? Now? I shake my head. “I don’t have any cigarettes, Stephen.”

  “Ah, are you serious?” He exhales heavily. “Well, you better help me up then; I can’t die without one last cigarette. What are you waiting for?” His unfocused gaze settles on me. “Did you know that you’re naked?”

  I didn’t, actually; but when I look down, I realize all I’m wearing is a thin layer of ash. For some stupid reason, (even after everything that happened) I feel heat rush to my face. Grabbing Stephens’s blood soaked ripped up jacket off the floor, I tie it around me. It’ll have to do.

  I pull at his shoulders to help hold him forward. It is hard to determine the size of the wound in Stephen’s back since his entire back is soaked; but if the amount of blood (and possibly other liquids) still oozing out is any indicator, the hole is big. Looking at his back, I know there is no way any person could survive that wound, no matter what.

  I’m being obstinate, I know that; but, if I leave Stephen here to be crushed, I also know that I’ll never leave this place, either. Not really.

  Getting Stephen to sit up is tricky, to stand, almost impossible. After five minutes of failed attempts, I’m worried we’re just worsening his wound, but Stephen finally stays vertical. Pulling Stephen along is a lot like dragging a sack of rocks, he keeps his muggy dazed gaze on me, as if he’s wondering when I’m going to give up.

  I grumble under the strain, “You know you really should quit smoking.”

  He huffs out a laugh, his voice comes out slurred and drunken sounding, but I think he says, “What a thing to tell a man who’s just been impaled by a sword."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Day Fifty Seven

  We step out into the morning; or at least, that is what I hope the gray in the sky signifies. Stephen is heavy on my shoulder. I examine the plaza
as I hurry and stumble down the stairs. There’s not a demon in sight; but every inch of the plaza is crawling with movement. Large black birds cover the space like a living blanket wriggling over the paving stones. They spill out of our path as I flee from the building. Behind us, I hear Copenhagen City Hall collapsing.

  The ravens stare up at me, beady eyes asking me something I can’t understand.

  Stephen slumps further, and I struggle to hold his weight. I ache everywhere, every muscle squeezing, cramping. One more step and then Stephen pulls me down to the cobble stones.

  “Don’t tell anyone about the fire,” Stephen says feverishly, and then his eyelashes flicker shut.

  The ravens press in, watching us greedily, as if we’re breakfast.

  My flailing limbs make the closest birds scatter, but there are hundreds more to replace each one who flies away. I free myself from Stephen’s arms and manage to my feet. I look over the sea of black wings. They don’t fight or squawk or search for food; not a sound is made, not a movement, they are waiting for something, something from me.

  “Screw you!” I shout, belligerently, “Screw every one of you little evil…I hate you! Andras is gone!” I scream my next words, “So, you can all just follow him to Hell!”

  To my surprise, they seem to listen; the sound of thousands of shifting wings whisper across the courtyard. Simultaneously, every raven pushes off the ground and takes to the air. They rise like a dark shadow lifting from the world. I topple, hitting the ground hard, near Stephen, watching as the cloud of birds disperse into the sky. “An unkindness,” I whisper, remembering what a group of ravens are called.

  I look to Stephen one more time, his chest twitches.

  I whisper, "Survive, please, please..." My eyes slip closed.

  Strong hands shake me.

  I blink open my eyes. The hands are big, Albert’s hands. I blink into Albert’s face. “Albert,” I croak. My eyes close again. I shake my head and force them open.

  “Raven?” He says, looking down at me. “What happened to you?”

  “Albert. Stephen...”

  I look over, where Stephen was there only a pool of crimson.