by DB King
Chapter 4
With the children just behind him, Alec raced as quickly as he could to the Crypt. Whatever strange sense of doom had filled the forest while they sat around the fire had fled. The sun broke through the clouds, bathing the forest in an ambience so cozy it was almost absurd. But the ice refused to melt around Alec’s heart.
I have to make it to the Crypt, he told himself, pumping his legs faster. The children struggled to keep up with him, tripping over each other as they tried not to fall behind. Normally he’d never have treated them like this, but all he could think about was that thing behind the door, flowing and roaring like a hungry lion. If Marcus made it down the stairs, and to that strange door…
The Crypt shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him, yet it did. He burst from the trees, the tips of his boots nearly touching the bottom step leading to the building’s only entrance. Thick strands of ivy covered most of the rectangle, forming a gateway to passage.
The vines had clearly been pulled back only moments ago. Some of them still swayed faintly against the stone.
“Damn it!” Alec swore—the first time he’d ever done so in front of the boys. “All of you stay here. I’m going in after him.”
“No, don’t!” Thomas clutched at his shirt, his sniffles threatening to turn into sobs. “Don’t leave us!”
“I’m not leaving anyone,” Alec assured them. “Least of all Marcus. Mortimer—you’re in charge. Keep an eye on the boys, make sure no one goes anywhere. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, all of you go back to the Archon Temple, and stick together.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Mortimer protested. “Walk the woods alone?”
Alec didn’t have time to fight. “Fine,” he said, making his way up the stairs. “Thomas, I promise you, I’ll be right back. Be brave for me, okay?”
To his great surprise, the boy did. He banished his tears, giving Alec the look of a fierce little lion. “I’ll make sure none of the boys sneak off either,” he said, standing up like a soldier.
Alec’s heart nearly broke in two. He gave the boy a pat on the head and headed down the stairs.
The entranceway was as dark as a basement cellar. Grateful for the light, Alec drew Tanuin’s dagger from his belt, allowing the strange illumination to cast deep shadows on the rock walls. The stairs were just as he remembered them, steep and trending directly downward. Footprints showed in the dust, the size and shape of Marcus’s.
“Marcus!” Alec cupped a hand around his mouth as he made his way down the steps. “Come back up, son! Listen to me, it’s very dangerous down here! Just come back up to me and I promise you won’t be in trouble! I won’t tell the monks anything!”
As he descended the narrow staircase, the fear Alec had felt as a young boy returned with a vengeance. Back then, he’d been only worried for himself—now he feared for one of his charges. The thought of Marcus lying helpless before whatever lay beyond that door filled him with dread. He took the stairs two at a time, practically leaping down them.
“Marcus!” His voice shook, though he tried his best to hide it. “Please!”
He trailed off. His feet froze to the steps, the noise coming from below enough to turn the blood in his veins to ice. It wasn’t the roar he’d heard all those years ago. The guttural growl of an unfathomable, monstrous beast. That he might have been able to understand.
Something at the bottom of the stairs sang. With a woman’s voice.
Alec reached the final step, his heart hammering against his ribcage. The ornate door stood at the bottom, just as he remembered it—but now it was wide open. The space behind it was not the dank, horrifying darkness he remembered. Torches lit the walls, hanging from sconces at intervals as if a monk had been given the task of keeping the place illuminated. A thick tapestry covered the floor, ornate symbols weaved into its fabric that made Alec’s eyes hurt to look at too closely.
At the back of the room stood a woman. Or what Alec thought was a woman, at least—it was hard to tell. She had her back to Alec, singing gently in a voice that sounded almost sweet. The walls caused the song to echo, filling the stairwell with the ghostly tune. Though Alec thought he heard something discordant in the song— like a single flat note, right before the melody resolved to the root.
She wore a sheer white dress that did very little to hide her figure. Alec realized abruptly that this was indeed a woman—of a kind he’d rarely had the opportunity to see. As if she’d read his mind, she took that moment to turn. Alec’s heart skipped a beat. The woman was almost painfully beautiful, with long golden hair and high cheekbones. The face of an angel.
The woman held Marcus in her arms. The boy looked as if he were almost asleep—but Marcus had never looked that cherubic, either asleep or awake. His nostrils twitched, confirming he was alive, but the thought that he’d simply curled up in this woman’s arms of his own free will seemed too absurd to be true.
The woman smiled. “Hello, young man,” she said, and there was something in her voice that made Alec’s skin crawl. “Does this belong to you?”
The dagger flashed in Alec’s hand. He’d never counted himself the bravest of the men who served at the Archon Temple, but in that moment he simply didn’t have time for fear. Marcus was in danger, one of his charges was in danger, and if that meant he had to fight his way out of this horrible place, then that’s exactly what he’d do to protect the boy.
“What have you done to him, witch?” Alec asked. “Release him and we’ll leave. He never meant to intrude upon you, I swear.”
A strange smile spread across the woman’s face. It seemed almost too wide for her features. “No intrusion at all, Alec,” she said, as if Alec had apologized for being early to a party. “I’ve merely given the boy rest. Rest from this world and all its petty cruelties.” The smile widened even further. “You would know more about that than most, wouldn’t you, child?”
“I never told you my name,” he said, taking a step toward the strange woman. “How do you know me?”
The woman shrugged. “I know everything about you, child. Your past, your present… your future. You were meant for so much more, yet you’ve already wasted so much of your short life within the Archon Temple’s walls. Would you like to know your future?”
Alec shuddered. “Let him go.”
A tinkling laugh escaped the woman’s lips. It wasn’t remotely human. “If you stay in the Temple, you’ll die an old man,” she said, chuckling cruelly. “Though unfulfilled—in so many ways. If you join the Expeditionary Force, as you’ve fantasized about so many times, you’ll die at the hands of a Reaver.” She let out a sniff. “A pity those are the only options I see. You could have been something useful.”
“Who are you?” Alec asked. “What are you?”
“When you look at a faraway hill in the distance,” she whispered, cocking her head to the side, “I am what’s beyond it. When you look deep into the ocean, as far as human eyes can see—I wait just beyond the border of your perception.” She giggled in a way that was almost girlish. “I am Death, young man. And I have been with you since the moment you were born.”
With that, she began to sing.
The haunting lullaby filled the chamber, bouncing off the wall and redoubling as the creature made a sound that was anything but joyful. For a moment, Alec’s heart hurt from the beauty of it—then more of those broken, discordant notes joined the melody. A deep, sinister tone entered the song, warping it into something twisted and evil.
The woman’s smile dissolved, along with the rest of her beautiful disguise. What lay beneath was the angular, vicious face of an apex predator. Her teeth glistened like knives in the torchlight.
“Come here!” she shrieked, her voice going banshee-shrill in an instant. She didn’t launch herself at Alec or assume a battle stance—she simply fell, as if gravity had reversed and Alec’s body was the floor. Nothing in the world moved like that.
The dagger fell from Alec’s nerveless fingers as the wome
n’s shriek rattled his skull. He had just enough time to see Marcus roll to the floor, stirring, before the creature slammed into him. The room shifted around him as he flopped onto his back, going down in a heap.
The monster—for it had never been a beautiful woman, not truly—stared down at him, her nails elongating like daggers. Those sharp fangs flashed in her face, her eyes pointing in the opposite direction like a deer’s. She lifted her hands to skewer him, her long tongue lolling from her drooling mouth.
Somehow he found the dagger. No one was more surprised than Alec as he lifted it to parry, catching the demon’s swipe on the downswing. Anger flared in its inhuman face.
“Eat you,” the creature hissed. It sounded half-demon, half-witch. “Eat you up!”
Her jaws snapped just in front of his face, going in for the kill. Then, suddenly, they paused. The creature twisted, a savage grin spreading across its inhuman features. Marcus crawled across the floor, desperately trying to reach the stairs.
“You will not leave me, child,” the monster snarled. It left a gash in Alec’s arm as it sprang from on top of him, like a startled cat. Its nails clicked against the stone as it crawled towards Marcus on all fours, moving much faster than the still-befuddled child. Marcus wouldn’t make it more than a third of the way up the stairs before the creature pounced.
“No!” he shrieked. The word bubbled up from deep inside of him; as he spoke it, the torches flickered. “Leave him alone!”
The creature paused for a moment, turning around with fear in its face. Then it dismissed the emotion, licking its jaws as it crawled towards Marcus.
“I said…!” Marcus lifted an arm. Something screamed inside of him; something that had always been there, waiting for a moment like this. “Leave! Him! ALONE!”
The torches blazed to life like miniature bonfires—and leapt out of their sconces.
Inches away from Marcus, the monster turned completely around. Reflections of the flames danced in its disbelieving eyes.
“That isn’t possible!” the creature roared. “Only the Archon…!”
The flames poured into Alec’s body. It felt like they seared his insides, yet they passed without leaving a scratch. They burned brighter and brighter, enough to blind, but Alec no longer felt them.
He only felt peace.
And the flames.
He was the flames.
The flames were him.
Chapter 5
Alec reached outward, pushing with mental muscles he’d never flexed before. The flames exploded from his fingers, racing across the floor like a living thing. Like a part of his own body, sent out in the manner of a sorcerer’s familiar.
The wave struck the monster in the back. She howled with pain and rage, turning away from the prone form of Marcus slumped against the stairs. Alec’s triumph at distracting the demon from the boy dissolved as she charged, intent on killing him before he could do whatever he’d just done a second time.
Halfway across the chamber she jumped, tendrils of smoke rising from her back as her claws extended. Alec felt the stone, grasping blindly, and found the hilt of Tanuin’s dagger waiting for him. The blade reacted as if it had moved itself to the right spot, blazing with a pure white light in his fingers.
The monster flinched before the light, giving Alec just enough time to raise the dagger. The jump that should have launched the monster on top of him instead carried it a pace or two in front of him, and before he knew what he was doing, he leapt forward and struck. The blade flashed in his hands again and again, stabbing the beast. He barely felt the steel sink into flesh; the blade remained supernaturally sharp.
The monster screamed with each stab, but its cries grew less intense as Alec continued thrusting with a desperate madness. Finally, the creature's screaming ceased, and its eyes rolled back in its head. For a moment, only the whites showed, and Alec became certain the creature was about to lose consciousness. It slumped to the side as the dagger sunk into its chest, buried all the way to the hilt.
Twisted fingers wrapped around his own as he pulled back for another strike. The monster recovered smoothly, holding him tight. Struggle as he might, he found he could not escape. The creature’s arms were as tight as iron bands, constricting around him like a snake.
“Just a taste,” the demon hissed, drool trickling from its jaws. Without a moment’s hesitation, it sank its fangs into the meat of his shoulder. Pain flared up and down Alec’s side, along with a curious warmness that grew more intense with each passing moment. Poison of some kind?
The monster’s neck wrenched backwards, tearing out a chunk of Alec’s flesh. He felt faint and dizzy at the sight of blood streaming from the beast’s jaws. The blade sunk from his nerveless fingers, clattering against the stone. Tanuin’s gift hadn’t helped—the monster shrugged off his strikes, despite the fact that he’d riddled it with a pincushion’s number of deep stabs.
A normal creature would have been killed long ago. But the monster that resided in the Crypt was no ordinary beast.
The monster spit out a mouthful of his flesh, licking its chops.
“Delicious!” it groaned, snapping those sharp fangs right in front of Alec’s face. “You taste different than the others, boy! Must be that wonderful gift of yours!”
Gift?
Thinking quickly, Alec reached for that strange sensation he’d felt while watching the demon advance on Marcus. The whole thing already felt as if it had happened to someone else. Someone braver and more powerful than a boy whose eighteenth birthday was today. Try as he might, he couldn’t summon a second wave of those strange, unearthly flames.
The beast felt him struggle. Could it tell how helpless he was? From the low, throaty chuckle erupting from its throat, he sensed it could.
“You did something truly special, young man,” the monster giggled, running its tongue down his cheek. “Too bad you’ll never get the chance to learn what it was—”
The monster’s head shot to the side, its expression filled with pain. A moment later, Alec realized what had caused it. Marcus stood at the bottom of the stairs, one of the stones littering the floor in his small hands. He’d thrown another one at the monster, hitting it in the back of the head.
“Put him down!” Marcus yelled, tossing another rock. This one went wide, shattering against the Crypt wall.
“Oh, is that what you want?” The creature’s banshee features stretched to inhuman proportions. “Very well!”
Alec felt himself dropped like a sack of potatoes. The beast leaned down low, its tongue grazing his ear. “You watch,” the dreadful woman hissed. “I’ll eat him first, then I’ll come back and finish you off. I’ve already had a taste, after all…”
No! Sweat broke out on Alec’s forehead. Something felt truly wrong within him—the wound the demon tore from his shoulder ached and burned, and his body had begun to shiver. He felt feverish, barely able to think, yet as the beast turned to face Marcus, he found his dagger on the ground and lifted it. It could have been a trick of the light, but the weapon’s amber glow seemed to have deepened into the verdant green of the forest floor.
The color made him think of Tanuin.
“Die!” Alec shrieked, leaping onto the creature’s back. It hadn’t expected this—belatedly, Alec realized his wound was so bad he shouldn’t have been able to move, much less attack. Yet attack he did! He plunged the dagger into the creature’s back. Green light poured from the blade, spilling from a dozen cracks in the monster’s back.
“You brat!” The creature’s claws raked him, shallow cuts opening across his chest. It moved like someone trying idly to scratch its back, unable to get any leverage on him from that angle. “How did you get a thing like that!?”
Alec didn’t stop to question. He plunged the blade in again and again, ignoring the feverish pain in his shoulder and the stinging cuts across his body. Maybe Marcus had bolted, seeing this as an opportunity to escape and racing up the stairs. Alec hoped he had. He prayed to the Archon that M
arcus was reaching the other boys, getting them safely back to the Archon Temple.
Because the beast had turned, and blood was in its eyes. It screamed murder at Alec, ripping out the dagger and tossing it aside like a child’s toy. Its hands came down on his shoulders, the long talons of its claws sinking into the torn flesh of his arm. He screamed in pain, fear, and despair. The beast had him.
He was dead.
And then things stopped making sense.
Suddenly the Crypt was brighter than midday. Alec’s feet left the floor as the demon soared into the air, as if gravity was suddenly reversed. As it happened, the beast’s eyes bugged out of her head, a scream of such horror tearing from her throat that Alec had to throw his hands over his ears. He landed back on the floor with a crunching sound, his ankle giving out beneath him.
He could no longer move—but that no longer mattered. The demon jerked like a spasmodic puppet in midair, pulled on invisible strings. Tendrils of light wrapped around its arms and legs, then tugged with grim, irresistible power.
Her limbs ripped from their sockets. Warm blood sprayed across Alec’s face as the demon’s arms slammed into the nearby wall, crunching like chicken bones. Then her torso exploded, spraying blood and entrails all over the walls of the Crypt. Light poured from every pore of her skin as it dissolved, as if something had consumed her from the inside out.
Alec couldn’t believe his eyes. For a few moments, he refused to believe. This all seemed too much like a hallucination—a vision brought on by whatever poison coated the monster’s fangs. The torches on the wall sputtered out, casting the room into a cool, pleasant darkness.
Alec hung his head. Sleep tugged at him—the kind of sleep from which a man would never waken.
Then light rolled over his skin, and his pain eased.
It came slowly at first, like someone slipping into a warm bath. The stinging pains across his skin faded, the deep hurt in his shoulder going prickly, like his hand when he slept on it, before disappearing completely. Even the blood that covered his body disappeared, as if one of the attendants at the Archon Temple had given him a thorough washing.
