by Jayde Brooks
“W-where am I?” He peered at Kifo demanding answers.
Sakarabru reached for Kifo, but his hand—what should have been his hand—passed through air. The Demon drew his hand to his face and stared into it, through it, almost as if it were not there, but he felt it!
“Kifo!” He stumbled toward the Djinn. “What have you done to me?” he yelled, terrified.
“I’ve done as I’ve promised, Sakarabru,” Kifo said unemotionally. “I’ve brought you back.”
He held his hands up to his face and looked down at the gray smoke that was his body. “As what? A ghost?” he asked, terrified.
The Demon saw a mirror on the wall across the room, made his way over to it, and stared at his reflection.
Sakarabru’s body was shadow. He tried to clasp his hands together, but they would not touch. He attempted to sweep long strands of hair from his face, but his fingers passed through it.
Frightened and confused green eyes stared back at him through cascading strands of stark white hair. His hair and eyes were solid, but his body was liquid smoke, holding together in the shape of what used to be his physical body.
He turned again to the Djinn in a rage. “What have you done to me?” his voice bellowed as he looked down at Kifo, suddenly realizing how small the mystic appeared to be.
This was a trick. This one had the face of Sakarabru’s loyal mystic, Kifo, but he was too small to have been him. His head was clean-shaven, his skin as dark as a night, but his clothes were different, strange and something otherworldly.
Sakarabru reached again for this imposter, but again, he could not touch him. “What have you done with my mystic?” he asked, suspiciously.
This imposter smiled. It was Kifo’s smile. “You should sit.” He held out his hand and motioned toward a large chair that seemed to have appeared out of thin air. The Demon was weary. He needed to sit, and so reluctantly he lumbered over to the chair and hovered slightly above it.
Kifo, or whoever this being was, strolled casually to the center of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. He had Kifo’s eyes, dark and unreadable. And the strange garment he wore was in Kifo’s signature white color. If his intention was to torture the Demon, then Sakarabru would be too weak to stop him.
“Your condition is only temporary, Sakarabru,” Kifo said, matter-of-factly. “You have to understand that the amount of power, time, and energy it has taken me to bring you back is immeasurable. You have been gone for a very long time, but I didn’t forget my promise.”
“Promise? What promise?”
Sakarabru’s mind was still shrouded in darkness. He recalled images, glimpses of things, of moments that had been his life, but there was no single continuous stream of thought; no clear perspective of time or place would form to help him understand what was happening to him now.
“Why am I like this?” he asked, glaring at the imposter.
“You are literally a shadow of your former self now, Lord Sakarabru,” he explained. “But as you grow stronger, your form will solidify, and soon you will fully regain everything you lost in that battle against the Redeemer.”
“The Redeemer?” The mention of her name shed some light on his memory, a moment—a horrendous and painful incident that could not have possibly been real.
“The war,” Sakarabru murmured absently. He closed his eyes and listened to the echoes of screams rising up from the surface meeting him in the air. Beyond the echoes he could hear the song of the Troll Seers, a chorus of lamenting and sorrow. Sakarabru had been fighting too long and hard to get to that one moment that would solidify his place as the ultimate ruler of Theia.
He slowly opened his eyes and looked at the small version of the Djinn. “I was to rule them. All of them,” he stated quietly.
Kifo nodded.
Sakarabru and his Brood Army had all but destroyed Khale’s Ancient forces. The Great Shifter had lost her territories to Sakarabru. She had been the most powerful Ancient in their world and the most determined. Khale shifted into her most dangerous form, that of a dragon with wings as expansive as the horizon, but she was still weak.
“Give up, Shifter! It is not necessary for you to die!”
She had been his once, only once for an evening. Khale née Khale had let herself be taken by him, seduced and loved by him, the Demon. She could be his again.
He had never felt more in control, more formidable than he was in that moment. Sakarabru controlled the most destructive army that had ever existed. Her forces were depleted until there was only a handful of them left. She had lost.
“It is over, Khale! You have nothing left!”
He surveyed the debris of wounded and dead bodies that littered the ground around him.
“If you want what’s left of my territories,” Khale shouted, “you’ll have to kill me for them!”
It was a shame. “So be it, Shifter!”
“It’s been more than four thousand of this world’s years since that battle, Demon,” the imposter continued. “Theia was lost that night with you. Those of us who survived have come to live in this new world.”
These things that Kifo was saying confused Sakarabru. What was he talking about? Four thousand years? This world? Panic began to overwhelm the Demon, and he tried to stand but he was too weak.
“This world? What are you telling me? The battle with the Redeemer was just…”
“Four thousand years ago, Sakarabru. And Theia is no more.”
If this was an imposter, then he was an imposter who took liberties with Sakarabru’s patience. “Lies! You lie to me. You deceive me.”
Again, his memories sprung to life.
He looked at the imposter. “She was legend. A child’s fairy tale. A myth.”
The imposter stared back at him but said nothing.
Sakarabru had been wrong. The Redeemer, Mkombozi, was no character from a child’s story.
Thick tresses of black hair swirled in a twisted, chaotic mass around her head, hiding her face from him. She ran toward him, her chest lowered with her arms stretched behind her, fingers splayed wide on one hand, and in the other, she held her weapon, the kpinga, his weapon of choice. She had taken it from him. Strange markings shined on her arms and chest.
The symbols glowed a fiery blue bursting from her body. There were three of them, one on each arm, and one in the center of her chest, just above her heart. The symbol on her left arm was of a starburst with a small circle in the center. The second, on her right arm, was reversed, consisting of a circle with a small starburst at its core. The last symbol was a starburst surrounded by a circle, with a bolt of lightning crossing through it from top to bottom.
She wasn’t like the other soldiers. This Redeemer rushed at him without fear or hesitation, and as she drew closer, she let out a yell, powerful enough to shake the ground, and swung the weapon through the air at his throat, missing him by a hair.
“The Redeemer! She is here!” Someone shouted from the survivors. “Mkombozi will save us! She will destroy the Demon!”
Their words infuriated Sakarabru, and he reared back, lowered his head with its massive horns, charged toward the Redeemer, Mkombozi, and impaled her through her stomach. Mkombozi, she did not scream, and she did not die. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The Guardian was heard before he was seen.
“Tukufu!” Khale called out, panicked, searching for him all around her. “Free her! She will defeat him if you free her!”
The black, expansive wings of the Guardian blended with the dark skies until it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended.
“Touch her and die, Guardian!” Sakarabru threatened.
“Only you will die this day, beast!” the Guardian growled.
The Guardian, Tukufu, swooped down from the sky in a blur and snatched the female from the Demon’s horns before Sakarabru could stop him. But the Guardian left himself vulnerable.
Sakarabru swung a mighty fist at Tukufu and landed it on his chin. The Guardian flew
backward but stopped himself and changed direction toward the Demon, and leading with his feet, planted both of them hard in Sakarabru’s chest, caving it in until he lost his breath. The Guardian had hurt him. Until this moment, no one had ever hurt Sakarabru before.
Sakarabru charged at Tukufu, but Mkombozi rushed past the Guardian, caught the Demon by those same horns that had stabbed into her, raised him high above her head, and tore each of them off at his skull with her bare hands.
Sakarabru cried out in agony, writhing in pain. Tukufu caught the Demon, held him from behind, and locked his gaze on her.
The sound of thunder rumbled throughout the heavens. The sun in the center of this universe, which had had its light blocked by the darkness of Sakarabru, began to burn brighter, its heat scorching, and it blazed furiously in the distance.
The blackness blinding Khale was gone, but the heat from the sun was unbearable. “Mkombozi!” she called out.
The whites of Mkombozi’s eyes filled with blood. Mkombozi stretched her arms out at her sides and slowly closed them together, facing her palms toward the Demon. Slowly, the three of them lifted off the ground and rose higher and higher into the air.
Sakarabru began to twist and scream. Tukufu’s wings began to burn, and he released his hold on the Demon and flew away. “Mkombozi! Too much! Pull it back! Control it!” The Guardian called out to her.
Her chest heaved, she balled her fists, the symbols glowed with the power of the sun. Blinding white light from the symbols on her arms and chest seemed to swallow her whole.
“No!” Khale gasped, rushing to Mkombozi from behind. “The Omens have taken her!” Khale reached for her, but the heat coming from the Omens burned her flesh to the bone, and she fell back screaming. “The Omens have taken her!”
Sakarabru felt himself burning. He watched in horror as layers of his own skin began to melt and fall to the ground.
A strange look of something akin to regret shadowed the imposter’s face. “You are starting to remember. Aren’t you?”
The Djinn took a deep breath, conjured a chair behind himself, and sat down across the room from Sakarabru. “Our world was destroyed when you were,” he explained. “The Redeemer, with the power of the Omens, obliterated you, and after that, the influence of those damn things was so powerful, she couldn’t pull back on the devastating rage they filled her with. She destroyed Theia, some say by hurling it into the sun. Most of us managed to escape to this world, but those that didn’t…”
Sakarabru still wanted to believe that the smaller Kifo was an imposter, but he knew that he was wrong.
“I took the rumors of the Omens for granted,” he admitted wearily. “Stories of the Redeemer had never been more than bedtime stories to me.”
Kifo simply watched him.
“Theia is gone?”
“It is.”
“And the Redeemer?”
“Khale destroyed her using the Spell of Dissolution.” The Demon could not believe what he was hearing.
“The Spell of Dissolution?” She was a Shifter, not a mystic. “How did she come to know that spell?”
It was a spell that had not been used in his lifetime. It was one that was thought to have been dead and buried with Ancients, generations before their time.
“I believe she learned it from Andromeda, but no one knows for sure. Who else but Andromeda could know it?”
She was the Troll Seer of the Ages. Andromeda had unlimited sight into the past, present, future, even the afterlife all at once. It was said that she had seen the rise of Sakarabru and that he would ultimately rule Theia. But it was also said that she had created the Omens, which would be his destruction.
“What is this new world, Magician?” He glared at Kifo and watched, satisfied, as the Djinn grimaced at the word “magician.” It was a test, a small one, but enough of one to confirm that this Kifo was no imposter. Even in his smaller form, wearing his strange garments, the word “magician” still offended him.
“Earth. Smaller than Theia. The atmosphere is much heavier, and it’s colder than Theia, but over time, we have adapted.”
“We?” he asked. “Who survives?”
“Many of the lesser Ancient races,” he said, shrugging. “Pixies, Imps, and Vampyres.”
Sakarabru would’ve laughed if he had the strength. The mystic had been generous in referring to these creatures as lesser Ancients. They were pests.
Kifo continued. “Some Guardians survived, Shifters, Were and Mer Nations.”
Now the Demon was interested in what he had to say. “And what of Khale?” he probed. The Demon gathered enough strength to sit up straight and lean toward the mystic.
Kifo drew a deep breath. “She lives.”
“She still rules?”
“This world is different from Theia, Sakarabru. The Ancients do not play the same roles here. I’m sad to say that, like you, we are mere shadows of our former selves. Humans rule here.”
“Humans? Are they strong? Good fighters?”
Kifo laughed. “They are … different. Warriors of another sort. They have numbers on their side, weapons and technology—satellites and cell phones.”
Kifo was speaking in a language the Demon did not understand.
“We have learned to co-exist, Demon. Ancients seem to prefer it that way.”
Sakarabru stared back suspiciously. “My army does not co-exist, Kifo.”
“Your army is dead, Sakarabru.”
Dead? How could an army comprised of so many be dead?
“You brought me back to co-exist?”
“I brought you back to prove to you that I could. What you do next is up to you.”
The Djinn stood up, and as he did, the chair behind him vanished. “You are tired, Sakarabru, and you need to rest.”
The Demon shot an angry glare at him. “You have no idea what I need, Magician!”
Kifo bowed his head slightly. “I trust that you will find this dwelling suitable.”
As he slowly spun around the empty space, it began to fill with furnishings and artifacts from Sakarabru’s Theian castle.
“It’s not as magnificent as you’re used to, but it’s the best that I can recall from memory,” he said, smiling.
Sakarabru was too exhausted to care. Kifo was right. He was weak and he desperately needed his rest, but there was one last statement that he needed to make.
“I will need my army, Kifo,” he said gravely. Sakarabru wanted to believe that the loyalty of this mystic was as true and steadfast now as it had been when Sakarabru ruled half of the Theian world. Did bringing the Demon back after so much time had passed confirm that the mystic’s intentions were as pronounced now as they were then? And if so, then just how willing was the mystic determined to prove this to the Demon.
“You created my Theian Army,” Sakarabru stated under the weight of fatigue.
Kifo nodded. “From the bones of fallen Ancients,” he confirmed.
“You have bought me back, but a lord without an army…”
Kifo visibly swallowed. “There are no fallen Ancients here, Sakarabru. Only humans, as I have said, and their bodies aren’t as strong as those of Theian warriors.”
“You go, Kifo,” he said, dismissively. “But in this or any other world, I am Lord Sakarabru, and it is impossible for me to co-exist.”
Kifo’s form gradually faded away as Sakarabru’s eyes slowly began to close, and he fell into a deep sleep.
SPECIAL GIRL
Eden lived a paralyzed life. She’d tried leaving Brooklyn several times, only to come running back to the brownstone and Rose’s arms with her tail tucked between her legs. She couldn’t escape the things that scared her most because those things were everywhere, even here and now on the Staten Island Ferry.
On the surface they looked like people. To everyone around them, that’s exactly what they were, but to Eden, the tall, thin man reading the Post across from her revealed a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and had eyes like an owl’s. The pretty wo
man standing at the bow of the ferry, wearing the Donna Karan knit dress and red-bottom pumps, had the face of a cat. And out of the corner of her eye, Eden could’ve sworn she’d seen a shadowed thing squeeze into a seat next to a window. The old woman sitting in the aisle seat nodded and smiled at it.
Most kids were afraid of the bogeyman under the bed or the monster in the closet, but most kids outgrew those fears when parents said the magic words “You’re too old to believe in monsters.”
The difference between Eden and those kids was that her mother never told her that.
Lately, it seemed that the Staten Island Ferry was as far away from home as she would go now when she “ran away.” She could waste away an entire day and well into the evening riding this thing, pretending she had set sail on an ocean liner headed to the South Pacific. Eden stared out into the water, wishing away the rest of the world, listening to music on her iPhone and trying not to think about what was really going on.
Rose wanted to talk. She always wanted to talk. Rose was scared. She didn’t have to say it for Eden to know it, but anytime you find somebody in your house floating above her bed with fresh bruises around her neck, then that’s a pretty good reason to be afraid. The bruises were real, and if they were real, then that probably meant that the monster in her dream, Mkombozi had been real, too, which meant—what, exactly?
Eden saw things she didn’t want to see. Dreamed things she didn’t want to dream, and was living a life she didn’t want to live. Eden glanced down at the scars inside her wrists that reminded her how powerless she’d been to even take her own life.
How old was she then? Eighteen. She’d been eighteen when she’d left home for the first time, rented a room in a cheap motel in Jersey, and tried to kill herself. It was as tragically romantic a suicide scene as a girl could come up with: candles, a tub full of water, and a naked and vulnerable teenager, crying, cutting horizontally instead of vertically to make sure she got the job done right.
She’d woken up to Rose and Khale standing over her.
