by Irene Ferris
Chapter Ten
Jenn spoke quietly behind him. “I’m okay. I’m ready to move on.”
Mathieu looked at her and saw that while she was in pain, she was no longer radiating it like she had before. “Let’s go then.” He stood and brushed the dirt from his clothes as he waited for her to struggle to her feet. He bore her pack on his back as she was too tired to carry it herself. “We don’t have far now. Your friends will be there and you’ll be able to rest.”
“Good. Resting for just a little while would be good. My head is killing me.” She sounded as if she was about to drop any second.
He stood in the fading light, looked ahead and then back at her. “I don’t suppose you brought anything that would illuminate your path?”
“Uhm. I don’t think so. I’m not really sure what’s in there. They just gave it to me when I got here.” She made as if to reach for the pack on his back but he avoided her touch.
He frowned in the growing darkness before sighed and shook his head. “Follow me closely. I will light your way.” He paused and glanced around nervously. “We’re safe enough for the moment, but I do not want anything to see us.”
Nodding hesitantly, Jenn asked, “Who would see us? There’s no one around for miles except our people.”
Mathieu looked back at her with dark, frightened eyes as he absently scrubbed at invisible dirt on his hands. “You mean what would see us. Your people do not concern me.”
After a quick glance at the dark woods, Jenn raised an eyebrow. “They’re our people while you’re working with us. You need to get used to that.”
Mathieu raised an eyebrow back at her before repeating, “They do not concern me. There is more in this world than just humans and their intrigues.” He turned quickly and started downslope.
Jenn rushed to stay close behind him and nearly collided with him when he suddenly stopped. He glanced at her before turning his attention to his hands. “Stay close, but not too close. I don’t want to hurt you.” There was a strange tone to his voice as he spoke. “It would kill me to hurt you, Yve… Jenn.” She said nothing, instead watching his hands as they gracefully traced symbols in the dark, symbols that seemed to shine and hang in the air for a few seconds before dissolving into a shower of faintly glowing golden dust.
Mathieu took a few steps and smiled tightly. The dust fell and dimly illuminated a small path, leading through the trees and rocks to the track where the climbers left her earlier in the day.
“You did it.” Marcus sounded amazed. He stepped forward and held Jenn’s arm as she dropped to the ground with a sigh of relief. “You brought him down.” He wrapped her in a crushing hug and nuzzled her hair while she limply rested her head on his chest.
The clearing had been set up as a base camp, tents surrounding a central fire pit. He’d steered her to the tent they would share, her breath coming in small whimpers of pain with each step.
After she’d caught her breath she answered back, “Of course I did it. Failure is not an option.”
She sounded exhausted, stretched to her limit. He helped her pull her boots off and held open the tent flap so she could crawl in and collapse on the sleeping bags he’d rolled out for them to share. “I’ll be in in a few minutes.” She didn’t hear him. She was already unconscious.
Marcus stood and looked out past the ring of firelight. Mathieu had stopped there, refusing to come any closer to the humans who had come to lure him down from the heights. Even now he stood there, arms folded, back to them, staring up at the stars.
With a sigh, Marcus walked into the darkness.
Mathieu didn’t look at him, but simply spoke. “Marcus.”
Marcus waited for a moment and then answered. “Mathieu. You’re not going to say that you’re happy to see me? Well met and all that courtly stuff you people used to say?”
At that Mathieu turned and looked at him full on with eyes that seemed darker than the sky above. “Lying is a sin. Wouldn’t you agree that I have problems enough without further adding to my list of transgressions?”
With half shake of his head, Marcus looked up at the sky. “Why did you come back? I thought you’d be up there ‘till trumpets sounded the end of the world. I was willing to put money on you not coming down, no matter what she said.”
Mathieu looked up again as well. “She’s very convincing. With the guilt she inflicted, how could I refuse?”
“She gives a great guilt trip, without a doubt. I’ve been on the receiving end of that one too many times. It sucks how good she is at it.”
“Sucks?” Mathieu looked down and over at him, crooking an eyebrow. “I do not think that means what I think it means.”
Marcus shrugged. “It means it’s bad. Not good. Not fun. You know, SUCKS.”
“Oh.” Mathieu shook his head. “Sucks.” His voice held a musing tone.
“What?”
“Hm?” Mathieu looked back at Marcus. “Oh. I was just thinking how much the world has changed and how strange it is to me. Even though Gadreel ‘gifted’ me with his knowledge on his death and even though I have seen many things, everything still feels foreign. Even such a small thing like the meaning of a single word.” He paused and looked back up. “The stars are the only things that remain the same. And even now I see things moving there that weren’t there when I was born.”
With a cock of his head, Marcus looked up. “Satellites, space stations and planes. You probably don’t know anything about them.”
Mathieu made a gesture with his left hand. Marcus suspected it probably had been insulting and obscene hundreds of years ago. “Gadreel belonged to the Agshekeloh. Anything that could be used to kill, hurt or maim was of great interest to him. Machines that could kill, hurt or maim gave him especial joy. Don’t think I don’t know of or don’t understand the concepts of such things.”
Marcus nodded curtly. “Fine.” He then sighed and gestured towards the camp. “We have a tent for you, if you want it. We leave in the morning. You might want to get some rest.”
With a wary look towards the camp, Mathieu shook his head. “I thank you, but no. I will be fine here.”
“It’s not a trap. I swear it.”
With an audible snort, Mathieu shook his head. “Your supposed ability to trap me is the least of my worries.” He looked back at the ring of firelight with an odd combination of hunger and fear and then over to Marcus. “I have other concerns that do not involve you.”
“You know we’re married, right?”
“I noticed the rings. I congratulate you and wish you a long life with many healthy children.” Mathieu paused and then smiled gently, the first genuine smile Marcus had ever seen from him. “I truly do.”
Marcus hesitated. “I thought you recognized her, remembered her.”
Now Mathieu hesitated. “I do.”
“Aren’t you jealous?”
“Of what? The woman I loved died long, long ago. And even then she wasn’t mine.” Now Mathieu looked back up at the stars and wrapped his arms tighter around himself. “Everyone I knew is dead, Marcus. They’ve been dead for hundreds of years. The entire world dances to a song that I don’t hear. I can stand here and speak with you and make some sense of your words but I truly can’t understand you.”
“You seem to be doing fine right now.”
Mathieu shook his head. “No, I’m not. You just don’t see how out of step with the dance I am yet.”
Marcus had nothing to say to that. He just nodded and then turned back to the tents. “The tent is over there if you change your mind. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning. Early.”
Mathieu didn’t answer as he listened to the footsteps fade into the distance. Instead he watched the sky and listened to the sounds of the people in the tents behind him.
He’d discovered over the centuries that humanity had a distinctive sound--sighs, burps, farts, but also a kind of buzzing undertone. He wasn’t sure what caused that, maybe the air in their lungs or the blood in their veins, but it
was ever present. And it was all the more noticeable when he hadn’t heard it for months.
The fire died down quickly. He looked back over his shoulder and shook his head. Of course they wouldn’t set a watch here and now. They had no reason to fear bandits or infidel attack. He’d felt the light touch of wards when he’d come into the camp—it had been tempting to break them simply to show these people how insufficient their precautions were, but he’d refrained in the interest of getting Yv… Jenn to her resting place.
The night grew darker around him, the stars brighter above. The trees framed the constellations nicely and the undertone of sound from the humans slowly faded into the background.
He’d watched the stars every night since he’d been freed. It kept him from sleeping, which kept him from remembering. That was his theory, at least.
After a while he lost track of time and thought of other things. That place deep inside where he’d hidden all those years and watched the world go by—that was a comfortable place. It was so easy to reach; it would be easy to hide instead of dealing with the new world around him. It was seductive in a way. Once there, he wouldn’t have to feel. All he would have to do was stay small and quiet and all the pain, confusion and fear would stop. All he’d have to do was watch from a distance.
Mathieu wrenched himself back to the present with a physical jerk of his head. Gadreel was gone. Mathieu was free. There was no more hiding.
No matter how much he wanted to crawl into that safe place and pull the door in after him.
It was then that he looked down at his feet.
“Merda.” The word slipped from his lips before he could stop it.
He stepped back from the patch of dead, blackened grass on which he’d been standing. “Merda. Shit shit shit shit.”
It grew before his eyes, sending black tendrils of death out towards the ring of tents barely illuminated by the dying coals. He imagined he could hear it hissing with malice.
“Control this,” he ordered himself curtly. Taking a deep breath, he dropped to his knees and placed his hands in the center of the burned area. Eyes closed, he whispered again, “Control.”
Slowly, the darkness stopped its advance and then even more slowly retreated back to where Mathieu knelt, lower lip held between teeth. Perspiration beaded on his forehead and above his mustache.
When he opened his eyes and inspected the area, it was nearing dawn. The grass was green again, even if it wasn’t as perfectly green as it had been before. It seemed translucent, brittle. “Just like me,” Mathieu muttered under his breath with a sigh.
He wiped the sweat off his face and rubbed his goatee with the palm of his hand as his eyes strayed over to the tents. “Merda. I can’t even control it here. How am I going to do this without killing everyone?”
Chapter Eleven
“Enough of this. Your resistance has been amusing in its own way, but enough. I need you.”
Mathieu painfully drew himself to his knees, pulling at the iron chain around his neck as if he could somehow tear it off with just his bare hands. He wanted to stand and face the Demon, but he knew he was too weak. The circle drained him now that his blood had been worked into every symbol and curve. Mathieu had lost track long ago of exactly how much blood Gadreel had spilled into it, but he knew he should have been long dead by now..
Gadreel stepped into the circle and continued. “Damonn is fading, and I am losing patience. Enough.”
Bracing for what he knew would happen next, Mathieu spoke quietly, “I am not yours. I belong to God, The Almighty Father and Jesus, his son. I am one of their children and you cannot claim me.”
The impact of a Demonic fist hurt just as much as it had every time before. “You are a child of God? And how many of your Father’s other children did you kill before I found you?” Gadreel’s voice mocked him through the red pain that covered his vision and made him curl up into a ball as more blows rained down on his body. “How many of your brothers and sisters have you slain?”
Mathieu gasped back, as he had every time before, “I killed no one, but to kill an infidel is not a sin but the path to heaven.”
“Yes, yes. We’ve covered that already. But despite your air of injured innocence, you’re not in heaven, are you?” Gadreel’s favorite form came into view, parting the red film with its beauty. “You took communion, you confessed, you were shriven before battle, but you’re not in heaven, are you?”
Mathieu shook his head, unable to speak for the pain.
“Of course you’re not. Because you’re not going to go to heaven. Ever. God has rejected you and given you to me.” The angelic creature smiled sweetly and pushed Mathieu onto his back. “Your heavenly father doesn’t want you, just like your earthly father doesn’t. I’m the only thing that wants you, out of all that is in the world. All that is left is for you to serve me. Forever. God is dead to you.”
The creature’s touch was ice and fire blended together, and Mathieu screamed at the violation. He despaired as the iron chain around his neck choked his breath—and what little strength he had left to fight—away.
Mathieu could see Damonn from the corner of his eye; the old man collapsed into a heap outside the circle.
“See, we’re just in time here,” Gadreel gasped into Mathieu’s ear as it did something that hurt more than anything it’d ever done before—which Mathieu didn’t think possible. Nerves screamed and burned as if a thousand bees stung them all at once. Mathieu’s head felt as if it would explode. Knowledge and power filled him and flowed over and through him and swept him away in a torrent of agony.
His skin felt stretched too tight, as if he were holding in great amounts of…something. His brain felt equally tight, and he could sense there was something there as well, just beyond his reach and understanding.
“See? Not so bad, is it? I didn’t feel a thing.” Gadreel’s voice hissed in his ear as a freezing hot tongue wound its way up Mathieu’s face. The Demon Lord stood then, glorious in its nudity, Mathieu’s blood dripping from his fingertips.
Mathieu shuddered and felt his gorge rise in the back of his throat, even though he could not remember the last time he’d eaten. He tried to pull himself into a ball as he’d done every time this had happened before but Gadreel put its hands on Mathieu’s shoulders. “None of that, now.” Mathieu could not move as the Demon Lord traced bloody symbols on Mathieu’s forehead and chest.
“There we go. That bit of unpleasantness is out of the way.” said Gadreel. “Now, remember for me what to do now. Damonn is dying. He’s served me well enough all these years and his suffering does not amuse me at this moment.”
“You must immolate his body to make sure that your power and knowledge stays in the one vessel you’ve chosen so that no one else can take it from you.” The words came from Mathieu’s lips with no conscious thought of his own.
Gadreel smiled and touched its forehead. “Ah, of course. How could I have forgotten such a simple thing?” It then turned to the quivering heap that was all that remained of the old man and gestured. The smell of burning flesh filled the cold gray place and a high screaming noise filled Mathieu’s ears. He heard it in his head long after it had stopped in reality. The world was cold and gray; the only color came from Mathieu’s blood and the fire that consumed what was left of Damonn.
Mathieu turned his head and wept.
Chapter Twelve
Marcus woke early, as was his habit. Jenn had always been the slug-a-bed in their relationship, probably due to the differences in their upbringings.
After all, life on a farm was hard. You had to get up early and do your chores, even if you had been up all night studying Kabballah and Geomancy. Rich people didn’t have to milk cows at 4:30 AM.
He gently unwound himself from Jenn’s sleeping form, rubbed a hand through the stubble on his chin and with a silent sigh rolled himself out of the sleeping bag into the cold morning air.
Fully awake now, he quickly unzipped the tent flap and tumbled out into th
e pre-dawn. Jenn stirred behind him and flipped the edge of the sleeping bag over her face. He smiled and shook his head. She was exhausted and he’d let her sleep as long as possible, even if it wasn’t that much longer in the grand scheme of things.
Stumbling to the edge of the fire pit, he stirred up the coals and put a few pieces of wood on to reignite the fire. While coffee was normally a must in everyday life, at this temperature and altitude it was the nectar of the Gods and probably the only thing that could pry his wife out of those sleeping bags. Maybe. If he was lucky.
He assembled the pot that had been measured and filled the night before and put it on the adjacent camp stove to brew before looking out towards the edge of camp.
Mathieu was in the same place, but he’d gone to his knees sometime in the night and was staring at the ground. Marcus raised an eyebrow and then sighed and walked over despite his better instincts. When he drew closer, the grass under his feet crackled and broke with a sound crossed between dead leaves and broken glass. He hesitated at the sound but then moved closer, watching Mathieu minutely wince with the sound of every step.
In the early light Mathieu looked very young; nothing more than a kid, really. He hugged himself as he looked up at Marcus, eyes wide with despair.
“I can’t do this.” Mathieu’s voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t.”
Marcus squatted down and instinctively reached out to put a hand on Mathieu’s shoulder and was shocked when Mathieu recoiled violently.
“Don’t touch me. Oh God, don’t touch me.” Mathieu scooted away from Marcus on his knees and wrapped his arms around himself even tighter. The crystalline grass broke under him with a chiming racket. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“I know, I know,” Marcus soothed. “You’d never hurt anyone.”
“Never willingly,” Mathieu answered bitterly as he looked back to the peak where he’d hidden away. He focused sharply back on Marcus. “You’re going to make me stay, aren’t you?”
