Seamus's Mate

by Elyzabeth M. VaLey

Energy crackled. Fissures of bright light sparkled on the glass, forcing him to shield his eyes. Seamus drove his sword into the surface, sinking it several inches. The light vanished and the image inside the box transformed.

  Kaila hadn’t moved, but beside her lay Mel. His mouth dried. There was no doubt she was dead. Her eyes were empty and she lay on a puddle of blood.

  His gaze riveted to Kaila’s other side. He started. The torch hit the floor with a clang. The flame fizzled and died. He gaped. A mirror image of himself lay next to Kaila. He had his eyes closed and a trickle of blood came from his mouth. Worse was the carnage on his back. He heaved. Someone had yanked his wings out and left nothing but a bloodied stump with broken feathers limply hanging from it like a grotesque depiction of what they used to be.

  He gripped the hilt of his weapon so tightly, the metal dug into his skin. He was not dead. He was alive. Rage slammed against him and he wrenched his sword free. He stabbed the glass with force. The surface flickered.

  “Kaila!” he bellowed.

  She turned her head toward his corpse. Tears spilled over her cheeks.

  “Fight, babe, fight for us, for Mel, for you.”

  Clenching his teeth, he threw his shoulder against the box. He gasped at the shock, but it wasn’t half as strong as before. Hope flared in his chest. “Kaila, remember I love you.” He flung himself at the structure again.

  “Fuck.” Spots flashed in his vision.

  It wouldn’t be enough. He needed to burn it some more.

  “Kaila, babe, keep fighting.”

  As fast as his wings could carry him, he fled to the corridor and found another torch. Careful not to extinguish the flame, he returned to the glass box.

  A breath he hadn’t been aware of holding whooshed out of him. Kaila hadn’t moved. Seamus set himself to his task. He alternated between burning the shimmering surface and striking it with his sword. “Hang in there, babe.”

  “I love you, Mel. I love you, Seamus.”

  He lifted his head at the sound of Kaila’s voice. What he saw shook him to the core.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tears blurred Kaila’s vision as she pressed the knife to her wrist. A thin line of blood appeared.

  Mel lay dead at her side. She’d slit her wrists, too, and had bled out before Kaila could save her. Kaila had found a note crumpled in Melisa’s hand, blaming her for not being there. And then, Seamus had appeared. He’d come limping toward her, blood splattered over his chest. For a moment, she had thought he’d been stabbed, but then he crumpled to the floor and she’d seen the horror.

  A sob escaped her.

  He’d whispered her name in a thin thread of voice and then gone still forever.

  The purpose of her fight was over. The people she loved were dead and she was trapped in an inferno with no possible escape. There was only one option to ease the hurt.

  I love you.

  Seamus’s voice floated in the air, giving her strength. A sense of peace settled over her. Soon, they’d be together.

  “I love you too, Seamus,” she said.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the blade harder into her flesh. She whimpered at the sting. A thunderous crack boomed around her, but she ignored the sound, concentrating on her task until the knife was wrenched from her hand. She screamed and lunged at her attacker. He grunted as she tackled him to the floor. How dare he take her only source for salvation? Blindly, she kicked and scratched, desperate to create some damage and recover her weapon. Seamus’s fragrance wafted up her nose and she redoubled her efforts.

  Seamus was dead. This was Sloth playing tricks on her again, attempting to confuse her and prolong her misery.

  “Kaila, stop it. It’s me.” Seamus’s voice.

  “You’re dead!” she bellowed.

  She thumped his chest with her fists. He was dead. She had touched his cold flesh and looked into his lifeless eyes. This was a nightmare from which she couldn’t escape.

  “Stop it,” he growled.

  Firm hands grasped her wrists and pinned them behind her back. She gasped for air and struggled. Both against the man holding her, and the ray of hope stretching across her like flowers reaching for the sun after a storm.

  “Kaila, baby, stop it. Look at me,” Seamus crooned in her ear. “Look at me.”

  She forced her eyes open a sliver. His blue gaze pierced through her soul.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  She bit back a sob as his features came into focus: the stubble on his jaw, his firm lips, his eyes marked by fatigue with the right one slightly swollen from when she’d punched him earlier.

  “Seamus, you’re dead,” she croaked.

  “No, baby, no. We’re both alive. Remember what I told you earlier. Today’s not a good day to die.”

  “You’re not dead?” she asked.

  He pulled her into a sitting position and wrapped her into a hug. She leaned against his chest and he kissed the top of her head. She held her breath. His familiar heartbeat thundered in her ear.

  “I’m as alive as you, babe.”

  “And your wings? Are they—” she asked, unable to finish the question.

  “Look.” He spread his wings wide. Every feather was in place. He fluttered them so they appeared to gleam like water rippling beneath moonlight.

  “Untouched,” he said, drawing them closed.

  Kaila took in a deep breath, gathering her courage. She gazed to her right. Seamus’s corpse was no longer there. She swallowed drily.

  “And Mel?” she asked.

  “She’s not there either.”

  She dug her fingers into his arms for support as she looked to the left. The floor was empty. Silent tears slithered down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes. No one had died. She had fallen prey to Sloth’s greatest deception and almost taken her own life in the process. She shuddered.

  “I’m-I’m okay.” Her gaze landed on Seamus’s arm. Bile rose to the back of her throat. The flesh was seared, like an undercooked steak. “You’re hurt.”

  Seamus shrugged. He gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s nothing, babe. I’ve endured worse. Let me hold you for another minute.”

  She didn’t argue. She rested against him, drawing from his solid strength. They were all right. They had made it this far. How much more could Sloth throw at them? She chewed on her lip. She thought back to what they had endured all day. Darkness, light, hunger, desperation. Sloth was toying with them in a deep psychological way. He threw them into extreme situations only to give them a rest and then haul them back into despair. It was torture to the mind, a thousand times worse than physical pain.

  “Seamus, I don’t know if we’re going to get out of here,” she whispered, clinging to him.

  “Of course we are. Why do you think we wouldn’t?”

  “Sloth is going to break us. We don’t know how to get out of here.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re fighters, baby. You and I, and Mel. He ain’t gonna break us. He can try and he can hurt us, but break us? It’ll take him a lot more than what he’s done so far. Besides, we have a secret weapon.” Seamus brushed her bangs aside and kissed the tip of her nose. “We’ve got each other.”

  “But, what if we separate again?”

  “It won’t happen.” He paused. “But if it does, if something happens to me, then listen to me carefully. You don’t lose all hope. You fight for your life. It’s what I would want.”

  She nodded. She didn’t want to imagine what kind of life that would be.

  He helped her to her feet. “Come on, we’ve gotta find your sister and get out of this hell hole.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Legs still shaking, Kaila allowed Seamus to help her stand. She stepped out of the box. Jagged rays of light came from the broken glass strewn about the floor. She shivered.

  Seamus clasped her hand and led her back to the hall. “Don’t let go.”

  His eyes twinkled
. How he could find mirth in such a situation was beyond her, but she forced her lips to curl into a smile for his sake.

  They started to walk through the gloomy hall again, back in the direction they’d originally come from. Nothing had changed, except the swirling fog had lifted and the torches shone brightly against the sconces, as if they’d replaced the sticks. After a while, doors began to crop up to either side of them.

  Seamus increased the pressure on her hand.

  Her mind worked a mile a minute as they walked. After leaving the cage, a certain clarity had settled over her. Her final brush with death had made her realize they had two options. To die, or to fight and live. She chose life.

  Kaila ruminated on their ordeal, seeking out details which might have initially gone by unnoticed. There was little doubt she had made a terrible mistake in coming here in the first place, but she couldn’t remedy that. She could only push forward. She was a fighter, a Human-Guardian. She didn’t have all the supernatural skills Guardians had, but she had the training to survive.

  She thought back to what she’d told Seamus earlier. Sloth was taking them through the symptoms. It had seemed a farfetched idea at the time, so she hadn’t elaborated, but the more she considered it, the more convinced she was that that was what he was doing. Traveling across Sloth’s lair was like experiencing chronic depression. They had experienced hopelessness several times. They had suffered irritability and anger. They had lost focus and interest in their mission. They had gone through a spell of excessive sleeping and out-of-control hunger. They had even indulged in reckless behavior. Like kids on a rollercoaster, they had rolled with the cart, peaking and falling repeatedly, losing control over their minds and only capable of experiencing what was thrown at them.

  The only thing she couldn’t quite figure out was the doors. She mulled on the word. What was it they said about doors? When one door closes, another opens. She and Seamus hadn’t opened any doors for quite some time. They were just walking, avoiding disaster. She chewed on her lip, remembering something she told her patients. Yes, not taking chances keeps one safe, but it also stops one from experiencing new opportunities and good things. If she didn’t risk it, she became trapped in her mind, a shell of what she could have been.

  “Seamus, I think we’re going around in circles.”

  “What?”

  “We’re not getting anywhere. We’re not opening any doors.”

  “Last time you opened a door—” He shuddered.

  “No, listen to me. I have a theory. What is Sloth known for?”

  “Laziness, apathy, inactivity.”

  She smiled at his out-of-the-book answer.

  “Yes, but it’s much more than that.”

  “He toys with people’s perceptions, with their minds.”

  “Exactly. Sloth stops people from enjoying their day-to-day activities. From laziness to overwork, anyone who has lost sight of the world around them has been infected by Sloth. But the greatest expression of Sloth’s power is found in depressed people.”

  “Kaila, I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

  “Dumb Guardian. Think.”

  She laughed at Seamus’s glare. Excitement coursed through her as she spoke. This made sense.

  “Sloth annihilates the will, the urge to fight, to do anything for yourself, just like depression does. It’s not mere laziness. It’s laziness mingled with sorrow and a ton of other feelings that render a person helpless. Sloth’s attack is silent, unexpected, he drags you in without you even realizing it, and when you do, sometimes it’s too late.”

  “Like Mel,” Seamus said softly.

  “Yes.”

  Kaila’s gaze dropped. “I thought she was just being lazy, and I didn’t realize the enemy had installed itself at home.”

  “It’s not your fault, Kaila. It’s no one’s fault, you know that better than anyone.”

  She sighed. “I know.”

  “So, what do we do? Depression can’t be cured from one day to the next, even this dumb Guardian knows that.”

  “Not in the human plane, but we’re in Sloth’s realm. What we need to do is find the core.”

  “And you know where it is?”

  She nodded. “The key is in the glass box. It was the end of the disorder. I was suicidal. Death was the only way to escape the influx of madness which crowded my mind.”

  “We can’t go back in there.”

  “We have to.”

  “No. That thing will kill us.”

  “There has to be a way. I don’t know what it is, but there has to be an alternative in that room.”

  Abruptly Seamus’s eyes widened and a slow grin spread over his face. “You’re brilliant,” he said, kissing her lightly.

  “What?”

  “There is a way. Up. There was no ceiling in that room.”

  He grabbed her hand and together they ran down the hall. They stopped at the door flanked by the lanterns.

  “Ready?” Seamus said.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “I think this is it,” Seamus said.

  Gray light, soft like sunrays on a new dawn, gradually enveloped them. Adrenaline rushed through him. He beat his wings steadily upward. After travelling through darkness for so long, the hall materializing before them was a welcome sight.

  When they had entered the room with the glass box, they had found it had reverted to its original state. However, unlike before when Kaila had rushed inside, they had slowly crept along the side. Finally, Seamus had taken Kaila into his arms and they had headed into the unknown above.

  “Open your eyes slowly, Kaila. It’s bright up here.”

  He took in the area. It was a luxurious chamber of white and pink marble. He navigated through the columns, noticing the grotesque figures engraved on their capitals. Each one was different and depicted one of Sloth’s syndromes. A man sleeping, a woman crying, a couple arguing, they were a mockery of what they should represent. The narrow room grew more luminous, and he glanced up, searching for windows. He gasped. The ceiling was domed, every vault carved into honeycombs.

  “It’s incredible,” Kaila whispered. “That something so evil can have something so beautiful hidden.”

  “Yes.”

  He coasted toward a wide staircase in the back. At the top, appeared the shape of a square door. He set Kaila on the first step.

  “It’s all so empty,” she said, stretching her arms in an encompassing gesture.

  He shrugged. “I’m not surprised. We’ve already been through hell.”

  Kaila gazed at him. Her lips curled into a sardonic smile. “To hell and back.”

  Seamus cocked his head, surprised at her mood. “You seem to be in high spirits.”

  Kaila barked a laugh. “I don’t know if that’s the best way to describe it. But I do feel invigorated.” She glanced toward the top of the stairs. “I’m ready for this to end, Seamus.”

  “Then, let’s do it.”

  Seamus offered her his hand. She took it and together they climbed to the door. It was plain, fashioned out of a dark wood with a reddish hue along the cracks.

  “A blank slate,” Kaila said.

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “It’s like a blank mind. At the entrance, Sloth had those fancy doors. They represented the agony of what he was. This is the result of all that. Someone infected by him is empty, ultimately, blank.”

  “Wow.” He was definitely beginning to see everything Sloth did had an ulterior purpose. Nothing seemed to be left to chance. A sliver of fear raced down his spine. It was probable their being here was also not an accident. He pulled Kaila close and bent his head to kiss her. She sighed and leaned against him, circling her arm around his waist. They stood like that, each of them absorbing the other’s strength for a few minutes.

  “Whatever happens, we stay together, okay, babe? We find Mel and get the hell out of here,” he said.

  Kaila nodded.
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  “Ready?” He pulled out his sword.

  “There’s no point in delaying it any further.”

  She pushed the door open. She gasped. Seamus’s jaw dropped. His fingers immediately tightened over hers. A sinking feeling settled in his stomach. How were they going to find Mel in here? Row after row of bodies hung from the ceiling by two strings which stretched from the center of their chests to dark nothingness above. They were naked, their arms crossed over their torsos, and their eyes closed as if asleep or dead.

  “Babe,” he said.

  Kaila’s wide eyed gaze turned in his direction. She was ashen, the weight of the task awaiting them chiseled into her pinched features.

  “We have to find Mel,” she declared. Her voice shook.

  “There are thousands of bodies here,” Seamus said.

  “Yes, but we need to try.”

  Her face set into a determined grimace. She led him further inside the chamber. The air was cold and stale. Goosebumps settled across his flesh like a mantel, and with every step he took, the chill crept into his bones until he had to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering. At his side, Kaila shivered violently.

  “There has to be a pattern to all this,” she mused aloud.

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, Sloth is lazy, but not disorganized.”

  Seamus sucked in his cheeks and scanned the room. He sheathed his sword, as danger didn’t seem immediate.

  The only thing that all the bodies had in common was the cords from which they hung. One of them was silver and the other a wine red. Both sparkled. He racked his brains, trying to remember where he’d seen something similar before. Then he remembered. “They’re the strings of life.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t remember where I saw or read about it, but the silver thread represents life. The thicker it is the better. The thinner it is—well, you get the picture.”

  “And the red is the hold the Sin has over them. Oh, my God, you’re right. I think we touched upon this briefly at the Academy,” Kaila said.

  “Yes. It’s the kind of thing you never think about afterward, until you actually face it.”