Hold the Light

by Ryan Sherwood

  My energy built with the agony, nearly proportional to one another, except that the pain always exceeded the vigor by just enough to quell it. It was a sick joke, to give hope but burn it out before it could be used, just perfect for a demon's taste. Precisely when I felt the might to overpower it, its torture, burning from vengeful embers for eyes, rose up hotter and faster, to quickly quell the notion.

  My eyes shot open and I glared at it. My features contorted with the suffering, but I wanted, no I needed to show it my contempt. Needed to burn it into the demon if I could. If I couldn't inflict it I would show it. My hands balled up into fists. I was dying to pummel it to a bloody pulp with my bare fists. My brain conveyed that very idea to my hands but before I could act, and before another wave of agony hit, a massive jolt hit the demon from behind. I fell from its grip. I landed before Jessica's grave and nearly on top of the sword.

  The convict rose up from behind the stumbling demon. His hands were balled into tight fists like boulders as he readied to take another swing.

  "Give it to me!" the convict screamed at the demon. "It is mine!"

  Bracing under the powerful attack from behind, the demon's cloak planted its strands into the ground and braced. Strips of cloth shot from behind it and wrapped around the convict's throat and lifted him into the air. The old black oily rags struggled to keep a solid hold, slipping through and along his rotten flesh. The demon's cloak slashed at the convict, peeling dead skin away to reveal the bone and muscle below.

  "It is for whomever I choose," the demon growled.

  "I will kill you for it," the convict choked.

  "Ha! That is your answer to everything. Amidst all that brawn, one would think some brains existed somewhere."

  My scorched and bloody hand wrapped around the embroidered handle I knew too well. I held the sword firmly. The fuel that was pumped into me, artificial or not, was ready to combust.

  Amber's thrashed across the grass, wailing at ear piercing volumes the woes of so many souls, as the demon whipped the convict to the ground. It stood above the decomposing convict, poised to tear him apart. Its arms spread wide and its robes opened further, revealing another corpse of a body. The skin that draped the demon was black and cracked like a scab. A red viscous liquid that was hard to call blood by the sight of it, squeezed up through the fissures that meandered around its entire desiccated body. As the demon motioned, more seeped free releasing a sharp sulfur reek onto the wind. I couldn't tell a single feature that would declare this creature a sex. The fires that burned away its body, and probably its soul, had taken those features.

  The demon reached down with its scorched hands and dug into the convict's neck, cutting through veins and flesh. The convict shrieked and sent a retaliating blow to the demon's face that spun it around towards me.

  Stunned momentarily, its claret eyes caught the sight of me holding the sword. The demon sneered at me as the convict kicked at its knees and forced it to the ground. It sprawled out flat on its back and the black hood flipped off its head.

  A scarred face appeared. The convict towered above it and leaned over ready to tear his fingernails, teeth, anything into the demon and rip it to shreds, but as he bent over, the moonlight washed over the demon's face.

  The naked white light revealed, past the scars and burns, a face that the convict knew when he was Mural. Below him was a scab of the man that had been with him since the beginning. Even after two hundred years, the convict could recognize the old eyes that lived behind the red embers. Mural had known them well, but they were always more timid than tumultuous. The air between him and his little brother held centuries of toil and tension.

  "Nathaniel? Why? Why would you do this to me?" the convict asked as he hovered above his brother, frozen in shock, unable to continue his relentless charge.

  I began to see Nathaniel's true face as the moonlight spread over him. The scabs and scars couldn't hide his features completely. It was strange to see the two siblings together, both of them practically battered beyond all recognition, reunited after countless deaths that they were both responsible for. I couldn't help but feel that all this carnage was nothing more than an ancient family feud.

  "I had a feeling you would not know why. Never once did you wonder why you got this gift. Never once did you question it. No, because all you wanted to do was destroy." Nathaniel's voice cut through the rasp of the demon's sound. "The first time you held that sword,"

  Nathaniel said, pointing at me and what I held, "you knew murder was your path. Do you even know how you started, brother? I bet you do not, you damned fool. You could not have, for all of this would not have happened if you did."

  "The whispers. They told me..."

  "It started with a whisper for me too, brother. Did you know that? A whisper from Mother as we sat at the bonfire on the night our family died. She told me. I didn't understand what she said for so long, until that one Christmas years later when I found what betrayal was, when you killed me. Do you remember shooting me Mural? Do you remember the gaping hole blown in my body? Do you still see the blood?"

  Nathaniel raised a crooked blackened finger to the base of his neck. The convict's eyes fell on a crusty hole below his brother's Adams apple. Bits of thick dark fluid gurgled within and brimmed around the edges. The convict stood above Nathaniel, dumbfounded.

  "Destiny has a funny way of turning the tides, brother," Nathaniel said, his eyes growing redder. "And it took years and my death to understand what Mother said to me in my sleep, but it was worth the wait. You were doomed the second you killed her, Mural."

  "No, no, no!" The convict held his head in his hands, covering his ears from the horrible words screaming directly into his brain. "The redcoats did it."

  "No. Oh dear brother, no! Are you going to blame them for killing me to?! Oh, the power of denial!"

  The moonlight slid behind a cloud. Nathaniel's charred flesh began to crawl back over his face again and the sinister rasp crept back into his voice. "You stabbed her and then you burned her. She was the movement in the rubble of the house that you found that night Mural, you damned fool! She survived after saving us and then you murdered her. She told me."

  Mural shook his head.

  "No!" the demon hissed. "Do not dare! Do not deny it, murderer!"

  "No, I did not ...no," the convict uttered.

  I crept closer to them, clenching the sword ever tighter. Dark shadows moved unnaturally along the grass towards the convict.

  "I held the light the moment before you shot me Mural, mere seconds after you did. I knew, just before my throat was splattered all over that redcoat lad - I felt that hot death coming for me. So I swore, with all my rage, to all that was holy and even to all that was not, that I would give all to find my murderer and the murderer of my family. I swore it!" the demon roared, his dark gooey spit flying from burnt and blistered lips. "But, as you know, as all should know, that to hold the light is tricky and deceptive. Oh yes, very tricky indeed. The band of imposter redcoats had all died in the war. Every last one of those bastards was dead. The gift had known this, knew it very well. So, in came the twist that is holding the light - the twist in capturing what cannot be kept. The only murderer left was you, you foolish bastard, only you. So I was held by my new distorted destiny and oath to obliterate you. But death, just simple old death was too merciful for you big brother. Oh no, you needed death alright, but you needed it so much that you became it."

  "This is a trick, that is all, just a trick to stop me. You are a demon from Hell."

  "Hell? Heaven? Do you understand these concepts? They only exist in our decisions. I am a demon by my own revenge. As is your wife is an angel created by repentance. And you are the object of our battle. You, who held the light first, were raised from the dead because of my intentions and her emotions. All by the gift in a way. Did you even care to think about why you were brought back? You were not resurrected to retrieve the gift, no, that was not yours to have any longer. Enough destiny had been tw
isted, but you were resurrected to save the lost bit of your soul."

  "Veronica has it. She always has. That is why I need to find her."

  "For your chance at penitence. You started this and you need to end it."

  The black robes subtly crept through the grass, slipping past the convict's attention, but not past mine. The demon was stalling his brother with his lengthy explanations.

  "Death is not here for us, we are here for it," the demon continued.

  I crept with the sword clutched in both hands, blade stretching out behind me, hiding as much of it as I could. The demon's tattered cloak coiled around the convict's feet and pulled them out from beneath him. A droplet of energy combusted within me and I pounced on the demon as it was occupied with the convict. My actions lasted only a few seconds, but stretched on for an eternity.

  Sword raised, I landed squarely on the demon's chest, ready to plunge it right into its heart if it had one. But below me, instead of the demon, it was my father. All my old rage returned in an instant. Every hopeless emotion I ever harbored clouded my head.

  The autumn night dissipated and our breaths puffed into the air. The atmosphere thickened and shaped into walls around us. The ground bent up and formed the big picture window in my old living room. The moon's bright round glow boxed up into the shape of our old television and a row of gravestones stretched out to become the couch. Below me was my father, exactly how I remembered him, skinny, gangly, and pressed against the creaking hardwood floor. I smelled beer on his breath and hatred on his lips. Exhilaration and fear filled my arms. My fingers trembled on the hilt of the sword.

  Static flickered across the television and caught my attention. It glimmered and showed the moon for a second, and then the TV the next. I focused my eyes and an image of my mother appeared on the screen. Her face was soft and solemn and youthful. She pleaded to me with teary eyes, but I hadn't the slightest idea what she wanted. She stretched out, begging for something from me, but was confined within the television, unable to make contact. She wailed only muted screams. I tensed my legs and was about to get up and run to her, but I hesitated. I couldn't go to her.

  That moment of delay slapped grief across her face. Her eyes widened and her mouth hung agape. A blade surged through her chest and blood sprayed against the screen. I could hear the splatter. Amber appeared over her shoulder and drove the blade further into our mother, laughing as blood dripped from her face.

  My face contorted in disgust and rage. I screamed with her, but the image hastily faded back to static. Beneath me I felt a jostling. The body below struggled. My father tried to wiggle free, but stopped once I turned my attention on him. He looked up sheepishly. The wrinkles that meandered about his face and all his hoary hair and stubble, came to me as evidence of his aged frailty. That frailty pleaded to me for compassion and I considered it.

  Could I do this to him? His eyes were brown and patriarchal with a hint of ruby. They sternly sized me up and told me that I couldn't handle such a monumental decision. I was just a cowardly runaway. Always running, never standing true. My father knew I couldn't kill him. No matter what he did, I couldn't go that far.

  But that was the old me.

  My hands quivered at the chance to plummet the blade into his throat. He deserved it, he asked for it. This was long overdo. I should have killed my fears long ago. So much would have been different. Randy would have taken his soul and never met me and maybe this all wouldn't have happened. Maybe Amber wouldn't be writhing in pain nearby. Maybe Mother would have been happy. Maybe...

  Pulsing within my father's eyes flashed a glint of red and a smirk twitched in the corner of his mouth. The illusion of my old living room shivered and began to blow away. It was time.

  He struggled but I had him pinned. These tricks wouldn't work anymore.

  "You don't know what you're doing," my father's voice boomed from below.

  "I do now."

  Chapter 78

  I aimed at the necktie sprawled across the floor and plunged the sword down. Black cloth snaked around my hands and halted the blade in mid-air, a few feet from the demon's scarred neck.

  My eyes widened and I sneered at it. The demon laughed and turned the blade away. I pushed my body weight atop the sword and flexed all my muscles to get that damned sword in this time. But it wouldn't budge. The demon continued to cackle as its fabric minions turned the blade away from it and towards me.

  I immediately locked my elbows and strained to keep the sword at arms length. The blade was long and the point was dangerously close to my chest, even with my arms fully extended. Gritting my teeth and snarling, I roared into the night air, bellowing for more borrowed strength to overcome this.

  "Just give me this, dammit!"

  "Puppet, you get what I give you."

  My elbows gave way and my wrists twisted. The sword came right at my chest. Under the pressure, I slipped forward onto the demon's chest. The edge of the blade ran along the top of my shoulder and sailed past my ear.

  The hilt and my hands stopped abruptly at my ear as my forearms slammed into my torso. My fingers contorted and shifted on the hilt under the hold of the dark living fabric. I tried to switch my hold on the handle, but the robes held them steadfast. The demon choked out a terrible raspy laugh as I struggled in vain.

  The blade's edge, resting on my shoulder, pressed down. I winced and the demon laughed and press it down harder. I had to do something before it sawed through my shoulder.

  I slid further up the demon's chest as he pressed harder on the sword until my knees were at its head.

  The sword sliced into me. I roared and my breath puffed out into the night's chill.

  I pushed my right knee away then heaved it back and into the demons head. The force stunned him and carried my leg over his head. My body pivoted on the demon's torso and I spun around. I found myself staring at his feet not sure what exactly happened.

  The sword dug deeper into my shoulder as it swung around with me. I leaned forward, heaved from my hips down to his waist, and rocketed backwards.

  Completely blind and lurching backwards, aiming a sword dug into my own shoulder, I prayed for guidance. Dear God please don't let me miss!

  The demon's grip on sword slunk away as I felt the blade sink into something soft. Then I jolted to a halt against something hard.

  Black shadows writhed around me, fluttering in convulsing agony, slapping against my face and back. Its robes floundered, striking out blindly. I twisted the blade. The demon erupted in wild pain. Its chest heaved, lifting me off it as its hands frantically grabbed at the sword that pinned it to the ground. The demon jiggled the blade to loosen it, shaking the very night with its screams.

  The sword slipped out of my shoulder as I fell to the demons side. I spun around to see the blade sunk right into the middle of the demon's throat. Squealing in the moonlight I saw Nathaniel's agonized face. He held the blade, its edge cutting deep into his palms as scrambled for a grip but couldn't maintain one as his blood seeped out and slicked the metal. With his precarious grip on the sword's edge, shaking the blade around, he widened the two hundred year old hole as well as the two minute old one in his throat. In his furious attempts to grip the sword and pull it free, he began to saw his own fingers off. I had to turn away.

  But, being either a glutton for punishment or just needing to see it to believe it, I looked back and saw my father's face on the demon's again. Callously, almost casually I slapped my palm atop of the hilt and drove it in a bit deeper, just in case the damned demon was making headway in pulling it out. It writhed out in more wicked shrieks. The demon's living robes, every shred, thrashed about like violent ebony wings. The squirming black chaos also wrapped around the sword plunged through its neck, but couldn't budge it either.

  I was amazed the demon could even utter anything with a sword buried deep in its neck, slicing up to the shelf of its chin, but the screams seemed to emanate from all around and not from its mouth.

  Walls of f
abric towered above me and curled over in dark waves. They grew so tall that they blocked out the stars and the moon. The fabric spun around my neck and limbs, quickly gaining a tight grip, and pulled me in all directions, trying to rip me apart. I tensed and fought against it, but cloth lifted me into the air. My straining joints creaked and snapped as they began to pull away from their connecting bones. I was drawn and quartered in mid air. My teeth grinded down hard. Veins popped in my neck and forehead.

  God, I wasn't about to be ripped apart now.

  And I was right. The strangling strips of living rags lost their grip slowly and let me slip. In a slow, almost deliberate manner, the dark robes fell limply to the grass. The black fabric spread out across the soil like oil, slowly creeping in every direction seeping in deep, as I plummeted back on top of its burnt and scarred chest again.

  The cold autumn night and the moon tugged at me and I rolled with it. I fell away from the demon and bounced off Jessica's grave. The convict fell with me, finally released from the robes as well. The black tendrils slithered away.