Havoc of Souls

by S. J. Sanders

  His ears twitched and he inhaled, trying to catch the scent of whatever made the sound. The pungent smell of rot permeated the area. There was something there; he was certain of it. Yet it had hidden its presence well.

  His eyes fastened on a pale figure of a woman standing just yards away among the trees. Her dress hung off her frame, with one breast bared in a manner he had to assume was intentionally provocative, and her hair flowed in long tangles. She looked toward the bushes that concealed Meredith but then looked back to him, smiling at him as she beckoned. Her movements were stiff and jerky. She also didn’t smell right.

  Wariness filled him. He didn’t want this female anywhere near Meredith. He wouldn’t trust anyone near her. The lauchume’s minions were after her, and humans were liable to kill her.

  He snarled, determined to frighten the strange woman away. He did not sense anything of Aites radiating off her, but he didn’t sense anything at all, not even an aura. It was possible she possessed the talent to repress it. Some beings did. Best to drive her away from him, away from the hidden dangers of the chasm, so he could be free to see to his female’s safety. Baring his fangs, he snarled again and stepped forward menacingly. The female made a strange sound and darted away through the trees.

  Satisfied that she was gone, Charu turned back toward the waterfall. His every sense prickled with alarm. Even his serpents waved frantically, several falling off his body to slide lightning-fast through the grass to seek her out.

  Two steps were all he managed before thick, glowing fibers lashed around his body, tightening around his legs and torso. By chance, only one of his arms had been bound against his body, his other arm still holding his hammer aloft. He couldn’t strike the fibers binding him without causing his flesh injury, so he twisted and swung his hammer at the fibrous tentacles that extended from his body. The sickly glow coming off them was all too familiar.

  He should have known that it would be an acila.

  Named after the earthly handmaidens who tended to the needs of the lady they served, the acila were the bottom feeders of Aites, often tending to the infernal goddesses and powerful spirits, consuming scraps offered to them for their loyal service. They danced near the edge of sentience, but for the most part they were instinctual creatures and aggressive in protection of their mistresses.

  Given the size of the tentacles holding him, he had no doubt that it was a behemoth, well-fed by whomever controlled it. He protracted his claws and tore them into the tentacles. Although it wouldn’t kill him, being devoured by the acila would trap him within it for countless years until he’d be able to climb out of its gullet.

  He didn’t have time for that.

  He swung his hammer again, aiming for the tentacles. Several of them whipped out from the darkness and twined around his hammer. They yanked it free from his hand, his arm bending sharply. Charu roared with pain. The tentacles around his torso tightened and snapped, pulling him off his feet. His body collided with the ground with enough force that the tremor from his impact shook the trees around him. The lamp dislodged from his belt and rolled into the bushes. He snarled in dismay. No doubt that had been the creature’s target all along. It was vulnerable to the lantern and smart enough to know to remove a threat.

  The acila lifted him into the air and slammed him into the ground, repeating the brutal assault. The branches of the trees, disturbed by the vibrations, rattled like silent spectators applauding. Cursing his ill luck, he watched as his hammer fell to the ground just feet away. He dug his claws into the soil, his muscles straining as he attempted to drag closer to it, against the pull from the acila.

  He scrambled against the twigs, rocks, and broken branches biting into his arm and hand, scraping his body as he dragged it forward. His fingers barely grazed the handle when the acila decided it was done playing.

  A sharp tug whipped him back through the brush, bare branches speeding by him as his hammer was lost from sight. His claws marked deep furrows into the ground but didn’t so much as slow the acila. It was dragging him back to the chasm. He turned his attention away from stopping his progress to a full-out assault on the tentacles binding him. He clawed and bit at them relentlessly until finally a high shriek pierced the air and it dropped him.

  Breathing harshly, Charu stared at the broken rock and dark-light rising like midnight flames into the sky. If anything, they seemed bigger than before. Had the creature become clever enough to even mask the dank glow of its den so that it appeared vacated?

  He rolled himself up onto his knees. His entire body ached. If possible, he hurt worse than he did whenever he suffered the short, piercing pain from bullets. His entire body felt battered and broken. His only thought was of Meredith, getting back to her and flying them as far away as possible.

  Then, his dark wings manifested. They came this time with a ripple of unfathomable pain. He roared in agony but pushed himself to his feet. He took one stumbling step and then another, his wings painfully shifting in preparation for flight. He was weakened from the assault but determined to run as far as he had to until he could lift off from the ground. A movement seen out of the corner of his eye had him springing away, his wings rippling.

  The female from earlier slid up to the left of him, her body contorting as she approached him. This time, she was entirely bare of her clothing, revealing every bit of her human flesh. She lifted her arms and moaned at him, her hips gyrating in invitation. She didn’t speak, but her breathy moans issued a wordless plea that even he couldn’t mistake. His lip curled at the insanity of it, but then his eyes widened as he caught sight of the tentacles streaming from her body.

  She wasn’t alive. The acila was using her body like a puppet manipulated by the strings of a puppeteer. Who knew how many human bodies it kept in its lair to tempt unsuspecting prey?

  The human puppet moaned and ran her hands over her body. He dared not allow it to get close to him. No doubt the tentacles hidden within her were many, enough to animate her and plenty more to spare to trap her prey. He snarled and backed away, unwilling to present his back again to the creature.

  Chapter 17

  Meredith froze as she heard the crash through the underbrush of something being pulled violently away. Whatever it was snarled with the ferocity of a lion or a bear. The cold bath had done much to cool her passion, but now she stared in the direction to the sound had come from.

  “Charu?” she called, hoping that at any moment he would leap through the brush to her side. Silence greeted her. She called his name and again, her voice rising in pitch as fear seized her.

  Her body began to glow in reaction to her mounting panic as she stumbled from the edge of the water. He wouldn’t have just left her. Where was he?

  She heard the roar again in the distance, unmistakable pain and fury barely contained in that ferocious sound. Without thinking, she raced forward, not caring about her nakedness or the cold air biting her wet skin. All she could think was to get to him.

  In her wild dash through the woods, she didn’t see the glow of the lantern until the edge of its metal casing struck the side of her foot. A sharp zap of power flooded into her, feeding the energy already emanating from her skin. It hurt more than the first flood of power. Though the touch had been less than a second, the direct contact with it felt like fire running through her, searing her cells.

  She screamed and fell forward gracelessly, pain shooting through her legs from where her knees struck rock. She curled into herself, tears streaming down her face until the pain finally eased enough for her to take one deep breath and then another.

  Struggling to her feet, still hearing the clamor from a distance, Meredith eyed the lantern, concern flooding her. She had no doubt now that the sounds she heard came from Charu. But how did he get separated from his lantern? It seemed unlikely that anything could wrest it from his possession. The fact that something had managed to separate him from his lamp made the trickle of unease winding through her flare into a deluge.

  She
needed to get to him, but truth be told, he needed his lamp more than he needed her. But how was she going to get it to him? She definitely wouldn’t touch it again, not when her insides still felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to them. She bit her lip and considered it. She needed something to carry it with.

  Casting a searching glance around, she spotted a forked branch laying in the grass. The wood was green like something had recently broken it from the tree, and it appeared strong when she picked it up and tested it between her hands.

  With the branch held out in front of her, she approached it slowly.

  “Don’t zap me again and I’ll get you to Charu, all right?”

  The light churned in the lamp, a reddish glow slowly heightening in a milky swirl.

  “Yeah, I think he’s facing something dangerous too. So, let’s get you to him then.”

  Sliding the tip of the forked branch through the iron ring at the top of the lamp, she tipped the branch up to lift the lantern off the ground. She huffed in surprise at its weight. It was the size of an ordinary lantern but it felt like she was lifting a healthy toddler on the stick. Her muscles strained under the weight. Yeah, there would have been no way she’d have been able to carry this thing as she’d once planned. Worse, its weight seemed to gradually increase the longer she held it. What had seemed effortless for Charu was making her arms shake with exertion.

  She hefted the branch higher and the lamp brightened in front of her face. Meredith fell into the light, captivated by the glow that seemed to lure her in. It enticed her to embrace it, to touch it. It brightened as she leaned closer, her hand raised. Another angry roar crashed through the air, jolting her out of her fascination.

  She reeled back and glared at the lantern reproachfully.

  “Nice try. You nearly got me that time. Come on, we’re wasting time.”

  Tucking the end of the branch beneath her arm as a counterweight, she rushed through the forest following the sounds. She knew she was heading back to the chasm. She ignored the rush of fear that filled her. There had to be something pretty horrible that had crawled out of the abyss to have forced Charu back there.

  She’d broken free of the tree line when she caught sight of him. His body was a mess of bruises and ugly gashes. His wings flared around his body as he faced... a woman? A totally naked woman. Meredith slowed in confusion, but then her vision shifted, and she saw the tentacles buried in the woman’s body. Several others curled freely around her, waving in a strange rhythm. The woman-puppet jerked in a grotesque parody of seduction, but Charu snarled, backing away.

  Other tentacles began to emerge from the chasm, curling and heaving, sliding through the air and along the ground. The dark-light pulsed, flickering like a raging fire as a massive tubular body raised from the depths. It reminded her of a giant worm, though its body bristled with tentacles that helped it to slide along and grasp for its prey. The serrated maw of its mouth opened to reveal an endless cavern, eager to be fed.

  “Charu!” she shouted.

  His head whipped around to look at her. Relief flooded his features but were quickly replaced with worry and anger as he spied what was emerging from the crevice.

  “Leave!”

  Her instincts begged her to do as he said, to run away and find a safe place to hide. Listening to them had been how she’d managed to survive for so long, but this time she couldn’t. She wouldn’t run and hide while he faced that... thing ...alone. She was so sick of running and hiding and letting others risk themselves to try and make a difference. She remembered the exorcist. He’d come to their town to help them, and not one person lifted a finger to aid him. Not even Meredith had bothered to risk her own wellbeing.

  She refused to do that to Charu. She couldn’t lose him.

  A whisper curled through her mind. It sounded almost feminine yet undefined.

  Beings of Aites are vulnerable to the light.

  Meredith gritted her teeth, feeling her own power flow through her, flaring over her skin. Instinctively, without giving her the opportunity to think about it, her light mingled with that of the lamp and it brightened impossibly. She couldn’t help Charu win a battle of might, but perhaps she could do this one thing.

  Heaving the lantern in front of her, she strode past Charu, heading toward the chasm. Every step felt pained, the weight of the lantern bearing down on her, her skin sizzling with the heat of the light rushing off of her. Charu’s angry voice followed her.

  “Meredith! Leave. NOW!”

  She refused to back down as the thing rose higher into the sky, its hungry gaze fastened on her. It shrieked angrily at the sight of the lamp, its whip-like tentacles lashing through the air. Bile rose into her throat as she faced the monstrosity. She would be by Charu’s side in this fight, no matter what it took.

  Her concentration was broken when the faux woman suspended on the tentacles screamed terribly. Charu’s hands dripped with gore, severed tentacles lying around him. His eyes glowed like an inferno, and the human puppet crumbled on her supports, her innards seeping out of her belly onto the ground.

  The creature wailed, dozens of tentacles rising from the abyss, piercing the air as they rushed toward Charu. He was powerful, but even she knew he had no hope of evading all of them.

  She knew what she had to do. The voice in her head urged her on.

  Meredith hoisted the lamp and drew on her power, speaking to it and directing its form. She willed it to penetrate and destroy that which threatened them, hoping the lamp would respond in kind and amplify her effort. Although Charu told her not to waste her energy, she pushed every bit of her power through her, commanding it to strike the mass of tentacles arching over them in so many numbers that they blotted out the sky.

  Charu roared her name, but his voice was lost when she felt the energy ripple through her and over her skin. It burned through her blood, roaring through her veins in such a rush that she couldn’t hear or see anything. The entire world was lost to the red light that leaped up from her spirit and the lamp in tandem. It pierced the darkness like an arrow, bursting through the web of tentacles like fireworks, burning through them with the intensity of the sun. It wailed again and she was able to barely make out the writhing shadow of its body.

  She collapsed, the clang of the lantern striking a nearby rock loud in her ears. Her entire body felt like it was nothing more than ashes held together, every bit of vitality drained out of her. Her vision cleared as she felt a rush of air. She blinked away the tears of exhaustion threatening to obscure her vision. Every breath felt pained, as if she were siphoning it through a straw.

  Charu’s roar sounded as savage as thunder cracking through stormy clouds. His dark wings arched as he took to the air. He landed beside her and hunched over her, his hand stroking through her hair as his soft feathers grazed her. The terrible screams of the monster faded into the background at the tender look in his eyes. His primary serpent dropped onto her, followed by several smaller ones. They twined around her protectively. He leaned in and rested his forehead against hers, his horns brushing against the top of her head.

  Drawing upon the last reserves of her energy, she made a snap decision. If there was any chance of this being her last moment on Earth, she wanted to make it count. She reached up and grabbed a horn, pulling his mouth down to hers. She captured his full lips with hers and felt him go still. It was only for a moment, the kiss painfully sweet.

  He pulled back briefly and she sighed, happy to have had at least that. She was unprepared when he attacked her mouth ravenously, his tongue invading, sweeping through and brushing along hers. She whimpered in protest when their kiss broke. His eyes burned as he looked down at her, his hand trailing along her jaw.

  “Wait here.”

  She wanted to laugh and tell him that she didn’t have the energy to move even if she wanted to. That kiss had cost her the last of what she had, but oh, it had been worth it. She watched blurry-eyed as he rose to his feet and walked a few paces away and bent to retrieve
the lantern. It flared in his hands as he leaped into the skies, his massive wings beating with more exertion than before.

  The light from the lamp grew brighter and burned the beast, its body coming undone under the light he directed at it. The creature floundered as it swung itself through the air to the left and right, desperate to evade the inescapable piercing beams. It whipped its torso in a last-ditch attack, but Charu dropped like a bird of prey, his claws flaying down the center of its torso. The torn flesh peeled back and burned away, fragmenting into wisps of smoke that broke apart in successive clouds, scattering on the wind. Its terrible shrieks never seemed to end until eventually, at long last, they faded as it was consumed by the light.

  Meredith closed her eyes. She barely clung to consciousness when Charu dropped to her side once more. She felt his massive arms pick her up and cradle her against his chest and the press of his lips on her brow.

  “Rest, Meredith. I will take care of you.”

  She was still aware when he walked back into the woods, and when he stopped to retrieve his hammer. After that, she floated in and out of consciousness. She had no idea how long they walked. She could feel the way his body labored to support her and keep moving forward. He needed to heal, and she felt like a terrible burden on him. Still, not once did he put her down, not until she roused back to consciousness again when he lay her in a soft dust-covered bed.

  She struggled for wakefulness, but he shushed her, his hands stroking her head. The lamp sat on the nightstand nearby, its light once again a healing balm. She stared into it as he drew the blankets around her and settled behind her, curling around her back. The warm weight of him comforted her and eventually she fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 18