by Brindi Quinn
I rush him.
“Whoops!” He falls against Sil, pushing her further over the window’s pane.
Sil cries out again and I have no choice but to halt.
“Yeah.” He wiggles his nose. “Better not come too close. Sil Tenor looks about ready to fall.”
Sil’s legs shake. She can tell as well as I that the tick is serious; dangerously so.
“Release her or I shall gut you using nothing more than the nails on my hand!” My teeth are tighter than they’ve ever been. Bared. Pressed so tightly that they feel on the verge of cracking to pieces.
“Eysh. Quite a temper, man,” says Chif. “And I suspect not healthy in your state. Haven’t you ever heard that smoking’s really bad for you?”
Ugh! Intolerable tick! I glance sidelong at Keek. If we both go at Sil’s captor, surely one of us will reach him before he pushes her.
But looking to Keek is fruitless. Keek is . . . grim. Sporting the expression of a boy who’s just been betrayed and the stance of a squish who’s exhausted all his energy, he stands doltishly. “What are you doing, Chif?” he whines. Pathetic. The only word for him is sniveling.
“What am I doing? Why, carrying out my end of the bargain there, Keek.”
And in that moment I realize. I understand what is happening here. Keek and Chif exchanging unspoken words. Keek looking trodden. I had it wrong. Keek is not Sil’s minion. . . . He’s Chif’s. The pair of them are in frucking cahoots!
Keek has been slaughtered many times in my mind, but this time is by far the most violent, most brutal, most soulless imagining of it.
“The bargain?” I question with rage.
“No! You said that if you gave the book to me, you’d go after HIM. Not HER. Let her go right now!” the deceptive minion pleads.
Sil whimpers.
“Shhh,” shushes Chif, unnervingly calm. “You know what happens if you misbehave, Sil Tenor. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.”
How dare he speak to my . . . my mark that way?! How dare he threaten what is mine?! How dare he force her into submission? The only one allowed to submit her is I!
“What is the meaning of this?!” I look between the pair of crooks. Crook number one cowers. Crook number two is amused.
He beckons to Keek. “Well, go on. Tell Tran what we’ve done. Be sure to say it loud enough for Sil Tenor to hear.”
Keek shakes his head, which has since fallen into his chest like a disobedient mutt.
“Fine,” says Chif. “If you wont, I will.” He pauses to push Sil a little further, to which she responds by sobbing. It is all I can to do to root my feet as the bastard begins his tale:
“Do you remember when I told you I performed séances before?”
He won’t continue until I respond, so I do so with bottled wrath. “Yes?”
“And that it worked once, but that it was my brother playing a trick on us?” He giggles a creepy, light-hearted, joyous laugh. “Little scat.”
“I hardly see what that has to do with –”
“Thing is, little bro is dead. Has been for years. He was messing with us from the misty beyond! So great!” Chif’s delight is apparent. “Anyway, he told us what happened to him. I always figured he was abducted by some man with a fat neck and a liking for boys his type. But no, he was . . . what’s the word? Spirited away? Yeah. That happened. He was spirited away. And he even told us the name of his offender. Daem. He was spirited away by a daem.”
This is absurd. Sil hangs out the window, and I’m to listen to this mortal’s tale of revenge?!
“So what?” I lash, stepping toward him. “Expect me to apologize on behalf of daems? There is a select sect of us tasked with issuing those sorts of orders. Thinking I had anything to do with it is incredibly naïve!”
“No, no. I know you didn’t. To be honest, I don’t care what happened to my brother. I never really liked that little scab anyway. But I was intrigued. He told me all sorts of things. About spirits. And daems. You could say my eyes were opened. Cliché? Yeah. Cliché all right. But it’s true. After that, I learned to LOOK for things – things that didn’t belong.” He giggles again. “And then one glorious fall day I found one. On Sil Tenor’s desk.
“It was a week after you got here, Tran. I got to class early. I like to get here early to watch people. See them wiggle about in their bodies. I was sitting, minding their own business, when I saw it. Resting neatly on Sil Tenor’s desk was this purple book. It was just the sort of thing I watch for, if you get my drift.” He raises his shoulders sheepishly. “So I took it. The book and the note.”
“Note!?” Sil makes the mistake of blurting.
Chif punishes her by putting more weight against her unsteady frame and forcing another scream.
“STOP THAT!” yells Keek.
“Go on and show him the note, Keek,” Chif responds, giddy.
The prat is reluctant. Distraught over Sil’s situation, he snivels and cowers and pats his pocket protectively.
But it is a disrespect. The bloated punk has no right to feel that way! He is the cause of Sil’s strife! I do not know his complete contribution, but his hand in this is certain!
“SHOW ME!” I take my fury out on him, a majority of it, and tackle him to the ground.
He lets me. Maybe he wants to be punished. Maybe he thinks it will offer pardon. Defeated, he reaches into his pocket and removes a small slip of paper. The thing he’s been hiding in his pocket all this time. I’ve caught glimpses of it in the past, but never has it so much as been offered to me. The moment my fingers graze it, something mystical happens. All languages of Dhiant are returned to my knowledge.
All is revealed.
The note is blank, but its message is in my head. They are familiarly voiced words, my father’s words. I speak it aloud so that Sil can hear.
“Thou’st relation lives no longer as thou knew him. For his service he hath been transformed into a new existence, neither spirit nor hume. I hath done my part and brought him to the place of the great battle of the Samel reign. I hath brought him to Count’s Fieldbo. All thou need do is summon him further using the ash between the pages of this, the Tome of Nix. All that thou need lies within, excepting the smoke of Dhiant. That thou must find on thou’st own.”
The spell to find Sil’s father, it requires me?
“Now that last part,” Chif interjects. “I knew what that meant from what I’d heard from my brother. Dhiant was the home of the all-powerful daems capable of ripping mortals from their world.” Chif winks at me. “Sil Tenor was meant to use smoke from a daem? What daem? I thought on it, and my first suspect was . . . maybe Tran-a-lan: the person who mysteriously arrived a week before the book. Not to mention, he was the one always staring at her. Seemed fitting. AND when I took a peek inside Sil Tenor’s notebook and found Tran drawn with horns? Yup, I figured that’s our guy!”
“Your point?” I boil.
“The point is obvious. The fearsome power lil bro spoke of! Power that could be bottled and used for all sorts of nifty things? I thought I’d try my hand at getting me some!”
There are instances where I get the inkling that a creature is born to wrong species. This is one those cases. Chif has a vampire’s mentality.
“That’s when I made a deal with Keek,” explains Chif. “I’d give him the book so that he could work on summoning the dead relation. I convinced him that once he contacted lost Pa, Sil’d be like butter. In exchange, he’d arrange it so me and the new kid could have some facetime. I already knew you weren’t a very personable guy, Tran, so I thought you’d let your guard down better if it was a group affair.”
I frown. “The graveyard.”
“Yup. I was trying to use the spells from that book, but for the life of me, I could not get the smoke out of you! After that, I kept following you around, waiting for my chance. But no dice, man! . . . Until tonight.” He turns squealish. “And now we’re going to pick up where we left off!”
“You knew what the smoke of
Dhiant was the whole time?” Keek’s devastation is great. “You said it was probably just code for nighttime!”
Chif giggles in his way. “Oh, sad. Yeah. I’ll admit it. I knew it was Tran’s blood the whole time. I couldn’t let you have any, Keek. You understand, I needed it all for myself. And now, if he doesn’t want Sil Tenor to die, he’ll give the rest to me willingly.” He shifts his attention to me. “What do you say, Tran-a-lan? Seem like a fair trade? Sil Tenor’s unspilt blood for your smoke?” He nods to a jar sitting on the desk nearest him. “All you gotta do is let it flow into that container there.”
I eye the jar. Willingly? I am to give Chif my smoke in exchange for Sil? Ludicrous! I will never do something like that! Sacrifice royal, immortal smoke for the sake of a mortal! What care of it is mine if . . . if . . .
Sil’s mint. A precious thing. A thing that should not be erased. And also, Sil herself, with all of her tendencies. Do I wish her to die? No, I do not. But am I willing to turn into a demon for her?
“A moral dilemma?” Tran sighs. “Let me make it easier. I will push Sil out the window if you don’t answer in five . . . four . . .”
Sil’s annoying, filthy, dimwitted habits.
“Three . . .”
Sil’s bobbing, rabbiting, slouching, slumping, crawling, absconding, dancing.
“Two . . .”
Sil’s mint. Sil’s electric blue eyes. Sil’s kiss.
“One!”
“DO NOT!” My mouth cries out at the same time as his. “Take it then, you tick!” What am I saying? I will not die for her! “Simply let my Sil go!” But I am willing to let him take some of my blood if it means stalling. If it means sparing her for the moment.
If only there were some way for me to take control of him while he’s pulling my smoke . . .
But I am not made to think of a tactic. For just then, we are enveloped in the warmest, purest, whitest light. The under-light of Dhiant swarms the room, blinding my mortal-adjusted eyes and evaporating any images of the tick the minion and Sil’s peril. When I am able to see again, my mark and I are alone in a brightened version of the cemetery behind Sil’s house. Were we transported, or is this an illusion?
Either way, I’m relieved. Utterly furious, mind you, but relieved.
Sil is on the ground, shaken and distraught and searching the place with eyes that are different than normal. They aren’t gray, or even electric. They are glowing blue. The under-light augments them even more than the mortal sun.
When I am caught up with the moment, I hurry to her side. “Sil.”
“Demon boy?! How’d we . . .?”
I am unsure of what to do to her. I am . . . glad that she is all right. That her mint will exist another day. That she will live another day. But that aside, I do not know how to treat her.
Things are complicated further when a voice rings through the white-blasted gravestones.
“Prince of Dhaint,” it booms around the yard, “as stated by the rules of the deal, this endeavor, thou’st exile, was a test of sacrifice.”
I know the instant I hear it: It is the authority. The big one. My father, King of Dhiant.
“And now, on this night of Galtia, in order to finish proving thou’self, thou must sacrifice something thou hath deemed precious. Thou must sacrifice thou’st mark.”
Chapter 12: The Meaning of Sacrifice
Sacrifice . . . Sil?
I am to kill my mark?
I have thought of killing Sil using many different weapons – household utensil or otherwise – in many different settings on many different occasions.
I’ve killed her with a knife, a rope, a serrated piece of grimy mirror, and even a spoon. I’ve killed her in her sleep, as she eats, in the middle of class while the others watch, and on the ground of this very graveyard. I’ve killed her feeling no remorse, feeling purest pleasure, and even while experiencing ecstasy.
Sil’s death is something I’ve lusted after.
But . . .
Those were in earlier days.
Now . . .
I yet lust for Sil. But it is no longer for her death. I yet long to oppress her and possess her and coerce her. I long to restrain her and own her and force her into submission.
Love me, Sil. Do it already.
But why do I wish for this? Is it solely to experience the warm release that comes with kissing her? Is it merely to find humor in her stupidity? Is it to forever take my fill of her minty essence?
She is mine. My thing.
Then why do I also wish her to be . . .
To no longer . . .
For an end to her nested tears.
Why do I wish Sil to not only live, but to also be happy?
Sil also heard the voice move in the air. And she recognizes it, for it was the one that first spoke into her mind and made the deal. She knows it is my father’s order; she’s heard the task I am charged with; and she is frightened.
Authority says that I don’t know about altruism. Authority says that if I want to become a ruler I must first experience something sacrificial. And the greatest sacrifice, I’m told, has something to do with love.
Sacrificing something that . . . I love?
Do I love Sil?
Certainly not! I merely wish to be with her at all times. And to kiss her. And to brutally slaughter anything that makes her unhappy – the tick and minion and vixen included.
So, no. I do not love her.
I merely wish to become one with her. To push my smoke into her and control her from within. To pull in her mint and let it mix with the smoke of my veins that writhe at the thought of touching her.
“Demon boy?” Sil quivers. She’s asking me without words if she should run. But where to, Sil? Where do the edges of the white under-light lead? What will happen if you fall out of them? Are we still in the classroom? Will you go tumbling out the window?
“Don’t run,” I tell her. Slowly and meticulously, I warn her, “Remain.”
And then I slip my hands around her neck. She is stiff. A thick little rabbit quickly turning angry and defiant.
I shake my head.
The authority says that if I want to rule; if I want to return to my life; if I want to regain my horns, I must experience sacrifice.
But I am far, far too selfish for something like that.
Sacrifice something so precious as Sil? Like hell. LIKE FRUCKING HELL!
Hands still around the shaking girl’s neck, I bring my mouth close to her lobe. “I won’t harm you, Sil. But I can’t save you, either. If we break the deal, we’ll both be sentenced.” I pause to nibble at the bottom of her ear because it’s too satisfying.
No longer afraid, she grunts an angry grunt.
Right. Focus.
“I need power. If I get my horns back, I’ll be able to break us out of this warped reality.”
“Warped?”
I nod. “This is light of Dhiant. But it appears a mortal plane. I’m not sure what will happen if we flee from it.”
She scans the white surroundings, church and graves, and shows blatant skepticism. “How are you supposed to get power?”
The answer is obvious to me. “Let’s try again, Sil,” I tell her. “Right here. Right now.”
But while I am sure, she is unsure. She wrinkles her nose in detest.
Don’t look at me like that, Sil.
“I will protect you.” I tell her. “Because you’re mine.”
“I’m not yours.”
“Then become mine.”
She remains unsure. After everything – our kiss, Keek’s betrayal, the truth of it all – she doubts that we will be able to make it work.
“Love me, Sil,” I urge. “Stop being so pigheaded and love me.”
She rolls her blue-glowed eyes. They are cynical. But her lips? They have faith, for they remember the taste of me.
“Oh poo,” they say. “If it’s all we have left.”
Excellent.
The white, unnatural graveyard surrounds
us. Still and quiet, there is no noise of brush or wind or bird. The only audible thing is our breathing. Every breath is amplified. The ground feels like nothing, though the leaves show in the image. Nothing feels like anything except for our flesh touching – my hands removed from her neck and hung awkwardly over the back of her shoulders; her fingers crawling up my abdomen.
“Cold!” I cringe. “Damn, Sil. It feels like you’re dead after all.”
She smirks a sadistic smirk. “Heh.”
And when her palm finds its rightful place against my chest, she lets her mouth fall serene. She locks the blue upon mine, but they are so bright that it is hard to keep their peer.
Sil is an enigma.
I wait for her to say them. She takes her time.
“Blood and smoke . . . soul and shadow . . . heart and void.” It is here that her blue gems wince.
Wince? What for?
She finishes with hesitancy, “I . . . love you, Wayst.”
There is something different about the way she says it this time. She loves me? I search her eyes because I am curious. Does she really?
Thought takes me. Sil grows impatient. Out of nowhere, she scathes at me. “Geez! I frucking love you, ‘kay?” she says again. And again she winces in frustration. “‘You happy now? Well, get over it, you spoiled jerk! It’s not like I want to!”
It is painful for her, but she loves me. It is painful for me too. My chest tightens and aches. Sil loves me? I don’t understand what it means exactly, but there is something frustrating and satisfying about it all at the same time.
She loves me, but I see now that it is not something by choice. She doesn’t WANT to love me any more than I want to love her. Love is a tragic thing, it would seem. Something heinous a person cannot escape. When it guts you, it consecutively tears at both pleasure and agony, in turn toying with opposite sides of the ego.
I hate Sil. And I love Sil.
And upon understanding that one simple truth, I see red. A spark of sanguine.
