Seconds: The Shared Soul Chronicles

by Brindi Quinn

  Jobe sought to put a stop to it before she could really get going. He put up his hands.

  “Okay, okay, Miss Shrink. So what dark part are YOU trying to forget? I haven’t able to find one in you.” He glanced at her sideways and added, “Oh, trust me. I’ve looked.”

  “That is . . .” But Tide couldn’t remember. She was sure there was something, but whatever it was, it’d slipped her mind. “Uh . . . I’m not . . . sure.”

  Now fully back to his regular self, Jobe bonked her playfully on the head. “Whatever, spacey,” he said. “Just tell me off if I get bad from now on, okay? I’ll try to keep it under wraps. No promises, though.”

  Tide nodded, preoccupied by her fogged memory and suddenly as glad to be rid of the discussion as he was. Thanks to her, the darkness had subsided. But although the young girl had just battled one demon, another still lurked, and it was getting closer.

  A few more steps, and the hunter and huntress were at the wide base of the dead tree, which, despite being dead, wasn’t all that decayed. Tide patted the trunk.

  “You go up first,” she said, still contemplating the forgotten flaw.

  “Fine by me,” – Jobe paused before adding, “Ink.”

  He wrapped his arms around the bark and started up, leaving Tide alone in the cave of a building.

  It was mistake. A very big one.

  Chapter 5: The Dark Thing

  The demon took form. It took the form of the first temptation and ensnared the girl. And in a distant place, another gained life.

  Jobe called to Tide: “I’m going up halfway! Wait until I get there to start your climb!”

  “Sure,” said Tide. “As long as you leave some eggs for me. Oh, and don’t let yourself fall. You seem a little top-heavy from what I’ve gathered.”

  “Top heavy? Oh, ha ha. See this? I’m keeling over because of your flamboyant hilarity.”

  “When a girl’s flamboyant, I believe the term you should use is ‘bubbly’,” said Tide.

  “Riiiight. Sorry. Guess I forgot you were a girl.”

  “Hey!”

  Things were fine between them now. Everything was okay. Actually, things were better than before. Deciphering Jobe’s darkness had made Tide’s confidence permanent. They were familiar. Comfortable. Tide didn’t have many acquaintances, but she knew enough to sense that she could treat him the same way she treated Y now, and that meant that they were friends.

  “Whoa, dreamy!” said Jobe. “What’s going on in that head of yours? Ohp! I knew it! You’re falling for me, aren’t you?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “You don’t have to answer so quickly,” Jobe said dryly. He reached for the fourth limb from the roof and pulled himself higher. Tide waited behind in the darkness.

  The blackbirds swarmed above them – an onyx flock of circling feather-bodied guardians. Tide didn’t know it yet, but the behavior of the birds was unusual. Or maybe it was more than unusual. Jobe didn’t recognize it either, for even though he’d grown up in the forested, bird-dwelling south, he hadn’t had previous experience with this particular breed. However, even though neither of them realized the peculiarity of what was happening, an avian-knowledgeable onlooker would have noticed that the birds had devised a system – a thing unnatural to simple plains-fowl. While the larger of the birds remained perched near the highest branches where the tawny nests resided, the smaller, more agile birds flew around the great tree in a circular motion, looking more like vultures than blackbirds. Perhaps even more alarming than that, though, was that, unbeknownst to Jobe and Tide, the ‘nests’ protected by the birds were actually decoys composed of carefully placed cactus needles. The real eggs were hidden someplace else.

  It was eerie. It was abnormal. But neither the princess nor her hunter would realize until it was too late. This was no ‘cake’ mark. This was trickery at its best.

  The demon laughed. Tide didn’t hear it, but the smallest of her neck hairs reacted anyway. Shivering, she looked behind her into the depths of the abandoned airport.

  Jobe was a quarter of the way up the tree. The perched birds stared at him. The circling birds continued along their paths. The demon laughed again.

  Tide moved closer to the dead tree’s trunk. “J-Jobe?” she said. “I’m coming up, okay?”

  “No, not yet! Just let me make sure this path is safe first. Uh, I mean, I don’t want you getting in the way or anything!”

  “Hey!” said the princess, who’d caught the truth despite her partner’s lame attempt at covering it up. “What do you mean ‘safe’?! I’m not a moron! I know how to tell if I’m about to step onto a weak branch!”

  “Just be quiet, you! And wait!” said Jobe.

  But Tide was scared. A presence had arrived with the fog. It had been watching her since the previous morning, and it was closing in.

  “Jobe?” she said again, her voice timid. This time Jobe didn’t hear. He was too transfixed on the lowest of the decoy nests. Tide put a hand against the rough bark of the trunk and told herself to be calm, but it did nothing to soothe her unrest. “That’s it,” she told herself. “I don’t care anymore.” And she about to start her way up the climb, to hell with Jobe’s orders, when a low growling, as deep as the throatiest of garbles and as harsh as the most scornful of reprimands, slipped into the air around her.

  “What the heck?!” Tide froze in lieu of the noise, certain she’d imagined it, but when it grew to a volume that was too obvious to ignore, she readied her fists and spun to find the source. She saw nothing, but the growling intensified tenfold. The princess tried to cry out – as any sane person should upon hearing such an evil and displaced noise – but her voice had been stolen by a fiend she had yet to see. Left with no other choice, she frantically scrambled to get proper footing on the tree, but before she could do anything of the sort, a black, slithering thing coiled itself around her middle and pulled her into the dark depths.

  Jobe knew nothing of Tide’s danger, and he hoisted himself higher. The first of the nests was just out of reach. The birds hadn’t changed their behavior. They were still watching.

  Meanwhile, the black thing, slithering like a tar-drenched serpent, drew Tide deeper into the ruins below. The princess struggled to worm away, but the dark thing was persistent. Any attempts to speak resulted in failure. Still, Tide fought, as persistent as the demon itself. The demon retaliated with another loud growl, and it was then that Tide realized that there was something off about the entire encounter.

  Her legs were against the debris-covered ground, but where she should have felt sharp scrapes and harsh jostlings with each new jagged concrete remnant, she felt nothing. When she should have experienced the angry whiplash of a rogue chain, she seemed to move right through it. Yes, she should have felt the effects of being forcibly dragged through the ruins, but all she could feel was the twisting grip of the serpent around her middle. It was bizarre.

  Had the young girl been able to speak, she would have screamed first, cursed second, and then asked the universe if she was somehow nightmaring. She could do none of those things, so she silently fought.

  “Aha!” yelled Jobe from somewhere far away. The hunter had reached the first nest, and he now made a swipe for it. Upon contact, several things happened in a matter of seconds.

  The cactus needles made themselves known by piercing Jobe’s callused hand. Deeply. Mercilessly. Jobe let out a loud wail that disrupted the perched birds. All together, they lit from their branches and moved into a terrifyingly uniform formation – a straight line along the side of the roof. Their first line of defense had been activated. It was time for them to move to the true eggs’ resting place. Meanwhile, the circling birds had also changed formation. One by one, they began suicide diving straight for Jobe’s head.

  “WHAAAAA!” Jobe wailed again and raised his uninjured arm to shield his face from the birds’ attacks. His other hand was leaking red in several places, struck by multiple pierce wounds, and there were even a few needles
that had lodged themselves deeply enough to remain, though he tried to shake them off. “INK! A LITTLE HELP!”

  But Tide couldn’t hear him. She was away. Far, far away and being pulled along by the demon.

  One after another, the birds dove at Jobe. He fought to retain footing. Using his uninjured hand, the hunter reached into his pocket for his short blade and began slashing at each blackbird that came for his face. He earned contact on his second attempt, and sent one bird falling to the ground with an ungraceful thwomp! A few straggling feathers fell onto the limb around Jobe’s feet. It was a sign of his victory over one, but the remaining suicide divers reacted with vigor. Although Jobe defended himself to the best of his abilities, it wasn’t enough. One of the birds made it through his defense and landed a sharp beak-jab into his cheek.

  “To hell with this!” shouted Jobe. His strategy wasn’t working. He’d be stranded there all day, under attack and bleeding, unless he acted. But in order to make it down the tree, he’d have to sacrifice the rest of his face. That didn’t sound fun.

  “INK!?” He hoped for a response that didn’t come. “ARGH! FREAKIN’ BIRDS!”

  Shielding his cheek, Jobe glanced down for the next nearest branch. He spotted it, drew a deep breath, and took a leap. He landed not on his feet, but on his hip. Without thinking, the injured boy hurried to push himself into a better position, and in the process, pressed his full weight onto his needled hand. The spikes went deeper. “GAH!”

  He was retreating. He was so clearly retreating, but his attackers didn’t let up. Jobe’s uninjured hand was busy, feeling its way along the bark and to the next bough, leaving his face wide open. Another fearless flash of black came at him. He attempted to head-butt the creature away, but the bird swooped around him and pummeled into his ear. “DAMN IT!” Jobe brought up his needled hand’s elbow and knocked the bird out. He’d managed to maintain balance throughout all of this, but his hand was throbbing, and so was his ear. Still, he gritted his teeth and persisted. There were a few moments of quiet before the next attack. Jobe used this to hop down two more limbs. He didn’t even bother with favoring his injured hand this time. It wasn’t worth it. Caring about the pain would only slow him down. He elbowed away another bird, and another filled in the place it had been. He moved down a branch, and the needles wedged themselves deeper. It carried on this way until he reached the bottom.

  Once there, he drew his blade again to challenge any fowl that might come for him. He was filled with vengeance. He was ready to fight. To kill. To slaughter. But the birds could sense it, and they stayed away. “Seriously?!” he yelled. “Come on!” But, wounded, he had no choice but to duck into the building’s interior. He reluctantly dropped into the darkness. He’d return for the birds once his hand was de-needled and bandaged.

  “Ink?! Where the hell are you?!”

  Jobe was fuming. Tide had done nothing to assist him. He was going to take out a little of his anger on her – or maybe more than a little – but when he realized that she was nowhere to be found, his stomach dropped.

  “Ink? . . . Oh, crap! INK?!”

  But the princess was still far, far away, wrapped in serpentine darkness.

  Jobe kneeled against a broken wall and yanked one of the spikes out with his teeth. “GYAH!” The stinging sensation of needle pulling through flesh made his eyes water, but he had to hurry. The pain of it didn’t matter because something had happened to his partner. He’d have to retrieve the eggs quickly and then venture into the ruins after her.

  He tore out the longest of the points, leaving the ones buried too deeply for later. Then he pulled out the red strip of fabric and wrapped it around his wounded limb. The scratches and gashes on his face and neck were left ignored. There wasn’t time for that.

  When he was at least a little recharged, the hunter ventured from the facility once more. The battle wasn’t over yet. While the smaller blackbirds had returned to their circling pattern, the larger ones were still lined up along a section of the roof. The eggs had to be somewhere beyond that line of soldiers. At least, that’s what the hunter had concluded.

  “All right, fatties,” said Jobe. “Let’s do this.” And with blade across body, he rushed them.

  ~

  When Tide awoke, she was on the roof of the airport with no recollection of how she’d gotten there. The demon’s grip had been painfully tight on her abdomen, but it was gone now, and along with it, the memories of what had transpired after her dragged journey through the ruins. The demon had done something to her, but there was no way of knowing what that something was. Ignoring her shaky legs, the princess drew herself up. What she saw made her cry out. Jobe was in the distance at the base of the great tree, fighting off an onslaught of avian warriors. Black feathers littered the air around him as he slashed furiously through the flock.

  “EH?! JOBE?!”

  She ran to him. The princess ran to the hunter. And the partners were reunited.

  “JOBE! WHAT-?!”

  There wasn’t time for words, though. Tide could see that. She could see that she had to help him. One of his hands was bandaged in red, but stains that were even darker red than that of the fabric seeped through, betraying the wounds beneath. Jobe’s shirt was torn in several places. So, too, was his skin. The space below his ear was wet with red. The side of his cheek and top of his arms were bloodied, and along his biceps, intruding feathers had used the sticky, wet substance to glue themselves to his flesh.

  “YAH!” cried Jobe. He didn’t have time to be relieved at Tide’s sudden reappearance. And he didn’t have time to ask for help either, yet she gave it anyway. Tide hadn’t brought a weapon along. None of her practice climbs had required that sort of thing. The goal was to make it up without sustaining injury, and weapons just increased the potential for damage. No, in the past, Tide had refrained from using those sorts of tools, but now she needed one. And she found one in a crumbled slab of concrete.

  Tide selected a chunk with a jagged edge and hurled it at the flock. Some of the birds scattered, some of them persevered, and some of them changed course . . . for Tide. Tide answered their attack with several more stones. One went off-kilter and narrowly missed Jobe’s head.

  “WATCH IT!” was all he had time to yell before swinging his knife at another aggressive assailant.

  Jobe missed the bird he slashed at, but managed to hit it with the side of his hand with his backswing. Tide chucked a few more broken chunks.

  “What is this?!” cried the princess. She had no choice but to fight.

  By this time, some of the birds had realized their disadvantage. Splitting their forces gave Jobe too much time to recuperate between assaults, and Tide’s weapon of choice allowed for long-distance attacks. Several of their number had fallen, and the remaining were worn from battle. Thus, no matter how abnormal the birds were, they were still mere creatures of instinct. Their instinct now told them to flee in the interest of self-preservation, and just like that, they backed off, returning to the highest branches of the tree where the smaller birds still circled. Jobe slashed at nothing for a while. His eyes were burned with the images of swooping black figures, so he continued to fight an absent enemy.

  “They’ve gone!” yelled Tide.

  Jobe dropped his knife with a clank and fell to his knees, panting. He blinked several times to clear the image. He couldn’t catch his breath quickly enough, but still he gasped, “What – the – hell – was – that?”

  Tide ran to his side. “I don’t know! That’s not how the birds at the conservatory act! Jobe, your hand! What happened?! Are you all right?!”

  Jobe looked up from his pant enough to glare at her. “Where – were – you?”

  But Tide didn’t know the answer to that one. “A . . . a snake? Or something! It had me! But – but what happened to-”

  “Snake? Listen – The eggs.”

  “Eggs? Oh! Right!”

  “Over . . . there.” Jobe pointed to the far side of the roof where the fat birds
had originally lined.

  Tide ran to inspect the area and let out a gasp, for the roof had caved in, creating a basin-like indent that sloped evenly on all sides. In the middle lay a massive amount of brush and dried leaves and therein sat their prize: Several dozen black eggs, shiny and sleek, slept in a pile.

  “They’re here! Jobe! They’re-!”

  But Jobe had collapsed.

  ~

  “A growling snake?” said the hunter.

  “Uh . . . yeah. Or something,” answered the princess.

  The sun was low. The day had gone long. Tide’s pack contained six eggs, just as the mark called for. The pair of partners sluggishly made there way back across the abandoned airway field.

  “I fail,” said Jobe. “I totally fail. I mean, look at me.”

  It was true. He was drenched in sweat and blood.

  “Naw,” said Tide. “That’s just for in the dome. It still counts. It’s not like you were injured from the climb itself, anyway.”

  “But you managed to make it out without bleeding.” Jobe was grumpy. And rightfully so. For his ordeal, it was rightfully so. The cruelty within him tried to budge its way out. He did his best to contain it. Swallowing it back, he continued, “A growling snake and a gaggle of angry birds. It’s just plain weird, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. No kidding,” said Tide. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

  “Those freakers laid a trap for us! You realize that, right?”

  Of course she did, but there was something else on her mind. The time that the demon had stolen . . . where had it gone? What had happened? How had she lost herself like that? Those sorts of questions swirled about in her fragile mind, but the demon’s growling was fading, becoming more and more like a dream with each passing moment. It already seemed unreal, but soon it would be lost entirely.

  “It was freaky,” muttered the mouth that was Tide’s. The young girl was tired and worn, but her feet did the work and carried her on the path to home.