by Lola StVil
“Innocent yet guilty. Courageous yet fearful. Strong yet broken.”
“Riddles aren’t my area of expertise.” Rye smiles.
“I think I might have an idea, but then again every time I think I have an idea I have to consider something else too. Some new piece to it all. Sorry, I don’t know if I am ready to share my thoughts and theories,” I tell him.
“You don’t have to say anything. I get it.”
He releases my hand and I sense a shift in his mood. Where his hand was there’s a warm tingle, and I really miss the connection of our fingers. Does he feel it? That spark?
“When I found my family, they were all just lying so still. Peaceful. I’d never seen my parents so relaxed. You know, death is kinda just one big long sleep really. I’ve never told anyone about that day before. Hell, I was in shock and confused, processing the scene before me. Mom’s glazed-over stare, unblinking on the ceiling. There’s one thing that will probably always stick with me from that moment.”
He pauses and sniffs. If he starts crying, I am going to lose my shit.
“Mom died holding Dad’s hand. Even in death, she wanted to be with him, touching him. They were two of the most in love people I have ever met.”
Dammit. But I totally get it.
“Red water,” I say.
“Hmm?” Rye says, a look of confusion on his face.
“When I found my mom. She was lying in her bathwater, a porcelain doll in a bed of garnet.”
I stare off into space, not adding to the imagery more than I already have. What plays out in my head is enough imagery for everyone. He doesn’t need to know all the gory details. Like my mom’s tissue torn by the blade she used to end her life.
He touches my arm and centers me back in the present.
“Hey, when I get into one of these dark moods, you know what always cheers me up?”
I don’t care what he says as long as those strange but beautiful eyes remain on me and he keeps touching me.
“What cheers you up?”
“Crushing things. Feel like getting a little destructive? Safely of course.”
“Yes. Very much so.”
I follow him, our hands linked again, and I never want to let him go. He guides me past booths where couples are tossing rings on bottles and throwing balls at nearly impossible to hit milk bottles. When we approach the hammer game I just snicker. I mean, the damn hammer is almost as big as me! Rye goes first and hits it weakly.
“Come on. Use those big god muscles of yours!” I shout, earning an awkward glance from him.
I just raise a brow at him as if to say who really cares here, and he laughs and turns back to the game. It is nice to see him playing the gentle giant. I mean, he could totally break the game with his bare hands if he wanted.
“If you think you can do better, step on up.”
Rye offers me the hammer. I take it reluctantly and I am surprised by its weight. Well, not really. It’s really freaking heavy and I kinda already guessed it would be. My first swing is just okay.
“Come on, use those muscles.” Rye taunts from behind me, but I can tell he is actually encouraging me.
I feel a fire starting in my core as he cheers me on. I swing again, raising the little gauge higher than the first time, but I still don’t hit the bell at the top.
“Come on, Sailor. You can do it. Just believe in yourself. You’re strong…beautiful.”
You’re strong...beautiful.
He didn’t mean for me to hear that last part. I know because of how his voice trailed off into a whisper, but the fire was already lit and that is enough to set me aflame.
I lift the heavy hammer and with as much effort as I can muster, I slam it down on the pad at my feet, shooting the gauge to the highest setting and striking the winner’s bell. The bell rings and the game attendant, who is not nearly as happy as me, starts to hand me a stuffed monkey almost bigger than the hammer.
But there’s no time to accept victory awards—my body has a mind of its own. I jump, excited about my win, into Rye’s arms, and he catches me without so much as flinching. It’s as if my weight is nothing for him to hold.
My breath catches as I realize what I’ve done and time freezes. He isn’t putting me down, he’s just smiling into my eyes, and the next thing I know, I’m leaning in.
A loud scream cuts through the air. The moment was almost perfect, but before our lips could touch, we were pulled out of the moment.
“What was that?” Rye asks.
His voice is deeper than usual and he sets me down.
Damn.
Whatever moment we had is broken.
“Sounds like someone screaming?” I say, trying to sound like I care about anything except Rye’s lips on mine right now.
Another shrill scream pierces the sounds from the carnival and the crowd opens to reveal a young girl running from the woods just outside town.
“Jenny,” a woman in the crowd says.
She seems stunned and rushes forward with a man and woman in tow. Must be the kid’s parents.
“Help! Monster! There’s a monster after me!”
Jenny screams and looks over her shoulder. I have to give it to the kid; she is booking it. She’s panting, her eyes a little wild. With dirt and tears staining her face, Jenny makes it to her parents, who engulf her. Rye and I move closer to hear what she thinks she saw.
“Okay, now honey, can you take a breath and try that again for me, sweetie?” Jenny’s mother asks, brushing the trembling girl’s hair back from her eyes.
“I was playing hide n seek with Marley and Jonathon when a monster appeared out of nowhere! It was so scary, Mama. We have to go. It’s going to get me!”
Someone groans and a small group moves away from the assembled crowd to return to the festivities.
“Come on, some kid got spooked by her own shadow. Let’s go try the ring toss.”
Slowly, the bodies start to peel away, giving more room for Rye and me to approach the family. The look of concentration on Rye’s face is all I need to know he doesn’t think the girl made any of it up.
“Shh,” her mother hushes her. “If I weren’t so glad to see you’re okay, I’d bust your butt right now, young lady. You know you aren’t allowed to go into the woods alone! It’s crawling with animals that you are scared of, baby.”
“That’s not what I saw, Mama! Dad?”
Jenny turns to her father, pleading silently with him to believe her. He looks at her with tired eyes and shrugs.
“It’s okay to get scared when you are in the forest all alone, sugar. But you really scared your mother and me coming out of there running like that and screaming. Maybe we should call it a night. What do you think, Faith?”
He looks at his wife, who nods, visibly shaken.
“What did you see?”
Rye’s voice rises over any chatter from the remaining carnival goers, who seem to have already forgotten about Jenny’s loud entrance. Jenny steps away from her parents and cocks her head up at Rye. She gives him a stern look, unsure if he is teasing her or not.
“You believe me?”
Rye gets down to her level, hooking his elbow over one knee as he squats over the other.
“I have seen a few scary things in those woods myself. So, what did you see? Maybe we saw the same thing.”
Wow, Rye is good with kids. Who’d have thought? I just smile and stand back, listening as Jenny paints a terrifying picture. Ya-Ya comes over and I have to repress the urge to stop her from shattering the sweet scene. She winks at me and joins Rye.
“Yeah, I have seen some creepy-crawlies in there,” she says, pointing to the tree line that Jenny emerged from. “Tell you what, if your mom and dad don’t mind, we’d love for you to tell us what you saw. Bonus, I will give you my unopened bag of cotton candy in exchange. Is that alright with you?”
She looks to the parents, who share a look of concern but then shrug and nod. That was easy enough.
“What’s goin
g on over here? Faith, Timothy. Are these teenagers causing you any trouble?” Chief Pollard stomps in, huffing.
“No, I don’t think so, Richard. Jenny got scared is all. I think they are trying to help her.”
Chief Pollard glares at all of us and makes a disgusted sound. Before he can say anything else, a fight breaks out over a large stuffed bear and he rushes away grumbling, his boots squeaking under the pressure of his bulbous form.
Jenny has gone silent, but her body still shakes. Her mother chews nervously on her bottom lip and I am afraid if the girl doesn’t start talking soon, we will have to just go investigate blindly.
“O-M-G, Rye, you are so rude for not introducing us!” Ya-Ya nudges him to his surprise. He almost falls over but corrects himself. “I’m Ya-Ya, and between you and me, Rye here is afraid of bunnies.”
Jenny giggles, a little light coming back into her pale eyes.
“Are you really?” she asks him.
He starts to disagree but Ya-Ya clicks her tongue and he straightens as if struck.
“That’s right. I’m terrified of bunnies and their little noses. They always look like they are up to something. You didn’t see a bunny, did you? I wouldn’t be able to handle the woods if you did.”
Jenny laughs and shakes her head.
“No. It wasn’t a bunny.”
Her face goes still again and she looks beyond Rye and Ya-Ya. Her finger comes up to point behind them. We all turn in unison to see what it is in her line of sight. On the side of a large red tent is an old-style movie graphic. It’s clearly from the cult classics and right dead center is a scary as hell monster chasing a petrified woman in canary yellow.
“It looks kinda like that, but scarier. Big claws, long fangs, and it smells really bad. Like when Mama makes Brussels sprouts.”
My heart stops for a beat. She couldn’t mean? Rye mutters, “Slip Demon,” answering my silent thoughts.
“Thank you so much, Jenny. Here.”
Ya-Ya grins at her and hands her the bag of pink-and-blue fluff. Jenny thinks on it then accepts it before jumping at Rye for a hug. He seems put off by it, but before he can react she jumps from him to Ya-Ya, who is a giggling mess when it happens.
“Thank you,” Jenny’s mom says, a little curtly.
She takes Jenny by the hand and directs a silent look at the group of us before they turn to leave. The look seemed to say she was worried about us too. Maybe we seemed crazy since we were the only ones not ready to discredit what Jenny saw. Oh well. We will never know.
Huddling up, I am so close to Rye I can feel his body heat.
“Get the others.”
His command to Ya-Ya doesn’t make it sound like she has an option.
“What are we going to do now?” I ask.
He is still staring at the woods, and I follow his gaze but all I see are, well, trees.
“We are going to wait till the whole team is here.”
“And then?”
“Then we hunt.”
***
“She ran out of there like a track star, legs and arms pumping. I swear she could put the pros to shame,” Ya-Ya rambles on as we push through the woods.
With every snap and pop or sudden rustle, I hold my breath, expecting one of those bastards to hop out and grab me.
Rye has been silent since we entered the woods. Sunday, Jinx, Grace, and Mel are all also very quiet. Just Ya-Ya is talking, carrying the group forward. But when we turn the corner where a fallen tree stretches over the trail, even Ya-Ya stops chatting. A ring, just like the one I saw before, blazes in the air, suspended as if by special effects wires. Except this isn’t special effects. This is real.
I’m still eyeing the portal when movement catches my eye and I fully register the danger we are in.
“Sailor. Run. Go, now!” Rye orders just as three Slip Demons turn their ugly faces toward us and growl.
Chills race up and down my arms as three sets of eyeless sockets zone in on us. Great. One Slip Demon was bad enough, how do we defeat three at once?
“Sailor!” Rye shouts again. He’s twisting back to look at me, anger painted all over his beautiful face. It only makes him prettier, damn him. “Get out of here, that’s an order!”
“No. I’m not going anywhere.”
I move to his side and he scoffs, letting out a frustrated sigh. A growl rises from his throat, but he seems to see that arguing with me about this is pointless.
“Fine, but don’t die. And keep low. If you get a chance to strike at them, try to hit them in the soft tissue and avoid bones. You will just hurt yourself.”
The Slip Demons haven’t charged at us yet, but they look like they are thinking about it. I ignore Rye and take out my knife, ready for anything.
“And stay behind me,” he adds.
“Yeah, okay.”
“If you two are finished, can we get to the killing demons part?” Sunday pipes in and I roll my eyes.
As if sensing it, one of the demons steps forward and approaches us, the other two flanking it.
Rye bursts forward with a battle cry, and I am tempted to cover my eyes. I’m afraid to see him fight and die. He doesn’t even have a weapon. As his fist makes contact with the demon’s chest, my jaw drops. It’s flung at least fifteen feet through the air, completely off its feet and onto its ass.
Boom.
Its partners jump into action. Fire crackles and blasts past me at the demon to the left as Aziza flings fireballs from her hands. I hadn’t even asked about any special powers they might have. But there’s no time for being mesmerized. Rye’s already on top of the demon he knocked aside, a wild animal out for blood.
I charge in, letting my own battle cry escape my lips, and slam my knife down into the Slip Demon to my right and pull it back out, flinging thick black blood across the leaves beside us.
Grace is on the edge of our odd bunch, but her hands are in motion and I can see she is working to reopen the portal that must have shut while I wasn’t paying attention. The demon I stabbed is far from dead, and it pushes me out of the way and charges at Grace, who has to break her focus. As I go down, my knee hits a rock. That’s going to bruise.
I’m back on my feet, pushing through the pain. Lightning flashes, jetting out of an electric current surrounding Ya-Ya’s perfectly manicured hands. Even her eyes glow, and a wicked grin plays on her lips. She arches back and sends a blast of that coiling energy at the demon I stabbed, but it lunges just in time to avoid the strike.
I’m still watching the spark when Rye calls my name. I look up to see him take a blow from the first demon.
“Rye!”
The demon turns away from him, but Rye jumps on its back and slams his elbows down into its neck, causing it to stumble.
Sunday yells, “Watch out!” I turn in time to face a drooling, bloodstained mouth about to chomp down on my head, and for a second, I freeze. A second is too long in battle, but this time, I’m lucky. A ball of orange slams into the demon and it reels back, screeching as flames burst inside its mouth. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Aziza just saved my life.
“Thank you,” I stutter.
“Whatever,” she grumbles.
Yep. She hates me.
The demon falls to the ground, flames still licking its lips as it twitches before falling still.
“One down, two to go,” Jinx says. “Take a break, sunshine, it’s my turn.”
He nods to Aziza, who looks really exhausted. After cracking his fingers, he steps up and puts his hands together in a loud clap, rubs them together, and pushes out toward the remaining demons. A wind whips by me, and whatever he did, a blast hits the demons, pushing them back. The demon on the right drops and covers its ears, making a horrible sound like nails on a chalkboard.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
“No time, Sails. But maybe later we can have a little alone time and I can tell you all about my special abilities.” Jinx snickers, making the mistake of turning away fro
m the demon not on the ground in pain.
The one still standing rakes its claws across his chest, ripping through fabric and flesh before a tree trunk rams through the creature, pinning its twisting body to the ground. I whirl around, confused about who sent that floating through the air, but I only see Mel, who looks just as tired as Aziza now.
With two down, that only leaves the one. Jinx is groaning in pain, and Mel, Grace, and Aziza seem to have lost strength from the battle. Even Ya-Ya seems to have lost some glow. That just leaves Sunday and me. Sunday steps up to face off with the demon Rye pummeled.
I look from him to Rye as the demon roars and swipes its claws toward him. Rye tries to duck, but his timing is just off and the demon catches him, tossing him to the side like a rag doll. His body hits the ground with a sickening thump. When he doesn’t move, I feel myself panicking but I try to focus. This is far from over.
“Stay back, Sailor. Run if you get the chance,” Sunday shouts.
I ignore him. My eyes dart from the demon to Rye. Come on, get up, Rye! Sunday and I both rush forward, me with my knife ready and Sunday with a glowing orb in his hand.
“You might want to duck,” he tells me as an aside.
I stop and hit the ground, not going to question anything when it comes to a group of gods in battle at this point. I’ve seen what they can do, and whatever that orb is, I sure as hell don’t want to be on the receiving end of it. Sunday releases the orb and it sails toward the raging monster. It hits it square in the chest, and I watch in fascination as it is sucked in on itself.
“Whoa,” I say, pushing myself up. “Why the hell didn’t you do that to begin with?”
Now I’m mad. If he could make these things just poof away, why the hell didn’t he do it already? Sunday falls to his knees, out of breath, his chest heaving. Sweat trickles down from his brow.
“Because,” he says through labored breaths, “it takes energy to use energy, Sailor. We are powerful, but like all things, there’s a cost to our power.”
I will have to follow up with them all about that one later. Right now, I need to check on Rye. I rush over to him and push him gently onto his back. He groans and slowly sits up, looking around confused. I sigh in relief.
