The Serpentine Butterfly

by Addison Moore

  “Who are these children you speak of?” He looks to Skyla for explanation.

  “This tells the story.” She pulls the sonogram out of her purse. “These are my children, Marshall. All three of them.”

  “Good heavens,” he sighs into the grainy black and white slick piece of paper.

  “And this”—Skyla pulls out her phone and shows them both that haunted wall mural Emily outlined in the Landon dining room—“is perhaps another picture of my children.”

  “Dear Skyla.” Dudley’s voice dips, dejected as if it were the worst possible news.

  “I know.” Now it’s my turn to sigh. “It’s not their best side.”

  Logan taps on the screen. “Why is the one in the middle asleep?”

  Skyla shrugs. “I’m more concerned with the fact the one to the left is breathing fire.”

  Then, there’s the third with a silent scream locked in its throat. It’s frightening. Unnerving. Everything about that mural makes my hair stand on end.

  “What’s everyone looking at?” Giselle pops up in our midst with Ellis in tow. My eyes automatically fall to their conjoined hands. It seems every time I see Giselle these days she’s connected to Ellis in some way. I still haven’t had a chance to talk to her about her wanting to drop out of school early.

  “Nothing at all.” Skyla plops her phone back into her purse. “What’s new with you two? Enjoying your summer?”

  “What summer?” Giselle motions to the barn where the rain drums over the steel roof.

  “Well, it’s going to be summer.” Skyla bites over her lip in an effort to hide her blooming grin. “Next Saturday at Demetri’s. He’s having his annual summer bash. Be sure to invite your parents.”

  “Okay.” She shrugs. “But I’m not sure they’ll go. My dad isn’t exactly Demetri’s biggest fan.”

  “Crap,” Skyla whispers while looking up at me. “We might have overlooked that tiny little detail.”

  “They’ll be there,” I assure. I know this for a fact because my parents love me enough to support me in just about anything I do. If I tell them I’ll need them at that party, they’ll be there. They won’t mind being at Demetri’s one bit.

  Skyla gives my hand a squeeze, a sure sign she heard my inner dialogue, loud and clear.

  She hikes up on her tiptoes and whispers into my ear, “Let’s hope your father feels the same way.”

  He had better. There’s a lot more riding on this than a life-changing announcement. There is a genocide in the making, and I plan on saving my people the only way I can, from the inside of the enemy’s chambers.

  * * *

  Late in the night, technically early in the morning, I kiss Skyla on the cheek and head downstairs out into the damp two a.m. air and meet up with Wes who waits for me at the bottom of the driveway.

  “Brother.” It comes from him dry and sarcastic as the fog plumes from his mouth like a smoke bomb. He clasps his hand over my shoulder, and the ground shifts. Our bodies dematerialize into thin vellum sheets until the Transfer forms around us.

  “Demetri is waiting inside.” He leads the way into his haunted house. It’s dark save for the enormous fireplace that mirrors shards of light over the cavernous room. Chloe and the devil himself stand by the flames, and for a second, I consider tackling them, knocking them both into the mouth of the hungry blaze, at least him. Chloe, after all, is with child.

  “Son.”

  I grimace. I’m not as into pronouns as Wes and Demetri seem to be.

  “What have you decided?” Demetri’s smile spreads wide as if he already knows, but then again, he always has that shit-eating grin on his demented face.

  “Yes, Gage.” Chloe steps in and tugs at my collar, breathless, the lust boiling over in her eyes as if she’s ready to knock me onto the nearest bed. “Tell me who you choose. Me or Skyla?” Her hands spread wide over my chest before I can stop her. “Say my name.”

  “Control her,” I growl to Wes, and he has her subdued and by his side without so much as a glance. Figures. Wes has become the Chloe-whisperer. “I’m here.” I look to my brother, then the man who is technically my father. “I’m going to be straight with you both. I’m not taking down Celestra—not the Nephilim, not anybody who doesn’t agree with your philosophy in life. I’m here of my own volition—I’ve come to terms with the fact you’re the blood of my blood, that my DNA lives in you both. I’m here because we’re family, and I’d like to see if this can lead to a positive place. I’m not here as a spy. I’m here as a brother—as a son.” It looks as if the pronoun disease is catching after all.

  Chloe squawks before offering a round of applause. “They’re going to eat your wife’s people for breakfast. You do remember your wife? The scrawny, soon-to-be enormously bloated whiny little witch who killed me and snatched you away in her talons like a rat in a field? I love that you have so little regard for her.” Chloe’s dark eyes enliven with a fire all their own.

  “I have regard for my wife.” I cut the words sharp as a knife. “I’m in love with Skyla. I’m willing to die for Skyla and for our children. I want to be clear about that. I’m rejecting the Barricade.”

  Demetri lands his heavy paw on my shoulder. “You have made the right decision.”

  I frown into the idea. How is rejecting the Barricade the right decision in his eyes?

  “It is good for you to know me”—he continues—“to know your brother. There is much we will accomplish. We have never needed your blessing to carry on with the Barricade, but the price is yours to pay for choosing to turn away from the purpose.”

  Purpose. I almost want to laugh. Most people would have said “cause,” but Demetri actually believes mass annihilation is his purpose—same with my dolt of a brother. Only the scary thing is that Wes is not at all stupid. He’s brilliant. It’s a shame he’s squandering his genius trying to fill a void on the dark side.

  “I realize this,” I whisper. There was a vague threat Wesley relayed to me on behalf of Demetri a few months back, but I push it out of my mind for now.

  Wes nods to our father. “And what about the Videns?”

  “They need your leadership, Gage.” Demetri’s eyes dance with the flames. He’s saying something subtle that I’m not quite grasping.

  “Are they truly mine? How can they be if they’ve sided with the Barricade?” That was Wesley’s great victory, getting the Videns to sell their souls to the Steel Barricade. “I was just a puppet with the Videns. I don’t want that anymore. I want full authority. None of this partial bullshit, or they can go and find themselves another leader.”

  “Done.” Demetri opens his palms like a dicey magician.

  Wes taps him on the arm as if trying to draw him out of a trance. “What do you mean, done?”

  “We don’t need them.” Demetri doesn’t take his smiling eyes off me. “We don’t need him.” He steps in and takes up my hand, his flesh uncomfortably thick and coarse, scaly to be exact. “I don’t need you, Gage. I want you. You have gifted me my most richest treasure, and I will never forget what you have done for me.”

  My heart pounds erratically until it’s drumming in my throat, my ears. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll soften to me, to my causes, to my wife, and to my children. I’m starting to feel this was the right decision. Getting to know my father and brother will not be the curse it was just months before. This time it just might be a blessing.

  Demetri nods as if he heard, and I don’t doubt he did.

  “We have a council meeting in Tenebrous.” Demetri’s smile broadens. “Let’s say good night to the young lady and be on our way.”

  Chloe flings herself onto me, her hands racing over my chest, my neck. “I only think of you, Gage. When Logan was deep inside me, it was you my heart was with.”

  Wes tries to pluck her off, but she’s sticking like a spider to its web.

  “Yours is the only face I see.” Her fingers dab over my features as her growing belly touches over my hip. It’s as if she’s gone mad, but
then, this is Chloe. Mad is her natural state of being. “I will do anything to be with you. We don’t have to tell Skyla.” Her speech is pressured as I pull her away. “We don’t have to tell a mortal soul.”

  Demetri calls something out in a language I can’t decipher, and the room melts as Tenebrous forms around us. Not a sign of crazed Chloe in sight.

  “Sorry, dude. She’s all sexed up. She can’t get enough these days.” Wes slaps me on the back as the soot and the rot of the tunnels light up my senses. An electric blue flog colors this otherwise monochromatic world, but the stone of sacrifice sits off in the distance, illuminated with a twinge of red. I’ve never seen it that way—bleeding into the parched earth below, and I’m curious. A small mob is gathered around it, and from this distance, they sound like a beehive.

  “Chloe is horny as hell,” he continues. “She has me nailing her to every corner of that overgrown house. I’m probably the only one who’s not too sorry that Logan took a ‘shift,’ if you know what I mean. And, before you go there, I had no idea what the dirty wench was up to. Chloe is her own—”

  “Monster,” I say, staring at the stone in the distance as a nest of lightning begins to form over it like a crown.

  “I bet Skyla is all over you, too. It’s the only benefit of this entire incubation period. I’ll tell you the truth, though—I can’t wait to lay my eyes on my child for the very first time. I didn’t think I’d feel this way, and yet, I can’t stop romanticizing the idea of being a father.” His features crumble. “And I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that it’s killing me that Laken is having Coop’s kid.”

  “What? No, she’s not having a baby. Skyla just used her as a cover.”

  “Really?” His eyes widen with hope. His entire person pulsates with relief. “Shit!” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “Thank you, thank you for letting me know. You didn’t have to do that. You could have watched me wallow in my misery, but I’m damn glad you didn’t.”

  “I meant what I said back there. I’m in this for family—you in particular. You’re lost, Wes. You need a ray of hope, a ray of light. I want to be the voice of reason, and I’m hoping you’ll be open to what I have to say.”

  “Gage.” He closes his eyes a moment as if the only thing he’s lost in is regret. “If Laken couldn’t sway me, what makes you so sure you can?”

  He takes off toward the commotion happening around the stone, and I follow.

  Six men stand around it in a military-like formation with their legs set in defiance, their hands behind their backs, hand over wrist.

  “What’s going on?” I nod to Demetri as he wields a silver sword through the air until it glows a beautiful shade of blue—Celestra blue and I try to hide the smile.

  “A sacrifice is to be made.” His laughing eyes glint at Wesley. “Tell your brother your wonderful plan.”

  Wes takes a deep breath, his eyes darting across at the men standing at attention, faces down, their gazes set on that glowing red stone.

  “It’s time to let the world know what the Nephilim are capable of. I put out a call for a very small number of volunteers—your wife’s people—tapped them on the shoulder, no big announcement, and here they are. They simply do their thing, call attention to the danger that is the Nephilim—only we’re not painting them as angels. People love angels. The simpler humans worship them. We’re painting them as something far more nefarious—something unknown—something out of this world.”

  “Aliens and shit,” I grumble, unimpressed. “So, what has you switching sides?” I call out to the motley crew. A few of them look vaguely familiar as if perhaps they were island grown.

  “Dude.” Wes smacks me on the arm, but Demetri holds up a hand as if to allow my outburst.

  I am curious, though. “So, what is it?” I call out again, and not one of them speaks up.

  A tall man covered in tats with scruffy hair and a beard long enough to house a bird’s nest points his finger at me as if conducting an orchestra.

  “I know you. You’re married to that what’s-her-name, the one that’s overseeing the factions. Yeah, she hasn’t done shit.” His eyes glow a menacing shade of green. “That’s what put me in this position to begin with. Somebody has to defend my family. It might as well be me.”

  “What are you talking about? How is this defending your family?”

  “Is he shitting us?” a lanky dude with a backward mullet pipes up.

  “He’s as clueless as his wife!” tat boy pipes up again, and the entire lot of them breaks out in mockery of Skyla.

  “Shit.” I stalk over with a vengeance, and a white-hot pain shoots up my leg, all the way through my spine until it decimates my skull. “Fuck.”

  “Careful.” Demetri pulls me back and secures my cane beneath me. He wrenches it, and it illuminates the same color as that spirit sword in his hand. “Proper posture, proper care.” He gives a sly wink.

  The cane radiates a soft hum throughout my body, and instantly, I feel relief. It feels like heaven, and I never want to let go. Crap. This must be how Skyla feels when Dudley is around. No wonder she’s begging for his touch. This can cure anything.

  “What the hell is going on?” I nod over at the hairy bunch of traitors gathered around the stone.

  Wes takes a breath. “In exchange for their earthly sacrifice, the Barricade will protect their families. Though they chose not to side with us when it was time, they see the value in becoming our associates.” Wes steps forward. “No harm may come to your wives”—he projects his voice so loud it booms across the acrid expanse—“or your children, or your children’s children. This is a generational covenant with your hearts and the Barricade. All who agree shall say amen!”

  Wes says ah-men as oppose to a-men the way my family does it, the way Skyla and I do, and even this little nonsensical detail irritates me about my new brother.

  Wesley leads them into the traditional Count chant usually hummed out and botched up at New Moon ceremonies.

  “I am an immortal. Flesh and bones and such as these are not tethered to my soul.

  In this world and outside its bounds, I stand shoulder to shoulder with my brothers.

  This pledge is delivered from my heart. With one another and with God,

  We shall conquer and hold down our enemies until they rest beneath us like a footstool.

  In accordance to the hierarchy, so shall it be for one, so shall it be for all.”

  Their voices unite into a thunderous appeal as one by one Wesley taps them over their bowed head with the spirit sword. It glows electric blue in this dark, bitter night that reeks of rust and pools of dehydrated Celestra blood.

  Here we are again, the Counts—the Fems—taking down the other factions any way they know how. This is personal. They want to wipe Celestra off the map, first and foremost. Things are looking pretty shitty right about now for the other side.

  “Lie on the stone and seal your fate!” Wesley’s voice vibrates through the still of this dead night.

  Bodies fall like flies as they lie prone on this marred granite that has seen and tasted the blood of their Nephilim brothers and sisters—and here they are, trying to do right by their families while voluntarily killing their extended branches.

  That nest of lightning above crackles and hums to life. It spins furiously with its lavender illuminations, its spectacular show of strength and light. A single bolt touches down over the stone with knife-like precision and ignites the granite the exact shade of blue as the sword in my brother’s hand, as my brother. Wesley is a shadow as his bones glow through his flesh like an x-ray.

  “Tonight you have pledged your loyalty to the Barricade!” Wesley’s voice booms with insolent pride.

  Adrenaline courses through my veins. Blood pumps through me in a surge. I can’t do this. I can’t watch as these men sacrifice themselves as pawns of the enemy.

  “This is bullshit!” I jump onto the stone. My body jolts with the power of a million watts of electricity. My limbs
go rigid. My jaw wires shut. The world glows with the brilliance of the noonday sun before blinking to darkness, and everything around me takes on the obscurity of a negative. “Get up!” The words grit through my teeth. “You don’t have to do this. We can find a way.” Thunder roars through the sky. It quakes through my bones as a gravitational force pulls me to my knees.

  Wesley holds the sword to the sky, and the lightning licks it clean.

  “Who here is for the Barricade say I!”

  A uniform cry breaks out as they all seal their fate.

  “Traitors!” I howl above the swell of nature rising around us, the riotous rumble convulsing the stone, shaking us to our very souls.

  Wesley points the spirit sword in my direction, his eyes filled with venom and fury. A lone bolt of lightning glowing in blues and purples, dazzling in its parade of horror, streamlines its way from the tip of his blade to me, and I reach my hand up to greet it.

  My flesh, my every cell that I’m comprised of ignites with vigor. My body rises to the sky, up to the crackling nest of lightning with its dizzying ring of fire, as black wings spread wide from my back, my body traded for the scales of a serpent drenched in soot.

  I look down to find I am no longer who I thought I was.

  If every disappointment, every failure I have ever experienced were rolled into one, it wouldn’t come close to expressing the horror that this moment brings.

  My back arches unnaturally. My elongated neck twists and writhes. I growl out my aggression as an immeasurably long stream of fire pours from my mouth. My howls lick through the air in flames.

  Here I am, home at last.

  The dragon.

  Sleeping Beauty

  LOGAN

  Sometimes, life tosses one hell of a surprise your way that you never in your wildest dreams saw coming. Gage is back—a great surprise, better than great. Skyla is with child—children—an amazing surprise, better than amazing.

  Sometimes, life tosses one hell of a surprise your way that you never saw coming, and right now, that is Skyla here with me at White Horse. She’s not afraid to visit, to take back what’s hers after Chloe so viciously tried to burn the spirit of this home down with her wickedness. I watch as Skyla sleeps on the couch of the newly decorated home I built for her while marveling at her tiny body—at the three beautiful angels she has buried deep inside her. Surprised doesn’t begin to describe how I felt when I found out about the babies, how I still feel—stunned feels more accurate. It’s been like living in a state of shock, a waking dream, some kind of a strange illusion that Demetri is asking us all to partake in. Skyla still looks in every way like her old self, her pre-pregnancy self. It’s easy for me to believe that none of this is real. But the truth is, Gage and Skyla will be parents. I will be an uncle. Things have changed. Skyla and Gage have cemented their family by combining their DNA and knitting three beautiful beings that will bear both their attributes. I’m curious about them. I already love them as much as I love their parents.