by Jared Stone
As the projectile pierced through the column of darkness, rays of light shot out in every direction. A loud mixture between hissing and zapping issued forth, and the great beast’s eyes dropped down in astonishment. Great twisting vines of light instantly burst forth from the point of impact and wrapped fully around the demonic form. As they began to constrict, the black monster struggled against them in vain. Within seconds, the light had sucked the entirety of the cursed attacker back into itself, and, with an abrupt popping noise, all of the energy immediately disappeared. One solitary clink was all that could be heard as the spear tip fell to the ground and collided with the golden coin beneath it.
Lucian just stood there panting for a moment, still overcome with the desire to kill and destroy. As he glared at the motionless coin on the ground, the situation at hand quickly came back to him, and he dropped to his knees again to hold his friend.
Putting his right hand behind Gus’ head, he lifted it up and looked into the Kílán’s barely-opened eyes. As the tears started to stream down his face, Lucian whispered, “Hang in there, buddy.”
“What a dimwit…,” mumbled Gus with difficulty as he sputtered out blood with a laugh. Lucian couldn’t help but choke out a laugh too, despite his grief.
“Come on…,” cried Lucian, holding up his friend’s head gently. “You can’t leave me. I don’t know what to do without you. Remember? You’re ‘hard to get rid of.’ You told me that. Remember?” The boy could barely speak now through his sobbing.
Gus smiled weakly. “I’ll be…,” he said, his voice trailing off at the end as he closed his eyes.
Lucian felt the muscles in the Kílán’s neck relax in his hand as the life flowed out of his body. Hanging his own head down, Lucian could only force out, “Gus? Gus!?”
The boy was suddenly overcome with despair. He hadn’t made any true friends at school since he left home, and Gus had been the closest person to him through these past few months. Lucian would have been completely lost had it not been for his faithful companion’s guidance and instruction. The Kílán might have irritated him sometimes, but he thought of him like family, and he couldn’t help but love the big, hungry oaf.
Lucian suddenly felt something placed gently on his shoulder. Whipping his head around in fright, the boy saw through his blurry vision Panhavant stand-ing over them, with his withered hand resting on Lucian. He smiled gently as tears poured down the boy’s face.
“Save him!” begged Lucian, suddenly feeling relief at the arrival of the old man. “You can save him!”
Still grinning softly, the tiny sage simply said “Let go.”
Lucian felt the same sense of rage flowing over him again. “What!?” he cried out. The anger seemed to have suddenly stopped his steady flow of tears for the moment. “But he was your friend! Why weren’t you here to save him? Why weren’t you here!?” Lucian screamed out this last part as he still held Gus’ heavy head in his hands. He once again felt the tingling sensation of tears rising to his eyes.
The little old man tilted his head in what appeared to be attempted comprehension. With a serious face, he slowly hobbled around to the other side of Gus and crouched down opposite Lucian. Laying his hand on the Kílán’s forehead, Panhavant closed his eyes, and Gus’ body started emitting a pale yellow light.
Lucian’s heart leapt inside him. The sage’s healing powers would certainly be able to resurrect Gus, and he would be able to see his friend again!
But, as Lucian anxiously watched, he noticed that Gus’ motionless head had begun to get lighter, and he swore that he could almost see through it. The Kílán’s mortal form slowly faded away as the little old man crouched there beside him. Lucian sat in disbelief as he watched the head he had held fully dissipate into the air, leaving nothing but empty clothing behind.
“What did you do?” screamed Lucian as Panhavant tenderly hoisted himself back on his feet with his walking stick. “Where did he go? What did you do to him?”
The little old man just stood there unapologetically. Looking down at the sobbing boy, he simply asked, “What is your original face?”
Lucian felt a fire burning within him. “Enough!” he lashed out at the sage before him. “Enough of your stupid riddles and crap! Get out of here! GO!”
It seemed as if a moment of sadness swept across Panhavant’s face before fading away again just as quickly. Turning, the tiny sage paused only briefly to bend over and pick up the gold coin and the spear tip resting on the ground. Stashing them within the folds of his ragged garments, he wandered away from the sobbing boy without looking back.
As Lucian turned his eyes away from the old man growing smaller in the distance, he stared down at the empty clothes in front of him. He slammed his hands down upon them in frustration, creating a sickening splashing noise as he did so. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something glimmer in the fading evening light. Reaching out and grabbing it, Lucian pulled Gus’ crystal necklace up out of the mess and slipped the now-crimson chain over his own neck. He felt the crystal lying against his chest, and he laid his palm over it in mourning as tears continued to stream down his cheeks.
In the distance, he could hear the sound of sirens quickly approaching. Someone must have heard the commotion and called the police to investigate. Holding up his blood-soaked hands in front of him, Lucian realized that he would have to leave the area before they arrived. He glanced over to Blake’s still unconscious body and decided that he would have to rely on the cops taking care of him. Reaching up, he wiped the blood and tears from his face with his jacket sleeve.
Lucian slowly stood up on weak legs. He stumbled over to Gus’ sword, which still lay on the ground by the hotdog stand. Picking up the weapon in its sheath, he hugged it close and hurried down the pathway, away from the fountain, to begin the long walk back to the dormitory.
15 - Beginnings
Wednesday, November 12th
It took several hours for Lucian to make it back to campus. The zoo was miles away, and Lucian was forced to rely solely on walking to traverse the distance. He had kept off the roadside, preferring instead to walk among or near the trees whenever possible. He reasoned that a stumbling boy, covered in blood and clutching a sword to his chest, would likely draw unwanted attention; as such, he did his best to remain hidden. And so he continued like that for what seemed like eternity, driven by grief and rage and shivering uncontrollably from the bitter cold of the night and the emotional strain he had just experienced.
His mind was numb as he journeyed ever onwards, unsure of where he was going or what he would do when he got there. Gus was gone. Panhavant had betrayed him. He had no idea where Sam lived. There was no one to whom he could turn. And yet, stopping suddenly, as if guided to the very location by a will outside of his own, Lucian looked up at the crimson door before him.
The boy had subconsciously led himself back to Willow’s front steps. Without even thinking, Lucian stumbled up the stairs and beat his fist loudly upon the wooden door. From the other side, Lucian heard an irritated voice cry out, “Hold on!”
At the sound of the twisting deadbolt, Lucian slid back a step. Willow swung the door open in a huff and stared at the unexpected visitor. As soon as she saw Lucian, her eyes grew wide. “What the Hell happened to you?” she asked the trembling, blood-soaked boy on her doorstep.
Lucian placed one foot over the threshold without waiting for an invitation, then found he could no longer support his own weight. His knees buckled beneath him, and he collapsed upon the shiny wooden floor. Willow stood there without moving for a moment, looking down at the crumpled boy on below her.
“Dammit!” she then exclaimed in frustration before grabbing Lucian by the shoulders and dragging him further inside. She kicked the door closed behind him once she had successfully slid his legs out of the way.
Kneeling beside her exhausted classmate, Willow lightly smacked his cheek. “Lucian?” she said, betraying her stoic exterior for a rare moment with a look and tone of gen
uine concern. “Stay with me, Golden Boy….”
She grabbed the sheathed sword which Lucian still clutched to his chest and threw it over to the side with a loud CLUNK against the wood flooring. Then, letting out an exasperated sigh, she went around to stand by Lucian’s head and hooked her arms underneath his shoulders and up through his arm pits. Grunting as she did so, Willow hoisted him up and dragged him closer to the couch. She put her leg on the soft furniture and stood up on it while she lifted his upper body along with her. Letting Lucian down upon the plush cushions with a PLOP, she then climbed back over the boy and grabbed his feet from the ground. She twisted forcefully to rotate his upper body to a horizontal position and threw his feet up on the couch with him. Once she saw that Lucian was stably in place, she fell back on the love seat next to him, breathing heavily.
Lucian stayed like that for a few hours, sometimes asleep and sometimes awake, but mostly in a state of consciousness somewhere between the two. His mind swam with images, both real and imaginary, as his body tried to overcome the strain of physical, mental, and emotional hardship. Willow stayed by his side the whole time, at first just watching with concern, then eventually making herself a cup of tea and sipping it while she waited for the boy to come around. When Lucian’s mind did finally snap back to reality, Willow was in the process of wiping the blood and tears from his face with a wet cloth.
“Uhhh…,” moaned Lucian as he opened his eyes.
“Welcome back, Golden Boy,” said Willow with a clear sense of relief in her voice. “Tea?” she offered lightly, holding out a cup to him. Lucian could see in her face that she probably had many questions but was purposefully waiting until he could recover.
“No thanks,” responded Lucian, reaching up to rub his throbbing forehead. As he did so, he saw the deep reddish-brown of caked-on blood covering his hands and clothing. Images flashed back through his mind of his friend dying in his arms, then drifting away, as if his whole existence in Lucian’s life had been nothing but an impermanent dream. As anger rose up within him again, he feverishly rubbed his hands on the cushion next to him, attempting in vain to cleanse the blood from himself and, with it, the horrid memories in his mind. Then, suddenly, he realized what he was doing.
“Errrr…, sorry about your couch,” he said, ashamed that he had lost awareness of his surroundings and ruined such nice furniture.
“Eh, don’t sweat it,” Willow replied with a wave of her hand. “I told you I hate that thing. I’ll just get a new one. More importantly, though, you gotta tell me…. What’s going on?”
Lucian looked up at her from his sunken indentation in the puffy couch cushions. He could see in her eyes that she truly wanted to know, but he wasn’t confident that she would believe what he would tell her. Then again, if anyone on campus would believe him…, she would be the one.
Well, here goes nothing…, thought Lucian.
“Okay, but I’ve gotta warn you, it’s a really weird story. See, when I first got to campus…,” he began.
Lucian went on to tell Willow everything, from the attack at the library to meeting Gus to training with Panhavant to the encounter with Zagan at the church to the trip to Rome to meet Dareia to the spear tip to the showdown at the zoo. It felt like he spoke for hours, though he knew it couldn’t have really been that long. It was just the first time that Lucian could really talk to anyone about what he had gone through over the past few months, and he found that, once he started talking, there was no stopping the flood of information until the whole story was told.
Willow sat there in silence the entire time, mostly with her typical, flat affect, but occasionally she would raise her eyebrows or nod in comprehension. As Lucian’s story came to a close with the voyage to her front door, she took a deep breath in. Lucian grew quiet and stared at her, unsure of what to expect, but hoping Willow would be more apt to suspend her disbelief than he had originally been with Gus.
After a moment of silence, she simply said, “Well. That was… heavy.” She said no more than that.
“I know it’s hard to believe…,” Lucian admitted, suddenly feeling self-conscious for having dumped all of that on her so freely. Great, now she thinks I’m crazy, he worried to himself.
“Not at all,” Willow replied adamantly. “I believe everything. I just wish you had told me sooner; I would’ve tried to help.”
Lucian looked at her expecting a sarcastic smile, but she continued to sit there with a sincere look on her face. He couldn’t believe that she would go along with all of this so readily.
“Seriously?” he asked, stunned.
“Yeah,” she replied, as if it shouldn’t have even been a question. “There’s all sorts of weird stuff in this world. It seems totally reasonable to me.”
Lucian still found it doubtful that anyone could be so willing to believe these outrageous tales, but he also felt a wave of unexpected relief wash over him. He realized that Willow might actually prove to be one of his most reliable friends, as strange as that seemed. Even though Gus was now gone, it was comforting to know that he still wasn’t all alone. Willow just sat quietly sipping her tea.
“You should take a shower,” she told him suddenly. “You’re a mess.”
Lucian laughed, still with a hint of despair. He lifted his head up off the couch to peer down the length of his body at his repulsive state. “Yeah…,” he replied in agreement. “Mind if I use your shower tonight?”
“Sure,” the girl replied without a second thought. “Up the stairs to the right. Use whatever towel is in there. I’ll try and find you some clothes to wear, but they’ll probably have to be some of my baggiest sweats or something.”
Lucian smiled in appreciation and took his time getting up, still feeling slightly lightheaded as he sat upright. Soon, he had successfully made his way off of the ruined upholstery and up the stairs to clean himself off.
* * *
Monday, November 17th
Lucian spent the rest of that night at Willow’s place. He didn’t even have to ask; she just told him that his bed was in the second bedroom, with sheets already on it. He was so thankful for her hospitality, as he couldn’t imagine having to return to his room to sleep alone, even though the demon had finally been vanquished. After his shower, he put on some of the biggest sweatpants and sweatshirt Willow could dig up, which were still comically too small on him. Stepping out from the bathroom, Lucian saw Willow laugh for the first time since he had met her, although only quickly before the girl stifled it again.
The two of them drank more tea and ordered pizza before bed. Lucian tried in vain to sleep, but instead he found himself tossing and turning and unable to empty his mind of the turmoil within. Much of the night was spent sitting upright on the side of the bed, staring off into the darkness, thinking of Gus, and absentmindedly fiddling with the crystal still hanging upon his neck.
In the morning, Willow was kind enough to throw Lucian’s clothes in the wash. Although the blood stains were impossible to completely eradicate, the clothing was luckily dark enough that they were barely noticeable on the short walk back to his dorm. Once he had made it to the calm, safe space of his own room, his first order of business was changing and throwing everything he was wearing down the trash chute, hoping to never see the soiled reminders of that terrible night ever again.
Lucian wasn’t able to pay attention in Schuntz’s class that morning at all. In his sleep-deprived and heartbroken state, he simply stared off into the distance, attempting to cast away the images which still plagued his consciousness. Throughout the class period, Lucian would catch Schuntz staring directly at him as he spoke. This was particularly odd for the strict professor, who had never paid any attention to Lucian during class, even on the days when he later called him up to chat. Lucian feared that Schuntz wished to discuss his choice of a major, or, worse, his subpar performance on the most recent assignment. Knowing that he was in no state to handle such a conversation, Lucian grabbed his things and quietly slipped out of class
five minutes before it had ended in order to avoid the inevitable calling of his name.
The rest of the week and weekend was uneventful, much to Lucian’s relief. He had experienced enough excitement for one lifetime, and he needed a break to recuperate and cope with the loss of a close friend. Lucian skipped his afternoon class that Thursday, choosing instead to sequester himself in his room for the remainder of the night. As soon as he finally had some time alone, he found himself unable to hold back a flood of tears, and he once again reached up and laid his hand over the crystal pendant hanging down from his neck. Touching it made him feel like Gus was with him again, and he took great comfort in that.
For the first time in a long time, Lucian did not go down to Deer Park to see Panhavant on Friday, and he planned to never do so again. He was still resentful toward the old man who had abandoned them in their time of need, then flippantly cast Gus aside like a dead dog in the street. Lucian figured he would be happiest if he never saw or even thought about Panhavant again.
News of Blake’s reappearance spread like wildfire throughout the campus. The police had found him lying unconscious in the zoo after the park had closed for the night. The official police report stated that there were definite signs of a struggle, but no other leads could be made in the case as of yet. Despite his sadness, Lucian laughed out loud as he read ‘signs of a struggle’ in the school newspaper that Friday, knowing full well the unexplainable assortment of evidence the police encountered after arriving on the scene. He appreciated this short moment of levity in an otherwise terrible week.
From what Lucian had heard, Blake had remained unconscious for the next several days. Lucian had given Blake’s parents a call after their son had been found, asking them to please let him know when Blake woke up, so he could pay a visit. Early Monday morning, Lucian received a call saying that Blake had awoken Sunday and could see visitors later that afternoon. Lucian decided to skip both of his classes that day to give himself enough time to travel to the hospital to see the boy. After the events of the week before, he was having trouble seeing the benefit of attending lectures on these seemingly trivial subject matters anyway.