by Lindsay Nall
“You think if we would have, you know, that it would have surfaced? Has that happened before?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt this strongly for someone before, it could be completely fine but if it’s not, I’m not sure that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
“Which bothers you more? The idea of it happening or the idea of me seeing it happen?” He thought about it for a second mildly shocked at how brazen the question was.
“If you never see it I would die a happy man.”
“You said I calm it.” He nodded. “So trust that that will continue to happen. Don’t push me away because you’re afraid of a part of yourself.”
“I want nothing more than to get rid of it.”
“Never.” Wrapping her arms around his waist she held him as tight as she could. “Never change who you are, don’t do it because you think it will be better for others or because you’re trying to protect me. The demon in you isn’t just in you it’s a part of you and I happen to like you just the way you are.” Wrapping an arm around her shoulders they turned and started down the road to catch up to their comrades but Nyght still had his reserves. If it did surface was she sure she would still view him the same?
Eighteen
“These are all Dues logs?” Mari whispered as she stood in the middle of a hidden room of the library surrounded by what had to be hundreds and hundreds of books. Nyght nodded from where he was walking back and forth along the walls trying to find the journals from the era they needed.
“You said he was a forefather right?”
“Yeah.”
“So probably add in about a sixty-year life span then add in offspring then add in one of the first 14 which didn’t occur until…” Nyght trailed off in his ramblings and calculations trying to narrow down a specific section they should be looking in to find the right information. “Well, I guess that’s as close as we’re going to get.” He motioned to three bookcases jam-packed with multiple papers and small leather-bound journals. “Your guess is as good as mine.” He shrugged then grabbed a pile to bring over to a nearby table. It was there, four hours later, that Alto found them.
“What is she doing here? And more importantly, what are you doing here? You made it clear you do not wish to be a clansman anymore.” Alto had come into the hidden room to file some papers but had lost it when he saw the two spread out with multiple journals and papers scattered all over the place.
“Like you’d ever actually let me leave old man.” Nyght grumbled tossing the journal he was looking at to Mari who shook her head and gave it back.
“That still doesn’t tell me what she’s doing here. You know only members of the clan are allowed to have access to these records.”
“She may be one.” That caught him off guard. “Her fracture, it belonged to one of your ancestors.”
“Which one?”
“Which fracture or which ancestor?” Mari couldn’t help sneaking in a little blow to the man, she was still pretty angry with him.
“Which ancestor.”
“All we have to go by is the name Alfred.” Alto seemed to let out a long sigh then shook his head.
“You are wasting your time then.” They both stopped what they were doing to look up to the old man. “Alfredus Dawn Deus, the first member of the clan to be a member of The Fourteen was deemed unfit in the mind.”
“Was it because he wrote of a dream man who questioned his faith?” Alto seemed to pale a few shades as he nodded. “He’s not the only one.”
“You’ve dreamt of the same man?” Mari nodded. “This can’t be…” Alto walked around to one of the bookshelves and pulling out three books on the bottom shelf extracted a small journal from behind them. “This is all he wrote as a Deus before they… well, not all families have their proudest moments.”
“They had him executed didn’t they?” Mari asked holding out her hand for the journal.
“Yes but if you’ve seen the same man now… what does it mean?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” She flicked her wrist a little so he would hand over the journal to her.
“I’m sorry there’s not more.”
“It’s a start.”
“Your fracture, is it really his?” She nodded carefully undoing the knot that held the journal closed, it was so dry and brittle she was afraid it would snap if she handled it with too much force. “Then in my eyes that does make you a Deus.” She looked up to him with a cocked eyebrow.
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“I’m aware but know from this day forward I will do nothing to stand in your way.” Alto bowed to the two and left the room.
“Was that his version of an apology?” Nyght shrugged not sure, he couldn’t remember Alto apologizing for anything.
Nyght had busied himself putting away the different papers and journals as Mari read through what she could make out of the old man's handwriting. A lot of it was gibberish but some of it, the information on Saran, was clear as day. “So what does it say?” She remained quiet for a long time weighing everything she had read.
“He dreamt of the same beach before he was a Shadow and he dreamt of the same man after he became one…” She still couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone Saran’s name. It seemed wrong to let other people into the bond the two of them had formed through her dreams.
“Did his dream man ask the same questions yours does?” She nodded. “Anything else similar?
“It says he went to The Five to ask them about it but they turned him away saying it was nothing more than God judging his faith. After that…” She couldn’t make out a lot after that. A lot of it was random words here and there and scribbles of symbols she had never seen but underneath the mad writing there seemed to be more words, words she could understand. Staring intricately between the ten different pages that had these drawings on them she flipped through the rest of the journal stopping on the only other page with writing. Pieces of the paper were removed making it almost look like rats had nibbled holes in it, at the top was one word. “Key… I wonder.” Carefully she ripped the page from the book, despite Nyght’s upheaval about it, and flipped back to the first incoherent page. Placing it on top of the page she realized she could make out those underlying words now. “We may want to write this down.”
As they went through the journal page by page with the key, the words she spoke Nyght wrote down in a small journal he had pulled from his coat pocket. “Is that it?” He asked an hour later when she had closed the journal.
“Yeah as far as I can tell, what does it say?” He wasn’t sure, it didn’t make a lot of sense to him but as he read the words back to her she seemed to become puzzled.
“Flesh of my flesh… that’s what the demon said before it was killed. The rest of this, it sounds so familiar like a nursery rhyme you hear over and over as a child.” This was one sadistic nursery rhyme then.
“Do you think maybe we should ask Karter or Bart about it?”
“Maybe Alto.” He was shocked that she would be willing to go to him for help but at the same time, he hated to admit he was thinking the same thing. As they left the small room Nyght couldn’t help the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach. This felt familiar to him too but not as a nursery rhyme, to him it felt more like a prophecy of things to come.
Alto had gone stoically quiet once he had read the passage they had extricated from the former Deus members journal. It made them both nervous as he thought over everything not even casting a glance to either one as he did so. It was peaceful outside, quiet in a way that made it both calm yet eerie. No birds were flying overhead cooing as they found refuge in the nearby trees, the koi in the pond were silent also, not even a burble from the water as they remained still.
“I can understand how Nyght finds this familiar but you Mari, you should not.”
“Why?” Alto shook his head at her question as if not sure he should give them the answers they were seeking.
“It was something those who lived in Whittiker used to repeat in church every day.”
“Whittiker?” She knew of the place, everyone knew of that place. It was a ghost town now, no one had dared to set foot in it since a tear had appeared in the middle of the town's church. It was where the original Fourteen had been marched through town and hung as a display to all who lived there. A sadistic show hoping to gain God’s favor in killing the Devil’s soldiers. “But why would Nyght know…” The puzzle pieces clicked in place as she caught the look on Nyght’s face. “You’re an orphan.”
“Of course I’m an orphan, you know what my father was, what he did to my mother.” The ire in his voice told her to tread lightly but the look on his face showed nothing but disgust. She had never really thought about it before, how he had come to be half-demon but now, now it just made her heart hurt.
“Nyght’s mother was the only woman to survive the Plague of Sins.”
“I don’t need a crash course on my own history.”
“You don’t but maybe she does, do you not trust her Nyght?” The question made Nyght level a glare on the old man in front of him that should have knocked him dead but he said nothing more to stop him from telling the story. “Nyght’s mother gave him to the first priest she came across pleading with him to take him to be raised in a church hoping that the presence of God would keep the demon in him at bay.”
“Well, it must have worked because he…” She trailed off when Alto shook his head. Nyght wouldn’t look her in the eye either.
“The priest was from Whittiker and agreed to take Nyght there to be raised at the orphanage in the church. How much do you know of that town, Mari?” She bit her lip, maybe she should have paid more attention to her history lessons.
“I know it’s where the original Fourteen were killed, I know that it was a very religious town and that everyone there was afraid of sin and no one ever reproduced. All the children in the town were adopted from the church.” Alto nodded worriedly that she only knew the basics of the town that held such a large part of history for the Fourteen today.
“True. Everyone was expected to attend church twice a day, all the children were adopted from the church, all except one.” Alto passed a glance to Nyght who shrugged and stood to walk off. He was angry to have this all coming to light, to have Mari know all of this about his history but if it would help them, if it could save her from whatever demon was after her, he would deal with it.
“No one ever adopted Nyght?” Alto shook his head.
“He was the oldest child in the orphanage by four years. Almost all of the children were adopted quickly but no one wanted the half-demon child born of sin and darkness. He was in the town when the tear opened, when the town was ripped to shreds. I’m still not sure how he managed to escape it all, if it was just pure dumb luck or if the demons decided since he was what he was to just leave him be.”
“Does anyone know how the tear got there?” He shook his head but he had his theories about what had happened though he couldn’t prove them. Thanking Alto Mari stood and just watched Nyght as he poked around the garden pulling random weeds here and there, filling in holes from small burrowing animals, he looked so normal right now. As she thought over the information she had just been handed her mind wandered back to Nyght’s mother, the only woman to survive the Plague of Sins, that had been a horrible time. Demons had discovered they could take on a human form and mate with human women to increase their numbers but it didn’t work. If the activity of mating itself didn’t kill the women, the strain of carrying a half-demon child did. As far as she had known until today, not one woman or child had survived it but now to learn Nyght had and not only survived but his mother had too and she had given him up… her heart went out to both of them. How do you give birth to a child and then just give it away? Was she hoping it was what was right? And how could that priest have just taken him without a second thought? Couldn’t she have tried to care for him? Had she been afraid of him even though he was just a baby?
Taking careful steps as not to disturb him Mari walked over and took a seat next to where Nyght had settled himself on the edge of the Koi pond. “I tried to find her once.” The statement threw her off guard. “My mother, a few years ago actually.” He laughed as if it had been the stupidest idea in the world at the time. “She’s beautiful just like I always dreamed she would be.” She was still alive?
“Do you still talk to her?” He shook his head, gave another short huff of a laugh and continued his story.
“I never have. She has a family, a husband, and two daughters.” She understood the pain in his eyes now as he spoke. He had been afraid she would reject him again. “Every time I’m in the area I try and leave a little bit of money for them, it’s not much and she doesn’t know where it comes from but…”
“It helps you.” He nodded then stood.
“Well Alto wasn’t much help about all of this, maybe we should go talk to Karter after all… at least if he hasn’t been killed by a pile of paperwork.” He trotted off signaling for Mari to follow but as they climbed the stairs in headquarters she couldn’t help but wonder how he had hidden this pain from her for so long and if there was anything she could do to heal it.
Nineteen
“Karter, you in here…somewhere?” Nyght swore at the mess that was Karter’s office, it seemed to get worse every time he was in here.
“Marisol! Oh and Nyght too! I do love surprise visits! Come sit! Come sit!” Karter stood from where he was sitting on one of the couches, the one that had popped a spring the first time Mari had been in here, and pushed two large piles of paper off the sturdier-looking couch across from him motioning for them both to sit and stay awhile. “Tea?”
“You have a deadline you’re avoiding aren’t you?” Mari asked taking note of how much larger the piles of paper had gotten since the last time she had been there and how hospitable he was being. Two stacks of filed papers were on the crooked coffee table. He was organizing?
“Don’t be silly! Can’t I want to spend time with two of my favorite Shadows?”
“Yup he’s avoiding something.” Karter pouted at the two.
“Why do you have to be so mean to me?”
“I can only handle idiot for so long.” Nyght knocked a stack of filed papers over as he practically threw his journal at Karter open to the page that held the words that were some kind of religious absolution. The two watched carefully as Karter sobered the more he read of the passage.
“Where did you find this?” They explained Mari’s dreams to a point and the happenings that had been going on over the last few weeks. Karter seemed to age before her eyes changing from a boyishly handsome mid-thirty-year-old to a man who looked like he was carrying the strain of the world. “Alto was correct. This was nothing more than a religious chant for a small population of deluded souls.” Something wasn’t right in the way he made his statement, as if he were trying to play off the information as nothing.
“I was thinking that with this discovery, and what the demon said and then my dreams maybe we should go to Whittiker and…”
“No!” There was a tinge of anger and what sounded like fear in Karter’s voice as he sat up straight and looked them both square in the eye. “There is a demon with your name and from the sounds of it a hierarchy demon, you will remain on the headquarters premises where you are safe. I will assemble a small team to look into the tears that have formed in this field and to look over closing them. Whittiker has one of the most vehement tears to ever exist. I’m sorry Mari but I forbid you to go anywhere near that town, I forbid anyone on your team to go anywhere near it and that is final.”
“But I know a Witcher and…”
“I forbid it! Until this demon is located your team is grounded.” Why was he so worked up over this? And how could he ground her entire team?! “Nyght if you please.” He held out his hand expectantly before Nyght dropped his communicator lapel pin in his hand. “I will collect the others from t
he rest of your team, Marclay will remain with you as I know taking her would do nothing but cause me more grief.” Marclay made a little hiss from where she sat on Mari’s shoulder. “I would suggest using this time to brush up on your training. Now if you’ll excuse me.” They hadn’t gotten a word in edgewise when it came to this decision and it didn’t seem right to Mari, now he was trying to just shoo them out the door as if it were nothing to be discussed.
“Do you think we can’t handle it Karter or is it something else?” He held the door to the office open not letting his face falter from its determined strain.
“You will leave this alone Marisol, you all will.” He made a movement with his hands but when they didn’t move he shoved them out the door, slammed it shut behind them then locked it.
“What the hell just happened?” Mari asked as she and Nyght stared at the door behind them.
Inside the office, Karter threw Nyght’s pin into a desk drawer and put in an urgent call to Bart.
“Is everything alright?” Bart had answered on the second try claiming he couldn’t find the mouse to his computer to answer the video call.
“Not even close, we have a serious problem.”
Nyght had left Mari standing in the middle of the hallway telling her he was going to go try and dig up some more information on the text they had discovered so she made her way down to her room. Why had Karter become so serious and so angry over the thought of them going to Whittiker? If the tear was so old what was the damage that could be done by seeing the town for themselves? Was there something Karter wasn’t telling them about the town? Was there something she should know about?
An hour later she had no more answers then she had had before. A call to Bart on Marclay told her nothing except Karter had gotten to him first and he agreed with the idea to ground her team. “Well hell!” She flung her door open only to find a group of people standing in the hallway.