by D. S. Murphy
Sarah had fallen behind. She was a small speck of color against the creeping darkness of the forest. I watched her put her hands on her knees and bend over unsteadily. We walked back towards her to close the gap.
“We need to keep moving,” Puriel said gruffly. “Now that they know where you are, this whole area will be crawling with hunters.”
“No way,” Jessie said, holding up her hand. “You said we were in danger, fine. I trust you. But then there’s this guy who looks like he just crawled out of a coal mine, who killed those gladiators back there… who had silver blood. I’m glad to see you again, Kai, but I’m not taking another step until you tell me where we’re going, and what exactly is going on.”
“It’s magic,” Sarah said softly. “Right? The way they moved, the flaming swords. And you, you stopped them.” She reached up and scratched at the air with her fingers the way she’d seen me do earlier. “Magic, right?” A hopeful smile tugged at her lips.
“Magic’s not real, Sarah,” Jessie said, pulling a twig out of her tangled hair. Jessie had always been the pragmatist, warning us not to believe in fairy tale endings like Sarah read in her books. Big dreams led to bitter disappointment, she reminded us frequently.
I bit my lip and took a deep breath. There was so much I needed to tell them, but where could I start without sounding totally insane? We’d escaped JDRI, for the moment, but now what—I had no idea where we were going next. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. What if I’d brought them out into even more danger?
“You’re bleeding,” Sarah said, looking at Puriel and jarring me out of my thoughts. “I think.”
Puriel’s arms were crossed, but a thick patch of inky darkness was seeping out through his lightweight clothes. He’d always been pale, but right now he looked like he was on the verge of death. He’d saved us from the hunters, and gotten hurt in the process—and I hadn’t even noticed.
“We find a place to change and clean up,” I said, decisively. “Make sure we’re all safe. Then we can talk. Deal?” I said, looking at Jessie. She nodded, her brown eyes fixed on Puriel.
“He doesn’t look very good. I think we’ll need to patch him up. Stop at a gas station for some hydrogen peroxide and surgical tape?”
I flashed Jessie a grateful smile. She’d worked in the nurse’s office at JDRI. It was mostly for cuts and scrapes, but she had more experience than I did. She always knew what to do.
“I don’t have any money,” I said, fumbling in my pockets. I did have a handful of fancy gemstone necklaces, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be accepted as currency at the gas station.
“I grabbed this from Mrs. Taylor’s office on the way out,” Jessie said, holding up a small purple purse. “I’ve known where she kept the petty cash for years,” she said with a smirk. “Was always planning on grabbing it when I left.”
I tried to hide my look of disapproval. That was for the other girls at JDRI, for emergencies. But I bit my lip and didn’t comment. Secretly I was relieved. I couldn’t be responsible for everybody. Right now, we had to save Puriel and then find a place to hole up for a few days.
He moved surprisingly well, for someone injured. Though now that I was looking, I noticed he was shielding his ribs with one hand and favoring one leg. He’d told me at Nevah that he’d never even felt pain before. As a hunter, his wounds healed up almost instantly, fueled by Zeus’s raw energy. Now, for the first time ever, Puriel could be facing mortal danger.
We followed the sound of traffic until we came to an intersection lined with fast food joints and department stores.
“Let me go,” Jessie said, nodding at the gas station across the parking lot, in between a dry cleaners and a Chinese takout place.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Sarah said.
“I’ll take her,” I said.
“You should stay here,” Puriel said, putting a palm on my shoulder. “Out of sight.”
“I’m fine by myself,” Sarah said.
My stomach pinched. It made me uneasy to let Sarah go into a public bathroom alone, but I also didn’t want to leave Puriel alone. I could see the restroom doors in the back of the building at least, so I could keep an eye out from here.
“Hurry back,” I said. Jessie grabbed Sarah’s hand and I watched them cut across the parking lot, then Sarah went right to the bathroom and Jessie pushed the glass doors into the gas station shop.
When they were both out of sight, I turned back to Puriel. His eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily. Even when restrained in his cell, he’d seemed strong and proud. Now his shoulders were slumped and dark circles spread around his drooping eyelids. I’d never seen him look this vulnerable.
“Hold on,” I said, leaning over him. My dark hair brushed against his hands and his eyes opened suddenly. We were crouching in the bushes, so close our knees were touching. Even through the fabric of our clothes, it seemed intimate. I blushed and leaned away from him, but not before I caught his eye. For a second, I thought I saw something there. Desire. Longing. It made my pulse beat faster. He looked away, as if disgusted with himself, and took a deep breath. Or maybe I was imagining all of that. Jessie always told me I was terrible at reading boys.
Movement caught my eye and I looked up. Just some creep going to the bathroom. But he passed the men’s toilets, looked around him, then put a hand on the door to the women’s bathroom and went inside. Shit.
“Be right back,” I whispered. I raced across the parking lot and flung open the door of the lady’s restroom. The man spun when he heard me come in.
“I think you’re in the wrong bathroom,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Get lost,” he growled, not even bothering to meet my eyes. His hair was slicked back and oily, and his eyes looked bloodshot. Sarah came out of the stall. Her eyes widened when she saw the man. I motioned at her to stay put, and she backed away and crouched into the corner.
“It smells so good in here,” he said, sniffing the air greedily.
What the hell? Something about this guy was all wrong. It gave me goosebumps to be in the same room with him. The space seemed charged with static electricity and my skin was crawling.
“Seriously. Get the fuck out or I’m calling the cops.” I hoped my voice was more confident than I felt. But he just turned slowly and smiled at me.
The lights flickered and he took a menacing step towards me, his hands palm up, his fingers spread. I tried to act tough, as Jessie would in this situation. After fighting hunters, I figured one asshole would be a piece of cake. But I was wrong. My breath caught in my throat as I realized this wasn’t just some guy. I wasn’t even sure if he was human.
The flickering lights made the man’s shadow grow and dance along the wall. It spread across the ceiling, hovering above us like a dark cloud. Then I noticed the darkness, swirling around him like smoke. His fingers grew long and pointy, and his smile was so unnaturally large it seemed to reach his ears.
He grabbed me and flung me across the room. Sarah screamed as I smashed into the window, then collapsed in a pile of fallen glass. The man’s lower jaw looked practically unhinged now, hanging down to his chest, and his eyes were as large as baseballs. As he perched above me, his tongue lashed out, impossibly long, and licked my check. My body shuddered in disgust.
The bathroom door burst open, and Puriel tossed me the bag I’d stupidly left behind. Then he cleaved his sword into the beast’s shoulder. It split him down to the waist, but he hardly flinched. He whirled towards Puriel and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him into the air.
“You fool,” the man bellowed, his voice like gravel. “You think a single torch can stop me? I’ve defeated dozens of you idiots. It’s a waste of effort too, you’ve no magic of your own, only your delusions and misguided efforts. He’ll never love you again.”
I tried to focus the way I had before, to find the creature’s thread, but I couldn’t. I’d never tried to use my power this close to civilization before. The hunter threads at JDRI were
glowing, they stood out and were easy to see. But the human threads... there were hundreds of them. I couldn’t tell who they belonged to, and I didn’t see anything that matched this beast. The beast who was squeezing the life out of Puriel.
I reached into the bag and pulled out the shotgun. I raised it and pulled the trigger, sending the blast into the man’s side point-blank. This time he let out an awful growl. The iron ball bearings sizzled, sending smoke and the smell of burnt flesh out of the holes in his skin.
The black cloud retreated and he began to look like a human again. His grip on Puriel loosened as his giant, grotesque fingers shrank. Puriel seized his sword, plucking it from the man’s shoulder, and with a single swipe, cut the man’s head from his shoulders.
There was a second of startled silence, then the man fell forward onto his knees, before collapsing hard on the tiles of the bathroom floor. Thick, black blood oozed from his neck wound. I crawled across the broken glass and retched into the trash can.
I pulled myself up just as Puriel stumbled onto one leg. The wound in his side had opened up, and the blackish blood was wet as it ran down his leg and dripped on the floor. Sarah ran to me and buried her face in my chest. I put my arms around her.
“Thank you,” I said to Puriel.
He nodded, and for a second I saw him smile. But then his pupils went large and dark. He inhaled deeply and turned towards the carcass on the ground.
I saw now that the creature’s dark blood sparkled like sugar candy. It must have been a leech—a torch that continued to hunt magical creatures, but began consuming its kills until it devolved into something monstrous. Sitri told me about them, but this was the first one I’d ever seen.
“Stop me,” Puriel said quietly. His muscles strained as he held a trembling hand out towards the leech’s body. I could see his grasping fingertips reflected in the pool of blood. I grabbed his arm and pulled him backwards.
Jessie appeared in the doorway holding a paper sack. She froze at the sight of the now headless man on the floor, and me struggling to keep Puriel away from the pool of blood.
“Grab his other arm!” I yelled. “We have to get him out of here.”
Puriel pulled more insistantly against me.
“No it’s fine,” he said. “Just a little bit. Just enough magic to heal my wounds. So I can protect you properly. I’ll be fine.”
“No way. Do you want to become one of those things? You warned me about this, remember? You told me what happens to torches who hunt alone.”
He snarled at me, then caught himself and looked horrified. I took advantage of his hesitation and dragged him backwards, then forced him out the door. The three of us collapsed on the pavement in a pile of tangled limbs.
3
I was still gripping Puriel’s arm as Sarah quietly closed the bathroom door behind us. He looked at my gloved fingers on his arm, confused for a moment. But then I saw the darkness go out of his eyes. He pulled his arm away and stood up.
“You okay now?” I asked. “I mean, yourself again?”
He nodded. I thought he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. I felt a stab of pain and reached down to pull a chunk of broken glass out of my leg.
“Great. We’re all fine,” Jessie said. “Can we get out of here? The owner called the cops as soon as he heard the shot. You can tell me where the hell you got a shotgun, and what happened to your pal in the bathroom, as soon as we avoid being arrested for murder.”
I nodded, grateful again at Jessie for taking control and not freaking out. She was so much stronger than I was. We we were halfway towards the woods and the edge of the parking lot when I looked back and noticed Sarah wasn’t following. When I went back for her, her wide eyes searched my face like she didn’t recognize me. I realized she’d just seen me shoot a guy—a leech—and then keep Puriel from drinking his blood.
Her breathing was shallow and her pupils were wide. The beginning of an anxiety attack. I’d seen it before. She was a kettle, just warming up. If I didn’t calm her down, she’d start shrieking and attract even more attention.
I bent down next to her and held her shoulders firmly. “I’m so sorry, Sarah, that you had to see that. But you were right before. Magic is real. But so are monsters. And they’re after us now, you, me and Jessie. But I swear I won’t let anyone hurt you. Ever. I just need you to trust me. Okay?”
The look she gave me broke my heart, but at least I’d gotten her attention.
“If you don’t feel safe with us, if you don’t trust me, you can go back to JDRI later, but only after I’ve made sure you’re safe, okay? Right now, we can’t be in the open.”
Finally, she nodded and curled her little fingers into gloved palm. We caught up with the others and jumped into the woods just as a police car pulled into the parking lot, flashing lights that cut through the trees. Jessie and I helped Puriel stumble forward into the woods. The further we got away from the leech, the stronger he became. Soon he shrugged off our help and walked by himself.
We kept moving until we came to a clearing and found a house with no lights on. Jessie scouted it out and came back holding a key and a grin.
“There’s only so many places you can hide a spare key,” she said. “Found this under a plastic rock in the front yard. It’s practically a red carpet invitation.”
I didn’t like the idea of breaking in, but Puriel looked like he was about to collapse. I didn’t know if he’d last much longer. We went inside and helped him up on wide marble counter in the kitchen. I tucked some pillows from the couch behind him and told him to lean back and take off his shirt. He paused, looking apprehensive.
“No time to be shy,” Jessie said, cutting what remained of his shirt off with a pair of surgical scissors. It clung to the tar-like blood. He flinched when Jessie tugged off her shirt and tossed it into the garbage bin next to the sink. I put my gloved hands on his shoulder, hoping to calm him.
“I’m just going to assume he works like humans do. Stop the bleeding, kill the germs, and stitch him up,” Jessie said. “Does that sound about right?”
Puriel looked at her like she was speaking a foreign language. Jessie sighed and put a hand on her hip.
“From the way you took out that man back there, it seems like you’ve seen your share of combat. I’m just asking if there’s anything I should know. If you’re an alien or something and have your heart where your gallbladder should be, I don’t want to make things worse.”
“I don’t think he’s ever been wounded before,” I said. “Not like this. Just do your best.”
Jessie poured hydrogen peroxide over Puriel’s abdomen and wiped away the blood with a pad of gauze. He gritted his teeth as she cleaned the wound. It was deep, but looked clean. I searched the cabinets until I found a bottle of whiskey and poured a glassful. I also found a bottle of aspirin.
“Take these,” I said, giving him two white pills and the whiskey. “For the pain.” He looked like he was about to refuse, but then Jessie pulled a needle out of the sewing kit she’d bought and threaded the eye. He tossed back the pills and downed the glass in one gulp.
Jessie stitched up his wounds and tried cleaning his other cuts. The soot and ash that covered him turned her gauze black as she wiped it over his skin. I grabbed a roll of paper towels and set about cleaning him as best I could, with dishsoap and warm water. He needed a bath but he was too weak, and I wasn’t about to jump in the shower with him.
When she was down, we rolled him off the counter and heaved him onto the couch. He grunted in pain as we moved him, but once we’d laid him down again his eyelids drooped shut. Jessie tucked him in with some blankets and he was out cold.
“Why don’t I help Sarah find a bed,” Jessie said, “Then we can talk.”
Sarah looked up at me with pleading eyes and squeezed my arm.
“She should hear this too,” I said finally. “You both need to understand what’s happening, especially after what you saw tonight.”
First we made
hot chocolate, with marshmallows. The sugary sweetness melted in my mouth and warmed me up. Then went into the next room and sat by the round table in front of a flatscreen TV. Jessie sucked in a breath and then let loose a tornado of questions.
“So what the hell actually happened in the bathroom? Did your friend kill that guy? With a sword? Why were you holding a shotgun? And what was that thing you did at JDRI with the two guys—you called them hunters right? I could hardly see them move, it’s like they were ghosts, almost tranlucent. And why—”
I held my hand up and she stopped talking.
“Sarah,” I said finally, holding up my arms. “We’ve never told you why I wear gloves. Do you want to know? The real reason?”
Sarah’s eyes widened. She must have asked me a thousand times, and each time I’d deflected or given a bullshit answer. Jessie’s look said are you sure, but I continued.
“You probably heard the whispers at JDRI about me, that I’d killed someone.”
“I never believed them,” Sarah said quickly, but she looked doubtful.
“Someone did die. My little brother. But the thing is, I saw his death before it happened. I tried to stop it. When it happened anyway, everyone thought I killed him, to prove that what I was saying was true. Nobody believed that I could see the future, so no one could forgive me.”
“You can see the future,” Sarah repeated slowly.
“Only when I touch someone’s skin, and... only their death.” I added, since I knew from the spark in her eyes that she was excited at the possibility of getting her fortune read.
“I’ve always covered up, so I wouldn’t see any more visions. That’s why I don’t let anyone touch me.”
“But if you saw their death, couldn’t you stop it?” Sarah asked.
“I couldn’t with my brother. I tried, really, really hard. After that I gave up. Nobody actually wants to know they’re about to die. The more I talked about it, the more sessions of therapy, the more meds they put me on. I finally learned to keep quiet.”