The Devourer

by C H Chelser

  ‘It is the connection to your body. Take care of it. Should it break, your body will die. And as we concluded earlier, neither of us wants that to happen.’

  Mercedes made a complete turn. The cord pulled lightly at her, despite only a fraction of it being visible. ‘Duly noted.’

  ‘Good. Now let us turn to what you came for.’ He took her arm. They didn’t move, but the parlour faded away in a gentle pastel glow of greens, yellows, pinks and a touch of blue. ‘How was that?’

  Thoughts failed to take form, but one was a fraction clearer than the rest. ‘Like stepping from one room into another through a corridor that is miles long, yet is crossed in an instant.’

  ‘An accurate description. This kind of crossing is what spirits refer to as “shifting”. The movement between plains of existence. Allow me to show you.’

  He put his hands together and drew them apart in a vertical motion. The suggestion of a column appeared, darkening to black towards the bottom and brightening to sheer white towards the top.

  ‘This is an extremely imperfect representation of existence. Space as you know it has no meaning beyond the physical realm, but for the sake of argument, let us say that at the very top is energy with unlimited potential, and at the very bottom, energy is so dark and compressed that it has no potential at all. In incorrect but familiar terms, the top is Heaven, and the bottom is Hell. And the physical world to which the living belong is here.’

  At Jean’s command, a tiny circle appeared around the column and marked its exact centre. Above the circle, the light intensified. Below it, the light dimmed. Mercedes regarded it, and clapped her hands in recognition.

  ‘This is the sliding scale you mentioned. When you explained why you needed me, as a mortal, to contact your demon, you spoke of this.’

  ‘Quite right.’ Jean gestured along the column. Little horizontal lines showed inside, spaced evenly from top to bottom. ‘Existence is, crudely speaking, comparable to a building with multiple storeys. To move from one to another, you must pass through those in between. You must “shift”.’

  Mercedes grasped the concept from his aura, which showed his thoughts with abundant clarity. ‘Like climbing a staircase to another level, except that there is no need for movement. All levels... all levels exist in the same place?’

  ‘Yes, but do not forget, space is relative. All plains exist as invisible layers that do not stack up, but overlay one another.’

  ‘Like the thin layers of a gauze dress. Even multiple layers packed together are barely thicker than a single layer of a denser fabric.’

  ‘Close,’ said Jean. ‘Understand that the layers are not truly separated. The only exception is the physical plain, which has a status aparte. Otherwise, the sliding scale is without notches.’

  Mercedes thought of Danielle and Antoine, and of the other ghosts. Some were clear, others faint to her senses. A distance expressed less in space but in these plains.

  ‘Distance is a difficult concept,’ Jean warned. ‘What you perceive as distance can be a difference in plains, but also in time, focus and physical distance. Quite complicated. Suffice to say you cannot trust your own perception of time and distance. The plains closest to the threshold, to the physical world, emulate the rules of time and space that you are accustomed to, but the outer plains have little or no concept of either. What can seem days may be centuries, and vice versa. Do not attempt to go there. You will not find your way back.’

  Mercedes watched her aura become polluted by a sickly green. Fear. She was afraid. Was this what the demon had meant when he had said her colours were unappetising?

  ‘It is,’ Jean replied with a smirk. ‘The aura reflects a soul’s energy, changing colour accordingly. In spirits, its size and density reflect experience. Age, if you will. When a soul inhabits a living body, the aura is dimmed, hidden by its physicality. Yours, however, is quite extensive.’ He smiled. ‘That draws attention.’

  She glanced around. ‘Not really. We are alone.’

  ‘Alone, too, is a relative concept. Everything here is driven by willpower. We sense no others, because we choose to converse in solitude. Others honour that choice.’

  ‘Are they here?’

  ‘Why not shift a fraction?’ he invited.

  ‘Me? How?’

  ‘Concentrate on the nearest level you can detect. Sidle through that mile-long corridor with the smallest step you can manage.’

  She envisioned that image. Suddenly the blotched colours around them became clearer, more defined. Finally, as if she were adjusting the ring of a spyglass, they took shape.

  ‘Oh, good Heavens!’

  A new world came into focus. A world filled with people, filled with life, but without a backdrop. Like the Café Anglais might be without furniture, interior or even walls. A grand expanse, painted in pastels that seemed to go on forever. It probably did.

  Everywhere spirits of all shapes and sizes had gathered: balls of light, humanoid forms, animal forms, either vague or detailed. Their variety was endless. They interacted in groups, or sat alone and played with the thoughts that danced in their aura. Some shapes were blurred, as she suspected she and Jean had appeared while their conversation had been private. An immense crowd had gathered here, yet at the same time it was dispersed through space and plains – or so she presumed. Whatever the real explanation was, this was a crowd that did not feel crowded. So unlike the fearful ghosts in her flat.

  ‘Who are they? Are they guides, like you?’

  Jean’s aura touched hers. ‘Most of them are spirits pausing between physical lives. As I said, the physical world is an exception. It provides the ultimate conditions for a soul to gather profound experiences about existence. But not all such lessons can be learned in one lifetime. After death, they rest and review before initiating another life, or enjoy the freedom of the astral plains. Indeed, not unlike myself in that respect.’

  Mercedes saw her own astonishment spelled out in colours. She had been taught to believe in the Heaven she had called on earlier, a place where all pure souls would gather for all eternity. Yet here, in what came closest to what she had been told Heaven was, that notion seemed over-simplified.

  Overwhelmed by the impressions and knowledge soaking into her, her thoughts flickered about her. She sought Jean’s comfort.

  ‘You said once that God does not exist.’

  ‘God is not one individual,’ he answered. ‘This is God.’ The column he had created drifted in front of them once more. ‘I believe you wondered why God would allow a devourer to exist? Devourers exist because God is all of existence. From the rich energy of the diffused souls that shine with the brightest light of unlimited creative potential,’ he cupped the top of the column in the palm of his hand, ‘to the darkest souls at the Edge, who see nothing, feel nothing and cannot but devour their own souls. All of this is existence. All of this is God.’

  Mercedes’ energy vibrated with confusion. In the blink of an eye, everything she had believed in was cast to the wind. Neither rejected nor proven false, but extended, elaborated instead. Like a student gaining new insights that put all he had learned into a new perspective. Coherent thought became difficult.

  ‘I shall help you get back,’ said Jean. ‘You will need more time to practice than either of us can spare now.’ He glanced to the side. ‘Your presence here has not gone undetected.’

  Mercedes followed his prompt and sensed four entities close by, closer than the rest of the crowd, their auras as large as they were magnificent. At first she saw only those outlines, until all at once they took shape. Four beautiful persons appeared. Like angels from a Classic Italian painting, they wore Roman armour and long capes that billowed around them and the majestic white swan-like wings that extended from their backs. Two of them held an elegant spear, while the other two brandished long swords, the blades unsheathed.

  ‘Are they... are they archangels?’ Mercedes whispered in awe.

  Jean, however, was cautious. ‘No. The tr
ue angels reside in plains much lighter than this one, where our kind cannot go. These spirits are known as sentinels.’ He took her by the arm again and gave the impression of backing off. The crowd faded as they shifted through the warped corridor, but the sentinels shifted with them, fully attentive but with no clear intent.

  ‘Why are they following us?’

  ‘Sentinels shield souls to protect them as well as to protect others. You are human. You do not belong in these plains. They sensed this and are now responding.’

  Awe became fear. In her back, the thin cord resonated and pulled at her to return to her body. There she would be safe.

  No! She couldn’t go back now. She had too much to learn still. Her thoughts turned to Danielle and the sanctuary, but she sensed Jean’s unspoken reply that he would not risk her presence there, lest it compromised all they were fighting for. Her aura darkened while the sentinels slowly drove them backwards, through the corridor and ever closer to the physical world.

  ‘No, not yet!’

  She envisioned the column; she envisioned her demon. Before she was thrust back into her body, she had to find him and prove to him that she could shift. That she was useful!

  The dark blue of desperate determination consumed the brighter colours around her. The corridor tilted. Mercedes passed through it so fast that she thought she was falling instead. Jean had disappeared from sight, but so had the sentinels. The thread of her body strained, hurt, and she willed herself to stop in mid-fall. The column; light; dark. Not too dark, not too light.

  There!

  The impression of the corridor faded. She no longer hung in limbo, but stood on what she believed was a street shrouded in dense, grey fog. Around her, faint shadows rose up like buildings. Perhaps they were, but in another plain. Like the world Jean had shown her, this one was composed of blotches, some more recognisable than others. A few of the blotches moved, suggesting the presence of others. The only real difference was the absence of colour and the eerie silence of countless ghosts drowning in their loneliness.

  Mercedes recomposed herself as best she could. This gloomy urban landscape bore down dreadfully, but pastels and smiles wouldn’t help her find the monster. Or the demon. Bracing herself, she sent out a call to him. She didn’t expect a kind reception, but the time of playing games was over.

  However, the response she received was of a different nature.

  ‘Foolish child!’ Jean chided, concern and fear overpowering every other emotion about him. ‘To shift so fast and without direction is both careless and dangerous.’

  ‘He has to know,’ was all she could think of. ‘I may never get another chance to convince him!’

  ‘Nor will it be of any use if you die first!’

  ‘I still feel my cord pulling.’

  ‘Because your body needs you!’

  He took her face in both hands. His thoughts and feelings spilled into her, explaining everything in the fraction of a second while above it all tolled his warning not to trust her own perception of time and space. In a flash, she saw where she had been; how deep she had fallen before her cord had warned her and instinct had brought her to this plane, closer to the threshold.

  ‘Will he know?’

  ‘If I could hear your call to him clearly enough to find where you landed, then certainly he must have heard you, too.’

  Then why didn’t he reply? Had he chosen not to? No, of course not, not with Jean here. ‘And the sentinels?’

  ‘Coming. While powerful, sentinels are not fast. They will not find you, be assured, because I am taking you back where you belong. Now.’

  She didn’t resist. Shifting back to the threshold, she noticed how heavy the fog had been. She wondered how wisps could weigh so much on her, but satisfying her curiosity was unimportant. The cord in her back hurt. Where it had been unobtrusive before, it now pulsed in alarm. Only following it back to the tiny door promised relief.

  ‘How do I cross back?’

  ‘Stop resisting the pull,’ said Jean. ‘Your body and soul know how to fit together. Trust them.’

  The door was far too small for her to pass through, but then she had no body, no fixed size. Keeping that in mind, she reached out for the tiny black marble threshold that marked the border.

  It sufficed.

  The first thing Mercedes became aware of next, was the dense confinement of her body. But it was there, and it breathed. It was also slumped in a painful position, head lolling back and every muscle in her neck and shoulders cold and sore. Like coming home to a house where no fire had been lit in weeks. If the body was a temple, as the Bible said, perhaps that notion wasn’t very far from the truth.

  The first shiver hurt as it forced every part of her body to participate. The second got her blood pumping again. Her arms and legs were stiff, her fingers were a bit swollen from hanging down for too long. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Cold and thirsty. Hungry, too.

  Once her limbs cooperated, she hoisted herself up, staggered to the door, unlocked it, and called for her maid. Amélie was quick to hurry over and curtsied.

  “Bring me a pot of tea and something to eat, will you?”

  “Yes, madame. Uhm, do you want something cold, or do you wish to wait another half hour for dinner to be served?”

  “Dinner?” Mercedes leaned heavily against the door. “Is it that time already? I must have fallen asleep.”

  Small wonder her cord had hurt and Jean had been so anxious to get her back. What had felt like an hour to her had been most of the day to her body. Disjointed and wrecked as she was, she wished she could avoid questions and the nasty glances Eric would cast her after a full day of spiteful absence, but there would be a lot more trouble if she failed to show up for dinner, too.

  She ran a hand over her face. “Dinner it is. Go and fetch me a jug of water and a glass, and then help me get dressed.”

  Chapter XVIII

  The woman’s call resonated with the strength of her despair. Her soul and colours stood out in the eternal fog, immensely more brilliant than when he had first been drawn to them across multiple plains. He stopped in his tracks when he realised how very close she must be to accomplish that.

  Inconceivable! How had she managed to break the bonds tying her to the physical realm?

  The sudden appearance of golden wreaths weaving through her energy supplied the answer. Of course. She had elected to confide in a guide, hadn’t she? A guide with a hidden agenda, he surmised. One so invested in another person was never interested in helping alone.

  He gritted his itching teeth and focused with reluctance on the bright hallmark signature. The wreaths were drenched with the guide’s soul marker; a certain source of its intention and identity, if he could discern its pattern through the blazing light. A painful effort, but eventually a pattern did indeed emerge.

  He withdrew at once, severing all connections with furious finality. This was not just any guide! Of all the souls she might have turned to, the woman had to side with the foolish creature that had made a sport of following him to the deep darkness.

  ‘Such a coincidence,’ he drawled, sarcasm dripping from his thoughts like the black water dripping down his face. He had not forgotten how the woman had first rejected him, then sought him out. No doubt the guide was to blame for her change of heart. Surely it had brought her here, too. Humans didn’t have the ability to shift, and her call hadn’t carried the tell-tale undertones of demise.

  The guide; the guide had to be responsible. A complication he could have done without. However, the conclusion left him contented. It was explanatory, logical—

  Still focused on both markers, he sensed the exact moment when the souls shifted to the threshold, where they parted ways. The guide disappeared out of his perception, and the woman… The woman crossed the threshold.

  ‘Impossible!’

  She had shifted! Unaided and of her own will, her own volition. How dare she bend the laws of existence so? As if her colours forcing their way b
eneath his shield uninvited were not enough to wreck her reliability!

  His whole being shuddered with indignation. Such treachery! Breaking free from her body, she had committed a crime equal to that of the rampant devourer: escaping the plain to which it was condemned by nature!

  And yet. Was he himself not guilty of the same whenever he shifted away from the deep darkness, to places where he did not belong? Was he not equally culpable?

  His jaw worked, losing its human shape. Acid burned his mouth. He fought the change it heralded, but in vain. He knew what he was. His hunger roared within. Not feeding it did not unmake it. Not succumbing to his dark depravations did not make him better than he was. A devourer, a monster. The worst kind of criminal ever to have roamed existence.

  No soul had the right to break the laws that governed all of existence. Not he, not the other, and she no more than either of them. Her good intentions and servitude to a greater cause did not exempt her. To allow exemptions was to divest these laws of their meaning. Indeed, the fabric of existence itself would fail if they were breached!

  Bristles rose on his neck, but before he lost his last shred of self-control, a flash stabbed at his mind. Despite his cry, thoughts cut open his forehead like a knife and tore a bullet from within. It hovered before him, a small, alien marble that shone like the sun, as lethal as it was bright. It whispered to him of rules bent to save lives, and of laws broken not out of malice, but to do good. It whispered of leniency; of reprieve; of misdemeanours made permissible to prevent worse.

  He stared at the radiant marble, too astounded to shield his eyes from its glare. ‘I do not want you,’ he ground through his malformed jaws. ‘Stop tormenting me!’

  The light dimmed, but a piercing pain accompanied the bullet as it forced its way back from where it had come. He growled in agony, clutching and clawing at the invisible wound it left. His head felt like it would burst, but he could not get rid of the bullet or its whispers.