by C H Chelser
The darkness inside her expanded.
‘—but others are still there. Remember.’
Memories flooded her mind. Anne, warning her not to give in to fatal lethargy. M’sieur, warning her of the void within herself that threatened to consume her. Jean, pleading with her to forsake their agreement lest she be lost in the maelstrom of the devourers. And even Eric, terrified of what she might do to herself in her darkest hours.
She howled into the expanse of existence. ‘What hope have I of fulfilling my promises if I cannot even save myself?’
‘Remember why you are here.’
Before her mind’s eye, honey-blond curls danced in angelic sunlight.
‘Danielle?’
Soft laughter she had only ever heard in her heart, in her core, echoed there now and sprouted fresh colours throughout.
‘Danielle!’
The colours surged into a whirlwind of pronounced hues that filled her. As she savoured the image of her daughter, beyond the boundaries she had set herself, broad, bold strokes reshaped her aura – reshaped her – into the semblance of a rearing mother bear, baring tooth and claw to defend her child. A long, magnificent moment; then the vision folded in on itself. But in its wake, Mercedes found her resolve and her human appearance restored.
The gamin chuckled. ‘Now you’re ready.’
For the first time, she beheld the strange boy properly. Eyes too ancient for his youthful face sparkled with ageless experience that extended infinitely. They held all the rage and grief she had known, and more. Much more. A soul so old and so vast, it hardly befitted this juvenile avatar.
‘What of it?’ he said with a smirk. ‘Well, come on then. What are you waiting for?’
Her previously floundering orientation had improved upon renewing her focus, but she had barely begun to determine her next direction when Jean’s aura brushed hers. Relief rippled through her in shades of pearl and rose.
‘I share your sentiment,’ he said kindly, but while his warmth was heartfelt, so was his underlying worry. He made no secret of its cause.
‘Indeed, I shall have to dive to find them,’ she said. ‘Although possibly not as deep as you fear.’
‘You will be vulnerable all the same.’
‘As will they.’ A notion that hitherto had been wordless now began to take the shape of words. ‘It would seem,’ Mercedes mused, ‘that the battles we fight with ourselves can only be settled in the dark.’
Jean’s white brows relaxed their tense frown. ‘Only when we lose hope, do we lose ourselves.’ He caressed her cheek. ‘Do what you must, but please do not lose sight of this.’
His fingers unfurled to reveal a tiny ball the size of the bullet, from which a blinding light radiated. She sensed his wish that she should take it, but instead she closed his hand to dim the brightness.
‘When we first came to our arrangement, you asked me to bridge a gap between light and darkness that was too wide for you to reach across. I cannot take with me a light that shines too strong in a darkness so deep. However well intended, it will only cast starker, more daunting shadows.’
His aura flickered with reluctant resignation, like a scolded child. The parallel no longer surprised her, even in him.
‘Rest assured. I will find them,’ she told Jean, and shifted.
Diving through the countless planes, she aimed for the border where the banks of grey fog rolled into the abyss of the deep darkness. She had chosen this destination on intuition, but no sooner had she slowed her descent than she caught the first sign that her premonition had been correct.
Around her, numerous creatures of all shapes and sizes were fleeing their preferred habitat. The heavy atmosphere natural to these planes shuddered with the pressure of something that did not belong. Being trapped within M’sieur’s inner shield had felt similar, but now the resonance stifled her every sense.
The origins of this violence lay in the far distance. A shapeless mass, too black to belong even here, fed on itself and its immediate surroundings. Mercedes’ energy throbbed in time with its force, which rejected her as much as it pulled her in.
The part of her that grieved, resented and despised the universe and herself for the suffering she had been made to endure longed to join this tempest of hatred and hunger. The darkest corners of her soul yearned to feast as it did, and damned if it would lead to such self-loathing so as to consume herself.
She halted, shocked.
How tenacious these thoughts! After the gamin’s warning, after renewing her resolve, how did these sentiments still have such a hold on her?
For no good reason, her wrists seemed fettered. With dread she stared at them. Black shackles encircled both her arms, weighing her down and eating gaps into her aura. Her red and orange wisps fought hard to break the chains, but the shackles only grew stronger.
She suppressed a bout of panic before it gathered momentum. Fear and aggression would be of no use. These shackles were born from her own energy, but strongly resembled M’sieur’s coat. His shield. The shield she had breached most effectively not with reds and yellows, but with lilacs and blues. Entirely different emotions altogether.
Up ahead, the dark tempest expanded rapidly. The last remaining critters hurried past her to escape its grasp. What few presences she sensed that did not flee this warzone proceeded well beyond the horizon and without great haste.
For her part, Mercedes didn’t move. Rather, she recalled Danielle playing hopscotch, or her nestling against her maman while reading together. She thought of Anne’s endless compassion and how much her beloved friend would always mean to her. Pinprick lights gathered in her eyes, tiny sparkles of gratitude and joy that then rolled down her cheeks, along her arms, and pooled at her wrists, where their fine lines of blue lightning cracked the shackles until every remnant of black had disintegrated.
For what lay ahead, this would be her shield. Cherishing her best memories, she summoned fresh bolts of lightning. They shot from her core and filled her aura as she headed into the tempest.
The hurricane sucked ever more of the surrounding planes into its vortex, warping the available energy to sustain the combatants at its heart. Relentless gales, still stronger than those her despair had conjured up, ripped at her while black water dragged her down and clogged her throat. Before long, the tempest’s inner world was as dark as the void. It even absorbed her blue flashes, leaving her blind and buckling under the forces that assaulted her. Only through sheer persistence was she able to manoeuvre her way into the eye of the storm.
A dramatic contrast.
From one step to the next, an eerie calm crept across her shield of lightning. Of the elements that accompanied the demons, only the freezing cold remained. It bit into her like her shackles had done, but every wound it struck into her aura healed immediately. Which was more than could be said of the gaping wounds that the devourers had dealt each other.
Acid and black blood rained down from above. The back of a massive loupe garou towered in the heart of hurricane, its bloody claws sunk deep into an unrecognisable mass of teeth, tentacles and razor-sharp scrapers that glinted blue in her light. Locked together, the demons fed on each other as much as on the energy swirling around them. A futile exercise, for neither had anything the other might want.
A true deadlock, until either managed to devour the other’s soul first.
A terrifying howl rose from both monsters at once. Their fight for now forgotten, they blasted their deepest resentment at her, condemning her for those last thoughts. Mercedes caved in under the gravity of their fury, but she did distinguish two different voices. Two different reasons. L’Autre screamed in defence and rejection, but M’sieur’s soul roared in outrage. For how dare she assume that he would abandon his duty for base satisfaction?
Mercedes now collapsed completely. Her shield of lightning couldn’t withstand the combined assault. Still she didn’t fear what it – or they – might do to her. Their anger at their own nature only encouraged her.
There might yet be hope. For both of them.
Distracted by the haggard colours she emitted, the monsters lost focus, causing their indistinguishable energies to unravel. Mercedes, lying prostrate at their feet, detected the minute fractures. So narrow, but still a point of focus at which to direct her energy. If her lightning could break shackles and open indomitable shields, it might well be her flaming sword against these two dragons.
Blue bolts intertwined to form a single beam, with which she cut through the centre of the entangled darkness. Another howl echoed as both monsters recoiled and their energies slithered to opposite sides of the beam like serpents.
Without their unnatural convergence, Mercedes harnessed the strength to rise up to match the demons in size. She split her single beam into dozens of smaller ones to fashion a cage of lightning to hold l’Autre. But her intentions betrayed her too soon, and l’Autre launched itself at her once more.
Startled, Mercedes threw up a shield of crossed beams, but the demon fell hard against a shield far stronger than hers, while two human arms encircled her from behind.
‘Of the two of us, only you are at risk of becoming its prey,’ M’sieur growled into her ear. ‘It escapes damnation by eating its way up.’
The concept made sense, but in its harrowed state, her mind couldn’t fully grasp it.
‘Think,’ M’sieur said. ‘Its victims are all extensively experienced and much lighter than itself. That is how it obtains the ecstasy of hope that our kind should have abandoned.’
L’Autre snapped at the shield to no avail.
‘Pathetic. To think this detestable creature could be capable of so ingenious a solution.’
‘Solution, M’sieur?’ A dark fire engulfed her as she rounded on him. ‘He feasted on one I dearly loved! Those horrid mouths scraped her dry and destroyed her. Is that what you call a just solution to an honest problem? How is that not detestable?’
Just out of reach, l’Autre had wrapped its tentacles around their sanctuary to gnaw a breach in the shield with those same scraper mouths.
‘How,’ she enunciated vehemently, ‘is that belief not every bit as monstrous as he is?’
M’sieur glared, but released her and stepped back. Shame and loathing accumulated in drops on his lips, gouging fresh sores into his grey, acid-stained skin.
Sensing more of such burns forming inside him, Mercedes let go of her anger. In serving justice as he saw it, he had been harsh in his condemnations. Yet in her grief, she had acted no better.
Jean had spoken of despair driving a person to cruelty. Even in the cards he had shown her. The Cross to the Man…
She drifted closer and raised her hands. The scarlet hues covering them quickly cooled to purple and then mellowed to the softest of lilac.
‘I was unjust, calling you a monster,’ she said as she tenderly combed her fingers through his sodden sideburns. ‘I apologise.’
The black of his eyes reflected none of her light when he looked away.
‘This madness must end,’ he said, ‘but I—’
He turned his attention outwards, momentarily distracted by something beyond the storm. Then he straightened, shaken but determined.
‘I failed. For that I must suffer the consequences when the time comes.’ He gazed directly into her. ‘You have my shield, madame. Use it while it is still mine to offer.’
His words bore a multitude of layered meanings, as well as an undercurrent of urgency. She meant to investigate, but he redirected her attention to their prime problem: l’Autre. The creature was still deeply intent on breaking M’sieur’s shield. An opportunity she could not afford to let pass.
At her silent request, M’sieur permitted her energy to flow from his shield, as he had when he had fed her colours to the denizens of the deep darkness. The very instant l’Autre sensed her energy, he pounced and drank with vigour. The misshapen jowls and insatiable hunger reignited her repulsion, and her hues shifted to various shades of red, yellow and even brown.
What this creature had done to Anne. To that poor student, and all those other people!
Catching herself, she stemmed her colours and struggled to change the frequency of the lure, willing it to become a more enticing meal.
‘Don’t bother,’ M’sieur said. ‘It cares not for taste. Only for the power of what it eats.’
Indeed, while only dirty brown and dark red ribbons bled from the shield, l’Autre lapped them up indiscriminately. The steady stream of colours had become the demon’s sole focus causing it to forget everything but the fleeting satisfaction her energy provided.
As l’Autre gorged itself with abandon, Mercedes approached carefully, treating the demon like a skittish animal. She had an inkling of what she needed to do, but for that, M’sieur’s shield was no longer a blessing but a hindrance.
He felt ill at ease with this. With all of this.
At her wish, he had rendered his shield pliable and transparent. With this almost imperceptible barrier folded around her like a glove, she had knelt down beside the creature. He hadn’t allowed her to compromise the shield’s strength and integrity, but it was still too feeble for his liking. Even more so considering what was at stake.
At her feet, the other gobbled down every scrap of energy she fed it. He didn’t hide his jealousy, inevitable as it was. Feeding on her colours had revitalised him in an unprecedented way. No doubt it would do the same to this miscreant. A puzzling development. Why empower the quarry they wished to slay?
If that was indeed still her intention. The way her colours changed from healthy reds to disconcerting pastels didn’t bode well.
Mercedes tilted her head. At this negligible distance, l’Autre’s malformed features invoked pity rather than abhorrence.
‘Imagine,’ she whispered. ‘To have taken so many lives and still be starving.’
M’sieur sneered. ‘Such is its nature. That will never change.’
‘Oh, but it must! Without change, his rampage may never come to an end.’
‘Absurd! You seek resolutions where there are none.’
She left him to his derision. For a man of principles, the fear to be proven wrong was among the strongest. If he needed this conviction, she would not deny him the comfort it brought.
How like Eric. Scared little boys, both of them. L’Autre, too. Whatever heinous deeds any of them had committed, their cruelty only ever served to mask their fears.
Her glow softened further, to lavender and pink. L’Autre drank it all in, unaware of her presence and proximity. So close. If she could just reach out, very slowly, perhaps she might—
Lightning scourged the fine veil that remained of his shield and tore it apart. He fought to maintain its integrity, to protect the woman, but too late. She fell through the breach, onto the other demon. Spooked, the miscreant reared and attacked before he could intervene.
‘Putain!’
A cry, but not hers. He cast his shield around her, but it shattered against the lightning that surrounded her and the creature. Even his cane bounced off as he swung it at the nearest muzzle. Disastrous! How was it that he should be forced to stand by, impotent to break up this altercation? Unacceptable!
Yet as quickly as it had started, the skirmish was over. Strands of jagged light ran across the other’s misshapen form, its many mouths caught in that web. Thus subdued, it only whimpered, while the woman crouched beside it, unharmed, and petted it.
He failed utterly to hide his astonishment.
‘What just happened?’
‘A serendipitous moment,’ she said, elation dotting her aura. ‘If bars of anger and fear caged him, why not a net of compassion?’
‘A net. You wrought a net.’ He raised a brow. ‘A trap of honey and wine? Well, well.’
If he hadn’t tasted the potency of her energy for himself, he would never have believed such chains could ever be forged. Still, honey and wine might make a fine lure, but incarceration required more stringent methods.
&nb
sp; At a flick of his will, his outer shield closed around them, encasing them in a thick, solid wall that would keep criminals in as well as it would keep them out.
‘I applaud your ingenuity, but how do you imagine we proceed? I assume you mean to curb its appetite?’
Several times before, his own hunger-warped thoughts had shrivelled at a touch from her colours, allowing common sense to prevail as it should. If she managed to impose a similar effect on the miscreant, it would at the very least provide time and opportunity to find a more permanent solution.
‘No,’ the woman interjected. ‘No more prisons. When I am done, he is free to go.’
Silent fury radiated from him like the frozen fires of hell. Already the pressure inside this shield was mounting.
‘He will no longer pose a threat, neither to himself nor to others,’ she insisted. ‘It can be done, and I know how.’
‘Know?’ His overbearing presence challenged her conviction with force, picking off her every insecurity one by one. This wasn’t a fight she could win. Not yet. Her plan was based on an instinctive understanding that grew with every moment, but his dark, condensed energy obscured the delicate path she saw in her mind. She wouldn’t risk losing sight of that. Not when she had come this far.
She tapped into her core and summoned vital energy to her hands. Hot light, like molten gold, snaked up her arms and into her fingers, which she shaped into long, sharp talons, as beautiful as they were vicious. Now her grasp on what she needed to do became ever clearer, she would see it done. With or without his cooperation.
‘Such insolence!’ he spat. ‘Have you learned nothing about this abomination? The danger it poses? The mockery it makes of existence?’
She had seen his memories. Having shared those experiences, his true concern was evident.
‘His fate will be just, M’sieur. I promise.’
In the dark, his cane rapped her talons. ‘You speak of justice, yet you fight me over the punishment of this craven murderer?’
‘These talons are not for you.’
He stepped from the shadow, looming over her shoulder. ‘Then you shall destroy it?’