First Kiss, Last Breath

by Lee Mather

  The darkness deepened behind the paramedic and the night shivered. The air started to swirl and shake. Two horns appeared from nothing, bone-hard spirals twisting high above the paramedic’s head, before filthy curved claws reached out and gripped the edges of the portal and a massive blue figure stepped into the world from some tear in the fabric of reality.

  Glib towered above them.

  “Run!” Andy screamed.

  The paramedic stared at him in confusion, but his expression changed swiftly to fear. He tried to turn, some sense alerting him, but it was too late. The demon, unseen to him, reached out a lightning-quick hand and snapped the paramedic’s neck to one side in the blink of an eye.

  Glib wrenched the broken man up by his throat, and lips smacking greedily, the demon drank the paramedic’s soul.

  Andy watched impotently, deafened by Glib’s grunts of satisfaction. He had used the last of his paper and his pencil was broken, lost somewhere in the riot. Even if he had both, sketching the demon had already failed.

  He was helpless.

  Glib tossed aside the paramedic and hungrily reached for Nor. Those vile yellow eyes, once staring out from the Emerald Forest, were dancing with cruel delight. The demon’s blue skin was smeared with soot and scorched with burns.

  “I’ll kill myself!” Andy shouted.

  Glib froze, claws outstretched.

  The demon straightened and faced Andy. Concern was unmistakable on the creature’s face.

  Andy stared back, fighting the fear that corrupted his courage. He finally understood. Glib couldn’t survive without him. They were part of the same equation. The demon knew it too. But the stand-off lasted only seconds. Humor bled unexpectedly into Glib’s eyes. Andy reddened. He had seen the same mocking look a thousand times on the faces of the bullies who had ruined his teenage years. He heard their taunts then, felt the words cutting his flesh like knives. Glib understood him, was him. Andy couldn’t hide his inadequacy from himself.

  A better man would act.

  The voice inside him drowned out the noises of his past.

  Andy stepped defiantly toward the monster.

  The humor disappeared from the demon’s expression. Snarling hatefully, Glib reached out and tossed Andy aside as easily as if he were made of tissue paper.

  Andy bounced and smashed his head on the rock-hard concrete. Glib shuddered in pain as Andy hit the ground. It halted the demon, but only briefly. Andy slipped in and out of focus as the rain pounded harder. He saw the demon crouching over Nor, ripping the oxygen mask from her face. Then darkness. Then Nor’s exposed lips, her eyes still closed. More darkness. Glib was the darkness. The darkness that belonged to Andy. The darkness he had made real and brought into the world. The darkness became the black tar that stained the walls of his home. It was the same darkness that stained the inside of his mind.

  Andy blinked. Glib held Nor upright with one powerful arm. The demon drank her soul.

  Andy’s scream brought him back to life. He saw the glare of the street lamps shimmering under the rain. The light was stark and blinding against the dark of the night.

  Light and dark. Wasn’t that just life?

  Andy felt courage, and belief and a love that surged through his veins like rocket fuel.

  He didn’t need a canvas or a paintbrush. No pencils. No paper.

  Andy stood tall, imagined the demon as a shadow, no detail, no features. The picture was clear in his mind’s eye. He felt an energy, hot like the sun, growing inside him.

  Glib snapped upright and dropped Nor as though she were a hot stone.

  Andy met the demon’s gaze. There was no humor or hate. This time there was genuine fear.

  He focused hard on the picture he imagined, felt his mind expanding, felt the breathless momentum he garnered when he created.

  Glib screamed as Andy pictured blasting beams of light sprouting from all around the demon’s shadow. On the street, the red-brick terraces disappeared and the light beyond the demon was so intense it might have come from the heart of a star. Andy thought of the cloud-cave, of what might lie at its center. He created on autopilot now, no longer following some mechanical process.

  Andy didn’t take his eyes off the demon as he worked. The light pulled at Glib and the demon struggled and fought like a wounded wildcat not to get sucked into it. Glib spat and screamed, grasping at the nothingness of the night air.

  Andy’s heart thundered against his chest. That was where the light was coming from–him–blasting from his heart like a supernova.

  Glib heaved a desperate, faltering step away from the light but not before a surge of something heavenly blossomed within Andy. Nor loved him now, but others had loved him before. Shapes formed in the light behind Glib and Andy smiled as the demon screamed. The brightness obscured them fully, but Andy could see the silhouette of an old man he knew very well and loved with everything he had, and then the silhouette of a younger couple, familiar only from some distant, instinctive yearning.

  They wrapped their arms around Glib, and pulled the struggling demon into the light.

  There was a blinding flash and then nothing.

  Andy stood over an unconscious Nor.

  The rain had stopped.

  Chapter 20

  Andy knew he would never forget his first kiss with Nor. Supersonic had played in the background. They’d even had their own soundtrack. The kiss was special, defining. His second, third, and fourth hadn’t been bad either.

  He lay with Nor in the tangle of sheets on his small bed and they watched as the flames in his wrought iron hearth sent serpentine shadows slithering across the Emerald Forest. They were warm and comfortable, their naked bodies covered in a thin sheen of sweat as they held each other as closely as they possibly could. The black stains Glib had left were gone and the Emerald Forest was as Andy had originally painted it. The house had quickly returned to being a home once the demon was vanquished from his life. In the background, as they watched the fire, Somewhere Beyond The Sea played quietly on Grandpa’s record player.

  Nor spoke then and Andy realized neither of them had uttered a word since they had made love for what must have been the twentieth time that week.

  “You’ll get through this.”

  Andy nodded. “I know.” He paused. “I feel different already, better than before.”

  Nor kissed his cheek. “It’ll take time, but things will get easier.”

  Andy squeezed her and she giggled.

  “How do you feel now?” he asked.

  “You know what the hospital said, no lasting damage.” Nor grinned mischievously. “Anyway, why? Are you ready to go again?”

  Andy blushed in the darkness. “No, I meant, do you feel better–” He thought of Glib sucking her soul. “–like yourself?”

  Nor nuzzled into him. “I’m okay. Don’t worry. I hurt my head, and my chest is still sore, but as long as you’re here to look after me I’ll be all right.” She shifted a little on the bed. “Those riots, that poor paramedic. I can’t believe he had a heart attack right in front of you. His poor, poor family. We were so lucky.”

  Andy held her tightly and stared into the fire. Four days had passed since the concert but they felt like years to him. He was grateful Nor could only remember the start of the riot and nothing more sinister. His gaze drifted to the easel propped up beside the fireplace. His right hand ached beneath the plaster-of-paris. He couldn’t imagine gripping a paintbrush again, couldn’t begin to think about what he might paint, and if he did what the consequences might be. The shadows closed in where the light from the fire faded. Andy didn’t want to think about the darkness.

  He stared at her intently, heart beating fast. “What would you say if I told you I believed a demon was responsible for everything that happened? A demon I made real. Grandpa, Caroline Harper, the riot...”

  “Andy.” Nor gripped his good hand tightly. She didn’t move her eyes from his. “There are no demons.”

  She paused and Andy flinch
ed, expecting something bad to happen. Nothing changed. The song finished and the fire cackled quietly in the hearth. “But some days it will feel like there are. This demon, what happened to it?”

  “I–I beat it.”

  Nor nodded. “You...we...can get through anything together. I have a good feeling about us.”

  Andy smiled and melted into the bed. He had imagined telling Nor a million times about Glib. None of them had ended like this. He pictured them together on a rollercoaster then, Nor fulfilling her offer to take him to a theme park in return for the concert tickets. In his fantasy, they held each other tightly, shouting in happiness as they flew through every twist and turn.

  “Are you ready for the funeral? This next week will feel like forever until the day itself.”

  Andy stared into the fire, thought hard before he answered. “I think so. I think I’d like to say goodbye, maybe even tell him I’m sorry.”

  “He loved you. He would understand. Sometimes, with family, I don’t think you need to apologize.”

  “Still, maybe I need to for me.”

  There was a short silence then Nor spoke. “I’m going out with Dad tomorrow.”

  “Oh?” Andy shifted in the bed to look at Nor. She seemed happy, resolute.

  Nor smiled. “I spoke to him before I came over tonight. He didn’t talk at me for the first time. Well, for the first time since I can remember.”

  “Yeah? That’s great.”

  “He’s bringing some information on journalism courses for me. Can you believe that? We’re going to have a chat about what I can do next. I’m so happy.” She moved onto her forearms so she could look at Andy. “I think things had to get worse before they could get better. We can move on now.”

  Andy considered things, the past weeks. He nodded.

  “So what are you going to do next?” he said finally.

  Nor grinned and pushed him on his back. “More importantly, what are we going to do next?”

  About Lee Mather

  At the time of writing, Lee Mather is thirty-four years old. He lives in Manchester, England, with his wife, Jennifer, and his daughter, Isabelle. Lee chooses to write about his demons, rather than paint them on his bedroom wall. Fingers crossed, none of them will ever crawl off the page...