by Lucian Bane
“I know I don’t,” Ruin said. “And neither do you.”
“You both need to calm down,” Bill said.
Isadore made it all worse with her sweet, “JD, Sam is just looking out for me, now calm down.”
“Is he? I think he’s doing a lot more than looking out for you.”
“Oh my God,” Isadore muttered.
“Says the man named Ruin,” this from a glaring Sam.
“I would stop now if you don’t want to be hurt.” Ruin needed to leave but the power was erratic and he was afraid to make a sudden move.
“Now you are threatening me?” Sam stood.
Ruin stood, then Isadore stood, grabbing his arm. “Stop it!” she hissed.
“I can’t.” It came as a warning. “He needs to stop.”
“I think you are the one that needs to stop,” Sam jabbed a finger at him. “I think you need to get the fuck out of this house!”
Ruin wanted to leave but he was caught in a cyclone of power. “Isadore,” he gasped, fighting for control, terrified she’d get hurt. The power shot into his arm and he swung it like a hammer, slamming it onto the table.
Red flames shot from his fist and Ruin fought to constrain its path. Only the table, only the table! A loud boom came with the instant consumption of particles. Ruin fell to a knee, trembling from the power.
“Hoooooly shit,” Bill muttered while Sam and Isadore gasped.
The fire consumed every bit of the table and smoke hovered in the air.
“I think we’ll be going now,” Isadore whispered, pulling him up.
Bill and Sam stared at him with huge eyes now and Ruin headed for the door at feeling it. The power wasn’t done but gaining momentum, reloading.
“I’ll get you another table, Bill,” Isadore called from just behind him, “I’m so sorry.”
Ruin was relieved she followed, he didn’t know what would happen if she hadn’t and didn’t want to know. By the time he reached the steps, the power was rearing again. Ruin paused at the dogs and obeyed the urge to judge something. “Sleep,” he said to them. Power shot into the dogs and arrested their hearts. And they slept. Soundly and without corrupted breathing.
He hurried to the truck, feeling like the power still wasn’t satisfied, that it was again gearing up. “Let’s hurry up and get out of here before I do something else.”
“Then stop it!” Isadore cried, climbing in the truck after him.
“I would if I could or knew how!” Ruin yelled. “Do you think I like not having control?”
She fumbled her keys with trembling hands as Sam came out of the house and stared at the dogs. Isadore started the truck and began to turn it around. “What did you do to the dogs?” she squealed, fighting with the shift until Ruin wanted to torch the wretched truck right from around them.
“I put them out of their misery.”
“Oh my God!” she cried, stepping on the gas and tearing out. “You can’t do that! Why did you do that?”
“I had to, the power made me, it’s out of my control.”
She regarded him with worried eyes, sending the heat swirling faster.
“You’re not helping Isadore,” he barked.
“Well I can’t help it! Are you going to explode my head accidentally or what?”
“I don’t think I can hurt you.”
“You don’t think?” she shrieked. “You strangled me!”
“It’s different. I think.”
She barely looked both ways at the end of the driveway and we hit the pave doing thirty miles per hour. A half a mile later, we came on a man hitchhiking.
“Oh my God,” Isadore whispered. “Isn’t that the man from the other night?”
“Keep driving,” Ruin said, wanting to get as far from him as he could. He was the reason for this power. Ever since that night, it was much more awake.
“Are you sure? He looks like he needs a ride,” she cried.
“He’s not human Isadore, he doesn’t need a fucking ride!”
“Not stopping, not stopping!” She gripped the wheel tight with both hands and focusing her eyes on the road, passing the man with his thumb out.
“Damn bastard,” Ruin growled. “Turn around!”
“What? Why?!”
“Because I’m blind!”
Chapter Eleven
“Awww, shit!” Isadore hit the brakes and threw Ruin into the dash. “Hold on! Backing up now, JD.”
“Warn me before you slam the brakes, Isadore!”
“Sorry,” she squealed, “I wasn’t thinking. Too busy processing the hysteria threatening to shut my mind down.”
Ruin forgot how fragile she actually was. “Damn, I’m sorry.”
“I’ll make you pay later.”
Right in the middle of the power rage in total darkness, images of Isadore having an orgasm brought the fire and ice from mind crushing screams to a deadly idling growl. Wow. He gasped in awe and the passenger door opened.
“Scoot over asshole,” Caliber said sliding in with a shove. “Do that again, and you’ll be crawling to your next assignment. Raise your shirt, I need to get at the keyboard.”
Keyboard? Is that what it was? Ruin removed it altogether.
“And that little trick I just had to do alerted every Olethros to our location in this vicinity, thank you very much.” He pressed various locations on his body. Six. “So don’t come crying when you find you and the pretty little lady in a jam.”
“Jam?”
“I sure as hell don’t mean jelly, son.”
“Oh great,” Isadore whispered.
“Well that’s it for me,” he said. “Until next time. And tell Grim they’re waiting for his report. Stop the truck please.”
Idadore did and he opened the door, muttering, “How complicated can it be, ushering judged souls, I’ll never get that bony being.”
Ruin’s sight returned just as Caliber shut the door, grinned at him, and vanished.
“Ooooookay,” Isadore sang lightly. “He disappeared.”
Ruin regarded her and pointed forward. “Go. Fast.”
“Yes sir.” She fought the shift and punched it, making the tires squeal on the pavement. “Going fast.”
Ruin steadied his breathing the best he could but to no avail.
“You don’t sound okay.”
“I’m not, fuck!”
“Ohhhh no, you’re cussing,” she whispered. “This is bad.” She reached and rubbed his trembling hand on the seat and Ruin latched on to it.
“I need to touch you,” he gasped.
“Okay, touch me, come closer. “Is it helping?”
He slid next to her and the power changed gears again. But they were still eager, only for her now. “Isadore,” he whispered. “It likes you.”
“What? What likes me?” she cried.
“This power, the hot, the ice, it wants you.”
“What does that mean it wants me, how does it want me?”
“Stop being afraid,” he growled.
“Well it’s kind of hard goddammit!”
“It just wants to make you feel good. It doesn’t want to hurt you.”
She glanced from him to the road, her brows furrowed.
“I’m sorry. It’s the truth. I can’t make it different.”
“Feel good?” she whispered. “Like how?”
“I need to touch you.”
“Oh my God, touch me, I’m driving. And no! No, it can’t touch me. I’m…I’m a Christian woman!”
He drew back a little, the power threatening to get out of hand. “What do you mean you’re a Christian woman, what does that have to do with anything?”
She gasped several times. “I can’t just let you touch me like that!”
“You already have,” he snapped, not understanding.
“And it was a big mistake!” She nodded with wide eyes, clutching the steering wheel.
Ruin was boggled. “You liked it. No, you loved it.”
“That has nothing to do w
ith it? I’m not supposed to do that!”
“Says who?”
“God!”
“God,” he whispered. “God says you can’t feel good?”
“No! God says I have to marry before I engage in sex! It’s called fornication if I don’t!”
“Marry.” He was confused, searching the data in his mind he’d obtained from the confounding book, mumbling quickly through the marriages he’d recalled reading. “What do you want from me? To pay your father money? I don’t have any!” But he sure had power quickly careening out of control. “Isadore, I need this.”
More shocked and offended gasps. “I’m sorry, I’m not going to.” She regarded him and the road rapidly. “I’m not going to have sex with a man who isn’t in love with me.”
“In love?” Ruin growled and shot to the other side of the truck not trusting himself. What did in love mean? Was that different than the nurturing and caring of another human? He didn’t even need her to care for him, just to let him care or take care of her pleasure. Which was healthy, and a good thing, not bad. Why did she set it up like a road block at a time he needed her to comply? “I don’t have time for these puzzles Isadore.”
“Puzzle? There is nothing puzzling about it, mister!” she snapped.
Her anger took the edge off and he ran for that angle. “Love, what can you tell me about love? You have wisdom about this? Knowledge?”
She watched the road, and checked her mirrors, her face a mask of angry confusion.
“You don’t, do you,” he accused. “You want what you have no idea of.”
“I do have an idea!”
“And so if I give you this love, then you would marry me,” he said.
“How can you give me something you don’t even know!” she yelled.
“The same way you apparently would, only without the guesses and hunches sucked from stupid poetic lies and fairytales. And this is what your God requires for you to be able to feel good? A love that you’ve never experienced or know? And out of all the so called marriages I remember reading, funny there was only one that mentioned love. The rest were merely arrangements, some after rapes, so I say how about we go with the majority and make the arrangement. Would you like it with or without the rape?”
She slammed the brakes until the truck stopped dead in the middle of the road and stared at him, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. She proceeded to choke on gasps and such, making Ruin want to shake the words from her. “What about Samson and Delilah huh? They were in love!”
“It never said they were married.”
She retained hold of the steering wheel and squinted. “It was understood!”
Ruin let a dry laugh rip. “Bullshit! What was understood was he was fornicating as you call it. Perhaps I should do as the Lord’s anointed and find a woman who is married and have him killed so I can have her? Or maybe I should find a thousand women and marry a few and keep the rest as my sex slaves like our Mr. King Solomon?”
“Okay, okay look.” She turned in her seat toward him. “The Old Testament is a bad example for all of this, and it’s not the testament I live by, we are under the New Covenant. And in there,” she pointed at him, “you are to have one wife. And love her. More than yourself even.” She nodded a lot. “Enough to die for her.”
The power was back to chaos and Ruin pointed forward, heaving through the waves taking him. “If you don’t move now, the power inside me is going to come out and I won’t be able to control it.”
Panic struck her and she scrambled to get the truck in gear and shot them forward. “Going, going, don’t do anything crazy!”
Ruin growled and leaned over. “Why is the power so furious?” Ruin pointed. “Right, turn right.”
“Maybe it’s judging you!”
He jerked to her. “Judging me!”
“Yes, for trying to sleep with me without marrying me!”
“Left,” he gasped, gripping the dashboard, ready to rip a hole in it.
She took the turn and he held on. “I mean if you’re good, the power wouldn’t want to do that.”
“Well there you have it, Isadore! I’m not good.”
“I didn’t say that, I said you wanting sex before marriage is not good.”
“And love,” he reminded, furious.
“I want sex with you too, that doesn’t make me bad.”
“Road!” he yelled.
She gasped and jerked the wheel, putting the vehicle back in their lane as another vehicle narrowly missed hitting them. “I mean, we can’t just have sex without taking responsibility.”
“I just wanted to make you feel good Isadore, not have sex with you,” Ruin whispered, shaking now.
She gasped like that offended her. “Well tough shit buddy, playing with my privates is the same thing. To me!”
He could only nod, his head on the dashboard, bent over. The fire and ice was fully locked and loaded on what was coming. Judgment. Execution. Judgment. Execution. The words beat in his blood and screamed in his ears. “There, over there.” He pointed.
“There where, this is far as I can go, the swamp is ahead of us!”
He stumbled out of the truck the second she stopped, making his way to the water. What now?
“I mean I’m not perfect, I let you do that because I wanted it, but I need love to do that.”
“Yes,” he gasped, holding his knees. “Love that you don’t know anything about, I get it.”
“It’s real! Just because you never experienced something doesn’t mean you don’t know it!”
“Like God,” he said.
She shot her finger at him. “I have experienced God.”
“Ah yes, faith. Believing in things you feel are true. Because that’s logical validation. I need to get across this water.” He looked around.
“Too bad you don’t believe, you could pray,” she snapped.
“Oh but you do, why don’t you pray for something to get us across. Show me this God of yours.”
“Why should I pray and help you?”
“Because,” he chuckled feeling drunk. “You had that dream,” he shook his finger at her. “Your God said to help me.” He grabbed his head hissing. “What’s the matter… having second thoughts about your interpretation?”
“Fine, I’ll pray. This time.” She closed her eyes briefly then opened them.
“That’s it?” He looked all around. “What did you pray for?”
“A way across,” she said exasperated.
“Weren’t you specific?”
“Oh come on! He’s God. I think He knows what to send.” Like Ruin was dumber than a rock for not knowing.
“Did you let him know we needed it today Isadore?”
She searched along the water as though truly expecting something. “Again, He’s God,” she said lightly, “If He can tell the world to come into existence, I’m sure he can tell time. And don’t think we’re done talking about this faith thing. You don’t know about what you’ve never tried.”
“I don’t need to stick my head under the tire of a semi-truck to know it’s as foolish as your faith principal.”
“Ohhhh-ho-ho you’d better watch your back in a lightning storm, talking like that.” She aimed her finger at him.
Ruin felt like the answer to get across was in his mind and just out of reach, hiding from him. He growled in frustration when a noise reached his ear and a few seconds later, a boat approached with Isadore laughing and running to the water, waving them down.
“Ohhhh,” she said when the boat made its way to them. “Who’s the awesome God now?” She added a funny little dance with her arms in a circle and her hips gyrating.
It just figured coincidence would show up just at the wrong time and prove her right.
The man who was returning from checking his traps loaned them his boat after Ruin killed all his catch with a word and threw him out for refusing to help.
“You can’t just do that!” Isadore said, flying the boat across the water at top spee
d.
“Why send us a ride we can’t use?” he yelled over the whine of the engine. “It’s not like I killed him.”
“You killed his fish!”
“I likely prolonged somebody’s life, killing that batch of polluted paraphyletic.”
“Why do you hate everything?”
Hate? “Because everything is in need of ceasing to exist.”
Ruin ignored her continued conversation, focusing on what was just ahead. The evil was still a shadow in his mind, growing clearer and more vile, the closer he got. When they reached land, he finally saw it in his mind. A woman had just given birth to a baby. A fire was prepared. And a god was invoked.
“Child sacrifice,” he whispered.
Chapter Twelve
Isadore fought to keep up with Ruin. His body had turned into a machine the second those disturbing words left his mouth. He stormed through the trees like the Terminator heading toward the fire in the near distance. “Slow down, JD!”
He halted immediately and when she came within a five foot vicinity, he shot out again like he was being released of a restraint.
“What’s going to happen, what do I do?”
He didn’t answer as she half ran to keep up with his brisk pace.
“Are people going to die here? I can stay back if you need me to.”
“No, you have to be here.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer her. This thing about 'I can’t leave you' was really becoming a tad too literal and strict.
He suddenly paused and Isadore stopped a few feet from him. “The Olethros.”
The dead leaves on the ground shot up in a whirlwind with a deep growl that shook the air. Ruin clamped his hand on hers and jerked her to his body just as the trees before them parted and a wave of giant wingless beings blasted toward them.
“Stegó.” The single word from Ruin covered them in a white ice dome. Isadore’s frantic breaths filled the eerie silence as she looked up at him. His eyes and hair were the color of pure snow, his skin like a dead person, his tattoos shiny like frosted glass. He lowered his head, and his eyes drifted shut with the part of his frosted lips. A cloud of white breath, almost like a sigh of relief, billowed out with his whisper, “Deó.” The dome exploded and Isadore screamed when the power yanked her. But Ruin’s arm held her tight, and then just like that, they walked again, Ruin keeping hold of her hand.