by Lucian Bane
She looked at him, perplexed then slowly suspicious. “I remember everything, why?”
“Everything.” She wasn’t lying or at least she thought she remembered everything. “Like what?”
She gasped, her eyes widening. “I don’t really care to recite all of it.”
“Well I need you to.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I… want to make sure we remember the same things.”
She eyed him, suspicious for a bit, then maybe remembering he didn’t lie. She sat back on the bed before him, hands in lap. He slowly sat next to her and waited, watching as she twisted her fingers. “Well. You were reset, for one.” She looked at him barely and he nodded at seeing she worried he hadn’t remembered that. “And… you had that bad assignment.”
He nodded. “The one on the bridge?”
She nodded. “And then we went to…our first assignments. For me. To…figure out what my wall was?”
His pulse raced now. “Yes. And?”
She looked forward. “And…we went to my mothers.” More hand wringing. “Then we left and went to this… trailer. I stayed in the truck while you…tended to business there. And then we came home.”
Ruin waited for several seconds. “What happened then?”
“You know what happened.” She stood and paced.
“Can you tell me?”
“You hypnotized me.” Faster pacing. “And then I woke up in the chair crying and screaming and you holding me telling me the wall was gone. The wall was gone and I was fine.”
Ruin stood and caught her in his embrace, holding her. “You’re trembling,” he whispered.
“Because I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know. I just…am. Ever since I woke up, I’ve been scared and I can’t figure out why. It’s like this-this dread is eating at my bones and they all know. My bones and my blood and my body and even my mind, they all know but not me. I don’t know, but I feel it,” she gasped, clutching him tight. “I feel it Ruin. Something is wrong, very wrong, and I’m scared. Are you sure my wall is gone?”
He gripped her tight to him, pressing his mouth to her head. “I’m very sure, Angel. I removed it myself.”
“M-maybe it just takes time, maybe the trauma takes time to dissolve and time for the bad memories to leave?” She looked up at him. “Do you think? Doesn’t that make sense?”
The look of terror and dread in the depths of her gaze shook him with the need to make her forget, and fuck there was only one thing he had in his power to do that. “I need to make your body forget, Isadore. Please, let me.” Already, his hands were on her neck, at the neckline of her shirt.
She caught his hand and held it tight. “Mr. Thibodeaux needs me, Ruin. Please let me go to him. I can’t sleep unless I check on him, he could be dead, he’s been waiting for me for like three days and I never went back,” she whispered, tears of regret filling her eyes.
He grabbed her jaw and kissed her with a hot passion for five seconds then broke away, turning from her. “I’m coming with you.”
She gasped and he clenched his eyes at hearing how badly she needed him to keep on. Loathe ran through him that Mr. Thibodeaux had such a hold on her. “That’s perfectly fine,” she said with a little clear of her throat. “I think he’d very much like to meet you.”
Ruin fought not to let his growl of disgust rip from his chest. “I’ll dress.”
“I’ll be waiting in the truck?”
“Fine.” He couldn’t bring himself to speak softly. He wanted to blast the words with an all-consuming fire that would burn her clothes right off.
“Thank you,” she whispered, then ran down the stairs. Even that infuriated him. That she wouldn’t wait for him while he changed. He wanted her with him at all times and while part of him knew it was not rational, it made exact perfect sense to him.
Maybe the dread she felt was similar to his need to not let her out of his sight. Maybe the instinct was born out of a subconscious dread he couldn’t see. Behind his own wall that he’d be tearing down in the next few days, so help her God.
Chapter Two
Ruin looked around in utter disgust. “He lives here?” A weathered gray, shed-sized residence leaned like an invisible giant used it for a foot rest… perhaps a gift from a loathsome mother-n-law that he slowly pressed into its grave. The urge to kick the feeble legs out from under the dilapidation and bring it crashing to the ground, licked at his palms already sweaty with his cleansing fire.
“I know.” She sounded forlorn as her seatbelt released with a click. “I asked him to live with me, but he refused. He’s a very proud man.”
“Proud?”
As though guessing Ruin had selected the sinful definition by default, she explained, “Honorable.” She stared at him, squinting a little. “As in having too much honor to accept a hand out.”
She opened her door and Ruin got out, mumbling, “Sounds more like the definition of stupid.”
“I heard that,” she pointed at him, meeting him at the front of the truck. “And so help me, if you say one cross word to this precious old man, I’ll fuck you up. And I do mean that in the most sinful manner your perfect, sarcastic brain can extrapolate from it.”
Ruin stared at her, both amazed and perplexed that she would have the power to give him a hard on at such a moment.
“I mean it,” she jabbed her finger higher, bringing it closer to his face. Ruin held up both hands in silent submission to her command, wanting to teach her what commanding should be about between him and her.
After ten seconds of suspicious jaw-sliding and eye squinting, she finally looked around with a sigh, back to forlorn. “Need to get my lawnmower over here and trimmer. What a mess.” She hurried up the mishap of stones leading to the depression before them. Ruin eyed the strange lone statue in the yard, some kind of conglomeration of metal and rust, begging to be disintegrated with the rest of the place.
Isadore knocked on the door, looking all around. “Gonna bring those petunias over.” She pointed at random areas in the sloppy yard. “A splash of color in a few places would brighten things a little.”
Ruin sensed it as he stepped onto the porch. He looked around, then angled his head, focusing until the sound of Isadore’s heart boomed in his ears along with his own.
She knocked again, faster. “Mr. Thibodeaux? It’s Isadore. It’s too quiet,” she whispered, yanking on the door handle.
The door jerked open and Ruin latched a firm hand on her wrist. She met his worried gaze as he whispered, “Grim is here.”
Three seconds later, understanding dawned on her face, followed by terror and a violent throwing of the door open.
Ruin ran in after her, his powers exploding in a confusing chaos at the sight before him.
A group of beings…whispering… Grim standing by… a dying man….
Shit. It was a judgement.
“Mr. Thibodeaux!” Isadore screamed, dropping to the floor next to him and clutching his hand. “Mr. Thibodeaux!”
Ruin realized Isadore couldn’t’ see what was going on around her, couldn’t see the two Negotiators kneeling on either side of the man. They whispered to the human, blue and red fire blasting from their mouths. The flames roared along the man’s body in negotiation for his soul, and Ruin became aware of the two other beings standing before Grim. He beheld their similarities, both bearing the same long slender sticks, both torsos covered in flames, one blue, one red. Two Carnificems? The power of Judgement in one, Execution in the other. Their long ebony hair floated in eager and matched powers. Much like the powers inside him, but separate.
“Ruin! Help me!”
Isadore’s cry came as a wave of white light, slamming into him. Despair, misery, sorrow, pain. The bitter strange power gripped him until he couldn’t breathe, until he had to act, had to answer it. But his instincts fought it. Embraced it. Fought it. Embraced it. Ruin finally ended on his knees from the battle.
He stretched his hand out toward the man, her sobbing and grief channeling the blue fire until it encased the human.
A screech and blast exploded Ruin through the outer wall of the house like a projectile in a cyclone. Dazed, Ruin watched the red flaming Carnificem descend upon him, slender stick a blur of spinning red. The instant before he struck, the Light Negotiator intercepted with a wall of blue fire in the path of his foe.
“You have interfered.” The Negotiator’s ominous tone indicated that was really bad.
“I…couldn’t stop it.” Part of that was true, but part of him felt like that truth was subjective and might not be true in other circumstances.
“You have sinned,” the Negotiator added as he threw up a wall of ice, sending red fire shooting around it.
“And you’re helping me?”
He jerked his bright blue gaze to Ruin. “Your ignorance shields you.” Giant wings that resembled shards of glistening ice erupted from behind the Negotiator with a deep grumbling of cerulean fire. “Interdico.”
Ruin understood his order to grant an injunction. But the red Carnificem screeched louder and filled the air with a crimson fury that literally suffocated Ruin.
“JUDICIUM!” The shouted word exploded the angel’s wings, sending shards of ice in every direction, shattering the dense sea of red around them. Slamming his fist on the ground brought all the shards shooting back to form perfect wings once more. His wings were weapons? Ruin was sure the emotion filling him was known as astonished. “Another will be coming soon,” the Negotiator whispered then disappeared, all the other beings with him.
Another? Another what?
“Ruin!”
At the sound of Isadore’s desperate plea for help, Ruin stumbled to his feet and looked around, dizzy, like he’d blacked out and woke to confusion. The hole in the wall of the shack was gone. Everything seemed too normal as he hurried back inside, purposefully avoiding the stone path. Stepping on them still felt wrong. Like tombstone pavers.
“Mr. Thibodeaux, you must’ve fallen.” Isadore was helping him sit up when Ruin came in and glanced around. The air was thick with spiritual mishap, and that had him very concerned. It meant something bad and the mysterious repercussions rode his spine like a formidable master that Ruin was ready to fight even while knowing it was useless.
“Meh…?” the old man looked around, looking disoriented. “How I got like dis, sha?”
“You must’ve fallen and hit your head. Can you stand?” She took hold of his trembling outstretched claw of a hand.
“I tink so. Who dis be? You friend?”
He eyed Ruin as Isadore struggled to help him upright. “A little help!” she hissed over her shoulder.
The idea of touching him created icy spikes in his blood, but the need to help Isadore won over and so he fixed the man so that he stood upright on his two diseased feet. At touching him, Ruin discerned the man had endured a brain hemorrhage and his ice had repaired it. Oddly enough, Ruin agreed that it was a dark judgement for the fact that his instinct had said finish him off.
A shadow flashed on his right and Ruin’s gaze snapped, searching the empty little kitchen. He engaged his extra senses, feeling for anything dangerous.
“Lemme put some coffee on fuh you.”
Ruin watched the old man shuffle to the rusted out stove with a few specks of faded yellow paint on it, very much ready to leave the place. Isadore shot to him when he teetered precariously next to the giant cable spool that served as his table. “I’ll get it! You sit.” She helped him into something that may have been a chair once upon a time, now a mishap of metal held together at the joints by globs of rust.
“Meh?” he wondered, his voice a frail whisper, “I could do it—“
“Hush, I got it.” Isadore turned on the kitchen faucet and brown liquid exploded out the spout, making her jump and Ruin ready to crush whatever demon was in it. The metal faucet shook and growled, then the water slowly cleared.
“Get me that,” she whispered over her shoulder, rapidly pointing to the counter while rinsing out the tiny little silver drip pot.
Ruin went over and pointed to the collection of wooden utensils in a tin can and she shook her head. He pointed to the next can.
“Yes, yes, that.” She took the tin from him and set the coffee pot on the counter, scooping grinds into it. She rinsed the kettle on the stove next then returned it to its spot. “How do you feel Mr. Thibodeaux?” Isadore spoke loudly, moving quickly as she put her hand into a metal holder nailed into a wall and pulled out a match. Ruin eyed the odd looking match holder, a trap of rusted edges ready to slice open the next busy wrist reaching into its caw.
The old man gave a light laugh. “Shooo, I need a nap! I sho is tired.”
“I bet you are,” Isadore said loudly again. “I think you might have fallen and hit your head.”
“You tink?” he sounded amazed but not shocked.
Isadore’s fear and unease was seeping into Ruin as he watched her strike the match against the can and bring it to the stove to light it. She shook the match and the smell of burnt sulfur reached him. He sniffed deeply, liking that smell.
Again darkness flashed and he jerked his head left in time to see a form just before it disappeared. Alarm raced through his body and he made his way to the other side of the room. What the hell was that? And why couldn’t he sense its intention?
Isadore pulled out the only other metal chair next to the spool. “You’ll have some coffee and stay awake a little bit, ok? Just to make sure you’re ok?”
“You gone stay an visit me?”
“Yes, I will. I see you got yourself a new table?”
New?
“What happened to your other one?”
“Awww,” the old man slid his gnarly hand over the top of his bald head and Ruin made his way to the exit of the room. “It broke.”
“It broke? How?”
“Meh dat crazy fool done come to my house and broked it.”
“What crazy fool? Lester?”
“No, not Les. He crazy but not like dis one. You know him, he be the one always messin wit ya traps.”
“Claude?”
Ruin caught the dramatic nod of the old man as he searched the little front room and tiny back porch on the other side of the kitchen. Even though it was bright outside, darkness loomed nearby, watching and waiting. He could feel it. Hungry.
“I need to check your head Mr. Thibodeaux.”
“He’s fine, Isadore.” Ruin didn’t want her touching him.
“How do you know?”
He looked at her and she widened her eyes, sitting back down. “Oh so… you know know?”
“Yes. We need to go.”
“Well I can’t leave him.”
“Hey now,” the old man protested in a frail voice. “I can take care of mah self, sha. Go.”
Isadore glared at Ruin then turned a sympathetic gaze to the old man. “Why did Claude come here?”
“He lookin’ fuh you.”
“Me? He came here looking for me?”
Ruin tensed at her anger and fear, taking the three steps to the back door, scanning the swamp no more than thirty feet away.
“Why would he come here, did he hurt you? Why did he break the table?”
“Oh no, sha, he don’t hurt me, he knowed better, he don’t want no curse on him.”
Ruin snapped his gaze back to the old man at that word, feeling the darkness pressing in again.
“Legends can’t protect you,” Isadore said.
“Awwwww noooo,” the old man shook his head. “Dis ain’t no legend, sha, I done tole you that. Dis is real.” His frail body jerked emphatically with the word.
“Okay, fine, it’s—“
“Don’t!” Ruin’s word boomed. “Don’t say it.” He looked around, the breath of evil enshrouding him. “We need to leave.”
“I can’t leave him, I told you!”
Ruin spun at sensing that dark shadow behind him and found strange sym
bols scrawled on the dirty yellow wall.
“Oh my God,” Isadore whispered. “Where did that come from?”
Ruin turned to her, his body becoming more locked in power by the second. “You see it?”
Her incredulous gaze moved from the writing to him, like that was a stupid question.
“I don’t know what it is,” Ruin said. “Something’s wrong.”
Terror slowly dawned in her face. “I can read it,” she whispered.
“Something different wrong,” Ruin muttered storming over to her, intending to carry her out.
“We need to leave now,” she said. Ruin paused before her and she nodded, terror in her gaze. “That’s what it says.” Isadore spun to Mr. Thibodeaux and helped him stand. “You’re coming with me. I can’t leave you, something bad is coming.”
Chapter Three
“Meh, I can’t leave my house,” Mr. Thibodeaux said even as Isadore walked him out of the kitchen.
The growling of darkness grew and Ruin begrudgingly helped get the old man to the truck. “Careful!” Isadore cried like he’d break him. But the old man was a lot tougher than she realized, that was obvious.
Ruin ran to the driver side and got in, threw the truck in reverse and tore out of the driveway.
“Where are you going?” Isadore asked, putting an arm in front of a toppling Mr. Thibodeaux.
“He drive fas, him,” Mr. Thibodeaux braced his feet on the floor and palms on the dashboard now.
“Yes, he does, doesn’t he? Maybe he could slow the fuck down?” Isadore’s fear made her voice tremble. “Why was there writing on the wall, Ruin? Sounds like that scripture in the bible.” Light humorless laugh and a sudden barked, “Destination, please!”
“You’re house!” Ruin applied all navigational skills to keep the truck from sliding off their gravel path and into the bayou that followed the road on the right. The hand of God writing on the wall. Yeah, he remembered that story. Only, he was pretty sure that wasn’t the hand of her God back there. But whatever it was, had warned them. Was it Caliber? That Negotiator? Why weren’t they just showing themselves, whoever or whatever they were? And what was that darkness he felt at the old man’s? It tasted different. Distinct. Smelled strange even. It was evil but unfamiliar to him and he didn’t want to confront it, he wanted to get away from it. Why?