Staked!

by Candace Wondrak

  I met her hazel gaze, thinking, lesson learned. I was not lying when I told her I rather liked the world as it was, mostly. I didn’t want it to end. Not really. I might tilt it towards destruction every now and then, but what conscious being didn’t romanticize about death?

  Death: so final. A part of me longed for it, just to end it all. Pure dreams, those.

  “You killed me, turned me. We were together, and I was a monster just like you,” Kass added, narrowing her eyes at me.

  I found that hard to believe. She might draw the Demon side of me toward her, make me feel things—and I knew I often made comments that some might view as inappropriate—but being together with her, it made my stomach crawl.

  It made my stomach crawl, just thinking about being, as she said, together with someone. Of course I’d indulged in my fair share of skin over the years—I was a man, after all—but I hadn’t ever sworn myself to someone. Sephira didn’t count, for my oath to her was forced and false. I hadn’t willingly done so since I was human.

  I asked, “And Gabriel did not fight for you? He let me take you, and let the world descend into chaos?”

  “I don’t know if let is the right word.”

  “If he did not kill me, then he let me. That is the difference between Gabriel and me. I would fight until the end.”

  Kass wasn’t impressed. “And after the end comes and goes, and you’re still here? Then what?” She shook her head. “Then you turn into a monster and lose everything anyway.”

  I smirked. “You think you know loss. You do not.”

  “Oh, I think I know plenty,” she referenced Koath, shooting daggers my way.

  “No,” I quickly said. “Even if I wouldn’t have done it, you would’ve lost him sooner or later. Age claims. No, little Purifier, you do not know true loss. You don’t know what it feels like to lose those you thought you never would. You don’t know how it feels to outlive your own child, to hold his body in your hands and know that you have failed him. You know nothing.”

  Kass turned her head away, muttering, “Maybe not. But if you know how awful it feels, why would you inflict the same pain on others?”

  “Because I lost my will to care,” I stated simply, for it was true. I did not care about the pain others felt. Not anymore. I’d long since been past that. I did not care that Kass walked in and found her father dead. I did not care about the sadness she felt, or the anger that took its place. I doubt I ever would care, even if I did regret my actions.

  I had no empathy.

  It’s what made me such a good monster all these years.

  “I don’t care about your pain,” I said, earning a scornful expression from her. “I don’t care about your feelings. I don’t care about the torture you feel, wondering if your boyfriend will ever wake up. What I do, I do for myself. Not you, not society, not Sephira. The only thing I care about is me.”

  Even as I said it, a nagging feeling in my gut told me it was a lie. It had to be, partially, because why else would I feel the slightest regret and guilt? One only felt regret and guilt when one cared.

  “That’s it for today,” I told her before she could retort. I could tell she wanted to attack me, to lunge and beat me for my words. Adrenaline did amazing things, and yet, even at her best, she was no match for me. “Come back tomorrow.”

  She hastily moved to the stairs, tossing a quick look over her shoulder. “I hate you,” she whispered, angry and upset. And then she was gone.

  I smiled to myself. She was not the only one who hated me, and I was certain she would not be the last. Being hated and despised was something I was used to. It made my actions, my lack of empathy, almost necessary. I liked being hated, because the last time those living felt anything else toward me, they were lost to the sands of time.

  I exited the attic and went to the lower level of the house. I noticed Kass had left the front door wide open, and as I went to it, Maurice looked at me from the living room. He had the TV on, watching some old game show. “What did I tell you, son? You need to be nicer to your wife, otherwise she’ll leave, like your mother, and then you’ll wonder just where the heck your life went.”

  Moving my gaze from Maurice to the girl power-walking up her driveway, I closed my eyes and sighed. When I opened my eyes, I was thrust into a memory so unwanted that I felt sick after.

  Bright green eyes stared up at me, a sharp contrast to the dull sand around him, and his dirty clothes. He was only as tall as my hip, and yet there was fire in his eyes, a fire I was proud to see. His tanned skin and short black hair held dust as he raised his fists to me, shouting boldly, “You’re not the best warrior. I am!”

  “Courageous words,” I told him. “Let’s see if you have the strength to back them up.”

  He ran straight for me, trying to tackle me, but I side-stepped him with a flourish, about to get the wooden swords from the chest nearby. Another presence caused me to lift my eyes and meet her smiling face. In order not to be tackled to the ground by an overzealous young warrior, I held out my arm, hand catching my boy’s head, holding him at arm’s length. He still swung at me, though his arms were too short.

  “Cheat!” he accused, struggling and failing to break free.

  My beautiful wife smiled. Her dark hair, curled and pinned to her head, swayed in the wind that was always present in our village. “He is your son, Crixis.” She crossed her arms, tilting her head. “I do wonder if he would’ve been a daughter, what you would’ve done.” She baited me, still smiling.

  I chuckled as I lightly pushed our son onto the sand and moved to her side, snaking an arm around her waist as I proudly said, “I would’ve made her a warrioress every god would be envious of.” I finished my statement with a kiss, smothering her laughter, even as our son commented about how disgusting it was, seeing his parents like this. “Perhaps we should have another, keep trying until we get that daughter.”

  A wide smile and an open mouth, but her words were cut short by a deep voice who said, “An envoy of metal-clad men approaches the eastern front. We should give them a good welcome.”

  I didn’t even have to say the words. My beautiful wife nodded, walking slowly to where my two blades sat, leaning against the stone steps. She picked them up and handed them to me. “Go, my husband. Bring honor to us.”

  Honor.

  It was something I often preached about. Most men wanted glory, but I knew glory itself was worthless without honor.

  I gave her one, final kiss and gently nudged my son’s chin as I went by, joining the band of my brothers.

  Enough, I told my mind. No more of that. No more of that blasted day. It was a day I did my best to forget, a day I never thought of, because it was the day I lost everything. It was the day I became a slave to Sephira. And, truly, if I hadn’t stumbled upon the trail that led me to Vexillion’s ritual, I never would’ve gotten out from under her. And I was always under her. On the field, in bed. Always under that Demon.

  It was odd.

  I always thought, if the day ever came, that I would feel better once the world was truly rid of her. But I didn’t feel better. If anything, I felt worse. I felt alone.

  With Kass long gone from my view, I closed the front door with a sigh.

  Chapter Sixteen – Kass

  I could not believe him.

  I don’t care about your pain.

  I was never under the impression that he did care—because he was Crixis and he destroyed everything that was good—so why did I feel so upset after hearing him say it? Why did I feel like screaming into my pillow? Was it because I was already upset with Gabriel’s coma, or was it because, sometimes, Crixis wasn’t so bad?

  It was an awful, terrible thing to admit to myself. It was. And yet, it was true. There were times of clarity, times when I didn’t see the Demon who made my life miserable, the Daywalker who murdered Koath, who may or may not have had a hand in my mom’s death, too. Moments when he acted like a real person, not a psychopath.

  If he was a no
rmal guy, and we didn’t have such bad history, I wouldn’t mind him. I actually wouldn’t mind spending time with him, or even dreaming of him.

  Just thinking that felt like a betrayal to Koath, to Gabriel, and everything I held close.

  Crixis wasn’t a good person. He was a murderer. Calculated and cold. He gave me more injuries than any other Demon I’d faced and purified. He hurt me physically and mentally. He toyed with my life like I was nothing but a useless speck of dust. But if that was true, if I really was nothing to him, why bother sticking to his word? So what if he said he’d stop going after me if I helped him take down Sephira? He didn’t care about my pain, so why not just kill me anyway? Why offer to train me? Why give me that book?

  Why?

  I was not sympathetic to his past. Yes, it was horrible what he went through, but he was such a awful person afterwards that it was hard to see his beginnings. I felt bad for his family, for his son, but did I feel the same sorrow for Crixis?

  No.

  At least, I didn’t want to. But if I didn’t, didn’t that make me exactly like him?

  I wrestled with my inner self as I walked back to the house. I didn’t want to be anything like Crixis. My mom wanted me to forgive him, but could I? Could I truly forgive him for all that he’d done, not only to me, but to the world? I wasn’t sure if that was even possible.

  I let out a harsh groan as I entered the house.

  Liz was in the kitchen, reading instructions on how to cook some hamburger meal. She looked at me. “Where have you been? I thought you said you’d go straight home from the hospital.”

  I couldn’t remember if I was indeed that specific, or if that was something she just inferred. I glanced to the clock, holding in my shock at how long I was across the street. It didn’t feel like that long.

  “I went for a run,” I muttered, heading to the stairs. I ignored Max and Claire in the front room.

  “Dinner is in twenty minutes,” she added as I took two steps at a time.

  “Not hungry.” I went past the second floor, where I heard a shower going. Liz must’ve gotten Michael to come home. As I went to the third floor and headed straight for my own bathroom, I slowly closed the door and started taking off my clothes.

  Crixis was wrong, I decided as I stared at myself in the mirror. I’d lost weight, if anything. I wasn’t eating much. I just hadn’t been hungry. My stomach—which was always on the flat side—looked less like muscle and more like skin-and-bones.

  It was hard to force yourself to eat when you didn’t want to, so I stopped doing it. Maybe it was the whole dying thing.

  I turned on the shower, rubbing my neck. When I was quiet, still, when there were no other sounds, I could still hear it. I could hear the loud snap, the cracking of my upper spine, the severing of my spinal cord from my brain. It wasn’t a good sound. In fact, it was the sound of my nightmares.

  I stood in the shower, basking in the heat. My nightmares held a lot of things, actually, but I preferred not to think of them.

  Soon I was lying in bed, trying to sleep even though it wasn’t even dark out yet. I heard the door creak open, and Liz wandered in, a plate of meat and cheese in her hands. “I think this one turned out rather well,” she whispered, setting it on the nightstand beside me.

  “I said I’m not hungry,” I repeated what I said earlier.

  “You need to eat. I know you’re worried about Gabriel, but you need to still take care of yourself.”

  I chose to change the subject abruptly: “Any news on the body in the school?”

  Liz simply smiled softly and patted my leg. “Nothing you need to worry about right now. I’m taking care of it.” She said nothing else about it. Not what it was, or how it happened, or whether or not I should be concerned about school on Monday.

  I was a Purifier. I didn’t need to be coddled.

  I needed the truth.

  But I let her go without questioning her further. My bones were too tired, my skin too sore. Was I going to train with Crixis again? Was I going to subject myself to more of his insults and this soreness?

  I already knew the answer.

  Chapter Seventeen – Michael

  After getting it ready after my shower and putting it where it’d be easy to reach, I headed downstairs. I couldn’t do it now, with company over, but it would happen tonight. The Order demanded it, and I was not one to leave a job unfinished.

  I belonged to the Order. My birth, my life, my death. The Order had been around for centuries, older than the Council and their precious Purifiers. The Council would never get its way of ridding the world of Demons entirely, but the Order would succeed in burning the world down and creating it anew.

  I prayed I would be alive to see it.

  As I went down the stairs, I overheard the two teens talking in the living room.

  Max, the odd boy, seemed to be trying to compliment Claire’s looks. “That headband matches your eyes.” He said nothing more as his fork scraped across his plate.

  The Morpher took her time to say, “Thanks.” As if she wasn’t truly certain if it was a compliment or not.

  I had nothing against either of them. I wished them well, in the upcoming days. The old me would’ve hated having a Morpher know our identities, but now there was no time to worry about such things. Now, the clock was so close to striking twelve.

  I felt a hand pull me into the kitchen, and I met Liz’s questioning eyes. She had waited for me to come down; two full plates sat on the table, opposing each other, silverware carefully positioned beside them.

  “What are you doing? Let the kids have some privacy. I think—” Liz paused, lowering her voice to a bare whisper. “—Max likes her. It’s hard to tell, because he doesn’t have very good social skills.” She motioned for me sit down, and I did slowly, nodding along with her, as if I cared about Max’s little crush.

  I didn’t.

  My caring was limited to a few things: Gabriel waking up, Kass dying, and the Order’s dream being realized.

  We ate in relative silence, ignoring the few laughs and awkward conversation we overheard from the living room. It wasn’t until we were washing the dishes and putting everything away that Liz said, “I’m worried about Kass.”

  “That makes two of us.” For two entirely different reasons.

  “I can’t remember the last time I saw her eat a plate full.”

  Clearly. The girl hadn’t been eating since that business with the Original. If she had been eating, a lot of the current stuff going on could’ve been avoided. My life could’ve been a whole lot easier. The New Age could be that much closer.

  But no. Little Miss Kassandra Niles had to make it difficult.

  I hated her, sometimes. I hated that she thought she was invincible. I hated that she was always the center of everything, as if the world revolved around her. I hated the fact that she had changed him, made him into nothing more than a teenage boy. Whatever she was, whatever special, unique brand of Demon she was—I didn’t care. She’d die all the same.

  That night, as Liz laid beside me, just like she had ever since Gabriel’s coma, I quietly, deftly slid out of bed. Without a sound, I reached beneath the antique nightstand and retrieved the vial I prepared earlier.

  My footsteps were quick and quiet. I was trained, though nowhere nearly as proficiently as Kass and Gabriel. I went up the stairs, straight into the bathroom she shared with Gabriel. Since he was already in the hospital, there was no way he could get caught in the crossfire again. Kass might not eat, but she did do a few other things.

  I took hold of the tube of toothpaste in my hand and flicked the vial to make sure it hadn’t hardened. Poking the needle in the base of the tube, I injected the entire ounce of liquid into the partially-used tube.

  It would take a day or two, but the poison would get to her this time.

  She would feel weak, exhausted. She would be tired all the time. She’d get the shakes, start to vomit uncontrollably. She’d lose her ability to control her m
uscles, if I let it go that long. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. The Order gave me a deadline.

  Monday was the day.

  Chapter Eighteen – Gabriel

  I followed the broody, tall dark and handsome version of me (not to say that I wasn’t handsome, because I definitely was) through the hospital. We slowed as we came upon the exit that sat in the empty cafeteria, its sliding glass doors firmly closed. I glanced to him. “Uh, tried that already. This entire place is like a weird labyrinth. There’s no way out.”

  He stared at me, giving me a look that said I was beyond stupid. He then took a step, and the doors slid open. I readied myself to tell him that he was wrong and I was right, but as we walked through the all-glass vestibule, the outside doors slid open to reveal a grassy field.

  I spun, glancing all around. The hospital doors that we walked out of a second ago were no longer behind us. What kind of magic was this? “Okay, that did not happen last time,” I said slowly.

  He smirked. A strange sight, to see myself making such a smug expression. “You truly are a bright one, aren’t you?”

  “The sarcasm,” I said. “You’re not good at it.”

  All he did was smirk more. “Pay attention, boy. I’m about to give you a history lesson that you won’t soon forget.”

  That made me want to vomit. History? Bleh. Boring. Who cared about history? I was in the now, wherever the now was. Wherever I was…

  “Perhaps you know something of it,” he went on, lifting his right arm to the field before us. Suddenly, a cloudy image popped up, and it was like a movie, its bubble following exactly what he said. “In the beginning, there were only a few of us. We were meant to serve Him.”

  A crowd of winged beings appeared in the cloud, wearing all white, their features varied in skin tone, but perfect in every way. Their wings seemed to flow with the breeze; their expressions expectant as they stared to the cloud above them. One appeared in the forefront; this winged man practically exuded light. His face was covered in a white metal helmet, his body wearing a similar armor.