“Yes, ma’am.”
Moonlight poured through the window and highlighted a decorative chest on a hall table like a treasure chest in a game. Kito dragged his finger over the dusty iron bands on it as he passed. He walked softly, stepping around each squeaky board. He stopped at the door at the end of the hall and drummed his fingers on his thigh. Finally, he grasped the knob in his hand, giving it a quick turn and jerking the door open.
The hinges squealed, and Kito sucked in his breath, grinding his teeth. On the bed, Emvie shifted. Her hand swatted at the covers, and she murmured before stilling again. After several thundering heartbeats, Kito slowly let his breath out. He quickstepped across the room and lifted a back stone from the nightstand.
It had the appearance of a lava rock wrapped in copper wire, a loop at the top where it used to hang off a necklace. It was heavier than it looked. Though Emvie had gone looking for a whole necklace of them, this was all she could find. She didn’t know what had happened to the rest, and she had no intention of using this one. The magic was too dark for her, and she wouldn’t stoop to that level. Well, Kito had no problem stooping. He didn’t know what kind of magic it was, but he would use it.
He squeezed the black stone in his hand, eyes narrowed, before shoving it into his pocket and leaving the room, holding his breath as he closed the door. He was nearly to the door when the sound of a throat clearing came from behind him. He froze, the muscles in his shoulders tightening, and he turned to the side to see who was behind him.
Blaise stood by the couch, barefoot in basketball shorts and a ratty tank top. He tilted his head and narrowed his amber eyes.
“Are you leaving?” he whispered.
Kito took a step back toward the door. “Yeah, and don’t try to stop me.”
Blaise snorted and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Stop you? Hell, I’m coming too.”
For a moment, all Kito could do was blink. Then he snorted and slapped his hand over his mouth, pink eyes dancing. After a moment, he dropped his hand and shook his head. “Are you freakin’ kidding me? This is my mom and my fight. I’m not getting you killed.”
Blaise crossed the room in a few quick strides. He took Kito’s hands in his own and squeezed, leaning forward to press their foreheads together. “We’re not playing that stoic hero bullshit. I love you, and I’m not letting you run off like a moron.” Blaise slid his hands up Kito’s arms and gripped his biceps, pulling back to look in his eyes. “You need muscle, and that’s me.”
Kito shifted from foot to foot before finally swatting Blaise’s chest. “Fine. You’re right. I’m not good at the macho man thing.” He poked Blaise on the shoulder. “But you better not die.”
Blaise grinned, offered him a two-fingered salute, and darted back to his bedroom. A few minutes later, he came back in clothes more suited to leaving the house. Once out in the driveway, Blaise made a beeline for his mom’s car. Kito lifted a brow.
“Really?”
“She’ll never notice.” Blaise slid into the driver’s seat and widened his eyes at him, gesturing to the door.
Kito chewed the inside of his lip for a moment before nodding and sliding into the passenger seat. “Do you know where you’re going?” he asked as he buckled up.
Blaise nodded and started the car, promptly spinning the volume control to zero. The Living Tombstone scrolled across the stereo, and Kito grinned.
“Discord? It’s catchy, huh?”
Blaise chuckled as they pulled out onto the road. “Not my usual style, but yeah.”
Once they were a ways down the street, Kito turned the music up a bit, and they listened to Dollhouse, Kito bouncing his knee much too fast to be in time with the music. When the song ended, Kito turned the radio off and shifted sideways in his seat.
The streetlights cast Blaise’s face in shades of sickly yellow and ominous shadows. The corner of his mouth was tight, and his hands were white around the steering wheel.
“Have you always known the other world, magic, monsters were real?” Kito finally asked into the heavy silence.
Blaise sighed. “My mom never kept it a secret. Plus, when you jump off the shed and your broken arm snaps back together, yeah, that’s not easy to cover up.”
Kito chuckled, but the mirth didn’t last. “So my mom was magic?”
“According to my mom, Anessa was really powerful. Your dad too. So let’s cross our fingers you’re magical too or that rock in your pocket isn’t good for anything.”
“I can throw it real hard and hope for a lucky hit.” Kito mimed shooting a slingshot. “Ping. Right between the eyes like David and Goliath.”
The joke fell flat between them, and the silence descended again. Finally, Kito turned the radio back on, and they listened to Glory and Gore as they left town.
The car jerked to a stop, and Kito opened his eyes to a dark forest. Despite that it was summer, the trees were bare and skeletal, not even any leaves dusting the ground. A few rows back, the trees regained their fully, lively look. Kito frowned and turned to look through the back glass at the overgrown path they’d driven up. He turned his gaze to Blaise and cocked a brow.
“This used to be a campground sixteen years ago, but then the plants died. They think there’s something toxic in the ground, so they close it to the public. Mom says they stopped monitoring it a decade back when they couldn’t find anything.” Blaise tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Mom says it was the magic that brought us here that did it. This is where the gate opened.”
Kito nodded and let his breath out in a huff. “Let’s get to it.” He unbuckled and pushed the door open, stepping out into the clearing. He reached into his pocket and took out the stone, squeezing it in his hand and glancing at Blaise before setting off into the clearing. They hadn’t taken five steps when a man stepped around one of the dead trees and into the open. He stopped in the light from the headlights and looked between them, cocking a sideways smile.
His black hair hung around his shoulders, a few dull red streaks in it catching the light. Kito sucked in his breath. The man’s eyes were an intense violet. He wore the kinds of clothes Kito had only ever seen in movies: a fitted black, sleeveless tunic and leather breeches, and a garnet hanging from a black cord around his neck. On one hip hung a sword, and on the other, a white flute. The man gestured at his chest.
“You like my shirt? I wouldn’t normally bare my arms, but it is warmer here than it is at home.” He chuckled and took a step toward them.
In a blink, Blaise had a knife in his hand. It was a long, wickedly sharp black with a worn hilt. Kito’s brows shot up.
“Where did you –”
“I always carry it.” With his free hand, Blaise patted his lower back.
The man laughed and held his hands up in mock surrender. “Please, don’t hurt me with your pig sticker.” He dropped his hand to the pommel of his sword. “Come now.”
But Blaise kept the knife in his hand, holding it like he’d used it a hundred times and didn’t mind using it again.
“You’re Griffin?” he asked with only a small tremor in his voice.
“Who else?” The man pointed at him. “And you must be little Blaise. You look exactly like your father. You probably have his hotheaded nature too.” Griffin turned his unusual eyes on Kito. “And you, little mouse, are Anessa’s boy. Kito, I think she called you.”
“You killed my mom.” Kito clenched his fists, the stone digging painfully into his palm.
“Mmm, yes.” Griffin briefly closed his eyes. “I wanted to do more before she died, but where I stayed the same, she has aged beyond my tastes.”
Kito took a step forward, but Blaise’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “You sick –”
Before he could say anything else, Griffin’s flute was in his hands. “What are you going to do, punch me to death?” He let out a short, mirthless chuckle. “Your mother was always a pretty thing. It’s a shame you turned out the way you did. A little pink-eyed freak. But the
n, I’ve always had odd features. Some combination of our blood must have done this to you.”
Kito sputtered for a moment before shaking his head and laughing. “You’re joking.”
Griffin lifted his brow and grinned. “Do I look like it?”
He stepped back and lifted his flute, touching the mouthpiece to his chin. “Believe it or not, but why else would I come here? She took my child from me, and I didn’t appreciate it. So sad. You’re beyond saving now. Too much of your mother’s skewed righteousness. Your bones will mix nicely with all the rest here.”
“What are you talking about?” Blaise asked, and he flicked his knife in the direction of Griffin’s flute as he licked his lips and put the tip of the mouthpiece between his lips. “Don’t you dare.”
The first notes left the flute like blood dripping, thick and slippery feeling against Kito’s skin like something tangible. He shuddered. As the music played, soft and melancholy, a thrumming started in his chest like the beat of the music lived behind his sternum. He took a few quick, shallow breaths and closed his eyes. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, but the hot, throbbing beat in his chest was less like sadness and more like hate. Hate that felt a lifetime long and deep like a well. The smell of burning leaves and sulfur tickled his nose and burned at the back of his throat.
Blaise knocked his shoulder against Kito’s, pulling him out of his trance, if only a bit. From the trees all around them, skeletal animals walked. Deer with bits of skin still clinging to their ribs and jaws, antlers lowered, bears with claws still attached to sparsely muscled paws, even the odd human, hands swinging listlessly at their sides. Bits of flesh dangled from bones, tears off on tree branches that got in the way.
Blaise drew in a shuddery breath before fixing a grin on his face and sweeping his free hand through his blond hair. “Is a bunch of Halloween decorations the best you can do?” He scoffed and glanced at Kito. “I’ll keep ‘em busy. You go for the pied piper over there,” he whispered.
With that, Blaise barreled into the nearest deer, stabbing his knife through an eye socket and jerked its head sideways. Kito watched for only a moment before darting to the side of the horde and focusing on Griffin. The man stopped playing and watched his handiwork for a second before turning to Kito.
“You feel it, don’t you? The magic I’m using. Most people can’t feel it. The last person who could was my sister. And your mother, of course, but only because we’d been as close to each other as two people can be.”
“I don’t believe you.” The stone burned against his hand, and the thrumming in his chest burned with it, pounding until it sounded as though a drum was beating inside his ears. Black smoke curled from between his fingers and twined around his arm, twisting around his neck like a choker.
Griffin lifted his flute back to his lips and played darkness and anger, the burning smell intensifying until it coated his throat like breathing smoke. The animals attached Blaise as one, but Kito turned away. A deer, antlers lowered at him, stomped the ground with one hoof, blowing air through its gaping nostrils. Bits of flesh sprayed over Kito, but he choked down his gag. He lifted his hands, one with fingers splayed and the other with the stone still tucked against his palm.
The deer charged. Kito pushed his feet against the ground and yelled as the animal slammed into him. He grabbed on antler in his hand and jerked the deer’s head to the side, staggering with it as it tossed and bucked, biting with its bared teeth. Kito snarled, digging his toes into the ground and pushing back, grappling with it, smoke from his hand twisting around its skull.
The black smoke formed a noose around the thing’s neck and tightened. In an instance, the smoke roiled and covered the deer, and then it was simply gone. Kito stumbled forward and nearly dropped to his knees in the sudden emptiness before him. Instead, he pushed himself into a sprint and slammed into Griffin from the side.
The flute screeched a discordant note and flew from his hand to land at the base of a nearby tree. Griffin grunted and slammed a fist into Kito’s shoulder. With a hiss, Kito jerked away, hand clamped around his aching joint. They stood like that, facing off, Kito with a sneer fixed on his face, Griffin with a cocky grin.
“What are you going to do, boy? You’re nothing. Nothing like me. Nothing like your mother. Certainly nothing like the man she claimed was your father.” Griffin dropped his hand onto the hilt of his sword and pulled it a bit out of its sheath. “I’ll cut you to pieces before you even have a chance.”
Griffin’s violet eyes followed the trails of black smoke twining around Kito’s arm and shook his head. “You have the black stone. Death and destruction. You don’t have it in you.”
With that, he drew his sword and charged. Kito darted to the side, barely missing the downward stroke of Griffin’s sword. He dodged each strike, slipping around the dead trees when he could. He gripped the stone in his hand, but what he was going to do with it, he didn’t know. He didn’t know how to use it. He was stupid to think he could win this fight. For a second, Griffin turned his gaze to the side and a noise one of his animals made, and Kito sprinted into the trees and pressed his back against one. He breathed in quick breaths, trying to keep quiet. He was going to die here in this dead place, had likely gotten Blaise killed, and no one would know.
“Where did you go, little mouse?” Griffin’s voice was soft, unconcerned, as he came closer.
The sword thumped into the tree not an inch from the side of Kito’s head, and he gasped, staggering away. The blade sliced through his hoodie and across the backs of his shoulders, the force of the hit sending him to the ground. He crawled on his hands and knees until Griffin’s boot caught him in the ribs.
“Pathetic.” His boot connected with Kito’s stomach, and he curled up, groaning at the pain. “You remind me of my sister right now. She was weak too. She cried when she died.” Griffin slapped his blade across Kito’s hip, leaving a slash through his pants and into the skin beneath. “Are you going to cry?”
Before Griffin could say or do anything else, Blaise appeared from the shadows behind him and slammed into his back, dagger leading. Griffin arched his back and hissed in a breath, staggering a step away and turning to regard Blaise.
Blaise was covered in dozens of cuts and bruises, blood staining his clothes and slicking his skin, and his left shoulder jutted out weirdly. With a loud crack, the shoulder popped back into place, and Blaise groaned.
Griffin took a deep breath and reached around behind his back, grasping the hilt of the dagger where it jutted from his lower back. “Come now, boy. You’ll have to do better.” With a grunt, he pulled the blade free and tossed it at Blaise’s feet. The garnet on the necklace he wore briefly flared before he let out a sigh and shook his shoulders. “That’s better.”
Griffin grinned and advanced toward Blaise, sword at the ready. “Now then –”
Heat flushed across Kito’s cheeks and, with a yell, he pushed up to his knees and thrust his hand toward Griffin, black smoke billowing from the stone, thick enough to obscure the man before him. It cleared almost immediately, and a black light pulsed at the stone on Griffin’s chest. The man cried out in pain and grasped the gem, letting his sword drop to the ground. His face contorted and he bent at the waist, breaths coming in staggered gasps. The clattering of bones echoed through the skeletal forest, and the animals collapsed in heaps.
Griffin backed away from them, one hand held toward them and a snarl fixed to his face. “Good trick, little mouse.” He scooped up his flute and played a quick few notes, but when nothing happened, he glared. “This isn’t the end.” He turned and shot into the forest too fast for either of the boys to think about pursuit.
Blaise crouched beside Kito and helped him stand, wrapping an arm around his waist and turning toward the car. “What did you do?”
“Destroyed his magic I think.” Kito rolled the stone in his palm and sighed before shoving it in his pocket. “He said it was destruction. Wish it had killed him instead.”
&nb
sp; Blaise bent and picked up Griffin’s sword as they walked, holding it loosely by the hilt. “He’ll be back, I’m sure. Bastard isn’t going to stop after you did that to him. We need to get you trained.” He swung the sword a bit. “This’ll do.”
Blaise helped Kito into the passenger seat and then slid into the driver’s side. With a rumble, they started the car and turned back down the overgrown road they’d taken.
Far away from that clearing, Griffin pushed through an overhang of leaves and into a small cave. He followed the path down until he couldn’t see any longer and called out.
“I don’t have my magic. You’ll have to light a torch.”
After a moment, a light flared, and Griffin squinted into the sudden brightness. A man a head taller than him stood a bit away, brown eyes fixed on the taller man. His dark hair was pulled into a tail at the base of his neck, and he wore nothing but a pair of loose-fitting pants.
“You’re quite informal right now, Rin. Making yourself at home?”
Griffin went around the man and into the open cavern beyond. He removed his empty sheath and tossed it to the side before plopping down on a pile of blankets. Rin placed the torch in a makeshift bracket and stood staring down at Griffin, hands on his hips.
“You failed.”
“Anessa’s brat took my magic.” He gestured at his necklace. “He had her black stone. There were two of them.”
Rin was suddenly crouched before him, and his hand shot out, burying in Griffin’s hair. With a jerk, he turned the other man’s head back and glared down into his eyes. Griffin hissed and started to pull away, but with a tug from Rin, he stopped.
Author's Torment Page 5