by Lenore, Lani
He turned back now to find that the demon had ripped the bandages from its face, staring at him through Nix’s amber-eyed, white-haired visage. Before him, Rifter’s enemy drifted up into the air effortlessly, rising up above his head before hovering there expectantly.
“Come then,” the demon purred through a wide, hideous smile. “Let’s do end this!”
2
Wren had been watching the scene below, looking on as Rifter stepped toward the demon. She could not hear what was being said, but her eyes had nearly come out of her head when the flames had engulfed the entire group of awaiting pirates. She clamped both hands over her mouth to keep herself from screaming, and she was sure that, beside her, Toss was not much different.
They saw the monsters emerge from the smoke. Not one of those men cared for their weapons any longer, dropping them as they writhed and twisted uncomfortably in their ruined skin. Smoke continued to rise from them, and when the smell wafted upward, Wren buried her nose in her cloak.
“That stench…” Toss muttered, unable to stop himself.
Beyond all that, they saw the demon rise into the air, urging Rifter to follow, but they were forced to turn their attentions away from that when the gunshots rang out. Their eyes were drawn to the side, where they could see Mach clearly amidst the burnt monsters. His gunshots drew the creatures’ attentions, but he thinned them out well enough, causing many of them to fall with his bullets. Things looked promising – until the undead creatures he shot down began to rise back up.
Finn created his own fray on the opposite side of the camp, slicing through the creatures that emerged from the fire with dual blades. He appeared to be having better luck than Mach, cutting bodies into bloody pieces, but a great number of the pirates were rising up over him, trying to swallow him like a living wave and hindering his movement.
Calico could be seen attempting to help Finn, chopping through the creatures’ sinewy necks with her hatchets. Some of them turned away from him to advance on her, seeing that she was also an acceptable target. They sliced her with their claws, but she did not fall.
Wren first caught sight of Sly when he went flying back into a tree. His body hit the trunk hard and he slid to the ground, disoriented. The creatures closed in to envelope him, and she wanted to close her eyes, but could not. Ripped pieces of flesh went flying into the air, and Wren had nearly screamed before she realized that those chunks were not of Sly. He emerged then, moving in a blind fury that seemed so uncommon for him. Before her eyes, she saw him rip off the head of an enemy and proceed to attack the others with it. Many fell, but others gathered.
Still, there were so many. So many…
“You have to go help them!” Wren cried urgently to Toss, forgetting to keep her voice as a whisper.
Toss looked at her face, then back to his brothers below. She touched his shoulder, and he turned to look into her pleading eyes. She couldn’t bear to have any of them die, and if Toss could do something to help, she wanted him to, even if he had to leave her. It was a tough decision to make, but he did it quickly.
“Stay down,” he said firmly, and then he came to his feet. He pulled the hammer from his back and rushed forward, disappearing along the cliff edge.
Left alone, Wren huddled on the ground, now afraid to watch what was happening below. The roars and hisses from the smoking creatures made it sound like the pit of hell was beyond that cliff ledge – and that might have been accurate. She lay there, trying to relax, staring up at the amber sky and clenching her hands together at her chest. She tried to think of happy things, like restoring this place, having a family of friends once all this was over, of lying beside Rifter again while he held her, and of dreaming new dreams.
She had closed her eyes as she thought of this, and the sounds below had drifted away from her. Wren was almost separated from it, almost safe – and then a flash of light shooting over her head grabbed her attention.
Her eyes shot open, not because the light had startled her, but because she had recognized it. She saw a trail of light dart past, moving down the hill and into the trees. She knew exactly what it was, and at that, the thought of the battle below slipped from Wren’s mind. Perhaps she was not able to fight, but there was one thing she had set in her mind to do.
Unable to help herself, Wren rose up and moved deeper into the trees, following the trail of light until she had come upon a glowing orb resting on a broken tree. What she saw made her bite her lip in anger.
The hated fairy was in front of her, and Wren did not care that she was crying her eyes out. Whisper had no idea that Wren was anywhere close, and Wren did not think of danger. She only thought of revenge as she crept closer.
From within the neck of her gown, Wren took a small object into her hand. It was an almost imperceptible thing – an object she had stolen but it had not been missed. It was a whistle, and though it only played one note, it could reduce a fairy to ash in a matter of seconds. She had seen it with her own eyes.
She had snatched the whistle from Rifter while he’d been sleeping, and he had not seemed to notice. He may have been indecisive about what was to be done with his former companion, but Wren was not.
Whisper… You killed those children. You ruined my life.
Quietly, Wren crept toward the fairy wisp. She remained undetected.
3
Rifter stared up at the face of his former comrade hovering above him, no longer his brother but a demon. Behind that flesh-suit was a wretched monster that had caused this land so much pain.
Rifter knew what was expected of him. He knew he was supposed to rise up into the air and engage the demon in battle, but instead, he remained rooted like some unthinking statue. A grinning face looked down at him, anticipating their fight, but Rifter let his gaze pass to the ground.
“Why don’t you join me?” the demon asked. “I thought you wanted this fight.” Rifter did not respond, and the demon’s incredulous expression became one of gleeful mockery. “Can you not fly?”
I haven’t flown since…
When he’d become Nix, flying on a whim hadn’t been acceptable anymore. He’d taken that advantage away from himself, though he’d always moved so much faster than anyone else, as if the air helped him regardless. It had been a while since the last time, and he had very little faith that he would remember just because he wanted to – needed to.
“Oh my,” the demon tsk’d. “What a shame. No flight for the Rifter? Wren will never know the real joy of it then, will she? I suppose I should have taken her for a ride before I left her. It’s amazing what humans can do, really. A rush of wind, the feel of another’s skin, grinding together… Perhaps I’ll show her when I’m done with you.”
Rifter was angry at this assertion, but that rage did not help to lift him up. His feet were still on the ground. He did not leap up into the air to destroy the imposter, for he simply could not. The sounds of battle were all around him, but none of it touched him, as if he were standing in a separate plane of space. He watched the demon drift farther away, higher out of his reach to taunt him. There had to be some way to–
What am I thinking? I have weapons everywhere.
There was a gun on his back. He could bring it around swiftly, and if he had the good fortune of hitting the demon, it might fall. Then again, the body it used was already dead. A bullet might not make any difference at all.
Rifter saw as the demon’s face lit up high above him, and it raised a pointing finger. He was looking in the direction of the cliff.
“Not going to join me? Don’t worry; I understand. But what is that I spy? I do believe it’s Wren on the cliff ledge all alone with no one to protect her? And it’s so terrible that no one can keep me from going to her.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the demon could see Wren on the cliff, but what did it mean: there was no one with her? Hadn’t he charged Toss with that? The demon drifted away leisurely, and Rifter clenched his teeth, trying to figure out a way to stop this. If
that demon hurt Wren, he would strangle it with its own intestines. He would cut out its eyes and then tear out its tongue. He would–
Rifter was feeling light – lighter than he had in a long time. The world was speaking to him, reminding him that there were no rules here – not for him. He clenched his teeth, growing angry, insistent.
If you touch her, I’ll rip you to pieces and make you choke on them!
Rifter shot into the air, ramming into his adversary with the force of a bullet. Above the ground, there was no falling over for loss of balance. That was good as well as bad, for he could not trip his opponent, but there was more freedom, and punches were just as hard.
Rifter gripped the collar of the demon’s pirate coat as they tumbled in the air, landing a firm blow to his nose. The strike was true, and a half second later, Nix’s nose began to gush blood.
The demon, however, was not finished by that. In fact, it did not even lose its grin. The demon retaliated, and its punch to Rifter’s stomach was enough to knock the breath out of him. His lung flared with searing pain, but still, Rifter was able to continue on.
They grappled up above the heads of everyone else. The demon struck at Rifter viciously with a blade. Perhaps its skill had come from watching Rifter’s memories, for it was a formidable foe. Rifter dodged the attacks, defending first with his sword and then with his gun before losing his grip on them so that they plummeted down below, lost.
He needed a plan. He wasn’t sure how the demon could be killed, but he assumed that it couldn’t be done while it was in a human body. He could batter the corpse to pieces and not do any real damage to the demon. He had to think of some way to get the creature to retreat and show its true self.
The efforts with the blade were annoying him greatly. The metal caught the sun’s rays, gleaming each time it swiped at him. Rifter was avoiding it well enough, but if he was to have an idea, he would have to rid himself of the nuisance.
Enough!
Seizing the best opportunity, Rifter gripped the demon’s wrist as the blade came at him. He twisted the arm, at the same time bringing it backward around the shoulder. There was a loud snap as the joint popped, but Rifter did not stop there. Was the demon hurting? He certainly hoped it was. By the way it yelled out with Nix’s voice, he was sure that the pain was tremendous. Rifter continued to twist the arm, and the flesh began to rip satisfyingly. If it was possible for the demon to scream any louder, it did now. Its eyes bulged; its veins appeared beneath the human flesh. Muscles and tendons tore free around the broken bone, and with a firm jerk, the arm came free.
Rifter was not horrified by what he had done, but the demon appeared to be. Through its roars of rage, it managed to focus on Rifter once again in just enough time to watch him drop the arm. What happened after that was a thick blur.
The demon drew out a short dagger, and with swiftness that was hardly conceivable, it twisted its body through the air and dug the sharp blade into Rifter’s chest, burying to the hilt.
Cold steel ripped through his flesh, pressing farther into his body. Tears came up, and Rifter found that he could hardly breathe. All he knew was unmistakable, throbbing pain.
He had known a similar pain once before, long ago. It was the pain of death.
When his back slammed into the rocky edge of the cliff, he couldn’t say he felt his discomfort increase beyond what it already was. He was growing numb.
The demon grinned into Rifter’s face, withdrawing the dagger roughly and jabbing it back into his chest. The Tikilin did little to protect Rifter from the demon’s strength and the blade cut in fully, piercing his lung.
“A fitting death for you,” said the white-haired demon, wincing through its own pain. “It is how you were destined to go. Here at the Beginning, looking into a face so familiar!”
“I was never meant to go this way,” Rifter snarled, and he clenched his teeth together.
Taking a breath to ready himself, Rifter gripped the demon’s wrist and forced the dagger free of his flesh. Muscle and skin tore, and blood flowed out like a cork bursting from a swollen barrel of wine. The demon grinned, even as Rifter gripped the raw wound of its mutilated shoulder, digging his fingers into the flesh. But something happened that the demon had not expected. Rifter’s broken skin began to grow back together, even within his heart, sealing to form large, red scars.
“W-what?” the demon stammered. “How could you…?”
The demon was aware that Rifter was a swift healer. It had been inside him when he’d lost his eye, and it had been only a few days before the skin was revealed to be whole again, but the demon had suspected that the skin had healed long before Rifter had removed the bandages. Could it have healed instantly?
Terrified now, the demon tried to fly away, but the protruding bone of its shoulder was caught in Rifter’s grip. Rifter took hold of the imposter’s throat and pulled the demon’s face closer to his. When it was sufficiently near, Rifter spoke words in a whisper.
“Haven’t you heard the stories? I’m the Rifter,” he said, as blood oozed from the corner of his mouth and down his chin. “I’m immortal!”
Chapter Thirty-Six
1
Mach had slipped into the trees, hiding behind a massive trunk in order to reload his gun. Even though he’d been shooting from a stationary position within the group of undead creatures, he was out of breath. He had no time to waste now.
Get this done! he urged himself, aptly pressing the bullets into place.
Like the others from their positions, he had seen the fire rush over the pirates, and he had witnessed what had emerged. These were men no longer. The demon’s fire had touched them, and they were hell creatures now.
The unique gun in Mach’s hand held a great many bullets, but he’d used all of his cartridges shooting the humanoid beasts – and then shooting them again when they got back up. He couldn’t understand it. Were they impossible to kill? Impossible to kill with bullets? He’d been so busy gunning down the ones that came close that he hadn’t stopped to see if anything had made them stay down, or if the others had figured out a way to stop them for keeps. But he had to keep knocking them down. He would knock them down until they couldn’t get back up!
Mach spent several moments huddled behind the tree, loading his gun with shaking hands before he realized that he was being watched.
Two more bullets to load.
One more bullet and he could look up to the one watching him with enough time to put a shot right between the–
Mach raised his eyes and his gun in unison, and what he saw there made him pull his breath back in quickly. The eyes he looked into were very much like his own – identical in fact, save for a strong amber glow in the eyes of the other. It had been ages since they had been standing face to face, and for the first time in such a long while, Mach’s aim wavered.
“Mech…” The name was hardly more than a whisper.
It was as if Mach could somehow see his own reflection in the trees before him – a reflection that had seen better days, of course. But he saw himself exactly as he would have looked if he hadn’t colored his fiery hair black with dye or if he hadn’t cut it in years.
As if I’d been in a horrible accident that left scars all over me.
He’d been planning for this reunion for years, going over it in his head many times. This meeting had not been unexpected, ever, but did it have to happen now? Right now in the middle of all this maelstrom?
Mech stood there, a gaping hole in his torso filled with glowing crystals, appraising his twin with harsh eyes from beneath long, unruly hair. Mach kept his gun pointed forward, though he hardly knew it existed between them.
“Why are you surprised to see me, brother?” Mech asked, taking a step forward. “Didn’t you want to see me again? That was the whole point of what you did to me, wasn’t it?”
Their voices had once sounded the same, but that was no longer true. Mech’s voice not only held an air of sinister chiding, but there was also a
strange reverberation in his throat which produced a hollow, echoing sound. Facing Mach, he turned out his wrists, revealing two metal bars that were buried in his skin from his fingers to his elbows. Mach recognized them – he had put them there.
“I still don’t know why you left me,” Mech said, stepping ever closer. “I thought we’d finally found our calling with the pirates.”
“It was a façade from the beginning and you know it!” Mach yelled, keeping himself steady by pressing his back tightly against the tree. “I did something I shouldn’t have done, all for the sake of revenge. I ruined you, Mech.”
Mach said what he’d always meant to say, and his twin’s response was no surprise. Mech stopped advancing abruptly, tilting his head.
“And you would rather have let me be dead like the rest of the fallen? That’s brotherhood for you.”
There were sounds of conflict behind them only a short distance away in the clearing, but Mach was not aware of it.
“They killed me, you know,” Mech reminded him. “You couldn’t live without me then. You wanted revenge. You did this to me, so that I would live. You saved my life, and we should be together.”
Mach faltered at that. Mech was not like the rest of them – he and Mach were brothers by blood. They had the same eyes, the same features, and for a long while as far as Rifter was concerned, they had been the same person. Now they had drifted so far apart that they hardly knew each other. But Mech was not human any longer. He had been infused with the darkness.
“I understand what I am,” Mech said. “I know I’m dangerous, and I embrace that. And I don’t need Rifter anymore – not like you do. You were always the weaker of us. I doubt the infusion would have worked on you, had it been you instead of me. But before you pass down judgment, you have to remember that you have your own sins.”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this,” Mach protested, his voice wavering with emotion. “You weren’t supposed to–”