by Safari Spell
“Come out, you wankers,” Mannix challenged.
Something moved in the wheat nearby and we all turned towards the sound to see Ash break away from the darkness. All I could see was his reflective eyes. The others started filing out around him. Sage appeared near the front of us. I moved towards him, but Mannix thrust his arm in front of me.
“Careful, princess. Their kind might have mange. Ya never know.”
“Try and keep her away from me,” Sage told him, low and severe.
Mannix held his hands up in the air and his brows went high and wide as the corners of his mouth. Then he laced his hands behind his back as he stepped to the side, clearing my path.
“Ah, he’ll be dead soon, anyway.”
Sage tipped his head up slightly. I rushed over to him.
“I’m sorry, Sage. I had to. I mean, he had Azalea and I – couldn’t risk,” I started, my tone so remorseful it seemed silly even to me. Sage pulled me close and touched my lips, shaking his head.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I should never have left you.”
He held me tight as he smoothed a hand over my hair. Mannix chuckled as Sage’s skin began to glow.
“Right. You just gonna take off my head again?”
“I don’t aim for the head,” Ash said coolly, stepping between Mannix and us. I didn’t know what that meant, but knowing Ash, it probably meant he would tear his heart out of his chest.
Mannix and Ash stood close and stiff, their jaws locked tight and shoulders thrown back. Usually Mannix was a sarcastic bully, but his expression grew earnest as he spoke.
“I pity you most. Mixed up in the Dissent. You were one of us.”
There was a rare glint in Ash’s eye. Without hesitation, he lopped off Mannix’s head and flung it to the side. We watched his body topple over – first knees, then chest. Next, Ash glowered as he turned to Nico, who made no attempt at aggression. Convinced he wasn’t a threat, Ash turned to us and shrugged at Sage.
“I changed my mind about the head. He talks too much.”
Sage kissed my forehead, looking across the field to the Beaty mansion.
“We need to get you indoors,” he said, rubbing his hands up and down my arms for warmth. The temperature was dropping and I forgot my coat at Azalea’s.
Nico cleared his throat.
“Princess, your husband will do whatever he must to get to you.”
“Shut up or you’ll lose a head, too,” Ash replied, turning his cold stare on him. Nico didn’t even pay attention to him. He was still looking at me.
I held up my wrist.
“I know what this seal does. He wouldn’t hurt anybody I love.”
Nico looked at the ground.
“That only protects blood, not him,” he thumbed to Jesse, who I’d completely forgotten about until then. He had ceased his muttering and was sitting cross-legged on the ground right in the middle of the crop circle.
My heart dropped as I stared at the back of his head, knowing his life was literally in my hands. Suddenly, the crop circle began to vibrate and move beneath us and a red mist rose off the earth. The guys began to scatter, flanking Sage and me. Sage took off at a sprint towards the mansion, dragging me along behind him.
“What about Jesse?” I cried, my lungs heaving as he quickened pace.
Mannix appeared fast in front of us, blocking our path. Sage let go of my hand and using his momentum, hit Mannix so many times it looked like he had ten hands. Mannix was either caught off guard or slower than Sage, so he felt every hit. His body jerked left and right through heavy cracking sounds. Bones had to be breaking.
Sage was on the backside of him then, taking him under one arm and heaving him with ease over his head. Mannix sailed through the air with speed and tumbled along the field in a sickening, flailing contortion of limbs and torso, kicking up dust and rolling into the distance. Sage watched him disappear into the darkness and lowered his body to ready for an assault I couldn’t see.
“Talor, keep going,” he shouted, waving me off.
While I didn’t want to leave Sage, I knew I needed to get inside. He was fighting for me, so I needed to do what I could do. A human house was the only place Rami couldn’t enter, so I sprint towards it as fast as my legs would take me. I only made it halfway to the end of the field before I heard rustling race up behind me. I shut my eyes and pumped my arms until they were so spent that I could barely swing them. The sound was too fast – it was in front of me now.
I almost tumbled over trying to stop. A dark shadow hovered level to my face. It had no face or limbs, but it gave the air of alien space, loneliness and utter despair. I screamed, bringing Sage in haste. He got between us, extending a hand out front to keep it at a distance. It seemed to work. The shadow swayed back and forth, seeming to test the boundaries, but it didn’t charge head on while Sage kept his hand raised. I buried my face in his chest.
“Sage, it came after me once. Kill it!”
“Wait. It’s a soul shadow – one of the cursed first,” he answered thoughtfully, turning his head to each side to get different perspectives of it. “I haven’t seen one in a long time.”
Sage seemed more curious than alarmed, so I dared look at it again. It floated above the ground, a misty dark thing with a feisty will. He spoke to it in Yahweh-Elata, and while I had no idea what he was saying, I knew it was a command based on his tone. The shadow grew larger in response. I guess it didn’t like that tone.
“Show me,” Sage commanded.
The soul shadow hissed at him, so Sage grabbed it by the top where the neck would be. It was amazing that Sage was able to touch the creature and I was only able to swipe through it. It screeched at such an alarming decibel that I had to drop down and cover my ears. Unaffected, Sage reached out to subdue the thing and it was able to slice his forearm open.
That had to be incredibly painful, but somehow he kept his grip. When his arm adopted the silver fire on it, the creature stopped fighting him and tried to get away. It started to drag Sage along the ground, but he held onto it. It dove down, trying to escape into the dirt beneath us. Sage held it fast, grunting. When it started to slip through his hands, he fell to one knee, straining.
“Son-cede!”
When he said that, something dropped from the soulshadow and fell to the ground. Satisfied, Sage released the soul shadow and let it seep back inside the dirt at his feet with a chittering growl. Sage was silent for a moment, staring at whatever it was the soulshadow had dropped. Then he turned and reached for my hand, lifting me up and checking me for injuries. When he was satisfied that I was unharmed, we both directed our attention to at the ground where the object was relinquished. It was a small glass vial the size of a nail polish attached to a long necklace. It didn’t look like much. It wasn’t glittery or glowing, but whatever it was, Sage was stunned. He reached down and took it in hand, wholly consumed. I only saw some sort of gray liquid.
“Tears of God.”
A whooshing sound came from overhead and something hot and bright dropped down in front of us at the edge of the field. It was a lava-like fire, and it splashed high and wide, nearly spraying out at us. Sage jerked me back and spun me around, racing back towards the interior. A black dragon – someone who wasn’t Ash – was burning the field at its borders and driving us back towards the crop circle.
Never none to miss out on a fight, Ash quickly evoed into a dragon with blue scales and shot off skyward. He tore into the black dragon with frightening fury, and when they clashed it emitted a cracking, terrible, ungodly kind of sound. I could feel the heaviness of them in the air over us, my heart pounding at the power and weight somehow suspended over our heads. At any moment, liquid fire could shower us and that would be the end of it all. As if the thought called the exact action to life, a bright, hot flash spread across my field of vision and with a cry, Sage gripped me tight and went full evo just in time to cover us from the thick vats of dragon fire raining
down. Sage and I tried to get away from the battle, but the damage was done. The immediate field around us caught flame and we were trapped in a small space of dry dirt. Seeing our predicament, Ash screeched and beat his gigantic wings to soar high in the air before curling into a ball. Incredibly, he turned down towards the black dragon still focused on us and became a missile of claw and muscle, slamming the unlucky creature from the sky.
The unexpected hit rendered it unconscious as he hurled to the earth in a ground-shaking thud. Fire drooled from the dragon’s open mouth before he automatically evoed back into a man, and it spread quickly across the field. Finding a path through the devastation, Sage led us a safe enough distance from the edges of the blaze, but it was getting harder to breathe.
“Cover your mouth,” Sage said, noticing my labored breathing.
I nodded, but my eyes were starting to burn and my hand only got as far as my mouth to cover my coughing. He started to pull my scarf up over my nose and about then, Tom and Mika came running up through the pillars of smoke crowding the air.
“They’re everywhere, Sage,” Tom said.
“We’re surrounded,” Mika added.
Ash went evo midair and landed on his feet. Even his breath was ragged, his chin quivering. He pulled on his pants behind some wheat while everyone stared at each other. I wondered what no one was saying. Then Sage gave voice to it.
“He’s here.”
37
Everyone turned slowly, carefully.
Sage took me behind him before I could even look. It was the only thing done with speed. I hid there, my fingers gripping deep into his sides, hoping, praying, coughing. He was soaked in sweat, so my cheek stuck to the warm muscles tensing through his cotton t-shirt.
I cowered into his comforting strength and it felt a little safer there. I watched as the guys moved closer together before peeking out the side of Sage’s arm – and I saw a fallen angel.
Rami.
They were right. Once you see one, you just know. As if obeying him, the smoke billowed back away from us all as he came forward, clearing the air entirely. I could breathe easily again, but I held my breath because I couldn’t stop staring at the creature who’d been hunting me. He looked nothing like the figure I had in the back of my mind. The way they talked about him – the timid respect mixed with deep-seated disgust – he should have been an evil-looking monster.
I guess I expected a menacing-looking man dressed all in black robes or something, but he looked nothing like that. I expected black, moldy wings, honestly. I expected everything but what I saw – a display of beauty and power in the way he held himself.
There was nothing about him that suggested he was malicious or even inhuman. Looked to be in his mid-to-late thirties. He was tall and wiry, built purely of lean muscle. He stopped some distance from us, searching each face around with a focused brow.
His eyes were a friendly set, not filled with the hardened black pearls of ice I thought he should have. There is no way to describe the color, but it’s safe to say that they don’t make it on earth. I lingered too long at them and my curiosity betrayed me. Like a beacon, it drew his gaze until I was the only thing in it.
The colorless eyes widened slightly and then fixated. It should have intimidated me. It should have terrified me. Instead, it made my clasp on Sage loosen. All at once, I felt an overwhelming need to get nearer. It was like stumbling on something undiscovered in the wild, something you had to get closer to and touch if you could. It was bewitching, and I needed to be nearer to him.
I scanned his features, imagining them against my skin. I was ashamed of the thoughts I found stirring. I was grateful that he looked nothing like Sage. But then again, I didn’t think he would. The Grigori were true shape shifters. I doubted Rami wanted to look like the son he loathed anymore than I wanted to be reminded of Sage every time he…would kiss me? Oh God! I was going to let this demon kiss me? My chest felt like it was hollow, yet heavy, so heavy. The pain was searing deep and fanning out into all my muscles. I needed to breathe.
I forgot to breathe?
I gasped just as black spots dotted my vision. Shaking my head, I tried to break the lock he had on me. I couldn’t understand. How could I be attracted to the creature threatening Sage’s life and seeking to bind me in supernatural slavery?
I was aware of my weakness then more that I had even been. It was a double-sided comfort knowing it was a spell of sorts that had me feeling that way. They weren’t true feelings, but what chance did I have against the type of magic that could ply my will with no effort?
I felt like I was lifting off the ground and no matter how I tried running in place to touch a single toe back down, I was lifting higher and higher. My heart and my mind, everything was bending towards him. I knew I’d have to go to him or I’d shatter like glass. Something in my soul would break, like we were supposed to be together no matter what.
While he was attractively misleading, I couldn’t deny there was darkness to his presence. Standing near him felt like standing up against a closed door with something terrible on the other side. There was no way to know when the door would burst open and the creature lurking behind would fill its space.
“Hello, my love,” he said, tilting his head.
His voice harmonized with the rest of him. It was the perfect depth and dialect; it vibrated sweetly in my ears and churned my maddening blood, bringing it rushing to the surface in a furious, delirious flush. I felt deep and hot, flustered like I’d been caught doing something only done in private.
“H-hello.”
It twisted half a smile on his lips, revealing fangs. Fangs that didn’t retract.
“Don’t talk to him, Talor,” Sage barked.
When Sage spoke, Rami’s eyes narrowed. The whole band seemed to tense up in a single breath. I knew the danger in facing off against a Grigori. They couldn’t be killed. Rami wasn’t even acting threatening, but he could kill us all in seconds. I moved my fingers from Sage’s back to his arm. I was shocked to find it shaking. He was trying hard to control it, but he was trembling. Sage was never afraid. It set me into a quiet panic.
“Free her and I’ll go with you,” Sage offered, a nervous tremble finding his vocal chords and hanging on.
Rami’s thick brow drew together.
“I am not here to make a deal.”
“What about the others? Would they agree to you taking her over me?”
Rami shifted his weight to take a step. Just one. But the band reacted as if he was charging them. They circled around Sage in a defensive posture, everyone glowing to evo on high alert. I retreated behind Sage, my eyes closed tight this time. I tried to pray, but the thoughts were everywhere.
I couldn’t catch enough of them to form a sentence to send God. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure that it would have mattered. I didn’t know where God fit in everything happening to me, or even if he cared. All I knew was that Sage’s sacrificial offer was refused. The only plan B we had failed.
Rami, while unthreatening at the moment, might not have much patience. I could walk away with him and leave them all behind alive. Or, I could continue clinging to Sage and get them all killed. Finding my courage, I opened my eyes. Taking in a deep breath, I looked out from behind him again.
“Why do I feel –”
Sage stopped me, whirling around and putting his forehead against mine.
“Don’t talk to him, Talor. Don’t talk to him. Just look at me. Please,” he begged.
I nodded, resting my hands on Sage’s chest. I could feel his heart raging inside him. It scared me that he was so unlike himself.
“Why do I feel like I know you?” I asked.
“Because we belong to one another,” Rami replied.
Sage glared at Rami over his shoulder.
“She doesn’t belong to you. She doesn’t belong to anyone.”
“I have come for my wife.”
Sage shook his head, unwilling to par
t with a single inch of my flesh. While he clung to me, I came to terms with the ugly truth. I did want to go to Rami. I was sure I was going mad. It was almost as if Sage knew that. His loving hug turned into a painful hold.
“Why won’t you just take me?” Sage groaned.
Tom touched his shoulder, but Sage didn’t pay him any attention. He was gripping me the way a child does their favorite puppy from the litter just before someone takes it away to a new home. His hands were nearly white with the strain. The hug hurt, but I bore it because I knew Sage was floundering inside, breaking. I knew if I took a deep breath, I might shatter our fragile shell. Tom tried to reason with him again.
“Ella está en el dolor,” he murmured, gesturing to the distressing signs of his embrace.
“I will not say it again,” Rami said.
When I looked up at Sage, I could see tears streaming down his face. He loosened his grip a little, but he didn’t want to let go anymore than I wanted him to. I needed to make him feel better. He was always making me feel better, always healing my wounds. But when the tables were flipped, I was helpless. Sheer panic set in when I realized then that I might never see him again.
“Tell me what to do. Sage, tell me what to do. Will you be able to find me where he takes me?”
I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was hurried and frantic, hushed and wavering. Sage couldn’t answer me. He could barely lift his head from leaning against mine. He just whimpered and cried, trying to contain his pain and quiet it down. When he found the strength, he planted a quivering kiss on my forehead. He lifted my chin and paused before kissing my lips. He whispered something strange. Although I didn’t understand, the words calmed me.
“What did you say?” I asked, focusing on his lips.
“Just that I love you,” he said, our eyes catching.
I thought I knew pain. Everything that I’d been through until that point in time had served me only as a fire poker to my soul, merciless and cruel as it continued to stab, weakening and bleeding me until I had a hole for a heart. Pain was a companion, a friend of sorts.