Anthony met his eyes, even more anxious than before, and he went on.
“When you were talking and joking with Andrew just a few minutes ago, I was watching her. I swear to God it looked like she wanted to throw her arms around you and mack you down right then and there in front of me and your friend. It was almost like she didn’t care who was watching. I think she was about a half-second from doing so when she caught herself and brought up the whole breakfast thing to throw her mind off track.”
Anthony eyes bulged. He giggled nervously. “Yeah right!” he blurted in exasperated chagrin.
“You think I’m lying, but I’m not,” pleaded Jason, putting his palms up and to either side of him in placation. “If you had turned around real quick and seen the look on her face, you would’ve known too…” He gestured with his index finger at the other boy. “…and you have felt hella awkward too. Shit, I did and her look wasn’t even directed at me. She looked like a pale she-wolf ready to pounce on her prey.”
“Come on, man, stop playin’. Why would a good looking babe like that want to date a guy like me?” asked Anthony as if the question itself was the answer.
“You got me on that one, dude. I think only she can answer that question for you, but make no mistake when I tell you. I will even say it again if it makes you start to believe – she likes you, Anthony. I mean she really, really likes you.” Jason mirrored the way the other teen was sitting, bringing their heads closer together. “You should just come out straight and ask her, bro, don’t waste any time. Go for it, hell, I would,” he added assessing the situation with a frank expression on his face. “She is, Anthony, probably the hottest chick I have ever laid eyes on.”
Anthony replied almost immediately, his voice pitched higher than usual. “That’s my point, Jason, she is the finest girl I have ever seen too. So, why in holy hell would she want to kick it with someone like me? I mean, why not Joaquin? He’s the one built like a mountain. Or anyone of you guys for that matter. I’m just a skinny dude who hangs out with a bunch of musicians and plays online games all day. What could she possibly want with a guy like me? What do we have in common that would attract her to me? My killer looks – not!; my chiseled body – double not! Or maybe it is my irresistible charm?
“You see,” he was almost pleading now. “What does a guy like me have to offer a total babe like that? I mean, she could have us all dangling on our tiptoes like a bunch of puppets if she wanted to, so why would she settle on me, especially since we’ve only known each other for a few days. There’s no way, dude. There is no way.” Anthony shook his head, resigned to the thought.
Jason did the same only for a different reason. “You are way off, my man. I mean waaaay off.” He shook his head. “I guess you don’t know me well enough to trust me at my word on something as delicate as this, but if you did know me well enough and I told you she likes you as emphatically as I am telling you now, you’d believe me in a second.” Jason had never felt as certain about something as he felt about this – Sophie liked Anthony. There was no doubt about it.
His eyes strayed over toward Andrew who had come back from the stack of wood, his arms loaded with small and medium sized logs for the fire. He immediately began forming into a tee-pee-like structure in order to build up the blaze for Sophie to use to make their breakfast.
From the other side of the fire pit, Jason noticed Joaquin rise from the bed he’d shared with him, Andrew and Louis. The hulking teen begin to make his way toward the privy crack, dragging his feet as he went. Jason turned his attention back toward Andrew as the other teen sat down on an adjacent log and began poking at the fire with a long, Barbeque-sized fork. He was flattening out the red coals so the heat was evenly distributed throughout the fire pit.
At his side, Anthony suddenly chuffed in disgust, apparently still mulling over what Jason had told him, not believing what he’d been told.
“You know, Anthony, there is something else about you that’s pretty cool too. Something absolutely no other dude on earth possesses, something truly wonderful,” said Jason, egging him on with this new thought the moment it popped into his head.
Anthony gave off a derisive exhalation of air. “And what might that be, Jason, I’m just a fairly average guy…”
“That may be true, my friend, but still there is something more about you setting you above all others, even all of us guys here…” Jason paused, wondering if Anthony could divine what he was getting at, but the teenage boy just shook he head in confusion. “You are the Kring-Hël, dumb ass! Don’t you think that might have some bearing on how the girl might view you? Don’t you think knowing there is an extremely special Gift within you, just might make you alluring, even mysterious to her? I mean what chick wouldn’t want to find out more about the man destined to save the world, let alone three. You’re like chocolate to her, man, can’t you see?”
Anthony just stared back at him, not afraid of what Jason was saying, but of the prospect he might be speaking the truth after all. Jason could see the questions firing off behind his eyes repeatedly.
What do I do if she likes me? What do I do if she likes me? What do I do if she likes me?
He smiled in spite of himself, knowing his words were finally beginning to sink in.
“I don’t think the fact he’s the Kring-Hël factors all that much into it, Jay. Sophie would still be crazy for the dude either way, because she has fallen for him, and fallen for him hard,” uttered Andrew calmly from his seated position, still stoking the fire, which had already grown twice its’ former intensity.
Jason was still gazing into Anthony’s eyes when Andrew spoke and watched the expression on his face change. It was a new day was dawning across the entire expanse of his visage. His eyes widened, his lips parting in shock, his breathing stopped.
“You both think she likes me?” Anthony exploded with impossible hope, his voice two octaves higher than it should’ve been. His whole body went rigid with joyous fright.
“I have no doubt in my mind,” replied Jason as he glanced over at Andrew who was nodding, muttering a quiet “yup”, though he didn’t look toward them. He was concentrating on the fire.
“But why?” said the teen, his voice nearly cracking.
“Because she does, Tony,” began Andrew, tapping at some of the older logs, making them crumbled into more red-hot coals. “It’s just nature running its course. She likes you. And, what makes it better, is it’s quite obvious you like her. Why fight it?” He clucked the rough of his mouth. “Bro, I know you’re just dying to have her in your arms. I can tell. I’ve known you for a long time. I’ve never seen you pine after a girl as you do with her. Just let it happen… chances are, you’ll enjoy yourself.”
Jason laughed at that, shaking his head at Andrew’s uncanny ability to make everything seem crude with the slightest amount of effort. He was a master.
Then, he looked at Anthony once more and saw the other boy appeared panicked out of his mind. For a moment he was taken aback, uncertain of how to react, but the hilarity of Anthony’s face began to wear his ability to resist. He could do nothing else but let his smile broaden, more and more, until he couldn’t contain himself. He began to laugh out loud.
“Anthony, you look like you’ve just laid eyes on the undead,” he comment through barking guffaws.
Anthony just stared back at him blankly, oblivious to everything around him.
“Look at him!” exclaimed Andrew.
Jason continued laughing.
“What the hell did you do to him? You tell him the Walking Dead was real?” asked the boy, staring at the two of them, his hand still extended toward the fire.
“It wasn’t me, homeboy. You were the one saying how much he’d enjoy himself,” countered Jason still unable to stop jiggling with mirth.
“He’s freakin’ comatose!”
Jason waved his hand before Anthony’s eyes. “You okay in there?’ he asked through his ridiculously huge grin.
Anthony seemed to s
hake briefly. His eyes focused and appeared to be himself once again. His brown irises sought Jason’s darker ones. “She likes me…?” he mumbled as if his lips were too heavy for them to move properly.
Jason nodded, raising his eyebrows. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, remember?”
Anthony blinked a few times, gazing back at Jason uncertain, a tinge bit fearful. “What do I do now…?”
From behind them, Andrew let out an incensed sigh. “Dude, what the hell do you think? You ask her out and jola! You have a girlfriend.”
Anthony glanced at his longtime friend and then back to Jason. “Really?”
“Yeah, my man, that’s about it,” he answered with a shake of his head.
Anthony swallowed and sat up straighter. He arched his back and stretched out his arms. He inhaled and exhaled through his nose obstreperously a few times, staring into the fire, transfixed with thought.
“Dude, it’s not like you haven’t asked a girl out before,” supplied Andrew indignantly.
“Yeah, but I’ve never asked anyone like Sophie before,” he stated as a matter of fact.
Even Jason had to nod in agreement.
“Ask Sophie what?” interrupted Joaquin, having finished relieving himself and was now on his way to wash-up, carrying the necessary paraphernalia within one of his large hands, a hand towel draped over one shoulder.
Jason peered up at his large friend. “Out.”
“Out! Are you freakin’ crazy, there’s a freakin’ blizzard blowing like mad outside!” admonished the other disdainfully.
“Not out there, dipstick, we’re talking ‘out’. ‘Out’ out, if you get my meaning,” clarified Jason with a thin smile on his lips.
Joaquin was frowning at Jason as if he had sprouted a second nose, then the cast of his face altered abruptly. “Oh, you mean ‘out’ out.” He fell silent, in thought. “Damn, Sophie Reed… asking her out… oh, man… that’s like… wow… Jeez…” He trailed off with everyone looking at him askance, skeptical looks on their faces. He had clearly lost his mind.
He didn’t seem to notice and looked down at Anthony directly. “Never hurts to cast out that line, Anthony. It never hurts.” With that, he walked off to brush his teeth and wash his face.
“I sure hope it doesn’t,” said Anthony after his retreating form.
“It won’t!”
Jason couldn’t tell if he or Andrew had said it first.
~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~
~ 72 ~
An Unsettling Disturbance
Day Three, Saturday, 9:37 am…
He stood before the tent of the Lord of the Host, the Snowman’s Hand and Crown Prince of the Vülfen Kur Ambalaj, waiting upon the pleasure of Fenris dok Kór in the blinding cold that should’ve frozen him to the core. It didn’t, though. The chill he felt in the deep recesses of his gut was far more icy, forever more disconcerting than the mere frigidity of a blizzard. Weather of this sort was nothing when compared to the tumult of his thoughts. The very prospect of what might be occurring out there in this ever-changing landscape called, the Construct, had chilled him to the core. This place was supposed to be the grand masterpiece of their divine master, the Great Maelstrom. In this place they were supposed to have complete control, a realm of penultimate dominion of Storm, and yet…
Something was wrong. Something was inexorably corrupt about this plane. He could feel it in his marrow. Something was off.
He could feel her presence in his mind much as he had for more than six centuries. He could track and follow her movements as deftly as he could sense her emotions and thoughts. He could still project himself into any one of her senses and feel or taste or smell whatever she felt or tasted or smelt, but that wasn’t the problem. All of that was simply child’s play when weighed against the exertion of his will. Anything other than his absolute control over her could spell ruination for the lot of them, for even the tiniest babe was well aware an untamed Nixy spelled nothing short of doom.
As horrid as that statement might appear, the truth of what he faced here was by far much worse. The potential hell a Nixy of her age, her experience, her power, could unleash was so incredible, it was beyond his ability to imagine. Prēosts weren’t very left-brain, but he knew Inghëldir running amok could be catastrophic.
She was the mother, no!, the grandmother of all grandmothers her ilk. She so ancient she had been considered a relic five hundred years ago. The devastation she could work in the Melded World might very well result in their utter and total failure here. It could spell the end of their entire cause. The will of the Lord of the Storm would be thwarted. The Grand Design would fail.
Where would that leave him? Dismemberment, death, or one hundred years within the vile hands of the Sanctus Magnus and his demons of torture, was this to be his fate? Is this the road I am fated to tread? Is this the ironic ending I was fated to live after so many years of prosperity and wealth? By the Storm Lord’s horned prick, how were you able to escape me!
He fought to gain control of his rampaging thoughts, pulling at his soiled black robe. It kept unfolding. He struggled to keep the coif of his hood secured. He turned away from the screaming wind and, for the umpteenth time, fixed the garment squarely upon his head.
He stood near the center of a large clearing nestled up in the hills from where the Twelve were rumored to have lived. Their sprawling camp was within a bowl-like valley copied to the last rock from the World of Man, there it was known as Chavez Ravine. Here, though, it had been claimed by the Host and formally named, the Encampment. It would become the local Seat of Power. When it was completed it would consist of a fort with a double palisade, shallow moat, and a medium sized castle. One, Fenris’ beloved Hross were laboring day and night to transmute from Storm.
At the moment, nonetheless, all construction on the fort had been suspended to due to the weather. So, all standing about him was tents and crude lean-to’s pitched this way and that, half buried in the snow, many of them glowing from within. Their various occupants were trying to stay warm by whatever means. Above him, the storm raged as it had been for some time now. It was the second “marker” of three designating the true melding of the World of Man with the World of Storm, each part representing an ever-greater solidification of this plane of existence and the overall permanence of this fourth and final universe.
The storm itself was a physical byproduct of two separate laws of physics, two different alignments of the elements, a dichotomy of climates, etc., etc., etc. - all of them vying for dominance over the other. Over time, a degree of equilibrium would forever form this final place and things would settle. Everything would calm down.
Or, so it had been postulated.
Now, it was this new balance being struck that was beginning to worry him, had him on the verge of insane fear. If the line demarking his degree of control over his Nixy fell any farther from where it was drawn in the blackened snow of Storm, he might very well lose control of his pet. She was his sweet, ageless plaything - the source of his power, the vessel of his lust, and the creature he wanted nothing more than to torture to a very edge of death, endlessly.
I cannot lose her now! I need her, Light be damned! She is such sweet flesh to poke, such a terrific wellspring of scream and terror, such… Curse it all, I do not want another!
The heavy flaps of the entrance to the large tent serving as the shelter for the Snowman’s Hand opened of a sudden. A pair of Swüreg officers emerged shouting at each other, each bellow a futile attempt at being heard over the constant shriek of the wind. Vallüm, Fleshmaster and Chief Prēost of the Host, glared balefully in their direction, wondering if either one of the gray-skinned warriors would take note of him. They did not. They kept on walking, shouting back and forth, each of them shaking their heads when they couldn’t make out what the other was saying. The expectant cast of his face, turned to hate as he watched them dissolve before his eye, the storm slowly consuming them until they were nigh invisible. Yet anoth
er pair of mindless dolts, he seethed quietly, though he could’ve shouted it at the tops of lungs and still no one would have heard him.
“Vallüm!” came his name upon the wind.
He froze for a second thinking it had come from within his mind. Is she calling for me? Has she finally come to her senses and decided being with me is best? Does she wish for a quick romp? We can always use this pure snow as a bed… Nothing looked more divine than a piddle or two of blood splashed and squirted about a pristine array of the spectacularly white precipitation, nothing. Ah, just the thought of spilling his seed into –.
“Vallüm, you filthy cur, I am calling on you!”
This wasn’t his precious Inghëldir speaking to him. This was someone much different, though expected. The tiny Prēost turned back into the wind and saw Fenris’ angry face sticking out from the tent, his fangs bared menacingly, his eyes dancing with murder.
“Attend me, you rancid sack!” and then he was gone, seemingly unwilling to spend much more than a few seconds in the biting wind.
Vallüm felt a long, thin grin etch across his face. It was funny to him that of the six ruling races of Storm, it was the Vülfen who were the most susceptible to the cold. Whereas he - though he had long forgotten what race he’d once belonged - could stand in cold like this for days and not be in the least bit affected. Ah well, though, a Vülfen isn’t too far removed from a wolf and a wolf isn’t too far removed from a dog, he mused. Don’t dogs eat their own shit…? He chuckled to himself as he moved through the storm and entered the Hand’s domain.
This tent was much larger and much sturdier than the first one Fenris dok Kór had occupied when they’d first Rent the World of Man and entered this Melded one. It was outfitted much more to the liking of the Crown Prince as well. No longer was there a mere pile of furs and hides within which Fenris must sleep. Now, there was a bed of decent sized, stuffed with the finest, downy hair of human infants as well as an ornate set of oil lamps, polished to a high sheen, their flickering wicks sending the shadows this way and that. Try as he might to banish the cold, there were still errant currents of air moving about the heavy canvassed chamber.
The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves Page 65