Evanescent

by Carlyle Labuschagne

  “What?” he mumbled, his hand stroking all life back into my skin.

  I looked up. The smell of blood, sweat, ash and metal was all over him, but he still tasted good when I lay my lips on his. I felt myself weaken as his naked torso pressed against mine, but our kiss didn’t last. He pulled back, midnight eyes staring into me and through me with the same perplexed expression as before. We peeled away from each other.

  “Dad.” He nodded.

  “Son.”

  “Perfect timing, thanks.” Troy extended his hand.

  Kronan stood firmly, his black, cropped hair a mess, his denims torn, his arms folded over his tattered and torn purple kaftan.

  My eyes narrowed on him. I hadn’t noticed he’d had his hair cut as he’d worn his hoodie up earlier.

  “You could have killed yourself!” The authority in his voice left me shocked. Kronan never lost his cool, but then again, Troy was his only son.

  “Not likely, Dad.” Troy flashed a self-assured grin.

  “You’re no God, Troy.”

  Troy kept his lopsided grin. “Only time can tell for sure.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Besides, Ava won’t let anything happen to me.” He smiled.

  I swallowed. It was hard keeping myself composed but for him, I was capable of anything.

  Troy hugged me tighter, holding a hand out to his father. Kronan took his purple robe off, and handed Troy a black shirt from beneath it.

  “Here, put this on,” he said to me, his eyes falling on my hot-pants and torn shirt.

  I felt myself blush with embarrassment. In all the anarchy, I had grabbed nothing at all to cover myself. I half smiled at Troy; embarrassed was putting it mildly.

  “Not appropriate battle wear,” he joked.

  I gasped. “Where is Maya!”

  I pulled the black, torn shirt over my head.

  “She is in a secure location.” Kronan’s words were meant to appease me.

  “No!” I pushed Troy off, but before I could tell him anything, Greg, Shane and Dave, came running down a narrow corridor where flames were dying, turning droid flesh to ash.

  “Oh good, you’re all okay, I see,” Dave choked through a fit of coughs.

  “You okay there, Dave?” Troy asked, patting him on the back.

  “Bastards!” Dave spat through all the panting.

  “Too much of the general’s steaks,” Greg joked, and laughed goofily motioning to David.

  “Where’s Robert?” Troy asked.

  “With the girls,” Shane confessed, his blue eyes glimmering in the low light emitting from the receding flames.

  “Typical,” Troy said, rolling eyes.

  “Damage?” he asked, wiping his damp hair back.

  “Extensive,” Dave answered, staring up at the slight drizzle.

  “Casualties?”

  “Too many to confirm.”

  There was an awkward silence between the boys.

  Troy glared at David. “The general?”

  “Bad.” Dave shook his head in despair.

  “You should go, I’ll be fine,” I told him.

  “Dad?”

  “Go, Son.” Kronan grabbed Troy’s shoulder. “I’ll take good care of her.”

  “I know you will.” It was not a statement, but a demand.

  They hugged, Troy bent down to give me the slightest peck on the cheek, and they turned walking past a grave of dying cinders. The wind blew a tunnel into the smoke as I watched Troy walk off, slight curls of smoke licking the darkness around them. My eyes glued to the skin on his back, cuts and bruises had started healing the further away he got from me. The drizzle had started washing dirt, blood and ichor from his skin. My chest ached a bitter cold that spread into my arms and hands but when I flexed my fingers a few times, the numbness slowly crawled back, settling over my skin. The pain in my leg faded. I frowned in frustration, and tried to inspect my injured leg.

  “Are you okay?” Anaya asked, making her way over to us.

  “I’ll be fine. My body seems to take things very well.”

  I looked up at a staring Kronan, eagle eyes watching me.

  “You are different,” he stated as he studied me.

  I held a straight face. “I know.”

  His hand stroked his chin. I pulled my hair over my neck, burying the evidence of my earlier tattoo discovery. My eyes fell to the ground, feeling the connection to those beings, the ache and pull was undeniable, trying to tear its way through. I shook the thoughts from my mind. I couldn’t trust my thoughts if they came from the Shadow side – it would do anything to betray me, to get the one thing it needed, and it was my fault it had discovered its next target. I had used my blood-shift to protect Troy, and the results were astounding. It wanted more of the power, the emotion that triggered it; it sought the cause of the potent, fervent trigger – Troy.

  “The Council knew of our deceit, we were exposed,” Anaya said solemnly, upon watching me studying Kronan free of Minoan robes and long hair. I turned my back and walked a few steps through scattered debris. Flakes of ash and black slivers of soot rained down on the entire city, turning it into black mush from the drizzle. Our lives were ashes to the wind in the wake of a devastated landscape, pushed into black, muddy ground as time burned on. The anger left a vicious taste in my mouth. I swallowed the guilt, remembering what Enoch had said before – guilt curdles inside and makes the disease that much stronger, but the pain and disappointment clung to my chest, a heavy suffocating smoke when I felt the second wave of revenge hitting me, planting itself inside my fibers. Whoever had done this to us, to the city and to my friends, was going to suffer everything we had been dealt, a hundred times over. A hurricane of thoughts cut through me, memories twisted before me in wild, overflowing flashes, uprooting forgotten pangs of the dark and dangerous. I was beginning to suspect what I was, but the name dangled from the tip of my tongue, the knowledge hanging on the very edge of my mind, holding back, hovering until the time was right.

  I caught Queen Thandiwe’s incensed gaze as it raked over the broken land, her beads on her ankles clattered as she kicked debris around out of frustration. Her naked feet crunched over metal splinters and sharp edges like it was nothing to her. I envied the pregnant Zulu queen who followed her troops into the midst of a dangerous battle. She might just have been as insane as the rest of us, or she was one epically strong young woman.

  I walked over to her casually, feeling it, too; the gloom and horror lingered like the thick clouds hovering over us. Smells cut through ashy smoke above the inky stink, and from the acid fireballs slowly dying out, I was brought out of my reverie when I heard a soft unmistakable hum.

  “Move!” I ran toward Thandiwe, knocked her off her feet and onto the ground as a loud bang reverberated, the ground shaking in its stir – smoke and flames engulfed us. I grabbed her shoulders while we rolled through debris and dust, eventually coming to a stop. I suddenly remembered the baby bump, sat up abruptly and stroked her arm.

  “Is everyone okay?” Kronan’s voice came through the loud buzz in my ear. Shaking my head, trying to get rid of the sharp ring inside my head, I nodded. Willard ran to us and helped Thandiwe to her feet as her breath left her in sharp, ragged wisps.

  “Are you okay?” I sat in the black mud, wiping my hands clean on the borrowed black shirt. Shaking my hair out, I stood and made sure the tattoo on my neck was still concealed from those around me.

  Willard looked around, sword extended defensively. “These things have some sort of self-destruct mechan…”

  “I know,” I cut him off.

  “What has he done?” I heard Thandiwe wail.

  She stood with her hand over her stomach, the other over her mouth trying to hold herself together. I gave myself the once-over as I could not feel pain, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t hurt.

  “No more than what he has become,” I said, my eyes not meeting anyone’s, instead remaining glued to the scene around us.

  Her head snapped up, and I took
a step back.

  “We have to stop him.”

  Her words were like raw honey, sweet and delightfully potent.

  “Plans?” I asked her.

  “Many,” she said, smiling wickedly.

  “What are they?” I heard a voice say from behind us.

  It was Rion, his bow aimed at anything that dared to move.

  “Androids,” I answered, confidently.

  “They are disgusting,” he said, kicking at one’s head, only to jump back with a limp, almost dropping his bow and arrow in surprise at how hard the droids appendage actually was.

  “Indeed,” Kronan agreed bluntly.

  The Zulu warriors pulled the bodies together, and Kronan said what I thought might be a prayer before his hand lit up and shot a ball of white fire at the heap of deadly android parts. Anaya chanted into the flame, almost as if to increase its intensity, causing the impenetrable metal to melt. A river of gold streaked across the seething earth, cutting into black soot, shimmering all the way down to the embankment toward the forest. Smoke came off dark and stank of chemicals, metal, and then rotten flesh.

  “Kronan?” My eyes flashed to him at the acrid smell.

  He nodded. “It would appear they are somewhat human, or at least parts of them are.”

  I watched as discontent colored Anaya’s face a pale pallor of penitence.

  “The doom he has brought unto others will be short-lived,” I promised anyone who listened.

  “This is a sad day,” Anaya said, head hung low, twirling turquoise beads around her wrist.

  Were the androids the creatures I saw in those tubes, did they have any thoughts of their own? Or were they programmed with basic instructions, not able to falter from their command code? I knew they held my disease within their blood, I sensed it, it was what made them so fierce, adaptable and very hard to kill. But the scary thing was as much as they were a part of me, I was a part of them, and that was how I drew more from the dark powers earlier.

  I never noticed Kronan’s hand on my shoulder. “They are bred for this purpose only.”

  “When we think we know someone, we don’t know them at all,” Willard sniggered from behind me. He was obviously talking about Enoch; he’d been their warrior leader, a mentor, a brother, and once a son to the Minoans.

  The crackle of dying flames resonated behind us as we headed through the rubble and into the small path that lead to the Minoan village. Anaya draped the gray cloak over me. Clasping it, I drew the hood over my head, hiding from the horrible reality of what had transpired, of the poison inflicted upon Poseidon and its people. I brought the Shadowing disease to their planet, and like a virus it would soon eat its way through the very core.

  “Is this a confirmation that the Council is working with Enoch?” I asked, remembering the calm faces Kim and the other Keepers showed as they sat idly by and watched the city go up in flames.

  Kronan shook his head. “My girl, all I can say, is this is way worse than I ever imagined it to be. There is more at work here than just your Council.”

  The six of us walked ahead through the city, smoldering dust and ash had started to settle and seep into the black mud. All that remained was the Council’s glass tower dominating over the ruins of Vista, a sick reminder of them watching and forever controlling. I never knew my worst fears would ever have been met, that my mother’s crazy rantings in those journals were premonitions. Or, had this happened before? Was this how Earth had finally given in? Was this how World War III had started – the exact same way? The battle between control and power. I didn’t want to imagine the millions of lives and souls lost. Something in the singed tree above caught my eye. I would never have seen it before if it were not for the wires that had burned, the bright colors standing out against the blackened tree stump. I narrowed my eyes on the camera. Tatos knew in an instant what I was up to, and shot and arrow right into the camera’s tiny eye. Willard followed suit, each and every camera after that was shot with arrows and followed with chuckles of self-complacency.

  “Where is everyone? Where will those we were able to retrieve, go?” I asked.

  “We have a secure location for Sam, and others lucky enough to have been rescued by our special forces.”

  I shot Kronan a look. “You mean…”

  “Yes, we have been planning a raid on the city. Unfortunately, it was much sooner than we ever hoped and our base is nowhere near adequate. But we made do just fine. Sam and the others will be safe,” Kronan assured me.

  I looked down at our feet, boots sank into wet ground, the glow of fires dying out far behind us. The soft and slow droning of Zulu warriors’ footsteps echoed throughout the night.

  “You are a year out?”

  Kronan looked at me silently, as if to say, how did I know?

  “Well, I changed a year early.” I half smiled.

  He nodded.

  “But I guess the Council found out somehow – is this why they… Do you think they sent for Enoch’s army, because they found out their own army was working against them?”

  “Yes, they found out somehow.”

  “And the droids are Enoch’s doing indeed,” said Tatos, staring into the dark above.

  “I don’t know why, or how they are working together,” Anaya added. But she knew, it was just that she didn’t want to accept it – any of it. His betrayal, his change, that all along one of their own had been the very enemy the prophecy had warned them about.

  The forest darkened over the hill, leaving a blazing city to eat itself up, our heavy soles clattered over the wooden bridge, water from the overflowing river rushed and fell over into the ravine with a loud gush as we headed to Pearl Beach. We crossed the Minoan market place; empty stalls and singing wind chimes our only welcome. We said our goodbyes to Thandiwe and her crew of Zulu warriors. Mist fogged over the water, dark clouds hovered above us causing shadows to dance over the water, breaking the moons’ reflections into a million scattered pieces, like a golden tint over black, inky waters. My cloak flapped in the wind as we watched them climb into the beached canoes, and slowly they all started to drift into the silence of the ocean. Strong waves knocked against the canoes, over and over again as they made their way into deeper waters. I wondered why they did not use the route behind Arriana’s cottage. The memory was a distant numbness, and I wondered if it really had happened. Was I hallucinating over our trip in the canoes down toward the Zulu village on the day of my kidnapping, the day I thought Troy had died? The memory slid from the dark sky above, dripping, glistening, slithering down to be swallowed by the dark ocean. It was the saddest, hardest day to take in. My seventeenth birthday had brought on the miraculous change – a change that had obliterated my life more than I knew. I will always associate my seventeenth with my fall from grace.

  “The river has overflowed, some of the banks have come in on themselves and some homes have been destroyed,” Kronan said, answering my thoughts about the secret river – way behind the cottage.

  I grit my teeth at his intrusion into my mind. We kept our eyes ahead on the slowly departing canoes, the glows of their torches shrinking until they looked like small fading stars.

  “So, it has indeed begun,” Tatos sighed.

  Anaya took my hand, but I reluctantly pulled it away from her. I need not have her in my thoughts all the time.

  She sighed. “I don’t know what’s going on, but your sister needs you.”

  “My sister tried to kill me.” I grappled at the memory.

  “Whatever is hidden, will soon be found.” Tatos came to stand beside us.

  I stared up at him, the moon lighting his beautiful features and drowning his golden skin in a blue haze. His turquoise eyes met the water as the moon stole through moving clouds.

  “That is what I am afraid of,” I whispered to myself, pulled my boots from my feet and walked into the slow push and pull of the water’s edge. Kronan’s black shirt hung well past my knees, the first to meet the spray of waves. The surf crashed in t
he distance, and I waited for the cool water to reach my skin. I watched as it touched my toes and washed over my feet. Still, I couldn’t feel the water as I remembered it to feel. I walked until water rushed onto my hips. The ocean’s roar, the breeze rushing past my ears, drowned out the noise inside my brain. Memories of a burning city rained down in black ash all around us. An orange glow emptied over the trees from the city and I was sure that by morning, the fire would have eaten through everything.

  “Tell me,” Anaya whispered, suddenly next to me.

  I took her hand. There was something real about being in the Minoan village, the protective spells, or perhaps it was just the ambiance of who the people were that lingered in the valley of the forgotten race.

  I squeezed her hand. “I can’t feel this.” I heard my voice break at my unexpected honesty.

  She looked at me suddenly. “Nothing?”

  “Only him.” I stared out over the dark ocean wall and into the far distance, fractions of light danced and fell from the edge of the darkest horizon, every now and then the orange torches from the canoes dotted the darkness, and then drowned beneath a wave as they headed out.

  “How long?” she asked silently.

  “Since I awoke in Enoch’s chamber.”

  “What else?” Her dark-brown hair streaked across her face as she kept her gaze ahead.

  I let her hand fall from mine.

  “I black out. I feel things, and remember things like they are not mine. I don’t know if they are of my own mind, or if they’ve been placed there.”

  “We have to take her to Legentium,” Kronan spoke from behind me.

  I turned. “Can I be fixed?”

  Kronan smiled, but I couldn’t tell in the dark – I felt it in my mind as he pushed it there for reassurance.

  Slowly, I felt the cold of the water, the smoothness of the waves over my skin, I heard his beat before he even spoke. “You are not broken,” he said, suddenly there, thigh deep in the water beside me.

  His hand trailed over my lower back, pulling me in to face him. He leaned his forehead against mine. “I can feel you,” I said to him as heat and pleasure erupted in delicious waves over me.