Bladed Wings

by Davis, Jarod

  Because she could die there. She might never see her parents again. Every thought about the future, about college, about marriage, or a career would get sliced away with one blade stab. That fear almost choked her. Kayla forced herself to breathe. She forced herself to think about Seth and the way she felt whenever they were together. Biting her lip, she made herself calm down. She looked back at Vigo.

  “Can you call for help?”

  “No one’s close enough. They’ll find us before any help could arrive. So we’ll have to fight.” He didn’t smirk, but Kayla still thought she heard something smug when he said, “You’ll get a choice, Miss Knack. You can fight and survive or let that body kill you. By the time we see him again, he’ll be gone. Accept it now. It’ll be easier that way.”

  Kayla inhaled just as she heard a crack outside, the crunch of boots on the ground. The door was kicked open again, a soldier stood there.

  “Don’t shoot.” Seth’s voice boomed over the beat of her heart and the click of Vigo’s gun, “Before you make a mistake, I suggest you hear me out. I have an offer of truce for you. Both of you.”

  Vigo didn’t shoot and the soldier made it all the way in. A moment later, Seth entered as well. He was the same guy with the same face and voice, yet he moved differently. He wore a different kind of sneer. It was filled with contempt for everything around him.

  It wasn’t Seth, not really. Those were his eyes, but he wasn’t there. Something inside of him had taken hold. Sasha had another demon’s body. She could survive now. She could kill now, with Seth’s hands. Kayla didn’t know what to do or even what she should want to do. She wanted to punish Sasha, but that body was gone, discarded like some piece of trash. Nothing, there was nothing Kayla could do.

  “What are your terms?” Kayla couldn’t believe Vigo would really negotiate, but it got her closer. The demon approached, head tilted.

  “I want a cessation of the hostilities between us.”

  “You know that’s never going to happen. Even if you kill me now, the Alliance will just send more agents to take you.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Sasha said with Seth’s throat. “This teenager evaded you for a very long time. I have access to his mind. Before this, I was very good at seizing control of human thoughts. Perhaps I’m even better now.” The threat lingered on the air as darkened blue and gray swirled together. It made Kayla sick to watch, but the demon just chuckled.

  “Try to control me. Let’s see how that works out.” Vigo leveled his gun at Seth’s face. “I feel the tickle of your thoughts in my head and I’ll blow yours away. You understand?”

  “Of course.”

  As the demon and hunter stared at each other, both waiting for leverage, gauging their opponents, Kayla skirted closer to Seth. Sasha noticed. With a thought, her two guards took their places in front of her like Kayla was a government-trained assassin, not just someone who wanted to be close to the boy she loved. “Stay there.”

  That was supposed to be the kind of intimidating command that sent Kayla scurrying back to the wall, balled in terror. But Kayla heard something else in that order. There was fear. Something about Kayla getting close made Sasha nervous.

  Kayla slowed down, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t know if she could time this right. She didn’t even know what she’d do if it worked, but she couldn’t let Vigo kill Seth, just like she couldn’t do nothing. Sasha would slice her open and enjoy it.

  “Stop or I’ll have them kill you. Don’t test me on this,” Sasha promised.

  Kayla didn’t stop.

  Sasha took a tentative step back, probably torn between showing weakness and letting Kayla close in. With a tightened nod, Sasha ordered Kayla’s death. It was silent, but their jerked motions for their blades was all the warning she needed.

  The force of the air was static, loose, reverberating between everything moving and alive. Kayla, with one sweep of her hands and consciousness, knotted them together and swung. A pulse of energy, the largest she’d ever created, burst among Sasha and her two guards. The two fighters in front of Sasha took the brunt of the shockwave. They smashed through the derelict garage’s walls. Crumpled heaps on the ground, they didn’t even twitch.

  Sasha’s supernatural heritage or distance protected her from Kayla’s blast. She shouted for the rest of her followers. Everyone tied to the Alliance, all of Vigo’s fighters, were there, all under her command. They rushed forward, but they weren’t fast enough.

  Kayla ran up to Seth’s body, and she grabbed him. She wrapped her arms around him and funneled her strength into him. She thought about him and felt him, pressed her thoughts on him. She didn’t have his abilities, but she remembered how it felt when he touched her mind. She called on those memories, all of those feelings he let her see, and she tried to rebuild those bridges. She pressed her lips against his, and she felt it.

  Seth was inside still. He fought and roared against the alien mind inside his head, but he needed help. Fighting on two fronts now, holding Kayla out and Seth in, Sasha started to ooze fear. But she still had talons, and she’d fight.

  Calling out to Seth, Kayla felt his thoughts. She felt him awaken and begin to break the bonds that held him in his body. She felt Seth, all of him, everything he was, even everything he tried to hide from her.

  Chapter 12: Past Prayers

  It was like touching someone when she didn’t have a body. It was like hearing sounds in her sleep or dreaming when she was awake. Everything was fast and distorted, slow and melted together. Time didn’t work the same way. It was like finding memories she always knew she had but never realized were there. By intuition or instinct, she knew she wasn’t there. She knew she didn’t see this happen, but the images funneled by anyway.

  She saw Seth. But it wasn’t the guy she knew. He was younger, maybe ten or eleven. His chin was touched with stubble, and he was a foot or two shorter. There was something else, Kayla realized. He looked at the world with more wonder, more awe, always curious and happy to discover everything new. He didn’t have the focused gaze of someone searching for enemies.

  Kayla reached out to touch him. Her fingers moved through the image. It was just an image, just a memory. Somehow that felt normal.

  When she followed his gaze out the car window, she saw snow and trees. His parents were in the front seats and music streamed from the speakers. His sister was asleep. The big brother in him wanted to tease her, but it was too late for a fight. Sitting and daydreaming felt like a better idea. He bobbed his head to the vibrations as he watched the world go by. This was Truckee, the little snow covered town and only place where he could throw snowballs with his family. They came here every Christmas, one of those family traditions that marked time.

  Everyone in the car was quiet, ready to go home. Heat nibbled through the cold. In a few minutes, Seth might doze into sleep. It would feel nice like everything else that day. The rhythm of music and the road hummed together, a relaxed choir. Kayla watched him fall asleep, but the memory was tinged with something else.

  On instinct, she reached out and braced her arms against the door and the seat in front of her. Something sank inside of her. She didn’t call out. It wouldn’t have mattered. They couldn’t hear her. She didn’t even think about it.

  Seth’s eyes shot open when he heard the screech of a siren. He spun around to see a patrol scream by his dad’s car. Seth spun around in time to see the bearded driver. Reddish brown hair covered his face. He had a shotgun in the front seat and a palm tree deodorizer dangled from his rearview mirror. They didn’t stay on the road. His dad jerked the wheel, surprised when he saw something shoot out of his peripheral vision. Seth didn’t shout either, his voice frozen in his throat.

  Light and color blurred as the car shot off the road. It crashed through the barrier to the right. Seth slammed his eyes shut, everything black, as momentum folded his stomach in on itself. There might’ve been sounds, but he didn’t remember them.

  When the world crystallized ag
ain, the radio was still on. The speakers reverberated with scratched and fuzzy sounds. Seth looked to his left. His sister was still, a bloody gash over her forehead. Seth tried to shake her, wake her up. Nothing happened. She didn’t move.

  Remembering his parents, he called out to them. The only sounds that came back were the scratched songs from the radio. Everything was still, too still. He’d been knocked out? He couldn’t tell where he was. Snow and trees were everywhere. No sounds of cars. Somewhere in the distance, he might’ve heard a siren.

  But no one came. He cried at her parents, at someone, anyone, but nothing happened.

  He had to move. It was getting cold. He couldn’t’ feel his fingers, his toes. Somehow, his door still worked. Outside, he saw why his parents didn’t answer him. In the backseat, he couldn’t have learned that people had that much blood inside.

  Move, he had to move. He did it like an instinct, something that just had to happen. His heart had to pump, his lungs had to breathe, and he had to move. His shoes crunched beneath the snow as he followed the road. They’d fallen twenty or thirty feet. He thought someone would see the broken divider, figure out what happened and call the police, but he never saw that many cars on the road. And it was getting dark.

  Each step hurt as numb settled through his skin and ate down into his muscles. Kayla followed him, still a ghost. It was like she could see his feelings. She just had to look. Even if she didn’t, she would have known anyway. She couldn’t get away from these memories, but she wouldn’t want to either. This was Seth. She had to see.

  Gray touched on everything he trudged one step at a time. It got dark and colder. He shivered and his fingertips were blue in the moonlight. He was probably lucky. The moon was big and bright overhead. It cast everything in yellow shadow, just enough to make sure he could follow the road. If he’d wandered into the forested areas, he would’ve slipped and fallen asleep. The cold would’ve taken him somewhere warm, somewhere dead.

  By the time Seth found pavement again, he forgot how to think. Words were gone. He just moved. He didn’t remember anything. He couldn’t think. It was like his mind had fallen into something thick and viscous. He was clogged and damaged. He knew it, just like he knew that he had to walk and survive.

  First Seth found stores. Too late, they were all closed. No one around, he kept walking. Up ahead, he saw a coffee shop. The lights were on. Seth moved toward it. If it was closed, he’d stop, he decided. He’d just sit down. He was tired, and sleep would’ve been nice.

  Seth found people instead of another empty building. They saw him, a half-frozen ten-year-old wandering the streets. The woman at the register noticed him first. She said something Seth couldn’t hear through the glass. Three adults were there, laughing and chatting about something. There were two cops there too. Seth could tell by their uniforms, the sheen of their guns at their belts.

  They pulled him inside where hot air stung his skin. They started asking questions and gave him something to drink. Questions about his family. Questions about his parents. Questions about where they were, what happened, why he was out alone. There were big mirrors at behind the woman at the register. Seth saw himself and was surprised. He didn’t look torn up. Somehow he expected to see his jeans torn or his coat ripped. He was supposed to be covered in bruises or cuts. No, he wasn’t.

  Seth looked fine. Cold, obviously. His skin had a blue hue, but that was it. He didn’t even have any blood on his hands. That would come later.

  They wanted answers, but he didn’t care. They were dead. He could feel it, but it didn’t come out as words. It didn’t even come out as any feelings. He was supposed to be sad. He knew that with every motion, sight, and sound, yet he couldn’t find them. It was like the cold numbed his skin and his mind.

  One of the cops kneeled down and said they were going to take him back to their station. They’d get a doctor there to check him out. One of the other adults said something about a medical center, but that was closed and the station was closer anyway.

  The adults tried to sound cheerful. They said something about how much fun it would be to take a ride. That got a reaction. Seth turned to look at them, and he expected to break. He thought he’d start crying then. He thought everything would come undone and he’d shout and scream and cry and weep, because that’s what his parents said. Today was a joyride.

  But nothing came out. He felt his lips stiffen, his nostrils tighten for a second, but it wasn’t there after that. Nothing got out. Nothing escaped. He followed them back to the car. They wrapped him in some silver sheeted blanket that crinkled like plastic, put him in the backseat, made sure he was buckled in, and started driving.

  This time Seth stared straight ahead. He didn’t want to look out the windows.

  In minutes, they slowed to a stop. One of the cops told him to get out. They opened the door for him. Someone turned on the lights and everything was covered in a bright glow. It hurt Seth’s eyes, but he didn’t car. He didn’t even blink much.

  One of the officers sat him down and said something about finding him some hot chocolate. Seth didn’t answer.

  “Can you tell me your name?” the cop asked again.

  Seth didn’t answer.

  “That’s okay.” He looked uncomfortable, one of those grownups who didn’t know how to talk to kids. A couple hours ago, Seth might’ve bristled at his tone. Now he didn’t even hear it. “My name is Travis. You gave us quite a shock tonight. We’ve never seen someone like you, but I’m sure your family’s worried about you. Do you have a number we should call?”

  Seth didn’t answer.

  The cop, Travis, looked back at his partner and shrugged. They used more words, something about calling child services. “Don’t worry,” the other cop said, “The call’s already in.” More people. Seth didn’t want to see anyone. People would be hard. Speaking felt harder. Impossible.

  The cops talked as he sat there. Seth heard the rhythm of their voices as they chatted about TV shows or what they’d do with their weekends. Days off were scarce for such a small department. They complained, all of it good-natured.

  They only stopped when two more adults showed up. One was tall and thin, clean-shaven. He glanced over at Seth curious, about to ask a question. But he didn’t get the chance because Seth saw his partner, a cop with a reddish brown beard. He had round cheeks and sharp brows. It was a face Seth memorized in the second before the fall.

  The power inside of Seth awakened

  Seth leapt up and tried to run at the cop. He didn’t know his name, but the name didn’t matter. It was his fault. He ran them off the highway. He blared his siren and drove off, too fast to notice the driver who freaked and swerved off the road.

  One of the other adults grabbed him. Seth didn’t care. They didn’t matter, but he couldn’t break their hold. He was too weak. None of his fury or rage meant anything. He was ten, trying to break the hold of a man who trained every day. They tried to calm him down. They tried to tell the bearded cop to leave, just for a minute.

  Seth heard them and he knew he wouldn’t calm down. No, he couldn’t. He had to do something. He had to hurt him, kill him, make him feel all the pain that one act inflicted on Seth’s family. No, he didn’t have a family, not anymore. He’d be alone in the world, an orphan. He didn’t have his sister, mom, or dad. All alone now, and it was that cop’s fault. He’d scratch his face off. He’d kill him.

  But he had to get away.

  “No!” Seth shouted. “You can’t let him just leave!”

  “C’mon kid, it’s okay. He’s a friend.”

  “No! Don’t let him go!”

  Something broke. Seth screamed at them again, he looked into their eyes, and he felt tendrils stretch out from him. Energy twisted out of him and into their minds. He could feel their skin, their clothes, and their memories. He could feel their bodies as his body. He could order them to do anything and they’d obey. He shouted again, a child’s demand, “Kill him!”

  Rage blinded Set
h, and it blinded his puppets too. They fell on their comrade like a pack of wolves. Kicking, punching, they beat their friend as he screamed and shouted. He tried to break away and escape, but he never had a chance. They killed him like the man who killed their families.

  The fury drained out of Seth and left him hollow. He didn’t see it happen. He just stumbled down onto the floor. The linoleum felt cold, the dust sticky against his fingertips. Inhale and exhale, he followed the commands of his body until it was over. No one moved because he didn’t give any orders for a long time.

  Seth waited until it was sunlight again. He did it. He knew that, and he knew everything was different now. They were dead. Seth was dead. That boy with the family who went up to the snow every year, the son and brother, he was dead. That’s why he pushed himself back to his feet. The three cops, each stained with red, looked up, waiting for orders.

  “Clean up. Bury the body. Forget this happened.”

  They understood. They went back to work. And Seth stumbled back outside. The little boy faded away, but Kayla saw him again, at seventeen, standing on the street, his eyes on her like he’d been waiting for her.

  A woman’s scream pierced Kayla’s thoughts. She was cold again, in the dark, outside the broken garage with the demon who wanted Seth’s body. Kayla pushed. She fought for Seth. She prayed and ordered the demon out. She called on Seth to shove Sasha from his mind.

  It was working, Kayla could feel it.

  With her help, Seth was stronger. Sasha had to hold her followers and now Seth had help. She couldn’t keep her energies locked around the neurons that controlled his body. She had to leave. Hate and fear boiled together, because the demon didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to give up this prize, this healthy body that could sustain her for years, decades, centuries.

  It was like a snap of cold when the demon disappeared. Kayla could feel it through Seth’s touch. Something was gone, the weight disappeared. It was like breathing again after holding his breath for minutes.