Hold the Light

by Ryan Sherwood

  Veronica disappeared from him three long years ago, running off with Benjamin to live in sin, but this revisit almost instantly wiped his hatred. She held so much of his pain in those beautiful brown eyes. She capsized his sorrows in that flowing chocolate hair, seizing her perfect lies on that perfect tongue sealed away by glistening lips. She was his best sorrow.

  "Mural?" Veronica asked but he didn't recognize his name, still lost in his memory. Mural hadn't heard his name since she took it and ran with it - he never really acknowledged it as his own any longer.

  "Oh Lord, I have been looking for you everywhere ...you weren't at home. I knocked and knocked and nothing. I searched around hoping to find you," Veronica said fully pulling him back into the moment.

  "Sweet lies. Does she think I'm that naive?" Mural thought.

  The knife was neatly tucked into his sleeve of his black long coat, sitting still and waiting for action. Mural suppressed his urges for the moment.

  "Come with me, we have to talk," she said and leaned towards him. "I need you."

  Her words hit Mural's ears so hard he went deaf and his mind stilled. He looked down and found his hand in hers. Then, to his surprise, he found himself escorting her as if they were together again. Mural followed her aimlessly, pondering and listening vaguely, barely hearing her apologies, but imagining they subdued all his worries. He wouldn't have understood her anyway; he couldn't even understand his thoughts. Her voice had him swallowed up in puffs of sweet perfume, as he fondly felt her touch again. She fell back into his graces as Mural became enveloped in her love, smoothly nestling himself back into the old groove. His mind captured a hope that he never realized he was harboring. Somewhere in his frozen heart was the love he felt on their wedding day and it had resurfaced in an instant. Veronica glowed in the moonlight, as bright and white as she was in her bridal dress, and the shroud of his murderous urges lifted like her veil.

  Mural's vision became gray again, the strict black and white spectrum faded away. Tints became evident and the shades he interpreted to be blue, green, and yellow came back as though they had never left. The city, just like Mural's defenses, dropped away into the background of the night sky. She looked up at him often as they walked, smiling and squeezing his hand, leading her hulking husband on until they reached a small house.

  A fat drop of rain fell on Mural's nose. Slowly more drops pelted his broad shoulders as Veronica skipped along like they were in love again. He stuttered to a stop before the porch of the shack, half in a dream of bitter tastes and sweet smells, the other half of him in reality; but Mural has been used to this duality for years.

  On that porch she stood pure as ever; her eyes harboring all that once was between them. Looking up at Mural, Veronica gleamed a soft smile at his glazed eyes, triggering him to relax completely and drop his guard. His hand loosened its grip and the knife slipped down, squeaking along his fingers until it was completely exposed in the night air. He hadn't given the blade a single thought. She had not seen it over the duration of their walk; Mural had hidden it well. But not well enough.

  Someone else appeared on the porch however, someone familiar, who noticed the blade.

  The figure on the terrace stood mere feet before Veronica, and wielded a musket, growling orders in territorial rage. The bayonet glinted at Mural. No one expected him.

  "Is this the gratitude I get? Is our love a game to you?" The intruding man on the porch shouted, his jealous words slowly piecing together in Mural's ears.

  The man wouldn't take his eyes off Veronica. He looked at her like she was his, like she was his runaway puppy. Speaking to her like she loved him instead of Mural.

  "Who would insult us like this?" Mural pondered.

  The butcher knife was tight in Mural's hand, sweat coating his palm as he readied to react to these insults. The man spat more vulgar words against Veronica that Mural couldn't comprehend, but he knew they were dishonest. He was prepared to guard his name, hoping it was still his to protect. The man's musket lowered and inched past the awning, raindrops bouncing off the metal barrel and bayonet, and the man aimed at Mural.

  "You lied to me you bastard," Veronica snapped at the figure, "What would you know of love?

  You only know of your own needs!" The figure on the porch cocked back the hammer on the musket. The air was wet; a misty rain began to fall. Veronica stepped closer to the gun and spoke to the man.

  "Are you mad? Do not dare point that at me! I made a mistake that I am now rectifying. Stop this. At least keep your dignity. I will turn back to the man I love."

  "Is that love?" The man pointed with his hand that was on the barrel, past his crooked nose and dangling blond hair, to the knife nestled in her estranged husband's hand.

  Veronica's glance drooped to Mural's right hand and she recoiled from the sharp gleam of his knife that sparkled into sight. She gasped and screamed and jumped down the steps to avoid both men. A deafening roar snapped the momentary silence. Reflex made Mural wrap his fingers tighter around the knife as he crouched. He was primed to attack as a startling explosion spit fire from the porch. The musket's fires brought a bright dance of light that shone through the bleak rain. In mid escape, Veronica sprawled in the air as the smoke from the barrel spread out and curled around her neck. She was flung to the ground with a charred seeping hole in her back. Both men were left stunned. With little hesitation,

  Mural leapt to her side and watched the back of her dress stain red. The shot still resonated between the raindrops. Mural took one look at the gaping bullet wound and knew it to be identical to the gash dug into his heart.

  The knife was hard and anxious in Mural's hand, and the very same love that blazed in his eyes for his wife immediately morphed into fury for the man. His musket was a blurred sheen through the rain, but as the butcher knife persistently called for his blood, Mural's vision began to change again. The black and whites of his blindness swirled together with the rain and it all became gray; he could see straight through it all, right to the bright gleam of the gun. Mural looked down at his hand, his veins bloated with rage, and he stood. Mural knew the shot was meant for him, but the musket ball was in his wife. He had forgiven her only for her to die. Mural focused on the man, who, by means of protecting her, had instead killed her.

  Approaching slowly, Mural watched the man pack his musket in vain. He knew the man hadn't the time to reload; Mural knew it all too well. The man's face grew familiar, features gradually turning into a visage he had seen only once before, but only needed to see once.

  "Benjamin," Mural uttered. It was the man Veronica had left him for.

  Benjamin's eyes filled with racing panic as he continued to jam the rod down the barrel, his blond hair shaking about his white face. He was on in years and that slowed him. All color drained from his cheeks as Mural's hulking body drew closer, looming like an eclipse, until he no longer looked like a black mass of long coat, but a man sizing up to an oak tree.

  Gripping his butcher knife, staring Benjamin down with vengeful eyes, Mural swore to kill him. The rain seemed to unearth an ungodly stink as the water washed around the muck.

  Mural's breath pushed out with the chill in the air and the puff dissipated just before Benjamin's snipe nose. He finished loading the musket and lugged it level with Mural's broad chest. The bayonet's tip pierced Mural's coat.

  "You should've stabbed me."

  "You sonovabitch," Benjamin said fumbling the musket.

  The hammer seemed to hit down in slow motion as Mural's mammoth hand batted the barrel aside. The bullet blasted into a wooden support beam and propelled splinters in a shower around the men. Mural raised the knife amidst the chips of wood and slashed it down into Benjamin's arm. Splinters stabbed at both their faces and Benjamin bellowed into the night air as the blade cut deeper. While the knife ate through all his flesh, Mural smiled and pushed it down until the bone stopped him. The musket clanked on the porch and Benjamin continued to shriek, pressing out puffs of breath in a veil that s
urrounded his head.

  In awful shock, Benjamin watched the colossal killer rip the knife out from his broken flesh like it was a stubborn weed, rupturing his arm in an explosion of blood. Swinging the blade back for momentum, Mural stabbed down again with blinding speed, landing it right into Benjamin's chest. The knife crunched and creaked past ribs and neatly punctured into his lungs. Mural smiled and lifted the impaled Benjamin off the ground. His broad body branched out in support as Benjamin dangled like a noose from his arm, raining blood onto the splinters scattered about the porch. A stretch of pink saliva suspended from Benjamin's lips as Mural shook the knife around within him to hear more cracks, forcing out fewer and fewer of his dying sputters.

  "I've been saving this for you," Mural whispered in Benjamin's ear. "I've been waiting for so long. It all ends with you. You who has taken so much from me."

  Realizing his knife had drunk its fill, Mural flung the carcass into the bushes in a crumpled mess of mud and blood. Benjamin's body was out of sight and Mural dropped his blade to the soil and raced to his wife. He hoped his eyes were deceived and his wife's flesh wasn't torn apart, that sorrow and terror hadn't swallowed her eyes into the abyss of death. Crumpling to one knee with his outstretched hands over her, his every fiber quivered as his fingers prayed that she was alive. He nudged a shuddering hand under her shoulder and flipped her limp body over, immediately seeing her frozen eyes rolled up into her head.

  Burning out a cry from his sore throat, tears streamed down but seemed to evaporate before they reached his cheeks. All his rage was scalding behind his eyes, as the solemn moonlight floated down and beat steadily against his head. His wife became illuminated, framed by hard shadows, completely shaded in black, white, and a stark shade of gray. With head buried into her muddy breast, his thick shoulders heaved in a deep sob while the moonlight congregated around him and watched.

  Chapter 9

  Pain swirled around him until the moonlight was plush. It then peeled away from him, scurrying into the shadows like spiders down his back, neck, and shoulders.

  Mural began to pray. He had almost forgotten how, it had been so long since it seemed pertinent, but it came back without flaw in his head. From his mouth, however, came mumbled sentences, forming nothing coherent on his tongue. His trembling lips forgot how to create words. His bumbling prayers nevertheless persisted until the moonlight ate at him like a fire. He turned to the sky, but only saw pitch-black clouds, outlined in thin white, without a moon to illuminate the sky. But the light still burned and pulsed, pleading for his attention, and Mural obeyed. He turned completely away from Veronica. The glow was strange.

  Mural knew it to be blue from the shade. Confused and tired, Mural focused harder, hoping his eyes were wrong again, and saw a static leap about the light as it came closer. Eyes focusing better, he saw a ball of light holding steady in mid air dozens of feet away, at eye level. This ball of electricity was cupped, held by a figure in black, shrouded in dark with trenchant red eyes. The figure looked to be draped in ancient rags that weren't quite cloth. They were too dark, too immaterial and wavered almost like shadows. These silhouettes surrounding the figure seemed to obey the figure as well, heeling like dogs, as the bent and slithered closer to Mural. Alive with smooth movements, the robes spread out like leathery wings.

  The blue ball was all that interested Mural at first, glowing so brightly that it was the only thing he could ever want to look at. He watched it fidget about the worn palm it was resting in, shedding its glow in a shield of light all around. Outlined in that blue radiance, the figure basked in that terrible and artificial splendor and spread fear with its piercing red eyes. Mural faced the newcomer and gazed like a child at the agile light as it bent about his chest.

  Mural scoured his mind but not a thing he had ever known had resembled the oddity before him. Fascinated with the sphere, an enticing emission called to him in a whisper he couldn't ignore. The blue ball seemed to know whom Mural was and could tune into whatever frequency he could hear his whispers at.

  "It's scared," Mural muttered, realizing what he was receiving.

  Uncertainty, fear, and longing pulsed into Mural's head and it all came directly from the light. This orb is alive and sentient. It possessed a mass of feelings that bombarded his skull at excessive speeds. Mural grimaced at the onslaught of emotions, but never lost eye contact with the globe. He maintained a painful interest. One thing rang from the ball louder than any other feeling; its loneliness. The sphere's shivering increased and it almost shook out of the hand holding it. Along with beams of light, its incompleteness permeated Mural.

  "It suffers, it's misplaced, it's far from home. It's horribly scared of the dark person holding it. Poor thing." Mural whispered, sympathizing with it.

  "Not good," the robed man uttered in a raspy voice that boomed throughout Mural's entire being. Mural was confused.

  The black robes danced around divergent to the wind, jiggling about like they were alive too and trying to escape the figure as well. Mural stared at the bleak display, allowing it to eat his attention whole. The orb began to calm down and whispered something again that he couldn't make out. All he knew was that it anticipated something.

  "Where are your prayers now?" The stranger asked.

  "Prayers?" Mural stuttered.

  "Hold the light," it rumbled, "That was your answer and now it is your fate."

  The words felt terribly accurate though they made little sense. Mural took that first whisper from the hill long ago and used it as he saw fit, not anticipating it came with a price.

  "I do not see," Mural said and stepped into a mood of confidence.

  "You must repay your debt."

  "I have no debt."

  The cloaked figure grew angry and the orb whispered warnings to Mural.

  "But I do have an offer," Mural stated. He wasn't about to be obligated to this cloaked stranger, even though something in his mind felt the figure spoke the truth. This would be a fight. But Mural had fought for years against own his demons only to end up one himself, and since a chance of redemption seemed at hand, there was only one thing to do.

  "Do continue," its tone peaked with curiosity, coupled with a strange sense of urgency.

  That tone warned Mural, suggesting that the sinister man before him might be trying to deceive him, but Veronica hadn't deserved the musket ball in her back.

  "Forgiveness," Mural said.

  "Do you actually believe you know what that is any longer?"

  "For her," Mural stated, his hulking frame sulking, pointing at Veronica's body.

  The figure pondered with it's eyes over it's shoulder as if it was fleeing. The shadows shifted unnaturally around the silhouette's dreary robes, seemingly reaching for Mural. The movement fully unveiled the figure's blood red eyes. The skin around the figure's eyes was sunken, coarse and old, with wrinkles that webbed along charred flesh.

  "Dear God, this thing is evil," Mural declared in his head.

  The whispers from the orb finally pieced together in a vibrating mutter that shivered down Mural's spine. It's words came as an impression rather than a voice.

  "Run," the blue orb pleaded, "Please run. He is a great deceiver."

  Time seemed to speed up as this demon, yes a demon, began to speak.

  "How do you plan to do this?" The demon asked.

  "Allow her to live and I'll do what you ask. You're obviously here for me."

  "What makes you think that? What makes you think I can do these outlandish things you ask?"

  "I do not know what you are, but the sphere does, and it speaks to me. You come at this terrible time with such theatrics that you must have some influence. This is no coincidence."

  "Well, at least you are right about the orb, it does tend to babble," the demon hoarsely chuckled.

  Everything noble within Mural seemed to compile on his lips without any thought to himself. Mural began to feel human again.

  "I will agree. Deal." The dark demon spoke so qu
ickly that Mural got his second hint of a mistake. "Kneel," it ordered. Its blood red eyes ached, glaring deeply into Mural's eyes, "Time is of the essence."

  Mural lowered his massive frame to his knees as the blue orb still quivered on the palm of the dark hand before him. Clouds of baleful cries poured from the sphere and pilfered Mural's psyche telling him that he was making a grave mistake, but his love for Veronica still clung and itched to exist.

  The blue sphere shuttered so quickly that it appeared elliptical. Its screams were so loud in Mural's mind, he expected the whole city far behind him to wake. The shrieks gored his brain until the hand closed its fingers into a fist to contain the orb. The demon's forefinger and thumb came down and pinched Mural's nose shut. Blue light pierced out through the small gaps between the demon's fingers and shot off in heavy filaments, while the other hand waved with a curl of the fingers at Mural's gaping mouth, egging something out.