Beams of sunlight poked through the canopy of deciduous trees and highlighted a small bed of ferns off in the distance. Clear water trickled along a shallow creek that ran the course of the woods. The gush and gurgle of liquid through the cracks and crannies of the river rock added to the relaxing sensation of the cool air in the forest. Birds chirped overhead, and on the other side of the glen, a squirrel chattered and ran, bounding across the forest floor, in an expedition for food.
I sat on a monster rock that was conveniently flat and situated in the middle of everything and, looking around, discovered there was nothing but endless forest surrounding me. It was as if I had found a secret druidic haven. This was my place, and it felt good to be there, although I had not been often, and was still all new but exciting.
The air was cool, both to the touch and my lungs, and it tasted like wood. The smells were delicious. The green was extra green, the muted brown of the roughened and wizened trunks made them appear alive. I was positive they were hiding nymphs in them. Out of respect, I sat, quietly pensive, and soaked up this place.
I loved it there.
I glanced down at my hands, and to my astonishment, the piece of parchment with my message was there, unburned. I unfolded it, inspected it, and turned it over, eyeing it carefully. It was the piece of paper I had thrown into the cauldron.
Acting on instinct, I held my hand out, palm up, and said, “From you to me, if it is your will, so let it be.”
The piece of parchment folded upwards on its own, reminding me of butterfly wings. In response to my thought, the folded squares of the parchment rounded into oblong spheres, just like a butterfly. The ink from the message morphed, blackening and spreading as it turned red and white and evolved into a monarch butterfly, perched quietly in the palm of my hand. Launching itself into the forest, it fluttered left and then right, rising over a branch, ducking under a leaf, and then it was gone, out of sight.
I sighed. This place was completely exquisite. I closed my eyes and sat there, unmoving, thinking of nothing and listening to everything and nothing, and became completely lost in the sounds and smells and feelings all around.
And then there was a finger tapping me on the shoulder. I jumped off the rock and threw myself amongst the moss and leaves on the ground. To my amazement, the Satyr was in front of me, gazing down with wide violet eyes, his ears twitching frenetically. His cheeks were blushed through the scraggly beard, long hair tied back with raffia. His horns appeared to twist back in perfect symmetry from his hairline.
The Satyr looked down on me, wide-eyed, ears twitching. He reached down, his forearms covered in hair, human hair, but the nails of his hand were long, thick, and yellow. The creature was extremely muscular, and despite his ruffian nature, the groin was very human and overly developed. The hooved hindquarters were covered in goat fur, and a twitchy tail shook occasionally just like his ears. He was handsome if not bestial.
This wasn’t the first time I had seen him. The Satyr left his arm outstretched towards me, offering a hand up off the forest floor.
“Silenus, you scared me,” I said, taking the hand.
“Alyx, I’m glad you came back to visit.” Silenus yanked me up to my feet without so much as a grunt, pulled my almost naked body close to him, and held me against his muscled and furry form. I rolled my eyes and smiled. I could feel Silenus getting excited, and in turn, it was sort of turning me on too.
“I so enjoyed our last visit. I was hoping you’d come back soon.” His warm breath brushed against my cheek. It was sweet smelling—like cinnamon—and it made me feel at ease, even though something in the back of my head said trusting this creature would be a bad idea.
“Alyx.” Silenus twitched his head and bent it to one side. “You sent me a wish, so I came to see you.” Silenus’s voice was lyrical and deep, very masculine. He stole a kiss from my cheek.
I giggled out of nervousness. “Okay, Silenus, okay.” I kissed Silenus gently on the lips before pulling away.
Silenus pattered his feet on the forest floor in excitement, and from the pressure against my hip, it was obvious that the creature was fully aroused. I pulled away, and Silenus let me go but leered at me with lustful, glowing eyes. I had never seen such a colour of iris before. They were mesmerizing.
“Oh, Alyx, you do know how to tease. That makes me excited and happy. You really must come see me more often.” He tilted his head the opposite direction and peered out from behind long hair that had fallen forward. “Now, about this wish. Who have you lost? Who do you seek?” He twitched his head in different directions with each sentence. His actions were so inhuman, and yet, he was so manly.
I returned to the large rock where I had been originally and sat cross-legged, trying to cover my somewhat excited private parts, if only just a little. I was still bashful in front of Silenus, even despite his last visit.
“Um, well, Silenus, you might be a little jealous…” I stammered slightly, unsure how the beast would react.
“Nonsense, my brother of the forest! I share well. There is another that you lust for? You need to find a lost lover?” Silenus inquired. He was so comfortable with all of it and in his own skin. He was confident and unashamed of his bestial looks.
“Well, sort of, yes. A man came in to the shop my mother owns. And I’ve never felt this way about another person. I’d like to find him, but I have no way of doing so. Can you help?”
“Perhaps,” Silenus said quizzically. “If I help you find him, do you promise to come back to see me?”
“Of course! I love it here, and, well, you’re fun.” I blushed.
Silenus smiled sensually at me and then canted his head in a quizzical manner. “Come, Alyx, come here and let me hold you. I want you to think of your new friend. Think of every detail, every nuance of this man, the colour of his hair, his eyes, his build, and frame. I want you to picture every detail, and then once you have that image solid in your mind, think of him standing in front of us. Share him with me, Alyx; share him with me so that I can see him too.”
I did as he had instructed. I let the Satyr embrace me as he gently turned me forward, hugging from behind. It felt safe and warm, and I quickly relaxed within his strong arms.
Without much effort, I thought of the man in the shop, everything about him, his steely grey eye and his icy blue one, the tousled black hair, his strange attire, and the goofy expression on his face when he realized that I had been looking back at him. A smile crept across my face.
Silenus’s presence announced itself as pressure building inside my head. The image of the beautiful stranger became crystal clear and sharp, and if I had just reached out towards it, I would have been able to touch him.
Silenus exhaled calmly. “Alyx, look. Is this the man you wish to find?”
I opened my eyes and, in front of me, stood the dark-haired man I had thought about all day. I couldn’t speak. I was awestruck and had that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I simply nodded. Silenus nodded in unison.
“Alright, Alyx, shall we see where this man lives?”
I nodded again. Silenus moved his hand over my body, sensually, slowly, softly. From my thigh, he moved his meaty, callused hand over my groin, up my lower abdomen. It made the muscles in my stomach twitch from excitement. He continued up and over my chest, over my beard, across my lips and nose, over my eyes, and then onto my forehead, where the yellow-nailed hand stopped, warm, pressing my head gently into the Satyr’s furry chest.
I was no longer in the forest. I had been transported downtown, not far from Mom’s shop. In front of me stood an apartment high-rise. Although I had never been in the building, I was definitely familiar with it. And then my vision changed and I was in the elevator and heading to the top floor. The mechanisms ground to a halt and the doors pulled back. The hallway was dark, and a light in the ceiling flickered. I walked down the dimly lit corridor, then stopped and knocked on what appeared to be a broken door.
Silenus murmured, “Come back so
on, forest brother.”
I opened my eyes again to find myself in my bedroom. The candles had gone out, and it was almost morning. The incense had long extinguished, the smell only faint in the enclosed space.
I smiled.
It had worked, just as I had hoped it might. I cleared away the paraphernalia about my room and put the magical instruments back in the dresser. As I finished packing away the items, I noticed a fern leaf frond lying near my bed. I picked it up and examined it closely. It was from my forest glen.
Well, now. I put the last of the items back into the drawer. The Satyr had proved to be quite helpful again. I think another visit to see the old goat is most definitely in order.
BACK IN THE forest, the beams of sunlight faded and the shadows grew dense. As the light receded from between the trees, and the safe place became dark, the butterfly flittered down to sit in the palm of Silenus. The Satyr’s face was cast in shadow. He formed a maniacal grin, and his orbs glowed with their ultraviolet colour. He squinted in obscene pleasure, as his hand contracted around the butterfly and crushed it in his viselike grip.
Bound
DATI
I woke up with my nose smushed against the worn and threadbare upholstery of Marta’s fainting couch. The lingering odors captured in the weave of the furniture’s fabric made my stomach churn. My head was foggy, like I was coming down from a chemical high, and my body ached. I pushed myself up with both hands but stopped suddenly as the whole room spun. I let myself rest back on the chaise, when I noticed the note.
You’ll feel sick when you wake up. Don’t rush, or you will be sick. Rest much, and don’t move the wing. The longer you keep it still, the better and faster it will heal. There’s ointment in the jar for your friend. Leave through the back door.
Remember your promise.
Alyx.
The boy protected by the promise, with freckles that danced across his nose, was gone. The man Alyx, with the dazzling peridot eyes, remained clearly emblazoned in my memory.
I thought back to that brief moment in which we exchanged all but two sentences. Well, one sentence. I had done nothing but stammer and look like an idiot. His smile was so alluring.
To my mind, Alyx embodied everything I desired in a man, but his aura was the darkest thing I had ever seen in a human. When flares erupted from a body like that, it was a warning for me to stay away. It was danger, an alarm that signaled the creature was more powerful than I. But Alyx was human; the dancing lights attracted me—pulled me in closer. I felt flush thinking of that mischievous smile, and then it dawned on me that I had dreamed of Alyx, standing in a forest, while fast asleep from Marta’s healing.
My dream of Alyx had been fluid, restless, and intangible. Despite the fact this was Marta’s son. I needed to see him, the man, again.
For now, I needed to get home to the girl who I had left in my apartment and tend to her wounds with Marta’s special liniment. After all, Master had been clear: she was my charge. Truthfully, I hadn’t done a good job of that so far. Hopefully the bandages I had applied to her wrist had stopped the bleeding.
I attempted to get up again. My stomach lurched and bile rose in the back of my throat. Stumbling out of Marta’s office, I glanced at the mirror that hung on the back of the door. I looked pathetic. Marta had splinted and bound the wing, and there appeared to be a poultice embedded in the bandaging. I grabbed my coat from the hook on the wall and gingerly let it cover me, tucking the ointment into my pocket.
Streetlights greeted me as I stepped outside and, for a second, blinded me too. I had slept the entire day. The girl would have been trapped in my condo with the Shishi guarding the place and blocking her exit.
Night noises came from all around me. Rambunctious laughter and talking filled the air, the late-night bar patrons spilling out of their watering holes and stumbling into the main streets, their voices bouncing off of the old historic brick buildings.
As I reached my apartment door, there was giggling and laughing in a high-pitched girl’s voice. I carefully moved the busted door to one side. The scene before me stoked my ire past the point of control.
On the couch, where I had left the girl, was a smiling and cooing uninjured teenager. She wore a pair of my sweats and a shirt, both of which hung off of her like a child who had played dress-up with their parents’ clothes. The sleeves hung longer than her arms, the waist was cinched and tied in a knot at the side to keep the track pants on her slender hips. A Shishi sat beside her, wagging its tail and pawing at her playfully, while the other was rolled over on its back as she rubbed its tummy. At her feet were bones from the steaks that had been in the fridge. She had fed them my food.
Two nights of pain, humiliation, infection with demonic parasites, with strict orders to ensure a little human girl’s well-being, and subjecting myself to white magic had me on my last ounce of patience. Seeing that same little girl now awake on my couch—who had decided to help herself to my clothes and then feed my guardians like puppies—it pushed me past my limits. The sight before me unleashed all my anger.
But this time the evil was ready for battle, and along with the sunken rotting face and the uncomfortable pain of having the skin pull tight over my body, my fangs grew extra long. My gums ripped as the teeth protruded farther than normal, filling my mouth with blood, which spilled down my chest and splattering on the floor. My hands morphed into their demon black talons. Thickened vocal cords produced an unearthly growl that filled the room. The lights crackled and sizzled, and the shadows around me grew thick and dense.
“What have you done?” I snapped.
The Shishi immediately went into guard mode, as their round little bodies stiffened and their gazes locked on me. Their mouths elongated and stretched, baring their rows of razor sharp teeth, warning me to stay where I stood. They were protecting her.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I—” she began, but as soon as she spotted me, her face registered fear and confusion. Her eyes welled up, and a tear slid down her pallid, rounded cheek.
“I brought you here on orders, and you act like you own the place and turn my guardians against me? What did you do to them?” I glowered. I took a step closer to her.
The young girl stood up. Her eyes were wide, her gaze darted in every direction, searching for an escape route, and her mouth was tensed with panic. She made a lurch towards the doorway but stopped, realizing that I had her cornered. There was nowhere for her to go.
And then it all went to Hell, so to speak.
The girl splayed her fingers and raised her hands out towards me. Her face stilled as a corner of her mouth snarled upwards. Her eyes, unblinking, turned milky white as if cataracts grew over the orbs like some fast-growing tumor.
In some way, shape, or form, she was dark, but I still didn’t know what she was. I waited as her clouded, dead orbs flooded with blood. Her lips parted and she started murmuring, but I couldn’t make out what she said.
Light from the lamps that she had turned on dimmed, and the corners of the room became lost in shadow. I couldn’t tell if she had emanated darkness or if she had sucked the existing light into her, but either way, the room was cast in cavernous shadows and the temperature dropped dramatically. My breath lingered in front of me as I let it out in short, angered puffs.
“From the dark,” she hissed. And with those three words, the shadows started moving; things were alive in the corners of my room. I hunched my back and crouched, ready to spring.
“In the shadows, where vile things creep, bind his hands, bind his feet,” she whispered. Her voice, which had been perky and bubbly before, was now harsh and raspy.
With my nerves on edge, the room became deadly quiet. Until the sound of bare feet pattered behind me. I spun around. A black foot in the shape of a shadow disappeared into the dark corner. From my other side, something brushed my leg; a hand of the same substance dissolved back into the shadow from under the chair.
“In the shadows, where vile things creep, bind his
hands, bind his feet.”
A wind raised her long hair so that it was all standing on end, straight up. The flesh around her eye sockets sunk as she spoke and black veins crept out from the corners of her bloodied eyes and ran in random patterns across her face and down one cheek.
At her feet, one of the vile things from the shadow emerged, just half of it, and clung to her leg, sharp little claws on the end of tiny little hands. No facial features were present on the creature, just a corporeal form. A distorted little grotesque body that was reminiscent of a child. A toddler.
Within seconds, there were several around us, one clinging to the girl’s leg, another crawling out from an impossibly tiny space under the chair, and one more peering out from behind the couch. The shadow creatures’ movements were broken and jerky.
And then she screamed, “In the shadows where vile things creep, bind his hands, bind his feet!”
The sound of fabric tearing came from above me, and I glanced up. Dark veins of shadows snaked their way across the ceiling as if the roof itself was being torn open. The darkness above me grew and oozed downwards. Before I could react, tiny hands with sharpened fingers formed out of the glob and grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up to the ceiling. More grabbed my wings and pulled on them, like children who rip the wings off of a captured insect. I screamed in pain.
I was bound, just as she had commanded.
I scanned the girl’s face, which was no longer human. Her skin was white, her face sunken and gaunt and covered in little black veins. Her blood red eyes had no irises or pupils.
The Shishi guards remained stone-like, watching me, never breaking their stare, ensuring I didn’t move from my position. I struggled, tensing my muscles and summoning all of my demonic strength, but to no avail. I was held fast. The shadow minions might have appeared to be children, but they were supernaturally strong.
Daimonion (The Apocalypse Book 1) Page 6