by Quil Carter
Zach put a hand on the kid’s head and spoke to him. Daniel looked up and nodded and I saw him sniff and stand up straighter.
Then Zach looked past the boy, and his eyes widened.
“Man on the Hill and Angel Adi are coming!” Zach gasped, and a collective gasp swept the crowd as well. All at once a spark of electricity ripped through the air, and the passive watchers began squirming in their spots.
I looked towards the dirt road and so did Reaver. I tried to hide my shock as I saw two flickering lights now appearing on the darkened mountain side, but I couldn’t hide the palpitations inside of my chest.
And when they got closer I realized… there weren’t just two of them, but four, and they were dressed up just like the rest of us. But instead of white powdered faces and food colouring in their eyes, these four men were wearing white masks with their black robes.
These masks looked… strange. The middle of the mask was elongated and pointed, like they were supposed to be beaks, and the eyes were just big black glaring pits. In the darkness they looked like pale floating heads, but the closer they got, the more I could see. They were wearing black robes like we were, and the torchlight was reflecting against silver buttons that went up their fronts.
The crowd remained silent, deafeningly silent, and in that silence I could hear their boots scraping against the ground. There was no noise besides that, no sniffing, coughing, shifting, the only other sound reaching my ears was the snapping and cracking of the burning torches. I had never seen anything like this in my life.
These four people… could be Reaver’s family. They could be chimeras, or at the very least someone who was made immortal by Silas.
And this fact wasn’t lost on my boyfriend. Reaver’s face had fallen to the depths of darkness. He was glaring at the four like it was King Silas himself who had strolled down the mountain. It made me wonder if he was having second thoughts about this, especially with the knowledge that there were four of them down here, not just two.
What if one of the two knew us?
My stomach filled with nervous butterflies.
“Whackjobs…”
Reaver’s mumbling was like a cold sip of water. I was happy that he wasn’t feeling this anxiety, one that was shredding my stomach like I had swallowed the blades of a blender. He seemed to be okay, but maybe he was being strong for me?
There was no time to ask him and I was too caught in watching these four figures to squeeze his hand for reassurance. My focus remained fixed on the four, now walking down the invisible barrier like Noah after he had parted the sea.
They stepped into the circle and bowed their heads. In front were two that were tall and lanky, and behind them, burlier ones, with arms that looked like they could snap me like a toothpick.
“Sanguine bless you,” the one in the front said. His voice was gravelly; I didn’t recognize it.
“Sanguine bless you too,” the crowd murmured back; every syllable matching so perfectly, it was as if this cult had become one single person.
The old man walked to them and shakily got down on his knees. He bowed, and when he rose his nose had dirt on it from touching the ground. Behind him Zach and several other more official-looking Blood Crows did as well, and like a rock thrown into a pool of still water, the crowd followed suit and did the same.
And though I knew he didn’t want to, Reaver bowed and so did I.
The four masked men walked to the X-shaped planks and it appears that they were looking them over. While this was happening, Zach and the others quickly walked behind the makeshift crucifixes and I saw four heavy-looking wooden chairs, complete with a padded seat, get hauled out.
The seats were placed in front of the entrance to the lot where the four had just come from. When they were positioned, the four sat down in silence, not a single word exchanged or a sound made, even though it felt like an earthquake was going off in my head.
When the four were settled in, Zach walked into the middle of the circle and clasped his hands together. I realized as he smiled that he had a black headset on his head.
“Our festival will officially start now! Sanguine bless you,” Zach said. And, sure enough, when he spoke it was amplified. I followed Reaver’s gaze and found the speakers positioned in front of the crowd; they were painted grey to look like chunks of concrete.
“Welcome,” the crowd mumbled back. “Sanguine bless you.”
Zach nodded and inclined his head, then he drew down his black hood. “Over sixty years ago, the old residents of Melchai brought shame upon themselves,” he said as he walked around the crowd that encircled him. “A young boy came to this town with money and good manners. He came and requested a place to stay, a place to buy supplies.”
Zach then drew his hood back over his head and retreated into the shadows. Daniel stepped into the torchlight, now dressed in a patched little suit with a red bowtie, and put his hands behind his back.
“My name is Sami. I’m all alone with no parents,” Daniel said loudly. He shouted it like a child performing in a school play. “Can I please buy some tact and some water? I haven’t eaten in days.”
Three shadows appeared behind him, and attached to those shadows were Zach and the two other Blood Crows I’d been seeing him with. They walked back to the center of what I could only call their stage, fully cloaked and with their heads bowed.
At the same time they raised their right hands and pointed at Daniel.
“His eyes are red!” Zach called.
“He has pointed teeth!” another yelled.
“He is a mutant! A demon child!” the third one roared. “Cast yourself from our home, demon, and never come back!” He raised his left hand and I saw a rock. I gasped and made a nervous noise as the man raised the rock and threw it at the boy.
It hit him in the shoulder. Daniel grabbed his arm and cried out, then with wide eyes he looked at the crowd and let out a scared whimper. I saw a rock from the crowd soar through the air and land beside the boy with an echoing crack before it bounced out of sight, soon the other rocks followed.
Seeing, and not missing, his cue, Reaver flung the rock without a moment’s hesitation. His aim was disgustingly accurate, and it hit Daniel right on the side of the head. The kid was thrown off of his feet and he landed with a cry onto the ground.
Reaver snorted back a laugh and tried to take my rock from me so he could throw it too.
Instead I grabbed Reaver’s arm and dug my fingers into it as hard as I could. I stared forward with my lips pursed, unable to move as more rocks got thrown at the kid now struggling to his feet. Blood was running down his face and I could see a gash below his ear, but quickly he stood, and as soon as he did, he started running towards the opening in the crowd, past Man on the Hill and the three others.
“Throw it!” Reaver hissed to me. I dragged my dug-in fingernails down his forearm, feeling wetness follow and threw the rock as sloppily as I could. It bounced two feet away from the running boy, but it didn’t make me feel any better… blotches and spots of blood were trailing behind him and I could hear him choking and crying.
My heart broke and I had to look away. Why the fuck were we watching this? Why did these fucked up maniacs allow this shit to happen to a child? Even if he was cut from the same cloth as the Blood Crows it didn’t make it right. Sanguine wasn’t a fucking god; he was a crazy demon chimera and probably an asshole.
Reaver jerked his now bloody arm from my hand. “You need to get yourself together. I can’t comfort you right now,” he hissed. “You say you want me to treat you like a man, you need to act like one right now and understand when there is nothing you can do.”
I took in a shaking breath and nodded. I let go of Reaver’s arm and looked back to the center of the stage. One of the Blood Crows, I didn’t know his name, was now standing cloaked and shrouded.
“The boy fled and never returned,” the man said. There was a hostility to his tone, a flamed edge that burned the ears of everyone listening. “B
ut he did not flee alone…” Behind him I saw someone else get pushed into the circle. His bloated stomach and sickly appearance immediately telling me who he was: another slave.
But it looked like this one had a role much greater than just being used as fertilizer.
I swallowed hard. If he was going to be playing the role I thought he was… he was going to be dead soon.
I fucking hated this place.
The man looked around, his eyes looking scared and desperate. Deep down I wanted him to make a break for it, or to pull out a knife or a gun, but instead he lowered his head and quickly walked towards the gap in the crowd where the boy had fled to.
“The Putrid One followed him and kidnapped him. He brought Sami to his house and raped and tortured this boy of only eight.” I felt cold as he said this. We had heard this story at the worship but I think I had to convince myself it wasn’t real. The thought of anyone going through that, even if he was a chimera, was soul destroying. “He knew of Sami, because he exchanged meth for information. People willingly told him that the boy was an orphan, and willingly told him which direction he’d fled in. Our god’s soul was sold for meth and his innocence was taken from him. It was our fault. We betrayed our god.”
As the man continued to tell the story, basically condemning Melchai and making everyone feel guilty. I saw Daniel out of the corner of my eye. He was now in his mother’s arms, blood running down his head and a horrible tear in his lips. The mother herself didn’t look good; her mouth was tightly sewn.
My attention was turned when I saw the slave come back. He was hunched over and looked terrified and dazed. I could see the other slaves behind him as well, bound and silenced, their metal cages reflecting the torch’s flames.
Zach took the slave and quickly shackled the frightened man, then he walked him over to a concrete barrier that had an embedded metal link. He chained the man to the barrier and vanished once again into the shadows that continued to press themselves against the firelit stage.
Something was going to happen to that man, and the terrified look in his eye, and the other slaves around him, told me that he knew too.
The nervousness inside of me became too prominent to ignore, I found myself pulling on Reaver’s hand, sticky from his own blood. “I want to get out of here,” I whispered to him. “I don’t like that there’s four of them here… I think we should duck out and get the quad.”
My heart fell when Reaver shook his head. He was absolutely transfixed right now; he didn’t even look at me as he told me no. This was… this was his thing, this was what Reaver liked. He loved carnage and gore but… I suddenly had an overpowering urge to leave this place.
“Then after eleven years of being raped and tortured, split in half by The Putrid One. Sami found his strength and rose from the blood and dirt to become strong, to become… Sanguine.” I watched as the Blood Crow turned to the shadowed area behind the crucifixes.
Another person stepped into the light. It was a young man with badly dyed black hair. He was a slave too but was wearing a suit and bowtie, much like I had seen Sanguine wear in the photos Elish had shown us last year.
This man… unlike ‘The Putrid One’ didn’t come empty-handed though.
My mouth dropped open and I heard Reaver snicker when I realized he had a tank strapped to his back… and resting in his hand was a metal hose.
Fucking hell… it was a flamethrower. They were giving a slave a fucking flamethrower?
There was no mistaking why he was. The story had said… he had risen and killed The Putrid One… risen like a phoenix from the ashes.
And that was what happened. When the Blood Crow was done telling the story he disappeared with several quick steps. The slave who was playing Sanguine looked down at the metal hose he was holding and then to the man shackled to the concrete barrier.
I wondered why he wasn’t screaming… until I took a closer look at him and saw that underneath that slave collar was a horrific red scar. He’d had his throat cut, he wasn’t able to make any sounds at all, least of all screaming.
The man who was playing Sanguine hesitated and looked into the shadows. He shook his head and everyone then heard Zach’s angry voice. “You are commanded to finish the task that was set out for you. This is tradition. Fulfil your role!”
The slave’s chest rose, and to my and everyone’s shock, he took off the flamethrower’s tank and dropped the weapon onto the concrete. “Fuck all of this, you crazy fucks,” he said loud and clear. “I’m a resident of Greendale and I was kidnapped to pay my brother’s fucking debt. There is no god named Sanguine and your fucking crops have nothing to–” The man was tackled to the ground by two Blood Crows. He landed hard and tried to punch and thrash his way out of the dog pile on top of him but he was easily overpowered. The stage was filled with the sound of swearing, scuffling, and scraping concrete but… that was it. The residents weren’t jeering, weren’t talking or hooting, or hollering. Unlike when Reaver was in Aras, this crowd was completely calmed and in control. They only watched, and the crows on top of the crucifixes watched as well.
Reaver’s body tensed with anticipation but mine only withered when Zach appeared with a rock in his hand.
“Our town tolerates no disrespect to our festival or our god,” Zach announced, his voice was like a sharpened knife. He seemed enraged at this small disruption in this morbid play that the town was putting on. “Sanguine asks little of us as does our prophet and his angels.” Zach kicked the man and his loud groan broke the silence around us. “Prophet, Angels… what do you want us to do with this filth? This impure one.”
The four masked men were still, their narrow eyes seemingly fixed on the bleeding man in the center of this fire-lit circle. Time dragged on as everyone watched them for any reaction, any raised hand or nod of their head, but they didn’t move.
“Make him scream one last time,” a male voice finally said. It was the same raspy voice I had heard before. “Then cut out his tongue and sew his lips, let him choke on the very blood that has given him life.”
I stood there petrified, and the fear that was seizing my heart was tripled when I heard the faintest groan come from Reaver’s lips. My attention shot to him as the man’s screaming cut the previously muted air; there was a look of pure bliss on his face,
“Oh, fuck yeah,” Reaver moaned.
Then I saw the blade flash in the torchlight, and a gurgled scream. The slave recoiled back, his hands clasping his mouth as blood spilled through his fingers; and when Zach turned around, he was holding up his tongue.
Reaver looked like he was in paradise. That was all it took for my Reaper to be happy and at ease with this crazy shit that was going on around us. No matter that there could very well be chimeras that know us in our presence, Reaver fucking Merrik was seeing people die and that was good enough for him.
“Well, it looks like we will need another man to act as our Sanguine…” one of the Blood Crows said. The tongueless man was being dragged into the darkness behind the crucifixes, his screaming muffled but shrill. “Who–”
“I will!” Reaver suddenly called out.
My jaw hit the floor, and as Reaver took a step into the circle, I acted fast and snatched him back.
“What are you thinking?” I hissed. My face started to burn when I saw all of these eyes on me. “Are you fucking insane?”
In the clearing, Zach chuckled. “It doesn’t look like your husband will let you, Chance.” And the other Blood Crows chuckled lightly.
The look Reaver gave me as they laughed at him, was so hostile and threatening, I thought he was going to backhand me. “Shut the fuck up,” he said, and it was loud enough for everyone to hear.
I was too shocked by his words to do anything but stare. I think I would’ve rather him hit me then talk to me in such a hateful tone. I didn’t know what to do, they were all fucking staring at me, so I stepped back from him.
“Tell me how to work this thing,” I heard Reaver say. I looked at t
he ground and at my boots, feeling humiliated and heart broken.
“I’ll help him.” I didn’t even look up when I heard a deep voice speak, even when I knew just from where the voice was coming from that it was one of the masked ones. I didn’t care, fuck all of this.
I sniffed and wiped my eyes. How could Reaver talk to me like that? How did trying to stop him from exposing himself to those four men, who we knew were somehow connected to his family, justify talking to me like I was some submissive housewife in an abusive marriage.
There was talking, one of the voices was Reaver, and a few minutes later… an ear-piercing shriek sounded, followed by a roar of concentrated fire.
I looked to the stage area and saw the outline of someone completely engulfed in brilliant orange and yellow flames. The slave was crumpling in on himself like an insect hit with a can of Raid, the flames burning his skin and his clothes, creating heavy black smoke that dissipated into the dark summer sky.
And there was my Reaper holding the flamethrower. My boyfriend, shrouded in oily smoke, looked like the devil himself as he pointed the nozzle towards the living fireball.
He looked alive too. There was no mistaking that expression on his face. He may be battling demons inside of him, but this chimera was a demon himself. His black eyes seemed to glow, stealing the embers of the flames, and his lips were peeled back in the most satisfied of grins.
My boyfriend was in his element, literally. I could see as plain as day why Greyson and Leo feared for his future, and as I watched Reaver mercilessly burn the slave to carbon char, I feared for him as well.
And it was with that realization that the fear and hurt disappeared, and in its place… I felt anger.
He was the one constantly telling me I was changing. He was the one mistaking me wanting to be treated as an adult as some great offense on his manliness, but fucking look at him right now.
Reaver wasn’t capable of making smart decisions, that was in front of me, plain as day.