Parasite Soul

by Jags, Chris

That night, Jock turned onto a small side road and they camped by a small pond surrounded by long-untended fields. To Simon’s surprise, the horses were allowed to roam free; their master had unshakable confidence that they wouldn’t wander far. Jock had brought provisions enough to satisfy their hunger, although the bloodsucking Sasha was left wanting. As the four of them ringed the campfire, three of them seated but Sasha standing. Simon kept a wary eye on the bruxa, his fingers twitching toward his shortsword every time she shifted.

  One more day, he thought, anticipation mingled with gnawing anxiety. One more day and I’ll be home.

  “You folk going to tell me where we’re headed?” Jock wondered, his mouth full of bread and cheese. “Dullahan’s Grave? West Hanging?”

  Simon couldn’t see the harm in telling him now. “Brand.”

  “Mmmph,” Jock said, swallowed thickly, and tried again. “What’s there?”

  “My father.”

  “Damn, Arles,” Jock said, stretching out comfortably, “You’ve gone to a lot of hassle just to visit your pa.”

  “Arles isn’t his real name,” Sasha contributed. She was standing with her feet nearly in the fire, arms dangling listlessly.

  “I would never’ve guessed,” Jock said dryly. “Don’t get a lot of real names in my line of business.”

  Niu was poking the fire with a stick. “How long have you worked for Sasha’s… mother?”

  Jock looked mildly offended. “I don’t work for her. I operate independently, just throw the old crow some coin to use the ‘Nymph as a base of operations. No; some of the goings-on at that place are a hair too uncanny for my tastes.” He glanced up at Sasha. “No offense.”

  Sasha just looked at him, her head tilted slightly. She seemed to be slightly distracted, or perhaps that was just her regular state.

  “Jynn, right?” Jock was studying Niu now, who had pulled her hood back.

  “You ask a lot of questions for someone in the business of discretion,” Niu noted, then added, almost hopefully, “Have you been there?”

  “Nah.” Jock lay back, hands folded behind his head, one knee pointed toward the stars. “But I see a few traders come through ‘Parade once or twice a year. You lot all have those silly hats that look like a house with a bell on top.”

  Simon tried to imagine that as Niu adopted a frown of annoyance.

  “Hardly all,” she said irritably. “Only merchants of standing wear…”

  “There’s something out there,” Sasha interrupted, pointing. Simon and Niu jumped their feet, scanning the dark fields. Simon was able to discern only dark and motionless lumps - bushes and hedges gone wild - but they, and the taller stretches of grass, could easily have concealed a crouching human or predator. He was reminded of the night spent in the barn, when he’d ignored Niu’s warning of someone prowling about outside, and shuddered.

  “Human?” Jock asked lazily. He didn’t seem concerned.

  Sasha sniffed the air, listening hard.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted at length.

  Jock stuck a tongue-dampened finger in the air. “Hmm. No breeze to carry the scent. Well, don’t concern yourselves,” He advised Simon and Niu. “If whatever-it-is comes anywhere near us, it’s in for a rude surprise.” He waved vaguely toward Sasha. “Sasha doesn’t sleep, and she’s probably getting hungry.”

  “I am,” the bruxa confirmed. Perhaps it was a trick of the firelight, but her pallid face seemed to contort inhumanly for a second, so that even Niu recoiled from that unexpected, ravenous grin.

  Simon didn’t sleep well. In fact, he tried not to sleep at all, worried that he might awaken to find Sasha savaging his throat, but eventually his bone-weariness betrayed him. Countless times throughout the night he was awakened by anxiety about his future, concern for his father, or fear of the bruxa. Every time he woke, he saw Sasha standing in the same place, staring out across the dark fields. She didn’t move all night. Never once did Simon hear whatever she was listening for, and morning dawned uneventfully.

  A bleary-eyed Simon gave Jock directions to Brand as Niu splashed her face in the pond. As Jock had predicted, his horses meekly returned to servitude for the promise of a carrot, and before long, the cart was trundling down the open road once more. The youth didn’t appear to be in a hurry. He gave the horses their head, more or less, and sagged back in his seat with his hat pulled over his eyes. More than once Simon had to remind him to turn down a road that he would otherwise have ignored. They traveled through several villages hardly deserving of the term, Sasha unnerving the locals by returning their curious stares with a fixed, unblinking gaze.

  For her part, Niu seemed indifferent to her surroundings. She tucked herself between two sacks, using another as a pillow, and dozed. Simon was annoyed by her disinterest; he’d been hoping, if not to impress her, at least to share his homeland with her. Familiar landmarks overwhelmed him with nostalgia, as though he’d been absent for years rather than days. More than once, he contemplated accidentally-on-purpose kicking Niu so that he could point out some icon of his childhood. Each time, he sighed and resentfully allowed her to slumber on.

  There was the Phoenix Stone, thrusting skyward from the center of an otherwise unremarkable field, looking nothing like its namesake; Simon and his friend Jeb had attempted to scale it as young boys, with the result that Simon had scraped his shins and Jeb and broken his collarbone. Further down the road, an eerie stand of ancient oaks once worshipped by the semi-mythical Druids of Phthalam still stood. Modern farmers were still superstitious enough to give the grove a wide berth, especially when the mists rolled in. The cart dipped briefly into Crook Hollow, which was rocky, thickly forested, and unsuitable for farming. Simon had spent much of his youth playing here, down by the pools. This was where his cousin Dannon had introduced him to the concept of claustrophobia, headfirst into a hollow log.

  As previously agreed, Jock pulled over a few miles distant from Brand. It made sense, Niu had said earlier, to enter the village quietly, not from the road, until they knew how the land lay. The handmaiden annoyed Simon by bounding out of the cart immediately; she hadn’t even been asleep, just disinterested in her surroundings.

  “Right then,” Simon told Jock after Niu, who had withheld half of the payment until Jock had fulfilled his bargain, paid up. “Thanks.”

  Jock tipped his hat, and that was it. Simon very much doubted he’d see the young smuggler or, thankfully, the bizarre bruxa ever again.

  “Wait,” Sasha called as Simon – uncharacteristically confident now that he was on his home turf – led Niu past the thin, scrubby line of trees which separated the road from acres of farmland. Reluctantly, Simon turned to face her. She looked extra-dead in the bright afternoon sunlight, pallid and washed out, her dark eyes hollow. “I’m coming with you.”

  “What?” Simon spluttered. Even the laconic Jock raised an eyebrow.

  Her lips compressed. “I’m coming with you,” she repeated, hopping down from the cart.

  Simon glanced at Niu, who looked thoughtful. “Why?”

  “I don’t see much of the outside world,” she said. “Every time I try, Mother threatens to unmake me. She doesn’t like the idea of my telling anyone what she does… because she would be hanged or, you know, torched alive.”

  “I…” Simon faltered. From the little he knew about creating bruxas, the process involved reviving a human corpse with the soul of a departed vampire, or some similarly horrifying witchcraft. If that was true, then Sasha was a ravenous monster cohabiting a soulless shell. Arv Shecklin, Brand’s Priest of Vanyon, would instantly and understandably label her an abomination. Simon could imagine the bristling rows of pitchforks if he returned to Brand with this creature in tow, but her fears, even uttered as they were in a lifeless monotone, triggered some small measure of sympathy in him.

  “You are running from something,” Sasha continued tonelessly. “If it finds you, I could help you kill it.”

  “That is true,” Niu admitted, nodding.
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  “Or she could get hungry and eat us,” Simon pointed out. Sasha’s echoing silence did nothing to allay that fear.

  Jock cleared his throat. “Bad idea, Sasha. Your mother needs you to help her around the ‘Nymph. You know that. That’s why she made you.”

  “It would be very easy,” said Sasha, “For her to make a new bruxa.”

  “Maybe,” Jock allowed, “But you said it yourself. She won’t let you be, knowing that you could get her arrested. You know that.”

  “Tell her I’ll say nothing.”

  “Well, see, there’s that.” Jock lifted his hat and scratched his head anxiously. “Me going back with the news that you took to your heels, she’s not likely to look favorably…”

  Sasha’s expression didn’t change, but she interrupted Jock with a loud huffing sound.

  “I’m going,” she said. “Mother must have known she couldn’t hold me forever, like the bruxas who came before me.”

  “Yeah, but what you don’t know about those bruxas…” Jock began ominously, then threw his hands up. “You know what? Fine. I’ll figure out something to tell her. I didn’t know you’d tagged along, I couldn’t force you to come home. But mark my words, she won’t let this lie.”

  “Thank you, Jock.” Sasha said gravely. “Even though I am extremely hungry, I won’t eat you.”

  “Sure, anytime,” Jock muttered.

  “And we get no say in this?” Simon’s voice sounded pathetically plaintive even in his own ears. The bruxa just stared at him, head slightly cocked.

  I guess not, he thought bitterly.

  Sasha displayed no emotion as Jock’s cart clattered off back the way they’d come. Simon wondered how long they’d known one another. Was she even capable of emotion? Did any semblance of the poor girl whose body she inhabited remain? Deeply uneasy, he led the way toward Brand, keeping the wall of trees between himself and the road. The trunks were thinly spaced and did not provide total coverage, but if they had prior warning of oncoming traffic, it would be easy enough to duck out of sight in the high grasses. Simon was more worried about attracting the attentions of farmers, upon the fringes of whose property they were trespassing. Would his father’s neighbors be sympathetic to his plight, or turn him to the King’s men?

  For some time, the three of them didn’t talk. Simon couldn’t imagine what to say to Sasha. She followed along gamely enough, and if the occasional clutching thorns caught her bare legs and parted skin, she didn’t complain. She also didn’t bleed.

  As the sun sank ever lower in the sky, however, Simon found that the silence became oppressive. His mounting nerves – what would he find in Brand? – began to overwhelm him. Niu, who sensed his apprehension, occasionally touched his arm or favored him with an encouraging smile. Simon appreciated these gestures, but found that he needed more. He needed to focus his thoughts elsewhere.

  “So, Sasha,” he inquired nervously. “Who were you… I mean before…”

  If the question was offensive, as Simon knew it might be, Sasha showed no sign.

  “I was an artist, I think.” She cocked her head as though considering. “Yes. I think I liked to paint. I haven’t since mother brought me back. I think I miss it, but I’m not sure.”

  “And you?” Simon persisted. “You yourself, the vampire?”

  “Don’t be rude. We are both me. We were both artists,” she said, brushing away a circling wasp which threatened to snag in her hair. “Perhaps that’s why our souls were compatible.”

  “What kind of artist was your… vampire self?” Simon dreaded the answer.

  Sasha stared at him solemnly for a moment. Abruptly, she grinned, her lips drawn upward as though on hooks to bare teeth which were both engraved with unfamiliar symbols and filed into points. Before he could help himself, Simon recoiled. There was no element of merriment in her grin; her eyes were as black and expressionless as before.

  “An arcane tattooist,” she said.

  “A what?” Niu looked as perplexed as Simon felt.

  “Necromantic tattoos, mainly. Perhaps I will have occasion to show you,” Sasha said dismissively.

  “So is Sasha your name or the name of the vampire?” Niu asked indelicately.

  “Sasha is the name we agreed upon. Stop thinking of me as separate people. We are the same now. Mother’s power brought us both back.”

  At what cost? Simon wondered, but the dead girl’s story saddened him a little, too. It seemed to him like Sasha was two broken pieces, rather than any sort of whole, and he wondered what it might be like to endure such an existence. Had both halves been better off dead?

  “This way.” Simon pointed out a pair of lonely barns on a low hilltop overlooking a sprawling cornfield. “We can approach Brand through the corn and no one will see us coming.” He returned his attention to Sasha. “What did the vampire-you look like before…?” He trailed off, aware his questions were tactless but unable to help himself.

  “…before we were joined in this body?” Sasha finished. She wrapped a strand of dark hair about one finger thoughtfully, consulting a memory her divided soul did not share. “She can barely remember. This, though…” She indicated the strand. “Was golden.” She touched her nose. “This was a little sharper. These…” She cupped her hips. “Were definitely wider. Actually…” She kicked out one leg and stared at it. “She remembers being a bit larger all around.”

  Embarrassed, Simon looked away.

  “It took some getting used to for both of us, at first. We lost many of our individual memories, and of course we disagreed on some things. At those moments, neither one of us was in control, so we had to learn to cooperate. Once we integrated, all in all, we like sharing this form,” Sasha mused. “With our combined senses, we have become much more attuned to the world, much faster.”

  “I see,” Simon said. He decided not to pursue any of his follow-up questions, like why she needed to be faster, especially when he suspected he knew the answer.

  “You say that you have united your minds,” Niu persisted, “And yet you speak of the vampire as ‘she’.”

  Sasha’s expression was slowly growing ugly.

  “For your benefit,” she said, “As it appears you both have difficulty wrapping your minds around the idea of a symbiotic being such as we.”

  Niu bit her tongue, chastened.

  The three of them followed an old stone wall toward the barns as the sun met the horizon, keeping a wary eye out for farmhands. Niu pointed out an old man in the distance, tottering from his tumbledown old cottage to a nearby shed, but Simon recognized him as Old Man Pendegast, whose sight and hips were failing in equal measure. Even if by some miracle he sighted them, he would hardly be able to pursue them. The old fellow was Simon’s friend Jeb’s grandfather; Simon prayed that Jeb had already left on his monthly excursion to Dunhallow to visit his sweetheart Branlynne, as was his habit. If Simon had brought misfortune down upon his village, he preferred his friend suffered no part of it.

  They reached the barns without incident. Simon gave thanks to Vanyon for their relatively smooth journey, even if he wondered why the god had saddled them with a bruxa. If the deity’s blessing held, he would reach Brand and discover his father alive and well. With fears for Veter’s safety banished from his mind, he’d be able to plan his own future with greater focus and attention.

  Just as the three unlikely companions were about to wade into the sea of corn separating them from Simon’s hometown, a voice rang out from behind them. Niu’s daggers flashed and Sasha actually hissed, coiling like a snake. Simon completely forgot about his shortsword and whirled empty-handed.

  “Where do you think you’re… wait, Simon?”

  “Rollic!” Simon gasped as his thundering heart began to slow. A gangly, ungainly youth, heavily freckled and sporting a shock of ginger hair, was emerging from the nearest barn, pitchfork in hand. Rollic was about Simon’s age, but the two of them had never had much contact with one another. Neither friends nor rivals, they were no
better acquainted than to exchange trivial observations about the weather at market. Rollic was a stolid lad, committed to his father’s farm, with no great ambitions in life and a commitment to brutal pragmatism. When Simon had set out on his quest to kill the Cannevish Wyrm, Rollic had dismissed his plan as ‘ill-conceived, if not downright stupid’ which did, Simon thought bitterly, at least prove that he was the smarter of the two.

  “Who are these, then?” Rollic demanded, indicating Niu and Sasha. “Is it true what they’re saying about you in the village?”

  Simon’s mouth went dry. “Why, what are they saying?”

  “That you’re a wanted man.”

  “Wanted for what?” Simon’s heart resumed its staccato drumming. Niu placed a steadying hand on his arm.

  “No one knows, but we know it must be bad. The King’s men came two days ago, they arrested and hanged your father…”

  The next thing Simon could remember was Niu and Rollic helping him up off the ground. Sasha stood idly by, watching curiously as he clutched at Rollic’s shirtfront with both fists, his mind afire, yet simultaneously numb.

  “Tell me it isn’t true?”

  Rollic frowned. “Why should I do that? It is true.”

  “Why… why would they kill father? He did nothing!” Simon clung now to Niu as though she were driftwood in a storm-tossed sea. He was probably hurting her, but he didn’t presently care and she bore the discomfort with stoic sympathy.

  “They only arrested him at first. Then they told him something which made him go mad.” Rollic screwed up his eyes as he recalled the scene. “He struck one of the soldiers and tried to steal his sword and got himself executed for his pains.”

  “Oh, no.” Simon moaned, his knees shaking, the world spinning vertiginously.

  “I told you, you shouldn’t have gone after that dragon,” Rollic said bluntly.

  “This is not the time for such remonstrations,” Niu snarled, barely able to hold Simon upright.

  “Should I kill him?” Sasha asked, eying the ginger lad with a healthy dose of hunger.

  “No,” Simon muttered. Tears flowing freely, he released Niu’s arm and sank to his knees. “No, he’s right. I’ve made such a terrible mess of everything. Father. You, Niu… I’ve done nothing but ruin the lives of everyone around me.”