Parasite Soul

by Jags, Chris

  If, of course, she lived long enough. Cihau, she thought as the leering Mask pushed into the cell, I may be about to join you in darkness. She thought longingly of her lover’s touch, his inquisitive fingers and gentle breath on her skin. Of rushing across rooftops, leaping from one home to its neighbor as he laughed and challenged her to surpass him. Of singing and dancing in the firelight below Inquai Bridge, accompanied by the wondrous melodies he’d played on his yerhu. And perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad.

  “Not so fiery, then,” Mask decided, apparently disappointed as Niu pressed herself against the stone at the very back of her cell. “Not even a little struggle? Even the hare squirms in the claws of the eagle.”

  “You are no eagle,” Niu breathed, desperate for Sasha, still watching the proceedings, to intervene. “An eagle is noble.”

  “Wrong. An eagle simply devours those weaker than itself, in order to survive. It cares not at all for those qualities which humans yearn to imbue it with.” Mask reached out, caressing her cheek with skeletal fingers that slithered down her neck and traced a line along her collarbone. Shivering, she caught his wrist and tried to shove him away, but he might as well have been granite. She kicked out and met similarly impenetrable resistance. Oswald shouted again. The vampire leaned in close, so that his exhalation – more of a sigh of pleasure than a breath - enveloped her in a shroud of rot. His gaze speared her. Transfixed by the mesmeric light of his unreadably black, dead eyes, her breath caught and she stiffened. A minnow staring into the lamplight eyes of a giant squid could not have felt more overwhelmed.

  “Is that your best?” Mask chuckled. “Is all your defiance in your words?” His mouth gaped wide; chipped fangs glinted dully in the somber light. “I hope you don’t taste of my disappointment.” He bowed his head toward her neck.

  Faced with imminent death, Niu tried to concentrate on Cihau, but his handsome features had inexplicably taken on shades of Simon. She focused and refocused, but his dark laughing eyes occasionally flashed a moody sky blue; his rich black hair temporarily tangling into a ratty blond nest before returning to its original luxury. Niu was confused: she was positive that her affection for Simon was purely sisterly. Why then did he contest with Cihau for her final thoughts?

  A yawning abyss of sharklike teeth closed upon her neck. Shivering, her fingers clenched on the stone, nails snapping. In that moment of certain death, a flurry of motion caught the corner of her eye, and abruptly she was free. Mask was flung from her, from the cell, and struck the wall across the corridor with a clattering crash. With an expression of astonishment, he slid down the wall, staring at Sasha in disbelief.

  “About time,” Niu murmured, massaging her throat, grateful to find it unmarred.

  “From the way you were talking,” Sasha said unapologetically, “I thought you wanted to handle him.”

  “You thought I…?” Niu choked, but let it pass. The bruxa marched to a very different drummer. “Sasha, can you handle this… man…” She indicated Mask, who was on his feet again, “While I free Oswald and look for Simon?”

  “Absolutely,” Sasha said blankly. “You know I can.”

  “Thank you.” Niu slipped out of the cell. Mask made a grab for her, but Sasha charged him like an anorexic tiger and smashed him into the wall again. His makeshift neck brace buckled, and moments later his head was lolling grotesquely to one side like some disjointed marionette.

  “You bitch!” he howled, holding his head upright by the hair as he swiped at the bruxa with his free hand. His blow clipped Sasha’s shoulder and she spun off sideways. In that moment, she seemed fragile, breakable, like a doll, and Niu experienced a moment of intense concern for her. She needn’t have worried; Sasha righted herself instantly and launched herself explosively at Mask, twining her legs about his torso, shredding and savaging his flesh with nails and teeth. It was no exaggeration to say that chunks of Mask’s face and throat soon littered the floor as he thrashed about in his wild, desperate attempts to dislodge her.

  Mask had left the cell keys in the lock, and Niu wrenched them out, slipping along to Oswald’s cage, where the giant gripped the bars in white-knuckled agitation. He looked almost comical, like a mammoth squeezed into a supply crate. Niu suppressed an irrational urge to laugh.

  “Hurry, hurry,” Oswald urged, although Sasha, who was now battering her disbelieving opponent’s face with his own mask, seemed to have the situation well in hand.

  “I am hurrying.” Niu’s hands were shaking, but she managed to insert the key, a simple task made difficult by Oswald, who was rattling the cage door violently. “Hold still a moment, would you?” She twisted. The key groaned in the lock. The giant thrust the heavy door open, Niu dancing nimbly aside just in time to avoid a face-full of metal.

  “You got this, lass?” Oswald roared as he lumbered past Sasha and her flagging opponent.

  “Yes, of course.” Sasha was straddling Mask now; the vampire lay prone on the floor, struggling piteously as the bruxa beat his head relentlessly against the flagstones. Her assault was rhythmic, almost casual. Niu imagined Mask’s expression would have been one of astonishment, had he still possessed enough of a face to have an expression. Sasha looked relatively unscathed; her left cheek was missing a strip of skin and two of the fingers on her left hand jutted at an unusual angle, but she clearly didn’t feel the pain. No doubt she could snap them back into position without too much of a fuss. Niu judged it was safe to leave her to mop up and followed the giant as he barreled up stairs which would surely have buckled had they not been made of stone.

  Oswald crashed through the door at the head of the stairway into the prison’s offices. Soldiers stood impotently about, offering no resistance. They appeared to be paralyzed not by the sounds of commotion from below, but the sight of two of their fellows - who guarded an upward stair - who had collapsed to their knees, gasping and frantically scrabbling at their armored chests.

  “Simon must be up there!” Niu yelled, pointing.

  “Don’t get too close, lass!” Oswald returned, grabbing her arm. “In fact, let’s get ourselves further away, eh?” He thundered across the room toward the exit. The unaffected guards made no move to stop them. All this strangeness was clearly too much for their nerves. One of them even followed Niu and the giant into the street where, attracted by the commotion, a small crowd of speculative passersby had assembled.

  “Make way, make way!” A young lieutenant was shoving his way through the civilians with a squad of soldiers in tow. “You there!” He pointed his sword at Niu and Oswald. “Surrender immediately or we will gut you where you stand!”

  Niu considered her options. She and Oswald faced a wide, cobbled courtyard, sprouting from the center of which a cheerful fountain was ringed by five ornamental oak trees. To the north stood a block of administrative buildings, ancient and pleasantly rustic, probably crawling with important potential hostages if they could make it that far. The road ran east-west through the courtyard, narrower toward the east, but less heavily defended by the soldiers who continued to pour into the area. Each man was bristling with weaponry, and Niu and Oswald were unarmed.

  She spotted an alleyway between two leaning buildings which had been left more or less unguarded, but there was no way of telling whether or not it might be an escape route or a dead end. This was little problem for her; the rooftops were her domain. But Oswald? He would be trapped. Besides, could she abandon Simon to save herself? Niu wasn’t sure she could live with that scenario. Still, she had to make a decision. Each moment she hesitated, more men filled the square until she despaired of breaking through their ranks.

  “Surrender!” the lieutenant shouted again. Niu noticed some archers filing in behind their sword-wielding comrades, training their bows upon the two renegades. “Surrender in the name of King Minus! Men! A thousand lashes for the man who allows these fugitives to escape! They have slain General Gharletto!”

  Niu blinked. “We have done no such thing!”

  “Silenc
e, witch! The General is slain, and not a mark on him!” The lieutenant was practically frothing at the mouth. “These devils will answer for it. Where is Princess Tiera?”

  “In-inside, Lieutenant Thornton,” quavered the soldier who had followed Niu and Oswald out. “She is interrogating the peasant… but sir, strange things…”

  “Silence, soldier!” Niu could hardly believe the young officer could muster such a head-splitting roar. “Why is your blade not drawn? You are in the presence of enemies of the kingdom, yet you make no effort to detain them? Arrest them, man!”

  The soldier’s gulp was audible. He glanced up at Oswald’s towering bulk and reached hopelessly for his sword. The giant caved his face in with his enormous fist, and he collapsed like a tower in an earthquake. Niu wasn’t sure whether she hoped the man had survived or not; she doubted his own mother would be able to recognize him.

  “Bring them down!” Thornton roared to his archers.

  Niu tensed for the inevitable end. Oswald moved to shield her, but she knew he couldn’t hope to survive the inevitable storm of arrows. Then two things happened in rapid succession. Firstly, Sasha appeared in the prison doorway, dragging the body of the unmasked vampire behind her like a bone she hoped to save for later. Her presence distracted the unnerved archers just long enough for a second miracle.

  One of the trees ringing the fountain wrenched itself from the ground, cobblestones buckling as roots tore free. For a moment it lurched unsteadily, as though drunk, then it rushed the archers. Soldiers and civilians alike collectively gasped with shock as it thundered into their ranks like an enormous leafy bull, tossing men left and right like ragdolls. It was momentarily followed by a second stampeding oak, then a third. Niu could barely believe what she was seeing. The archers fell into disarray as they struggled to avoid swinging branches and battering ram charges that sent men flying with splintered ribs and shattered limbs. Thornton’s eyes bugged in disbelief. Oswald chuckled.

  “Well, I’ll be,” he said, pointing.

  Niu and Sasha looked toward an unremarkable four-story office across the courtyard, upon the roof of which crouched Hezben the leshy, his mossy brow furrowed with concentration as he made use of the minimal resources at his disposal. All five trees were all in action now, lumbering about the square as citizens and soldiers alike retreated in panic before them. Like their master, the oaks weren’t fussy about who they killed: Niu watched horrified as several hapless bystanders were crushed between colliding trunks and pulped beneath trampling roots.

  Tearing at his collar, an apoplectic, shrieking Thornton commanded his retreating men to resist. The trees opened throats with whipping branches, flinging guardsmen high enough in the air that several men’s heads burst upon impact with the ground. Red was fast becoming the new color of the cobblestones. From the corner of her eye, Niu saw Sasha lick her lips appreciatively.

  “Hez!” Oswald yelled, waving. “Good to see ya!”

  The leshy nodded curtly, but Oswald’s imprudence was costly. Thornton followed the giant’s gaze and stabbed a finger at the crouching figure.

  “There! Up there! Archers, bring that creature down!” The lieutenant dodged a slashing branch and lopped it off. Those few surviving archers who’d managed to keep their wits about them swung to obey.

  “No!” Oswald roared, horrified. He charged into the fray, hurling guardsmen from his path as he barreled toward the archers. He didn’t make it. With a sigh, as if in slow motion, several arrows flitted skyward. They twinkled insolently at their apex and arched almost casually toward the rooftop where Hezben stood undefended, his concentration entirely consumed by controlling the oaks. Oswald crashed into the archers’ ranks, breaking necks and pulverizing sternums with wild and terrifying abandon, but the damage was done. One moment, the leshy stood grim and forbidding, stern commander of a squadron of leafy death. The next, he bristled with arrows. His expression barely changed as he toppled from the roof.

  “Bastards!” Oswald bellowed, struggling through crowds of men toward Thornton as the oaks became inert once more. Most of them, their roots curling like the legs of dead spiders, could find no purchase on the cobblestones and toppled to the ground in a rustling cloud of leaves. One managed to remain standing, leaning at a crazy angle, branches sagging despondently. Hezben twitched feebly on the cobbles where he’d fallen, one leg kicking. An eternity seemed to pass before he lay still.

  “Should I help him?” Sasha asked curiously, watching as Oswald received wound after wound, a flurry of blows which barely put a dent in his fury.

  “Good idea,” Niu said, scooping up a fallen guard’s shortsword. The bruxa was so disconnected from reality.

  “Alright.” Sasha dropped Mask’s ruined body and dashed off across the courtyard.

  Two men appeared in the doorway behind Niu. She gave silent thanks for Cihau’s lessons in agility and awareness as a descending blade chipped stone where she’d stood only a split second earlier. Her attacker reeled off balance; guided by purest instinct, Niu drove her shortsword into his neck and jumped, kicking off the collapsing man’s shoulder and launching herself into the air. She landed on a ledge over the door frame, smiling down at the surviving soldier, who stared up in astonishment.

  “S…surrender,” the guard faltered. Like lightning, Niu dropped to her haunches and swung her left leg in a tight semi-circle. Before he could react – how slow these blocky folk of Cannevish were! – he was reeling backward, choking on his teeth. Niu wasn’t even sure he understood what had happened to him, but any semblance of resistance had fled him. He scurried backward, bug-eyed and clutching his bloody face. Only when he determined that he was a safe distance from Niu did he dare to turn his back and run.

  Niu hopped down from her perch and surveyed the battlefield as she retrieved the shortsword. Sasha had killed four guardsmen with little more effort a man might use to crush a beetle. Her unnerving expressionless ferocity was the last straw for the thoroughly demoralized soldiers, all of whom, save for two men who stood with Lieutenant Thornton, broke and ran. Oswald cracked these men’s heads together with a ferocity which shattered their skulls, and then only the lieutenant remained. He stood his ground, slashing at the giant. Oswald batted the blade away.

  To his credit, the man stared death in the face with fearless resignation. Oswald loomed over him, a great horned nightmare, shaking and bloodied. No semblance of the gentle, jolly fellow Niu and met remained. As Sasha stood nearby, licking blood from her fingers, the giant violently clenched and unclenched his fists, the vein in his neck popping starkly.

  “Creature,” said Thornton grandly, perhaps aware of his audience of townsfolk, peeping as they were from windows and from around corners. “You are under arrest.”

  He died immediately following this proclamation, as he surely knew he would. His limp form hit the cobbles in an inglorious crumpled heap. His final declaration, enthusiastically repeated by the town youth for decades to come, long outlived his name.

  Niu watched unhappily as a shaking Oswald picked his way across the square to where Hezben lay. She watched the giant cradle the leshy to his chest as tears streaked his bloody face and soaked his beard. She watched him snap each arrow off and lift the wilting form in his arms. Without a backward glance, Oswald stumped off down the street, his shoulders rounded and quaking. He turned a corner and was lost from sight. Niu never saw him again.

  For an eternal moment, she stared blankly out over the carnage. The events of the past few minutes – for minutes were all that had passed – seemed unreal to her. In her dreams, she remembered the bloody aftermath in the style of some nightmarish painting. Several ruined figures still stirred, which seemed cruel, as many of them were certainly dying. Others had lost limbs or at least the use of them. Sasha wandered among them, pausing here and there to sample some unfortunate’s flesh. Niu hoped the bruxa might find enough mercy in her soul to end the lives of the most grievously wounded.

  Her brain slowly slipped back into focus.
She kicked the unmoving body of the masked man once, twice, to make certain he was truly dead. But could she be sure? Did a vampire die so easily? It wasn’t worth the risk, she decided. She lifted her shortsword.

  With a curious spitting, snarling sound, Mask lurched upward, inhumanely fast. Niu’s blow glanced off the remnants of his buckled brace and the sword spun out of her grip. Though the effort clearly cost him, the vampire took her by the throat and slammed her against the doorframe. Head dangling grotesquely from a few tenacious strips of flesh and a visibly broken spinal column, Mask struggled to recover from his exertion. He twined the fingers of his free hand in his long, golden hair and carefully raised it to stare Niu in the face. Two points of hate glared murder at her from a visage which had been bludgeoned beyond recognition as his jaw sagged open to reveal rows of splintered stubs. Sasha had really done a number on him.

  The creature’s grip began to falter almost immediately. He’d used up the last of his energy avoiding Niu’s sword. He was trying to throttle her, trying to bite her, but he could not coordinate his efforts, like a puppet with only one string. Niu tried to extricate herself for only a moment before switching tactics. Reaching around, she took the shredded remains of his broken neck in both hands, and twisted. The soft pop was surprisingly muted. His head came free. The vampire’s body dropped and did not stir again; his head joined the rest of him shortly thereafter.

  Raising one eyebrow, Niu prodded the corpse with her boot. Nice try. She knelt and wiped her messy hands on Mask’s cloak.