Havoc of Souls

by S. J. Sanders

  “Either your olfactory receptors are dead, or we’re smelling very different things... and what do you mean by good?” she growled at him. It was almost endearing. His self-disgust grew. “Are we talking good as in supper is at eight, or good as in I am enjoying the smell of this flower? Because, between you and me, I’m not buying the second option.”

  Frustrated, he snapped his teeth.

  “I smell the filth on you human, the sweat and dirt. But I also smell that true scent of you, that which rises beneath the grime. It is sweet as rare wine and potent, especially between your thighs, calling to males, singing of your feminine ripeness. You smell good in that way, Meredith.”

  He turned abruptly and left her gaping after him.

  Rounding the first rise in the turf, he waited as the lantern scattered hidden beams outlining the position of the wulkwos within. He ignored the feeling of Meredith’s eyes upon him. He wouldn’t be distracted this time.

  Charu paused. Something was amiss. The searing symbols that had lit over the path trailing to the city, marking the presence of the lauchume, were strangely absent. Even the smell of the city had changed.

  Snarling to himself, Charu tried to ignore the feeling that his prey had eluded him yet again. Even if he had, that didn’t change anything. Charu had a duty to fulfill. He focused on the mound below his feet.

  Gripping his hammer in his right hand, he swung it up and brought it down on the den; shrieks of the wulkwos immediately filled the air. He worked quickly, breaking open the soil and rock. When the first wulkwos emerged, he gripped the male’s horns with both hands, pitching him forward toward the ground. Charu couldn’t allow him to escape before the lamp had the opportunity to fragment the wulkwos’s physical form and draw him within its vortex.

  The male screamed in anger, fighting back with tooth and claw, ravaging large expanses of Charu’s skin. It bled painfully but would mend within minutes. He leaned forward, placing his full weight on the male’s throat, and felt satisfaction when the wulkwos finally submitted, his body gradually becoming immaterial beneath Charu’s hands.

  Again and again, he repeated the process, pulling out male and female wulkwos alike. Those who he could force into submission he accepted the painful blows he earned for it. Those who sought to fight and flee tasted the bite of his hammer and claws. Though neither would kill the wulkwos, it would slow them just as painfully as his own wounds, but to their detriment.

  Then the possessed came flying down into the park, screaming their rage, still helplessly housed in their borrowed flesh. No more than eight males, a number easy to handle. Meredith’s cry of alarm alerted him to their presence, and he laughed, opening his bloodied arms in welcome. As one, his serpent sloughed off his muscles, pouring off him in waves, as they slid into a hissing barrier around Meredith. The woman looked at them with fear, and Charu bit back an impatient growl. Once again, he was reacting instinctively, wasting his power when it would be better served in attacking his prey.

  He turned away from the sight of her, near covered with his serpent, her eyes wide with whatever personal terror she held within her and faced the wulkwos.

  They flew at him, emboldened, as if relying on their numbers to overwhelm him, their hands grabbing for the lamp. He knew that they hoped to overcome him long enough to break the lamp to leave him powerless to capture them and return him to Aites. Charu attacked relentlessly, blocking their every strike, rending their grasping limbs so that they howled with agony. It was matched only by the shrieks of pain from the wulkwos exposed to the waning light of the sun.

  The painful screams and cries of anger droned together into a symphony, blotting out everything around him. All of his senses were focused on drawing more of the carrion-eaters to him and forcing them to face the devouring, all-consuming light of the lantern.

  It only grew once the sun fell beyond the horizon. The wulkwos burst from their dens, attacking him at all sides, their howls filling the air. Charu spat the venom of his serpents at those who came too near and roared his own battle cry. It did not escape his notice that the number was too few. Altogether, between the possessed and those who were denned within the ground, there were no more than a dozen. Too many had escaped into the night and fled the city. He damned the human for his delay even as the bloodlust from his conquest sang through him.

  The wulkwos, pulled down by his strength, screamed their fury until the moment that the light swallowed them, speaking not words at him but demonstrating their loathing and fury in the most primal of ways. Only one of the more resilient of the wulkwos bared his teeth at Charu in his last minutes, as his form fragmented, freshly released of the bloody remains of the young human male he’d inhabited. Hatred burned in his eyes.

  “You are no better than us, gatekeeper. They call us ravagers, but just look in one day here what destruction you have wrought. Your heart is nothing but an organ born of hatred.”

  Charu laughed, the sound cracking over the surrounding cacophony.

  “You flatter yourself to think I hate. I do not hate you or your brethren. I feel nothing for you but the satisfaction of my purpose. Something you forgot in your greed. I will do far more before my time here is done.”

  The wulkwos snarled, his eyes snapping to Meredith, the smile turning to a leer even as he began to disappear into the vortex.

  “I tell you this: your female will know nothing but pain. She will suffer like no other once the lauchume brings her beneath his claws. He has marked her already...”

  The male’s voice faded with a wretched cry as he was swallowed by the lantern.

  Charu raised himself heavily to his feet, his lamp still pulsating with the souls of the spirits he’d gathered. He stepped away from one of the mounds of earth and headed directly to the woman. She watched him wide-eyed as his serpents slipped off her and returned to him, sliding up his legs to join with him again. Fear poured off of her as she stared at him aghast, her eyes passed over to the ruined remains of the possessed humans, recognition flickering in her eyes.

  “Was that all of them? All the ravagers of Ashton?”

  He inclined his head, his teeth gritting with anger and the sour taste of disappointment in his mouth.

  She swallowed thickly. “He wasn’t there.”

  Charu glared at her. There had been many who should have been there but were not. At least a dozen more if he’d not been distracted. There was one very important one who’d been missing. The lauchume. What did the human know?

  Her eyes darted to him and she licked her lips.

  “The traveler. He wasn’t there.” Meredith groaned. “You don’t understand—the ravagers changed when the traveler came. He’s bigger and more powerful than any of the others we’ve seen here. Where did he go?”

  She stared around the park, her expression lost as she paced back in forth. He stretched a bloodied hand to still her, but she jerked back away from it, her eyes flashing fire at him. He dropped his hand and his lip curled.

  The wulkwos had been deluded to assume that Meredith was his. He had no need for a female.

  Chapter 11

  The traveler had not been among them. The creature who’d organized the ravagers of Ashton, no doubt the so-called benefactor mentioned by the elder Kessler, had left the city. When did he leave and where had he gone? The traveler had been hiding in their little town, but just how far had his influence stretched?

  She looked down numbly over the handful of human corpses that lay on the grassy field of the park. Anthony Kessler stared sightlessly up at the sky where Charu had dropped him just moments before. His mouth gaped open and his entire body looked caved in from the inside. The bloody wounds marring his flesh stood out clearly, but the shrunken appearance of the corpse looked as if something had sucked him out from the inside. Not more than a handful of feet away, the exorcist, his neck split open wide and his ribs a collapsed bloody mess from the hammer, also lay. They were among many others scattered over the field.

  She shivered as a se
rpent slipped over what was left of Anthony on its path to Charu. That could have easily been her if Magva had succeeded in possessing her.

  He hadn’t even hesitated to kill them.

  She felt the gatekeeper step beside her before she even looked at him. She turned her head and saw him raise his blood-stained hand toward her. Stiffening, she stepped back and glared at him. His hand dropped. He made no excuses, nor did he offer an explanation. He just stood there... watching. The mass of dark snakes had returned to him and completely obscured parts of his body as they sought to reunite with him.

  “You didn’t even try to save them,” she accused in a hard voice.

  “They were beyond saving, beyond any help.”

  “Would you have killed me?”

  “Yes. It was weakness that allowed you to live.”

  Meredith stumbled several paces away from him. She had known he intended to kill her, but to hear him admit it so blandly, as if it were inconsequential, left her cold. He spoke as if he could just as easily kill her right there at that moment. She had a difficult time reconciling this knowledge with the male who’d given her the apple, and who’d stopped to allow her to rest or scrounge for food.

  His eyes swept over her, his lips flattening into a hard line.

  “This disturbs you.”

  “Yes, it disturbs me.”

  He gave her a thoughtful nod and turned away from her, his body appearing like the shadows, melding into them as he walked away. Meredith began to follow at a distance, uncertain of just how safe she was. He’d saved her, but for how long? At what point would he decide it was time for her to die? Meredith looked out for herself and it didn’t seem like the time to change that policy with the threat of her death on his lips.

  How much faith did she dare put in him?

  Meredith followed silently, not attempting to engage him in conversation nor to catch up. As long as he was within her line of vision, she was confident that would be enough to deter the more foolish people who might try again to attack her.

  The silence between them stretched for hours as they took a long route through the city. She didn’t understand at first why he remained. The light of the lantern glowed sedately and Charu himself said that the ravagers had been cleared. It wasn’t until she saw the first of the people come out of hiding, their faces masks of hatred, that she understood.

  Their eyes were wild as they watched from the shadows. Despite being hidden from sight, Charu knew they were there. He stopped in the middle of the street, bringing Meredith to a stop just feet behind him. He turned his head to the shadows, drawing her attention to his new prey.

  A woman drew closer, her hands empty but her eyes gleaming with fury.

  “You!” she shrieked, snapping up her hand to point one thin finger at Meredith. “You will be the death of us all. The traveler will see to it. He wants you. We’ve heard of it, every one of us. The ravagers speaking in the night after your escape. The traveler will take you and, with you, he will destroy our world. Do the world a favor and kill yourself—or turn yourself over to our mercy.”

  Meredith’s heart slammed in her ribs and she swallowed back bile as his eyes slid over them with that familiar lethal coldness and he raised his hand. He didn’t touch them. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was sweep his claws out toward them, the lantern beams briefly scattering, and Meredith watched as they crumbled to the ground where they stood.

  There was no cry. There was no sound at all other than savage growling that sounded so alien coming from the maddened people. They’d seemed to deteriorate over a matter of just days in a way that was alarming to her. They stood there, men and women on the verge of attacking and then they were nothing, falling silently into the dust.

  Even the children among them looked like ghoulish, feral shadows of themselves and she cried, tears flowing down her cheeks, when they dropped soundlessly beside their parents. The entire family lay together in a heap, their faces peaceful and doll-like as if they were sleeping.

  Charu’s expression never changed. It didn’t soften. There was no sign of regret. If silence had an appearance, his expression was a manifestation of it. His face was void of any feeling, like a marble statue abandoned in a place forgotten by time. Nothing seemed to touch him any more than the cold wind blowing down the street stirred his hair. He reacted to nothing.

  His task complete, he turned away, leaving Meredith to follow behind.

  She tucked her mittened hands into her pockets and trudged after him, her head down against the cold wind. Her body was wracked with shivers, but she didn’t know how much of that was due to the cold or how much was in reaction to what she’d witnessed.

  She didn’t pay attention to much more; she tried not to look whenever he stopped, knowing his purpose. She was ashamed to admit it, even to herself, but she was glad that they hadn’t cried out. That they hadn’t showed any sign of fear or pain. It made it easier to look away. But she couldn’t ignore what was happening.

  By the time they passed into her neighborhood, a heavy melancholy settled over her. Why had he spared her? And what did the traveler want with her? The questions ate at her, twisting her insides with uncertainty. She almost didn’t notice that she was home until she saw her apartment building loom out of the darkness beside them, illuminated by the soft glow of the lamp.

  Her bag was still in her apartment, fully stocked. If someone hadn’t raided her home in her absence.

  Hurrying after Charu, she caught up to him quickly. He didn’t turn his head, but the white-hot center of his gaze shifted as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She cleared her throat nervously.

  “Hey, this is my place. I have supplies packed, if you could give me a moment to get them.”

  At first it didn’t appear as if he were going to agree, but then he slowed to a gradual stop. He looked away from her, his free hand trailing along the body of a larger snake that had moved up around his neck.

  “Proceed.”

  Quicker than she ever remembered moving, she thumped through the front door of the building and raced up the steps. She was breathing hard when she flew into her apartment, but didn’t waste any time to collect herself. She didn’t want to risk exhausting his patience.

  Gripping her pack, she unzipped it and double-checked the supplies. Meredith let out a sigh of relief. Everything was there. Even her canteen still hung on a peg. No doubt the water was warm and flat, but it would serve her needs. She stuck a folded-up hunting knife into her pocket and slung the pack onto her shoulder, lamenting, not for the first time, that she’d never learned to shoot a gun.

  Her supplies retrieved, she took the steps two at a time and jogged out the door. She pulled up beside him and crouched over, her breath panting out of her in heaving gasps. His brows notched upward but he did not comment. He simply lifted his hammer and began his even stride down the street. Groaning, and pushing the muscles of her legs to move once more, she followed behind, thinking every foul thing that came to her as she glared at the muscles of his shoulder blades.

  They didn’t stop again in the city. They followed the road to the highway and then out of town. Every now and then they walked past an abandoned vehicle. They walked on a relentless course, following the beam of light until once again Meredith was dragging with exhaustion and couldn’t walk any further. As before, the lamp dimmed despite Charu’s threatening snarls. Even he finally had to concede defeat and come to a stop when the faintest glow remaining at the core of the lantern failed to do more than pulse lightly.

  Her fingers and toes numb from the cold night air, Meredith sank onto a patch of grass beside the road. The trees had started growing in thicker, providing some shelter from the bitter wind, and she used that to her advantage. Gathering firewood, she took a fire-starter out of her bag and her lighter. Within minutes, she had a fire going and was feeding sticks into it while it gradually thawed her out.

  Charu sat on the other side of the fire, the light bouncing off his still for
m, his eyes boring into her. Aside from the ripple of movement as the snakes slid along his skin, he was utterly still. It was unnerving.

  “Do you feel anything?”

  “I do not understand what your question pertains to.”

  She bit back an angry retort and allowed herself to seethe for several minutes before trying again.

  “When you murder people, do you feel anything?”

  He cocked his head and regarded her, his steady stare not deviating from its focus even to blink.

  “I release them from life. I do not harm them.”

  Meredith threw her hands up in disbelief.

  “You are killing people. How can that not be harming them?”

  Finally, there was a crack in his expression. His brow slowly inched up.

  “I am not causing them pain. I relieve their suffering.”

  “By killing them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are you to decide if that’s what is best for them?”

  “It is my task.” He leaned forward, his eyes lit with intensity. “You have not seen the pain and terror that comes to those who are left behind. It is cruel to leave them to that fate.”

  Meredith frowned.

  “You saved me.”

  He shook his head slowly, an unfamiliar expression flickering over his face before it was gone.

  “I did not save you. I bent my will to your entreaty and because of that your lot will be worse than theirs.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He did not answer, his steely gaze fixed on her, and she felt the full weight of it as if she were being crushed under the burden of some terrible sentence. He showed no sign of sympathy, but she understood then, just from his regard, that whatever it was, it was going to be something terrible.

  If that were the case, was she more fortunate to be left among the living?

  Minutes ago, she would have said yes, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  Clearing her throat, Meredith looked away.