by A R Davis
His vision faded in and out as though he was slowly blinking. He caught a glimpse of the monster standing over him, his black hole of a face nearing his own. Young Aubrey thought he was about to be sucked into it and fear flooded him when his vision darkened again. In the darkness all he could hear was his heartbeat. Am I dead? If he was, he wondered why the pain was still so prevalent. He wondered why he could still feel the blood staining his face and stinging his eyes.
If I am not dead, then, why is taking the monster so long?
There were shouts, but they were so far away that he could barely make out the words. He thought he heard his name. When his vision returned, there were two faces hovering over him. On his right was his father whose face was all but blotched out by the blood. On his left was Captain Yendel and his face was as clear as day. They were speaking to him, but their voices came out in echoes and tripped over one another. He looked past them toward the canopy. The leaves blocked his view to the sky.
He lost consciousness.
*
The doctor arrived fifteen minutes later carrying a large black case of tools. The doctor was a short, balding man with a few white wisps of hair on his temples. His eyes were magnified to an almost comical degree by the large spectacles he wore. When he inspected her father’s injury, he muttered to himself and touted as though her father was a misbehaving child.
“I cannot put the fingers back,” he began, digging into his black case for some supplies.
“I know,” Mr. Mason said, staring up at the ceiling. His jaw was clenched and his face was boiling red from the pain.
“I’m going to give you something for the pain. As for this,” the doctor gestured to Mr. Mason’s wound, “I’ll have to cut the rest of it off.”
Valerie clapped a hand to her mouth. After taking a moment to collect herself, she said, “I cleaned it.” She spoke as though this would change things.
“This is the surest way to prevent infection, miss,” the doctor said.
Valerie’s heart felt as though it was being twisted by a foreign hand. Her father wept silently, still staring at the ceiling. Valerie felt like she was going to cry, too, but she couldn’t allow herself to do so in front of her father and the doctor. Her bottom lip trembled violently as she watched the doctor inject a needle into her father’s arm.
“You don’t have to be here for this, miss,” the doctor said as he worked. “It will be most gruesome.”
“I want to stay,” Valerie said quickly before she even had the chance to think on it.
“Valerie,” her father said softly.
“I want to stay,” she repeated. “I won’t leave you alone, Papa. Not like this.”
When her father drifted off, the doctor had removed his tools and began cutting the little bones on her father’s hand and the dead skin. Sweat dotted the top of his head which he wiped off when he allowed himself a moment to exhale. The wet snapping sounds sent jolts through Valerie’s body, and she wondered how she was still standing in place. Her fingers were in her mouth, biting the knuckles, trying to contain the scream that was threatening to erupt from within her.
Two of the smiths busied themselves by pacing; the other looked a little green in complexion and left the room entirely. She only wished that she could afford such luxury. The sounds were making her stomach churn.
After an hour of the surgery, three guardsmen arrived at the door demanding to see the doctor. They exclaimed that something terrible had happened and that he was needed at the Aubrey manor immediately. The doctor finished bandaging her father’s wound and cleaned his tools. With her eyes, Valerie pleaded for the doctor to stay, to not leave her alone with this, but he was already packing up his things. Any words she could have spoken then were jumbled, broken, and nonsensical.
“I’ve done all I can for him,” the doctor said. He passed two bottles of tonic to Valerie. He held them up one at a time as he rapidly explained. “This is for the pain. This is for sleep. A spoonful of each should do. Let me know if he develops an infection. I shall deliver your bill in the morning. If you’ll excuse me…”
With that, the doctor, the smiths, and the guardsmen departed, leaving Valerie with her sleeping father—who now had only a bloody, bandaged wrist.
What are we going to do now? she wondered.
Chapter 6
Young Aubrey was drowning in pain. The right side of his face felt as though it was on fire. He could feel the needle and thread going through the shredded parts of his skin as the doctor tried to stitch his face back together. He heard the doctor comment on seeing Young Aubrey’s muscles pulsing like an exposed heart, and he thought he also spoke of seeing a piece of his cheekbone. He could see nothing with his right eye besides a filmy, milky white veil. In the sparse bits of conversation he could make out between the doctor and his father, it seemed likely that he would never see properly out of that eye again.
“It appears that an animal did this,” the doctor said as he cleaned Young Aubrey’s wound.
Young Aubrey tried to open his mouth to tell him otherwise, to tell him that a demon had mauled him, but all that came out was a pained cry. Tears rolled down the good side of his face, and he could make out his father’s face through them. The doctor pricked him with medicine and he fell again into the dark.
Not even sleep could grant him reprieve. In his dreams, he saw the demon. Its gaping maw came ever closer to him, swallowing him into an endless nothing where the name Aubrey had no meaning.
He didn’t know how many days passed him in the darkness. Sometimes he saw the sunlight streaming through his room, and there were often people surrounding his bed, speaking to him, though he knew not what they said. Sometimes he awoke alone in pitch black. He feared waking at night the most. A sick, chilling sensation overcame him. He could almost feel the demon pressing against him, as though it was lying beside him, breathing loudly, the scent of death on its breath. Young Aubrey wanted to cry out, but all that emerged were feeble moans. He wept. Don’t leave me alone, he thought. Don’t leave me alone with the demon!
One morning, he woke to only small pinches of pain on the right side of his face. His body was sore from being confined to his bed. Outside his window, he could hear birds chirping. His room was empty. He couldn’t say why, but he found the chirping to be a very sweet, almost comforting sound. He lay back and listened for a time.
A sudden, sickening feeling crept from his heart down into his belly. My face, he thought as he absentmindedly reached up to touch it. He felt the soft cloth of the bandage against his fingertips, and he could just make out the grooves of his stitches. What do I look like? he wondered as he traced a line down his cheek.
The door opened gently, and Lord Aubrey entered the room. His golden hair hung around his head like frayed rope. His eyes were encompassed by dark circles, and the skin around his cheekbones sagging slightly. For the first time in Young Aubrey’s life, his father looked old. It was so shocking that he didn’t know what to say.
Lord Aubrey stood for a few moments at the doorway, staring right at him. Warm relief filled his features, and he looked as though at any moment he would burst into tears. His father cleared his throat and regained his composure. “You’re awake,” he said at last. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” Young Aubrey said hoarsely. “But better.”
Lord Aubrey’s lower lip trembled. Again, he cleared his throat. “You were so…distant from me,” he said. “For the longest time I thought…”
All at once, he strode across the room to Young Aubrey’s bed. Before Young Aubrey could utter a word, his father’s arms were around him, clapping his back three times.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” his father said in his ear. He pulled away, keeping his hands on Young Aubrey’s shoulders. Lord Aubrey’s eyes traced over his bandage like his own fingers had moments before, and Young Aubrey felt a shiver crawl down his spine. “What happened?” Lord Aubrey asked. “Who did this to you?”
Young Aubr
ey had been dying to tell this story for a long time. Now that it was upon him, however, he hesitated. He knew what his father would say at the mere mention of a creature. Yet, Young Aubrey could not think of a better word; he did not know of any human who consumed human flesh.
“A demon did this, Father. It wore a black cloak and he had fangs and – and he was…he was eating a man. It was tearing into his neck…” He started to shake uncontrollably. His father did his best to hold him steady.
“We found the man,” Lord Aubrey said. “It looked as though a wolf had torn into him.”
“It wasn’t an animal, Father. It was a demon.”
Lord Aubrey stared uncertainly into Young Aubrey’s good eye. Half of his father’s face was cloudy, so Young Aubrey couldn’t be certain of his expression.
“Father, you believe me, don’t you?” Young Aubrey said after a moment of silence. “I know it sounds like I’m mad, but I’m not. I know what I saw, and it was a demon.”
Lord Aubrey kept his silence for a few moments more, and the entire time, Young Aubrey felt a sinking in his chest. His father gave a great sigh and said, “It sounds…I….” He ran his fingers through his greasy hair. “I believe you, son.”
Young Aubrey felt the warm rush of relief. He nearly cried then, but like his father, he kept his Aubrey composure. When his father looked at him again, a question tightened in his throat. He wondered if he should dare ask it. Everything in his father’s eyes told him not to. Yet he felt if he didn’t he would be driven mad. “How do I look?”
For a split second, Lord Aubrey looked stricken. He lowered his gaze to Young Aubrey’s hands as though he meant to hold them in reassurance. “You will have scars,” he said at last.
Young Aubrey swallowed hard. A part of him knew this, yet he did not know what to do with this information. “Can I see it?”
“No,” Lord Aubrey said quickly. “You’re not completely healed yet.”
“Would it make any difference if I saw it then, Father?” Young Aubrey asked quietly.
Lord Aubrey closed his eyes as if he did not wish to be here. “You are alive. What difference would it make how you look?” He chuckled, but Young Aubrey detected his father’s voice cracking at the end of his words. Lord Aubrey’s expression hardened. He went back to staring at his son’s hands as though they were going to offer him something—a cure, a reprieve, perhaps.
“I want to know what it did to me,” Young Aubrey said through gritted teeth.
“You will see in due time, when you are healed. Now, we must focus on capturing that…thing. This could be the very same…demon that murdered the last poor soul we found. If so, I have made a grave error. One I wish to correct immediately.”
Young Aubrey did not know why, but he didn’t like the way his father was speaking. He wondered where that demon was now—if it was hiding within the trees, quietly watching and waiting. It doesn’t matter, Young Aubrey thought. That monster will rue the day he let me live.
*
“So, you’ve returned,” Mrs. Lind said as she narrowed her eyes at Valerie. “And don’t you dare think about saying ‘Yes, ma’am,’ to me, or I will throw you out.”
Valerie nodded. She was too weary to argue or return a clever remark.
“Well, come in, come in. Don’t just stand there. You need to catch up on the work you missed.” Mrs. Lind strode back over to the counter while Valerie moved sluggishly toward the shelves.
“I heard about your father,” Mrs. Lind said. Her gaze darted up to Valerie and then back to her ledgers. “I’m sorry it happened.” Her tone was clipped, yet sincere.
Valerie’s father was bedridden for several days, and during that time, Valerie barely got any sleep herself. She would often wake at her father’s muffled cries of pain. Sometimes he lay still with tears streaming down his face, holding up his stump. He often looked at it as though he was desperately wishing for the fingers to grow back. Valerie tried to speak to him during these moments. She knew he wasn’t listening, but she kept trying. She read Saxon Matthews to him, hoping he would laugh at something. He barely cracked a smile.
Her father would not take any visitors. A few of his drinking acquaintances and fellow smiths dropped by to check on him, but her father refused to see anyone. When he was well enough, he was determined to return to work as though nothing had ever happened. He worked at his station for an hour before the owner sent him home for good. Mr. Mason spent a quarter of an hour shouting and swearing at the front of the shop, drawing the ire of the guardsmen. Valerie had to retrieve and escort him home. The entire time, her father spat contempt at the shop, recounting all the years he had worked there and how they needed him. He repeated that statement several times on the way home: “They need me. They need me.” Valerie said nothing. She knew there were no words that could lessen his rage.
At home, Mr. Mason locked himself in his office, toiling away on a pistol. When Valerie brought him lunch, she saw him fumbling with the metal pieces. He swore loudly when one of his tools slipped out of his left hand. He banged his stump against the desk, and then swore again in pain. Valerie placed his food on his desk and began picking up the pieces from the floor. The entire time, the Beast was watching from the corner of her father’s desk, looking as worn as she felt.
“I can do this,” Mr. Mason insisted, using his arms to encompass the broken pistol before him. “I can do it. I just have to show them.”
Valerie did not have it in her to discourage him.
That morning, when Valerie announced she was returning to work, her father waved her away. Bless him, he was still working, though he had not gotten any farther than the day before, nor the day before that. “It’s all right,” he said. “You can leave me.”
“I can’t increase your pay,” Mrs. Lind said, snapping Valerie back to the present. Mrs. Lind’s gaze darted toward Valerie again. “And I can’t pay you for the days you’ve missed. You’ll have to make them up.”
“I understand,” Valerie said.
Mrs. Lind slapped her hand on the desk. “Is that all, then? Am I to be your only solution?”
Valerie understood well what she was saying, but it hardly changed things. Valerie could not afford to pin her hopes on marriage; they would never be able to afford it. And now, she could barely afford food. The coin she obtained from the stranger in the forest did not last long; it went toward her father’s surgery. She’d have to return to the forest again for food, murderer or not. Valerie could not see a way out or forward. She could only see her feet planted on the wooden panels of the bookshop.
“Yes, ma’am,” Valerie said and began her work.
*
Dante poured himself and Damien a healthy cupful of brandy. Before drinking, he lifted his cup and said, “Cheers.” It was the first word he said since he entered the house.
Damien nodded, lifting the cup to his lips. He wasn’t going to try and fool himself into believing this was a friendly visit with friendly drinks. Surely Dante had heard by now, and it was surely the reason why he was here now. The brandy tasted warm and sweet, but it hit his stomach in a bitter chill.
Damien nervously tapped his finger against the tabletop.
“Why are you tapping?” Dante asked.
Damien stopped suddenly. “I just…I don’t know. I suppose I wasn’t thinking about it.”
Dante finished his cup of brandy and leaned back. “Now that,” he said, “is a very accurate statement.” He poured himself another glass and drank the cup in one gulp. With the tips of his fingers, he slowly turned the cup like a doorknob. “You’re not drinking your brandy.”
Damien tilted the cup to stare at the half-drunken contents. He gave a sour expression. “It tastes like nothing,” he said.
“Drink the brandy. I want to share this with you, but I can’t do that if you don’t drink.”
Damien sighed and knocked back a gulp. “No matter how much I drink, it still tastes the same.” He wiped his mouth with his hand. After he finished his
cup, he said, “Do you feel better now?”
Dante’s jaw moved back and forth like a pendulum. “What the hell’s wrong with you? I mean…What happened?”
He did not answer Dante; he started tapping again.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Dante said. “You can’t just eliminate everyone who gets in your way. It leads to dangerous problems for the both of us—problems that I have to solve.”
Damien ceased his tapping once more. “I take it from the way you’re speaking that you’ve already solved this particular problem.”
“Why, yes,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I have.”
Chapter 7
“We caught him, Master Aubrey.” This was the news that coaxed Young Aubrey out of his room. Captain Yendel escorted him to his father’s office. On the way, several of the servants met Young Aubrey’s good eye, then quickly turned away. Even Captain Yendel encountered him in this manner. Once, Young Aubrey caught the captain’s eyes tracing over the bandage, perhaps envisioning what must have caused such damage. Young Aubrey did his best to ignore it, yet he could not escape the feeling of being cut open again. He had still not seen his face; no mirror was given to him.
Captain Yendel knocked on Lord Aubrey’s office door. Lord Aubrey was sitting at his desk as usual. In front of him was a man in manacles, flanked by two guardsmen. The man had a grey, crinkly beard that fell to his chest. His cheeks were tomato red and tear-stained, his crooked teeth jutting out of his mouth as he sobbed. The clothes he wore had ragged patches exposing dirty bits of his flesh. He wore no shoes, so Young Aubrey could see his dirt clogged toenails. He stood crooked, broken, and shivering as tears and phlegm dripped onto his beard.