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1829 Words
She was a creature of the night who couldn’t remember her name. But it would come back to her. That part of her always did.
She dropped the body, guilt-riddled. No matter how deserving of the sweet kiss of death her victims were, it still bothered her. She didn’t know how many years of this she had lived and how many victims she could have taken by now. Her memory would only go back so far, and with each kill more was taken from her.
She didn’t want to. But the more she abstained, the more her reality unravelled, realms bleeding over. It was a matter of sanity. But when she couldn’t remember her own name anyways, was she sane?
She stepped over the body, leaving the dark alley as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She gazed up at the night sky, its vast darkness stretching above, glittered with so many stars. The sky was a void, endless. There could be anything up there in that vacantness, and she thought maybe she was the moon, drifting in that sea of nothingness. She could be anything or anyone, and she wouldn’t know. The glistening stars could be the people she knew— maybe some of them she loved— and they were so far away, so out of reach. The moon was trapped, hung suspended in a sea of emptiness, with so much up there around it but so far how could the moon even know of any of it?
She liked to think that. She liked to imagine that a glittering star out there cared about her, knew her. She hugged herself, chilled, and shivered.
She was a creature of the night. Destined to drift, soullessly, aimlessly, under a vast sea of black, a mirror of the moon here on earth.
~*~*~
The scent was gone. That rich, earthy smell of fresh rain. The echoes of laughter and squeals of delight faded, as a metallic, iron smell replaced it all, along with an incessant ringing in his ears. Azrael tried to get up, to move his hands under him, but they were bound. Slowly he realized he was laying in a metallic, warm ooze, as reality came crawling back along with each of his frantic heartbeats.
Mikey. Luke. The beast.
It flooded back in a rush. He tested the bindings on his wrists, gingerly cracking open the one eye not laying in his own blood. The searing light had his eye squeezing shut again as he stifled a groan, afraid to move, in case he was being watched. He tried again, slower, letting his vision adjust.
He was outside, away from the battle. The sun was high in the sky, baking the blood to the side of his face. He didn’t see anyone. On one side was a dense copse of trees and on the other some kind of open field, stretching grassy fingers out to the horizon.
He felt something move next to him and he turned his head just slightly, spotting a boot. The boot shifted and its owner groaned, “Az?” He remained quiet. “I know you're awake, they're not even watching us, O Tactical One.”
Luke’s voice. Without a second more he was pushing himself up. It was a struggle with his hands bound and fastened to some sort of stake in the ground behind him, but he managed. One arm wasn't responsive. His brow furrowed, “are you alright?”
A guffaw replied, “alright? Me? How about you?”
“Fine. Peachy, actually. Where are we?”
“I don’t know.”
“That… Thing?”
“Killed it,” came the smug reply.
“Seriously?”
“Easy.”
“f**k off.”
Luke chuckled quietly. As they talked, Azrael’s eyes were darting and he was twisting his head to look behind him. He spotted a tent near his six, with shadowed movement inside.
“You were out,” Luke answered the question he almost didn’t want to ask. “I didn’t see them behind me. Woke up to your snoring.”
“I don’t snore,” he replied absently. “What— What was it?” Azrael tested the ropes, straining at the bonds. He couldn’t break it, not with one limp arm.
“s**t, Az, you don’t think I tried that?”
“Stop bitching.”
“I don’t know what it was. Wasn’t normal. But we finally found something uglier than you.”
Azrael snorted, “I thought it was your sister.”
They stopped talking as they picked up sounds from the tent. Azrael strained his hearing, dimly realizing that with all the blood caked on the one side of his face he could only hear from one ear. He tried to catch the voices, but it sounded like he was underwater.
“Sounds like code.”
“You can hear them?”
“You can’t?”
Azrael slid up the stake until he could get his knees under him, “my boot, can you reach it? Is my knife there?”
“You bloody bastard!” Luke scrambled, twisting himself. He strained, and after a minute, he pulled it free. “Yes, the morons!”
Azrael grinned as Luke worked the knife, cutting his own bonds, then dealing with his, “quick, before they notice!” A snap, and he was free, taking his knife back. “Get to the forest, there!” Luke nodded.
Azrael approached the tent quietly, and Luke scurried up behind him, “Az, let’s go!”
“No,” he growled. “I’m slitting their throats!”
“What are you doing?! Don’t be as stupid as they are,” Luke hissed. “You’ve only a knife!”
“All I need. Go home, Luke.”
Azrael didn't wait for him to protest again as he crept to the tent. It was large, probably held ten men. He listened: broken words were all he could make out. Luke was right, what he could decipher was incomprehensible. He heard rustling behind him and turned to glare at the insubordination from his man. Luke replied by flipping him the bird.
“You have a family!” Luke only held a finger to his lips in reply and Azrael gave in, nodding.
A rustle from inside, then a shadow moved towards the tent's entrance. Azrael raised his blade. A figure came out and the knife descended, biting into its neck as Azrael held its mouth, dragging it back and setting the body down softly. He paused. That... Wasn't a human, or one of the Priedae. His brow furrowed and he almost missed a second figure, turning too slowly but Luke already had it in a rear-naked strangle. Azrael slit that thing's throat too, but the struggle caused a stir inside.
Seven more of them filed out of the tent, weapons out. “Go, Luke! Get to the trees!” The numbers should have made him nervous, but Azrael's eyes glowed an eery red as he grinned. Game on.
They lunged at him, trying to grab his bad arm. They must want him alive: he had the advantage. Two circled behind him. Azrael's blade sang, stabbing one in the shoulder, twisting around to get another in the gut. He ducked, dodging a punch, and kicked out his leg to trip another. One slashed at him with an axe and he dropped his knife to grab the shaft, grappling the weapon away and swinging. These things weren't as strong as him, they weren’t even as strong as men. With one arm he was able to wrest it away.
How could it be that such puny things were their captors? Something was off.
He hissed as his own dropped knife found purchase in his back, adrenaline flooding him through the wound. He let out a feral roar as he brought the axe down. Luke hadn't fled as he had ordered and was on top of another one on the ground, feeding it fists. Clearly, Luke wasn't leaving as ordered.
Azrael growled, the blood loss from earlier getting to him again as his head became light. Luke managed to get an axe of his own from the one he had pinned and soon its head rolled, knocking into Azrael’s ankle. He stepped away too quickly in his haste not to touch the thing and he stumbled, reeling. The creature kicked him and he fell, rolled, pushed to his feet. His head spun from the exertion and he stumbled again.
Worry crept in as his focus crumbled, but then Luke buried his axe in another creature and it collapsed. Finally, down to one. He panted, drawing on his strength and charging forward. He missed, spilling into the dirt.
Luke had it. Then he was on top of it, the axe raised high above his head. He brought it down. Then again. And again.
He hacked, and hacked, and hacked.
Azrael sat up, shivers down his spine as he watched Luke’s face speckle with blood. The same face that had smiled tenderly at his newborn bundle, brushing shaking, gentle fingers on her cheek as though she would shatter in his hands, but he couldn’t help but to touch her anyways— that same face was twisted in malice, a sadistic grin painted red as finally the head severed. He roared, burying the axe in the thing’s chest, panting, the battle fervour lighting up his eyes.
As horrified as Azrael was to watch his friend lose control, he couldn’t help the shame he felt when a sliver of admiration began to grow.
Was he himself capable of such sadistic glee? The answer scared him.
He stood shakily, “Luke, I told you to—“
“You wouldn’t leave me, Sir. In fact, you didn’t.”
“Just get this knife outta me.”
Luke approached, tearing off strips from his own shirt, then grasped the blade, yanking it free and quickly bandaging the wound tightly. “We gotta get back Az, this won't last. You're lucky, looks like your muffintop saved you there.”
Azrael snorted, rolling back his good shoulder, “not until we get a better look.” He kicked one ugly abomination over, squatting down to peer at its eery face. Its skin was ashen grey, and those eyes bugged out, black, no white. He frowned. They were small and skeletal. Weak. Their backs were curved with a hunch and their hands had nasty talons. Where had he seen these things before? “Luke, you seen these?”
Luke was looking at another one, fingering its talons, “yes. I have.”
“What are they?”
“Not a good sign, that's what.”
“Shoot straight, Luke.”
He was silent for a moment, brow drawn, “remember when we last went to Niflheim? To see The Lady?”
“Yeah? Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
- Writer
