SOME LANGUAGE AND VIOLENCE. Oh, and the format transferred a little funky. *shrug*
Note made on December 9th-
When Priest Athelos of Eyam village found his town attacked by demons, this is what he had to say:
June 10, 1317- My friend [and the head of his order, a name I couldn’t quite make out due to the handwriting on the letter]:
By God! I know I must seem a madman for what I am about to say, but what I speak is the truth. My village has been attacked by demons.
A foul, sulfurous wind blew these demons into our town a few days hence, when they proceeded to destroy our homes, deflower our women, and fling our men about as the toys of children. I stood against them for as long as I could and drove many back, but eventually they overcame even me. When they had made enough merry with us, they herded us to the center of our town, where we were greeted by the head of the demons, an odious creature by the name of Shirracco that took the guise of a giant wolf. With many fine words, it tried to tempt our mortal souls before killing us. However, before it could do so, another beast of Hell, a great red dragon equal in size to the wolf, appeared and demanded the right to our souls as well, wishing to devour us. When the wolf refused, the two fought one another, ending when Shirracco fell to the ground with a mortal wound to the throat. Before dying, it spat a final curse at the dragon. Afterwards, praise Him, the Lord intervened for us, and as a reward for proving ourselves in the face of His test, he drove the rancid-breathed dragon away from our town. Through His power, too, we were able to force the other demons to leave with our prayers.
Since then, we have begun to rebuild the homes that we lost and reestablish our lives. Though our morale cannot be replaced, we would appreciate any monies or services that could be rendered at this time.
-Your friend,
Priest Athelos
That’s the official account of what happened. Not that anything else could have really been expected- it was the fourteenth century. But, if I’m being honest…a lot of that was a bunch of bullshit. Shirracco, afraid of God? If he’d been afraid of God, he never would have let himself exist (incidentally, I don’t think he ever did find a reason for his creation). The only thing that ever frightened him was himself.
But all of that doesn’t really matter. Because I found another document in the stack of papers underneath the tower- one that’s more accurate than this one, if still biased: Shirracco’s. Shirracco wrote down his first-hand account of what happened, and to my knowledge, it’s the more factual of the two, even if told from his point of view. Much as it may seem that his story has no relevance to mine- since this is my journal- I’m still putting it at the front, because I think it’s the most important part, how this all began. It’s the reason for everything that unfolded over the last few weeks, and to understand the end, you have to understand the beginning.
Who better to tell the story than Shirracco himself, right?
So for that reason, I’m putting Shirracco’s own version of the events that started it all in here, in the hopes that it explain things a bit before my actual own narrative. Here it is:
Document dated circa late 1960s/early 1970s (human time)-
Some of the bloodiest stories I know are fairy tales.
Everybody always talks about how cute fairy tales are, how sweet and innocent and perfect for bedtime stories they are…but they’re really not. Look at Hansel and Gretel. Two kids left out in the middle of the woods to starve to death are captured by a witch, and end up having to push her into her own oven to escape. And then they tack a little message onto the end, like, “Don’t talk to strangers”. Yeah, great message. How about, “Stay away from cannibalistic old women you meet in the middle of the woods”? At least then they’d be being honest about the real themes. Or how about Snow White? Prince finds a dead girl in the middle of the woods and brings her back to life with a kiss. Necrophilia, anyone? And then Red Riding Hood…
Well. I don’t think I need to say any more about that.
Anyway, my point is, that if you really look at them, all of those stories- for all their claims for being kid-oriented- are as dark, violent, and disturbing as any old Romanian horror story (Romania being my birth country). That’s why I’m so surprised my story didn’t up as one. Strange as it is, it’s got just enough violence and pseudo-Christian overtones that humans could put a slant to that I think it could have been one. They could have twisted it, somehow. Given it a message. Hm- a moral to my story. What would it have been for me? What lesson could I take away from my life?
If I had to choose, I’d say, “There are no damn morals in real life- you just have to get along as best you can and hope you don’t piss off the wrong person”.
But back to my point. If people hadn’t forgotten about me- if humans didn’t have such short memories- I think my life could have been a fairy-tale. Something to scare the kids at night. Hm. I like the idea of that. Scaring kids. Never got to do it much- my forte was adults. Kids were too young to take it all in sometimes, especially if they were human. But this letter is the only record that survived. Funny. A little human note send to another human, probably shoved away and forgotten after a few weeks, until I tracked it down years later. I’ll be honest- I felt a little irritated that there wasn’t more. I did. Even if human opinion meant nothing to me. I’d expected something worthy of legends, an epic battle like Zeus and Cronus, Horus and Set, King Arthur and Mordred. I should have been like Fenrir, or Skoll, or the Varcolac or the strigoi or the pricolici, or all the other half dozen wolf demons that have popped up over history without any apparent meaning. What did I get? A dogmatic priest’s babbling of a wolf and a dragon sent from Hell to test a village in the name of God. Half of the facts weren’t even right. Oh, I don’t deny what I did. I’ve never tried to lie to myself about that. But if this story’s going to be told, it should at least be told right.
Take, for instance, the line about the ‘foul wind blowing the demons into town’. Foul wind? Please. The only ‘foul wind’ blowing was coming from the town itself, which- let’s be honest- was the slum of the fourteenth century. It was no picnic even before the little flood they had back in 1314, 15, and 16, but after that, any shot they had left was gone. That’s why I picked them. Always start off small- never try out an experiment in front of a wide audience, or you’ll make yourself look like an ass if you fell.
I remember that day. I mean I remember it for real, even after almost 700 years. Not like that human. Often, when I’m sitting by myself and swirling my thoughts around like brandy, not only will I end up with a headache and a bad mood, but I’ll find myself back in that day, reliving it.
I’d picked a spot on a hill nearby, just overlooking the town. The demons had grumbled about having to wait all day, but I explained to them- carefully- that we couldn’t make a move on the town in daylight. Demons, attacking during the day? I don’t think so. That would be like a vampire leaping out in the middle of a crowded room and going, “Bluh!”. Doesn’t work. So staked out on a hill, with a hundred or so anxious demons behind me, I watched the humans move through the field bellow me and hoped they wouldn’t see me through the mist.
That day, the fog sat on the landscape like a satiated lion, and only our eyes could have seen through it with the clarity of shallow water, but still, I always had that nagging feeling it would burn off. Or the humans would miraculously look over and be able to distinguish us from the trees. I once came across an interesting human bauble, a set of binoculars- unneeded by any of my kind- and when I looked through, discovered they had the same focusing effect as my eyes. And the same irrational fear that at any moment, the person being watched would look over at me and see me just as well.
I didn’t give my demons any last minute, villainous, humans-are-oh-so-inferior-and-foolish speech- never believed in them; instead, I sat, and waited, and felt as impatient as the rest of them. It wasn’t until the end of the day that I actually saw the sun- sinking down through the clouds, burning a hole in the mist like a hot red coin. When it touched the horizon, I decided we’d waited enough. Sunset gave enough ambiance for an attack, didn’t it?
I glanced at the demons crouched behind me. “Are you ready?” I might as well have said, “Jimi Hendrix is back, and he’s doing a second Woodstock.” Hey, what can I say? I still have some contact to the human world.
They needed no urging, and when I gave them the go-ahead, they took off down the hill like addicts to a mountain of sugar. I stayed behind. I wanted to follow, believe me- I but I stopped myself. Barely.
The demons rushed down into the rows of wheat and hurdled toward the humans walking back home with the stealth of spy planes. Ahead, the men never saw anything coming. When the first went down, he didn’t even get a chance to scream. A muffled noise, the crack of his head hitting the ground and lolling, the thump of his slumping body. My mouth watered with the brief spike of his fear before his unconsciousness, and despite the stench of urine, sweat, and general poverty that wrinkled my nose, I leaned forward. The demons picked up on my silent cue and fanned out, heading toward the other men.
Then the other men turned.
They’d heard the lag in their comrade’s conversation. When they looked back, expressions guarded, I’m sure they expected to see their friend falling behind, stopping to catch his breath. What they actually saw made their eyes widen and their mouths drop open like cattle in the middle of chewing their cud. They had time to catch a glimpse of the body- which they probably assumed to be dead- and the demons hovering overhead, and then they moved, acting on instinct.
The humans turned and ran toward the town again, yelling warnings. One tripped, and he was done. Another fell and squirted red as the demons cut into trivial arteries in his neck. The last couple gasped and hit the edge of the town, banged on doorways. Shouting. A splash of red, and one fell, covered in demons. People peeked out of their homes and screamed when they saw the commotion, and started running around without knowing what to do with the news except spout it. Word of mouth flashed like a fire in a forest, nipping at the hems of conversations and household chores with the same word over and over again- “Daemons!”. Someone started ringing a bell. Men and women ran from their homes, flushed out by the panic, like the rats that would swarm the streets in a few hundred years when London burned.
The big bell in the church joined in.
In the murkiness of noise and sound, everything stretched and warped. Doorways became nightmare mouths that the demon vanished into, dragging men and women in behind them. Smoke rolled from homes first teased by small embers for fire pits and tipped torches, and then wrapped in rugs of flame that engulfed the sod and hay in mere minutes. People wavered and danced in the light like demons themselves, flickering, insubstantial. Their shadows grew claws and snatched at their dresses and tunics, trying to pluck them back into the darkness. I spied children wailing for their parents, forgotten by adults too reverted to their animal instincts to remember their own young.
Demons sank their claws into the roofs and worked together to peel it off like a piecrust. It crumbled in their hands, and pattered to the street below like so much gingerbread. Others dove and swooped like seagulls, snagging people’s tunics and throwing them up into the air. They enjoyed the crunch of their arms and legs when they hit the ground; it satisfied the urge to break their necks, which I’d prohibited them from doing. Cackling, they shattered barrels of ale and watched them flow into the street and reflect the dying light. They did it all, and they loved it.
But don’t think for one moment during all of this I was being sadistic. No. Sadism isn’t me- sadism belongs to b-movie villains that laugh and twiddle their mustaches, and do mean things to plucky heroes and heroines. In real life, there is no good or evil, only people. I had a need to fill; the humans filled it. Simple as that. If I could have avoided them, I would have- but no other sentient creature gets as scared. But I didn’t enjoy it- well, maybe I enjoyed it a little. But that’s not why I did it.
I have a reason for everything.
On a side note, I think I saw the little priest that wrote the letter. When the demons found the church, they flew up to the top of the tower and swung the bell so hard it snapped off its base. The rest of the stone frame gave in then, and while the entire roof collapsed, a man in coarse black robes broke out of the front door and managed to get away. He watched the roof and walls cave in with arcs of falling beams and stone, and then looked up at the demons. I imagine years of studying little paintings of goat-hoofed demons in books didn’t do much to prepare him.
The demons hovered above him, wings flapping. His eyes narrowed. I’ve got to hand it to him for trying; he lifted that wooden cross like he expected the light of God to come shining out like a finger and poke them right between the eyes, not even a quiver in his hand.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I command you-”
And then one of the demons swooped down and snatched it right out of his hand. Said demon also tried to hide the smoke coming from its paw and unintelligible curses under its breath. I snickered; only big demons got away scot-free with that one. The priest gaped at his empty hand, looked back at the demon, and then in another attempt to drive it away, turned and ran.
Yeah.
The clanging of the smaller bell continued, as if anyone still needed the warning. The demons pulled back, and surveyed their work: half the homes destroyed, people left lying in the streets to be trampled or forgotten, several small fires, and some general havoc and disorder. Not a bad day’s work, all things considered.
Now they had to get everyone back together again.
Splitting up, they each took separate ways out of the town. They caught straggling people in the middle of escaping, elbowing each other out of the way and knocking each other down. The demons spread their wings and showed their teeth, and the men and women scrambled over each other to rush back in the other way. All around the village, the demons cut off the exits and herded them into the center, encircling them to prevent them from leaving once more.
That’s when I decided it was time to step in.
Loping down the hill and across the field, I listened to the noises in the town grow louder and louder. The negative energy felt better than I’d expected, when I got close enough to take it in. My not-stomach channeled and absorbed it enough to make me hungrier, set my teeth on edge; adrenaline pumped through my veins, and saliva flooded my mouth. Much better. Individual conversations and snatches of phrases floated to me over the general din and my own hunger, and I started concentrating. People hummed and muttered prayers like musicians tuning up for a concert. Just as I approached the town entrance, I heard one human say, “What servant of Satan could be responsible for all of this?”
“That would be me.”
The mutterings and wailings stopped, and every human turned to look as me as the demons parted for me to walk through. Back in the day- and I do mean the day- when I was in my prime, I was a sight to see, if I do say so myself. Especially for the humans. I know what they saw when I stepped forward: a giant wolf with too much muscle even for my size, towering over their homes and decked out in a coat of gray and white, with puny little skeleton wings on my back (stupid things) and sharp sickle-shaped claws.
“Excuse me- I know what a shock this must be. These are my demons; I ordered them to attack. Sorry to just dump this on you without any kind of warning, but I had to make it a surprise. Otherwise it wouldn’t have worked.”
A man pushed his face forward, looking angry. I recognized him as the priest from before, sans cross. “What servant of Satan are you, that you come here to attack our village?”
“I suppose I should introduce myself.” I lifted my head a little. “My name is Shirracco- I’m a wolf demon.” I heard the ripple of panic-noises spread through the crowd, and lowered my head again.
“Creature from Hell, you mean.” The priest’s frown deepened, and he crossed himself. “You bring evil to us here in the name of your dark master.”
“First of all, I’m from London, not from Hell. And I didn’t come here as anyone’s servant. I’m here for reasons of my own.”
“What reasons do you speak of? Why have you attacked us?”
“I attacked you because of what I am- a wolf demon. I work a little differently than all these other demons. They’re just here to help me; I promised them they could create all the chaos they wanted for me, as long as they didn’t kill anyone. They”- I motioned to the demons around me with my wings- “feed on flesh.” I folded my wings again. “I feed on emotion.” Now I heard the murmurs and mumbles, the beginnings of understanding. I fought a smile.
“I traveled all the way here from my home because I wished to try out a certain experiment. These demons are helping me. You see, I can’t feed on just any emotion. I feed on negative feelings. Specifically fear. For a long time now, I’ve hunted animals, like deer and rabbits. Every few days, I’ve had to go back out into the wilderness to track something down. It’s hard because their fear isn’t sentient; it’s not strong. Like water instead of ale. But I have a theory that sentient fear, in large quantities, would enable me to limit my hunting trips to once every one or two months. Which is why I picked you. I needed a place to start out small, to test my theory…and you happened to be it. No hard feelings.”
The priest’s tone grew fierce. “You prayed upon innocent children of God, just to scare them into feeding you?”
His words sawed across my nerves. “We’ve all got to live. I can’t keep hiding in the dark, like the lesser of my kind…the lesser that you drove away into the shadows and have forced to start evolving back into primitive forms. It’s not enough that many of us have lost our dignity, but now I’ve seen them start to lose their eyes, too.”
“You are armies of the evil one- it is the mission of the warriors of God to drive you away.”
“Mission.” I snorted. “Was it your mission to kill half my kind? To reduce us to almost nothing?” Inside, I seethed; I hadn’t meant for this feeble man to draw me into an argument.
“In the name of God, I command you to leave us! You have obtained the food you desired- now take your other damned followers and go, before the Lord smites you down.”
“Ah- there’s the catch.” I flicked my eyes to the rest of the crowd, and tightened my paws on the ground. “You see, I haven’t gotten my fear- yet. True, I proved my theory right. The fear of just one of you alone is ten times that of the animals I used to hunt. But I’m not fed. No yet. To feed, I have to kill each of you myself, to absorb your fear as my own, or else the energy will fade away as soon as your fear leaves. Or as soon as I’m beyond the range of sensing it.”
“How is that fair, for many to die for the sake of one?”
“I never said it was fair.” I gave him a humorless smile. “I just said I needed it to live. Consider- a couple hundred human deaths a year, or close to a thousand animals? Now what’s saving numbers?”
“Animals are not humans-“
“Wrong. Humans are animals, I’ve seen it shown time and again.” I eased back a little, repressing the anger I felt. “But I’m still offering you a chance at mercy.”
“Will some of us be allowed to live?” Despite his grave tone, many faces in the audience became desperate, hopeful.
“No.” The brief glimmers of hope died, replaced with fear again. “Much as I would like to leave half of you alive- all of you, actually, if it meant never having to come near you again- I can’t let stories like that spread. I’m offering you a different perspective, a slight alternative.” Nervous murmurs raced through the crowd, and I lifted my voice again to be heard. “You all remember the floods that hit the last few years. Even now, your crop isn’t halfway where it was before. Face it: eventually, you’re going to die. Whether through a plague, or another famine, or some other catastrophe, sooner or later, you’re gong to vanish. How many people did you start out with? You’re down to a third of where you were ten years ago. You’re nothing more than a speck on the map. Soon, you’ll be gone for good, and no one will ever remember you. How much longer do you think you can last? How much longer is it worth it to last? You’re suffering needlessly.”
“Blasphemy!” The priest turned to the people around him, throwing up his arms. “Lies! Deceit! We have survived this long because we have tried to survive!” He turned back to me again. “God has protected us and given us strength, because He wants us to go on living. He will not abandon us in our hour of need. He will make sure that we survive.
My patience broke at last, and I leveled a cold look at him. “And how do you know what your God wants?”
He spluttered, dumbfounded. I took advantage of his loss of words to speak to the others. “I’m offering you more than your God ever will: honesty. If you wish it, I’ll give you a quick, painless, instant death. All I want is the fear. The less time I have to spend among you, the better. But those of you that wish to hold on…” I looked over at the demons again, who rubbed their wings together and chattered, flexing their claws. “…can wait, and be tortured by the demons. I agreed them that much as part of our deal for working together.”
“This is the mouth of Satan!” The priest’s words lifted in pitch. “Heed not what he says, for he is trying to tempt your mortal souls! Foul demon- go back to the pits of Hell, where you belong, before the Lord smites you down.”
“Maybe I’m just what your Lord wants.” I smiled a little again. “Maybe I’m the answer to your prayers, offering you a quick ending. None of you will be blamed. You don’t have a choice in the matter, so you might as well make the best of it.”
“He is twisting God’s words! Do not listen to him!”
“Father.” He turned, and found a woman holding on to his sleeve. “Father, please- my sister died this past winter. Her husband died the year before that. Does God really intend to live for us to live like this?”
Some people around her joined in, murmuring. I watched in satisfaction as the priest turned from one face to the other, open-mouthed, watching them jump in one at a time. Just as I’d hoped would happen. That had been my second reason for picking this town: get them arguing and lure them into a false sense of security, and the moment you move to attack them again, the return to reality will be all the sharper.
Because maybe I didn’t plan to let all of them have a quick death.
The priest must have caught the smile creeping up the side of my face when he turned around, because his eyes hardened. He pointed a finger at me that didn’t tremble.
“Go then, and give yourselves over to this demon- and let him devour your very souls.”
I rolled my eyes, and nodded to a few demons on each side. They zipped in and wrapped their paws around the priest’s arms, pulling him back. Then I turned to the rest of the crowd and stiffened my legs.
“All those that want their death to be quick- stay where you are. Those that insist on trying to hold on…stay to the sides, and the demons will find you as soon as I’m done.”
Growling, I tensed my hind legs and settled into a half-crouch. The humans hesitated, swaying, unsure of which way to go now, what they really wanted. The fear of uncertainty bloomed around them, just as I’d known would happen. I prepared to jump.
Then I heard the wing-beat.
I had just a moment to look up, register the sound like the flapping of canvas. Something red flashed into view, growing larger. I had no time to react. Then the claws slashed toward my face.
I screamed as pain, red-hot, white-hot, black-hot, ripped across my face in five broad strokes. Blood blinded me. I stumbled to the ground, feeling for my face. Ragged strips of flesh dangled into my paws. My eyes, my nose, my mouth flared with pain, and felt slick to the touch. The fur on my head, my arms, became soaked, but the blood didn’t stop. Curling up on my side, I continued to howl up at (what I thought was) the sky, while around me, through a haze, I heard the dim cries of the humans.
The wings flapped again, sweeping away, and stifling my scream, I tried to listen. The wing-beats altered, shifted, and dove, whistling with wind. I heard the screeches of the demons, the slash of claws through them.
“No…” I breathed hard and managed to control my anger enough to concentrate and push myself up. The shouts continued, as demons in their death-struggles flung themselves at unfeeling talons.
“Come on…heal, heal…”
I willed the wounds to stop bleeding so much, to clot faster, faster, as everything continued on around me. After a few moments, the flow of blood on my claws slowed. I lifted my head and opened my eyes, wounds pounding. Some trickles still ran down the side of my head, and my eyes felt swollen and burnt, but the blood had dried enough around the edges for me at least to see.
A red dragon wheeled and plunged over the demons, chasing them with its snapping jaws as they fled before its wide wings and sharp claws. Its tail whipped through the air behind it. Unable to stop it, I watched it turn its head and cough a ball of fire at the demons swarming behind it. Charred bodies twirled to the ground like feathers. Turning, it raked its claws across another handful, and growled at the ones that nipped its sides.
I snorted. A funny coincidence, that- fate’s way of being ironic, I guessed. Then I looked closer, to see just who was going up against me. Twisted horns. Angular scales that came to a point on the underside. A triple row of spines down the back. Forked tail. Deep ridges in the face, extending back into webbed, spiny ears. A pointed chin dotted by a handful of spines. A wing with one too many finger-ribs in it, and a growing sense of familiarity in the movements and curves.
No.
Dipping and diving like a Chinese kite, it moved with a grace that was too recognizable to put off as coincidence, a favoring to that wing I found myself still remembering after all this time. When a demon flew in to gouge it in the belly, I knew the response before it moved: a sudden drop and lift, then a swift brake with its wings to catch the surprised demon in its claws. Only I knew the hours of work and dedication it took for that simple move. My memory- like the demon- didn’t stand a chance.
The little scab on the piece of my heart that I’d tried to freeze like a cancer chipped off, and started leaking again. Shit. Why here, of all places?
Finishing up its attack, the dragon slapped the last few demons out of the air with its tail and made a final pass above the our heads. A handful of demons came hobbling back to me literally and figuratively, eyeing it with wary eyes as they scrambled behind me. They seemed to value their lives more than their pride- and also had the most smarts. Without looking at them, I slowly straightened up again and watched the dragon veer around as it completed its circuit. Though the demons behind me flinched, I didn’t move as it banked toward us and skimmed close to the ground.
The humans around it jumped back, giving it room to lift its wings and pull up short. Flapping a few more times, it lowered its hind legs to the ground first, then the front, plopping down on all fours and shouldering its wings. The wind around it died. Its head lifted, and two old narrow, cluster-amaryllis eyes that I knew well regarded me. The slit pupils contracted a little.
Her.
Off to the side, I noticed the priest cross himself and bow his head. Mumbled something along the lines of, “The Devil himself.” Ignoring him, I turned away and offered the dragon a little smile.
“Hello.”
The dragon inclined its head and curved its neck like a coy snake. “Hello.”
The priest’s head snapped up in shock; I glanced at him in amusement. Surprised to hear a female voice?
I turned back to the dragon again. “You gave my demons a little scare today. You know, I usually know at least the names of the people that attack me, but I’m just drawing a blank on you. I don’t think we’ve met before, do you?”
“No.” Her slight, strained smile echoed mine as it broadened. Only we could hear the sarcasm dripping off our words. “We haven’t. I believe I know your name- Shirracco, correct?”
“The one and only.” I bowed my head and spread my wings. As I glanced back up at her, I chanced letting one corner of my mouth slip. “Now that I look at you, though, I do think I’ve seen your face somewhere before. Would you happen to be the dragon that they call Red, for your…” I glanced her up and down. “…lovely scarlet scales?”
One blink, and I sensed the subtle shift in her eyes, the encroachment of the ice in her pupils that she’d held off for the sake of the humans. “I haven’t gone by that in quite some time. I prefer the name Azraiel, now- my real name.”
“Ah- that would explain why I didn’t recognize you at first.” I inclined my head. “You know, you could have at least announced yourself as being in the area, told me you had a claim here before you swooped in and tore my face off.”
She smiled a little, frigid. “I didn’t know you were in the area, or else I would have. I just moved here a few weeks ago.”
“What are you doing here?”
“The same thing you’re doing here, I think- this is a high risk area. My people and I try to keep places like this from dying out. We’ve done a lot of good work in other towns, apart from the occasional fanatic.” We both shot a look at the priest. Ah- so she knew him, too.
She looked back at me again. “It seems these places attract a lot of different types- on both sides of the fence.”
“Bad luck, I guess.” I forced a smile.
“Indeed.” Her eyes, thawed by her smile for only a second, flicked to the demons around me. “I see you’ve found some cohorts willing to help you.”
I glanced the demons, who huddled on the ground. “They’re not permanent. I only picked them because they’re good for this kind of thing- chaos and mass panic, you know.” I turned back to her again. “I don’t share their love of killing just for the sake of killing.”
She turned her head, her neck curving like a snake again. “No?”
“No. Actually, I sort of despise them, but I still have to work with them. Not much of a choice, there.”
“I never thought- when I heard about it- you’d actually be able to do it. Find the demons willing to help you do this.”
“Well, I couldn’t do it alone, could I? One demon’s not enough to scare an entire village. Especially if a wandering knight happens to be riding by, and somebody breaks away long enough to ask for help.”
“And I suppose you manage to justify the killing of that many people to yourself?”
“I have a way.”
“So I thought.” Her voice became more clipped. “So- you’re the destroyer of the town, and I’m the protector.”
“Guess that kind of puts us at odds, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
We regarded each other, each looking at what time and events we’d never witnessed had done to our faces, our bodies. We’d become more calloused, leathered, away from each other.
I brought us back to the present. “Just what obligation do you owe to these humans, exactly? Are you pillaging from their livestock? Lurking in their hills?”
“I told you- we plan to work with them.” Her voice became tighter, sensing what we both knew to be coming.
“Yes, but what are they to you? What do you owe them?”
“Shirracco…”
“I mean, have they stopped killing your kind? Did they agree to not send men on white horses with delusions of grandeur after you?”
“Everyone knows what the humans have done.”
“Do you?” I warmed to my subject, bitter at them, bitter at the situation I’d been forced into. “You know, none of the animals I ever hunted deliberately tried to kill each other for the sake of getting a bit of ground. The way I see it, I’d be doing the world a favor with this.”
She sighed, closing her eyes, and suddenly changed from the grad student I remembered to the thirty-something standing before me now. We’d both grown up. “The humans have done terrible things to us all. There’s no denying that. But they don’t deserve to die for it.”
“Really? So does that mean that all the people they killed did?”
“I know what they’ve done to your kind…”
“My kind? What about your kind? What about them? Think of everything they’ve done: they’ve hunted you down, they’ve killed you, they’ve tried to drive you away…they’re even quivering in fear of you right now. If they could, they’d have you killed. What do you owe them? What do we owe them? They’re murderers, a danger to themselves as well as us. If we let them live, they’ll destroy us all.”
“They have the potential to grow; they’re still a young race. If we just give them the opportunity, they can learn…”
“And how much time would that be? A hundred years? A millennia? By the time we stop deciding to be patient with them, they’ll be none of us left to be patient with them. You’ve seen what’s started to happen to my kind. We’re morphing back, we’re dying out. They’re going to scare us right back into the shadows again.”
“And you really think that’s their fault?”
My temper flared. “They’ve done terrible things because we’ve let them. If we wanted to stop them, we could. We’re stronger; we could take them on, it’s our right…”
She shook her head. “We were young, too, once.” Something about the way she said ‘we’ took on a different tone and shoved its way into our heads, dredging up more memories. “A long time ago, our races were just as violent. We used to fight all the time, remember? But we grew past it. Why can’t we let them do the same?”
“Because it’ll be too late by then. And it won’t bring back the hundreds more that will be lost in the meantime, for a species that won’t even thank us for helping them survive.”
“If we just work with them and help them to be the best they can be, we can stop the fighting, and help them realize it sooner.”
“The best they can be?” I scoffed. “Look at them.” I waved a paw. “Puny little sacks of bones and meat, wrapped in fragile skins. They don’t even have claws. Standing there, letting their own futures be discussed, not even bothering to stick up for themselves. That’s what you see potential in?”
“Demons used to be shadows. That’s all. And look at what they’ve become, given the chance.”
I snorted. “The chance. What other chances can we give them?”
“We can help them, make sure they’re able to understand and survive…”
“Help. Right. They’re killing us and pushing us out of our own lands every day, and you suggest helping them. You know, I think they could have been demons themselves at one time, if nature had graced them with a few more…weapons, besides ambition. Except demons at least have an excuse for the way they are.”
“So instead, you propose slaughtering them like cattle or turning them into slaves. Yes, that certainly elevates you above them.”
“Think about everything we could do if we took advantage of them. One village is enough to feed me for almost two months- imagine what I could do with all that time. All that energy. I could find a new way to feed myself, a synthetic to use so I could devote my time to helping my race in other ways, and then insuring the humans survive. Imagine all the demon wolves I could liberate. They say the wolf demon Fenrir was able to swallow the moon- that can’t be taken literally, of course, but figuratively…it would mean total independence from the moon. No more waiting for the full moon to rise to be able to move freely at night, or achieve the best state of mental power. It could free us…” Once again, the word ‘us’ took on a different meaning, and sprung between us like a bloodied child neither of us wanted to touch but neither of us could look away from, either. We met each other’s eyes over its head, wistful.
“Nothing’s worth two hundred lives, not for just two months. They would be wiped out in decades.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
We listened to the silence of the humans around us and ignored it.
“They deserve the chance to live.”
“No, they don’t.”
“They’ve got the right to try to change themselves as much as us-”
“Not when they’ve taken away so many others’ rights.
“It’s not ethical-”
“Ethical?” My voice rose. “Let’s talk about ethical. Let’s talk about how ethical it is to tell someone it’s wrong to determine another species future, while they’re doing it themselves. Let’s talk about how ethical it is tell a species that their life is going to be worth something, when it’s not. Let’s talk about how ethical it is to leave them hanging like that, always hoping for nothing.” And just like that, the ghost of another conversation floated in, transparent, settling itself down on top of it.
Her tone hardened. “The situation has been made clear. It’s their decision if they want to accept that or not.” She pressed her mouth together, the tips of her fangs showing.
“Then I guess they’re never going to make the right decision.” I clenched my jaw, resolute.
“I guess not.”
We stared at each other, a taut cord stretched between us, as we really looked at each other.
She cut it first. “Then that leaves us still in a bit of a situation.”
“Yes. I suppose it does.” Suddenly, I felt weary. I wanted more than anything else for this to just be over and done with, and for me to be away from here.
“What do you think we should do about that?”
“I don’t know.”
She kept her look level, expression echoing what I felt. “I think you do.”
I wanted to say, “I know.” I wanted to tell her that I knew she couldn’t all along, just she knew I couldn’t back down or walk away even if I wanted to.
Did I want to?
I can honestly say I still don’t know.
Instead, I shook my head and said, “You’re going to have to make me leave, then, because I don’t plan on doing it myself.” Which, looking back on it now, was the stupidest thing I could have said, knowing how she was. But at the time, it felt almost more like a plea, begging her to do it so I wouldn’t have to.
She lifted her paw, tone darkening. “I will if I have to.”
We stayed like that for a few moments, just looking at each other, twenty feet apart- twenty feet that might as well have been an inch or a thousand miles. The gulf of years, and different paths, spread between us, a chasm neither of us could ever cross. Then I let my eyes slide over, to the humans standing next to me. A group of them had drifted close, caught in the scramble to get away from the landing dragon. I saw them shivering, saw their hands and arms trembling. Now I can no longer say whether they were men or women or both. I didn’t see their faces; I only saw them, and what I suddenly needed to do with them. Without really thinking or knowing why, I whipped out my paw and snatched them up.
Several people screamed. The ones in my paw wriggled and shouted, trying to escape the snare of claws. Red lurched forward, her wings half-spreading. I looked at her again, feeling tired. Tired and sad.
The humans beat at the sides of my claws, like tiny bird hearts, but I ignored them, looking only at her. Speaking so softly I almost didn’t hear myself at first. “Save them.”
She looked back at me, the first hint of real emotion in her face: regret.
“Save them.” I said it louder. “Save them.” Save me. Save me. I squeezed my paw a little, and felt the rush of adrenaline. “Save them with your morality.” I felt the hate bubble up, replace everything else. “Save them.” The rusty hinge inside me broke, and my fury washed over, blinding, all-consuming. “Save them!” And then, out of blind instinct, I pulled my arm back to hurl them at her face, throw everything she believed in right back at her. “Save them!”
I don’t know when she jumped. The humans flew from my claws like a baseball, and then she hit me, grabbing me around the middle and slamming me backwards. The throw fell incomplete; the people fell to the ground and bounced harmlessly. I smashed against the dirt and skidded with her on top of me, both of us sliding.
We came to a stop in the middle of the street, the dust rising around us, with our bodies entwined. I suddenly found her just inches from my face. Caught off-guard, I hastened to break us apart, feeling curves too familiar to ignore. Damn. This had gotten awkward fast. Grappling with her claws, I tried to push her off of me and away while disentangling us at the same time. This was not how I’d intended for us to end up again. Our tails wrapped around each other, and our paws locked as we both tried to pry ourselves apart. Her scales scraped against my fur, her abdomen brushing mine, as her long neck curved and our snouts almost touched. As I looked up at her, our eyes met. A look I can’t describe filled her face, and must have reflected mine, because we held it for longer than normal, a dozen emotions braiding together and passing between us. Then my eyes hardened, and I remembered the reason I’d come to hate her. Growling, I snapped at her throat. She jerked back and raked her claws across my chest. I braced my paws against her and shoved her off, then seized the opportunity to curl myself upright again.
She rolled off and stumbled back. I straightened up, shaking my head, and fluffed the dust from my fur. Through the settling dust, I saw her lower her head and half-spread her wings, head swaying back and forth as she waited for me. I growled, and tensed my claws. She snarled in return, and at the same time, we leapt toward each other.
We crashed together but didn’t fall this time. Rearing, we hooked our front paws on each other and struggled on hind legs. Our wings slapped each other, and I felt her teeth dig into my neck, my shoulder, my back, while I tried to fasten my claws between her spines. She roared, low and rumbling; I growled. Her back leg lifted to kick me in the belly. I craned my head around and strained to clamp my teeth onto her shoulder blades, while trying to lean all my weight on her at the same time. Instead of giving, she ducked and shouldered me over, then bucked. I let go, and her tail swung toward me. The pronged tip grazed my head just as I flattened myself. Growling again, I tried to dig my fangs into her foreleg. She yanked it out of my reach and swung her paw at the wounded side of my face. I drew back. We faced each other once again, and then re-launched. That’s when time lost all of its meaning.
I don’t remember all of the fight. Just bits and pieces. Everything became a downy gray blur, surrounded by terrified and mute humans we paid as little attention to as the homes. Hot splashes of blood trickled down both of our sides. I remember spinning when she bit me in the haunch, trying to find a hold on her throat. She cuffed me on the face and clamped the loose skin on the back of my neck in her jaws. I found her back scales and tore into them, red on red, the little spines gone, ignored. We stained the streets the color of wine, the color of revolution, the color of words we’d never been able to say.
And then, in that moment that will be forever evening, the town trapped in a state of half-destruction, the gloom a permanent purple and green and gold on the horizon, I broke loose and backed away. I stared at Red, not thinking about anything but the next move, the next way to approach her. She stayed back, wary, legs and wings tense again. Her head waving back and forth like a cobra. I focused on the side of her neck; I could attack there, and get a good angle on it. Snarling, I crouched and leapt toward her, aiming for that spot.
Instead of dodging, she reared on her hind legs. The realization of what was coming still didn’t dawn on me; I concentrated only on the spot I planned to hit. When her paw swung, I glanced at it, not considering. Only when I felt the sudden slice of pain in my throat, and saw the arc of blood to the side, did it sink in. I didn’t try to fight it. I didn’t have time. The surprise cut me like her claws, and when I hit the ground, I almost didn’t feel it. The truth of what she had done became clear. I knew it without having to check: she’d given me the fatal wound.
Red still remained in her tense position, paw thrust out to the side with blood dripping from her claws, while I scrabbled on the ground with feeble paws. The edges of the dark red puddle beneath me spread outwards in silence. I lifted my claws to feel it, make sure. The ragged edges unzipped when I moved my head; she’d unbuttoned me like a jacket, torn me open to let me drain out onto the ground. Metal and salt- that’s what I tasted in my mouth. Metal and salt, bunging up my nose. Melt and salt, pouring down and out the remains of my throat.
The dragon lowered her front paws without a sound. The humans around us never said a word, watching me die like fascinated tourists at a zoo. I didn’t even want to growl at them. They meant too little to me. Soon after I gave up on moving, already sensing the inevitable, I heard Red turn and walk over to me.
Like a dying fish, I heaved a breath and flopped over on my back. Red appeared over me, looking down. Her eyes soft and hard at the same time, like her voice.
“I always told you it would never work.”
I felt like laughing. What- attacking the town, or beating her? I gave up on both, and scrounging up the last vestiges of healing power in me, pieced together enough of a voice to speak one last time before I bled to death.
“Yes- you did. But what else could I do?”
She shifted her eyes away from mine, seeming uncertain, thinking, reflect. Perhaps recalling past conversations, like me, thinking on better times that had gotten worse in our memories? When she spoke again, it was without looking at me. “I’m sorry, Shirracco. But you did this to yourself.”
“Sorry?” I coughed, a smile playing at the edges of my mouth despite my rasp. “You’re sorry?” I shook my head, already feeling the pain in my throat fading, a song on its last notes. But not from the healing. “No, you’re not sorry. Not yet.”
Her eyes fixed on mine again. My smile became bitter.
“I’ll make you sorry.” And before she could stop me, my paw darted up and pressed against a cut on the side of her face. Her paw reached up and grabbed mine, a reflex. I liked that. More than I should.
Though she resisted, I bent her head down close to mine. Lifting my mouth close to her ear, I whispered, “This paw is soaked with my blood- my blood, not yours. Now it’ll always be inside you, mixed with your own. Something to remember me by.” I smiled, and let go of her. She popped her head back up and glared at me, looking furious and uncertain at the same time.
I smiled wider. “I curse you.”
She stared at me. Wary. Not comprehending- not yet.
I said it louder. “I curse you.” Then I threw my head back- as well as I could- and shouted, to all the humans as well as the dragon, “I- curse- you!”
Silence.
I fell back, chest heaving. Ok, not so smart. I heard my lungs bubble, and saw red spittle fleck my muzzle in just the effort to keep my eyes open. However, I did keep them open, long enough to fix them on Red again. “Love me now?”
If she answered, I didn’t live long enough to hear it. My eyes closed, but I could still see. Time came unglued, and became a fluid membrane above me with visions appearing in eddies and whirls. I saw us back in the dorm, smiling. Then I saw a crowd of people standing around my dead body, and the priest, saying a prayer. Red, walking away. The priest watching her and starting to cross himself against her. Her sharp look, daring him to, before he dropped his hands. A red dragon, flying away into her sky.
Red’s real, present face drifted into view again. Feeling muzzy and impatient, I reached up for it, but a mist got in the way and blocked her from me. She vanished. Then I remembered my bleeding throat, and jolted back into my normal self as I felt myself falling, falling down through time and mist.
With my last sentient thought, I clung to a single word to keep myself sane: revenge.
And then I screamed.
I got the last laugh, though. A few hundred years later, Eyam got struck by the plague and lost three-quarters of its population.
