《Ouroboros I | The Snake》


 PROLOGUE | Part One, The Snake

    The Cardinal watched as bone-tipped arrows pierced the gray flesh of the roaring Beast. He would have liked to chew nervously on his thumb, instead he settled for scowling in disgust as each bolt went to waste. The Beast shook its head in outrage, causing ears as wide as ship sails to catch in the wind. The creature twisted, swinging its lashing tail through the air, in an attempt to knock back its attackers. It had done this several times since being corralled down the side of the mountain. Backed by water, fronted by arrows, it had nowhere now to retreat. So it spun.


    The Beast had nearly made it to the edge of the nearest town before they''d managed to chase it back. Evident by the tangled power lines wrapped tightly around its school bus sized tail. The wires came as divine cattails, reaching with tendrils further than the Beast could, so that each whip came with the sound of crackling.


    The Deacons that the Cardinal had placed at the front of the militia began to falter in their courage as the battle began to linger, as the Beast began to roar in pitiful protest. Aided by that fear, the ring around the Beast loosened. Several of the young archers took steps back, glancing at their mentors with looks of hesitancy.


    Guttural wails echoed from a mouth behind tree-sized tusks. Soft whimpers came from young tongues beyond the Cardinal''s back. That was how the battle began to end itself. For a moment, the Cardinal thought they might really surrender--until one lone dart flew from the cowering children. It struck the blubbery tissue of the Beast''s thick hide, accomplishing nothing but spilling a single drop of iron-rich blood on the soil.


    He''d seen enough. There was only so long one could witness a cat toy with a mouse before it just became too difficult to stomach.


    "Spears!" The Cardinal shouted, competing to be heard over the howling creature. At his orders, replacements slipped effortlessly into formation. Refreshed knights equipped with twelve-foot long skewers took aim, arms suspended in wait for the next command. The Cardinal flung out his fist, pointing at the Beast emphatically--as if any eyes were not already consumed by the hideous monster. "Fire!"


    Upon his words, weapons took to the air. Beneath the full moon, and only to himself, the Cardinal might almost admit that he admired the polished white blades. Demons, much like the one they hunted now, could be whittled down into such magnificent weapons. Their bones could shine as well as any diamond. And yet they glittered as briefly as they were beautiful.


    The Beast shrieked as the harpoons bore into its unholy flesh, piercing its unbeating heart and pincushioning its'' organs. The devil tilted on legs as thick as the telephone poles it had easily crushed, groaning weakly in one final roar. The earth shook as the monster crashed to the dirt.


    Arrows and spears shattered in an explosion of wood beneath the hide of the brute. Its limbs kicked, churning dirt into mud made of its own blood. The Cardinal strolled towards the hellion, ignoring the warnings from his men--he knew when a creature had given up the fight, and he could see that now.


    The stench of rot filled the air as he drew closer. A corpse that still rasped, and nothing more. In pitiful defiance, the Beast labored for each breath. Making small wheezing gasps from the holes punctured into its throat. Wide white eyes, which had begun to turn red at the edges, rolled in their sockets. The creature seemed in search of something far beyond the forest it had trampled.


    The Cardinal drew his longsword from the sheath at his hip. Just as the spears had moments ago, it entranced him. He regarded the Ossein cutlass in wonder. Even after all his years of dedication, it still mystified him. How could something so beautiful be cut from bodies as horrible as the one before him now? The sword shimmered like iron in the twilight, yet it was not--because no knight of the Progeny carried metal.


    The Cardinal raised his sword over his head and brought it down across the still gasping throat of the Beast. Blood sprayed from the split in the skin, more iron to soak in the earth. The Beast whined with its last breath.


    "What a waste of your final words." The Cardinal scoffed.


    He flung the rapier at his hip, spreading the vital fluid of the monster even further across the forest floor. "Have the Deacons harvest new Ossein. Then find the soldier who flew that last arrow and approve them for pilgrimage." the Cardinal did not pause to see if anyone was listening, he already knew they''d hang on to his every order. "Samson, a word."


    ? ? ?


    The Cardinal wiped the blood from his hands with a rag dipped in warm water. He''d commandeered himself a small pitcher from the vats of holy water in the camp''s center. They had enough to spare, and he hated to let the cooling blood collect on his skin.


    The Cardinal had ordered the water boiled before the hunt had begun in the dusk hours, knowing that by the time the Beast was fell it would have cooled to a comfortable bath-warm. He scrubbed at the edges of his fingers where the carnage had dried beneath the surface of his nails. He watched in satisfaction as the water mixed with the gore and dissolved it into heatless steam.


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    From beyond the white cloth walls of his tent, he could hear the grumbling chatter of men disassembling the prize of the hunt. The camp was small, made of only one white tent for the Cardinal and a handful of smaller black tents for Deacons to seek refuge in. The fighting had been won quickly, it always was, and now they settled into the part that the Cardinal suspected would take days of work: harvesting the bounty. The forest had nearly returned to its previously peaceful existence. All that remained of the demonic presence was the screech of bonesaw on bone.


    "The tusks will make many new Ossein." Samson consoled.


    "Something to look forward to then." The Cardinal grunted. "Tell the Deacons to be careful pouring water on those power lines."


    "Long dead, I''m sure-" his voice shuttered beneath the Cardinal''s glare.


    He weighed the challenge of arguing with the Cardinal for a moment before nodding silently. He gestured dismissively at the attendant wiping down the Cardinal''s blade. She paused her slow movements and tucked her blood-soaked dry cloth into her pocket before dipping out of the tent to carry along the order. Samson watched until she had completely vanished before he began to speak once more.


    "Absalom, if I may," Samson spoke softly and informally, but the Cardinal didn''t much care, given the many years he''d known Samson. Besides, his mind was busy puzzling over much greater things, the entire reason for him calling Samson away in the first place. "Someone must say it. . . that was-"


    "Where is the Cardinal?" The flap of the tent burst inwards, ushering in the smell of decay on the cold breeze. "Your Eminence!"


    "Abraham." The Cardinal dipped his head in polite greeting. "What brings you here? And so late I must add."


    The intruder crossed his arms over his broad chest and fit Samson with a withering glare. "What is this? Have you taught him to make jokes now? You should have also equipped him with the ability to read the room."


    "I take tardiness rather seriously." The Cardinal protested cooly.


    Abraham''s eyes fell to the floor. His shoulders stiffened and his spine righted into a soldier-perfect straight. "You may play knight here, old friend, but it is still rush hour in the city and I could not find a cab."


    There was a pleasant sort of feeling that came from watching Abraham give into the rigid need to prove himself. The Cardinal nodded his head and Abraham released a breath of relief at his pardon.


    "You must also pardon me, Abraham. I would rather joke than give into despair like those knights out there. We are Progeny, I am ashamed to see us so softened." The Cardinal scowled. "The Sect of Saint Francis has failed today as far as I am concerned."


    "T-that was a-" Samson choked.


    "Knights?" Abraham scoffed, not caring to allow Samson to finish. "I saw no Bishops on those front lines, Absalom! Only boys and girls."


    "It was-" Samson tried again.


    "-those Deacons have never hunted anything larger than a He-Goat or Ze''ev--few have even imagined the possibility. Angels, not even I thought we would see a crisis of this level! They are lucky to have survived." Abraham continued. "You should not have taken them with you today, Absalom. Have any of them even submitted for pilgrimage? This is a disgrace to our ways."


    "I will take your notes on pilgrimage when your last boy petitions for his own, should the Angels ever see him to the day." The Cardinal snarled. Abraham''s ebon cheeks seemed to drain of color. His mouth hung open before silently shutting.


    "A Behemoth! That was a Behemoth!" Samson finally managed to bark. His words filled the tense silence that had grown from Abraham''s stupor. Samson looked twice as pale as the balking man.


    "So it was." The Cardinal sighed finally.


    Samson widened his eyes until they nearly popped from his head, startled by the Cardinal''s apparent apathy. "Absalom, if a Behemoth walks the earth, it can mean only one thing; the gates of Hell have been left ajar. I suspect we all know the culprit."


    "Then it is our fault," Abraham whispered, "Absalom, you should not have trusted Jethro Pine to raise the boy properly."


    "We can''t dwell on the past. It''s only a matter of time until the Third Prince fully opens the doors, and then all of Hell''s Beasts will be upon us." The Cardinal dismissed. "We have no choice--we have waited long enough. Samson, speak to Jethro. His boy must take his pilgrimage now."


    "And of my son?" Abraham pressed. "If you mean to bring about the events of the Prophecy, you''ll need cursed blood."


    "We''ll need your son as well." The Cardinal held no apology in his tone, knowing that his deepest regrets would never be enough. "I understand the sacrifice you stand to make. It will not be easy."


    "If that is to be his purpose. . . he will do as the angels decreed." Abraham said hesitantly.


    "If it was as simple as just deciding to follow the Prophecy, we would have already claimed our Vestige. How are we to believe that throwing those two together will have any effect at all?" Samson quipped.


    "Their fates have already been decided by the angels." The Cardinal said. "There will be a moment in their lives when they create the angelic weapon we require. If we just lead them to the beginning, I believe them to be fully capable of finding the end."


    "Abraham," Samson eased. "Is it the end you want for your son?"


    "He will do his duty." Abraham nodded solemnly. "He will die for this cause."


    "Yes, he will die." Samson agreed bitterly. Abraham turned his head and shut his dark eyes to defend against the harsh stare Samson laid on him. "And of the other boy? If he can not do it; if he can not kill the Third Prince of Hell?"


    The Cardinal crossed his canvas tent, listening to the chilling sounds of flesh boiling and bones breaking beneath the teeth of saws. He wrapped his fingers over the hilt of his blood-fed blade and slid it gently back into the sheath at his hip. He turned to face his court with a mask of cold apathy. This was the only way.


    "Should he die trying, we''ll simply find him again." His words seemed even crueler than the haunting sounds of the harvest. "His soul belongs to the Progeny, until the day he kills Beelzebub. He is ours."


    PART ONE : THE SNAKE


    ??

 1 | Ira Was Someone Else

    Ira knew he was dreaming as soon as he opened his eyes. The air was still, neither warm nor cool. He guessed he was sitting on the earth, but the dirt beneath his palms had no touch, no temperature, no structure to lean against. He pulled his arms to his chest and inspected his hands. The fingers were slender, pale, and tipped with flawlessly kept claws.


    He was too scared to inspect the body further. He knew it wasn''t his own, but only denial could keep away the feeling that overcame him each time he found himself stuck in another''s skin. The sensation of being torn in half was impatiently hovering just beyond the doorway. And yet, there was a part of it, of this moment, that felt comfortably familiar. Just as there was another part that screamed to be released, as violently as a wild animal stuck in a steel trap.


    Ira''s mind was slipping away from him, melting into molasses. Begging to play the role. He had to hold on. He had to sink his teeth down until he tasted blood. Ira dug the beautiful nails into the soft flesh of the hands and pushed until the skin broke, but it didn''t sting, and it didn''t bleed--and it didn''t stop the glue from consuming him.


    "I am Ira Rule, Ira Rule, Ira Rule, Ira Rule," he chanted, whispering tightly from behind sharp white fangs, in the hope that it could keep him in control--but it was an entirely hopeless belief. As naive as a child thinking nightlights could chase out the monsters. The dreams were always stronger, and they always won.


    His clenched fists slowly relaxed, and with it the last of his resistance melted away. He laid back on the hill, stretching out into the soft green grass. Where it licked up against his skin, he felt tickled. The breeze chilled his sun-warmed skin, carrying on it the soft scent of strawberries from the nearby fields. Bird song began to fill his ears, and his head.


    All his fear disappeared--because they belonged to him, and this moment belonged to her. To the body he was falling quickly into. This peace, this contentment, the joy--it had happened. It had happened for her, and now it echoed inside of his too-crammed skull.


    The stronger the emotion, the brighter the illusion. So he hated her. He hated her because she loved everything. She loved everything so deeply that even a boring day of laying on a hilltop had become strong as stone.


    "Elsie, are you going to fall asleep?" Her voice was as comforting as the grass. The music of her soft laugh was as warm as cotton. It filled the summer air, stronger than the scent of strawberries.


    Ira turned his head to look at the small girl perched beside him on the lawn. He had no recollection of when she''d come to sit beside him, only that he''d been lonely until she had. Her unruly hay yellow braids had been stuffed under her straw hat. It had been ripped only a few nights ago. The dog had chewed on it, but Papa fixed it.


    Ira felt a sudden hot spike of panic in his gut. He couldn''t know that. He didn''t know that. The girl called Elsie, her memories were leaking into him, consuming him and all that he had once been. Soon, he would no longer exist at all.


    He opened his mouth. He wanted to scream.


    I am Ira Rule, "I am. . ."


    Elsie blinked hard and sat up. Her sister leaned back at her sudden action.


    "I am. . . waiting for someone, if you must know." Elsie laughed, and her little sister did, too. Her face was still soft, baby-round. Her cheeks turned coral pink at the thought of the boy. Because there was no one else Elsie could be waiting for if her sister was already at her side, and they both knew it. So, Ira knew it too.


    "I am going to tell papa that you are seeing him." His--no, her sister protested.


    She crossed her arms over her chest and puffed out her bottom lip in a childish display of mock displeasure. Elsie smiled softly and brushed her sister''s soft yellow braids over her shoulder. She wasn''t worried, nor concerned at all. Because she knew that in truth, her sister didn''t hate the boy. She was only jealous that someone could take her away. And sometimes that fear was stronger than any amount of animosity.


    "Fine, Marie. Tell papa." She teased. "I shall need to get his permission anyway if I am to marry him." Elsie tapped Marie''s nose with her finger, causing Marie to turn an even brighter red.


    Marie, yellow braids amiss and round cheeks flushed pink, pouted up her lips and sunk into quiet consideration of this declaration. While she ruminated, she watched the sky. So, Elsie did too. She admired the orange-red clouds spreading across the horizon. She recognized that as Marie''s favorite color, and likely the reason she was so entranced. Elsie had gone to the furthest markets to find flowers half as bright for her, but nothing could match the sunset. If she could, she would buy her the sun itself.


    "Do not stay out much longer." Marie warned, gathering up her skirts in her hands so she could climb to her feet. "I shall ask mama to teach me my stitches. Then you will have an hour more--but mama will eventually notice."


    Elsie tipped back her head with a smile. She raised an eyebrow quizzically. "I thought you were going to tell on me to papa."


    Marie scowled and shook her head. "I like him," she admitted shyly. "He brings me candies. You should marry him so that he always brings me new candies."


    Elsie laughed. "Of course."


    Marie smiled. It was far more stunning than the clouds. And then she was gone--slipping away down the hillside. It was in her departure that something came undone. A series of strings snapped, dropping the performing puppet onto the blunt stage floor far below.


    The grass lost its'' scratch, the birds quieted, the scent of strawberries ceased to flow in on the breeze. Ira came to, as if he''d been dropped in cold water. He clawed to the forefront of Elsie''s mind just in time to watch the last of the sun lower over the hillside.


    "I. . . I am. . ." Ira''s tongue whimpered behind her teeth, moving as if it was ten pounds heavier. "I-"


    "I have been waiting for you."


    The body moved on those same invisible strings, rising from the ground to greet the man with a tight hug. His arms wrapped around her, carrying heat as scorching as open flame.


    "Elsie," he whispered against her ear.


    What little was left of Ira turned suddenly hot with anger instead. He wanted to scream, to kick, and to claw. He wanted to shout that it was not Elsie--that it was him.


    Say my name. He wanted to demand.


    Elsie''s mouth remained her''s to operate. It curled back into a smile, filling the air with radiance. Ira wanted to wake her up. He needed her to know that this was all his fault--their minds had been collided together in an agonizing explosion between the walls of time--and it was his fault!


    Don''t smile at him! He wished he could tell her. This is his fault!


    Yet, when Ira reached for his hatred, he found it missing. His chest was full of electricity instead--because it was her chest, too. When Elsie pulled apart from their embrace, she took his face into her warm palms. Ira had tried to hurt those hands. He wanted to make them bleed. And now she held him so lovingly between her flawless claws.


    "Monsieur Pangeran." She said it the same way a drowning man might greet the surface. As if she needed him. As if, without him, she was lost to the depths.


    He raised an eyebrow over his oil-dark eyes and smirked at her with his blood red lips. "Do you prefer my surname, Manquer Allard? It has been a long time since you have spoken to me so formally."


    She laughed and wrinkled up her nose. "Your name is strange." She teased, because it was easier than admitting she had been testing the sound of his name, imagining that it was her''s, too. She did not want him to call her childish. Nor did she want to reveal her hand too soon.


    He gasped playfully and slung his arms around her hips, pulling them together until their hearts touched. "I will change it then. What would my Manquer Allard prefer to call me?"


    "No, I like it," she assured quickly. "I like you, Bezel."


    Ira snapped upright so quickly his muscles strained against his bones, squeezing until nearly breaking. He was screaming, shredding his throat to pieces. Sweat poured down his skin. His hands stung where his nails had dug into his palms, cutting crescent moons into his pale flesh.


    His screams sounded like cotton in his ears. He was still underwater--she was inside of him. He could still sense her in the corners of his waking mind. He wailed to drive her out. He screamed louder in defiance of her and of the memories she''d left inside of him. He wanted his voice to be the only thing remaining.


    "-Ira, Ira," a familiar voice cut through the turmoil fogging his fragmented mind. Ira twisted, flinging out his hands to find the source of the comforting call. He rushed forward, rapidly coming into his own skin. "Ira, can you hear me?"


    He gasped in deep shocks of air. He must have stopped breathing at some point--likely in favor of his own screams. His head was spinning. Tears cooled his hot cheeks and rolled down his raw throat. Ira blinked until his eyes began to clear. Until he could finally drink in the dimly lit night around him. His gaze swept the room until landing on the figure just a few inches from himself. The man was perched on the edge of Ira''s bed, his hands firmly locked on the boy''s shoulders.


    "Father." Ira whimpered.


    He wrapped his arms around the older man and pressed his face into his chest. The familiarity of his oud scented soap helped Ira come into his true surroundings. He was home, tucked safely into his bed. His desk still occupied the corner, covered in worksheets and half-written essays.


    The bedroom was still perfumed by Father Pine''s favorite incense. He would light the sticks once a day, the smell stuck better than glue in their small two bedroom apartment. Petrichor tickled at his nose, slowly masking the nauseous stink of strawberries and fresh grass.


    "Ira, you''re behaving like a little kid." Father Pine murmured, but his grip tightened in return, locking Ira into the hug before he could come further into his senses and push him away. "Did you see another memory? Tell me what you saw."


    Ira flinched, driven by his own dislike. As if his anger was a venom that could contort his muscles. He didn''t like that Father Pine called his nightmares memories, even if it was true. He didn''t like talking about them either. And he didn''t like that Father Pine was pretending to ask--because they both knew that he had. He saw the visions each and every single time his eyes fell shut.


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    He tensed up his shoulders and used them to break free of Father Pine''s embrace. His mentor fell away frowning. His eyebrows knit together. "Was it important? If you need to testify we could seek immediate council with the Cardinal."


    "No!" Ira insisted a little too strongly. He hadn''t been to testify in front of the Cardinal since he was fourteen, when he''d been made to recount the events of an intimate scene to a gallery of frowning clergymen. He could still recall the sting of sweat dripping in his eyes as the Cardinal dragged his most embarrassing confessions from his mouth.


    It had been uncomfortable to experience that moment in his sleep. It had been shameful to know he had really done it. Humiliating to realize with who. And mortifying to recount the details to the Cardinal as he glared down his nose in disgust.


    It had been one of the worst moments of this lifetime, but it had served a purpose--Father Pine didn''t take him back for another confession, and that was a small price to pay for this mock normalcy. "It was nothing, Father. She was just--"


    "You." Father Pine interjected. "You were."


    Ira''s throat became suddenly dry, forcing him to swallow hard to knock the knot he''d formed there. A bitter hot spike pierced between his ribs. Ira would live as a conduit for a million lives lived, he would. He''d give over their secrets, their stories. All he wanted in return was one semi-semblance of a present self. It was cruel to deny him even this, yet how could he deny that punishment was meant to be unpleasant.


    He couldn''t risk forgetting that all this anguish was his own fault, he was all these lives lived, countless mistakes, pioneered by a sin so terrible that it angered the angels and had this weathered soul tied to an endless purgatory.


    So, Ira choked back his sour expression and forced forward the words expected of him.


    "I was with my. . ." with her sister.


    It was harder to speak about her than it was to speak of his own past self. He couldn''t deny the iron-hard ache blooming in his chest. He missed her, more than words could ever fully recount. This was another cruel jab. Ira had never in this life experienced family, he was an orphan raised by a mission-driven man. Yet he endured the loss of countless mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers. He decided then to keep Marie to himself. That afternoon lazing in the lawn had been sacred enough to Elsie to survive time, and it should remain between them.


    But he had to say something. He understood his responsibility to retell all the memories he''d collected of the man. He paused momentarily to roll it over in his mind. Ira glanced up into Father Pine''s curious cerulean gaze. He didn''t want to see those eyes that held him so gently become full of repulsion.


    Ira was too ashamed to speak of her actions like he''d been responsible. Not that it really mattered, everyone knew anyway. The incident five years ago had merely reiterated what everyone suspected. That he was a plaything to the devil. He''d made the same mistake in each life since--but he would not again.


    Ira forced himself to say something to distract from the building silence. "He was calling himself Pangeran this time. It seems he returns to the same aliases every few decades. Like I said, it really didn''t matter."


    How many times had he stressed the mundane nature of this night terror now? But Father Pine would never accuse him of lying over something so crucial.


    "No, I guess not." Father Pine exhaled sharply. "He''s gone by many names over the eons."


    Ira recognized that he had, too, and quickly banished the note. He should refrain from comparing himself to the being responsible for his damnation.


    "It won''t matter much what name is on the collar when you put down the dog." Father Pine scoffed bitterly. He might have been about to say more, but his azure eyes found Ira''s face in the dark room, instantly dissolving his anger. He sighed and wrapped his arms around Ira''s thin shoulders once more, dragging him into the soft scent of oud soap. "It''s okay now, kid. I should have said that to you first."


    The words filled Ira with something he had been denying: exhaustion. He slumped forward and returned the embrace with force. Ira was content to be held, even if it reduced him to a small child. He''d been scared, beneath all his venom, and now it leaked to the surface of his skin.


    The dreams always took something human from him. No matter the content, he woke terrified. Or maybe he was always terrified. When his mind was a bear trap, he was the beast clawing at the flesh and bone of his own limbs to break free.


    "I know. . . that it''s the decision of the Cardinal," Ira whispered hesitantly. He was scared that once he made the words real they could be taken from him. He couldn''t stand the idea of seeing the last of his hope withered. "but I think it''s time."


    Father Pine tensed. He held Ira suddenly stronger before slowly pulling away. He brought his hands up to cup Ira''s cheek. "Be very careful what you say next. It can''t be taken back."


    "I know, Father." Ira agreed. "Once I ask--you have to bring my request to the Cardinal. I''ve not been thinking of this day lightly, but what choice do I have?"


    Ira had suffered through years of painful testimony before a man that looked at him as if he were scum, and it was not nearly enough. He was getting no closer to clearing his slate. He was beginning to fear that this was all that was meant for him. Rotting alive.


    "Kid, did someone say something to you?" Father Pine asked wearily. "You know that taking on a pilgrimage has to be your own choice."


    Ira scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion. "Someone like who?"


    Ira was not a complete stranger to the Progeny, even if he wished he was. Still, they didn''t invite him to the birthday parties or company retreats. He''d lived a nearly solitary existence with Father Pine. They took small jobs tossed to them from the Cardinal, but not much else. Not that there was much else these days. Demonic activity had been limited in their era to a few Lesser Demons and a few rouge possessions.


    And him--but that was far out of Ira''s reach.


    Father Pine ignored him. "Ira. . .I know you feel a responsibility to the Sect, or perhaps even to yourself, but how you feel now is how I feel every second of my life. I have something that is more important than my own life--I have a divine calling. I was pulled from my ordinary life to meet you. My only reason for being is to keep you safe."


    Father Pine sighed and shook his head. "You are my responsibility, and my Deacon. If you ask me to take your request for pilgrimage to the Cardinal, he will return to you a task that could very well be the end."


    Ira narrowed his ice blue eyes down into daggers. "What are you saying? Am I to never prove myself?"


    "Prove yourself? Ira, you''re one of the best Deacons to ever be called to the Progeny. No, you''re seeking something else; redemption. And no man can give you that." Father Pine creased his eyebrows together in his own silent study. He mulled over his thoughts for many moments before finally speaking again.


    "Believe me. The Cardinal will order something impossible. He''d sentence you to killing that monster with your bare hands and if you can not, which let''s be clear--you can not, you will be stripped of title, acclaim, honor, and knowledge. You will be left as a husk in the streets."


    "I''ve killed demons before." Ira bit back. He had killed He-Goats, and Ze''ev, but no one had ever truly faced a Greater Demon in their own flesh. No Greater Demon besides him had even walked the earth since the Demon-Born war, when the angels had sealed the Trammel between their worlds.


    "No one has ever killed this demon before." Father Pine retorted.


    "Is that why you''ve never let me send a petition? You think I can''t do it?" Ira was strangely hurt by the realization.


    "I know you can''t! It''s just not possible! Not without a Vestige, and in case you forgot, those are in dire supply." Father Pine''s voice had lost it''s mild nature, it shook with anger and cut with sarcasm that didn''t suit him. "The vow we all take only allows for a pilgrimage to be given when asked for. It''s the only thing keeping you safe right now. This desire to fix your reputation, it''s not a good enough reason to invite chaos into your life."


    "My life is already full of chaos!" Ira snapped, barely containing the burn of his words. "I''m being torn apart! I can''t keep living all these hundreds of years, I''m exhausted. I don''t know where this soul will go next time, this could be my only chance to finally end my purgatory."


    Ira threw his hands up in the air, dispensing his anger into the air. This life Ira had found for himself had never been easy, but it had been brimming with blessings.


    Angelic coincidences, such as a woman abandoning her newborn on the doorstep of a church--and it being the headquarters to the Sect of Saint Francis, a branch in a large organization of demon-killers. And this specific limb--it had been charged with slaying the Greater Demon that had led that baby to that cursed existence in the first place.


    It had always been painfully ironic. Or maybe this was his miracle. Either way, it was a motion of divine intention to place him exactly where he needed to be to end his curse. The only obstacle in his way now was a worried man trying too hard to keep a temporary thing, such as Ira, alive when there was a greater purpose to this lifetime.


    "The Sect of Saint Francis has existed nearly as long as this soul has, and they''ve served tirelessly for only one goal: the eradication of the Third Prince. I could be your hand, and you will not wield it, why? Fear? Guilt?" Ira snarled.


    Father Pine was still. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and slumped his shoulders. Something had seemed to cave beneath a mountain of pressure.


    "I often see you as a child I raised, kid. I forget how many years you''ve truly endured. You''re wise beyond any Bishop. Maybe if you were not our hand, you could have been our head some day." Father Pine smiled and stroked a lock of Ira''s bright yellow hair. "I can''t always defend you from destiny. I''ll. . . I will reach out to the Cardinal on your behalf."


    Ira felt suddenly and childishly giddy but decided to hide it behind a delicately neutral nod. He thought it would not prove the case of his maturity to celebrate.


    "Still," Ira met Father Pine''s warm blue eyes. "I don''t want you to feel hopeless if you can''t. . . some things are just not possible by our mortal hands."


    "These hands may be mortal, but I am not. I will find a way to send the Third Prince back to Hell. I promise." Ira watched his mentor''s lips quirk into the corner of his mouth in a small sad smile and he wondered, not for the first time, what life would follow him next if he failed here and now. He wished the next body would protect these moments, keeping them close as Ira did for a pair of sisters laughing under the sun.


    Father Pine sighed. "What if the price is just too high?"


    "Higher than the price of inaction?" Ira scoffed. "If I do nothing, I''ll stay stuck in this purgatory."


    "You would do anything to secure your own future?" Father Pine asked. "Even if you had to steal someone else''s?"


    Ira blinked, his mind rolled over on itself. Robbing who of a future? The Third Prince--Him? He deserved nothing. Much less one more day beneath the sun. "I''ll do what I have to."


    They sat in silence for a moment until finally Father Pine nodded. "I pray you never regret those words, kid."


    Ira held his breath.


    "Okay." Father Pine murmured hesitantly. "I''ll send notice to the Cardinal. For now get some sleep."


    He nearly scoffed. If only that was possible. Father Pine stood from his slump on Ira''s bed--and Ira wanted to ask him to stay, but he was already moving towards the hall. Every moment felt short to Ira, knowing that time would erode it to a few seconds in a twisted dream.


    Father Pine paused by the door. His hand froze on the handle. "I''ll . . . I''ll leave it open a little. I''m just down the hall, kid." And then he was gone. Feeling much further than he really was.


    Ira was left suddenly alone with a crushing wave of rapid thoughts. He leaned against the headboard and took in the drab ivory walls of his bedroom with an empty stare. He couldn''t bring himself to lay down, or close his eyes.


    He was scared of returning to a place where he wasn''t himself and where he had no control. Ira was relieved for a moment from the possibility when the bedroom door creaked. Slipping in through the space Father Pine had left, sauntered in a tabby cat.


    Her brown and white coat seemed luminescent beneath the city lights trickling in the window. She announced her arrival with a small chirp and leapt up into the blankets. Ira smiled and scratched her left ear.


    "Oh, Peter." Ira laughed quietly. She purred in response. Peter rubbed her head against Ira''s palm before curling at his feet. Ira watched the gentle rise and fall of her ribs as she began to settle into the soft mattress.


    He''d seen a soft glimmering of hope just beyond the horizon, and it felt like watching the sun rise over the crest of a great mountain.


    "I am Ira Rule." He whispered to no one but Peter. It never felt quite enough to just be a new name, not even a new body. Ira felt doomed to repeat the same mistakes. How could anything he did today matter when his soul had already done it a thousand times before.


    He ached to be someone separate from it, and so he reminded himself of all the dreams he''d seen and all the things he''d counted. Things that made him Ira Rule.


    "I hate dogs." His nose felt full of the stench of an old brown farm dog, one that liked to eat hats and lay on a grassy lawn with two girls.


    "I don''t like the piano." He thought of the way ghostly pale fingers danced over paper white keys, filling his ears with melodic cries.


    "I love the color blue." He paused to watch the fall of Peter''s side. He''d remembered adding this difference to his list, but now couldn''t recall why. They were still dreams after all, and they dissolved at just the slightest touch.


    "I love peanuts." He would have laughed at himself for how silly he sounded, but he rubbed at his throat, knowing how it felt to shut after accidentally eating a few of the nuts. It didn''t feel funny after that.


    Ira Rule felt his ears heat at the last count of his list. He was drowned in the plethora of dreams about a man who went by countless callings. Many of them indecent enough he would be forced to omit them all together in his testimonies to Father Pine.


    "I hate him." It felt the most significant of his list because of all his many lives, the Third Prince of Hell was in each one, and Ira could always feel a sickly sweet scent of affection. "I''m going to kill him, I swear it."


    Peter mewed softly, her olive green eyes glowed with echoes of moonlight. They found Ira''s face in the dimness, and he knew that she was the witness of his vow.

 2 | Melchior Makes Monsters

    Melchior ached to fall asleep. He ached in most other things, too. His stomach stung from hunger. Natheless, he knew if food had been provided, his teeth would have been too fragile to bite it through. His skin was sticky with sweat and stuck with grime. Beneath his shabby appearance were muscles bound so tight he worried his bones might snap beneath them.


    The bed of his nails had crusted in blood. Some had even been torn out as he''d clawed the cement walls. He had screamed until he had no voice and fought until he had no strength, and now all he could do was wait.


    His eyes searched the dark cell for any distraction, but he found nothing. The room was designed only to hold Melchior, not leaving much space for anything else. Just a simple mattress on the floor, which Melchior had collapsed into when his fit had first passed.


    Despite his condition, he didn''t harbor resentment for the small cell he now found himself in. Inside of his blurry, spinning, mind was only one thing: guilt. More wounding to Melchior, more than the state of his body, was the shame heating his cold cheeks. An unpleasant aching coiled tight around his heart.


    He had lost control. That was not a privilege afforded to someone like him. Now he could feel the countdown; T-minus thirty minutes until D-Day. Thirty minutes because he knew it took five hours for his older brother to drive into the New Hampshire wilderness from his cushy city apartment--and his head had begun to clear a while ago. That was usually his indication that a great chunk of time had passed.


    The basement, coated in claw-carved-cement and dirt, was still less confining than the city that everyone talked so grandly of. The forest was the only place Melchior identified as safe. Ironic, considering that even now, the grounds outside the cabin were crawling with beasts desperate for a taste of his cursed blood.


    He could hear their low rumbling howls, but more than that he could feel as they electrified the air. They had been calling to each other in increasing frequency for the last few weeks. It raised the hairs along the back of his neck, but Ailbe would hear none of it.


    If Melchior had learned one thing since taking up residence in a prison cell, it was that if Ailbe decided nothing was to be done, then nothing was done, and it was pointless to press the issue.


    Ailbe had become a permanent and gruff fixture in his life. It had been just them for almost as long as Melchior could stand to recount. Everything else, anything from before, he tried hard to forget. The dim cellar was only made more uncomfortable by the ghostly touch echoing in his mind, the one from silk sheets in a loft overlooking Manhattan. His stomach only rumbled louder when he craved a taste of soft belgian waffles drizzled in honey, topped with raspberries. The ones his mother used to make. It was just about the only thing she could make, doing it special only on their birthdays.


    So, no. No, he reminded himself. It didn''t help to remember those things. He tried not to but on nights like this, when he stood waiting beneath the ground for his punishment--it was so much harder. It crept up in his mind, playful and teasing. Begging for his attention. Until, as desperately as a starved dog being taunted with steak, he bit. He sunk his sharp white teeth into the flesh of his old life--and he wondered what they would be doing now.


    He imagined it might have been an early morning for the Brisbanes. The housekeeper would go along the curving white hall, knocking on their doors one by one to rouse them. His siblings, well-rested and freshly untangled from their silk sheets, would parade down the grand staircase of their tri-level penthouse.


    They would each find a position at the table, watching mother and father fill the two head spots opposite each other. In silence, only disrupted by the gentle clinking of fine china and silver spoons, they would eat whatever breakfast had been prepared.


    Or maybe that morning would be a good morning. A day when there weren''t business calls flooding the landline, or taxis blaring their horns from the street below. Maybe their mother might even stand from her spot, walking along the lines of the table to pour the syrup over their pancakes. As she went, telling each of them good morning. Would she smile at them with her wide brown eyes? Would those kind eyes flinch over the spot he had once taken?


    Did any of them notice? Any one of his eleven siblings. Or did they remove his chair and pretend the table had always been that spacious? He hadn''t spoken to any of his family in six years, except, of course, for his keeper.


    So, no. No, Melchior thought again. Thinking of those things certainly did not help.


    He shoved himself violently outward. He pressed into the edge of his skin, where it was cold. Where it was painful. He kept himself contained there, far away from the siren song of his deceitful memories.


    The minutes passed slowly by.


    He adjusted his stiff back and pushed himself onto shaking legs, stretching his aching and popping joints.


    He pushed a pebble across the cold floor with his toe, listening to the scrape of rock on rock.


    Yes, this was what he deserved now. He was no longer someone fit for birthday waffles or petty sibling rivalry. He was someone else now. Something else. And that something belonged here.


    Melchior had been told once that he was sick. He didn''t like that word. It left room for the possibility of getting better, but Melchior was only seeming to get worse. He''d been in so much pain earlier he could have blamed it for why he''d lashed out at Ailbe.


    It didn''t matter why. He''d still done it, behaving more recklessly than a toddler having a tantrum, so he''d been sent to his room. And even then, the agony wrecking his shell was the least of his concerns.


    The beasts in the trees had been slowly edging towards the cabin. They only wanted one thing; and it was in the basement of the house admiring the cement walls.


    Monsters had been drawn towards Melchior since his disease began six years ago. If he could ignore their low calls shaking the trees, he might have had enough time to appreciate the humor in his situation. The youngest son of the legendary Brisbanes had become bait to the very creatures they''d been killing for centuries.


    Melchior only had one thumb nail remaining, which he promptly popped between his teeth to bite at nervously. He worried that his brother might have trouble reaching him. He worried that he wouldn''t.


    The night was not going so well for Melchior. He exhaled deeply through his nose and pulled his hand away from his lips. He could hear hot breath steaming in the cold air. It seemed to him that more and more beasts had been collecting along Ailbe''s land recently.


    All Ze''ev, all hellbent on sending Melchior to Hell with a one-way ticket. First class. He wondered if they''d have refreshments on the train.


    As a child, when he''d been choked by the collar of his last name and it''s reputation, Melchior used to chastise himself for the silly spirals his mind would concoct. But that had been a Melchior who did not spend days upon days inside a windowless room. Now, he welcomed all the fantastical things his mind could conjure. It helped whittle away the time.


    He searched now for anything to send him into blissful distraction. It was too dark for the human eye to see anything in the cell beneath the cabin, but even if he had been blind Melchior would know what stared back at him.


    His eyes combed the outline of the tattoo on the inside of his left wrist. A brand, another thing he''d earned six years ago. He studied its repulsive shape; ?????.


    Some sick joke, he assumed. It was his greatest shame and most dangerous secret, and he wore it as plainly as day on his arm. Melchior kicked at the mattress, coughing at the dust sent sputtering up into the air.


    With nothing left inside to settle his nerves, he was forced to turn his attentions outwards. Beyond the cellar walls. To the sounds of the forest. Where a Ze''ev bayed from the bushes, where crickets sang in the leaves of a dogwood, and where the night churned on. Slowly, and relentlessly. Minute by minute.


    Melchior perked up to the sounds of footsteps descending the stairs. He grit his teeth behind his lips and stilled his trembling. The great iron door screamed on rusty hinges as Ailbe flung it inwards. Melchior suppressed a flinch in his broad shoulders, resisting the urge to press his hands to his sensitive ears.


    Ailbe carried a lantern with him. The small flame sent orange light licking up his hollowed cheeks, making him appear even more ghostly than he already was. On his right cheekbone, brazenly obvious beneath the golden light, was the purple shadow of a forming bruise. Melchior had done it in their struggle. He couldn''t bring himself now to look at it.


    "Your brother needs help getting to the cabin." Ailbe said. He spoke as if they''d recently moved. It alluded none to the fact that someone had to go mow down the path of monsters.


    "I can-"


    "No." Ailbe snapped. He shook his head until wispy white strands of hair tumbled down his forehead. "Do you still feel sick? Did you take your pills?" It could have almost been mistaken for concern, but venom sharpened the edges of his words until they cut finer than polished Ossein.


    Melchior crammed a fist into the pocket of his ripped and stained jeans. He retrieved the obnoxiously orange plastic container, holding it as faithfully as a cross. He gripped the vial tight between his fingers and shook it in the space between them.


    "I emptied it."


    The bottle had been quite full when Melchior had first been sent down to the basement, but Ailbe didn''t mention it. And Melchior was grateful he hadn''t. He didn''t want to confirm it. He didn''t want to say that he was getting worse. That it took two bottles to calm what had previously taken only one. Ailbe nodded and licked his dry lips. He didn''t seem to want to say it either.


    "You''ll be too tired to fight then. And you''ve caused me enough trouble tonight. I don''t have time for the paperwork that comes with a dead legacy." Ailbe grumbled. "I''ll handle it, half a quiver of Ossein arrows, and they''ll be running back to Hell with tails tucked between their legs."


    Melchior just nodded. It didn''t serve him much to argue with Ailbe.


    "Do we have more than half a quiver of Ossein?" Melchior asked. "Uh, not implying that you could miss or-"


    "Hush, pup." He sighed. "We have enough arrows to get out of the forest if we''re lucky. We''ll just have to get more from whatever we pick off tonight."


    Ailbe said it as easily as one would ask for milk at the grocery store. Ossein was in short supply, and it was as hard to collect as killing a mythical creature and harvesting it for parts sounded. Yet Ailbe seemed sure in his conviction. Without another word, he turned and left the room. Their conversation had seemed almost entirely pointless, but Melchior knew the reason for it. Ailbe was testing the waters, seeing if Melchior had any more outbursts in store.


    He wasn''t quite sure yet. Neither was Melchior.


    Once again left to stew in the stale cellar, Melchior paced the stone cell like an anxious animal, turning in a tight snap every time he reached the edge of his world. A bray echoed into the night, momentarily freezing Melchior in his steps. He looked up at the ceiling where he knew the forest was waiting for him. And a handful of furry Beasts. Less and less of them by the minute, if the noises polluting the night was to be any indication.


    Ailbe had exited the cabin in a loud slam, and the cries had begun just a few minutes later. Sometimes Melchior forgot that beneath the husk of an old man was Ailbe Damianos, an Archbishop of the Progeny. Killing monsters was what he did. Raising Melchior was just a downside of the job.


    A yelp cut the night air like glass, and suddenly, there was silence. As much silence as the forest ever offered. A red-tailed hawk cawed its abrasive screech, and crickets resumed their choir. But no howls.


    Melchior squeezed his eyes shut tight against the dark room and pressed his left ear to the solid cement walls. His heart pounded in his veins, and he had to concentrate hard to hear the soft noises beyond it. He heard it then and had to grip the wall to keep himself standing upright as relief flooded his strained legs. The crunch of wheels on gravel. His brother had arrived.


    Only a few brisk seconds later, the cabin door slammed shut behind a pair of heavy stomps.


    "Where is he?" His eldest brother did not sound happy. It sent bolts of ice cold fear through Melchior''s gut.


    "In the cellar," Ailbe grunted in his no-nonsense way, "as I said over the phone, he was feeling sick earlier. I thought it''d be best."


    "Is that why there were so many of them here tonight?" If the question had been asked in search of an answer or just for quiet contemplation, Melchior would never know because it had been said within a one mile radius of Ailbe Damianos. He was a man who liked to hear himself talk.


    "He brings them from Hell," Ailbe whispered, "especially on days when he''s. . .upset."


    "He''s just a kid--kids get emotional."


    "Not all children have monsters under their beds." Ailbe grunted.


    "My brother is a good boy!" Melchior winced at the desperation dripping from his older brother''s voice. "He didn''t ask for any of this. He knows what''s at risk if he messes up. You''ve raised him, Ailbe, you can see it, right? he''s a good boy, right?"


    The cabin fell into silence for so long that Melchior began to think that Ailbe had killed his brother for daring to raise an argument against him. The minutes crawled by, Melchior paced beneath their feet, his sharp canine teeth digging into the cracked keratin of his one remaining thumb nail.


    He knew an ax was being raised over his throat. He didn''t trust Ailbe to have his back. The small cement room had no windows and only one door. It was three inches thick, made of iron, and locked from the outside. Melchior had no way out but it didn''t matter. He would accept the fate decided for him, he always knew he would. Until then, all he could do was hold his breath.


    "Ishmael," Ailbe sighed. "I''ve given you six more years than I should have. When you came to me, begging me to take on this child, I only did so in the hope that you would fulfill your end of the deal. You have not."


    "Ailbe, please. I just need more time!" His voice shook. Melchior had never heard his brother sound so weak. Just as the bruise forming on Ailbe''s face had been, he knew that was his fault, too.


    "You have had six years." Ailbe reminded him softly. "If a cure could be found, I believe fully that you would have found it by now. You are my former Deacon. I do not train in half-measures, nor do I make poor soldiers."


    "What. . . what am I supposed to do?" Ishmael whispered. "It was my fault."


    The words cut Melchior as deeply as shattered glass. Stabbing so deeply into his grime-coating skin, for a moment he wished he could shut his ears and hear none of it at all.


    "Take my advice, follow my plan." Ailbe said gruffly. "Jethro has finally submitted a request for his pupil to take pilgrimage. There have been rumors about your brother on the matter, your father agrees. It would benefit you to play along."


    "My father? What does he know? He knows nothing of his true condition, I went beyond the lengths of my ability to keep it that way. Nor can you seriously think the Forgotten Prophecy is real." Ishmael scoffed bitterly. "It''s just another false promise from the angels that abandoned us."


    "Watch your tongue, boy." Ailbe snapped. "It does not matter what you or I think. It matters what the Progeny believe, and they''re already quite convinced. The renowned Brisbane clan, their twelfth child, born the twelfth day of the twelfth month. Signs have followed him all his life. Ishmael, what life do you want for him?"


    "You want me to throw him out into their gaze? He can hardly control his sickness! If they find out-"


    "-then they''ll kill him?" Ailbe interrupted, scoffing. "And if they never find out--they will still kill him. Saving his life, well, we should aim higher."


    "No. No, Ailbe. It''s just too risky. I want him to be safe." Ishmael snapped.


    "He''ll never be safe." Ailbe scoffed.


    "There has to be a way-"


    "There is a way. There is this plan. This is the only plan." Ailbe said. "We play along. We do everything they want of us."


    "What they want is a lamb to keep the edges of their ax slick in blood." Ishmael said.


    "No, they want a way out." Ailbe disagreed. "Ishmael, you know the threat we''re coming to face. You can see it in the furry corpses outside. The wall between us and Hell--it''s weakening. It''s already begun to break. The only way to stop it--the only way to save your brother--is to give them exactly what they want."


    Ishmael didn''t speak. Melchior didn''t breathe. And Ailbe continued. "You trusted in me to protect your brother, believe that that is still my goal."


    "We can''t protect him out there." Ishmael whimpered.


    "All I can offer you is a chance for him to finally, truly, live. It may not last forever. Maybe not even get him through the week, but he will finally know what is beyond the smell of the pine forest. He will relearn the sounds of the city at night. He might one day taste the ocean air. I know your brother. I know that he knows a great many things that he shouldn''t, even now he''s probably listening to us. I know that he doesn''t feel even half the fear he should. I know the rage inside of him, and I know the remorse he uses to hide it. I know that he would pick this for himself, Ishmael. Go give him the choice. It''s the only thing we''ve deprived him of."


    The little house was still. Melchior sunk into the stiff cot placed in the corner. His heart pounded painfully behind his ribs. He didn''t raise his head as footsteps descended the stairs. He remained frozen, listening to the click of a lock and pull of rusty old hinges. His brother came into the room dosed in candlelight from a lantern. The scent of sap and night air clung to the sweat glistening on his russet skin. His heart hammered behind his solid chest. It reminded Melchior of a rabbit he''d found once.


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    "Melchi?" His tight curls hung down his cheeks, framing his face better than his thick glasses could.


    "I hate it when you call me that. It sounds like milky." Melchior craned his neck to look his brother in the eyes, wincing as the stiff muscles protested.


    "Sorry," Ishmael smiled. "I can''t help it."


    "I know." Melchior laughed. Ishmael hovered by the door and did not speak. He seemed lost to his own thoughts. "Are you. . . going to come in?" Melchior prodded.


    He regretted it as soon as he''d said it. He didn''t want the weight of rejection over him. He wouldn''t know what to do if Ishmael turned away from him now--but his brother smiled and pushed off the doorframe. He came into the dark cellar and joined Melchior on the small cot.


    "How are you feeling?" Ishmael asked. He pressed the back of his hand to Melchior''s sweaty forehead. The flames cast his frown in shadow.


    "Fine." Melchior lied, batting away his brother''s hand. Ailbe moved on the floor above them, slowly shambling towards the kitchen. Melchior''s ears twitched as he rattled around in the cupboard for teacups.


    "So you could hear us." Ishmael noted. He laughed and tipped his head back.


    Melchior flushed pink. "I-I didn''t mean to."


    "I know, kid. I just think that Ailbe might have been right about you." He ran his hand over Melchior''s head. "Let''s talk now, face-to-face."


    Perhaps it was a side effect of being raised by an elderly man in the thicket, but Melchior had acquired quite a taste for tea. He held the warmed porcelain cup tightly between his scuffed palms and stared down into the light brown liquid. The steam rose from the cup, tickling his nose and filling it with the sweet scent of chamomile.


    Ishmael had declined for a serving of coffee instead.


    Finally allowed above ground, Melchior couldn''t pull himself away from the opened window. A calm had settled between the trees, peace born from blood. Melchior had finally discovered the time, watching the fire red sun creep over the horizon. He watched the squirrels descend the tall fir trees, slowly sniffing the air for any signs of more Beasts. Ailbe and Ishmael murmured softly between themselves, allowing Melchior time to settle his mind.


    "How many?" Ishmael grumbled over the surface of his mug.


    "Seven that I got. Will you take Melchior and collect the Ossein? I''m getting too old for all this mess." Ailbe grunted.


    Melchior perked up as quickly as Ishmael flinched. "Take Melchior?" His voice dripped with honey-thick apprehension.


    "He is my Deacon, Ishmael." Ailbe raised a fuzzy white eyebrow and sipped his lemon tea.


    "That''s not my concern." Ishmael''s tone was weighed heavily under what Melchior recognized as guilt, and regret. Melchior knew what was going through his brother''s head now; a nightmare. One that had really happened, six years ago.


    "I can go!" Melchior volunteered brightly. Melchior was a naturally upbeat person, but even more so when he was trying to shake his brother free from his own dark thoughts. "I want to go."


    Ishmael leveled him with a big brother glare, full of affection and easy to break. Melchior knew he''d already won and came to join the adults at the table to finish his tea.


    "After we talk, child." Ailbe rumbled. Hopes suddenly dashed, Melchior sunk into his seat with a whine. Ailbe withered him with a glare and snapped his fingers. "Sit up, pup."


    "You old kvetch." Ishmael laughed. His eyes seemed distant, but he still smiled softly in Melchior''s direction.


    Ishmael grabbed the first aid kit that Ailbe had set on the table and turned his attention to Melchior''s damaged fingers. It took much of Melchior''s strength to pry his extremities from the hot tea-vessel. The cellar had sunken a coldness into his bones that he couldn''t seem to shake.


    "It''s fine, I heal fast." Melchior protested. Ishmael frowned and turned his hand over in his grip. He dabbed at torn cuticles with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol and Melchior kept his face carefully still.


    "Is it true," Ishmael pressed softly, "what you said earlier. Did Jethro finally submit for his Deacon''s pilgrimage? I thought he''d never give in--the Cardinal must have changed his mind somehow."


    Ailbe nodded his gray head and set his tea cup on the wooden table with a soft clink. "I''ve had people looking out especially for the news. It seems not even Jethro Pine can outrun the Cardinal. His Deacon is nineteen now, but I suppose late is better than never."


    Melchior had planned to take his pilgrimage at fifteen, and even that had been pushing it on the older side for a Brisbane, but that was before he became a monster magnet. And then something worse.


    "I can''t blame him for waiting." Ishmael sighed. "Knowing the talk surrounding his Deacon, I can''t even imagine the task he''ll be assigned. Finding an angel? Killing a greater demon with his bare hands?"


    "Fulfilling a prophecy," Melchior mumbled. Ishmael''s steady hands froze, his grip tightening on Melchior''s thin wrist. He squeezed him hard before releasing him to sit back in his chair.


    "What do you know about that?" Ishmael hissed. "You''re just a kid."


    "A Brisbane child, raised by the Progeny for his first twelve years. I''m sure it was taught to him directly, and if not, well, we both know how much our Melchior likes to eavesdrop. He''d have to be stupid to not know." Ailbe huffed, sounding slightly amused.


    "The Cardinal decreed it not to be spoken, written, repeated-"


    "Yes, yes, all interesting stuff, now irrelevant." Ailbe waved his hands dismissively. He propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward, placing his chin on his gnarled knuckles. "So, pup, tell me what you know about the Forgotten Prophecy."


    "You think it''s about me?" Melchior set his cup down and puffed a deep breath out his nose. The words scared him, but it didn''t change anything to keep them to himself. "Then you know I''ll have to die."


    "Melchi!" Ishmael snapped. He set his mug down on the table hard enough to send coffee spilling over the lip. "Don''t say something like that!"


    "Why shouldn''t he, if that''s how he feels?" Ailbe shrugged. "How much time does the boy really have left anyways. If the Progeny knew the full extent of his disease, they''d have had him killed years ago. He''s on borrowed time, Ishmael. Maybe the prophecy is his best shot at making something of himself before he croaks. Who knows, inaction now may have even the angels cast him from the promise."


    "There''s more to life than legacy." Ishmael protested.


    "That''s a luxury not all of us can afford." Ailbe countered. "Melchior, you have an obligation to try. If you are the boy the angels warned us of, you could bestow humanity with the first Vestige since the Demon-Born wars. It would clear your family''s name of the blight your curse put on them."


    "Stop it, Ailbe!" Ishmael snapped.


    "I''ll do it!" Melchior pushed himself from the table and stood on his legs. They shook beneath him, and he tried hard not to stumble.


    "Melchi," Ishmael breathed. "Our family is fine. You don''t have to throw yourself away for them."


    "It''s not for them. It''s for me." Melchior shook his head until spots bloomed behind his eyes. "I want to give my life meaning. Ailbe was right." Ailbe snorted and puffed his chest, too full of himself to detect the lie Melchior was selling. Ishmael watched him with honey eyes and took a careful sip of his coffee.


    "Okay." He sighed. "We''ll talk about this later."


    ? ? ?


    Melchior had loved the scent of pine since the day he''d left the city. The thicket was unlike anything he''d experienced his whole life. He was more himself beneath the wide open skies, where the last crest of stars burned away under sleepy morning light. The orange-fire glow of the sunrise washed the world in gold.


    Melchior had the sinking feeling he wouldn''t see these constellations ever again.


    "Melchior, focus." His brother''s curt bark shattered his peaceful illusions and brought him back to the thick stench of blood. He swallowed hard to dislodge the thick reek of it from his throat.


    He trudged through the forest as weighed as a burro. His arms ached under the strain of his load, but he didn''t dare complain. His left arm was pressed tight to his side, keeping a flashlight fixed in the crook of his elbow. His grip further down was preoccupied by a jug of holy water. Melchior eyed it anxiously, not wanting to know what would happen to his cursed skin if the water was to drip on him.


    In his right hand was a pair of pliers. The teeth of the tool was made of Ossein and shimmered as beautifully as the moonlight across a stream.


    And of course, Melchior carried another Ossein instrument. It was a small throwing knife, tucked safely in his back pocket. He didn''t feel the immediate need to bare arms. Ishmael had them both covered.


    He was holding a bow, stretching it taunt with ease. Bows were the preferred method of anyone trained beneath Ailbe Damianos. He had an Ossein-tipped arrow nocked in the mouth of his weapon, holding the slender wooden shaft perfectly still between two fingers.


    There were only a few materials chosen by the Progeny to serve in their weapons, and Ishmael''s preference was for cedar. Even cut and polished and battle-worn, Melchior could smell the rich earthy scent of the wood.


    Ishmael''s pose was perfect, like a statue Melchior had once seen on a school field trip.


    "You''ll wear yourself out holding in that position." Melchior didn''t feel the need to add that he was also stressing his bow. He shuddered to think he could be accused of scolding his brother, Ailbe''s prized Deacon.


    "I''d rather be tired than unprepared." Ishmael grumbled, but he slackened his bow and lowered it to a half cocked position at his hip. He''d been jumpier than Melchior had ever seen him. And he suspected that he knew why.


    Beneath the last breaths of the full moon, hunting for Beasts together. It had been like this six years ago. The night that Melchior lost everything. Then, Melchior had been sent away, and Ishmael had returned to the city to build the lies Melchior could hide safely in. There hadn''t been time to monster hunt together, this was the first time since.


    Ishmael''s chestnut eyes scanned the fir trees, glimmering effervescently beneath the gentle wash of first light. Melchior knew what he was looking for because he saw them often in his nightmares. The glowing yellow eyes that always stared back at him.


    "Do you see anything? Your eyesight is better than mine." Ishmael asked. As if to enunciate his point, he wiggled his nose beneath his pair of thick-rimmed glasses. Melchior scanned the air between the branches, the crawlspace under the brush, and found it comfortingly still. He shook his head, and Ishmael exhaled in relief.


    Ishmael didn''t ask, so Melchior didn''t tell him that the forest was soaked in the fetor of abhorrence and carnage. The smell was growing stronger as they neared the first body.


    Melchior shuffled along behind his brother, his eyes taking in great gulps of the land surrounding them. When he looked over the tops of the trees, he could see the smoke rising from the cabin as Ailbe prepared breakfast. Ishmael paused a few steps ahead of Melchior, his back tensing beneath the thin cotton of his white shirt.


    He''d begun to climb over a small boulder until his boots froze on the smooth surface. "Stop, Melchi. Take my bow and hand me the pliers."


    "What?" Melchior scoffed. "I gotta have your back, I can''t just let you leave my sight!"


    Ishmael glared at him over his shoulder. "I''m not asking, kid."


    "I''m not a kid!" Melchior snapped. He had lost that six years ago--like everything else.


    "And you''re certainly not grown, either." Ishmael bit. He sighed and shook his head. "Fine. Come along, but you better not throw up."


    "I promise." Melchior nodded. It had been something he was sure of until he crested the top of the boulder. Ailbe had warned him to never waste dolor on demons. He''d warned him more times than Melchior could count, and all of it had been for nothing the moment his flashlight''s beam settled on the pool of blood soaking into the foliage.


    He found the beasts face in the dark, eyes still glowing with the sunrise. It''s maw hung open in a cry, one that would never be heeded. And Melchior knew pity for it. And then he knew disgust with himself for feeling so weak.


    If Melchior ignored the immense size of the creature, he could have fooled himself into thinking it was nothing but a wolf.


    Ailbe had filled the hide of the cur with more than enough arrows to bring down an elephant, and it still hadn''t stopped the demon in its rampage. The furry belly of the beast was split down the middle, spilling gore into the lawn from the place Ailbe had run it through with a sword.


    Sometimes, arrows were not sufficient. Melchior pulled his thin shirt up over his nose, trying hard not to choke on the nauseous smell.


    "Pliers, Melchi." Ishmael asked again, and Melchior did not argue. Melchior handed his brother the tool but made no move to collect his bow. Ishmael must have expected as much. He leaned it against a stump without much insistence. "You''re lucky Ailbe isn''t really raising you as his Deacon, he had me collecting Ossein the first night I met him."


    Ishmael''s voice was held light between them, full of childish teasing that didn''t suit the scene before them. Melchior turned his eyes away as Ishmael fit the first tooth between the jaws of the pincer. The white bone glimmered in the dusk.


    "Did you know that we used to harvest Ossein with iron. Do you know why such an ordinary thing can pull out fangs when it took twenty-three arrows and a lance to put this Beast down?"


    "No." Melchior admitted. He winced as the pearly white tooth slipped from the bubblegum flesh holding it in place with a wet slucking noise.


    "Angels," Ishmael scoffed, "the old man is too soft on you. See, earthly metals can damage Beasts, but if it was alive it would simply heal in a matter of seconds. Especially Ze''ev. They''re a nearly infinite source of Ossein, at one time the Progeny kept a few on hand for picking."


    Melchior gripped his shirt tighter beneath his fingers. Ishmael plowed ahead, in his rambling and his harvesting. "Anyways, Ossein is the only thing worth taking into battle. Now we use it in all our tools."


    "Why?" Melchior asked. "If iron is easier to get-"


    "Would you want to be out here with a pair of garden shears if another beast came around?" Ishmael cocked an eyebrow.


    "Oh," Melchior mumbled softly. "And the water?" He lifted the jug for emphasis but his stiff shoulder popped beneath the burden. He stifled his wince and set the jug on the forest floor.


    "Same as the metal, I guess. It''ll dissolve whatever we don''t need." Ailbe explained.


    "And what about Greater Demons?" Melchior asked, when all he really wanted to say was; what about me?


    "Earthly metals would do nothing, neither would Ossein. Might be able to tickle them with blessed water, but nothing but the Vestige can kill a Greater Demon." Ishmael lectured.


    He didn''t mock Melchior for how little he knew on the subject. People were always a little skittish to divulge monster-lore to the monster beacon, especially after he''d left society. He didn''t get out much.


    "What if they were dead?" Melchior prodded.


    Ishmael fixed him with a careful glare. "No one''s had the chance to find out. Now, bag, please. If you aren''t going to help, go salvage any arrow points you can find."


    Melchior pulled the sack from the pant pocket he had stuffed it into and placed it on the gore soaked ground. The fang held in the grip of the tool was as long as Melchior''s thumb and would be fit to the tip of an arrow as soon as they reached the cabin. It fell into the fabric hood silently, Melchior thought it should have made a sound.


    Ishmael was staring at him expectantly, so Melchior shook himself from his stupor. He paced the length of the beast to the soft hide of its furry ribs. Melchior placed his boot against the coat, wrapping his hand around the shaft of one of Ailbe''s arrows.


    He braced himself and pulled until the Ossein tooth came loose from its flesh. The giant wolf had been killed with teeth and claws mounted on thin pine sticks. "Why can''t we just get a Vestige?"


    "You''d need to be favored by an angel." Ishmael laughed.


    Melchior blushed defensively. "You don''t think an angel would favor me?"


    "I don''t think the angels would favor anyone." Ishmael scoffed bitterly. "They''ve been radio silence on the topic since they gave us the Forgotten Prophecy. I guess we''re supposed to figure it out on our own. I don''t know, Melchi. Maybe we don''t deserve blessings anymore."


    Ishmael turned himself back into the plucking of teeth from sinew. The body shook beneath Melchior''s steady heel as the two Brisbane boys harvested the beast of resources.


    "You don''t trust the Forgotten Prophecy?" Melchior asked. He gasped in shock as the pine arrow he''d been struggling to dislodge splintered beneath his palm. Pine--the preferred wood of Ailbe Damianos--was strong and durable. Melchior wondered how tightly he''d been absent mindly squeezing the arrow. His fingers were slick with cooling blood. He rubbed it off on his pants and grimaced.


    "You''re my little brother, Melchi. I''d never advocate for some pipe-dream over your happiness. And I don''t think you believe it much either. It''s impossible to lie to me, I practically raised you." He huffed around each ripped tooth.


    "I lied to you my whole life!" Melchior protested childishly.


    "First of all, I always knew you broke Mother''s two-hundred dollar vase. I was just being responsible by covering for you. Second of all, if this is about you being bi-"


    "Okay, okay!" Melchior interrupted. Ishmael laughed, an odd thing to do while harvesting fangs.


    "So, assuming you really intend to play along and this isn''t just a chance to escape, why do you want to take part in the Forgotten Prophecy?" Ishmael asked.


    "I''m not running away." Melchior promised. "And the rest. . . well, I guess you''ll just have to trust me."


    "I don''t like that answer. Sounds like trouble."


    "Trouble? Who? Me?" Melchior''s fingers froze. His head had been pounding since he''d embarked from the cottage, full of rot from the carcassess in the thicket. The smell of blood had made him too dizzy to realize until it was too late, and now he was out of time to do anything about it.


    "Ishmael! Look out!" He screamed, but it was already upon them. The wolf tore through the trees and into the small meadow they''d been working in. It soared through the air in great bounds, wells of spit dripping from its open jaws.


    Melchior''s stomach dropped so hard a rush of sick welled up in his throat. The beast was heading straight for Ishmael''s back. Alerted by his brother''s horrified expression, Ishmael spun around, eyes wide behind his glasses. The black dog howled, loud enough to shake the earth. Melchior covered his ears and sunk to his knees.


    The cry had filled him with dread as heavy as cement, or maybe it was the half a bottle of pills he swallowed earlier. He was paralyzed. All he could do was watch as the wolf''s massive paw slammed into Ishmael''s chest. His brother grunted, falling to his back on the bloody grass. The bag of teeth spilled into the lawn, flung wide by his flailing arms.


    "Stop it!" Melchior screamed.


    The black wolf froze, perhaps amused by his cries. Slowly, the beast craned its head, its glowing golden eyes roamed over the body that Ishmael and Melchior had been taking apart.


    The cur seemed lost in thought, almost still enough for Ishmael to roll away without the wolf taking notice. Then its headlight eyes found Melchior in the dark. The wolf rumbled deep in its chest, a sad and hollow noise that filled the air around them.


    Melchior swallowed hard and shook his head because it felt like the wolf had asked him a question, and he had no answer. Time seemed to stall, Melchior pinned under a golden gaze that didn''t waiver.


    They stared at each other for so long, Melchior wondered if the sun would soon rise. He put his foot beneath himself and slowly pushed himself up onto wobbling legs. The movement seemed to shock the wolf into action.


    The cur bayed again, loud enough to send Melchior back to his knees. "I don''t know what you want from me!" He screamed. The wolf brayed again and again, barking as insistently as a housepet warning of an approaching mailman.


    "Stop it! Stop it!"


    "Melchior!" Ishmael shouted. "My bow!"


    Melchior couldn''t move. He couldn''t shake the howls from his head. The black wolf lunged, taking an effortless leap over its fallen comrade. Melchior fell back on the heels of his hands, pushing desperately to crawl away. The dog barked, snapping wickedly white teeth. It lowered its head, pacing closer and closer to the cowering boy. It barked again.


    "I don''t know!"


    "Melchior!" Ishmael called. "Duck!"


    Melchior barely managed to crumple into the dirt as the arrows began to soar over his head. The wolf yelped as the Ossein tips met its living flesh. It howled terribly, twisting up Melchior''s insides until he thought he might pass out. The dog''s head snapped back towards Ishmael, and he was charging.


    Melchior broke free of his daze and sunk his hand into his pocket, pulling free his small throwing knife. It was the perfectly polished front fang of a Ze''ev. Melchior didn''t stop to think. He arched his arm back and chucked the knife forward.


    The small dagger sailed through the air on a whistle, hitting and sinking deep into the side of the Ze''ev. The wolf stumbled to a halt, slipping in the blood-slick grass. Its golden eyes found Melchior, a low rumble easing from its throat.


    In the cellar of the cabin, Melchior heard more than he should. He could hear Ailbe pacing nervously across the living room floor. He could hear his brother''s curses and fears whenever he came to visit. He could hear the Ze''ev calling in the trees: and he could hear this now. The dog looked at him with eyes wider than saucers, and it whimpered; why?


    Melchior opened his mouth, but he didn''t know what to say. And it didn''t matter. The cedar arrow embedded in the soft throat of the Beast, and it collapsed, wheezing a few final gasps of early morning frost.


    Ishmael rushed to Melchior''s side and grabbed his shoulders. He yanked him to his feet and pulled him into his chest. "You idiot." He sighed.


    Melchior was just happy to be held. Too soon, Ishmael pushed him to an arms length away. His warm palms cupped his cheeks. "Melchi, why were you. . . talking to it?"


    "N-no. . .I wasn''t," Melchior said. It stung as it came over his tongue, the unmistakable taste of deceit. Ishmael flinched. He bowed his head and exhaled through his nose.


    "You think you''re ready to go out there? What if I hadn''t been here?" Ishmael asked.


    "This is why I have to go out there, Ish." Melchior protested weakly. "I think I need help."


    "I''m here to help you!"


    "You can''t fix this!" Melchior snapped. "My very being invites chaos. I don''t know how much more this curse will take from me before I. . . I probably don''t have much time left, and I''ve never gotten a chance to do anything with my life. Maybe it''s selfish to want to do something just to protect my opportunities, but I know that living as I''ve lived will not see my soul sent to the domain of the seraphs. You can only protect me for so long, Ish. Eventually, I will die."


    He''d probably meant some of what he''d said, but eternal salvage had never seemed much of an option for a boy cursed, and it didn''t drive him now. Not even Melchior fully understood what drove him now, only that this journey was something unmistakably urgent. As if the very idea had been carefully planted in the tissue of his brain. He knew he was following nothing but madness, and yet he knew he had to follow. His punches seemed to land where he needed them to. Ishmael rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses and scowled.


    "I''ve taken care of you for your whole life. If you do this, I won''t be able to follow you." Ishmael pleaded.


    "I know." Melchior said.


    "Everyone out there will lie to you, and you will have to lie back. You''ll play the part of their cursed boy, but if they ever knew how deep it really ran, they''d kill you immediately. If you hide it all your life, they''ll still hope you die. They want you to follow a prophecy that ends in sacrifice." Ishmael''s voice shook.


    "I know." He said.


    "You''ll be all alone." Ishmael whispered.


    "I know." Melchior agreed, but it didn''t feel entirely true.


    He''d be straying out of the forest for the first time in six years, hiding a secret that would have him executed, to try and rush his way into the Sect of Saint Francis'' one and only prophecy. Partner in crime to the Deacon under the heaviest scrutiny in all of the Progeny.


    As with all pilgrimages, he''d be unable to speak to Ishmael or Ailbe until its completion. And yet, he wasn''t scared. Excitement bubbled just beneath the surface of his russet skin. Beyond it all was one truth; if Melchior Brisbane was one half of a promise, and Ira Rule was to be the other, then maybe they had more in common than anyone could guess--and maybe from one cursed boy to another--Ira Rule could tell Melchior Brisbane why he could understand it as plan as words when the monsters chasing him howled. And how much more of his humanity he had to see slip away.


    Ishmael considered this with quiet contemplation.  "Then promise me one thing."


    "Anything." Melchior swore.


    "When the time comes," Ishmael whispered beneath the dying light of the last stars Melchior would ever see in these woods. "If one of you has to die--if he must kill you. Then make it impossible. Make it so that he can''t live without you."


    "I. . ." Melchior swallowed hard, choking on the rich iron smell of decay. "I promise."

 3 | Ira Is Buried Alive

    When Ira opened his eyes that final morning, there at first was no indication that this day would be the last of its kind. For one more hour, it all seemed on schedule. Sunlight stained by city lamps flowed in through his wide bay windows, flushing the small room with weak golden speckles across the hardwood floors.


    Still tussled from his tossing and turning, his flaxen hair stuck up in an array of tangles. He blinked wearily over deep purple circles. He shifted his aching muscles from beneath his comforter. Not even the heat of the summer nights outside could remove Ira from his heavy blankets. They served as anchors, tying him into his soft downy mattress. He would have liked to stay in bed for an hour more to compensate for his nightmare, but Peter had slept as peacefully as always and had woken up hungry and on time.


    Ira regretfully slipped from his bed, stretching once more to work out the knots he''d formed in his tensed and strained sleeping self, to no avail. Peter hopped off the bed, yawning widely and arching her spine in mirrored image of her boy. He couldn''t deny that he wished he could contort out all his stiff muscles as well as she could.


    Ira rolled his weary blue eyes and scoffed, "show off."


    With the old tabby plodding along as a little shadow on his heels, Ira made his way to the kitchen of his and Father Pine''s small New York apartment. He didn''t mind that he could cross the entire property in three well timed leaps. To him, and to Peter and Father Pine, this place was home.


    Books were towered up on each and every surface. Some had begun to lean, tilting dangerously towards disaster. Emptied coffee cups littered the few other available spaces. Ira winced. They were all his--he''d clean them up after breakfast, he thought. Yet, he said that every morning and somehow his hoard only seemed to grow.


    Across from the kitchen was the living room. Well, no. Not across, that would be too generous. The small rooms seemed to bleed together. So crowded, Ira could laze across the couch while cooking eggs on the stove. But, anyway, that kitchen-living-room-hybrid was home to a single yellow sofa and an old boxy TV. It mutilated all its pictures into blue-gray fuzz, but Ira only ever used it to stay awake at night watching old nature documentaries on loop, so he hardly minded.


    The square kitchen had space just enough for a two-seater table squeezed in between their appliances. One of the seats, right with his back to the front door, was occupied. As it always was. And as he always was, he ignored his plate of steaming scrambled eggs to devour his mug of jet-black coffee, a serious scowl across his unserious face.  He had his phone locked in his hand, because not even Father Pine was old enough for newspaper. But Ira was. Father Pine had collected the morning paper, leaving it neatly folded on the center of their cramped table for him.


    Peter mewed loudly, rubbing her cheek against Ira''s shin in gentle declaration. He opened the cupboard and retrieved a bowl of bland brown kibble for her. Ira knelt down, placing the bowl on the floor while scratching at her ears with his free hand.


    Cat satisfied, he made his way to the stove, turning his attention to the frying pan full of his breakfast where Father Pine had left it for him. He scooped the remaining half of scrambled eggs onto his plate and poured himself a cup of black coffee. He hated it, the smell, the tastes, the way it made his heart race and palms sweat--but he would gladly go to anything that could keep his sleep from finding him for just a while longer.


    And because nothing about that day was at all strange, he traced his steps to the left seat of their small table. If he squinted, he could see his footprints worn down into the cheap linoleum tile. Without a single word of greeting, Ira folded up into his seat.


    He knew better than to interrupt Father Pine''s morning reading of the news, so he turned himself into quiet contemplation and an average breakfast. It aided his thoughts to listen to Peter''s happy purs between mouthfuls of chunked kibble.


    For the next twenty minutes, they''d sit in compatible silence. Reading their own versions of the morning paper and listening to the morning rush of car horns fill the street below. It had been that way for years. Since Ira had learned to appreciate journalism with a side of coffee.


    So, that was the first to go. The first domino to fall. Tilting, colliding, and spiraling.


    Father Pine set down his phone and sighed. "It''s always the same. Why do I read it every day?"


    For a moment, Ira was too stunned to speak. He glanced at the clock and then back at Father Pine. It hadn''t been twenty minutes. It hadn''t even been five. He hadn''t even begun to chew on his eggs.


    "There''s. . .comfort in routine." Ira said, for Father Pine''s reading and for his comfortably quiet mornings.


    Father Pine laughed, setting his mug on the table beside his discarded smartphone. "I''d ask you to switch chairs with me, but you might faint. You should be quicker on your feet, kid. Big changes are coming." He was keeping his voice too light, too sarcastic, and Ira noticed it as soon as the first words left his mouth.


    "If you weren''t such a creature of habit, it''d be harder to tell when something was wrong." Ira said. He had noted it without thinking but when Father Pine froze, he wondered if he''d made a mistake. Father Pine exhaled through his nose and shook his head.


    "My kid''s too smart." Father Pine chuckled.


    My kid--sometimes Ira wondered if he meant it the way Ira meant it when he called him Father. If it mattered at all, to anyone. If maybe it was one of those clues in the morning crossword, signifying a secret code that only they could decipher. Before he could reach a conclusion, Father Pine struck with hot-iron.


    "Ira, have you dreamed anything significant yet?"


    He flinched. His fork, hovering over his plate, tilted. Fluffy yellow eggs tumbled through the air in a mundane display. Maybe if he''d dropped his coffee mug, shattering it across the weathered kitchen tile--sprays of hot black liquid echoing up into the air--it might have been a better portrait of how he felt.


    "No." Ira said, placing his metal fork back on the table before he could impale it into his placemat. "If I had, I would have told you."


    Ira was, to everyone in the Progeny, washed up. But he preferred it that way. His memories could never be what they wanted it to be--he couldn''t recall his first life, the one they all wanted so badly. So, he''d been tossed aside. Left to play pretend in a small apartment, reading the laity newspaper each day.


    "From the time of the Demon-Born wars, I mean." Father Pine asked.


    Ira tried to swallow down the iron-hot spike he felt in his ribs. "No." He grit out. "Still no."


    How many years had they been asking him? How many more times would he have to say it? He didn''t know. He didn''t remember the beginning--over, and over, and over. Like bees impaling into his hide, or drills burrowing into his bones to lap up his marrow. They''d bleed him dry, and never find what they wanted.


    Father Pine frowned, "Really? But that''s how we found you, Ira. When you were a child you told the Cardinal-"


    "-yes, when I was about three and still living at the orphanage--well, I don''t recall that either!" Ira snapped, curling his fingers into fists over the breakfast table.


    Father Pine frowned down at his coffee and sighed in defeat, as if he''d predicted this outcome. Well, he likely had. Despite what Ira did or did not remember as a toddler, those memories were far removed. "Alright."


    Ira sighed, too. Like a bull blowing out cartoonish pillars of gray steam from its nostrils. He ran his fingers through his hair to diffuse the sudden and irrational swell of emotion charging just beyond the barrier of his skin. Dampening the amp before it could overheat and explode. "Why?"


    Father Pine paused, his fingers hovering over the handle of his coffee mug. "I was. . . I was just curious how all those ancient Beasts looked, you know? The texts are not always clear. Now, they just exist in movies, as polished as statues."


    Ira leaned back in his chair, letting his shoulders slump beneath the soft white cotton of his sleep shirt. "What''s the point? Those things don''t exist anymore. Not since the Trammel."


    Father Pine shrugged. "I may also be trying to change the subject, and this is an interesting one. I find it rather hopeless sometimes. Before us, a mere army of laity knights eliminated all the Beasts in the world."


    "Not laity, Father." Ira corrected. "They were no longer just laity by the end of the war. They became us. Or, no, we come from them. The Progeny."


    Father Pine, who had begun his life as a laity Priest before joining the Progeny, nodded in agreement. "We have a way of bleeding into one another, don''t we? Regardless, they were ill prepared. They had no idea the terror Beasts could unleash--but we do. We''ve held the knowledge for centuries and have failed to expand upon it in any meaningful capacity."


    "We have not failed. We have yet to succeed. It''s different." Ira shrugged.


    "Even divided into Sects, formed into complete devotion to one target each, we have made no progress on banishing the Third Prince." He scowled.


    "What''s come over you?" Ira asked, leaning forward on the heels of his palms. "Don''t be so hard on yourself, Father. No other Sect has dealt with what we have."


    He tried to say it without the bitterness he harbored against the other seven Sects. No other Sect had ever actually seen their charged Prince risen, whereas the Sect of Saint Francis had never seen theirs in hell. The Third Prince had been on Earth since the war of the Demon-Born. It was a cloud that hung over all of the Progeny, and yet Ira was content to lay in the eye of the storm.


    "It''s strange, isn''t it? The Third Prince walks among us--and we sit each morning to read the news." He shook his head. "Wildfires, hurricanes, sickness. His mere existence is rotting us."


    "What would you have us do, Father?" Ira asked.


    It truly was odd how everyone--well, not everyone. The laity population remained unaware, simple-minded and content--had just adjusted to his constant looming force, but there really was nothing to be done about it. There was no weapon on earth strong enough to defeat a Greater Demon.


    They needed a Vestige to kill a Prince of Hell--and they were sorely lacking.


    "I would rather have you do nothing." Father Pine scoffed. He exhaled sharply and hung his head. Father Pine pinched the bridge of his nose and said nothing. Peter finished her bowl and began to lick her paws with happy chirps.


    "What''s brought all this on? I thought we''d reached an agreement." Ira said hesitantly.


    "Kid, you''ve been summoned." He whispered. His words crossed into the air on a trail of frost, churning the atmosphere inside their small kitchen into wintery slush.


    "Oh," Ira breathed. Peter stretched and lashed her tail against the air.


    "I know that I. . ." Father Pine swallowed and continued, "angels, I feel like a farmer sending his prized pig to slaughter. I know I''m being unreasonable, just allow me one more selfish morning to try and then I will see you go with a smile."


    Ira thought that comment was better left alone and just nodded.


    "I''ll change the topic again." Father Pine mumbled.


    "I think that''s for the best." Ira agreed.


    Father Pine ran his finger along the edge of his phone before perking up excitedly. "There was a notice this morning, possible possession. I thought we could. . ." He said it all like a child might pester his friend to sneak into a movie with him.


    "Father, my summons." Ira pushed.


    "My kid is too smart." Father Pine frowned. "Then hurry up and eat, you have an hour."


    "An hour for what?"


    "To prepare to meet the Cardinal."


    "Angels." Ira swore under his breath.


    His breakfast settled as stern as cement in his gut.


    Ira wished he had a cassock, and that was certainly not a wish he''d ever made before. He felt entirely too exposed in his slacks and simple black button-up. Father Pine had even declined to give him a tie.


    "Trust me, save the fancy robes for the ill-believers of the new ways." Father Pine scoffed. "You only need black."


    Ira creased up his eyebrows. "The Cardinal wears a robe--is he a New Progeny spouter then?"


    "Of course not!" Father Pine denied. "New Progeny cryers are practically laity. They''ve forgotten that demons used to be real. They''d rather pray to false idols than erase He-Goats. No, the Cardinal just thinks red is his color."


    Ira suspected that Father Pine was in some part joking about the Cardinal, but they did have a personal history that Ira didn''t fully know the extent of.


    "We''re soldiers under the only true power--angels, kid. A dalmatic isn''t going to sell your case. This is practically a casual affair." Father Pine assured while adjusting the collar of his traditional robe.


    "Hypocrisy is the bane of the honorable." Ira muttered.


    "Nonsense, kid!" Father Pine puffed. "This is just my uniform. No different from a nurse wearing scrubs."


    "Nurses don''t usually slaughter demons on the job." Ira huffed.


    "That''s what you think." Father Pine teased, winking from behind his heavy glasses.


    "Usually." Ira agreed, laughing alongside him.


    Ira, dressed head to toe in black, was modeled in similar fashion to Father Pine. Except his black button-up had been lined with thin scarlet red fabric, caressing and following the trim of the suit. It was a symbol of his strength within the Sect of Saint Francis, and his standing. Although the words sounded silly, he was a holy knight, after all. A Bishop, to be exact.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Ira had yet to earn his red. He was still only a Deacon--but hopefully, not for much longer. If it all went well before the Cardinal, then he''d begin the journey to ascending the simple black clothes of a Deacon. Ira bent to tie his polished oxfords, while low to the ground he paused to scratch Peter''s chin, keeping a great amount of focus on distancing her furry body safely away from his neat black slacks.


    "I feel you may be trying to sabotage me." Ira grumbled, but he trusted Father Pine. He''d trusted him with his life, and it had got him this far.


    ? ? ?


    The Progeny had served humanity for so long that they''d begun to shape the world around them. Of course, lots had been lost in translation, but the bones beneath the colorful flesh were as strong as iron and held many men in a vow of devotion to a cause given by angels themselves. Ira wished purpose was the only thing angels had given him. His feet functioned more as anchors than appendages. Ira found it difficult to traverse the busy New York City streets. He hadn''t been able to fall back asleep after his dream. It hung over his head as dark as a rain cloud.


    It didn''t seem that Father Pine had a similar issue. He seemed suddenly chipper. It was alarming.


    "Nervous, kid?" Father Pine asked. He was fiddling with the edge of his sleeve. Sweat beaded beneath the edges of his salt and pepper hair. He''d worn his glasses, and hideous, thick rims distorted his sky blue eyes.


    "Not at all, Father." Ira laughed.


    He watched him, fearlessly traversing the concrete jungle. And he admired him. Afterall, once upon a time he''d given up everything he''d known, too. He''d left laity priesthood to become a Bishop of the Progeny. Trading in his comfortable lifestyle for the unknown. Just as Ira was about to do.


    "Are you nervous?"


    Father Pine laughed, tilting his head in contemplation. "I thought I was playing it cool. Yes, I am," he admitted, "so much is going to change. You won''t be my responsibility anymore, but I''ll still worry if you''ve eaten dinner, if you''ve picked up your notorious dirty mugs, or if you''re even safe at all."


    Ira frowned. There had been a part of pilgrimage he''d been denying, but it was growing increasingly harder to do so. "I. . . I can''t come for dinner? Just sometimes?"


    "Oh, kid." Father Pine breathed. "This isn''t forever. It''s just until you complete your trial. Then you can come for as many dinners as you like. You could even move back home if the taste of your new bachelor living didn''t excite you. You know, most kids your age do something like this."


    Father Pine had kept his promise. After their morning had faded, he''d plunged into a tentative calm. Despite prolonging this moment for all of Ira''s life. A resolution had settled over the horizon. It was now a matter out of his hands, one that he couldn''t waste the energy fighting anymore.


    "They submit a request to go on a grand spiritual journey to the leader of their demon-slaying organization?" Ira balked sarcastically. "Paid education really is getting out of hand."


    Father Pine leveled Ira with a scolding stare and ruffled his sandy hair into a mess on top of his head. Ira turned pink, trying quickly to flatten it back down into the style he''d groomed for coming face-to-face with the Cardinal. Ira hadn''t seen the Cardinal since he stopped testifying. His dreams weren''t helping them come any closer to putting the Third Prince back in Hell, so they''d become irrelevant.


    Ira had fallen into cold storage, a pricey pair of shoes collecting dust in the closet. And he was grateful for it. The last few years had not been quiet, Ira still hunted He-Goats and performed exorcisms with his father most evenings, but the days had become something almost akin to peaceful, without men rooting around in Ira''s head for dirt on the Greater Demon he hated most.


    "You seem so lost in thought today, kid. You''re really okay, right? I''m the one who''s supposed to be putting on a brave face." Father Pine said. He pulled Ira closer to him as they moved along the early morning crowds.


    "Promise." Ira laughed. "I feel almost. . . excited?" He rolled his tongue over the word. It popped like bubbles between his teeth, releasing electricity down his throat to tangle up his insides. He knew he shouldn''t seem happy to leave, but he couldn''t deny the anticipation gathering behind his ribs. "Can you tell me about your pilgrimage, Father Pine?"


    Father Pine considered the request with a soft hum. "I guess." He gave in.


    There were certain things that were not supposed to be spoken in the Progeny. Things that had to be discovered by the self, but each pilgrimage was different and therefore could to an extent be reminisced about. "Well you know that I was given housing away from my mentor. I survived on ramen a lot those days. Hmm, oh! The cockroaches!"


    "The cockroaches?" Ira gasped. "I thought they were supposed to be locusts?"


    "No, kid!" Father Pine laughed. "My apartment, ugh it was crawling in the damn things. Now if there had been locusts, we really would be in a heap of trouble. Nothing that big should even be able to get through the Trammel."


    The Trammel was a word the Progeny had made up to explain why the living stayed on earth, while demons and angels walked freely between. It was a road to some, and a wall to others. Really, it was more of an idea. The Trammel was to Ira what dark matter was to a physicist. He understood it best this way: it was magic. A magical garden wall that took magic to break through.


    "Locusts are larger than He-Goats?" Ira puzzled lamely. He knew these things. It hadn''t been missed in his training, but he admired the way Father Pine spoke when he began to teach. As if he had Ira sat at a campfire and it was up to him to illustrate the story.


    "Not physically, I suppose. What are you kids saying now. . . the energy?" Father Pine furrowed his black caterpillar eyebrows together.


    Ira shrugged, he had spoken more words than anyone could care to ever recount and he found it a waste of time to keep himself up to date on the latest week-long trends.


    "Locusts have more magic. It''d take a larger tear to allow them to pass. That''s why Greater Demons nowadays have to stay in Hell and send thoughts to do their dirty work." Father Pine did not mention the one demon not in Hell, and Ira couldn''t help but feel somehow responsible. Slaying that particular creature would solve all of Ira''s problems, and he''d never been so close.


    "Possession." Ira surmised.


    Father Pine nodded in acknowledgement. He smiled kindly at a laity woman eyeing them as they passed with their slightly alarming commentary. "Kids and their video games." He shrugged before looking at Ira with a smirk. Ira simply entertained him with a roll of his sky blue eyes.


    Father Pine then pointed at the drab stairs leading into the subway and cut across the crowds to beat the morning rush. Ira wracked his brain for more to say, he''d let Father Pine recount the whole Demon-Born war to him if it kept his attention.


    Since they''d left their small apartment, Ira had been pestering Father Pine with these questions which he already knew the answers to. He was simply scared to reach the end. "Hey, you never told me about your pilgrimage!"


    "Nothing much to it, really." Father Pine sighed. "I was sent to take out a pack of Ze''ev. It took me a week to cleanse them, and another week to harvest them. Then I was a Bishop. I hardly deserved my promotion--but I hope you are assigned a similar task." He lamented. "With the Trammel, there has not been much for the Progeny to do but endlessly train, take down a few goats--a few dogs. We nearly know peace, Ira. Things could be much worse."


    "Or they could get worse." Ira uttered. He turned his iris-blue eyes to the dark tunnel beyond the platform. He could hear the train coming, and it came to him as an executioner. Ira braced himself against the screech of wheels on rail. "W-wait," Ira pleaded. "What if I''m not ready?"


    Father Pine smiled softly. He placed a warm hand on Ira''s shoulder and pulled him close. "It''s okay to be scared. I know you won''t feel me there, but I will always protect you. You''re my Deacon, Ira. I''ve been responsible for you, for longer than you''ve known. I''ve come to accept you as more than just a child of the Sect of Saint Francis. So, as my Deacon and as my progeny, be brave."


    Ira released a breath of stale metro air. He bowed his head so Father Pine couldn''t see his fear written in his eyes. "I promise."


    Ira had been making many vows, and he was uncertain of his ability to keep any of them true. He expected what the Cardinal would ask of him, it had loomed over his head all his many lives. There was not time to ponder the past. The train doors slid open.


    ? ? ?


    There was not much about the Progeny picking the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine that made sense. It was crawling with laity. No, something worse than laity--tourist. Tourist laity, with their cameras and over indulgent vacationing attitudes.


    Nor did it belong to the patron saint of the Sect that nested there. Ira''s diocese had been taken under the patron Saint Francis, who once stood against the Third Prince. This cathedral had been made in the name of Saint John, who was not a symbol of opposition against any Princes. All the Progeny seemed to be interested in about the building, was what laid beneath it.


    Still, Ira had to acknowledge what an impressive sight it made. Tanned limestone bricks cast in gothic towels pierced the heavens, climbing so far up Ira had to tilt his head and squint. It was as if the church came from above, merely visiting the crowded New York landscape.


    It held fast between the shimmering skyscrapers of Manhattan. The sanctuary stuck out as a relic of the past, similar to much of the glamor surrounding the Progeny. And old it was. The grand cathedral was almost comparable to a third of Ira''s lifespan, and like him it was still changing and growing. An obscenely orange construction crew mulled around the great building, as persistent as fleas on a dog. Ira had always secretly suspected them of being in charge of keeping the laity away, as they seemed to not do anything else. They''d been poking around the place since Ira could only crawl, always citing new projects and new towers. The cathedral was growing like a living Beast, consuming Morningside Heights.


    To be so near the cathedral close made Ira''s skin itch. He had done much growing-up since, but sometimes he recalled what it was to be a child abandoned at the nearby Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum. He moved closer to Father Pine''s side and joined him in greeting the construction workers in passing. Father Pine guided Ira up the marvelous stairs and through one of eight massive doors stamped in giant arches along the western front of the church. Ira paused in admiration to crane his neck back, looking at the famous rose window hanging above the set of main doors. It had been the beauty before the beast for most of Ira''s life, and he wondered now what laid beyond the glass.


    He passed harmlessly and insignificantly into the spiraling insides. Dropping into a world of hushed silence and awe. Ira made himself dizzy staring at the ceiling. He couldn''t help it--it was further away than the Heavens themselves. The nave was over a hundred feet tall, lined with pillars as tall as mountains, billowing up into a massive dome filled with red brick.


    The inside of the cathedral was cold, washed in pale white stone. The floor glittered in color from the stained windows lining the highest parts of the wall. The sight never grew less impressive. Only more terrifying. Ira rested a hand over his stomach to control the butterflies he had suddenly obtained there.


    "Hurry," Father Pine whispered, because even this magnificent place had turned victim to the crushing silence befalling all places of thought.


    A stiff atmosphere had bloomed, choking the nave. Or maybe just choking Ira. Father Pine kept his distance from wandering laity, guiding Ira as quietly as--well, as a church mouse. It had become a place of much grandeur, but the cathedral was still an active place of worship and still required a vestry. Father Pine took him to it, ignoring the curiosity their invasion invited.


    Ira eyed a security guard as he turned his back on them. The sacristy was a much smaller room, full of closets of cassocks. Ira wanted to pause for a moment to slip one on, but Father Pine did not stop moving. He pulled aside the dresser full of religious garment, revealing an iron door carved into the stone wall. Father Pine produced a key from around his neck and slipped it into the rusted lock. For a moment it seemed that the door would not open, until Ira noticed the tense set of Father Pine''s shoulders.


    "Father?" Ira whispered. "Do you need help?"


    The man sighed, his back slumping into something almost relaxed. He shook his head but did not speak. He twisted the skeleton key, and the door came open with a screech of hinges and outpouring of dust.


    Ira coughed, waving his hand in front of his face. "Is there really someone down there?"


    This door, it seemed, had not been used in quite some time.


    "There''s quite a few entrances." Father Pine explained, something Ira knew already. It was not his first trip to see the Cardinal. Ira peaked over Father Pine''s shoulder and tensed. There was nothing ahead but thick inky darkness. "And now you know why this entrance is not preferred."


    "Is there. . . a light switch?"


    Father Pine laughed, glancing over to give Ira a bemused smile. "Not too late to turn around, kid."


    "Proceed." Ira said, swallowing hard to dislodge distaste and dust from the back of his throat.


    Father Pine reached out into the void with a hand. He grabbed something that Ira could not see and shook it. The sound of metal grinding echoed down the pitch, and back at Ira''s ears.


    "The stairs seem attached. That''s a good start." If that horrible screeching had come from the scaffolding, it did not seem like good news to Ira.


    He again had the nagging sense that Father Pine was setting him up. Before he could raise such concerns, Father Pine stepped out into the nothing.


    "Okay. . . there are at least a few steps here. C''mon, kid. Just stay behind me. You''ll hear me Wild-y Coyote-ing all the way down if it''s broken."


    "Do you really think his name is Wild-y?" Ira mumbled.


    "What?" Father Pine called, "I can''t hear you over the sound of me risking my life for you."


    "We could have just taken a different entrance." Ira held his breath as he stepped into the threshold.


    His heart skipped a beat as his foot found the first step. His polished oxfords clanged against the grate, sending an echo further down than what Ira felt comfortable with.


    "I wanted you to feel some regret about leaving me." Father Pine teased.


    His voice was becoming harder to hear. Ira squeezed the cold railing beneath his palm and took quick careful steps to find him again.


    "Angels!" Ira cursed as his nose slammed into something freezing, rough, and solid. He smoothed his palms against the surface, grappling with it until he was comfortable enough to declare it a wall.


    "It''s a spiral, kid."


    "I knew that!" Ira snapped. He paused and bit his lip. "Okay, well, I know it now--don''t I?"


    Father Pine laughed and Ira chased the sound of him. They descended in near silence, broken only by the heavy patter of footfall and panting breaths. The air had been getting hotter for some time now, and sweat collected along Ira''s pale skin. They''d been going down for so long, Ira was beginning to weigh the possibility of decompression sickness. Just when he was about to declare them lost, Father Pine made a small gasp of surprise.


    "Oh, it''s a dead end." He laughed.


    "A-are you joking?" Ira sputtered.


    "I might be. Try to find a door--if you find one--then I was just kidding."


    "Father Pine!"


    "It''s an old tunnel, maybe they had it shut."


    Ira sat on the step behind him and put his head in his hands. "Angels." He sighed.


    He could hear Father Pine climbing the stairs to reach him. The scent of his oud soap came over him as Father Pine squeezed into the space next to him.


    "It''s fine, kid. We''ll just go back up and take another entrance." Father Pine consoled.


    "You did this on purpose."


    "I did not." Father Pine laughed. "Let''s just catch our breath before we go back up."


    Ira agreed with a nod of his head that Father Pine couldn''t see in the lightless stairwell. They sat in quiet recovery for a moment before Father Pine began to speak.


    "Your mother didn''t leave you with the church."


    "W-what?" Ira stammered.


    It was a greater confession than the ancient walls of this dusty tomb could hold, and he wanted Father Pine to both stop, and continue.


    "Not technically," Father Pine amended. "She left you at the orphanage. It was the best she could do for you. She wanted you to be raised by people who would love you until you could find a family. She wanted you to have an ordinary life."


    "The church owns the orphanage." Ira pointed unhelpfully, because he knew what Father Pine was trying to say.


    "When you were very young, you''d tell the nuns things you couldn''t have known. They thought you were possessed--all this talk of Beasts and devils coming from such a sweet little boy." He exhaled from his nose in a humorless puff. "They pleaded with the Cardinal to speak with you. Your first confession. You told him something, Ira. Do you remember?"


    "No." Ira admitted, but he knew. He''d heard this story more times than he''d dreamed of all his other lives--but he couldn''t help but to watch helplessly as the final string was pulled. The thread that made it all come crashing down.


    "You told him that you held a flaming sword, and that you''d cut open the chest of the devil himself."


    Ira furrowed his brows in concentration. Finally, he shook his head. "Maybe it was just the wild imagination of a lonely child, trying to find attention. That can''t be possible. Only a Vestige could-"


    "That''s right." Father Pine said. "You had a Vestige, Ira."


    "I think I would recall if I managed to be the first to kill a Prince of Hell." Ira muttered, but he knew that he hadn''t. He knew they all still existed. All his life he''d been told stories about the seven princes. Six in Hell, and one in their world.


    "You didn''t kill him, Ira." Father Pine said sadly. "This story, it''s your original sin."


    Ira sighed, a deep rasping gasp that filled the dark stairwell. "I know. You''ve only told me a thousand times, Father. I wasted the blessing, I didn''t kill the Prince. I was a traitor."


    He choked on those words. They seemed bigger than him. They''d been hammered into him all his life, so he''d never forget. So he''d finally break free of his past mistakes.


    So he''d never choose the Prince again.


    The staircase was getting tighter. He had a terrible nagging sense in his gut. Like being on vacation and realizing he''d left the gas stove on.


    Ira knew what he would say next. He had seen it in a hundred dreams. He knew the heat of his lips and the silk of his soft skin. How often had he woken up, still aching in wanting.


    "You let the devil lead you from the mission." They were kinder words than Ira had heard before. "Ira, can I trust you?"


    "Father, of course you can trust me!" Ira hated how much it sounded like a plea.


    "Can you trust yourself?" Father Pine asked. "Do you know that you''ll fix your mistakes?"


    Ira thought of all the lives he''d lived before. In each one, the devil had found him. And every single time, Ira had let him have his way. What would be so different now? The Progeny? Yes, it had to be. Ira had never been raised aware of his past before. He''d lived in ignorance, time and time again. He couldn''t let this chance escape him. It could be the only one.


    "I swear."


    "Then make me another promise."


    "Anything."


    "Ira, no matter what anyone tells you--always trust what''s inside your heart."


    Ira furrowed his brows, his heart had always led him astray. It had gotten him tangled up in all this mess to begin with.


    "I don''t understand."


    Father Pine sighed, patting Ira on the knee before standing. "You will. When it matters the most, you''ll understand. Now, let''s go. The Cardinal is waiting."


    Ira clambered to his feet. "Lead the way up."


    Father Pine laughed. "I was just going to use the door down here."


    "What? You-!"


    "Yeah," Father Pine admitted, "I was just kidding."

 4 | Melchior Sees His Future

    "The city is too loud, and it smells like garbage." Melchior pouted from his position slouched in the front passenger seat of Ishmael''s car. As if to further prove his point, he rolled up the windows his brother had lowered. He thought it an acceptable risk. Slowly roasting inside of the khaki-tan sedan, which seemed to predate the invention of central air, sounded a lot better to him than enjoying even one more moment of the city''s splendor.


    A wise decision, he reasoned further. Given how slowly they were progressing, it seemed that an eternity awaited them between each stoplight. The rickety vehicle crept forward half an inch each twenty-eight seconds. Making such insignificant distance through New York traffic that Melchior had almost asked his older brother why he''d wasted his paychecks on four wheels at all, but the answer was pretty obvious. So he could babysit with higher efficiency. The A train didn''t make a stop at Ailbe''s cabin.


    "Please don''t say things like that." Ishmael scolded. He momentarily abandoned the wheel--not that he was doing much driving away--to reach over the center console. He flicked Melchior across the forehead affectionately.


    Melchior''s frown deepened, his eyebrows creased over the spot Ishmael had just tapped. "What? Everyone can tell that this place sucks."


    "You''re not everyone, Melchi. You''re different. Just don''t draw attention, okay?" He placed his right elbow on the wheel and fixed his thumb nail between his teeth, punishing it absentmindedly. "This is a bad idea."


    "Correct." Ailbe huffed from the back seat.


    "It was your idea!" Ishmael exclaimed.


    "I never claimed it to be a good idea," Ailbe reminded, "just that it was our only idea."


    "Guys," Melchior spread his hands out, palms raised in picture perfect innocence. "I''ve got this."


    "Okay," Ishmael groaned, "That''s it--I''m turning this car around."


    "Wise choice." Ailbe nodded.


    "Hey!" Melchior protested. "Why won''t you just trust me?"


    Ishmael struck out as quickly as a viper. His fingers wrapped around Melchior''s left wrist, extending it away from the squirming boy. Melchior winced as his vice grip bore down on his rapidly beating pulse. He looked at his brother''s hand, placed perfectly over the branding scarred into his ebon skin. "I do trust you, Melchior. I don''t trust this. Your curse could get you killed, it''s not a joke."


    "More importantly, it could get the Soul killed." Ailbe gruffed. "The Progeny went through a lot to get that boy, don''t mess it up, pup."


    "Angels," Melchior cursed, yanking his arm back. "I get it. I''ll take care of any monsters that come for me, the Soul won''t even know."


    "That isn''t the monster I''m worried about." Ishmael muttered. The words struck Melchior through the heart, turning him to ice. He glanced into the back of the car. Ailbe touched the forming bruise on his cheek with fragile fingers--he had done that. Melchior looked into his lap, at his own hands. He traced the shape of his tattoo and clenched his fists, until freshly grown nails bit into the skin of his palm. He looked out the car window, too ashamed to be there anymore.


    ? ? ?


    Melchior Brisbane had never met the Cardinal, nor had he ever been to the cathedral close surrounding Saint John the Divine''s grand church. Before his curse, he was completely unremarkable. He had no leverage to earn his parents affections, and he had no skill in battle to earn the Cardinal''s attention.


    He was just the twelfth child of a family that should have stopped at eleven, or so he''d been told by his older siblings in a tussle over the last nanny-baked chocolate chip cookie. Melchior didn''t even like chocolate--he''d just been vying for something to have to himself between his hoard of siblings.


    The first night his mother had ever truly looked at him, it had been in disgust as she sent him away. Now, for the first time since, Melchior had returned. Not home--but the closest he''d ever be allowed to get.


    Saint John the Divine''s cathedral hung from the sky on invisible strings. Even from across the close, Melchior could see the spike of towers over the treeline. The rot of the city was heavy, but here in the lawn acquired by the cathedral, Melchior could almost turn his nose to the fresh cut grass. The close was a blemish on the industrial city, a few acres cut out of the cement. The yard was home to great gothic buildings of worship. A school that Melchior had attended until he was twelve, an orphanage that gave him the creeps, a Bishop House, a place to seek council.


    He closed his eyes and heard the heartbeat of the world beneath the car horns and chatter. A pigeon cooed from her nest in the nearby decorative brush. The smell of roses carried on the gentle summer breeze, coming from the nearby garden. Laity tourists crowded, making noises of soft awe, at the feet of the great stone figures in the Fountain of Peace. Ishmael shook him by the shoulder, already equipped with a glare for when Melchior turned his eyes on him. He was doing it again--listening to what was forbidden to anyone else.


    "Put this on." He held a jacket out to Melchior who accepted it begrudgingly. Melchior didn''t complain that it was hot outside, or that the coat wasn''t in his color. He pulled it on and adjusted the cuffs with care so that it covered the inside of his wrist. Melchior was not angry. It had never made his sickness easier, only worse, and it had never helped to pass the time in the cellar. So he had discarded it--but he almost wished he had it now. He wanted to be mad, he wanted to kick the bushes and cry that none of this was fair. He wanted to claw away the skin that they had used to brand him. And he did nothing instead. Completely unremarkable in every way, his father would say.


    "Keep up, pup." Ailbe gruffed. He hobbled across the greenery, leading the Brisbane boys towards the southwest corner of the close, where a gray sandstone building stood--the Synod House. It was nearest the edge of the close, and Melchior winced as the smell of car oil attacked his senses. It was hard not to be intimidated by the carvings of great knights posted in the walls of the arched entrance. Melchior shuddered under their scornful stone gaze and slipped past the double oak doors. The gallery would have easily fit an army, and very well could have given its sordid past with the Progeny. Melchior paused to admire the patchwork of stained glass windows. They were colorless, drab and beautiful. "Pup." Ailbe called again. He was at risk of falling behind. Melchior rushed between the pews to follow Ailbe into a small room full of cleaning supplies and chemicals.


    "Is this a holy broom closet?" Melchior asked. "Or just an average one?" Ailbe smacked the back of his head with an open palm.


    "The door is just in the cabinet there." Ailbe pulled a silver chain from beneath his silk black dress shirt and handed it to Melchior. His eyes traced the copper skeleton key with skepticism. He raised his eyebrows with question but Ailbe only scoffed. "It''s going to be dark, you''ll lead the way."


    "Oh," Melchior swallowed hard to dislodge the tingling bubble of nerves in his chest. He faced down the oak box. He would be able to fit in easily, so why was his stomach churning so heavily. It looked more like a coffin than a cupboard.


    "Melchior say your goodbyes." Ailbe instructed.


    "My goodbyes? To who?" Melchior furrowed up his brows.


    "Melchi," Ishmael sighed softly. He placed a palm on Melchior''s shoulder and it answered his question.


    Melchior felt his world shatter, and he said, "Oh, okay. Um, goodbye?" Ishmael chuckled softly. He wrapped his arms around his brother''s shoulders and pulled him into a tight embrace that Melchior didn''t want to ever pull away from.


    "I love you, Melchi."


    "Yeah, I love you, too." Melchior sunk his canines into the soft pink of his tongue to stop the words filling up his throat. He had no right to speak them--no right to protest the future that was meant for him. For six years, Melchior had only been half of something. He was grape jelly to someone else''s peanut butter. And it was beginning to sink in to him that he was the lesser of the two. He had never asked for anything. He took his pills, struggling to keep them down as his body fought. He held his wrist still and watched as the needle plunged the ink deep into him. Just once, he wanted to ask for something. For his brother to walk him to whatever came next. Melchior was sinking deep into an ocean of dread, this hug seemed like the last. A nagging tug in his gut was filling him with the idea that he would not see his brother again. It would have been easy to dismiss; if Melchior did not expect himself to die at the end.


    As if aware of his thoughts, Ishmael pressed his lips close to Melchior''s ear. "Remember your promise." They had barely come out of his mouth as a breath, but they echoed through Melchior''s head like cannon-fire. Melchior nodded, and his brother''s embrace lessened.


    Melchior turned from the hug and crawled into the cabinet before he could make a careless mistake. The back of the wooden box had been fit with a cold iron doorknob. Melchior found the keyhole just beneath it and fit in the copper key, twisting it before his regrets grew too strong. A lock clicked as loud as gunfire, and it stabbed Melchior just as deep. Melchior pressed it beneath his palm and shoved inward, the cupboard backing swung open into a tunnel only slightly taller than the cabinet itself. Melchior scuffled into the dark, rising to a half bent squat. He moved just enough inwards for Ailbe to crawl in after him and shut the door. The wood panel clicked back into place, sealing them in the shaft.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Outside, in the broom closet, Melchior could hear his brother speak. "Please, Melchior. Just stay alive." He didn''t know if he had what it took to make his brother''s plea a reality.


    "What are you waiting for?" Ailbe scolded. "I''m not getting any younger."


    Melchior began to descend the crawlspace.


    ? ? ?


    The tunnels beneath the cathedral close were tight and dusty and reminded Melchior very much of his cellar back home. He sunk teeth into tongue again. Melchior tried to deny himself the fear encroaching the edges of his mind, but the sense of being encased beneath New York was growing stronger, until he couldn''t breath.


    "Uh, there aren''t alligators down here, right?" Melchior had a pesky habit of saying stupid things when he was nervous--but since he was always saying stupid things, no one had picked up on his little tell yet.


    "This isn''t the sewers." Ailbe said


    "Then why does it smell like one?" Melchior grumbled.


    This seemed to shock Ailbe into realizing he''d been playing into Melchior''s childish whims. "Ugh--there are no alligators in New York!" He was crouched low, shuffling forward carefully on the balls of his feet. Melchior, who stood much taller, had given up the battle of detangling cobwebs from his thick hair and had decided to crawl. He was held awkwardly, walking on his hands and toes to keep from soiling his clothes. And suddenly he was glad his brother wasn''t around to see it.


    "Hm, what about crocodiles? Or komodo dragons--or dragon dragons. Or just, like, a really angry gecko." Melchior puzzled. Ailbe did not dignify it with a response. "Anyway, there has got to be a better way to your secret club house."


    "There are many tunnels, most worse than this." Ailbe grunted.


    "I can''t imagine how this could be any worse." The air had been growing steadily staler. Heat kissed the edges of his skin. "How far down is it? We aren''t going all the way to Hell, are we?"


    "By all means, yap away, pup. Consume all the oxygen left in the shaft. That''ll do us some good." Ailbe grumbled beneath his breath. Melchior was silent after that. His hands were slimy and cold from the bottom of the shaft, his elbows and shoulders ached with the effort it took to carry himself.


    As the tunnel spiraled down, and down, and down, he turned his fervent mind to mulling over the madness of their plan. There seemed to be no way for Melchior to escape the Forgotten Prophecy, no way to side-step his fate. In the end, what they had promised to pass would indeed do just that. Unless he took fate into his claw-tipped hands. Unless he walked willingly into the ax, baring his throat. It had been Ailbe''s idea. Play along, until the game changes. If he could stay in sight long enough¨Cthen what?


    He couldn''t exactly detangle what his mentor had been thinking, and yet he''d somehow ended up on his way to the Cardinal just the same. But Ailbe had promised, and he believed him, that the world was just as well barreling towards disaster. Two doomed fools, piggy-backing off one another''s misfortune.


    He drudged on in silence--silence by Ailbe standards. Melchior''s ears had been twitching to the symphony of ragged respiration and strained shuffling, until something changed.


    It was the lack of sound that alerted Melchior to it. His hot breaths had been echoing around the walls since they''d begun, and now they did not come back to his ears. Melchior perked up at that and slowly rose to a hunched height. Everything had been gray for so long, it took a moment to realize that he was no longer staring ahead into nothingness. The shaft ended. Melchior crept forward, running his palms over the smooth stone wall.


    "Uh, problem," he laughed nervously.


    Ailbe scoffed. "The key, pup--it''s a door."


    "It doesn''t look like a door, it looks like a wall." Melchior grumbled.


    "I wouldn''t know." Ailbe huffed, reminding Melchior of the total darkness they''d been immersed in. Melchior ran his eyes up and down the wall in quick rapid bursts, trying hard to swallow down his building panic. He was beneath the cabin again, unaware of the days as they crept past. A Beast tore at the walls, trying to get him. A Beast tore at the walls, trying to get out.  "Take a deep breath, pup. The Cardinal won''t kill you--well. . ." Ailbe chuckled, misreading Melchior''s anxiety--and making it worse. "It''ll be just a keyhole."


    Melchior found it then. At first he had been ignoring it as just a crack in the concrete. It was a small hole the size of a thumbprint, the edges worn down with scratches. It seemed like many Deacon had stood in this place, failing to fit in the keyhole, until the wall had been worn away by their panicked struggle. Melchior did not follow their example, he fit the copper easily into the slot and twisted it.


    A bright white light pierced Melchior''s eyes. He gasped and flung a palm up over his face. Careful to keep the grime collected there away from his skin. Ailbe shuffled past, pushing into the wall. It gave way with a heavy screech of stone against stone. Cool air flooded the tunnel, sending chills across Melchior''s salty skin. He shuddered and filed out into the fresher air before he could think too deeply about it. As his senses attuned to the new room, it became apparent that he''d traded one tunnel for another. At least this one had AC, and space to stretch out into. The stone walls of the shaft had been exchanged for glossy white marble, the floors and high domed ceilings had been made of the same. Melchior had the sense he was standing inside hollowed bone.


    Everything was white and plain, the only color came from dozens of large oil-paintings hanging along the curved walls. The paintings were bent to follow the flow of the surface. He almost missed the rough character of the stone channel.


    Ailbe basked beneath the white-hot fluorescents. His pale eyes found Melchior in the hall and winced. "You look a mess, pup." Melchior looked down at his hands and grimaced at the sight of them. Ailbe chuckled and ruffled around in his pants pocket. He pulled out a packet of wet-wipes and handed it to Melchior who fixed him with a quizzical stare. "It''s not my first time."


    Melchior accepted it with a nod and began cleaning the mess from his palms. Ailbe stepped past Melchior towards the door they''d come from. It hadn''t seemed like something worth his attention at the time, so it had fallen behind much of the other weird sights. Now he followed Ailbe with attentive eyes. Ailbe gripped the edge of the thin wall and pushed it back into the curved sides of the tunnel. It clicked into place, leaving Melchior staring into one of the most horrific things he''d ever seen.


    It was a painting of a man. His eyes were wide, slouched in undeniable sadness over flushed cheeks. His agonized features were framed in long sandy hair that dragged along the earth beneath his groveling form. His bare skin was covered in fine fur, thin enough to reveal the bulk of strained muscles beneath. Melchior couldn''t get his heart to still, his eyes fluttered to the bottom of the canvas, to the hands and feet of the crawling man.


    "Nebuchadnezzar." Ailbe explained. "He was a king--until a curse took it from him."


    "What happened to him?" Melchior whispered.


    "I imagine you could guess." Ailbe shrugged. "Come on, the Cardinal is waiting."


    Melchior turned his eyes away from the curled claws tipped on each finger and toe. He could imagine it all too well.


    ? ? ?


    The hall was empty, filled only by the buzzing of light tubes, the awkward march of Melchior''s dragging boots, and many more disturbing portraits. Melchior didn''t mind the length of their walk. He had turned three wet-wipes black and still needed time to fix his hair. He dragged his fingers through the soft curls in search of spiders. He had wrecked an awful lot of webs with his thick skull. Seemingly satisfied, he turned to show off to Ailbe.


    "Better?"


    "Hmm, still need to fix your face." Ailbe pointed.


    Melchior ran his cleaned palms over his cheeks, trying and failing to feel any grit or slime. "What? What''s wrong with it?"


    "Oh, I just don''t like it." Ailbe shrugged. Melchior leveled him with a glare and the old man laughed. It softened Melchior''s resolve and he laughed, too. Knowing that this would be the last moments between mentor and Deacon made it hard to face Ailbe with any animosity. "Ah, I almost forgot. Give me my key back."


    Melchior pulled the cold chain from his throat and handed it back to his mentor, who accepted it with a heavy sigh. "Don''t tell anyone I ever gave it to you, it''ll really put a damper on the ceremony later."


    "Ailbe Damianos breaking the rules?" Melchior teased.


    "If I always followed the rules, you would have not lived to eighteen." Ailbe chuckled like it was humorous. He patted Melchior on the shoulder as he brushed past him down the white hall.


    The marble chute was even longer than the stone tunnel, and Melchior had to work twice as hard to dull his senses to the paintings littered throughout the walls. But he wasn''t perfect, and one still caught his eye. It was unlike the others, dull and gray. Melchior had always liked art like that, because not many people appreciated art without color. And because he was colorblind anyways--well, it wasn''t that Melchior couldn''t see it, just that it had appeared duller to him and all seemed to blur together into three categories: yellow, blue, or gray. Art like this cut out the middleman, and left nothing for him to focus on but the intention.


    It was almost peaceful. The world was nothing but soft white clouds. A man stood in the partition of the fluffy curtains, holding a spear the entire length of his body. He was adorned in flowing robes. Large wings sprouted from his back, cut in sharp edges. Like those of a bat''s. He stood over a sea of foam, below him and sunk ankles deep into the mist was another wing-toting being. He was slumped against a wall of smoke, looking hopeless and lost. A sword hung from his hip, but he seemed too paralyzed by fear to take it. His flowing robes had been made in harsher edges, so that Melchior wondered if he wore a chest piece over his clothes.


    "That''s a terrible one." Ailbe commented.


    Melchior fixed him with a curious stare. "The painting?"


    "No, the door." Ailbe chuckled. Melchior thought he was joking until he elaborated. "It''s some twisted staircase they should have shut off in the 1900s. Be glad I didn''t take you down that one." Melchior nodded, but it didn''t answer the questions he had remaining. Ailbe must have seen it in his face because he sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "It''s Lucifer and Beelzebub--Gustave Dor¨¦."


    "Beelzebub?" Melchior echoed in wonder. It had been a name struck into him since he could understand the war he was born into. The Sect of Saint Francis stood in opposition of him, and now Melchior could not decide which figure he was meant to be. The man challenging the world, or the one crouched in the dirt.


    "Hurry up, pup. We''re almost there." Ailbe pushed him gently and Melchior moved down the hall on feet heavier than anchors.


    The end of the channel came abruptly, just like the chute had. But unlike the stone tunnel, this one was a bit more splendid. Set in the beautiful white walls was a set of grand oak doors, much like the ones on the Synod House that Melchior had passed though seemingly years ago. Ailbe came to the entrance and paused.


    "Should we knock?" Melchior whispered.


    Ailbe turned to face his Deacon with something like apprehension in his pale eyes. Melchior could detect the quickening of his pulse and smell the sweat collecting on his weathered skin. "Melchior Brisbane." Ailbe whispered in the hallowed space between them. "I must admit that I did not hate raising you as much as I thought I would."


    "Um, thanks I guess." Melchior rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "I didn''t hate it as much as I thought either."


    Ailbe smiled at that. "I know what you believe to be your fate. I''d be lying if I said I did not agree with it as well, but there is something you should know." Melchior held his breath. "Things are not always as they appear."


    "That''s it?" Melchior exhaled sharply. "That''s your advice?"


    "It''s not my advice. It''s just some wise words." Ailbe scoffed. "I suppose if you require advice. . ."


    "It would be nice." Melchior shrugged.


    "Then, my advice can be to take your medicine."


    "That''s not really advice either," Melchior pointed.


    Ailbe rolled his eyes and turned to the massive doors. "It''ll have to do. We''re late." Melchior almost asked him to wait, but he fit his hands over the bronze handles and threw the doors inward with a bang. So Melchior walked willingly into the sight of the Cardinal, something his brother had spent six years trying to prevent.

 5 | Ira Meets His Other, Other Half

    The oil paintings of men being torn apart had been startling, but the art beyond the grand oak doors had been much worse.


    At first, it seemed to be a laity courtroom. Only odd in that it''d been buried beneath a cathedral.


    The gallery was innocuous enough. It was slightly strange in the way that it slopped sharply downwards, resembling the showroom of a movie theater. It was just as large, too, with rows of balcony seats mounted high above the pews.


    Ira knew how this room looked at full capacity. He''d stood on trial here. Eleven years old and trembling beneath eyes full of disgust as he recounted the events of a nightmare. And it had helped the cause in no way. It seemed that Ira served only one purpose; to remind everyone of things best left forgotten. Ira batted away the iron-strong bolt of terror ripping at his insides and strolled down the aisle, hoping that it looked easy.


    The bottom basin of the chamber was cut clear across with a wooden half-wall risen out of the cold marble floor. Not a wall, Ira recognized, but a seating gallery. It was nearly identical to the Judge''s Bench that Ira would expect in a laity court, but it snaked into a massive half-moon with seven chairs posted along the height of the bench. The cedar stood out as strange in such a grand place. The wood was pale in color, clashing terribly against the grandeur of the swirled stone floors. Ira suspected it had pained the architect greatly to put it in the center of his design--but what choice did he have in the matter? Cedar, like the pine they used in their weaponry, was a powerful symbol. It served to remind all who served of their vows--most important of all being incorruptibility. Which Ira had not succeeded in. Hence him standing here now in this body.


    Still, it seemed the architect had tried to salvage his work somehow. The side panels of the Bench had been etched into striking sculptures of the seven Saints, each one standing victoriously over their charged Prince. Ira had memorized each Saint and each Prince. They''d been his nursery rhymes, but now he could only bring himself to face one.


    The center of the half-moon had been given to the patron Saint of the Sect. Saint Francis held his Ossein long sword high over his head, frozen mere seconds before the killing blow could be landed on the Greater Demon crushed beneath his heels. The Prince had only one large bat-like wing protruding from his curved back. The other had been severed and laid under his knees as he pleaded for mercy. His head was topped in curled horns, his fingers tipped in inch-long claws. Ira looked at the mirage in cold detachment. He knew well who it served to mock and somehow still had the room in him to feel wronged over it. Ira thought before he could stop himself, that Beelzebub was more handsome in the flesh. The thought turned sour in his gut. He turned his eyes away.


    Positioned over Saint Francis'' head was the corresponding center chair of the board. And it was hard not to see the Cardinal there. He was sat in the seat designed for him, adorned in flashy red robes. Alike to the cedar, in that it was hideous and also served as a reminder to the service. Look at how much blood I would spill for the cause. Ira leveled a quick glare at Father Pine, who had called this a casual affair earlier that morning. Ira''s embarrassment only grew as he took in the Cardinal''s neatly tied ferraiolo. This was decidedly not a casual affair. Father Pine just shrugged.


    "Your Eminence," Father Pine greeted, swooping himself into an elegant bow.


    The Cardinal raised an eyebrow. "Don''t pretend to care about fanfare, Jethro Pine."


    For the last century, the Progeny had been divided. There were those who held true to the mission, and those who thought the laity retelling of events served them better. It was in this divide that tradition sprouted from. Elegant soutanes, proud titles--and the biggest tradition there was: dissent. "Very well, Absalom Edom."


    The Cardinal smirked at Father Pine''s attempt at rebellion. He stood from his chair and looked over the edge scornfully. His eyes, full of contempt, had found Ira. Ira''s eyes, in turn, found the hilt of his sword, peeking over the top of the Bench. "Ira Rule." He gathered the words on his tongue like poison and spit it across the room until it stung all of Ira''s flesh.


    "Your Eminence," Ira bowed. He was a boy inclined to take the path of less resistance.


    "So you mean to take pilgrimage?" The Cardinal questioned.


    "I do." Ira nodded.


    "Why?" The Cardinal asked.


    Ira had been prepared for many questions, and this was not one of them. "W-what?" He sputtered. His cheeks turned as crimson as the Cardinal''s cassock.


    "Why do you want to take pilgrimage--now. For eighteen years the Progeny has sheltered you. Protected you. You should have made to pay your debts at the turning of adulthood. Like all the Deacons we raise."


    "Wait--I-"


    "To receive your request now is a mockery to all the Deacons who serve. Do you think them beneath you?" The Cardinal''s voice cut sharper than polished Ossein.


    "Of course not!" Ira snapped.


    "Then why?" The Cardinal boomed.


    "Because I have to!" Ira shouted. His words echoed across the courtroom, and he was suddenly still. He was breathing heavier than he''d realized. His anger had bloomed faster in his chest than flowers beneath april rain. He blinked. The Cardinal smirked. "It''s my fault." The words came from him now as a whisper.


    "It is." The Cardinal nodded. "You have destroyed more than you could even begin to comprehend."


    "Ab-!"


    "Quiet, Jethro!" The Cardinal slammed his fist on the cedar railing. "You have defended him for far too long. If you had raised him as you should have, he would not stand before me now asking for pilgrimage."


    "He is still young." Father Pine cut in, his fists curled by his side. Ira winced, lowering his shame-filled gaze to the floor. Young--no. He wasn''t. Not in mind, nor soul. He was older than the court they stood in. The Cardinal was right. He had waited much too long.


    "Is he ready?" The Cardinal scoffed. "Or have you wasted all your time."


    "I assure you, Ira is a highly skilled Deacon." Father Pine looked at him with adoration that Ira knew he did not deserve.


    His cheeks were flushed with shame and torch-hot anger. He wished that Father Pine would stop sinking them deeper into the hole they''d dug in front of the Cardinal--and then he was ashamed even further by his own displeasure. He had to hold himself to the idea that Father Pine was only saying what he thought was best, even if it seemed like he was calling Ira a child.


    "We''d hope so. Considering the years of experience he holds over the rest." The Cardinal said, digging once again at Ira''s shortcomings. "Well, excluding one."


    Maybe the mutter would have passed by Ira unnoticed, but there had been something strange in the sharp edges of the Cardinal''s voice. It offered Ira a slight respite from being the worst one in the room, and so his mind began to roll it over. All his life, he''d suspected himself of being the only one to shirk his responsibilities.


    "Absalom," Father Pine said. His voice held a warning. "Ira only means to take his pilgrimage. You can not give him responsibilities beyond his means. He''s--he is just a kid."


    Ira wanted to level Father Pine with a scalding look. What was it? Was he too old or too young? It seemed that he would always be wrong. For not the first time in his life, Ira understood what it was to be cut in half.


    "What do you accuse me of, Jethro?" The Cardinal glowered.


    "I just mean to remind the Cardinal the purpose of Ira coming here today." Father Pine spoke carefully. "His pilgrimage, it is just a means to prove his servitute."


    The Cardinal laughed, throwing his head back like a baying wolf. "You''re saying that I should go easy on him?"


    "I just seek that you know you can ask anything of him--once he has passed his test." Father Pine was nearly begging. His voice was heavy with desperation, and it twisted Ira up inside to hear it.


    It was the nature of pilgrimage that Ira would be on his own, and for this reason, he could understand why Father Pine was so concerned. If Ira could just make it past this, then the full resources of the Progeny would be opened to him. If he just made it past this--by himself. Whatever this may be. Ira could sense Father Pine''s fear in the air, and it did not extend into himself. Ira was not afraid. Well, not of whatever the Cardinal would assign him. He was scared of plenty else.


    "So this is the reason you have denied your Deacon his right to pilgrimage all these years?" The Cardinal scowled, and Father Pine withered beneath it. "Do not worry, Jethro. I know well what to expect from the Soul."


    "Your Eminence," Ira bowed his head. He did not want the Cardinal to strike him with a disapproving glare and shake him from his courage before he could say his part. "I will pilgrimage, in whatever way necessary to prove myself to the Sect of Saint Francis--and to the Progeny."


    "You will," the Cardinal agreed, "but I unfortunately have to agree with your mentor. These are rather unique circumstances--maybe the rules should be changed. Deacons have dedicated years to their trial. You have given those years to evading yours. Tonight, you will complete your pilgrimage. It will be the fastest anyone ever has." His voice dripped with malice and contempt. And there was something else. Just beneath the surface; regret.


    Ira snapped his head upright to face the full gaze of the Cardinal. The color drained from his cheeks. "Y-your Eminence--I want to pilgrimage. I want the full opportunity to prove myself." Ira could have begged. No, he was. He knew he was. The tremble of his voice betrayed him.


    All his life, he had been faced with disdain each waking moment and tortured by visions every night. He''d been only eight when the legacies began to say things about him, things that children should not have understood. After that, Father Pine had Ira removed from learning with the other children. Then his testimony had ceased, and he''d fallen even further from the Progeny. Ira had no claim to the angel''s promise and no way to earn it.


    "You will, and it will be a task worthy of the Soul," the Cardinal said. Ira let the words wash over him as rain to a desert, "but you will not do it alone."


    "You mean Ira should share his task?" Father Pine balked, the relief he should have enjoyed was buried beneath a mound of confusion.


    "I do not mean to share." The Cardinal said, Father Pine froze.


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    "You can''t." He whispered.


    "The boy is already on his way." The Cardinal pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes. "When he arrives, Ira will follow the promise made by the angels." Ira''s skin prickled as sweat began to roll down his spine. Fear so thick it turned his stomach to cement coiled tight around his insides until he was nauseous--and he was unsure of why.


    "Absalom, you can''t mean-"


    "Jethro, you enjoy too much telling me what I can or can not mean." The Cardinal slumped back down into his council seat and squeezed his eyes shut. "Do you think I enjoy sending children to fight these battles, Jethro?"


    When his scorn-filled eyes reappeared, they were heavy with mourning. "If blood was all we needed, I would gladly pay the price until I had none left to give--but it would still not be enough. Sometimes, great cause requires greater sacrifice. That is the way of things, Jethro. Remind yourself of your vows."


    Ira was burdened with questions. He worked all his strength into his tongue and had nearly begun to voice his many concerns. Sacrifice? He didn''t like that word. Before Ira could even begin to stutter forth his fears, he was brought to a halt by a room-shaking boom. The grand oak doors of the courtroom were thrown inwards so forcefully they slammed against the walls, creating an echo that shook Ira to his bones.  He spun on his heels, tensed for anything, and still not prepared.


    The old man shambled into the room with a serious scowl across his face. The darkening bruise beneath his eye only added to his brooding atmosphere. He was dressed in simple black clothing, edged in scarlet. Ira would have suspected him of being a Bishop like Father Pine, but it was in the way he held himself that radiated power and authority. This man was an Archbishop. Something afforded to very few.


    "I apologize for our lateness, Your Eminence." He did not offer an excuse or explanation.


    Ira raised an eyebrow in quiet appreciation. The man began down the aisle, looking perfectly unashamed. The boy shuffling along awkwardly behind him did not share in his mentor''s confidence. He tugged nervously at the edge of his left sleeve until he glanced up into Ira''s curious gaze. He froze, as still as a deer in headlights, and slowly moved his arms behind his back. Ira turned his teeth into the soft skin of his inner lip to conceal his amused smile.


    It was strange to see someone here who seemed just as nervous as he was. The boy was similar in age to Ira, maybe a little younger if his soft boyish cheeks were any indication. Vexing as it was, he was clearly taller. Taller than most in the room, in fact, and yet he walked as curled inward as a poked worm. His oak-toned skin was hauntingly pale, as if all his blood had sunken into his boots. Ira could see that he was trembling too, just barely visible in the lines of his broad shoulders. The boy must have noticed it, too. He squeezed his flash-bright eyes shut--just for a single second--and when they opened again he was still and contained.


    He straightened his back, keeping his head carefully bowed. His hair was too short to tumble into his face. Cropt close to his skull, and yet still springing up into wildly untamable curls. His hair was as dark a brown as coffee. His eyes, which he had not let Ira catch a glimpse of again, seemed to be the only source of light beneath all of New York. They shimmered, reflecting all the archaic torches in the room.


    Beneath the scornful watch of the Cardinal, it would have been entirely inappropriate to say the boy was beautiful--so Ira simply held such thoughts to himself and turned his eyes away so they could not betray him


    "Ailbe," the Cardinal pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly from his lips in a way that hinted at a long and tumultuous past between the two. Though, Ira couldn''t wrap his head around whatever their relationship may be.


    The Cardinal scowled down at the elder man in the same way a father might at his pesky child. Ira thought he would begin to scold him, but it did not come. The Cardinal''s voice had changed since Ailbe and his Deacon entered. He was putting on an act for their benefit, Ira realized. He knew that Father Pine had caught it too by the sudden tensing of his shoulders. Ira looked for his eyes, and Father Pine turned his head away. "You as well represent a Deacon late to bloom."


    It may have been more literal in the case of this second boy, with his rounded jaw and frizzy curls. Ira thought of his own peril in arriving to the courtroom and wondered how much of his messy appearance could be attributed to his descent. When the Cardinal fit him with a cold stare, he shifted uncomfortably beneath it--until his mentor fit him with an ever colder glare, and he was once again completely frozen.


    "I have had peculiar challenges in raising my Deacon." Ailbe admitted. "I have never thought it quite fair to set him up for failure--which a pilgrimage would have been."


    Ira would have been wounded to hear such doubts come from Father Pine, but this boy did not flinch. He stared down at his shoes as if the polished leather contained the magic words to see him safely out of this situation.


    "Then I must ask you as well. Why now?" The Cardinal asked. Ira''s heart pounded so quickly behind his ribs that he thought they might break.


    "I believe this to be a rare opportunity." The man, Ailbe, fit Ira with an eerie pair of pale blue eyes. "One in which my Deacon could play his disadvantages to strengths."


    The Cardinal blew a humorless laugh from his nose. "You mean his unique condition? How do you think that will help us at all? Ailbe, it''s true that I need your Deacon. He''s one of a kind, truly. Still, I think you''re misunderstanding what exactly I need him for." The Cardinal was speaking slowly, as if carefully mulling over each word.


    Ira had the sense that everyone in the room was dancing around something, intentionally keeping the Deacons out in the dark. Ira half-heartedly thought that it might have been one of those times when he was supposed to reach the conclusion on his own. That didn''t comfort him, so he turned ice-blue eyes to Father Pine''s worried face but found no reassurance there either.


    "I would like to prove something to the Progeny." Ailbe said.


    The Cardinal held his palm out, encouraging him to go on. Ailbe looked at his Deacon, and for the first time, the edges of his hard exterior softened.


    "He''s worth more alive." The boy''s head snapped upright, meeting his mentor''s eyes with surprise. His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak, but he did not. Ira swallowed hard. It had not been a kind thing to hear--so why did the boy look so touched. Like he''d just received his first ever compliment. Ira worried what direction things had begun to head towards, and he worried even more for the part he would play in it.


    "Ailbe," The Cardinal ran a flat hand over his face, tiredness edging into his perfect form. The Cardinal turned his attention to the Deacon. "Do you know what''s expected of you?"


    He nodded once. "I do." He said clearly--looking for the first time since he''d entered the courtroom--sure of himself.


    The Cardinal shut his eyes and leaned forward on his elbows, placing his face in his hands. The Cardinal shook his head and turned his gaze back to the boy. "Then I am truly sorry, but you know it''s just not your purpose to be useful."


    "I . . .understand." The boy said.


    "Well, I do not." Ailbe barked gruffly. "We hang two young lives on one impossible hope. Based on what? A forgotten promise? Why do we fight each day, Absalom? I thought it was to protect the future of humanity. Well, look, Absalom, the future stands before you now! And we are the only ones standing in the way. These two boys have never been allowed to grow into their potential, always waiting for the moment they''re called to the culling."


    "Ailbe, it''s not a promise." The Cardinal cut. "It''s much more--"


    "Blah, blah," Ailbe waved his hand dismissively in front of his face, chasing away the Cardinal''s words as if they were pesky flies. "Fate, then?"


    The Cardinal looked suddenly pale, but he slowly nodded. "Yes."


    "Then it will happen," Ailbe agreed, "but only when it is time."


    "The fate of our world hangs in the balance, Ailbe." The Cardinal said plainly.


    "Absalom," Father Pine said gently. "I agree with Ailbe. Trying to force destiny--it could fail. If you truly believe in what the angels promised, then let it play out to fruition."


    "You two are standing in the way of something you do not fully understand." The Cardinal warned. "I''m afraid we don''t have much time, certainly not enough to do nothing but wait."


    "I have never planned to just wait, Absalom." Ailbe chuckled. "I told you, I came to seek pilgrimage for my Deacon."


    "You think your Deacon is suited for the threat ahead? You seem very brazen for a man in the dark." The Cardinal said, raising an auspicious brow. "If I told you the fate of our world was being decided by forces much stronger than us. You would place it all on your Deacon?"


    "You mean to place it all on my Deacon, I just hope to give him a chance to stay alive while he does it." Ailbe countered. He rested a palm on the boy''s shoulder. "Melchior is braver than any Deacon I ever raised. He has more in his heart than you know, Cardinal. I believe in him, and I do not say it lightly."


    The Cardinal watched Ailbe, and then the boy, with a hesitant expression. He shook his head and blew a short breath from his nose. "May the angels guide us," he cursed. He was a man who had been defeated, and he had not seemed the type. Ira wondered what had happened in his head that they could not see. He wondered how high the stakes must have been to make the man fold. Ira had a sick feeling bubbling in his chest.


    "Ira Rule, you seek pilgrimage. I grant your request." The Cardinal spoke firmly, and the air in the court grew suddenly colder. Ira was frozen to it, unprepared to be suddenly fixed under all of his attention again. And then suddenly it was the least of his problems. "Find the breach in the Trammel between our worlds. This is your task. Do you accept it?"


    Ira was stunned, but he swallowed hard and nodded his head. He had stood here before, voice quivering beneath the intense gaze of a man who did not much like him. It had prepared him well to have his heart squeezed and pretend that it did not ache. "I accept." He could not bring himself to look at Father Pine, so he turned sky-blue eyes to polished oxford shoes and waited with baited breath.


    The Cardinal turned to the other boy, his voice held in revere. "Melchior Brisbane, I offer you only one chance to try and change your fate. Assist Ira Rule in his quest. Help him find the riff between our worlds. This is your task. Do you accept it?"


    The boy did not speak. He looked at his mentor with something like disbelief and the fragile beginnings of hope, silly how he had only found it in certain doom. His mentor nodded, and in that something passed between them that Ira would never begin to understand. When the boy--Melchior turned his head towards the Cardinal, he did so with no hesitation. He lifted his chin in defiance. "I accept."


    "Then I make my ruling." The Cardinal declared. "You will find the gates of Hell in three months--if you have failed by the night of the full moon, we do things by the way sent to us from the angels." The Cardinal brought his palms together in a resounding boom that shook both boys to the core. "Ira Rule will fulfill the Forgotten Prophecy. He will spill the cursed blood, he will sacrifice Melchior Brisbane."


    The weight of the decision settled over Ira''s throat until he couldn''t breathe. Unwillingly, his eyes sought out the boy he''d just been ordered to kill. He''d just been handed a death sentence at the end of the world, so why did he look so at peace? As if any of this made even a single lick of sense.


    What Prophecy? What curse? His mind flinched towards the nearest conclusion--that this boy had been damned by the angels, too. It sickened him to realize how much comfort came from that thought.


    "I suppose we should do our best to humor tradition. Deacons, you may take a moment to say your goodbyes." The Cardinal dismissed.


    Ira had half expected Father Pine to guide him back to the surface, telling him all the way that it would be okay and that this was nothing but another nasty nightmare. So something shattered inside of Ira''s rib cage when Father Pine did not move.


    He glanced at the Cardinal and then at Ira. "Kid," he murmured. Father Pine extended his arms, and Ira went willingly into them.


    "Remember what I told you. Follow your heart." The depths of Ira''s confusion ran so deep he couldn''t even begin to untangle it into words. So he didn''t try. He knew what the answer would be anyway, something about self-discovery and trusting his instincts.


    And he could do neither with his head and heart as twisted up as they were.


    Father Pine slowly pushed Ira to an arm''s length and touched his cheek. "I have something to give to you¨Ca couple of things, actually." Father Pine reached into the high collar of his silk black shirt. He pulled free a small iron chain. A skeleton key dangled from the necklace. Father Pine pulled it over his head and passed it into Ira''s open palm. "This is yours now. It''s tradition to pass on your key. You''re meant to use it to return here and announce the completion of your pilgrimage before the Cardinal."


    Ira glanced over Father Pine''s shoulder, where a boy like him was pressed into a tight hug from a man who looked as cuddly as a cactus. He hadn''t seemed the sentimental type, but he placed the necklace over his Deacon''s head and stopped to stroke his curls. "All my life, you warned me of this day. Did you know what he would ask me? You knew that I was destined for this. Murder." Father Pine said nothing, and it said everything. "How could you?"


    "Ira, please." Father Pine begged. He grabbed Ira''s cheeks and turned his eyes into his own. "You''re special, and I know it isn''t easy-"


    "He''s special, too, isn''t he?" Ira pushed, "but his special almost had him under my knife."


    Father Pine''s eyebrows creased, darkening his eyes. "Ira, he is nothing like you. He''s-" Father Pine stopped himself and shook his head. "Please, kid. We won''t see each other again--for a while. Let''s not use this time fighting."


    The anger had entangled itself so tightly around Ira''s chest. He didn''t know if it would ever ease. He grit his teeth and bowed his head. "Okay," he breathed, and it had been a harder thing to say than accepting an impossible task from the Cardinal had been to do. His hands shook by his sides, tightening over the metal key until the edges dug into his skin.


    Father Pine sighed and pulled a small bundle from the inside pocket of his scarlet trimmed jacket. It was wrapped in brown cloth and tied with twine. "You will need this." Father Pine held it out towards Ira''s chest until the boy accepted it with trembling fingers. "There''s another thing, but I''ll have it sent to your apartment."


    "My apartment?" Ira croaked.


    "Yes," Father Pine smiled sadly, "this marks the beginning of your pilgrimage, kiddo."


    It was all Ira had wanted, and now that he had it, he couldn''t wrap his head around the mess he was sinking into.

 6 | Melchiors Brief Reprieve

    Melchior turned over Ailbe''s copper key in his fingers, lost in thought about much of what had just transpired. Had Ailbe always suspected that his request for pilgrimage would be met swiftly with execution? Did Ishmael? Had it always been Ailbe''s plan to get him a bit more time, or had he simply winged it at the last second? Why hadn''t he warned him? Not that it would have changed much--Melchior had always accepted it as part of his duty. If Ailbe had failed, he would have gone willingly.


    Were the gates of Hell really open? What was Melchior supposed to do about it? If he could find the portal, would they all just forget about his part in the prophecy? When--if--he did locate the riff, how would they close it? Is that when his cursed blood was meant to be spilled?


    And of course, the biggest question on his mind--what to say to the boy who almost had to kill him. This being the most pressing, because they''d been sitting in a tense silence for nearly twenty minutes--and that was an agonizingly long time for Melchior to sit still.


    Ailbe had left first, saying that he had to speak with Ishmael. Melchior didn''t want his brother to worry, so he didn''t ask him to stay. The other mentor had left after a chat that seemed to only upset his Deacon further. The boy was still pale in his cheeks. Melchior got the impression that he had not come here today with the intent to kill him, which he supposed was at least some comfort.


    Melchior had expected something grand and wizard-ly from the Cardinal, but he''d simply handed a white envelope to the other boy on his way out of the court.


    He did not look at Melchior, and he was still trying not to take that personally.


    And the boy had not moved. For twenty long and painful minutes.


    He''d collapsed into the first available chair in the gallery as soon as the oak doors swung shut behind the ruby red tail of the Cardinal. His elbows were perched on his knees, and his face was buried in his open palms. He was curled up so well that his face was completely hidden behind hair as bright as sunshine. Melchior tugged on his sleeve, feeling too aware of the branding barely covered by the ends of the fabric.


    Melchior took a deep breath and spoke before he could think better of it. Or, Ailbe would accuse, think at all. "Uh, nice weather today?"


    The boy''s shoulders tensed, and then slowly relaxed. He lifted his head ruefully, fixing Melchior with a beautiful blue stare. He blinked once and then twice. He narrowed his eyebrows together into confusion. And finally, he said, "We''re. . .underground."


    "Right, then I suppose that''s our first problem." Melchior mused. He held up his fingers as if he was about to count them out and then promptly realized he had far more problems than appendages. "Okay, so if we can figure this out, the rest will be no problem."


    "Uh. . ." The boy''s arms drooped until they laid across his lap. "Well, I do appreciate the optimism."


    "Yeah, I''ve been told I''m a delight." Melchior shrugged casually. The boy smiled softly, and Melchior stared openly at the light blush of freckles across his nose and cheeks. He was as regal as a statue, with features defined in sharp edges and yet filled with soft beauty. His crystal blue eyes were doe-wide, lined with fine yellow lashes. They kissed along a number of his pale freckles as he squeezed his eyes shut in thought.


    "Do you remember what painting you came out of?" He asked.


    Melchior''s stomach twisted. His tongue dried in his mouth, rendering Melchior--for the first time in a long time--speechless. He shook his head quickly. "Uh, no, sorry, I don''t really remember. I had. . . a lot on my mind. What about you?"


    Those dangerously charming freckles disappeared beneath the rose, warm blush that bloomed across his face. "Yeah, I''m sure you had bigger problems--Uh! I didn''t know! I think it''s important that you know that I didn''t know. About--well, you know--and I probably wouldn''t have--uh y''know?" He said it all as one breath until he was out and panting.


    "Probably?" Melchior teased. "Noted."


    "Well, I mean, a lot is at stake right now. The whole world-"


    "Let''s just call it now, before our work-life balance gets difficult." Melchior chided, lifting his palms in mock surrender.


    "Right." He ran slender fingers through his hay-yellow hair. "This is awkward, huh? Even under the best circumstances, I''m not all that well adapted to talking to someone my age. Someone. . . like me."


    Melchior winced at the jump his heart did behind his ribs. All his life, he''d ached to hear that someone understood him. And now, when he''d only come to find it, it just felt undeserved. This was the soul of the Progeny, and Melchior was blood waiting for his blade. It had never been clearer, and he knew suddenly that he''d been childish to ever think otherwise. "We''re not really. . .alike." He said, and it was both perfectly true and perfectly untrue. And he''d regretted it instantly as it passed his lips.


    "Oh," the boy murmured.


    "I just mean-"


    "No, it''s fine." The boy said tightly, and Melchior knew it was not fine. Melchior opened his mouth, and nothing came to his tongue, and he had no time to think of something. He was already losing ground.


    The boy got to his feet and turned sharply. He was walking, and before Melchior could even think--he was following. "Well, my entrance was not ideal. If we can''t pick between us, then we''ll just have to find the third option. Something new." He pulled open the courtroom doors, exposing them both to the too-bright tunnel and its many disturbing faces. Whatever wind he''d piled up behind his sails to carry him this far fizzled out beneath the screaming maws of a hundred ghastly portraits. "Do you think the gore of the portrait reflects how bad it''s going to be?"


    Melchior considered this as his eyes raked up and down the walls. He skipped quickly over an image of a man being burned alive into a lump of charred flesh. And moved even quicker past the screaming women being buried alive--not a good omen. Then he saw it. It was almost as bright white as the marble hall, and he felt pulled towards it on an invisible string. "Well, how about this one?" Melchior crossed the hall to stand before the oblong stained canvas.


    It was a cliffside, cast in deep browns. Beneath the drop was a wharf of churning tides. The field above the sea was consumed by a stampeding herd of giant black boars. They rushed in mad panic, blindly throwing themselves to the waters. Barely escaping the living river of pigs was a young boy. He fled side-by-side with a dog of all white. His fur seemed almost real, full of glistening starlight. It was the brightest in the whole twisted art-gallery. Even to Melchior, who could only see it as a dimmed final version. Behind them, a body laid in the grass, victim to a thousand stomping hooves.


    "The Miracle of the Gadarenes Swine?" The boy blanched.


    "It''s Gerasenes." Melchior said before he could stop himself. He had always been interested in the stories Ailbe told him of the old Beasts, the kinds kept behind a wilting Trammel. "The pigs were from the town of Gerasenes."


    "What?" He creased up his eyebrows. "It''s Gadarenes--as in gadarene. It means to throw yourself into disaster."


    "Oh, well then, it''s perfect." Melchior shrugged.


    "I thought we were going for peaceful." The blond boy said skeptically.


    "This one has a happy ending." Melchior dismissed.


    "That guy would disagree." He puffed, pointing to the man beneath the roar of possessed sow.


    "I''m sure the pigs would, too." Melchior agreed. He ignored the weird stare that particular comment had earned him. "Well, shall we?"


    He sighed, shaking his sandy head. "What do we have to lose?" He stepped towards the portrait and gripped the thin edges of the golden frame. He tugged, and nothing happened. Melchior might have turned pink.


    "Maybe not all the paintings are doors?" Melchior suggested.


    "No, I got it." He tugged again, this time much harder. He gasped in surprise as the canvas popped off the wall, Melchior raised his hands to catch the art, but it never fell. The picture swung out on hinges that screamed louder than half the mauled nuns in the gallery. Melchior coughed on dust, fanning his palm in front of his nose. His counterpart pulled his thin black shirt up over his nose and crept towards the edge of the tunnel. He squinted up his blue eyes, staring blankly into the pitch for a while. He shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at Melchior. "Um, it seems fine?"


    Melchior crossed his arms over his chest. "It seems fine? Can you even see anything? What if you step in and fall all the way to Hell?"


    "Then I''ll close the Trammel from the fiery side." He rolled his azul eyes. "Are you coming? If I fall, I''ll Wild-y Coyote yell for you--make it easy to avoid any booby traps."


    "I''m not sure enough to correct you, but I don''t think it''s Wild-y." Melchior mumbled, and the boy laughed so hard he stirred up a new cloud of dust. "Let me lead." Melchior said. He''d already begun to step around when a firm hand met his chest, pushing him back a step.


    "Hey," the kid warned, "I said I''d handle it."


    "What?" Melchior coughed awkwardly. "It''s not a big deal, just let me-"


    "If it''s not a big deal, you should be perfectly content behind me. Shouldn''t you?" He said. "What? You don''t trust me? Maybe you think we''re too different." His voice was sharp as glass and tempered beneath a hot spike of anger that Melchior couldn''t understand. They''d been getting along just fine a moment ago.


    "It''s not about trust!" Melchior insisted. "I just-"


    "Just what?" He crossed his arms over his chest in a snap, and Melchior fell silent.


    What could he say? I just see better in the dark? That would just be weird--and he could still feel the chill from the shadow of the ax they''d barely just taken off his neck. So Melchior raised his palms and took a few steps back. "Okay, I trust you." That seemed to satisfy him. He stepped over the threshold and embarked in the tunnel.


    Melchior followed behind him before he could think better of it. His gut was coiled with apprehension, his breath held to avoid the stench of stale underground passages, for just a little while longer. Melchior squeezed his eyes shut and reached for the curved dome over his head. It was cold to the touch. Melchior froze as his fingers brushed past soft webs, made gray by the layers of dust collected along thin threads.


    "What are you doing?" The boy scoffed, humor and disbelief heavy on his tongue.


    Melchior peaked at him behind thick black lashes. "Uh, checking the ceiling height?" He admitted. "I don''t want to. . . smack my head," Everything he said came out more childishly than he''d meant it. He was withering beneath aquamarine eyes.


    "Close the door." He said, crossing arms over his proudly puffed chest.


    "Close it?" Melchior looked behind them, into the too-white hall they''d barely managed to escape from. And it still appealed to him more than what came next. "There''ll be no light if I do."


    "There will be no light anyways, once we really get going." The boy reasoned. "It just feels wrong to leave it open." Melchior didn''t want to be the one to leave the stove on in his holy metaphorical kitchen, so he gripped the edges of the gold frame and swung it shut. The painting sealed into place with a heavy thunk, taking all the view away with it.


    Darkness surrounded them in the tunnel. Melchior''s fingers slid down the seamless seal between the wall and the door. He was frozen, and too afraid to turn around. For six years, since Melchior became the cursed boy, there''d always been monsters lurking in the pitch. Yet, each passing night, he''d become less and less terrified of them. His fear had been building behind something else; himself.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Melchior was paralyzed, because he knew that if he turned around, he''d be the creature lurking in the shade. Everything reminded him of his sickness, but most of all that Melchior could see the tunnel as if the light had never left. He was a paper doll, barely held together by thick globs of glue. Or a glimmering blue ice sculpture beneath the pale sky. He was something that should not--could not--remain. Melchior''s fingers darted into the pocket of his pants, to thumb along the smooth side of his pill bottle. They comforted him. His malformed idea of a safety net, or security blanket.


    "I''m going. Follow me." The boy spoke, oblivious to the crushing waves of turmoil ripping at Melchior''s sutures. He didn''t wait, he turned sharply on his heels and began to march down the passage. So, Melchior swallowed his fear as easily as he choked down his bitter pills, and turned around. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, blinded now only by the rich tone of his own thin skin. Melchior inhaled a deep breath of musty air, and he followed the boy into the void ahead.


    The soul of the Progeny kept himself several paces ahead of Melchior, walking recklessly fast for someone who couldn''t see the path. It was only out of concern, recalling his earlier joke about a certain cartoon coyote, that finally gave Melchior the resolved to peer out into the dim. Melchior peaked open one eye--just to keep him from any real danger, he reasoned.


    He was too nervous to say so, afraid of invoking the angel''s bitter sense of irony, but the tunnel seemed almost normal. Well, as normal as an underground secret lair could be. The chute was tall enough to walk through without crouching. Melchior didn''t dare glance at his shoes, but they didn''t make squelching noises as they had on his first journey.


    The words spilled out of him as urgently as bubbles pour over the lip of an unwatched pot. Melchior was heated by the fear coiled tight behind his ribs, until he was powerless to stop himself. "How do you think the Cardinal does it?" Melchior puzzled. "I mean, he''s gotta have the best tunnel saved for himself. Wait--you don''t think it was some prank, do you? Like, what if we complete this thing and he says ''thanks boys, now use the elevator. There''s even a light switch and AC!'' er, actually he doesn''t seem the type to thank anyone. Wait, what if-"


    "Okay!" The other boy barked. "I get it. Now, let me think."


    Melchior''s stomach twisted up at the sudden outburst. That should have served to silence him, but it did not. Melchior could only begin to sooth his aches by running his tongue, every lull of silence pulled him back into a well of thoughts that he worked hard to keep down. It was a problem, Ailbe loved to point out. He furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. "I don''t get you," he grumbled bitterly. And he had meant it. Any mood he cultivated with the boy seemed to sour as quickly as milk beneath the summer sun. Melchior had the worrying notion that he was being pressed into a corner by a hissing snake. And he didn''t know how to jump over it without being bit.


    "Well, I don''t get you either!" The boy snapped. Melchior winced. It appeared that the heel of his boot had crushed the tail of the snake. "Thirty minutes ago, it was highly implied to me that I might have to kill someone! You--if you''re keeping notes--and you want to joke? We have three months to accomplish the impossible. Your life depends on it, do you not care?"


    Melchior swallowed hard. "I''m sorry, I didn''t think about how you might feel about it."


    "Angels, he''s crazy." He whispered hotly beneath his breath. "You are going to die if we don''t solve this! How are you so calm?"


    Melchior paused. Calm? He seemed calm? He''d been battling back bile since stepping into the courtroom. All he''d wanted was to beg and plead. He''d have fallen to his knees and spilled until he had no dignity left--and he''d done none of it. Why? He had no other explanation besides that, he''d always been this way. He''d been facing death for so long that he''d mastered his facade. Or maybe Melchior was crazy. The realization that washed over his troubled mind sent chills down his spine.


    He wanted to be destined for this. If Melchior Brisbane was the boy the angels had spoken of--he could mean something. All of this terrible mess could mean something. It was just a cruel trick that his meaning would be achieved in death.


    "I had more time to prepare than you did." Melchior finally said. He''d grown up under words that had long since been forbidden and then forgotten. He was the twelfth child of the Brisbane clan. It made his home full of secrets and turned himself invisible. He was perfectly suited to slipping into scenes that children had no business in. One of these closed door meetings had been the first time Melchior heard of him--the soul of the Progeny. He was destined to save them, and Melchior was destined to die. He hadn''t known it at the time--because he hadn''t gotten sick yet. But now it was undeniable that he was the cursed blood everyone spoke of.


    "You knew?" The soul gasped. His tone held more anger than shock. "And you still came today? What if your mentor hadn''t saved you?"


    Melchior didn''t have the words to sooth his complex situation. He hadn''t expected it to be exactly today, and he hadn''t expected to be denied the chance to pilgrimage. It stung, to be robbed of his only birthright. Melchior was more than just a legacy of the Progeny, he was a Brisbane--even if only in name. He''d never allowed himself to expect much. He''d been on reprieve for much longer than just a few hours. Melchior had never asked to go home, or to be a real Deacon, but he''d somehow still never considered that they would take his pilgrimage from him.


    He couldn''t begin to fathom what had been going through Ailbe and his brother''s minds. It was all a mess in his head, and he couldn''t bring it to his tongue. The boy seemed to register his silence as another slight.


    "Angels! Just get angry for once! Say you don''t deserve this!" His words shook, and Melchior wondered if they were really meant for him.


    "What if I do?" Melchior whispered. In the narrow chamber, Melchior heard something that proved his words to be true. Several paces ahead of him, fit behind flesh, blood, and bone, the soul''s heartbeat stuttered with a whimsical flip of emotion. "We both have a role to play. You might think that mine is worse. Angels, maybe I really drew the short stick--but you don''t know what I''ve survived to become this. If fulfilling my half could see my soul freed from this, I would do anything."


    The other boy halted in the tunnel. Melchior could taste the hammer of his rabbit heart on his tongue. It permeated the air like a fine perfume. Each quick beat filled Melchior''s keen ears. "I. . . I know how you feel. I might be the only one who understands how you feel."


    Melchior laughed, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyelids. It must have been some cruel joke, to be faced with someone so perfect and have them keep reminding you how alike you are. But he couldn''t mean it--because he couldn''t see the turmoil bubbling just beneath Melchior''s skin. No one saw more than Melchior allowed, so no one really saw Melchior. "You are the soul of the Progeny. You''re meant to save us. I''m just the means. We aren''t alike. If you really knew, you would stop saying that."


    "Then explain it to me!" He shouted suddenly. His voice echoed along the walls of the channel, and Melchior winced at the volume ringing in his ears. "If someone would just explain anything to me! Why am I always the last to know if I''m so angel-forsaken special!"


    Melchior barked a bitter scoff of laughter. "You''re the one the Cardinal gave the envelope to. This is your pilgrimage, I''m just tagging along in some pathetic attempt to save myself."


    "The envelope?" He puzzled. "Who cares about some stupid package?"


    "Says the one always being handed the package," Melchior remarked ruefully.


    "You think my life is all peaches and cream?" He gaped.


    "Sunshine and roses." Melchior rolled his eyes beneath the painfully tight press of his palms.


    "You don''t know what I''ve endured!"


    "Then that makes two of us." Melchior sighed. "Tell me."


    "Angels!" He cursed. "Everyone always wants to know. About the Third Prince, about my sins, about the angels-"


    "Wait, wait, wait!" Melchior defended, raising his palms even if they couldn''t be seen in the void. "That isn''t what I meant!" He could hear his slick shoes scoffing on the stone floor as he began to turn. Melchior squeezed his eyes shut again and returned his palms over his eyelids. He held his breath as the boy stomped towards him in the chute. He stopped just a few inches away, his warm breath tickling Melchior''s cheeks. He could feel the cold from his mint toothpaste on his lips. Melchior quickly shunned that thought away.


    "What else is there?" He choked. His anger had wilted beneath the only true thing they both had left: fear. His soft plea was hardly a prayer, only barely crossing the thin space between their lips.


    "You." Melchior said. Maybe once upon a time, they''d been words he wished someone had given him. He didn''t know anymore--Melchior''s mind was melting beneath the gentle heat from his deep sighs. "Can I just know your name?"


    "What?" A laugh filled up the tunnel, and then Melchior, too. "You know my name. Clearly, everyone always talks about me." It would have sounded like ego, but Melchior was in the unique position to understand exactly what he meant. He shook his head until the thought was scrambled into dust. If he looked for the similarities between them, he might never stop. It had been something he''d wanted once, but now, faced with his angelic beauty and the harsh reality of his own situation, he only felt guilty for it.


    "I''ve heard of someone, but now I''m sure it wasn''t you." Melchior said. He knew that his voice was shaking. He could feel the warmth from his skin and hear the quick thump of his heart. He was too close and not close enough, and Melchior was being twisted up by the most beautiful person he''d ever seen.


    "And if I had the same name as that person you''ve heard so much about?" He teased. Melchior inhaled easily. The thick tension they''d clouded the tunnel in had begun to dissolve.


    "I could call you something else if it''d make you feel better," Melchior promised, "but I''d still want an introduction from my future partner." And maybe executioner, but Melchior didn''t give voice to that part. The chute was still. Melchior could have fooled himself into thinking he''d been abandoned, if not for the soft swish of his rising chest and the gentle smell of his soap.


    "Ira," He murmured, "Ira Rule." For a moment, he said nothing, and then he laughed, and it was as sweet as rain. "Now you."


    "Oh," Melchior was glad for the pitch of the channel. It concealed his dark blush. "Melchior Brisbane."


    "It''s nice to meet you, Melchior."


    "Yeah." He breathed. "I''m glad to have met you, too, Ira."


    "I thought you promised to call me something else." Ira said. Melchior laughed softly into the thinning space between them. He''d wanted to say it just once. Maybe he''d have admitted such a small thing, but before Melchior could respond, the gentle scuff of Ira''s shoes announced his departure.


    ? ? ?


    It seemed almost peaceful again, and Melchior was more scared to do anything to ruin it than he was of dwelling in his own head. So they walked in silence. That was hard for him, but he tried not to complain.


    He tried, really. He even had indents in his soft pink tongue from his sharp teeth trying to keep it still--but Ira was walking recklessly fast, and the scene ahead had begun to change.


    The dark empty hall had become darker and stiller. It was ending soon, and Ira was unaware. A few more steps, and he''d be flat on the wall like one of the ghastly portraits.


    Melchior inhaled sharply. "We''ve been walking for awhile," Ira wasn''t slowing down. He''d barely cocked his head to listen to Melchior''s rambling. Melchior winced, taking six great steps to catch up with him, "and hey, wait!" Ira stumbled as Melchior grabbed his wrist, pulling him backward.


    "Angels, what''s your deal?" Ira snapped. Melchior had curdled the tolerance Ira held for him. Yet all he could focus on was the rapid beat of his pulse, just beneath the soft skin Melchior had trapped in his tight grip.


    "I thought you''d stop walking to talk to me." Melchior muttered, his cheeks flushed with ruby red heat.


    "Are you seriously critiquing my manners right now?" Ira coughed up a scornful laugh.


    "No! It''s just," Melchior might have whined. He shook his head and puffed out an exacerbated breath. "I was trying to tell you that we might be coming up on the exit soon. You should keep your hands in front of you."


    "Oh," Ira said quietly. His heart hummed harder beneath Melchior''s fingers. "Right, ah. . ." He slowly pulled away, and it took all of Melchior''s strength to let him go.


    Melchior''s sour mood from losing him quickly turned sweet when Ira lifted his palms and began to walk more cautiously forward.


    His fingertips met the end of the tunnel only a few steps later. Melchior winced at the painfully sharp thump of Ira''s surprise sinking into his previously mellow palpitation.


    Ira reached into the neckline of his silky black shirt. The key dragged down its chain with the rustle of metal on metal. He fit the small key into his palm and began to smooth his free hand up and down the wall. He wasn''t finding the pitifully small keyhole, and his pulse was beginning to quicken with the realization that he was stuck.


    "It''s okay," Melchior breathed, moving forward to press himself into the small space next to Ira. "Let me try."


    Melchior took Ira''s key from his warm hand. His own key sat against his chest, chilling the skin. It was on his mind, as his fingers brushed with Ira''s. He fit it into the small worn crevice. Melchior twisted it, pushing the wall with his shoulder at the same time. With a heavy screech of hinges, the door swung slowly open.


    "How''d you do that so fast?" Ira puzzled.


    Melchior''s own heart hammered in his throat. "Uh, my mentor had me. . . practice--before. . .so I didn''t . . . embarrass myself?"


    "Huh, so that''s why you were late to see the Cardinal?" Ira laughed. "That itself is pretty embarrassing."


    Melchior turned pink and said nothing to defend himself. Instead, he turned his attention to the world beyond the tunnel. Dim light poured in the small crack Melchior had opened. He peeked his head out of the hidden passage and cursed. "Oh, angels."


    "What, what? Let me see." Ira peered past Melchior''s shoulder and into the cold dark cellar. He exhaled a small puff from his nose and said in a tone much calmer than Melchior could have managed, "Oh, this is the basement beneath the school." Melchior raised an eyebrow, so Ira continued with a suddenly sheepish pitch. "I. . . got locked down here one time."


    "You got left here?" Melchior balked. "Who would have done that?" A pesky buzz in his ear reminded him of his own time spent locked in cold dark rooms. He shoved the thought away before he could trick himself into thinking he was anything like Ira Rule.


    Ira shrugged. "Just some legacies I took classes with." While Melchior pondered this in a dazed, Ira slipped past him into the dirt-floor room. He turned, holding his palm out.


    Melchior, at first, didn''t know what he wanted. He almost locked their hands together, he''d been thinking about it since he took the key--the key! Luckily, Melchior''s brain kicked on, just barely saving himself from something that was almost really embarrassing. He returned Ira''s keys into waiting fingers. Ira tucked the chain back beneath his black collar and slowly rotated to take in the full scope of the small root cellar. Melchior stepped out of the tunnel and turned to shut the door behind them. It swung into place with a solid clunk. Melchior had expected something more inconspicuous--but it was just a door. Feeling a little silly, he placed his own key in the lock and sealed it.


    "The stairs should be in this hall." Ira prompted. His eyes glanced up at Melchior for the first time since they''d left the courtroom. He froze, his heart pounded faster. Melchior wished he could stop hearing it. He didn''t want to think about what it meant.


    "Right, uh. . .so, this way." He muttered stiffly. Without waiting for Melchior, he fumbled his way to the westmost side of the basement. Ira smoothed his hands across the root cellars'' cement walls until they were met with nothing. He slipped down the hall as easily as a fish in a stream. Soon, Melchior lost sight of him.


    "He really just charges blindly into anything." Melchior mumbled. "Stubborn bastard." Even as the words tumbled over his tongue, he was smiling.


    "Hurry up!" Ira called. Melchior jogged after him to catch up. It seemed a concerning pattern that no matter what, Melchior would follow Ira Rule. Even now, he''d follow him into all the trouble that awaited them.

 7 | Iras Calming Trick (Not Always Effective)

    The cellar beneath the catholic school was dark, damp, and smelled of mildew. The problems continued as Ira and Melchior climbed the creaking wood steps.


    The door at the top of the stairs was jammed. Ira turned the cold handle beneath his shaking palm, trying with masked panic to assess the situation. The knob would twist, but the door was immovable. His heart thrummed in the thin skin of his throat, stirred on by regrettable childhood memories of standing in this exact spot.


    "It''s okay." the soft voice murmured just behind his ear. Ira''s cheeks flushed pink. He bent his head in bitter embarrassment. Melchior had never seen Ira successfully open a door since they met, and it was beginning to become a humiliating pattern. First, the stuck portrait in the too-white hall. Then, the stone slab at the end of the passage that Ira hadn''t managed to navigate. And now this--and he was running out of excuses. "Move over a little. I can help."


    The heat blooming in Ira''s skin deepened into the pit of his chest, consuming him from the inside-out with something hot and constricting. He whirled around, surprising Melchior so badly that he almost tumbled backward into the cellar they''d just climbed from. "If I wanted your help--I would have asked! I''m not some fragile baby bird!"


    Melchior gripped the handrails and steadied himself, half a step lower than he had been before. His eyes were wide, and in the dim of the basement, they glimmered in moonlight like that of a wild animal. Ira hadn''t mentioned it before, not to himself or to the other, because he was ashamed to admit that he was afraid. Of those eyes. No matter what simple trick of the dark it seemed to be. When Melchior looked at him, Ira was nothing but a rabbit pinned beneath a beast much bigger than him. He turned his head away, pretending to be occupied by the jammed hinges.


    "I''m just trying to help!" Melchior protested weakly.


    "I didn''t ask you to." Ira reiterated. His pulse thrummed in his head until he was dizzy.


    "Why do you think you need to ask?" Melchior shifted uncomfortably.


    "I''ve never done this before." Ira admitted, and then because that was applicable to a lot of their current situation, he clarified, "worked with someone. It''s just been Father Pine and I, for a really long time. And before it was just us. . . well, it wasn''t the most fun a kid could have, let''s just say. So, I don''t need you to undermine me all the time. I''m used to this."


    "Undermining you?" Melchior scoffed. "My life is on the line here--and you can''t even open one door. I''m doomed if you keep going on like this."


    The words stuck as thorns in Ira''s skin. He knew how unprepared he was. He didn''t need Melchior to remind him at every turn. A bitter pang of anger beat in time with his heart. "Oh, so you suddenly care about your life?" Ira choked. He''d regretted the words as soon as they tumbled over his thick tongue. Ira squeezed his eyes shut, trying to breathe around the knot, tangling up his throat.


    "What''s that supposed to mean? I''m facing my situation rationally, so I must not care?" The stairs creaked as Melchior rose to meet Ira in defiance. "I have people I care about. If they''re going to fight for me to get a chance, I''m not going to waste it. And it starts with this door."


    Melchior pressed into the top of the stairwell. He was keeping himself carefully distant, straining with the effort of giving Ira a wary gap in the tight hall. Ira suddenly felt worse for it. He glowered down into eerily shining eyes.


    "I said I got it." Ira bit.


    "I said I can help." Melchior bit back.


    Ira rolled his blue eyes and braced his shoulder against the flat panes of the oak door. He steeled his oxford shoes on the aged wood steps beneath himself. With one hand, Ira twisted the door handle, and with the rest of his force, he began to push.


    The stairs beneath them groaned with displeasure. Melchior locked into the space next to Ira, pushing with flat palms. Ira could imagine how his muscles might have looked beneath the sleeves of his jacket.


    The door began to buckle faster than Ira could correct. "Mel--wait!" He gasped. But he wasn''t fast enough. With the moan of ancient architecture, the door suddenly disappeared. For a moment, Ira thought they''d shattered the aged oak, but it was the hinges that had given in first. With a near sonic boom, the door swung out. Ira waived his arms blindly to try to correct his staggered stumble.


    His effort were met swiftly with defeat. Ira tumbled forward, already trying and failing to catch himself on his momentum. His shoes caught on the edge of the doorframe, and then he was really falling. Ira landed on his hands and knees with a bone shaking jolt. But he was still doing better than the boy sprawled across the floor of the hall next to him.


    They''d made it out of the basement and into the lower hallway of the school on the cathedral close. The passage was narrow, lined with vibrant stained glass windows. Blood red and fire orange.


    Melchior rubbed his nose and pushed himself slowly off his stomach. He licked his teeth, soft pink rolling over teeth pearl-white and predator-sharp. He made coughing noises, sputtering into his open palms. "I think I swallowed some carpet."


    "Gross." Ira remarked. Melchior fit him with a sour expression, and Ira was weak to the last of his anger wilting away. The viper wrapped tight around his ribs loosened, and nothing could contain the laughter that spilled over his lips. Melchior''s eyes shot wide in surprise. In the hallway, lying beneath the spray of orange and red light, Ira finally saw that they were hazel-green.


    "Pretty," he murmured.


    "Huh?" Melchior questioned, scrunching up his thick eyebrows in confusion.


    "The windows." Ira pointed over Melchior''s shoulder. "They''re so bright. The sun must be setting."


    Melchior shrugged at that, looking less than impressed by the display. Suddenly, his eyes rose in confusion. "Angels, how long was that tunnel?" He rubbed the back of his head.


    Ira considered it, but suddenly, the two boys had more pressing problems.


    "Angels!" A shrill cry startled both boys into a tight snap of attention. Ira glanced down the hall, at the elderly woman pacing angrily towards them. "What the devil are you two boys doing? The cellar is off-limits! What class are you two skipping to be out here?"


    "Uh," Melchior balked.


    "Uh," Ira agreed unhelpfully.


    The nun crossed her arms over her chest, a frown that could put any mother''s glare to shame, etched her hollow cheeks into a ravine. "Hall passes, now!" She barked.


    "We don''t. . . have any?" Melchior said apologetically.


    She looked rather unimpressed, so Ira decided to take a different route. "Look, lady. We don''t even go to school here." Ira ignored the dramatic widening of eyes that Melchior fixed him with. The nun''s cheeks boiled red.


    "So you two just happened to wander in?" She scoffed.


    Melchior rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, well, about that. .  .we did?" The nun''s eyes fell to the smooth curve of his wrist. His shirt sleeve had been rolled back by the force of his fall, revealing curled black tips of something etched into his ebon skin. Melchior froze. He slowly lowered his arm, moving slow enough to confuse a T-Rex or impersonate a pot of molasses.


    The nun''s cold brown eyes traced the stained edges of the black mark, her nose flared in disgust.


    Ira, too, felt drawn to it by invisible strings woven from curiosity. It was strange, he thought. It seemed that most things concerning this boy could be filed away under that category.


    So, he could have laughed, except that it was not funny. Tattoos were forbidden. So why did he have one? It seemed that this kid had never taken his vows seriously. He''d escaped pilgrimage into adulthood, he recklessly marked his skin, and he had no willpower to save his own life. He was rife with problems, and now Ira was stuck to him.


    The nun''s eyes slowly abandoned the edges of his marking to roam Melchior''s face. It was there that her stare matured from disgust into hatred.


    "You." The nun snapped. "Brisbane."


    He turned sallow in the cheeks. Melchior swallowed hard, looking more nervous than Ira had ever seen him--and Ira had met him on the hour that was meant to be his last. "Okay--this has been a hard day for everyone. My friend and I are leaving, we''re sorry for the door." Melchior chattered awkwardly.


    The woman took a step back as Melchior began to rise. He flinched, and so did she. "A shame." She shook her head. "What a waste of your great father''s blood." Her eyes flickered towards Ira, and he held his breath, waiting for her to turn on him, instead her voice filled with pity, "Don''t muck around with the pigs, boy. Or you''ll be too dirty to go home. Don''t give up your claim on humanity."


    "What is that supposed to mean?" Ira narrowed his eyes at her. A hot spike of anger grew between his ribs, pressing until Ira thought they might snap.


    "Angels save us." She muttered, "leave now." Finding Ira unworthy of further explanation, she spun on her heels and angrily marched back from where she''d come.


    As she retreated she took with her the edges of Ira''s vitriol. He looked at Melchior''s drooping shoulders, and felt the last bit of heat seap from his skin. He deflated as quickly and violently as a popped balloon.


    "Okay," Ira laughed nervously. "So, that was weird, right?" He looked at Melchior''s bright green eyes, the ones he''d first found startling. As if sensing his past dislike in the air, Melchior quickly looked away.


    "Let''s just go before we get detention." Melchior muttered miserably.


    ? ? ?


    Melchior hadn''t said much since they''d come from underground, and now Ira was beginning to miss his idle chatter. It had been as comforting as it was grating.


    Ira tilted his head back to look at the warm summer sun lowering over the skyscraper crust of New York. He kicked his polished black oxfords at a pile of grass and scratched the back of his neck. "Uh. . . nice weather we''re having?" He tried awkwardly.


    Melchior scrunched up his nose and shook his head. "It''ll definitely be warm enough for sleeping on a bench. Unless you have other plans."


    "As pleasant as camping at Central Park sounds, I thought we could just head up to our apartment." Ira shrugged.


    "Our what?" Melchior choked.


    Ira refrained from rolling his eyes. His bitter sting of frustration was unwarranted, he reasoned. Ira kept his face carefully blank. He was scared of chasing Melchior back into his shell.


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Despite being the same age as Ira, physically, because no one was really as old as Ira, he seemed completely oblivious in most things regarding anything other than his fate. Ira kicked himself. How long had Father Pine lied to him about his pilgrimage? He was no better.


    "Look," Ira pointed across the cathedral close to the southern side. On the corner, nestled against the busy street, was a building several stories high. It was made of white with great big chunks carved out of its pale sides for blue-tinted windows. "We own that."


    "The Progeny. . .owns an apartment complex?" Melchior echoed.


    Ira shrugged. "Saint John''s cathedral sold a corner of the close to some construction company, and that''s what they did with it. Avalon Morningside Park, fancy, right? Deacons will spend their pilgrimage there. We aren''t allowed contact with our mentors anymore. What else did you think would happen?"


    "I never really thought about it." Melchior admitted. He stared up at the luxury apartment building with a closed off expression.


    Ira fished the envelope the Cardinal had given him from his pocket. It had a slight weight to it, and it rustled softly as he held it out to Melchior. He glanced at it.


    "What?" He mumbled, but Ira could see the curiosity building behind his olive green eyes.


    "Open it." Ira shrugged.


    Melchior sighed heavily. Ira wiggled the paper in the air at him, causing a gentle cascade of more ruffling from the contents inside. Melchior laughed, finally accepting the plain white package. He tore open the lip of the letter. "It''s keys." He said, sounding somewhat disappointed.


    "Just what we needed, more keys." Ira sighed.


    Melchior furrowed his eyebrows. "And our apartment number." He held a small silver house key in his fingers. A yellow scrap of paper was tied to the bow of the passkey. Scribbled in curling calligraphy was their new home.


    "Really? Five-four-three. Well, that''ll be easy to remember." Ira noted, plucking the small metal opener by its teeth. He slipped his chain from his neck and added the new pendant. It looked odd against Father Pine''s grand skeleton knickknack. "Shall we begin?" Ira asked.


    Melchior turned cedar-pale. "We haven''t already?"


    "All of this is nothing but a prelude." Ira shrugged, pretending that his words were casual to soften the sting. "What follows next will determine the course of our lives. Or, even if we deserve lives at all."


    "Great." Melchior mumbled. "No biggie."


    ? ? ?


    Reaching apartment five-four-three had been harder than Ira had anticipated. Too scared to draw attention, they''d opted for quickly whizzing past the woman sitting at the front desk. That part had been easy. She''d been completely absorbed in painting her delicately long nails. Melchior pinched his nose to pass under the cloud of toluene.


    Ira managed to shepard them into the elevator before losing steam. He stared at the panel of buttons blanky.


    "Am I allowed to help, or do you need to ask for it first?" Melchior questioned, slumping back against the wall of the elevator.


    Ira fit him with a withering look and crossed his arms. "No." He said. Ira glanced at the glowing yellow dials. He snapped his hand out quickly, randomly punching the button for floor five. "See, I got it."


    "You did not." Melchior corrected.


    Ira scrunched up his eyebrows. "How could you possibly know that?"


    Melchior sighed, and he held out the envelope. Ira flushed pink, his base function whenever Melchior was around. He''d assumed the letter had only contained keys. He creased open the lip and pulled out the papers inside. One was a simple yellow square of note paper, with only one word scribbled across. "Six." He read. "Angels, how many Deacons get lost here?"


    "I assume they don''t want us fumbling through their luxury complex, covered in Beast guts." Melchior shrugged. There was something else in the packet, a smooth white slip of folded letter paper. Ira began to pull it free, but Melchior held out his hand. He clasped Ira''s fingers in his own, stilling them both. "Let''s save it for home."


    Ira glanced between their entangled fingers. He could see the flat edges of the Cardinal''s blood red wax seal. Ira nodded, "okay." He agreed. Then, all that was left between them was to go there.


    Ira punched the button for floor six. The elevator began to rise, pausing briefly at floor five. Ira turned hot-poker red and glared at Melchior''s amused grin.


    At six, he poured out into the hallway. He was immediately disorganized. Ira was dizzy with the airy and exciting feeling of roaming the too-quiet halls of a hotel. But this wasn''t a hotel, and this was far from a vacation--time limit or not.


    Footsteps trailed him down the hall, and they didn''t belong to Father Pine. Ira couldn''t think of the last time he''d been alone with anyone else. All of this was strange, Ira had the sickening upside down sense that he was watching his world unfold inside a funhouse mirror.


    It was all mixed up in his head. He wanted to turn tail and run. He wanted to charge ahead, unabashed. He wanted to wash his hands of this responsibility.


    Ira couldn''t even begin to untangle the strings in his mind. All he knew was that one stood out more than the rest; he wanted to save the boy that stood in the wavy mirror opposite him.


    And it was hot iron on his tongue. They were alike, no matter how much he denied it. Each time, his words had cut Ira as deep as Ossein. Had it really been that insulting for Melchior to think of himself in regards to Ira?


    It stung more than he could explain. He''d been rejected and mocked most of his life, and it never got easier. Ira would have given everything he had to this mission, but he couldn''t even bring himself to look at the task ahead. All he could think was: what''s so wrong with me? And the answer was obvious. He was Ira Rule, the soul of the Progeny.


    There wasn''t a worse thing to be.


    Ira was baking beneath the heat of his thoughts until it began to expand in his chest as an explosion. The scorch of it rose up his throat to color his cheeks. By the time they''d arrived in front of apartment five-four-three, Ira was ready to burst.


    Melchior fixed him with a cautious look. "Uh. . .are you going to open it?"


    "Give me a minute." He rasped between tightly clenched teeth.


    Ira inhaled deeply through his nose and out his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut and began to count. He''d developed the trick to sooth his settlement from nightmares to waking, but he''d found that it helped in most other things, too. So he recalled, from his well of dreams, just five things that made him someone new.


    Some days it was harder than others, but this one came to him easily, because he missed her most when he was feeling tumultuous. And now, above all else, he was feeling tumultuous.


    His sweet Peter. She had never existed before. There was no version she knew besides Ira. It was through these seemingly insignificant connections and experiences that Ira could believe that he was a person worth existing here and now. Not even Father Pine really just saw Ira as Ira. To the Sect, he was a mosaic of past lives for the Progeny to pick apart. So he thought of Peter''s soft striped coat and her wide shining eyes. And he counted it as one.


    "Are you okay?" Melchior asked. His voice was not lacking concern, but it licked along the edges of Ira''s wounds and filled them with new sting.


    "I just need a minute!" He pressed. "If I''m wasting your time, just step around me."


    Melchior ran fingers through his fine curls and shook his head. "Angels! I never said you were bothering me. All I did was ask if you were okay! Are we going to spend the next three months bickering?"


    Ira blinked, clearing a heated daze from his mind. Why was fighting all he could manage to dedicate himself to? Because he''d been fighting all his life? What a pathetic excuse. Father Pine had said it many times, but Ira had never taken it much to heart before, Ira ran hot. He had a short fuse, made for big explosions, and it was all he could do to keep himself from burning up.


    Ira had issues. Almost more than he could stand to count. But he would count it; as number two. He''d been in his loop long enough to see cities rise and empires fall, and none of his nightmares had ever been filled with memories of nightmares. Ira was the only life plagued by the knowledge of his past, he was the only life aware that something could be done to fix it. And he wouldn''t see this opportunity wasted.


    He looked at Melchior with renewed calm. This boy was his pilgrimage. If Ira could get them through this trial, then they''d be Bishops. The Sect would welcome them. Something, it seemed, neither boy had ever experienced or expected.


    With the sword of the Progeny now behind his back, instead of carefully trained on his throat, maybe Ira could--he could what? Kill Beelzebub? The Third Prince of Hell was nearly immortal.


    Nearly.


    "I''m-" sorry. The word thickened in his mouth until his tongue was too feeble to make use of it. "-ready. Let''s go in."


    "Are you sure? If you need more time, I''m fine waiting." Melchior offered cautiously.


    Ira shook his head, and it was a lie as clear as speaking. He needed time. He needed to finish his list, or his mind wouldn''t settle. But he knew he couldn''t. Every minute spent standing on the cusp was another minute the full moon grew closer. He could already feel the moment approaching when they would be out of time.


    So he lifted his key from the soft confines of his black dress shirt and fit it into the lock. One, two. He twisted and pushed, and he walked into the next step of unknown.


    The apartment was furnished, and there were even a few packets of ramen abandoned in the cupboard by the last Deacon to stay there. Which hinted at their next problem. This was an apartment meant for one.


    Melchior laughed without humor. Ira turned bright red and looked away from the single bed. "Uh, you can take the room. I won''t sleep much."


    He''d try not to sleep at all, actually. He was already mortified at the idea of waking up the complex with his screams.


    "Very noble of you, but I''m sure the Cardinal meant for you to take it." Melchior fixed his eyes on the couch and rolled his shoulders. The movement seemed stunted by stiffness.


    "I don''t want to imagine the Cardinal wonders where I''m sleeping at night." Ira muttered, but he knew what Melchior had meant. This was another dig at him being handed the envelope. So he marched to the couch and flung himself down into the soft velvet.


    Melchior watched him with keen green eyes before wandering away to scout the rest of the accommodations. Allowed some brief reprevial from Melchior''s attention, Ira disengaged from the sofa and began to explore for himself.


    The apartment was small but not uncomfortable. The door was placed at the end of a short hall, lined with cubbies for any Deacon''s outdoor needs; jackets, boots, and, of course, a wide variety of demon bone weaponry.


    Branched from this annex was the kitchen that Ira had already scavenged. It was a simple closed kitchen with an oven years past new and a fridge that hummed as steadily as an engine.  Melchior was occupying himself there. He''d rooted around the well supplied area until he procured a pot. He was staring blankly into the water as it heated slowly on the stove.


    "Hasn''t anyone ever told you watched water doesn''t boil?" Ira scolded, this time playfully.


    Melchior smiled softly and shrugged. "An unattended pot boils over." Ira squinted up his eyes. He hadn''t heard that one before. Maybe Melchior had just made it up. "I hope you like ramen because it''s all we have." He sighed mournfully and tilted his head back. "I wish there was some tea left over."


    "You like tea?" Ira questioned.


    Melchior stiffened before puffing out a long exhale from his nose. "What? I don''t seem the type?"


    Ira nodded his head in agreement. "I didn''t think tea was the select drink of the youth."


    "You don''t like tea?" Melchior surmised.


    Ira laughed. "I''m not really a part of the youth." He glanced over his shoulder. "Have you looked at the bedroom yet?"


    "No, didn''t really feel right." Melchior shrugged.


    "Do you mind if I?" Ira asked.


    Melchior fixed him with hazel eyes and shook his head. "No, I don''t care."


    Ira entered the small room. He walked quietly because each step felt like an intrusion. The bed was bare, with a set of fresh dressings folded on the foot of it, laid out next to a pile of luggage. There was a dresser and a bedside table. Both dark oak to match the bed frame.


    Ira''s heart leapt in his throat. His sky blue eyes drank in the bags more carefully. Two suitcases, and a small plastic carrier. "Peter!" Ira gasped. He rushed to the animal crate and opened the hinges of the door. Peter mewed happily as Ira scooped her up in his arms.


    Ira heard Melchior''s footsteps rush from the kitchen. He paused in the doorway of the room, his eyes wide and flickering around the inside of the small space. They quickly settled on the cat curled up in Ira''s arms.


    "You found a cat?" He said slowly.


    "No, Father Pine sent me my cat." Ira corrected. "Why? Are you allergic?"


    "Uh, no. I''m just. . . really more of a dog person." Melchior mumbled awkwardly. "Who''s going to take care of him while we go hunting?"


    "Her."


    "I thought I heard you shout for a Peter." Melchior raised an eyebrow.


    "I did." Ira agreed. "Her name is Peter."


    "Oh, that''s. . . actually pretty cute." Melchior sighed like it had pained him to admit. Probably something to do with his aversion to cats, Ira laughed to himself.


    "Don''t worry about Peter. Cats are pretty independant, as long as I leave fresh water and stop by to drop food in the bowl--we''ll be okay." He scratched her soft ear and frowned. Why had Father Pine sent her? He''d have a lot of work to do in the next three months--lives depended on him. Maybe Father Pine anticipated a moment when Ira would need her comfort, and it rolled his stomach into knots.


    Did anyone think they''d be able to do this?


    "Hey, I know that bag." Melchior stepped hesitantly into the bedroom. He paused for a moment, as if waiting to be chased off, but when Ira made no move, he came further into the room. Melchior picked up one of the two suitcases. It was gray and plain, but he held it like something precious. He slowly rolled back the zipper and froze.


    "What''s wrong?" Ira asked, gently placing Peter on the bed. She mewed before jumping down to leave the room.


    Ira peaked over Melchior''s shoulder. He didn''t have many great habits.


    The inside of the bag had been stuffed with a wide assortment of strange objects, but nothing that should have phased a Deacon of the Progeny. A roll of thin black twine, a short shaft of polished pine, a handful of Ossein tipped arrows, a pair of bone pliers. Beneath that, a layer of neatly folded shirts. Ira noticed the pill bottle, and quickly looked away.


    There was something more interesting anyways. It was a small yellow sticky note, laid on top of his clothes. Scribbled in handwriting that Ira almost couldn''t decipher, and then wished that he hadn''t, was a message for Melchior.


    Ira turned his eyes away, feeling suddenly burdened by the guilt blooming from his curiosity.


    Melchior dug beneath the weapons to pick up the note. He held it in revere. A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "Angels, Ailbe." He whispered.


    Ira turned his own attention to his suitcase. But the words remained in the forefront of his mind, he tried and failed to make sense of it.


    I believe in you, pup. Enough to pack your toothbrush.

 8 | Melchior Makes Molehills Of Mountains

    Melchior stirred the noodles in his bowl with growing disinterest. His stomach had been rolling, flipping, and twisting since he''d left the fabricated safety of Ailbe''s cabin. With his insides so committed to its impression of a washer on spin cycle, he didn''t have much confidence in his ability to keep anything down.


    Ira seemed to be suffering similarly. He sighed, finally admitting defeat. He pushed the bowl away and shook his head. "I know you made this for us. I''m just-"


    "Too nervous?" Melchior guessed. "It''s okay, me too."


    Ira smiled softly. His warm blues eyes drifted briefly to his cat as she lazed on the couch. He''d been seeking her out often, Melchior wondered if he was even aware of just how often he did it.


    Ira stuck his hands in the inside of his jacket and withdrew a small package, it was the size of a comb, but considering the strange cloth and twine wrapping--and that all of Ira''s luggage was in the other room--Melchior reasoned that it probably was not just a hair brush.


    He tapped it against his palm, staring down blankly at the brown fabric. "Father. . . my mentor gave this to me. He said I''d need it. And, now I''m too scared to open it." He laughed and set the object down on the table, next to his discarded ramen.


    "You''re scared? Of what it is?" Melchior asked.


    "I suspect to know what it is." Ira met Melchior''s gaze with his own, wide, beautifully blue, and mournful. Melchior''s insides twisted again. "I''m scared of what it means."


    "It can''t mean more than what you allow it to mean." Melchior said because it was easy to say, even if it was worthless.


    "I saw your bow." Ira said. It hadn''t been his preferred weapon, but of course, it was the one Ailbe would have picked for him. Melchior didn''t mind much. He wasn''t without his small throwing knife. He''d found it tucked beneath his neatly folded clothes. He''d left it hidden there as Ailbe had meant it to be. It felt easier than looking at it.


    Melchior flushed, wondering what else he''d seen in his bag. Childishly, he worried first about his underwear--until his stomach twisted again, realizing that his pills had been in there, too. "It''s beautiful. Pine, right?"


    "Yeah, it is." Melchior nodded. He''d stained his wood a deep ebony until it glimmered as deeply as the night sky. It was nearly unrecognizable from the stark white wood he''d cut it from.


    "Pine," Ira mumbled to himself. He laughed without humor and ran his fingers through his blond hair. "You know, it has dual meanings."


    Melchior''s heart thrummed in his throat. He swallowed hard to knock it back to the confines of his ribs. "I know."


    Pine was a conundrum because it meant both to last forever and to wilt away. It was ironic and painful, and Melchior thought, quite perfectly beautiful. Like the boy sitting across from him, scowling down at the gift from his mentor.


    "When you chose pine, for which did you choose it?" Ira asked.


    Melchior sat back in his chair, feeling suddenly tired. He was stuck in the sap oozing from the soft bark of the evergreen. "I don''t know yet."


    Ira smiled in gentle acknowledgment of his answer, and Melchior was reminded of another symbol of pine. Wanting. He turned his eyes away, feeling suddenly embarrassed. Ira seemed not to notice his gaze. "I didn''t choose my weapon. It was given to me, like so much else. Another glorious birthright of being me." His fingers danced over the wrapping, it rustled beneath his gentle touch.


    "What is it, Ira?"


    He winced, and Melchior was suddenly reminded of his promise in the tunnel--to call him something else. He seemed a boy divided, and Melchior didn''t know how to ease it. Ira didn''t speak. He peeled back the wrapping.


    Melchior saw the blade first. It was too hard to ignore. It shimmered as brilliantly as opal. An Ossein knife. The bone was melded into a handle of light sandy wood. It was wrapped in brown leather to give it more grip.


    "Cedar." Ira answered. He held the knife in his palm, looking quite formidable in their small kitchen. "Cedar has many meanings, too. I never bothered choosing one. It was done for me."


    "Which vow did it take?" Melchior whispered.


    Ira sighed. He looked at his cat with soft blue eyes. "Incorruptibility."


    Melchior didn''t speak. He didn''t know what to say. Ira didn''t either. Something heavy settled between them, soaking up all the oxygen in the room until Melchior didn''t know how to move past it.


    Ira reached back in his jacket pocket, shattering the atmosphere that had crystallized around them. He pulled out the letter from the Cardinal and took a deep breath. "Angels watch over us." He whispered, and then he removed the final piece inside the package.


    The Cardinal''s red wax seal glimmered as hauntingly as blood from a fresh kill. Ira picked it apart for seemingly no other reason than just to prolong the silence between them. His fingers shook over the now unassembled letter, but he made no move to unfold the paper.


    "Maybe," Melchior froze under Ira''s wary gaze. He moved forward slowly, "could I read it?" Ira relinquished the note to Melchior with surprisingly less fight than he''d prepared himself for. Melchior thought he''d been prepared for anything until he unfolded the letter written by the Cardinal--and found that it wasn''t a letter at all.


    "Angels, what am I looking at?" Melchior mumbled. Although it was obvious, he was staring at a map of New York. The boot-like state was a sleepy blue, cut deep with red highway veins. Pockets of purple marked out lakes and rivers resting along the land. Melchior knew the high slopes of the Adirondack Mountains. He recognized the ravines of Lake Seneca and her sister glacier lakes. What he didn''t remember from his Saint John''s private school education was the giant black X''s scrawled in thick black ink periodically across the providence.


    Ira peered across the table. His shoulders slumped and then tensed. "What are all those spots?" He questioned. He tapped his finger along the page, over a pocket of four markings. "There seem to be a ton here, in Catskill." Melchior counted seven X''s dotted over the center of the Catskill Mountains.


    "Cats-kill? Well, that''s foreboding." Melchior muttered hopelessly.


    Ira rolled his sky eyes, not completely unkindly. Maybe he was warming to Melchior''s childish whims. Maybe he was just tiring too quickly to keep up the fight against him. "Cat-skill." He enunciated clearly.


    "Strangely, that really doesn''t make me feel better." Melchior huffed, they both sounded like ways to describe the painful mutilation of a little mouse. "I guess we''re due for a camping trip, huh?"


    "I guess so," Ira agreed with uncertainty. "Whatever the Cardinal laid out for us, it''s more of a start than we had." Melchior had a horrible sinking feeling that there wouldn''t be a pot of gold beneath this rainbow.


    "Why did the Cardinal lay anything out for us?" Melchior puzzled. "I didn''t get the impression that he believed in us."


    Ira paused, fitting his thumb nail between his teeth. "Pilgrimages are meant to be done alone, but receiving instructions on your task is allowed. Angels, this whole thing is a little stranger than the average test. That we''re partners at all, even. So, I guess the Cardinal is just. . . giving us our instructions." He seemed unsure. Melchior tried to catch his eye, but he seemed lost in a spider web of thought.


    "He gave us our instruction in the courtroom. This is something else." Melchior pointed.


    "I don''t often have the answers people want when it comes to these sort of things." Ira laughed bitterly.


    Melchior paused. He seemed to be accomplishing nothing but looking a gift horse in the mouth and souring the mood between them. So, he tried to think of anything to say, and settled on, "Should we go?" He pointed over his shoulder awkwardly at the front door of their apartment.


    Ira laughed, and the sound flushed Melchior with heat. "What? No, it''s already dark. Catskill is a two hour drive--at least. We should rest tonight and head out early in the morning."


    "Oh, right." He rubbed the back of his head. Why did Melchior have such a pesky habit of saying completely thoughtless things in front of the beautiful boy.


    "I''m glad." Ira murmured. "That you want to go now. Maybe you aren''t completely crazy."


    "Uh, thanks--I think." Melchior grabbed Ira''s discarded bowl and carried it along with his own back to the kitchen sink. He stared at the drain for a long while, trying to decide if it would keep in the fridge overnight.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "I''ll eat mine later." Ira spoke. He was perched in the doorway, holding his mewling tabby in his arms. "Father Pine left some money in my luggage, but I predict exorbitant taxi fees in our future. I don''t want to budget for more ramen."


    Melchior must have been staring because Ira turned pink. "What? I''m trying to prevent food waste. It''s a serious problem."


    "Oh, no, sorry." Melchior blinked, shaking his head. He laughed. "I was just thinking of our deal."


    "We have a deal?" Ira quipped. He nuzzled his forehead against the soft side of his cat.


    "Yeah, I promised to call you something else, didn''t I?" Melchior teased. "I just thought of an idea."


    Ira scrunched up his eyebrows quizzically. "Angels, I take it back. He is crazy." He turned his face down into his tabby''s fur, but not before Melchior saw the small smile tucked into the corner of his lips. "I''m taking the couch, no objections."


    ? ? ?


    When he couldn''t sleep, he liked to watch the stars. Melchior perched himself in the thick rim of the windowsill. With cramping legs, he pressed himself against the cold glass, just to observe that New York city had no stars in the sky. They liked to keep theirs in high-rise penthouses between premieres parties. The world hanging over the glistening chrome landscape was barren, dark, and hopeless. It did not sooth his current mood.


    His defenses cracked, splitting like a great cavern. It swallowed him whole, dragging him into the dark depths where he found that beneath his perfectly polished mask of calm, he could hate things.


    The city was too loud. Melchior had the thought occasionally since leaving the New Hampshire wood. Sparingly, as in every waking moment. A car horn blared on the street below, causing Melchior to wince. He held his palms flat against his ears, trying to muffle the machine''s wail into the chilled midnight mist.


    The breeze carried past his window''s threshol. The summer air was perfumed with car exhaust and cigarette smoke. It rolled his stomach, and he was glad to have skipped dinner. Melchior unfurled from the perch he''d made. He began to slide the glass shut to stop the headache before it got too unpleasant.


    "I think the city is pretty at night." Ira said from the doorway. Melchior turned to look at him, frozen with his fingertips on the edges of the glass pane. Their gazes entangled, Ira''s heart thrummed harder in the still air between them. "Your eyes," Ira said slowly, "they reflect the lights so brightly."


    "I''m sorry." Melchior squeezed his eyes shut. His heart spun behind the tight embrace of his chest cavity. He knew how he looked in the dark--like a monster. The city''s hue burned orange against the inside of his eyelids.


    "It''s pretty, too." Ira murmured softly. "Like stars."


    Melchior was suddenly dizzy. From the cough of engines below or from the curious blue stare leveled at him. He didn''t know which, or even what to say. And he was rarely speechless, even when he really should be. Melchior peered at him with a glowing green gaze and decided it would simply be best to change the topic. "Are you going to bed?"


    Ira shook his head. It seemed that sleep evaded both of them. "I''m gonna run out. Get some stuff for Peter. Will you watch her while I''m away?"


    Melchior didn''t mention his concerns, of which he had many. It''s getting late. How will you find a taxi? What if you run into trouble--it all sounded like words from a mother or a lover, and Melchior had barely been holding onto Ira''s better side.


    "Okay," Melchior said, "but take your knife--please."


    "I''m not going to run into a Beast on thirty-second street." Ira rolled his eyes. Melchior slipped from his seat and strolled across the room until he was just an arm''s stretch away.


    "It''s one in the morning, I meant for the muggers." This close, it became suddenly obvious that Ira was shorter than him. By only a few centimeters--and yet it felt like the space between moons. He glanced up at him with wide blue eyes and laughed.


    "Sure, mentor Mel." Ira teased. His tensed shoulders sloped into something almost at ease as he turned to leave the room. Ira paused at the kitchen table. He scooped up his knife with careful fingers and wiggled it with emphasis at Melchior. "Be back soon." He called. The apartment door shut softly behind him.


    ? ? ?


    Melchior was a terrible babysitter, he realized. Peter had been anxiously pacing since Ira left them, and she seemed wholly uninterested in his offering of cold ramen noodles. It had put them an unsolvable impasse.


    Melchior returned to his bedroom, keeping the door ajar so that he could keep a keen eye and ear on Peter as she paced the apartment searching for Ira.


    He fumbled for his unpacked bag on the floor, digging until he found his vial of pills. It was full, for now. Panic gripped him, rolling his stomach. He didn''t know what to do if he ran out.


    He didn''t want to think about what would happen. He cracked open the top and poured a couple in his mouth. The capsules stuck to his dry tongue, and he forced them down bitterly.


    The medicine hit his stomach, and then it began to ache in protest. Melchior held the back of his hand to his mouth, weakened by dizziness. He slumped on the foot of the bed, falling backward with a huff. He pressed his knuckles into his teeth until his sickness eased. Tentatively, Melchior let his body begin to relax. He spread his arms out over his head.


    From the foyer, she yowled distantly.


    "Peter, if you put in a little more effort--and I don''t mean to ignore your feelings--but I feel like we actually have a lot in common. We could be good friends, if you gave me a chance." Maybe Ira was on to something. Melchior was crazy. Here he was, with three months left, and he was pleading with a cat to be kinder to him. She meowed unhappily from the foyer, and Melchior sighed. "I''m not too excited either."


    Melchior rolled over on his side. He looked past the edges of the bed to stare out on the dark city. He''d never closed the window, the sounds and smells and sights poured in against his will--but he felt powerless to get up and shut it.


    "Do you like the way the city looks at night, Peter? Maybe it''s an acquired taste. The city, I''ve never liked it. I was raised here, but it doesn''t feel like home." Those six years locked beneath a cabin in the woods had been kinder to him than a childhood raised the Brisbane way.


    The only peace he''d had during that time was in the pity his oldest brother held for him. It was that same feeling of pity that saw Melchior absolved from the rules, why he''d been there that night six years ago.


    It was strange. Melchior had thought about that one night more times than he''d tied his shoes or combed his hair. And it always came up as a black lump of coal in his head. He could roll it between his fingers for hours, but it would always be shapeless and staining. He hadn''t seen it coming then, and he couldn''t see it now. All he could recall was the sound of his brother''s wailing and the warmth of his own blood as it ran down his arm.


    Maybe he could blame him. Maybe he should blame himself. He didn''t know. All that remained besides a curse growing in his body was this now; he missed Ishmael. Weakness festered beneath his skin, and in the brief moment that he engaged it, it began to build like the rapids behind a cracking dam. Before he could stop it, it began to spill until he couldn''t even hope to control it.


    Longing, fear, anger, resentment, despair, it welled up inside of him deep where he kept it, it rose to the center of his chest--and it crystallized there. A massive lump pressing his organs aside. He couldn''t gasp in air around it. He couldn''t dislodge it no matter how hard he banged his fist against his ribs.


    It tasted like hatred. The way the air smelled after Ailbe killed the Ze''ev stalking their cabin. It felt like ice and licked like fire. Melchior rolled into himself, pulling his legs to his expanding chest. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and wished he was home. If he had one.


    He missed the smell of pine sap. He missed the howl of owls and the choir of crickets. He even missed Ailbe. Most of all, he missed the stars. The sky hung as bleak as a corpse over his head, containing nothing but the silver moon. It seemed like a reminder that he was watching the sand fill up the bottom chamber of an hourglass.


    Melchior blinked. He flinched as the warm tears pressed from his eyes to roll down his cheeks. When had they begun to collect there? He wiped them away with the sleeve of his shirt. He''d taken advantage of Ira''s absence to exchange his jacket for a long sleeved pajama shirt, and it was still far too hot, but now he was glad for the extra fabric.


    Melchior focused past the salt brimming along the line of his eyes, distorted beneath the reflection. The city glistened like stars dropped along the earth. "It''s almost pretty." He murmured begrudgingly.


    The mattress dipped beneath her. With a curious mewl, she sniffed at his wet cheeks. Peter had finally come away from the door. Melchior smiled and scratched her chin. She made a gentle murring sound, and he felt similarly content.


    The pills in his blood and the events of the day began to burden him. Melchior''s tired eyes began to drift shut. The sounds of cars faded away beneath the gentle purrs. And Melchior fell asleep.


    ? ? ?


    Melchior stirred to the smell of coffee and the noise of shuffling. Gentle morning sun filtered into the room from the wide open window. He rolled over on the bed, spreading his flat palms across the comforter.


    "Peter?" He whispered groggily. She didn''t answer, of course.


    "She''s eating breakfast, or I think she would have stayed in bed with you all day. Do you always get along so great with animals?" Melchior startled to hearing any other than Ailbe''s voice. He quickly looked over his shoulder, where Ira was slumped against the doorframe, arms folded neatly over his chest.


    His blond hair was brushed, his black Deacon attire was without a single ruffle--but he still seemed tired and sluggish. His wide blue eyes were set over deep purple half-moons. And they were still trained on Melchior''s face. Why? Oh, he''d been asked a question. Melchior mulled it over in his still-waking mind.


    "Most I met tried to kill me." He said before his groggy tongue could think better of it. Melchior blinked. Why had he said that? It was only half true anyway. What hunted him could look animalistic, but it wasn''t of this world.


    Ira raised an eyebrow. He laughed, maybe dismissing this as another of Melchior''s ill planned jokes. "Okay, so someone isn''t a morning person. Don''t worry, that''s why I bought coffee." He pointed over his shoulder at the kitchen. "Get ready. We have a big day ahead."


    Melchior watched as Ira made his way back to the kitchen, waiting until he was fully gone to slip from his bed. Melchior wasn''t self-conscious, and he wouldn''t have minded if Ira glanced in, but he still made an effort to shut the bedroom door. The lock clicked into place, and Melchior pulled off his shirt.


    The tattoo set in the layers of his mahogany skin stared back at him, rolling his stomach. Melchior grew hotter in the face, recalling the events of the previous evening. The nun had seen it. Then, he was ruined. No, he was okay. It was just a little--or maybe she had seen more. No, she couldn''t have, or the Cardinal would already be upon him. His mind ran like a rat on a wheel until he was dizzy. Ira had seen it, too. He hadn''t said anything, and he very much seemed the type to speak his mind. Maybe he didn''t know what it meant--that wasn''t possible. All Progeny spoke the language.


    Melchior bowed his head and sent a prayer to the angels. "Can your immortal Saint forget his Hebrew?" He whispered. If Ira Rule ever set eyes on his branding, he would know what it said, and he would look at Melchior for what he was: a mongrel. Or what he was becoming: a monster.


    Melchior pulled on his simple black button-up. The standard uniform for all Deacons, before they earned their blood. He rolled the sleeves down over his wrist so he could play pretend as a Deacon of the Progeny.


    If he could navigate breakfast, he''d fully set himself to the task ahead. The day was only just beginning, but Melchior already wished it would end. He was scared. Of most things, but mostly now of following the Cardinal''s trail into the mountain. He couldn''t bring himself to be prepared for anything that might lay ahead, or bare that thought that nothing would, and they''d be starting from scratch. But for now, all that Melchior had to brave was convincing Ira that he liked coffee, too.

 9 | Ira Faces The Great Outdoors

    Mist, thick and cold, hung heavy over the tips of great pine trees. It stirred up in Ira memories that he hadn''t realized he was still holding onto. Father Pine had told him once that fog were just clouds who had drifted away from the heavens. Ira had thought it infuriating at the time. How could they leave so easily when all of the Progeny had dedicated their existence to joining them?


    Now, he looked at the boy sitting in the cab beside him and knew how it felt to question. Was there something worth seeking? Even if it took you far from home, with no way to return?


    Birds sang in the branches of the arching fir trees. Warming up as the sun began to slowly creep over the side of Slide Mountain. The driver had insisted on dropping them off at the Catskills Visitor Center, but Ira had slid him a bit more money and bragged of his extensive hiking experience--which did not exist--and managed to see them lifted all the way to the parking lot at the trailhead of the Slide Mountain Wilderness.


    The car door shut with a bang. It rattled Ira as thoroughly as gunfire, but he swallowed his fears and inhaled a deep breath of the cool morning air.


    Melchior adjusted the duffle bag slung over his shoulder and leaned into the open window of the vehicle. "Thanks," he said to the driver. The man leaned over his steering wheel, a frown etched into the grooves over his eyebrows.


    "You kids gonna be alright out here?" He asked.


    "Angels," Ira breathed. "I sure hope so."


    "Yes, sir." Melchior quickly chimed in. "We''ll be fine, thank you."


    The man cast Ira a wary look. He sighed and slumped back in his seat. "Good luck, kids." His wheels spun in the gravel, and then he was gone. Back down towards the city. Leaving Melchior and Ira alone in the mountains.


    "Catskill." Ira punctuated. He set his hands on his hips and craned his neck back to look at the forest ahead. The Catskill Preserve was endless, and they only had three months. He pulled the map from his pocket and trained his eyes on the X scarring the heart of the national park. Would they find answers here, or only more questions?


    Melchior cleared his throat. "Shall we begin?" He asked nervously. Ira nodded. He set the duffle bag down on the pavement and yanked open the zipper. Ira quickly glanced around, but they were alone. In fact, the normally busy trail seemed completely abandoned. The space between the fir trees seemed cast in unnaturally thick fog. A blackness that Ira couldn''t peak into.


    It twisted up his stomach with nerves.


    "Hey," Melchior interrupted. "Don''t disappear on me. I need you here."


    Ira blinked. He hadn''t gone anywhere. He almost said so, but maybe it wasn''t completely true. Something was pulling him away, something deep in the thicket of pine.


    "Do you. . ." Ira trailed off into silence. Do you feel that? Feel what? They were alone. There was nothing watching him--no matter how it felt. The tension in his chest was expanding like his lungs.


    Melchior trained his bright eyes into the forest. He held perfectly still. He held so perfectly that Ira could see the leap of his pulse in his throat. "I don''t see anything." He said. Ira flinched. He hadn''t asked him that. He hadn''t said anything at all. Melchior''s veins filled with his lies, beating quicker beneath his skin. "C''mon, grab a weapon."


    Why was he lying? And more importantly, what did he see?


    "Okay," Ira whispered slowly. He moved towards the bag and kneeled next to Melchior in the parking lot. The bag had been filled with granola bars, water bottles, and an assortment of Ossein tools. Ira''s knife had been hidden inside to keep it from the eyes of the concerned driver, along with Melchior''s disassembled bow and full quiver. There was a pair of bone pliers, which they had no use for currently.


    There was another small throwing knife in the bag, one Ira didn''t recognize. It was pine, polished black. Melchior''s choice wood. The blade was uncut and unpolished. A single sharp tooth melded into the handle. Melchior snatched the knife and hooked it to his belt.


    "We should hurry." He said. He pulled the thin strap of pine wood from the bag and bent it beneath his boot. The wood was flexible and did as he commanded. Melchior strung the bow and pulled it taught. Ira watched him work with something he could excuse as curiosity. His thin black Deacon attire clung to his skin so that Ira could imagine he wasn''t wearing it at all--he blushed crimson pink and shook his head. How could his mind bring him to such places when they had much more pressing concerns.


    He was punched with shame. He didn''t know this boy, he didn''t quite trust this boy either--and yet he felt so instantly twisted up by him. From the moment they''d met; Ira believed him to be beautiful on the surface, and kind beneath that. If it was true, it was rare, and Ira wanted to collect him like a treasured gem--and he was disgusted by the idea.


    Ira Rule was the soul of the Progeny. He was, for more lifetimes than he could bear to reflect upon, someone owned by the Third Prince of Hell. In every way. His stomach rolled until he thought he might be sick with it. Ira flexed his fingers over the leather padding of his Ossein knife.


    "Disgusting." He whispered beneath his breath. It had welled up inside of him until he couldn''t control it. It coiled and hissed inside his gut. He felt disgusted with himself.


    Melchior flinched. He fixed Ira with keen green eyes and tilted his head in a manner that seemed almost dog-like. "What''s wrong?" He asked.


    Ira''s tongue was dry in his mouth. He shrugged and kicked the gravel road with the toe of his brown hiking boots. His polished Oxfords had been left to the safety of the apartment on the cathedral close. "Nothing. I''m just thinking." He dismissed.


    Melchior slung his quiver over the broad of his back and slung his bow over his left shoulder. Already at full capacity, he handed the nearly emptied gym bag to Ira, who graciously accepted. He tossed it over his back, feeling with slight discomfort as the water bottles rolled to the bottom. "Care to explain? We''ve got a lot of walking to do, it might help to pass the time." Melchior said. As if to enunciate his position, he took the first step towards the mouth of the Catskill Preserve.


    "I''m supposed to spill all my secrets?" Ira laughed without humor. He could have said a great many things. He certainly didn''t lack questions.


    Why did you lie to me? What is out here with us? Why is it your destiny to die? What else are you hiding? But, when not engulfed by the hot spike of anger that he was quick to, Ira was a coward who preferred to follow the path of less resistance, just as Father Pine had raised him.


    So he said. "Without my secrets, I''d have nothing left."


    Maybe a braver soul would have refused to follow him into the dark, but Ira was weak enough to want to trust in something--in someone. He tossed his caution to the wind and followed Melchior into the dark canopy of green.


    The world fell beneath a blanket of silence. As if, here under the fir trees, nothing else existed but them. If Ira squeezed his eyes shut tight, he might have been able to focus enough to hear Melchior''s heartbeat on the breeze.


    "I feel that way, too, sometimes." Melchior shrugged beneath the weight of his gear. "It helped when I spoke to my brother and my mentor. I never had to hide who I was--or what I felt."


    Ira smiled sadly. "Yeah, I told Father Pine everything." Well, nearly everything. Not all of his nightmares had been worth sharing, or they were too painful to bring into words--but somehow Ira knew that even if he had, Father Pine would have always treated him the same.


    "It''s almost funny." Melchior laughed. The early morning sunlight dappled across their path, casting Melchior in golden sparks. His eyes reflected the light, shining like high beams in the forest. "We''re probably the most talked about pair in the whole Sect, but I don''t think anyone would ever even consider giving the time to get to know us."


    Ira tipped his head. No one should know about their Pilgrimage, the Cardinal did not consider himself the captain of a loose ship. So, besides Ira''s obvious affliction, he could not think of anything that the Progeny could conjure to say about them--if they did not publically exist side-by-side. "We are?"


    Melchior fit him with a strange look. "The reincarnated soul, and the cursed boy. It sounds like the set-up to a bad knock-knock joke." Ira''s heart flipped in his chest, Melchior paused in his step. His head twitched as if he was focusing on a sound far away. Ira''s pulse thrummed faster in anticipation. "What''s wrong? I''m sorry I upset you. I say stupid things--just ignore me."


    Ira''s tongue thickened in his mouth. He wished to walk on, to step over this and pretend it had never occurred--but his fear was keeping him locked in place. "And?" He whispered. "And the cursed boy?"


    Melchior turned to face him on the narrow wooden trail. He craned his neck to the side and fit Ira with a pair of too-bright green eyes. "Yeah," he said, "And,"


    He did not speak again. Ira was forced to move, to catch him before he lost sight of him. He didn''t want to be left behind. He knew that there were worse things in the woods than Melchior Brisbane.


    ? ? ?


    "Drink," it was such a simple command, but it lingered in the air with tension. The word shattered the silence they''d fostered and shook Ira out of a daze that he couldn''t recall slipping into. They hadn''t spoken since entering the Catskill. Until now.


    They''d stopped for a break at the peak of Slide Mountain. They''d gone because a giant black X had demanded it--but Ira could admit that he''d wanted to climb just to see the view. And he''d found it to be well worth it.


    The sun had joined the sky, glistening over the sea of pine with a warm golden glow. Ira could feel it kissing along the surface of his skin, turning him into honey. He was weakened by the beauty of it. It softened the edges of his anger just enough to allow room for his discomfort to make itself known.


    His tongue was swollen in his mouth, and his throat was dry. He glared down at the hand extended to him but reluctantly accepted the water bottle offered by the other boy. Ira snatched it quicker than he had meant to, and Melchior perked one curious eyebrow.


    "What?" Ira growled. He cracked the cap and tilted his head back. The water had at some point been cold, but it''d been heated by the walk through the woods, just as they had been. Ira set the bottle between his knees and rolled up the thin black material of his shirt sleeves. Black was Deacon attire, but it wasn''t hiking attire. Ira would wear a T-shirt tomorrow.


    "Oh, nothing," Melchior shrugged. He brushed off the leg of his pants and perched himself on the side of a fallen log. "I''m just wondering what I did to upset you in the time that we never spoke."


    "That''s the problem." Ira grumbled.


    "You want me to talk?" Melchior seemed surprised.


    "I want to know what''s going on." Ira corrected. Although, a part of him had warmed to Melchior''s chattering in the short time they''d known each other. He watched Melchior closely, but he seemed unphased.


    "You think I know more than you?" He finally said.


    Ira huffed angrily. "Well, you seem to know me, but I don''t know anything about you. I wasn''t raised in the Sect. If you think I''m tuned into the gossip, you''re wrong." An outsider. Someone who trust could not be placed in. A tool for a task that could not be achieved. That was Ira Rule. The soul of the Progeny.


    Melchior turned his hazel green eyes into the task of opening his own water bottle. His fingers thrummed along the side of the cheap and thin plastic. "I thought you knew who I was and for what we were tossed together for. People are always whispering about me, about my role." Melchior said quietly. "Or the idea of me, that the Sect has. It''s consumed my family name for six years."


    "The Sect has ideas about everyone. It doesn''t make it true." Ira prodded gently.


    "They''re not true." Melchior agreed. "The truth is something worse."


    Ira recalled the words that Melchior had left him with before their miserable silent trek through the nature preserve. "It''s about a curse, isn''t it?" The idea of a curse seemed ridiculous to Ira, or it might have if his own soul hadn''t been trapped in a loop spanning centuries of conflict. He knew it was possible, something handed down by slighted angels, but he couldn''t imagine how Melchior managed to anger them. Ira couldn''t imagine that Melchior would ever anger anyone--besides himself, who could lose his temper at anything.


    Ira''s pulse quickened beneath his thin skin. What if there was another way to get a cruse, and Melchior had found it?


    Melchior raised his head. Ira was suddenly frozen beneath his observant gaze. "It is." They were such little words, but they inflated to the size of the moon. Hanging over the forest, changing the direction of the tides, and crushing Ira beneath their gravity. "And I should tell you, except that I just don''t want to."


    Ira blinked. He laughed stiffly, but Melchior did not, and the sinking fog coating the forest settled into his chest. He wasn''t joking. "What?" Ira sputtered.


    "I don''t want the way you look at me to change." Melchior said shamelessly.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Ira''s cheeks grew hot. He looked away, worried that they might be blossoming into pink sigils of humiliation. "And how do I look at you, Melchior?"


    "Like I deserve to live." He said, and Ira couldn''t imagine how it would ever change. He could have said so, but Melchior looked shaken. More shaken than Ira could soothe away. Maybe he could not fully comprehend the weight of his words, so he did not give them freely. "No one has ever had an opinion of me fully divorced from the things they know about me. Until you."


    Ira stared down at his hands in his lap. The silence became heavy between them. He knew how it stung, to be human and whole, and completely trapped beneath a mantle you could not shed. He wanted to say so. His tongue was unmoving behind the cage of his teeth. He knew how Melchior flinched at any comparison between them. Except now for the first time, the glaze had cleared. Ira could see it for what it was. Shame. Fear. Melchior hadn''t been demeaning him, but lowering himself. And somehow, that twisted Ira up worse.


    Ira turned his blue eyes to watching, with great manufactured interest, as condensation collected on the side of the water bottle. "You won''t tell me?"


    "If you ask me now, I''ll tell you everything. I will tell you the entire truth, more than anyone knows about me." Melchior''s words tumbled into the space between them, filling a distance that Ira hadn''t known how the bridge. He stared over the grass patch between them and wondered what would happen if he crossed, if maybe the words would shatter beneath his boot and Ira would tumble into the abyss. "Or," he said in a whisper. "You can toss aside better judgment and just trust me."


    "Trust you?" Ira repeated. He''d asked for the same his whole life. All he''d ever fought for was recognition as Ira Rule. A new man, trying desperately to pay for old mistakes. He rolled his tongue over the taste of the suggestion.


    "Are you lying to me?" It was a stupid thing to ask because a liar would just lie again, but Ira felt deep in the space behind his ribs that Melchior wouldn''t. He knew that if he asked, he would tell him. All of it. All the secrets he protected behind his laid-back disposition. The tattoo he kept sealed behind cotton, even beneath the blistering hot summer sun. The reason they''d been pit against each other, doomed to chase a goose to the cusp of destruction. The curse, the sins, the shame. And all the whispers he''d picked up from a childhood in the midst of the Sect. Everything.


    "I won''t lie." Melchior said, his voice was steady. And his statement held like a promise. He did not say that he had never lied. It soothed Ira in a way completely separated from rationality. Because it meant it could be true.


    "But you will hide things from me?" Ira could have laughed, except that he did not find this humorous. He wanted to say so much. All of it built up in his throat, choking him as heavy as fog. Melchior had lied. He''d hidden things. There had been something behind the trees, Ira had felt it there. A sight trained on his back, leaving heat from the little red laser.


    "I won''t stop having your back. I will protect you. As your partner. If you''d have me--as an equal." Melchior did not waiver as he looked at Ira. His voice beat as strongly as the pulse of the earth. Ira knew he meant it. They could be the same. Selfishly, Ira recognized that he could have something for himself. "I''ll look at you as you look at me."


    "And how is that now? As someone flailing through the forest, desperately vying for more time?" Ira scowled.


    "As someone that was never given the chance to prove that they deserve to be something other than what they were born into." Melchior corrected not unkindly.


    Ira rolled the cap of his water bottle between his fingers. The ridged edge was sharp against his skin, and it helped drown out the noise buzzing in the back of his skull. When he finally met his gaze, he found that it had never left. "I''ve lived a great many lives. Trusting someone, it always leads to trouble."


    "Oh, I promise, there will be trouble." Melchior smiled. His lips flickered quickly back down into something carefully neutral, like a mask he''d crafted just for dealing with Ira''s quick and unpredictable temper. Yet, now, when he needed it most, Ira couldn''t find his anger. He reached in the spot behind his ribs and found something he hadn''t expected.


    "Okay." He sighed. He bowed his head, resting his face against his palms so that he could not see Melchior''s keen green eyes as he spoke. He thought he might stumble if Melchior kept him pinned beneath his gaze. "I want to." He choked. "I will trust you."


    Melchior smiled, unshackled by neutrality. He ran his fingers through his dark curls. His shoulders slumped with fully recognized tension. Ira wrinkled up his nose to contain his own emotions. He was amused. Melchior seemed akin to a child, who''d just performed in front of his parents to convince them to let him host a sleepover. The persona of someone who knew what they were doing was quickly vanishing beneath the true relief.


    "Thank you." He whispered. He cleared his throat and tapped his thighs. "Well, shall we head out?" Melchior stood, extending a hand to Ira. He took it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. Ira did not stumble. And yet, he had the sensation that he was falling head first into an abyss. He gripped Melchior''s hand tighter.


    "I''m ready." He promised. The words slid over his tongue as smoothly as ice. He''d sworn much more to this boy, and he would give more if he was asked. Following Melchior now was the easiest thing he''d been asked to do since climbing from their Uber at the Catskill trailhead parking lot.


    Ira bent to grab their duffle. Awkwardly, with one hand fully entangled in Melchior''s warm grip, he slung the bag over his other shoulder.


    "Then, let''s find the rip between worlds. How hard could it be?" Melchior turned on his heels and began to march them through the thick wall of fir trees. He didn''t let go of Ira''s hand. Ira knew he''d turned pink. Childlike embarrassment coursed through him, and he struggled against the urge to stare down at his shoes against the soft mulch.


    Instead, Ira trained his eyes on the curve of Melchior''s neck. In the skin there, bleeding down from his cheeks, he was changing colors, too. Ira couldn''t help it. He laughed.


    They didn''t speak much, but the air had changed. It had lightened. Ira no longer struggled for air beneath the heavy atmosphere of their hostility. It was peaceful, until very suddenly it wasn''t.


    Melchior paused, and because he was still holding onto Ira, he froze, too. "What?" Ira pressed, with his voice and with his body. He leaned into the broad length of Melchior''s back, pressing until they fit together as snuggly as building blocks. Ira rested his chin on Melchior''s shoulder, working with difficulty to see past the boy.


    Melchior was holding very still, but Ira couldn''t imagine why. The clearing laid before them seemed completely normal. The boys stood on a heavily planted slope, beneath them, and the thick brush was a shallow ring cut from the thickest pine trees. Sunlight fell freely here to cast the green grass in a golden glow. It was beautiful, and Ira was almost bitter that they''d taken their break perched on fallen and rotting logs on the trail a few yard behind.


    "Wait, what is that?" Ira asked. His arm slackened at his side, and with a heavy thud, the duffle landed on the crisp grass beneath their boots.


    He slipped free from Melchior''s loose hold, embarking bravely into the small meadow. In the center of the pitch, the dirt had been churned. Clumps of grass laid upside down, roots exposed to the warm sky. Ira kneeled in the dirt, running his flat palms over the lawn that remained untouched. It was stained a deep purple. "Is this-" what he had meant to say hardened in his throat, drying from clay to brick. He couldn''t speak.


    Melchior joined him at his side. "Yeah." He agreed. His words had held Ira in much stillness that day, but the ones he spoke now truly crystallized Ira to his very core. "It''s blood. And there''s more. The air is choked with it." He raised his arm, pointing beyond the trees. "Whatever it is. It''s coming from over there."


    Ira stood. The blood had dried long ago, but Ira still wiped his hands along the fabric of his pants. "Alright." He said, aiming with great difficulty to keep his voice casual. "Then let''s go."


    "Towards the blood?" Melchior asked, raising an eyebrow.


    "Yep." Ira popped. "Towards the blood." He gathered his fear and held it tight. It expanded, creeping up the back of his throat. To soothe away the ache of it, Ira flicked his fingers to his pocket. His fingertips moved over the fabric concealing his Ossein blade.


    Melchior cursed, he swung his bow off his shoulder, letting it rest in correct form in his hands. "Never a dull moment with you."


    "Ah, you like it." Ira shrugged. He trudged over the churned earth, stepping carefully between the dried pools of blood. Ira''s heart thrummed in his throat, his fingers flexed, burning with live-wire electricity. His fists clenched. And released. He slipped a hand into his pocket and withdrew the blade, holding it steadily over his heart.


    The white bone shimmered as brilliantly as opal when it caught the light streaming in between soft pine needles. Where the sunshine wasn''t absorbed in his weapon, it fell in a thick coating across the forest floor, casting it in a golden dapple.


    The beauty laid clear before them couldn''t mask the odor hanging heavy in the air. Melchior twisted up his face in disgust. Ira snorted in agreement. The stench of rot was growing firmer as they wandered deeper into the woods. Ira''s stomach twisted in protest. He held his shirt sleeve to his nose and kept moving.


    "I have a bad feeling about this." Melchior mumbled unhelpfully.


    "Yeah, I do too-" squelch. Ira froze, trying to keep his full weight from continuing in its path, but he was helpless as his boot sunk deeper into the soft mess he''d stepped into. It was slippery and squishy beneath his foot. He tilted his head towards the sky and prayed to his angels that it had just been mud.


    "Uh, you might want to take a step back." Melchior prompted.


    Ira sunk his teeth into his bottom lip to contain his whimper. "No. Don''t tell me. I don''t want to know." He amended his prayer to his angels, that he would even accept stepping into a pile of wild animal exhaust. Anything other than what now held his shoe in a gel-like trap. Melchior joined him at his side, placing firm palms against his shoulders. He gently pulled, untangling Ira with a sickening wet slurping sound.


    Ira pressed his knuckles into his teeth and faced the gore sliding down the side of his boot. Slick red blood and small chunks of gray flesh clung to his brown leather. Ira''s stomach flipped, his throat filled with sick. "Angels, what is that?" He choked around his bile.


    "It''s a carcass," Melchior answered slowly. He lowered himself into a carefully balanced perch. With the end of his bow, he cautiously pushed the slightly squished lump of flesh. Ira saw that he''d stepped on a smaller piece of a larger whole. A slab of rotting meat the size of a pillow extended out from the larger corpse.


    Beneath Melchior''s investiging, the chunk rolled, turning from gray to pink as the inside was exposed.


    "Of what?" Ira asked. The smooth ash skin was featureless. There remained no limbs or head to aid in identifying the mess left behind.


    "I don''t know." Melchior admitted, he turned green eyes to Ira''s equally green face and cracked a small smirk. "Roadkill?"


    Ira rolled his eyes. "I think it would have to be on an actual road to qualify."


    "Or an animal." Melchior added. His tone lingered, implying that what laid before them was not of this world.


    Ira quirked an eyebrow. "Not necessarily."


    Melchior laughed, a dry bark from the back of his throat. "That''s dark."


    Ira dropped down onto his knees to sit next to Melchior, offering a simple shrug. "So is this," he pointed, "so, what do you think?"


    Melchior blinked in surprise, blowing a hot breath from his nose. Ira flushed as it ran over the skin of his cheeks. He cleared his throat and turned his face away. They''d been pressed together between the foliage, and Ira had sat much closer than he''d meant to.


    "Well, uh," Melchior stuttered. He averted his eyes back to the chunk laying in the grass, oozing fluids and reeking of sour rot. It served as an adequate distraction. "Is it a seal?" The skin beneath the pink tissue was sleek and rough, a muted gray in color. It was hairless, with enlarged pores filled with yellow pus.


    "Seals have fur," Ira said. "Besides, seal season is over, and they''d have trouble coming this far inland." He could have continued, endlessly chattering to drown out the horrible sinking feeling crushing his insides. Yet it would have been pointless because the suggestion was never serious. As most things uttered by Melchior tended to not be.


    This massive scrap of flesh, a mound half the size of a subaru, was merely a small chunk removed from a larger creature. If it had come from the sea, it could only be explained away as a whale. And there was no way one had gotten into the Catskill National Preserve.


    Melchior looked at Ira quizzically. "Seals don''t have fur."


    "Yes, they do." Ira laughed. "You think they''re just fleshy?"


    "You know a lot about seals." Melchior mumbled.


    "I did a project on Swinburne Island in the second grade before Father Pine began homeschooling me." Ira shrugged. "Because the teacher made us do a presentation on state parks--and I wanted a reason to write a paper about seals."


    Melchior laughed before sobering. "Well, lucky for you and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, I agree. I don''t think this is any animal we know of. It smells. . .off."


    "Great observation. It''s rotting meat in the middle of summer." Ira scoffed.


    Melchior sighed, pushing himself back on his heels. "Have you ever hunted Ze''ev?"


    "Of course I have." Ira said. He prickled in anticipation, half worried that Melchior was about to imply he''d hitched his fate to an unexperienced hunter and more worried that he would say something worse.


    "Then you know the way the air feels when they''re around." Melchior said. Ira scowled down at his bloodied boot. He''d never stopped to admire the sunset, not when his blade was warmed by fresh kill. Melchior nodded at Ira''s pause and changed his tone to one of explanation. "They change our world around them. It tastes like electricity, and it smells like. . . fear. No, that''s not it. It''s anger."


    "They smell like anger?" Ira echoed slowly. "You''re not making sense. Are you saying this is a Ze''ev?"


    "No," Melchior shook his head, "I''m saying it''s not. It''s nothing you or I have ever seen."


    Ira''s stomach rolled. His fingers tightened over his knife. "No, it''s just something you''ve never seen. I''ve. . .dreamed of things like this. It''s a monster." He swallowed hard, forcing his thickening tongue to move behind the cage of his teeth. "It''s a Beast."


    Melchior blew a long sigh from his nose. He ran his fingers through his hair, Ira imagined, trying to keep his nervous energy from bursting out of his skin. "Then the Trammel really is ripped." The words sunk between them, falling as rapidly as bricks through water. They hit the bottom with a thud, sending up a cloud of mud that Ira wanted to hide in. Maybe if he lived a simpler life as a trout, but he was still stuck in this one as the soul responsible.


    It seemed that Melchior did not want to dwell on this earth-shattering revelation either.


    He pulled a bone-tipped arrow from the quiver on his shoulder. He poked the flesh, prodding at it until he could peel the edges of it up off the forest floor. Ira winced, placing his palm back over his trembling lips. "What are you doing?" He asked. Melchior seemed to be accomplishing nothing but spilling more sour fluid into the atmosphere around them.


    "It''s been picked clean. Do you see these pockets? I think someone pulled the bone right out." Melchior pressed the tip of his arrow into the beginning of a fleshy tunnel, holding it open for Ira to see.


    Ira was greener than the pine over their heads, or grass beneath their boots. "Super informative. Thanks for that."


    Melchior rolled his eyes, taking a play from Ira''s book. "It was them, don''t you think? The Sect."


    Ira creased his eyebrows together. "The Sect wouldn''t leave this behind. We harvest everything we can use in our tools and burn the rest with holy water. That''s the rule."


    "The rules have been changing." Melchior noted instead. He stood, extending a hand for Ira to climb to his feet. He accepted it, too sick from the Beast to blush about it.


    "Then why?" Ira questioned. "They must have had a reason. The Cardinal gave us this map. Do all these markings just lead to. . .disposal sites?" Ira''s heart stuttered in his chest. "What if the map means nothing." It was the only hope Ira had, and it dissolved in his hands. Just cursed flesh beneath a stream of blessed water, boiling away into cold steam.


    "It''s bait." Melchior whispered.


    Ira flinched, holding Melchior in the cage of his crystal blue gaze. "How do you know that?" He asked, and then thought better of it. He''d already come close to stepping on their arrangement. "I mean, does that really work? Are Beasts. . .drawn into each other?"


    "Yeah," Melchior grunted. He ran fingers through thick curls and shut his eyes to block out the carcass. He turned away from the rotting lump of flesh on the side of Slide Mountain. "That''s how it works. Monsters seek monsters."


    "Where are you going?" Ira asked. He followed him anyway, not wanting to be left behind with the lure.


    "We have a ton of other spots on the map." Melchior pointed.


    Ira slumped his shoulders, tilting his head back to stare up at the warm blue sky. "What if they''re all just dumping sights?"


    "We won''t know until we go." Melchior shrugged.


    Ira sighed. He shook from his mind the sight of gnarled gray skin and followed Melchior back down the mountain trail. He knew that he''d follow him to every black X on the paper, but he couldn''t stop the little voice, warning him in the back of his mind. They were running out of time, more with every dead end they followed. No, Melchior was running out of time. And it was all Ira''s fault. Or it was his fault. The only one with enough power to tear a hole in the Trammel.


    Behind it all, the Third Prince of Hell.


    "Okay, I''ve really got it this time." Melchior tore Ira from his spiraling thoughts.


    "What?" Ira raised an eyebrow.


    "Your new nickname." Melchior teased.


    "You aren''t supposed to tell me," Ira laughed. "You''re just supposed to start using it."


    Melchior tilted his head to the side in thought. He nodded and shrugged his broad shoulders. "Alright, fine. Then, when we reach our next spot, I''ll say it."


    "That wasn''t exactly what I meant." Ira rolled his eyes, but he followed him just as he knew he would. They advanced to the next marking on the map, but Ira already knew they''d just made a choice. And they''d wasted their first month.

 10 | Bezel Hears A Rumor

    Eden was located in the heart of the eerily named Meatpacking District of New York, in a brick building that towered over the Hudson. Despite its prime location, it had been forgotten beneath a yellow foreclosure sign. It turned away attention with its weathered appearance. The dust-stained gray windows were full of cobwebs and cracks.


    The once proud brick walls were rust-washed, beaten by the time. It had been, at one time, a textile mill. Until the fire that deemed it nothing at all. For fifty years after, the husk laid along the bank of the river, only occupied by machinery and cobwebs. And, if the rumors were to be believed, ghosts.


    Until he came. For no reason that seemed sensible. He didn''t care much for noise, or crowds, or the fun that could be found in the high-strung streets surrounding the crumbling brick. He simply needed a place to settle, a way to kill the never-ending time. So, the assembly line had been torn out to make a flat open space for dancing.


    The cold interior walls were washed in neon spray paints, which shimmered as brightly as blood-filled veins beneath the multicolored lights. Speakers polluted the stale air, shaking the dust from its resting place on the high steel beams across the roof. And the ghosts had been evicted. Or, rather, chased away by the new owner''s mere presence. If, of course, the rumors were to be believed.


    He didn''t like it much, but he didn''t like anything. His patrons, however, never seemed to complain. How could they, when it was everything they''d come to find. The space was home to a great many deviants, all coming for a taste of debauchery. Chaos in pretty packaging, with a price they''d willingly pay.


    Strewn from here to the low-streets, were Demons, and undoubtedly the ones that hunted them.


    They might have mixed here, entangled on the club floor. Who could say, when no one could see? Beneath human flesh, a Demon was no different. Wrapping them up tight in his web of illusions had once been an easy task for Bezel, but the years had drained him.


    It would have been easier if he could have left them to make their own way, but hiding was still undeniably easier than dealing with the hassle of warding off the hunters seeking the sight of their demonic-tells.


    Poachers. That''s what they were. Bezel might have considered himself the shepherd to a herd of sharp-toothed sheep, but no one seemed alarmed, it would be a waste of time. Anyone who would bring them harm would have to find them first, and take them away from the pack. Guided by only their paranoia, they were doomed to do nothing all night but dance. What could they do when all they had was a feeling?


    So, there was a calm in the eye of the hurricane. One that Bezel would laze in, only half-aware enough to listen to the howling winds. He''d been trying to live an easier life, after all. Despite his many wards running him up and down the New York streets, causing enough ruckus to fill up several more centuries.


    But if it was peace he was chasing, how had he ended up here? Drowning in the middle of the floor-crowd of Eden? Bezel was not the type to come down from his perch, high above all those that bored him. Nor was he the type to pursue ghosts. So when, and how, had he become someone willing to follow the path of most resistance?


    It had happened slowly. So much so that Bezel hadn''t noticed. Not that he made a habit of observation anyway. Most chaos around him was driven by sensitivities he couldn''t grasp, it was a waste of his eternal time to entertain himself with the fleeting whims of emotions. He would have slept through the storm, if he was someone capable of falling asleep. He would have, except that he couldn''t ignore the buzzing of the fly in his ear.


    She had always made it a habit to involve Bezel in trivial matters, painting them to be larger than the cosmos. How could she insist to him the existence of her worries, when he''d turn his eyes to the sky and see no stars. So, he had ignored her. Not quite intentionally. It had just never seemed important. Who was missing, and in what quantities, he didn''t care. Yet, she said the tides were swelling, even if Bezel couldn''t feel the cold of the water.


    So, he had turned his attentions to humoring her. For three weeks, he''d humored her. He''d combed the lands from the club to the low-streets, trying to find those she claimed were no longer there.


    And it had gotten him nowhere. It wasn''t like him to waste his time on something he couldn''t maneuver.


    Nor was it like the He-Goats to avoid giving Bezel the gossip he relied on. Everything was wrong, because she was right.


    The storm had shifted onto a stronger breeze, the eye was closing, and Bezel could not bring himself to leave his unresting place. The sky had changed, darkened. The wagging tongues had gone still. Much too still. Something was changing, something no one wanted to speak aloud.


    It was trouble. It was fast approaching. And, if Bezel could keep it so, it was none of his concern. Everything seemed a fickle use of his everlasting seconds. Why had he climbed down from his office to pick at the skin of the lower streets? Only because she was right? She was often right, even if it pained him to admit.


    He turned from the swaying flock and rerouted himself through the sea of bodies. No one would speak--not to him. It had never been that way before. He couldn''t navigate when it had changed, or why, but it didn''t matter what they thought of him. He couldn''t care less. He couldn''t care at all.


    Bezel reached the staircase behind the bar and began to climb. The door at the top of the landing had always been to an office. It had once been placed for the factory head to scowl down at the production line. And now, Bezel used it for much of the same. Scowling had seemed an effective way to pass the time. The metal door squealed on its hinges. If anyone had paid attention, they''d have nothing to blame but the impossibly strong breeze. Another of his tricks, the same kind that turned hooves into feet and horns into perfectly normal hair.


    He sealed the noise behind his back and dropped his facade. From the empty air, a man was made. He stepped forward, impeccably dressed, in a gray italian suit. His night black hair had been slicked back, revealing the sharp features of his olive-toned face. He was almost entirely human-like. Except for the pupils set in his fox-shaped eyes. In the dim of the room, they glowed as brightly as yellow fire. Slit with wide black ovals.


    Cats eyes, attuned for a hunt, but Bezel had not felt particularly up for the challenge in years. He crossed the room and flung himself down into the brown leather of his office chair. It creaked as he shifted. It was a familiar sound. He''d spent much of his time here, pouring himself in the paper that somehow always found its way to his desk. Property taxes had been humanity best cure for turning the hours.


    He sighed over his scattering of paperwork. It might have sounded like exhaustion, frustration, boredom--and it was none of it. Not even the breath had been authentic. He''d done nothing for decades. He was as made-up as his appearance had been just moments ago.


    Bezel paused, pen raised in his hand, as the metal door began to push inwards. He watched as the light began to filter into his dark space. Outlined against the fluorescence was the humanoid shape of a girl. It was her. His pesky fly.


    "Ba''al," she called from the slightly ajar door, cutting the still air as pitifully as the gentle bleat of a mournful sheep. Of course, she''d call him that. It meant she wanted something. The ancient word had once meant something akin to Lord, but now it just sounded like a headache blooming behind his skull--if he''d been able to even foster one in his blank state. "May I enter?"


    "Stop being so polite, Mayvalt. It never turns out well for me." Bezel tucked his pen into a warm bed made of state taxes. He propped his elbows up on the table and set his chin in the palms of his open hands.


    The door cracked open just enough to allow the girl entrance. She turned and shut the door quickly behind her, cutting off the music and lights before Bezel could get a chance to complain. Even void of displeasure, he still found the strength to whine.


    The girl stepped brazenly into the room. Well, to call her a girl may have been a slight exaggeration since she was well over a thousand years old, despite her ageless appearance. Nor was she even human. It was not easy to ignore. She''d been the only one to deny Bezel''s illusions, choosing instead to wear her demonic-tells proudly.


    The cream-brown tips of her antlers peaked from the wild curls of her strawberry pink hair. The velvet-wrapped antlers were very real, but the blushed-tone hair had come from a box, and Bezel''s tub still held traces of the stains from when he''d helped her do it. He still couldn''t quite figure out why she chose to be so difficult. In the time it had taken her to read the instructions on the back of the dye kit, Bezel could have turned her into a twenty-seven foot tall sunflower--but she always refused him. "Got a minute for your favorite employee, boss?"


    She worked here in Bezel''s club and also for him, on the low-streets below. He had once taken pity on her before he''d lost the ability to care for anything. Not that it would have changed much, since he now knew how foolish it was to have ever worried for her.


    "Ba''al, now boss." Bezel rubbed the bridge of his nose and scowled. It was hollow, a mockery of how he''d imagine someone might act when their life was about to be disrupted. "You must really want something." He hoped that she was not here to remind him of his investigation into the steady number of vanishing He-Goats. His insight on the front had led him nowhere. And he wasn''t one to keep flailing around cluelessly. It didn''t matter much to him, nothing did.


    The weakest prey had always been, and would always be, picked off by the stronger predator. No matter the strength of the shepherd. This was all insignificance, merely a thred to follow to pass the time.


    "That I do, boss." Mayvalt pointed at one of Bezel''s leather chairs. He shrugged his shoulders, and she fell into it in a dramatic puff. "So, y''know my third cousin--Sabor. Not Frevolt, that old goat''s still living away in the mountains. Haven''t heard from him in. . . oh, sap! I think I forgot to send him a birthday card. It''s not every year you turn thirty-eight thousand."


    "Mayvalt." Bezel pressed.


    "Right!" She snapped her fingers and pointed at Bezel with her forefinger. "So, Sabor. He got married last spring. A truly beautiful ceremony. Sorry you couldn''t go."


    "Mayvalt."


    "Oh, sap, boss! You never let me properly explain things." She huffed, her breath caught the ends of her frazzled pink hair and ruffled it over her soft tan cheeks. "Sabor''s wife''s--no, her brother''s friend, decided to do the big trip. Sabor''s wife''s brother has been trying to reach her since, but she''s been missing."


    Bezel blinked once, then twice. "Your brother in law''s friend is missing?"


    Mayvalt pressed her fingers together over the bridge of her nose. "You didn''t let me speak, and now you''re confused that you''re confused. Sap, boss, you can be so thick sometimes. I don''t know how else I can clarify it."


    "Humor me." He grunted without malice. Well, without anything, really.


    "If it was possible to humor you, you wouldn''t have that creepy blank look all the time." She huffed. Bezel fixed her beneath his sharp golden glare. Her spine stiffened, and the noise of her quickened pulse filled the office. Fear in sickly sweet volumes perfumed the space between them. Mayvalt shook her head, and the scent began to dissipate. She scowled at him, displeased with his trick. "That''s worse."


    "Then you should be grateful, Mayvalt." He reminded.


    "Sap." She sighed, running fingers through frizzy peach-toned hair. "Let''s start again."


    So Bezel did his best not to stare off blankly, and Mayvalt did her best to condense her rambling. Something they both barely managed to maintain. In the end, Bezel sat back in his chair and let his glimmering yellow eyes drift shut.


    "So, all that to say, another He-Goat is unaccounted for." Bezel recounted slowly.


    "Faun." Mayvalt corrected quickly. "But, yes."


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Bezel opened his mouth and then stopped. Mayvalt raised a perfectly pink eyebrow and placed a hand on her hip. "Boss, remember, ''why should I care?'' Isn''t an appropriate workplace response."


    "I stopped myself." Bezel protested with a hollow shrug. He tried to reserve it to amplify the impact. If he said it, every time that he could mean it, he''d have no room to say anything else. It was all he could manage to mutter most days. Why should Bezel care if a few pesky Faun got into trouble? Why was it his fault that they stumbled into a world that didn''t want them.


    They poured into the low-streets, if they were lucky enough to escape the hunters, they''d find themselves in his service. Which had once been a calling worth risk, now it consisted more of folding napkins and working the bar.


    Mayvalt rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "You promised, Ba''al. You said we could find a home here--you would protect us."


    "Hmm," he hummed. He had said that, and now he couldn''t recall why. Why had he done that, and why had they listened? He''d leave this place if he could. He might ache, in fact, to leave this place. If he could want, he would want to go back to a time and a place when he had known peace.


    There was a part of Bezel, encased in cement far beneath the surface, that remembered the smell of salt on the South Sea. How far the warm breeze could carry it, across the entire crest of the Heneth mountains.


    He had once been plagued with curiosity, wishing to investigate the howls echoing in the crisp night air hanging over the Sikker Wood. He''d even go willingly to discomfort, shivering with prickled skin from the frost coating the wide open plains of the Speir.


    There had been a time when this cold dead husk had felt lit from within with passion--and it had seen him to this fate. So, suddenly, he might have been glad to be away. Even numb, dead to all pain and pleasure, Bezel couldn''t face the reality that he had no home anymore. Nothing could feel like home when Bezel could not feel. It seemed a fate worse than death, to return to a land he loved, and not love it.


    Maybe, he reasoned to himself, it was better that he stay exiled. New York wasn''t terrible. It was loud and crowded. It was easy to wrap him up in so much that he could fill his days with pretending.


    And here was Mayvalt, to fill up his day with trouble instead. "Ba''al?" She bleated. "What are you thinking? I can''t tell." She stomped her boot nervously. He watched her black shoes scuff the wood paneling of his floor and thought that it must be exhausting to be victim to the whimsical fleeting feelings consuming her mind. Mayvalt was the bravest he''d ever met, but she was still only a Faun. They were flighty, he might say if he cared to mince his words. When he held no such inclination for kindness, he''d call them for what they were; cowards, weak to earthly pleasures. It saw them to trouble. It saw Bezel to bail them out.


    Bezel fixed her beneath his cat-eyes. She froze in wait. "Tell me more."


    A smile broke across her delicate lips. "I knew you wouldn''t let us down, boss!"


    Bezel exhaled brief acknowledgment from his nose. It had not always been true. It had been failure, once upon a time, that saw him to this moment. And it was too difficult to forget, or to pretend otherwise, so he did not speak.


    "Her name is Savalt, and she''s been missing for a few days." Mayvalt whimpered. Her wide brown eyes became watery with tears. She blinked until they went away, knowing that when Bezel was around, tears were just a waste. It had seemed a reaction beyond their portrayed relationship, but what did Bezel know of sympathy.


    "A few days? She''s hardly a worthy exception." Mayvalt whimpered again, "A few days isn''t unheard of, you must admit. Even amongst your speculations, Faun often disappeared before this."


    Mayvalt had hidden her hooves beneath a pair of wide leather boots, but even concealed Bezel could hear the scuff of them as she stomped her feet angrily on his floor. "Boss, please. With Savalt, that makes eight missing in the last four weeks. And Savalt isn''t the type to skip out on her indenture. She still owes you three years of service. More than that, she''s real social, but she hasn''t been seen by anyone. Trust me, boss."


    Bezel nodded in agreement because if Mayvalt said it was true, then it was. She had worked for Bezel for longer than New York had even existed. Since she was an orphan alone in a strange world, and he was someone who''d taken her into his service. She cared deeply, and Bezel did not care at all, and it created a balance that saw things through.


    "What would you have me do? I''ve been keeping my ears in the low-streets already, no one will speak." Bezel pointed. He pushed aside his pile of papers. He imaged that he was relieved to be released from jotting down plausible tax write-offs. It was shallow and only served to remind him how empty he was inside.


    "Then it''s time to stop asking. Let''s head to Savalt''s apartment." Mayvalt clasped her hands together and bowed her head. "And may all the Princes of Avernus protect her." It was an odd prayer, considering current company, but Bezel didn''t tease. If he picked apart each silly emotion the Faun had before him, it would fill the rest of his days.


    ? ? ?


    Savalt was a Faun inducted to Bezel''s service, so same as the rest of them, she lived in the low-streets. It was a place Bezel had found for them, away from the attention of the Meatpacking District and even further from the pearl clutching choir boys stalking the ancient cathedral near Central Park. It was distant. It was the safest place he could find for them, and it was only a forty-minute drive by car. Yet she complained.


    "Boss," Mayvalt groaned, "can we go any faster?"


    A minute, a year, a millennium, it was all the same molasses drip to him. Bezel''s wings had sunken into fly-paper, and he''d long given up struggling against the glue. "I am traveling at exactly the speed limit while adhering to high traffic." Bezel said bluntly.


    Mayvalt scowled, scrunching together her cherry blossom pink eyebrows. "You know, if we could fly, we might get there in time."


    There was a sensation, deep in the back of Bezel''s mind. It was a thud. As if he was standing in the attic of an old house, feeling distant books fall from the shelf in the basement. "No."


    Mayvalt fixed Bezel with a quizzical look. "Yeah, you always say that. Why not?"


    "You know why, Mayvalt." Bezel said. "I was stronger when I hid my demonic-tells. If I let down the barriers now, I may never be able to replace them." The evidence was clear in his golden cat eyes. A feature that had leaked to the surface three years ago.


    "And what''s so wrong with that, boss?" Mayvalt scowled. "You''re our boss. If you walked through Times Square as a three ton purple elephant, what could they do but watch?"


    "And if you walked beside me, Mayvalt, then what would they do to you?" Bezel hoped to appeal to the fearful nature of the Faun. He wished to make her tremble so that she would never pester him again about the topic--but he should have known better.


    Mayvalt wasn''t a Faun fresh from the big trip--doe eyed at a new world. She was much tougher, an over-cooked steak--metaphorically speaking, of course. She''d be much too sweet for Bezel. He had never been able to claim credit despite raising her for much of her thousand years. Even as a small kid, she''d never wavered. When she first refused Bezel''s illusions, he knew that she was different. She''d chosen instead to deny conforming to the changing world around her. As the cities began to grow, it meant stuffing her antlers into beanies and wearing boots over her hooves. A small price to pay to stay alive.


    Bezel had done the opposite. Long before the failures that saw his expressions wrung from his flesh, back when he was still a creature ruled by whims, he''d hidden his differences. For as long as he could, he would keep them hidden. Exhausting himself to his last drop of magic. A day that seemed nearer each sunrise. It was entirely illogical. It was wholly irrational. It was madness, and that was the closest semblance of emotion that Bezel harbored.


    "You''re afraid, boss." Mayvalt scowled.


    Bezel might have laughed, except of course he couldn''t. "I''m incapable."


    "Yeah, yeah, I''ve heard it a thousand times, but I know you feel things, boss. I''ve seen it. And maybe you''re feeling this, too. Maybe it''s because you''ve always been worried what they would say if they saw the real you. Well, guess what, boss, they''re never going to accept the real you--you should turn your attention to living for those who actually care about you." Her words should have shocked him, angered him, annoyed him. They didn''t.


    "I feel things," Bezel echoed in agreement, " but only when I''m by their side."


    "Ba-al-" Mayvalt whined angrily.


    "That''s the deal, Mayvalt. I am not afraid." Bezel said.


    "Deal?" Mayvalt scoffed. "No, boss. That''s the punishment."


    Bezel sometimes sighed. He could even force air through his lungs to laugh and scoff. When Mayvalt made her childish jokes, he could roll his eyes. It was an act. It was a facade to blend into the crowds. He almost did so now. He''d reached to sooth away his blankness with a tired exhale of make-believe disappointment, but he stopped. It seemed that he''d been all too convincing lately. She was beginning to forget what he was and what he had been capable of. "I don''t care what the Avernian word is to cover my unique condition. Curse, debt, sin. I only know that with or without my hindrance, I''d spend the time searching for that soul the same way; miserably."


    "You''re hopeless, boss." She grumbled.


    Bezel couldn''t help but agree on that particular topic.  "You are wrong about one thing, Mayvalt."


    She raised a blush-warm brow and cocked her head. "Just one?"


    "We didn''t need to fly. You talked us all the way to Bed-Stuy." He informed. Bezel leaned forward in his seat, the sternum of his gray italian suit almost pressed into his steering wheel. "There it is. The low-streets."


    Mayvalt shivered, and the scent of her apprehension hung heavy in the cab. Bezel drowned out the sound of her rapid heart with the car radio. She glanced at him, eyebrows squinted. "Now you want to listen to music? There''s only one block left, boss."


    "I don''t want to hear anything." Bezel corrected. He guided his black SUV into the parking lot of the apartment complex and killed the engine. The song on the radio began to dissipate, leaving Bezel alone with the sound of her pulse. It had calmed. She had forced it down, always aware of him and his unique condition. He was a glass-still pond, she a tree shedding its leaves over the surface. All she could do was hope a breeze would carry the carnage harmlessly over the water so as to not leave a ripple in something that had not stirred in centuries.


    It may have calmed her to learn that the water was frozen, that she could drop her greatest branches onto the pond below, and it would never tremble. It would have, he knew that. "Mayvalt," his tongue was held firm by the cage of his teeth. Words bubbled a thousand miles beneath the still surface. Meanings he could not capture. It was no longer his nature to nurture her as he once had. "You can get out."


    "Right, boss. Should I lead the way?" Her bark toned skin flushed a shade darker than her hair. "I know the way. . .to Savalt''s apartment."


    "Go ahead." He gestured for her to exit the vehicle. She did so on trembling legs.


    Bezel peered out of his window, his gaze fell upon one of his many properties. A five story apartment complex, one he''d filled with those that had been turned away from society. He''d never thought to call it anything. It was merely an address in his mind, nothing more. The first time he''d heard the calling, he hadn''t recognized it. The low-streets, they''d nicknamed it. He couldn''t explain way, so it must have been a reason tied to sentiment. One that Bezel could never even begin to imagine.


    "Mayvalt, what is that?" Bezel asked. He stepped out of the car, not bothering to lock it behind him. The summer air had a strange taste to it. It was blood-hot and just as thick. The invisible blanket coating this corner of the city laid heavy against Bezel''s skin. If he had a need to breathe, he might have choked on it. She was shaking, sinking beneath the waves of it. It was almost akin to experiencing rage. It was purely emotional, and therefore wholly unreliable, but beneath irrationality, there could be room for something real.


    "It''s. . .hatred, boss." She whined, wrapping her arms tight around her chest. "I think it''s. . . for you."


    "Is it Fetor?" Bezel asked. Easily mistaken for instinct, there was a fear that tasted as bitter as skin prickled by the bright gaze of a predator, but that was something natural. And Fetor was not. It was a blight, a ripple in the fabric of the atmosphere, choking men with anger and fear.


    If the thick cloud over them now was Fetor, then the cause could only be from a Ze''ev. Even masked beneath human skin, they weren''t worth the trouble they brought. So Bezel did not bring them, not in his clubs and not into his protection. They had no business in a place like this.


    It was silly to ask, he already had his answer. He knew that it was not. The Fetor of a Ze''ev was magic, and it tasted the same. A scent sharper and cooler than ice. One that could drive even monsters mad. This was too dull. Flat and faint to Bezel''s numbed mind. It was not a projection from a territorial wolf. It was them.


    "It''s the Faun, Ba''al." Mayvalt confirmed. "Something has happened."


    "Huh," Bezel huffed. His expressionless eyes traced the outline of the building laid before him. "How interesting." He muttered, of course not quite honestly. He could have turned around now, climbed back in his car, and drove until he ran out of gas. It would not be the first time he had been accused of abandoning them. Nor had this been the first time he''d enjoyed their ire. The last time had coincidentally also been the last time he''d been capable of joy. Before they''d taken it from him. It might have amused him to wonder what they''d take from him for his betrayal this time.


    "There''s more, boss." Mayvalt pressed.


    She didn''t need to continue. Bezel could taste it, rotting on the warm summer breeze. "I know." He said. "Blood."


    "Boss," Mayvalt whimpered. She extended her shaking arm, leveling one pointed finger at the building her kind had taken to calling the low-streets. "It''s coming from inside."


    "So it is." Bezel agreed. "How interesting." He didn''t glance to see if Mayvalt followed. She would or she wouldn''t; it made no difference to him. He didn''t need her guidance. He turned his nose to the decomposition on the stale air and followed it.


    The apartments were still on the surface. The halls were emptied, as it had been each time Bezel had come by in the recent weeks. They''d once been full of Faun, chattering away long into the night. They were known to be social creatures, after all. Now, it was silent. Except for the racing heartbeats behind each door he passed. He''d had the thought before, but now it seemed painfully obvious. They''d been turning away from him, right beneath his nose. Had he ever noticed? Had he ever cared? No, none of it mattered. Not to him.


    "Boss," she chirped, "boss, wait, I don''t like this. It''s weird."


    She was scared. The scent of it was thick on her skin. He kept walking. The rot was growing stronger, masking the fear coating every inch of her being.


    "Boss." She wrapped her arms around her chest, glancing at the doors they passed. "They''re afraid. I think they''re. . .I think they''re afraid of you."


    It was coming from the last door, the one painted red. At the end of the hall. He was so close now, his fingers stretched for the door handle.


    She whimpered childishly. "Why are they afraid of you?"


    He wrapped his palm over the brass knob. It might have been cold from abandonment. It may have been hot from someone recently fleeing. Bezel couldn''t tell. He couldn''t tell anything. He could not feel. The breeze in his hair, the fabric of his suit against his skin, the burn of water filling his lungs. He''d tried, for centuries, to make his heart beat. There was only one cure--no. A cure was something that could last. Each time they''d been torn apart, Bezel''s ribs would once again become a coffin.


    "What did you do?" She whispered.


    He was nothing. He had no concern, no guilt, no pity. He was only one thing now. "I am the Third Prince of Hell, Mayvalt. They should fear me. Why must I find a way to explain it? Now, act accordingly or leave. Your whimpering is aggravating." It was only as irritating as a mosquito biting at his steel flesh or buzzing in his deaf ears.


    She fell silent, and Bezel pushed open the door, washing them both in the heavy stench of decay.

 11 | Melchior Meets His Maker

    Since they''d parted with the cab early that morning, the creature had been closely following. Melchior had first noticed it at the beginning of their trek, lurking in the fog between the trees. Just as it had noticed them.


    He''d heard the steady pulse of its heart, as distinctly as ice cracking beneath his feet. The air itself had begun to thicken, churning with the gut-wrenching sense of discontent. The water beneath the trembling ice had a current, one that would drag Melchior down into the depths. Maybe it was that fear of drowning that turned Melchior''s tongue thick behind his teeth. He''d lied--why had he lied? Why did it seem easier than admitting that he could always feel the teeth pressed flush against the pulse of his throat. Even before Ira had spoken, Melchior knew that he had noticed its presence.


    It was impossible not to. The Beast tipped the weight of the clouds, dragging them down to crush the forest in a thick coating of apprehension. Birds had stopped singing--Melchior doubted that they hung around at all. Nothing would willingly place itself in the path of the creature. No one but Melchior, who felt powerless to walk away.


    For a moment, staring over Ira''s sun-yellow head, they''d met eyes. That closely beating pulsed had hummed into a crescendo, an engine gaining momentum to hurl into a crash. Melchior couldn''t tell what emotion had triggered the reaction. Fear at another predator entering the forest. Or, excitement of anticipating the hunt.


    Even as he''d turned away, Melchior could feel the sting of its eyes trace his back. He''d dragged Ira up and down several ledges, trying to leave the creature behind. He''d taken wrong turns into circles. He''d pushed them through creeks and muddy banks, ruining the sleek black fabric of Ira''s pants.


    And still, it persisted. Melchior tucked his thumbnail between his teeth and chewed nervously. It was gaining ground despite his greatest efforts, and he was running out of excuses. He''d been pushing them forward without rest, and the exhaustion was beginning to take root. Not in Melchior, who had been raised for recklessly traipsing through the forest, but for Ira. Someone much better suited for life in the city.


    "Mel--wait." Ira panted. Melchior paused. He knew that the cut of his name, trimming it into something that fostered a sense of knowing between them, had just been from a lack of air. He wretched the excitement from his weak heart and shattered it over his knee.


    Melchior had been gently teasing Ira with a new codename since noon, and Ira had never once cracked or given into familiarity. Instead, flushing red-hot with anger each time. Somehow, that only encouraged Melchior to bother him further. He would gladly hold Ira''s ire if it came with even just a little of his attention.


    Ira placed his hands on his knees, bent over to ease gulps of air into his rapidly rising chest. His wide blue eyes drank in the forest ahead of them, full of something dangerously close to defeat. "I can''t anymore. Can we take a break?"


    Melchior was punched by shame. He''d driven Ira to a point he didn''t know he had: meekness. How exhausted must he have been to ask instead of just doing?


    Ira was nearly swaying on his feet. Beneath his flat palms, he held trembling knees. Melchior''s eyes fluttered to the space over his shoulder, where only fifty feet away, the glowing eyes peered from beneath the brush.


    It was waiting, watching, in apprehension of their next move. A weakened animal was the best prey, and Ira''s strength had been driven away by Melchior''s relentless pushing. He''d been driving them towards the edge of a cliff in a mad dash of desperation. Melchior recalled a painting he''d seen not too long ago. One of horrid pigs tossing themselves into a churning wharf. The memory rose slowly in his mind, as if eroded by a great passing of time. Melchior half-mindedly concluded that it must have been two other boys standing there many years ago.


    "We still have a few hours until sundown, and we''ve only covered three of the disposal sights." Melchior pointed. The words were bitter over his tongue. Three disposal sights, containing only more half-charred lumps of picked clean flesh. They all had the same gray and wrinkled appearance as if belonging to the same Beast. Or, if Melchior wanted to entertain the worst possibility, the same type of Beast.


    Ira''s shoulders slumped. "I really can''t." He huffed, and Melchior believed him. Sweat dripped down the lengths of his sun-yellow hair, curling the tips against the pink flush of his throat. Beneath the soft skin, his pulse thudded. The sound of his fluttering heart reminded Melchior of a rabbit he''d found once, injured and hiding in a clump of gnarled root.


    He nodded, pushing fingers into his own messy hair to ease the tension wrapping up his muscles. "Okay." Melchior sighed. Ira''s eyebrows rose in surprise, as if he''d fully anticipated Melchior running them all the way to Canada. "I''ll take you back to the trailhead. We can call you a cab from there. I saw a phone booth."


    "A phone booth?" Ira muttered. A muscle in his lip twitched with the effort it took to raise an eyebrow in confusion.


    "Yeah, like a public phone." Melchior explained warily.


    Ira laughed. It was weak from his gasping lungs. "I know what it is. It''s just not a phone booth."


    "You''re really trying to correct me?" Melchior almost laughed, but he couldn''t bring himself to find the humor when they were still pinned beneathing, glowing yellow eyes. If Ira knew the peril they stood in, maybe he wouldn''t have felt so inclined to nitpick. Melchior shook his head. No, he was still Ira. So maybe he''d always save room for it.


    "Trying?" Ira pushed off his knees to straighten his back. He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to the side. "I am correcting you."


    "Why does it even matter?" Melchior asked.


    "Well, it didn''t, until you implied I was wrong." Ira scowled. It lacked the usual venom he reserved for Melchior. It, too, must have been drained from him by their journey.


    "It''s the same thing." Melchior insisted. He kept the cur in his sights, gesturing with a hand to keep Ira moving. Ira sighed heavily and began to move slowly forward, his clear blue eyes on Melchior''s face.


    "Well, was it in a booth?" He asked. His boots dragged through the mud. Melchior resisted the urge to lift him and carry him the rest of the way. He restrained himself, only because he''d find it hard to explain why it was so urgent that they keep moving.


    "No, it was on a pole by the parking toll." Melchior explained.


    "Then how could it possibly be a phone booth?" Ira pointed with his trembling finger as if he''d just made a great discovery. "It has to be in the booth, not next to some distantly related other stall."


    "Okay, fine." Melchior relented. "Then let''s go call a cab on the phone-pole."


    Ira laughed. It was dry and weak, sucking up a great amount of effort. "Payphone, Mel." He cleared his throat and glanced off into the fir trees clouding their way. "Melchior."


    A thorn settled beneath Melchior''s skin, but he just shrugged and nodded his head. "Sure, let''s go."


    They''d buried themselves miles into the pine, and now they''d have to turn back. A hopeless feeling settled into his gut, it tasted as bitter as defeat. How much ground had they covered? Not enough. And it seemed that it would never be enough. Only a day had passed, so why had they lost more time than he could hold onto? Melchior had the sickening sense that they were aging in dog years, and that every single moment was something they''d never be able to reclaim.


    "Hey, don''t go running off on me." Ira broke the silence Melchior had fallen into. He bristled, shaken by the lack of attention he''d been paying to the world outside of his heavy thoughts.


    Melchior''s eyes darted to the south side of the trail. It was still there. Maintaining the same pace and distance. Ira gained Melchior''s attention again with a light brush of fingertips against his forearm. "What are you thinking so hard about?"


    Melchior couldn''t bring himself to release the predator from his sight, so he didn''t look at Ira''s pink cheeks or worn frown. He might have, deep in the recesses of his mind, imagined how charming it might have looked on him, though. "When we get to the trailhead, I''m going to stay behind."


    Ira''s heart flinched behind his ribs. His boots stuttered in the dirt. "What? It''ll be dark soon. Forget the monsters. There will be wild animals."


    Melchior''s eyes traced the furry hide of the four-legged creature as it resumed it''s slow shamble behind them. "Yeah, I know." He agreed. There would always be monsters. They''d chase Melchior until he couldn''t run anymore--and then they would tear him apart. It was his nature since he''d been infected with the living and breathing curse inside of him. All he could hope for now was to keep them from ripping into Ira, too.


    "Yeah, you know," Ira scowled, "angels, why are you so. . . calm? It irritates me."


    Melchior pushed sharp teeth into his soft tongue, resisting the urge to say that he knew that, too. "Keeping my cool burns you up, I don''t know how to fix that. It''s just the way I am." Melchior knew they''d had this argument before. What could he do? He''d buried every unpleasant thought deep beneath his iron shell. He wasn''t afforded the luxury of losing it. It had been about survival, more so than it used to be.


    Melchior had gotten upset once. The kind of anger that had boiled him from the inside out. It had seemed the end of the world at the time, though now he couldn''t even recall what had set him off. He''d let his tempers swell into a raging tide--and they''d come. The trees had shaken as they poured from the forest, chasing the scent of his hot blood.


    The monsters weren''t what scared him most when he thought of that night. It was what had happened inside; he''d lost control. He''d hurt people--he hurt Ishmael. Just as he''d accidentally hurt Ailbe in the days before they''d parted.


    There was a sickness inside of him. One that leaked to the surface to become something that could only achieve harm. It was his monster, and it terrified him worse than anything lurking in the brush or crawling from the torn Trammel.


    His fingers twitched before dipping into his pocket to find the bottle he kept there. He held it as tightly as a child might cling to their baby blanket. He needed it for the same reason: comfort. And also for a much different reason, one that was still hard to wrap his mind around six years later. The pills rattled just beneath the skin of his fingertips. His stomach rolled in protest, the skin along the back of his neck prickled in a cold sweat.


    "Why would you stay?" Ira crossed his arms over his chest. The tired muscle beneath skin and silk twitched from the effort. "It''s not safe."


    Melchior rolled the question over in his mind. There was nothing he could say without spilling truths out onto the lawn before them. If he began now, he might not stop. He''d tell Ira that the monster had been following them since morning, that Melchior had never warned him, and that it would always happen for as long as Melchior existed. He was a beacon, drawing in misfortune, and somewhere along the line they''d been tied together, long before the Cardinal had put them together in that courtroom.


    Melchior looked at him then. Did he know? Had someone slipped up, lulled by his crystal blue eyes? Had someone told him why it had to be Melchior and why it had to be Ira? Did anyone remember the forgotten prophecy? Was Melchior the only one left? The questions wouldn''t stop, Melchior thought he might drown in them.


    He wanted to ask, and he wished he could be honest in return; but he wasn''t capable. What if the words that haunted Melchior didn''t haunt Ira. It was a weight that Melchior would hold alone.


    He still remembered the night when it had clicked in his young mind. One moment, those silly lines had been nothing but a worthless old prayer. They''d been something he''d chew on in moments of aching boredom and nothing more. It might have been no more important than something from a children''s book, just a little note he had once been attached to


    He had been mulling it over one night to himself, in the dark and lonely cellar beneath the cabin. Just as he had always done to pass the time--and then it had struck him. A bolt of lightning, forcing his tendons into bone-breaking tightness. That line that had always echoed in his mind, the one meant for the cursed boy.


    It was a trade, an offering from the angels. A way to grasp what they couldn''t before and their end of the deal was to be paid with his life. Those words, how they''d always struck him. Those words; spill his cursed blood and see upon his sacrifice, the weapon strong enough to kill a Prince.


    It had not immediately scared Melchior as a young child. It had never seemed possible to reclaim a lost Vestige, and many had given up on a future fully eradicated from Demons. Until they''d been given a reason. Until now. If the Third Prince was really tearing holes in the magical seal between their worlds, he needed to be stopped. And only a Vestige could do it.


    Melchior was going to die. Ira Rule was going to kill him. It seemed as inevitable as breathing to him. His blue eyes sought him out, leaving Melchior numb and hollowed. He licked his teeth, shuddering as the sharp of his fangs pressed into his tongue. He wanted to ask if Ira knew those silly little lines, too. Melchior didn''t want to be alone with them, feeling the edges of it cut into his mind. It was suffocating. It was all consuming. It was his fate. He was, beneath the calm of his skin, terrified. Melchior clutched his pills and swallowed, flexing his dry throat. He would endure it alone because he''d promised he wouldn''t lie to Ira.


    "There''s stuff I have to do. I promise, it''ll be okay. I''m tougher than I look." Melchior said, finally breaking the silence that had collected as snow over his troubled thoughts. He couldn''t leave the creature here, waiting for their return. He couldn''t bring the exhaustion-beaten Ira into a fight, and he couldn''t risk taking action that would see his lies dragged into the light. Because he''d promised not to lie, they shouldn''t exist. Yet, it was in his very nature to deceive. If Ira could see what he truly was--he would have never fought to buy them even just three months of time.


    "No way." Ira shook his head firmly.


    "C''mon, you could get some sleep. You can have the bed, too. You''ve been tired all day. Sleeping on the couch must have been uncomfortable." Melchior pressed. Ira leveled him with cold blue daggers, so Melchior persisted. "And I''m sure Peter misses you. It''d about dinner time in cat-world, isn''t it?"


    Ira''s shoulders slumped. He dragged his palms over his face, groaning. "Fine, but it has nothing to do with any of that." He dropped his hands and crossed them over his chest. "I''ll go because I promised to trust you, Melchior."


    Melchior''s heart twisted in his chest. Delight and shame flooded him. He knew it must not have been easy for Ira to trust him, especially when his lies seemed so clearly sewn into his skin. "Thanks." He said, his tongue barely fumbling over the world to ease it from his tightening throat.


    "Walk me to the door, will you?" Ira teased. He turned on his heels and marched them forward through the trees. Melchior glanced over his shoulder, where the cur waited. He narrowed his eyes in challenge. The air around them began to thicken as the wolf received his threat.


    ? ? ?


    Ira flopped down next to the ticket booth. He bent his head to rest on his knees and sucked in deep, aggravated breaths of the cooling mountain air. He had replaced his weapon for a water bottle in his hand, not wanting to alert the cab driver of the strange occurrences in the preserve. Even Melchior, who planned to stay, had hidden his bow in a bush a few paces back. "Angels, I thought I''d die of exhaustion three miles back. I can''t believe we made it." He leveled a cold glare at Melchior, that seemed to say, and I can''t believe you''re crazy enough to go back.


    "Right, well, you''re done now, so just rest." Melchior comforted weakly. He leaned his back against the worn wooden sides of the parking pass shelter and crossed his arms. "We should start at the other side of the preserve tomorrow."


    "Ugh, we have to do it all again tomorrow?" Ira nearly whimpered. "This is harder than I thought it would be. Especially in these formal clothes. Angel-forsaken traditions."


    Melchior nodded in agreement. He hadn''t had many expectations for hiking perilously through all of upper New York, but it had exceeded expectations--it was horrible. He didn''t like being hot. He didn''t like feeling trapped in black silk beneath a summer sun.


    "I''ll be wearing a T-shirt tomorrow, even if Father Pine only sent Deacon attire." Ira rambled, seemingly more to himself than anything. Melchior closed his eyes, giving into this small comfort. It was peaceful. Listening to Ira Rule speak to him so casually. "Do you have any T-shirts?"


    Melchior startled. He blinked, nearly as quickly as his spiked pulse. He couldn''t keep himself from leaping to conclusions. Was Ira going to ask him if he could borrow a shirt? The thought flushed him with enough heat to shame the summer sun into an early sunset. His cheeks might have mimicked enough pink to sell that impression, too. Melchior shook his head. There was nothing wrong with two roommates sharing the occasional article of clothing--it meant nothing. Besides, "No, I don''t have any." Melchior had none to share anyway. He''d only been given sleeves long enough to cover the branding on his wrist.


    "Okay, I''ll just have to buy some. And I''ll grab a few for you, too." Ira shrugged. "I''ll do it tonight, so we''re both still contributing."


    Melchior''s gut twisted, and his fingers twitched to his left wrist before he could stop himself. "N-no, I--no."


    Ira''s careful blue eyes followed his jittering, tracing the silk of his cuff. Melchior tucked his arm behind his back, feeling much too exposed. Ira turned his head away, seeming lost in thought. He drummed on his knees with his fingers until finally he spoke. "I''m sure I can''t ask, but I know. I saw a little of it, back at the cathedral close."


    Melchior''s heart leapt in his throat. He thought he might be sick. "Did you. . . read it?" It was only one word. In Progeny''s chosen mother tongue. One Ira must have been familiar with.


    "I couldn''t." Ira shrugged, "and now I wouldn''t. I want you to tell me yourself someday." He shook his head so that his hay-yellow hair tumbled into his eyes, covering the freckles that Melchior liked to admire over the skin of his cheeks. "I''m pretty curious about it. I''m sure you know that tattoos aren''t allowed."


    Neither was something as impure as Melchior, but he didn''t say that part. "It''s a reminder, is all." Melchior shrugged, pretending that it was easy, that this one word could not shatter him to his core.


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    "What could you forget to such a degree you''d need it in your wrist?" Ira ran his fingers over his eyelids as they fluttered shut over his tired eyes. "Never mind, forget I asked. I''ve been told I''m kinda. . .rude sometimes."


    "Kinda?" Melchior teased, when Ira fixed him with his ice-hot blue eyes, he added, "sometimes?"


    Ira dropped his jaw dramatically. "Then I take it back! I''m perfectly well mannered at all times, and you should get used to it."


    Melchior laughed, tipping his head back to drink in the peach-tone summer sunset over the Catskills mountain range. It would be dark soon, and Melchior knew that Ira worried, but he wouldn''t be long. He only had to stay long enough to kill one Ze''ev. Easy enough. Although, he''d never exactly done it before. He''d tried--twice with Ishmael and would have died twice if not for Ishmael.


    Distantly, Melchior could hear the crunch of tires on gravel. Ira still had his head bent over his lap, unaware of the approaching vehicle or of Melchior''s crazy ideas. He could ask him to stay. He could tell him he''d changed his mind, that he''d like to go to bed now, too. He did nothing. Instead, he only spoke to announce the cab''s arrival in the vacant parking lot.


    Ira stood on shaking legs. He stretched his back, raising his arms high over his head. His pink lips peeled back over pearl-white teeth in an all-consuming yawn. He reminded Melchior of Peter. He hoped she''d been alright in the apartment by herself. Ira had assured him that she would be.


    "You boys called for a cab?" The driver called through his rolled down window.


    "Ah, just him." Melchior corrected, pointing at his nearly sleeping companion.


    The driver raised one bushy black eyebrow, skepticism, and criticism heavy in his dark brown eyes. "You''re staying out here alone, kid? I don''t see any cars. Do you have a ride coming?"


    "Yes, sir." Melchior lied swiftly. "It''s all sorted."


    "Well, alright. Be careful. Lots of animals after dark." He grunted, leaning back into his seat.


    "I know," Melchior agreed. He turned to Ira, facing his concerned blue eyes with something he hoped and lacked uncertainty. "Don''t worry, I''ll be right after you."


    Ira moved forward before Melchior could register his viper-quick movement. His fingers found the chain resting just beneath the collar of Melchior''s button-up. He tugged on it lightly, moving his fingertips down the smooth necklace. He tapped the apartment key, his eyes lingering on the skin-warmed silver. "Don''t forget you have a copy, too. I''ll be waiting up for you."


    Melchior swallowed his blush and cleared his throat. "You should try to sleep."


    "I won''t be able to until I know you''re back." Ira shrugged. He chewed on the inside of his lip. Ira wore his nervous jitters as well as he wore everything else. "Uh, so, see you later, partner."


    Melchior was heated to the very pit of his chest. Ira began to turn away, uncaring of the rollercoaster he''d sent hurling from the tracks inside of Melchior''s mind.


    He was going to leave. Melchior didn''t want him to go. He struck back, capturing Ira''s wrist before he could make his getaway. His goal was a simple one. A tale as old as time. He only wanted revenge. Melchior pulled Ira gently back, causing him to stumble on worn legs. He lowered his lips to the shell of Ira''s ear. He knew what would roll him up best. He''d been doing it all day. "See you at home, kitten."


    Their faces so close in the cooling air, Melchior could feel the heat from Ira''s anger flood his skin. He whipped his head back, nearly causing a collision of their skulls. He scowled with pitifully beautiful eyes. How could Melchior take him seriously when his irritated blush darkened his freckles into a constellation across his cheeks? Ira shook his head and huffed a hot breath from his nose. "Alright, I take it back. I won''t wait up for you--don''t come crying to me if you trip on a stick in the dark."


    Melchior released him, stepping away to make clear that it was time now to diverge paths. "I see pretty well at night. Don''t worry. Goodnight, kit-"


    "Hey, hey, hey," Ira dismissed, waving his hands in the air to disperse Melchior''s words. "Not goodnight. I''ll give you one hour on top of the car ride. I''ll see you in three hours--no later. Promise?"


    Melchior had already made a different promise. So, he couldn''t lie. "C''mon, the cab won''t wait much longer." He turned away, unwilling to look at Ira''s slumping shoulders any longer. If the choice ahead of him was to watch Ira leave or turn himself back into the dark and dangerous forest--the answer was obvious. He tucked the duffle bag under his arm and advanced towards the thick fir lining.


    Behind him, the car door shut with a heavy thud. The engine purred as the driver moved the gear into drive. Melchior exhaled a slow release of relief. He''d expected more of a fight from Ira. Not that the boy should particularly care what nonsense Melchior involved himself in, only that he seemed to greatly enjoy being difficult.


    Melchior turned himself in the direction of where he''d hidden his weapon. He hadn''t wanted to take the time to dismantle and reassemble it for the brief moment the cab driver would be around. The darkened pine glimmered beneath the overcast of the green branches. He picked it out carefully and shook the dirt loose before slinging it over his shoulder, resting it on top of the duffle bag.


    Melchior glanced back towards the parking lot. He couldn''t see the vehicle, not between the heavy canopy of pine. He shut his eyes and focused his attention on the silent night. He could hear it then, the crunch of tires retreating back into the city. He released any concern he held for Ira, and turned himself fully into the task ahead.


    The forest was still, but Melchior knew he wasn''t alone. He could smell it in the air: the thick grit of pure hatred. The scent of Ze''ev. He turned his face to the ash burning his lungs, and chased it deeper into the trees. The atmosphere leaking from the wolf was nearly something Melchior could see. A mist, hanging heavy in the shade of emerald-green fir trees. Each step beckoned him forward. It was a calling of challenge, and Melchior would gladly take it up.


    His memories of a night six years ago rolled just beneath the surface of his skin. Not even then, in the worst moment of his life, had he been alone. If Melchior had any sense left, he''d be terrified. He''d turn and run while he still could.


    So, it was better that he was senseless. It would aid him in what came next. Melchior took his bow from his shoulder, freeing his arm to shrug free from the canvas bag hanging over his back. It was extra bulk that he couldn''t afford now. It fell into the grass with a thump, another obstacle that Melchior easily stepped past in the darkening woods. Melchior''s fragile heart had been pierced by an iron hook, and now the line pulled him forward. He was incapable of stopping. He was incapable of turning around.


    He thought of words he''d spoken to Ira. Monsters seek monsters. Why else did they chase him if not to reclaim his cursed blood for themselves? Why else did he chase them back if not to give into the illness inside his veins?


    Melchior pulled a pine-shafted arrow from his quiver. In the setting sun, the wood appeared freshly oiled. It reflected the light nearly as well as the tip of the needle. One single tooth, glimmering as brightly as moonlight at the end of his weapon. He notched it in his bow, pulling the string tight. His palm rested a few centimeters from his cheek. His breath tickled the tops of his fingers, sending shivers through the bowstring.


    He could hear it now. The quick thumping of another heartbeat in the forest, ragged breath passing over sharp fangs. If Melchior had been nothing more than a laity hunter, combing the forest for the tanned hide of a buck--he might have fooled himself into believing that these noises were proof of life. It sounded animalistic, it sounded alive. It was something natural. The draw of cooling oxygen into warm lungs, it was something that his creature did not deserve. It didn''t belong in this world.


    He was close. Melchior squinted between the trees, trying to see the land laid before him between the pine needles. He lowered himself to his knees, bending beneath the branches in front of his eyes. Beneath the canopy, he could see further. He could see the creature.


    It was a great wolf--or it appeared as one. It was the size of a small rhino, covered in fur the color of iron-rich soil. Ears swiveled at the top of its head, detecting Melchior''s heartbeat in the otherwise silent forest. He held his breath, but the Beast did not look at him.


    It seemed too muddled by the cloud of its own emotional web to catch Melchior''s scent. The cur raised its black nose to the sky and then lowered it back to the grass by its massive paws. Searching, or hunting, for him.


    Melchior''s stomach twisted with the sense of wrongness. The setting sun warmed his back, setting his skin on fire. This was different. Melchior sunk his teeth into the inside of his cheek. This was the wrong direction. He couldn''t recall when it had happened. He''d been too preoccupied by his own worry for Ira. Choking on the wolf''s wide scent, he hadn''t noticed exactly when it had stopped following him. When had he become the hunter in their twisted game of cat and mouse?


    It must have had a reason for coming this way after dedicating it''s entire day to trailing them. Almost as if it had given up. If Melchior turned now, if he walked away, could they both have gone their separate ways?


    Or maybe it had no choice. Maybe this was not a divergence from the hunt, and merely the consequences of the turning of the land. The Ze''ev had backed itself into a small clearing beneath the overhang of a boulder. Sheltered from the orange setting sun, and cut off from the parking lot at the trailhead.


    Melchior watched the creature pace in front of a large rock ledge, its ears swiveling back and forth at the top of its head. Melchior held his breath, an easy thing to do. The air this close to the Beast was sour and thick with turmoil. He had a clear shot. He could hit it in the throat, ending the monster before it could take notice of him. Before it had a chance to fight back.


    Melchior blew from his nose, a hot breath that trickled over the skin of his wrist. His bright eyes darted to the sleeve there, dislodged by his hectic day of hiking. He couldn''t move. He couldn''t look away. It was his reminder. He might have stared down at the marred flesh of his wrist for only a second, or for an hour. Time seemed trapped in the wolf''s web, too.


    Beneath Melchior''s vantage point at the crest of the slope, the wolf moved. His eyes darted towards it, silently cursing himself for not taking his chance when he could. It had caught his scent, or it was simply ready to move on--either way his chance was slipping between his fingers--and he wasn''t entirely unwelcoming at the thought.


    Melchior''s muscles tensed beneath the skin of his legs, ready to adjust to whatever the creature did next--but it froze again. It''s paws left indents in the soft earth. How long had it been pacing here? Unwilling to go on? What was it waiting for? Melchior had never seen one this close, for this long. He couldn''t help but give into his curiosity.


    The Ze''ev raised its head, tilting its glimmering teeth towards the sky. Its hollow yellow eyes seemed to be focusing on something far away, something in the stars. Melchior couldn''t look away. He knew what came next. He''d heard it enough times in his nightmares.


    The wolf cried out. The howl sliced the summer air, sending shivers of fear down Melchior''s spine. Melchior was rooted in place, helpless to do anything but listen. His heart stirred in his ribs, filling him with something he couldn''t quite place. The wolf''s song swelled in the night, flooding the space between the trees with the unshakeable sense of missing.


    As quickly as it had begun, it became quiet again. The echo of the creature''s mournful baying ceased, melting away as pitifully as the last snow. It seemed almost as if it had never existed at all, but it did. And it remained, seared into Melchior''s mind. The Ze''ev''s glowing yellow eyes fell back to the forest floor, a huff of hot fog tumbled past its fangs. The wolf held perfectly still, waiting. Melchior froze, too, in anticipation, but it was pointless. No reply ever came.


    The bow relaxed beneath Melchior''s grip. He almost scoffed at himself, at the realization of what he was feeling. Pity, for a ruthless Beast. And, beneath that, shame--for almost killing a creature that had never wronged him.


    Melchior blinked. Where had those thoughts come from? Just from one mournful tone? He shook his head until he was dizzy.


    "Angels, what''s wrong with you?" He cursed himself. This monster wasn''t blameless. It was a demon. All it could ever hope to achieve was destruction. No Ze''ev was innocent. Melchior knew what they were capable of. He''d witnessed it. He''d barely survived it.


    Melchior''s lungs shuttered in his chest. He gasped, suddenly choking when he had not been moments before. He was suffocating. He was drowning beneath the weight of the world. He doubled over gasping, his bow falling from his slackened hands. He reached for his throat, clawing at the skin there. Why couldn''t he suck oxygen into his tightening throat? It was as if the air itself had suddenly thickened--as if--a thud echoed in the back of Melchior''s mind. He forced his rigid spin upright--he forced his tear filled eyes to gaze across the slope. Into the yellow glow staring right back.


    He''d been stupid enough to give himself away, and now the wolf had set its sights on the prey within its reach.


    He couldn''t breath. He couldn''t make sense of the world unfolding before his eyes. His bow was heavy in his arms. He couldn''t move fast enough. He couldn''t move at all. The Ze''ev lunged forward, hurling into a run. It was coming faster than Melchior could restring his arrow. Faster than he could think.


    Claws, the size of Melchior''s fingers, churned the earth as the creature ran up the hill. He was frozen, and it was already too late. From this distance, his arrow couldn''t accumulate enough speed or force to stick in the thick hide of the brute. Melchior couldn''t turn his eyes away from its glistening teeth, aligned in a jaw opened to strike--it''s teeth. Melchior had teeth, Ze''ev teeth. He''d fixed one to the end of his dagger--if he could plunge it into the wolf''s throat as it lunged for him--where was it?


    He''d snatched it from Ira early that morning out of some pathetic sense of privacy, and now he wished he had the time to apologize, or to at least explain himself--enough! He was out of time, or would be soon enough. Where had he put it? His belt? His pocket? Think--think! The wolf snarled as it came upon him, Melchior could taste its sour breath. It was closing in--it was too late. He had to move, nothing else mattered.


    Melchior reached into his pocket. His heart sunk. The knife wasn''t there. His fingertips clutched at the only thing he could find. He flung it out, holding it over his chest. Why had he done that? He knew it wasn''t his weapon, even as it left his pocket. He''d failed. He was completely hopeless. All he could do was squeeze his eyes shut and pray to the angels to let him pass under their promise, despite his wicked blood.


    Too late had Melchior even had the thought of using his arrow to stab at the brute. He''d never been a quick thinker. He''d never been able to hold his own in a fight, either. Why had he thought that tonight would be any different?


    It seemed some sick joke that he''d die like this, before even getting the chance to complete his trial. And over what stupid mistakes? Grabbing his pill bottle instead of his dagger? It was hilariously pathetic, and he wished Ira would never hear about it. Well, who was going to tell him? Melchior couldn''t. Not if he was dead--if he was dead?


    Melchior''s heart thudded in his throat. He''d heard people speak of their lives flashing before their eyes--but just how long was that supposed to take? This moment had seemed stretched for far longer than it took for teeth to meet flesh.


    He slowly became aware of himself. Eyes squeezed shut, laid flat on his back. His arm ached, held straight out from his torso. His pills rattled in his shaking grip. The cold of the grass soaked into his clothes. Hot steam tickled Melchior''s face. He flinched, and against better judgment, Melchior opened his eyes. This close, he could see trickles of green in the yellow eyes of the Beast. It''s maw hung open, revealing fangs as long as pencils.


    Saliva collected on its rolled pink tongue, slipping over its lips to drip in Melchior''s lap. He was trapped, beneath the cage of its legs. The wolf stood tall over him, panting heavily. Even with Melchior''s arm fully extended, he couldn''t touch the under belly of the Beast. Its ribs flexed beneath the force of its breaths, which curled in the air between them. Melchior''s limb trembled, his fingers tightened around the bottle resting in his palm. The creature flinched, inching away from his reach.


    And they remained, trapped in this final death blow. Neither one moved. Melchior knew why he held so perfectly still--he was terrified, and he wasn''t scared of admitting it. So, what was the Ze''ev''s reason? Why not finish him? Why hadn''t it lunged? Now, when the opportunity was unmistakable, or all day when it had followed him?


    Melchior''s joints ached, his arm wavered in the air. The wolf snarled, yellow eyes seizing his upheld medicine bottle. The force of it shook Melchior to his bones. So he grit his teeth and became frozen again, holding as dutifully still as a glass doll. Melchior wondered how long they were meant to stay like that. He wondered why it had happened at all, why hadn''t the demon torn into his flesh?


    He had a thought. A small ticking at the base of his skull. He remembered words spoken to him a long time ago, as he and Ailbe worked at grinding away herbs in their kitchen. Not herbs, flowers. They''d been beautiful, until Melchior worked them into a pulp. Their color had leaked onto the oak table, staining it purple. Ailbe had been rambling, as he always did. His words had passed over Melchior as harmlessly as clouds. He hadn''t cared much at the time why he needed to take his medicine, only that it would work. Now, he was glad to recall what Ailbe had said.


    It seemed impossible--except that nothing was really ever impossible. He''d been living a reality so twisted it seemed some sort of nightmare, and so he knew better. He took a chance. Melchior shook the vial in his hand, the pills rattled in the confines of the plastic.


    The dog took another step back, a low warning rumbling in its throat. Melchior could have laughed. He almost did--but he figured he looked crazy enough as is. Taunting his would-be killer by shaking his vitamins.


    "So you don''t like them either?" Melchior noted. He began to slowly push himself up into a hunched sitting position.


    The wolf barked, but Melchior didn''t obey. "I''m not listening to you."


    As he rose, the Beast retreated. Its tail lashed the air angrily, the rich fur along its spine rose in a manner that seemed much too animalistic. It was fear. Melchior could taste it mix in the air.


    He reached with his other hand, cracking the cap of his medicine bottle. The sickly sweet scent of the pills leaked into the air between them, tainting the scent of the Ze''ev''s apprehension. The wolf shook its head to not breathe in the slight smell. "Yeah, you know what it is--don''t you?"


    Maybe Melchior really was crazy. Maybe he''d seen his sanity slip away in the moment he thought would be his last. Why couldn''t he stop talking? Was it because he knew the wolf could understand him? The Ze''ev leveled him with glowering yellow eyes. It snarled deep in its chest, taking another few steps of retreat. That growl had a noise. One only Melchior could understand. It tasted like rot on his tongue. It sounded like bones snapping in his mind. It was only one word, one that Ailbe had said to him a long time ago; poison.


    Melchior stared down at the small capsules, each one filled with purple dried powder. He tilted it, filling up the basin of his palm. The wolf backed away, fully releasing Melchior from the cage of its long limbs. He kicked his boots, pushing himself further from the pacing creature. And neither one moved. They''d been locked into another stalemate.


    Melchior might have sat there for hours. All he knew was that his shoulder ached. He rested his palm on his knee, displaying the handful of pills to the Ze''ev. It watched him warily. Making small noises of discontent. They tangled up in Melchior''s mind. He couldn''t make heads or lashing tail of it. His understanding had been something he''d long denied, but as the sun finished setting behind the cusp of the mountain, Melchior finally admitted his defeat.


    He knew what the wolf meant to tell him--sometimes. Other grunts echoed like hollow thuds behind his eyes, but it was in the words he could grasp, that his heart stuttered behind his ribs. "If I do what you want, can we both go our own way?" Melchior felt stupid saying it.


    Why was he negotiating with this hellhound? Well, what else could he do?


    The wolf paused in its pacing. It stared at Melchior with eerily shimmering eyes. Absent of sunlight, they''d become the brightest thing left in the forest. The Ze''ev seemed to consider his plea. Melchior groaned and rolled his shoulders. He really was losing it. Demons didn''t negotiate--they would sit like this all night until Melchior spilled his pills and the wolf could take its chance. Or, he''d thought. Until the sound startled his mind into a free fall he was incapable of correcting.


    Agreement. It wasn''t a word. It was a noise, a tone small and warm from the back of the Ze''ev''s throat. Yet it echoed in Melchior''s head as something he could comprehend. He blinked, frozen, and unsure of what to do next. "Y-yes?" He stuttered. The wolf growled. Little and soft. Agreement.


    "Angels," Melchior breathed. The wolf snarled, pulling lips over sharp fangs. Melchior threw up his hand in surrender, the one not full of poison, and shook his head. "No, no, no! It''s just an expression! An expression!" He didn''t know if the wolf understood him, but it licked its pink tongue across its pearl-white fangs and fell silent again. "So, uh, what do we do about this? Aw, man, I feel totally crazy."


    Agreement.


    "Is that all you can say?" Melchior snapped. He sighed and shook his head. "No, arguing with the stupid thing won''t make me feel any less crazy. So, uh, why were you following me? Are you looking for something--a pack? Are there more of you? How many more? Did you come from the rip in the Trammel? Or, from somewhere else?"


    The wolf considered this. Finally, it rumbled in the depths of its throat. Melchior''s shoulders slumped. "Agreement." He scoffed. "You really aren''t making your cause that you''re capable of coherent conversation. Okay, maybe you''re more of a one question at a time type of wolf?"


    Agreement.


    "Great." Melchior resisted the urge to set his head in his palm. He didn''t want to take his eyes off the thing. "Then, tell me. What do you want?"


    The wolf growled, something feral and guttural. It filled him with the sense of an attack--it turned his stomach sour. Melchior''s heart stuttered in his chest as fear filled his skin. He worried for a moment that he''d run out of goodwill, that the creature was going to tear him apart now--but it didn''t move towards him. It glanced over its shoulder, into the forest beyond. It looked back at Melchior, waiting for his understanding.


    He didn''t know what to say. How was he supposed to respond to a warning from his enemy? One he couldn''t decipher at that. Melchior let the sense of the meaning wash over him until his mind began to boil it down into one thing that he could grasp. Slowly, the words came to him. Melchior looked at the wolf, staring into reflective eyes. "The apex predator."


    The wolf didn''t speak--wolves couldn''t speak. Melchior began to think he really had lost it. The Ze''ev regarded him with cold yellow eyes, as if waiting for Melchior to reply. "I just. . .don''t understand. What does that mean?" He had nothing left to say.


    The creature huffed. His meaning was clear, even to those who couldn''t pick apart a deeper understanding. "Disappointment." Melchior recounted slowly. His shoulders slumped. Now, he really had nothing to say.


    The Ze''ev turned on its haunches. It glanced once more over its shoulder, drinking in the sight of Melchior crumbled on the forest floor. It blew from its nostrils again and disappeared back into the trees. Taking with it the heavy cloud of rotting air.


    Melchior went limp, falling on his back in the dirt. The fear he''d been denying rose up his throat, as thick as sick. He didn''t want to think about what the wolf had said. He didn''t want to think about what it meant that he could so clearly understand it.


    He lay still in the grass until it began to pass until it all began to grow hazy. He wanted to pretend it had been a nightmare. His pulse began to settle in his veins until the terror he felt was replaced by the bitter sting of failure. Why couldn''t he manage to do anything right? He groaned to himself, consumed by white-hot self despair. He could lay like that all night, sinking into the dirt until sleep claimed him. He might have if there wasn''t someone waiting on him.


    Melchior pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the trembling in his knees. How much time had passed? Would Ira pester him with concerns? He certainly wouldn''t be rushing to tell the story to anyone anytime soon. He could chalk it up as another lie of omission and add it to the rapidly growing list.

 12 | But Bezel Said He Didnt Do It

    If Savalt had once been inside of the apartment, she was long gone. Or if they were going with the option requiring the least optimism--and that was Bezel''s preferred route--then she might have been painted on the walls.


    The foyer was stained red with carnage. Large sprays of it coated the chipping wallpaper. The splashes had been cast in great arc upwards to imbed in the popcorn ceiling. The blood pooled on the wood floor boards, in inch thick puddles. High and low, it settled with the stench of rot and iron.


    Bezel passed into the soiled room, with just enough consciousness to avoid stepping in the vital fluids soaking into the oak flooring. Mayvalt followed him, looking ghostly pale and close to adding to the mess of the room with her weak stomach.


    Her fingers trembled, where she pressed them to her lips. "Savalt?" She whispered. No reply came, but it might have been an issue with her volume. She whimpered as softly as a mouse.


    Somehow, that seemed an unhelpful suggestion, so Bezel remained silent.


    Startled by the lack of answer, Mayvalt rushed past him, her footsteps heavy on the stained floor. Her meekness crumbled beneath the weight of her fear. "Savalt!" She cried out, "Savalt, answer me!" Bezel watched in withering interest as she fluttered between each room of the small apartment, her heart singing as quickly as hummingbird wings.


    Bezel could have called out to her. He could have told her that, beneath the rotting decay, there was no other scent in this room. There was no one here--but Mayvalt had to already know. She often had keener senses than Bezel, so this frenzied searching must have served another purpose. One that defied rationality.


    It was pointless--but it was even more pointless to say so. He decided to let her run herself breathless and turned himself into studying the room he''d perched in. It was a strange scene, he could say, perfectly laid out before them. One Bezel could not even begin to wrap his mind around. Simply because it made no sense. It was all just perfect.


    Despite the vast violence evident across the entire room, nothing was touched. If Bezel had taken a wet wipe to the blood on the walls, then he could have restored this whole apartment to perfection. Well, nearly perfect. Nothing could be done immediately about the outdated interior design, and at the moment, it seemed the most offensive thing about the place.


    The coffee table was exactly eleven inches from the couch, not pushed to any odd angle at any of its corners. It was sitting on a rug that had perhaps been a gift from Savalt''s grandmother. Or, Savalt herself was the one with terrible taste. Although the horrible shag-brown rug, darkened with blood splotches, hadn''t been what caught Bezel''s attention.


    That had been the three stacks of paper left atop the coffee table. All still perfectly arranged, in neatly stacked towers, a foot high each.


    Savalt was a Faun. It was undeniable when he observed how she had lived--had because he highly doubted that she still did. Bezel had never known a Faun who didn''t show great interest in Heimerian arts, and she was no different. Every flat surface of the home was place to some odd sculpture or vain painting. The ones adorning her splattered and peeling walls were untouched, not a single corner out of line. Somehow, Bezel couldn''t even find a speck of blood on any of their faces. No matter their proximity to the splash


    By the door, on a table that might have once held her house keys, was a clay lump--something Mayvalt would have defended as artistic expression, but Bezel would have accused of imitating an overly microwaved hot-dog--and even this hideous little statue had somehow survived a well deserved bashing against the floor.


    Whatever had happened here had happened without struggle. Or nothing had happened here at all, and Bezel had been lured into a perfectly painted trap. Either way, it had happened recently.


    "This blood is fresh, Mayvalt." Bezel called.


    He could hear the distant skip of her heart. Mayvalt came pattering out of Savalt''s bathroom, wiping at her large brown eyes with the seal-skin smooth cuff of her leather jacket. "What are you saying, boss?" She whimpered.


    He shrugged. He didn''t quite know yet--only that it was all so strange. "How long has she been missing?"


    Mayvalt stomped her boot, barely missing making a splash in the iron-rich coating of the floors. She jittered more when she was scared, but that was only an observation. Her fear was obvious--it hung over her as a second skin, clouding the room. "A few days, boss. Not that long. H-how long does it. . . usually take?"


    Bezel seized the size of the carnage, mulling it over in his mind. The puddles were deep, still wet at the top, but cooling and hardening along the edges. "For blood to dry? Or for a murder to take place? I can only answer the former." As the second question was something entirely dependant on skill, and Bezel believed in his ability to accomplish it faster than the average Faun-hunter. "An hour, at most."


    The color drained from her cheeks. She pressed her palms to her lips and shuddered. "Then this just happened? We have to go, boss! Whoever did this could still be around here! We have to find them!"


    Bezel shook his head, and Mayvalt''s eyes widened to the size of moons. "Why not?"


    There was a series of cold thudding echoing deep inside of Bezel''s head. A dead heart, pulsing six feet below. It was. . .he didn''t know. He couldn''t drag it close enough to the surface to make any sense of it. All he knew was that he was going to stay here. There had to be something else.


    "It''d be a waste of time." He said. "You don''t know anything, and you already want to flee the only clues we have. What are you going to do if the suspect returns and cleans all of this up? Then we''d have nothing." He was harsh, and he was uncaring, but those things led him more credibility than one might think.


    Mayvalt sighed. Her shoulders slumped until she looked small enough to be consumed by her leather jacket. She worked her fingers into her frizzy pink curls, pushing until her antlers offered some resistance. Her boot tapped out the perfect melody to the rapid tick of her heart. She sighed, and it cut the air as swiftly as a blade. "Okay."


    "Okay," Bezel agreed. "Let''s walk through together."


    Mayvalt exhaled through her nose and nodded her head slowly. "Okay." She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and gestured with her chin to prod Bezel into moving. He took the lead, as directed, and moved deeper into the apartment.


    Away from the small and gory entryway, the rest of the apartment seemed almost entirely inconspicuous. Bezel walked through the living room, and there was nothing but the soiled rug beneath the neatly stacked papers.


    He passed into the kitchen. The countertops were clean of crumbs, and anything more serious. The sink was empty and dry, no one had used it to clean up recently. Which might have been a priority for any blood-covered killer.


    It remained completely normal, until he saw the specks of blood on the floor.


    The only connection from this nearly prestine kitchen to the viciously sabotaged living room was a small trail left on the black-and-white tiles consisting of a few coin-sized drops.


    Mayvalt propped open the fridge door. Which seemed inappropriate even to Bezel--but she seemed to be thinking to herself, and he didn''t want to disrupt her process. "Boss," she called over her shoulder. "All of this food is expired."


    "Yes, I know." Bezel huffed. The sickly sweet odor of rotting lettuce had tumbled free into the iron-enriched air the moment Mayvalt had pulled the door open.


    Mayvalt shut the fridge with a hollow thud. She wrapped her arms over her torso as if frozen by the cold inside. "Savalt hasn''t been seen by anyone in a few days--but the blood is fresh, and the food is off. Does that make sense to you?"


    Bezel leaned against Savalt''s kitchen counter, placing his chin in the palm of his hand to mimic many great thinkers and to give himself time to patch together some semblance of sense. "She''s been gone, so it''d follow that the food would expire-"


    "It''s only been three days, boss." Mayvalt reminded him. "Her neighbor claimed to see her monday night or early tuesday morning."


    "Then she was here, and not in the mood to clean out the fridge." Bezel shrugged. "If you can trust this neighbor, that is."


    "Wenroth." Mayvalt hissed beneath her breath. For a moment, Bezel thought it was a Satyrian curse until his mind worked together the familiarity of Satyrian suffixes. It was a name--and if Bezel''s memory of the language was still correct--it wasn''t a great one. "He''s the type to tell you what the gopher was doing on Groundhog''s day--he''s smart as an inchworm and as cowardly as silk. He couldn''t lie to me and hope to get away with it."


    Bezel tried for a moment to untangle the meaning of Mayvalt''s silly phrases but eventually gave up. He ruled it a waste of time like most other things and instead said. "Not trust, then. Just incompetence?"


    "Yes, boss." She nodded.


    "Then not a great witness, Mayvalt." Bezel pointed. "And these clues are only leaving us with more questions." He pushed his fingers through the drape of his oil-black bangs to move them away from his glimmering yellow eyes. There had to be something he wasn''t seeing. So what? Beside Savalt herself, a piece was missing. He turned from the kitchen and crossed back the way he''d come, returning to the stage of his twisted play.


    The soiled living room, with perfectly arranged stacks of paper. Only dirtied by a slight red tinge along the edges from microscopic drops of blood. The top paper of each pile was nothing more than a simple cover letter. One for an essay on the digestive system of cattle, another for unique flowers in Northern America, and the last simply labeled cervidae. "Mayvalt, sort these papers. Tell me what they say when I come back."


    "Where are you going, boss?" She asked, hesitating at the corner of the coffee table. Her trembling fingers fluttered to the nearest stack, the one for an essay titled cervidae.


    "I''m just going to check something. Stop shaking." Bezel remembered the days when he could comfort her. When she was little and he was just a little less ancient--but all he could offer her now were words devoid of tone and blunt in delivery because he no longer held any concern or care. Not for her. And certainly not for Savalt, no matter how attuned he seemed to his hunt.


    She blinked, absorbing him as a shock. Her cheeks drained of their usual chestnut color until she was a perfect imitation of the sheets she was set to sort through. "Okay." She chittered, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. Mayvalt inspected the slick smooth surface of the brown leather couch. Carefully, as if balancing a glass dish between her antlers, she settled into a section of mostly unsoiled seating. She pulled the papers across the table, beginning her search into the cervidae essay. "I''ll let you know, boss."


    "Great." He announced bluntly. Bezel turned from her slumping form, investing himself into something of greater interest. He''d noticed it since their walk into the kitchen after distancing himself with the foyer. There was a root cause to the stench of blood in the apartment, and he hadn''t found it yet.


    It wavered in the air, increasing and dissipating as he''d moved back and forth. There was a pit covered by leaves. If Bezel couldn''t uncover it, he''d fall a thousand stories deep. Luckily, he had some guess as to where to begin.


    It was odd to intrude in the bedroom of a woman he''d never met. Not a woman, exactly. A creature--but it still held the stillness of hallowed ground. Even aware of how strange he must have seemed, Bezel couldn''t talk himself into turning around. It was heaviest here--even more so than the staged foyer he''d left--and the reason did not seem entirely obvious. It hung in the air, changing the weight of the atmosphere. It was rot. It was fear. It was something as dark as the starless night sky over Manhattan. It was why he''d left Mayvalt behind on the couch--it was carnage.


    Mayvalt had rushed through each room in the apartment as carefully as a hurricane and as clear-headed as a snow-globe, so Bezel didn''t question her lack of attention to detail. It would have almost been more strange if she''d stopped to inspect the scene, beyond looking for any obvious sign of Savalt--as in her alive and well and with a silly excuse for why she hasn''t been coming to work.


    Bezel had to admit that at first, the room seemed calm. He could have looked no further and left satisfied, but there was a nagging in the back of his throat. The stench of death. It was as thick as snow over the Speir glacier fields, and he simply couldn''t see anything to lend to it.


    Savalt''s unique tastes had been most obvious here, in her bedroom. The wallpaper was sunshine yellow, spotted with pink paintings of falling flower petals. The curtains, a seashell hue of another shade of pink, were drawn over the windows. The top of the dresser was strewn with an assortment of Heimerian jewelry as well as Satyrian goods. Things Savalt had uselessly carried from her old life. A polished pair of horn cuffs laid beside her dazzling diamond studded earrings as if proclaiming to hold the same value.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Her bed was adorned with bedding fitting her pastel-toned room. Blankets the color of soft peach skin was piled up high, inviting as a leaf pile--if Bezel was able to sleep. He wasn''t, and especially not here.


    A simple uniformed suit had been left hanging from the handle of her closet door. A velvet black vest, overlaid pearl-white dress shirt. She''d neatly folded the dress pants and tossed it over the top of the door. It was Eden attire, laid out the night before in anticipation of a shift she''d never attend. He hadn''t asked much of those beneath his service. All he asked was a few years or a few more working for him. He was even kind enough to pay them all Heimerian wages--New Yorker wages at that. So, what could have possibly been more pressing than following his simple orders?


    Why had his Faun been disappearing? When had the waves of his pond become so fretful? Had someone been tossing in pebbles to cause these ripples? More questions than he could express swarmed his head, screaming in his ears as flies often did. He couldn''t answer it all. He couldn''t even find a foothold in the chaos.


    Or, had he been looking in the wrong places?


    Bezel took in the sight of the room again. The neatly folded clothes, the polished arrangement of jewelry, the dusted curtains, and the carpet--still ruffled with lines from the vacuum. He recalled neat stacks of research papers, perfectly aligned portraits lining the walls. Everything quaintly arranged, aside from the blood. And aside from the unmade bed.


    It could have been anything. It could have been a late morning, a lazy-day, a forgotten monotonous task--but Bezel had a different idea. He strolled across the small room, his nose filling with the sickly sweet scent of fear. His throat thickened on the iron in the air until he could taste it. Bezel reached for the warm covers. As if revealing a scared child, hiding from the thunder, he ripped back the sheets.


    It wasn''t Savalt--not entirely anyway. Although he hadn''t truly been expecting to find her. Well, he hadn''t really expected to find this either. The sunset duvet had been darkened brown by the blood pooled beneath the bone. Bezel had seen demons sliced all sorts of ways to harvest the magic-laiden skeleton inside--but he''d never seen this because he''d never found something so sought after be so carelessly left behind.


    The horn had been broken off by the base. The keratin shell had been cracked, revealing the bright bone beneath. Wells of red sinew clung to the shattered lump. The honey golden horn was dry to the touch. The small amount of flesh left behind had cured in the sun.


    He looked upon the bone wrenched from body, and he felt nothing. He sighed in mock annoyance and rubbed the bridge of his nose. All of this carnage was piling up to be a rather fretful headache. Each overturned leaf revealed new nonsense. Bezel could see the rest of his week--or his decade--vanishing beneath this job.


    And now this? Someone had reached past his illusions to grab hold of the demonic-tell beneath. How had they seen past him? Was his magic weakening faster than he''d anticipated? Messing with the Trammel--it had been stupid of him. He already had seven gates, attempting to open another into the Sikker Wood had been idiotic. Mayvalt had warned him. She''d been right--he always listened when she was right--so why had he pushed forward with the rift? Bezel ignored the banging at the base of his skull and turned himself back into the matter at hand. Her horn, broken and bloodied on the bed.


    It was another strange piece in the puzzle, one made of shattered glass. He didn''t know how to fit it back together, and he only sliced himself the harder he tried.


    Bezel couldn''t deny the twitch of familiarity he felt. It stirred something in him to see her demonic-tell severed this way. It was not the first time a Faun had been cut up for the resource they harbored inside--but if it was the bone they''d wanted, why was it the only thing they''d left behind? It was unlike them.


    What disillusioned seeker had come this far and absorbed this much risk, only to lose the prize of the hunt in the only source of chaos within the small apartment? Besides, Bezel realized that the low-streets were not their hunting grounds. They''d never come here before. As far as Bezel could figure, they didn''t know of its existence.


    This place was not Eden. He did not linger here. He did not protect it with charms. It sat, as plainly as a daisy in a field. If they had found this place, then they''d have to know how vulnerable it was.


    "Boss, come here!" Mayvalt called, jarring Bezel from his spinning wheel of thoughts. Bezel was pushed into action in an effort to exit the room quickly. He seized the horn in the palm of his hand, surprised by how easily it fit in his fist. He wrapped it beneath the clutch of his fingers and retraced his steps out of the room.


    Bezel found Mayvalt right where he''d left her, only a little more disheveled. She''d come off the couch at some point to kneel on the shag rug. The coffee table came to a rest at her chest. Fully immersed in a scattering of letters, her elbows bumped into small stacks of paper, spilling them into a bleak white wall of confusion. Undisturbed, Mayvalt ruffled through the spewing of papers, reaching for the ones she''d wanted to show Bezel first.


    Her wide brown eyes were turned down into the mess. She spoke quickly, determined to get her point across soon rather than coherently. "This one was written second. It''s dated for three months ago." Mayvalt dragged pages to the front of the paper pile. Bezel glanced over her shoulder, skimming over anecdotes about dandelions and their impact on the ecosystem.


    "Am I grading her dissertation? What''s the point, Mayvalt?" Bezel pushed.


    Mayvalt''s shoulders stiffened. With her face solely turned into her work, Bezel couldn''t read her expression. That was probably for the best. "Well, if you were to grade it--it''d certainly be passing. It''s great, boss. She. . .she did a really great job." Mayvalt wiped at her nose with the cuff of her jacket.


    "Right." Bezel said. Only to fill in the blank space Mayvalt had left after her voice had stalled.


    "Anyways." Mayvalt shook her head. Her trembling fingers sunk back into Savalt''s dissected research papers. "This one is from last week. It''s a mess, boss."


    "Well, she only just started. Lacking revision isn''t a crime." Bezel dismissed. He wasn''t entirely clear on the process required to pull together something so mundane as a study, but he was sure that the first draft would be rough enough at the edges to cut skin.


    "Sap, boss." Mayvalt breathed. She set her face into her palms. Her shoulders shook beneath the shell of her leather. "Just read it."


    Bezel tucked Savalt''s horn into the pocket of his suit jacket. He leaned over her slumped form, taking into his care the top-most paper stack. It was smaller than the other two, which made sense if she had only just begun.


    The title was clear and simple. Only one word; cervidae. Bezel''s glittering eyes fluttered towards Mayvalt''s fuzz-wrapped antlers. "This word--what is it?" Although he had a feeling.


    "Deer." Mayvalt whimpered. "It means deer."


    Bezel began unraveling the stack, tucking the title page, and it''s one single word behind the body of the essay. He turned himself inward and began to read. It was. . . boring. Completely uninteresting--unless Bezel needed a source to site on his own deer-based research paper.


    Bezel whittled away at Savalt''s observations, trying to keep his eyes from glossing over. He paused briefly to investigate the paragraph of velvet since it was something he recognized in the blur of words.


    He didn''t know much else. It all went over his head with terminology he couldn''t decipher. Nor did he know what he was supposed to be seeing. Was he meant to be fact-checking her? It all seemed right enough to him.


    "I don''t understand. What am I-" Bezel turned the page, and it became obvious. His words faltered in the space between them. Mayvalt tensed on the coffee table below. She tucked her face into her arms and made small whimpering noises. "This is. . . nonsense."


    More than that, it was gibberish. As if Savalt''s fingers had gone numb to senselessly bash away at her keys. Words became blurs, turning into nothing more than random coalitions of scrambled letters. Bezel picked a few from the page and read them to Mayvalt, trying to pick apart any hidden clue inside of them. "K-S-L-A-L-I-C-T," he said, "L-I-T-A-S-L,"


    The next three pages were full of nothing but these mixed up letters. There were breaks between them, as if they were words in a sentence. The longest mock-word was eight letters. The shortest was three. It was a pattern that Bezel couldn''t wrap his mind around. And it remained that way until he turned to the fourth page.


    He blinked in surprise. There were words here. Real ones. Something nearly coherent. "What is a mouse?" He recited. The question was prosed across the page in giant looping penmanship. Mayvalt had no answer. He turned the page and found nothing. The rest of them were blank. Bezel had the sense that someone was messing with them. He hoped they enjoyed their little game while it lasted so that they would not regret it when he finally caught up. And he would make them regret it.


    "This certainly didn''t answer any of my questions." Bezel noted. He set the book back on the mess strewn about Mayvalt''s shaking arms. "Well, I found something, too."


    Mayvalt turned her wide brown eyes on him. She rubbed at the tip of her red nose. "What did you find?"


    He didn''t stop to wonder what this would do to her or how he could soften the blow. What would be the point of any of it? If Savalt had meant something to her, then Bezel could do nothing to make it hurt less. He pulled the horn out of his pocket and extended it towards her. Her lips parted, and a small sucking gasp escaped into the stillness of the apartment.


    Mayvalt reached with shaking fingers. She took the horn and held it close to her, pressing it into her chest. "Savalt." She whispered. She bowed her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn''t speak. She remained perfectly still for so long, Bezel knew she was praying. Finally, she opened her eyes. The caramel brown had darkened, just as clouds did before a storm. When they found Bezel''s glowing golden gaze, he could see the hatred pooling in them.


    "Mayvalt," he breathed.


    "It was them." She snarled. Her voice dripped from her lips, rotting the air as poison.


    "I don''t think so." Bezel shook his head.


    Mayvalt winced. Her grip tightened on the severed horn. Her seething gaze never wavered, even as it rested on Bezel''s calm face. He wondered if perhaps it meant that she hated him, too. "What else could it have been if not the war-mongers? They hate us! They hunt us! If they''ve found the low-streets--"


    "Then it would be chaos. So, let''s think about this rationally--before we cause a panic." Bezel spoke low, always aware of how far a demon could hear--especially when it was a particularly delicate secret. He glanced behind them, at the door they''d never bothered to shut. The hallway was empty, but it didn''t mean they were alone. "They might have found Eden, I''ll admit it. It has been harder than I expected to keep you Faun in line while giving you so much excitement--but never have they come this far. If they had, they would have wiped it clean from Bed-Stuy."


    Mayvalt seemed unconvinced. Her fingers worked delicately, stroking the honey-tone ringlets of Savalt''s cut horn. Bezel sighed. He shut his eyes and shook his head.


    "Mayvalt, they wouldn''t leave her horn." He said.


    She waited for a long moment before she finally said, "I know."


    Curled in on herself, clutching the broken pieces of Savalt to her heart, she looked much like she had on the day they''d met. She''d been much smaller at the time, with tiny nubs for antlers. She''d not yet taught herself to keep her tears away from Bezel. Her cheeks had been streaked with them. She''d run until she couldn''t any longer, tripping and stumbling on bare feet--cut by roots and sticks. It''d been her bloodied legs that had caught Bezel''s attention. Why had a child so young run so far, pushing past her fears and her pains? Why had no one come to protect her? Well, the answer was obvious.


    She was being chased by the kind of predator that would never stop. It''d eaten her protectors, with teeth made of harvested bone. If he turned away now, it would eat her, too. So, he had not turned away. He''d reached down to her, running his fingers through her short brown hair. He''d picked her up and promised that he''d protect her. It had been easy. She''d been quite pathetic, whimpering and clutching her mother''s horn cuff in her small fists. It was a sight illiciting much sympathy, and he''d been the one to give it at the time.


    His fingers twitched at his sides. Would she still find comfort in him touching her head? Or would she know that it was just another mockery. Another hollow action to give the appearance of care. So, Bezel did not reach out for her. It would be better that way.


    If Bezel had been a simpler person or a person at all, he might have found this all incredibly hard to swallow. Luckily, he was more snake than man.


    "What do you think happened?" Mayvalt asked. She brought the horn to her head, pressing it against her forehead with a tight grip. One so firm, her fingers had begun to turn white where they held the bone. "T-to. . . Savalt."


    "I don''t know." Bezel shrugged. How could he have known, unless he had been responsible? Which wasn''t completely off the table of possibilities. Strictly speaking, he couldn''t be certain of his alibi. He''d been maintaining a decade-long slump of brief appearances in his club, intermittent with vanishing off-grid in week long benders--most of which he didn''t remember when they were over.


    Unless he testified for himself, who was going to believe him? Where Bezel went, chaos usually followed. Even if it was only Mayvalt issued mayhem--it still trailed behind him.


    "Mayvalt, have you looked for any other missing Fauns?" He asked.


    She huffed, prickling for some reason Bezel couldn''t immediately grasp. "Of course I have!" She snapped, her voice was muffled by proximity to the object held against her lips. "You think I don''t care? I''d only go out looking for those with personal relationships to me?"


    "I would have." Bezel said, raising an eyebrow in her direction.


    "Well, that''s because you''re a jerk, boss." She grumbled bitterly. "What are you thinking?"


    "You''ve been to their homes?" He pressed.


    "Yes, boss." Mayvalt pushed back. "I questioned several roommates and a few confused one-night lovers. If anyone knew anything--they didn''t want to tell me. Probably because they knew I''d tell you."


    "Were there any vacant apartments, ones you couldn''t get into?" Bezel asked.


    Mayvalt shook her head. "Vacant yes, but that I couldn''t get into--no, boss. I got the master key from the janitor." Her arms slackened, placing Savalt''s piece back in her lap. With one free hand, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a glittering silver key. "I brought it, in case we couldn''t get in, but. . .the door was just unlocked. Like someone. . .was waiting for us to come."


    "Yeah, I have that sense, too." Bezel admitted. "In the other apartments, the ones without roommates, were they," he gestured around them, causing a weak wince from Mayvalt, "like this?"


    "No, boss. Don''t you think I would have mentioned that? It seems a little critical, doesn''t it?" Mayvalt pressed her arms into her sides, to contain her irritation, or her trembling. He couldn''t tell.


    Bezel groaned in something, nearly frustration. A distant cousin to confusion. Why was Savalt different? Why was this room, beneath the gore they could so clearly see, untouched? What was this trap, and for what purpose did it exist? Who was it for?


    "Did anyone know how close you and Savalt were?" Bezel asked.


    She narrowed her eyes. "What are you saying?"


    "It''s strange, is all." Bezel shook his head. "My Fauns have been vanishing beneath my nose, but that didn''t get my attention. So, maybe they go after someone else. They can''t touch you--you''re too close to me, and I care for no one else, so they go for who you care for instead."


    "Boss, what are you saying?" Mayvalt whispered. "It''s. . . my fault? And for what? To get at you?


    "Of course not!" Bezel corrected. "The fault would lay with whoever harmed her, but you may have been the cause."


    Mayvalt''s shoulders drooped, and her eyes fell to the floor. "Oh, sap, boss. You can be so cruel sometimes."


    Bezel did not breathe. He did not sigh, or blink, or absorb her words at all. They came over him and passed as harmlessly as a warm summer day. Cruel? Well, if that''s how she felt. How could he say any different? "Okay." He said finally. Her antlers cut the air with an audible snap as she whipped her head up to look at him. He found her darkened eyes with his golden cat gaze.


    Her chestnut toned cheeks had turned even paler, as if shocked by more than Savalt''s apartment. Her eyelids fluttered, working hard to contain the sea of tears threatening to spill. She did not speak. Her fingers where they held on to Savalt trembled. Her lips parted, and then shut again.


    Bezel had no inclination to weep for Savalt. He had no inclination to do anything, but it was too late for that. He was stuck now, doing the bidding of the Fauns he''d betrayed once many, many years ago. A mistake he was still paying for. And the ones he''d promised to protect. Which was a mistake, too, just one he''d yet to bleed for.


    "Then, let''s go speak to that neighbor--Wenroth." Bezel said. He had a feeling that this strange and dark night was only going to get worse. "I''d like to hear what he has to say."

 13 | Ira And The Beast

    In five days, they''d covered more than half of the disposal sites scattered across the Belleayre mountain range. It should have inflated Ira with hope, it should have notched his belt, except that he had nothing to show for it--unless they were counting the pink and gummy clump of flesh stuck to the bottom of his boot. Which, he did not really want to think about.


    "Black bears are generally more fearful of humans. If you see one, just wave a big stick. It''ll probably leave you alone. Now, if it was a grizzly bear--pray to the angels, cause you''re cooked." As he spoke, he swept the path ahead with the pointed end of a stick he''d collected. It might have looked like just another instance of Melchior''s nonsense, except that three miles back he''d been on the topic of venomous snakes, and now he was jumpier than a house cat in a cucumber patch. "A lot of people think deer are all cute and friendly--but have you ever been hissed at by one? It''s terrifying."


    "Hissed at?" Ira scoffed. It eased the never ending blabbering to simply participate. That had been a lesson learned through rather painful methods. As Ira walked, he rubbed his boot along the pebbled path, accomplishing nothing but spreading the goo from his arch to his heel.


    "Yeah, hissed. You gotta really experience it yourself to know." Melchior said with a shudder.


    Ira laughed, "I''m good." He rolled his shoulders, lifting the thick strap chafing at his neck. The bag had been supplied for longer trips into the forest and now weight considerably more than it had the first time they''d strayed from the city.


    Ira readjusted his shirt with a wince. He''d shed his black Deacon attire for a plain white T-shirt, but it was too thin and his skin was too exposed to the rough canvas. Ira pressed his knuckles against his warmed skin. He knew it must have been red and raised from the constant pressure.


    Melchior glanced over his shoulder, his wide hazel-green eyes flickered towards the collar of Ira''s shirt, and to the marks he''d been gathering there. "Want me to take a turn with the bag?"


    "No." Ira grumbled defensively. "You need to keep your bow ready. It''d be harder to do that while carrying the bag. Besides, I got it just fine."


    A slight exaggeration, maybe. His muscles had begun aching a few hundred yards ago, and he wanted nothing more than to crumble into the cool grass.


    So, why did he keep stomping recklessly forward? Well, it was obvious--because Melchior had never once slowed. The burden of calling defeat seemed entirely hung on Ira''s head. Melchior persevered with steadfast determination or superhuman durability.


    Ira couldn''t decide between the two, but watching Melchior bound ahead along the trail in his black jacket, uncaring for the high summer sun, certainly made the case for something supernatural. Just looking at him was giving Ira secondhand heat stroke.


    "It''s fine, I''d know if anything was around. So, can''t you just let me take it?" Melchior pouted his lips childishly, his fingers tapped along the polished belly of his wooden bow to betray his nervousness.


    Ira stroked the rough canvas strap pressed into the crook of his neck. There was nothing wrong with admitting that he needed help, Father Pine had scolded him only a million times on the matter. It wasn''t a competition, and Melchior wouldn''t have gloated even if he had won.


    Maybe Ira could lower just a fifth of his guard. He could ask Melchior to take the bag--angels. He could ask for so much more. If he let his imagination run dangerously wild, he might request a water break, too. Ira''s gummed up boot stuttered on the path ahead. He could spill all of his secrets and ease the fog rolling in the tight cage of his ribs. He could tell Melchior that he hadn''t slept for days because he was scared of falling asleep, but also because he was terrified of Melchior learning of his night terrors. He didn''t want to explain his own rotten existence. It''d been partly why he''d agreed to Melchior''s deal.


    It''d been an offering more tempting than gold. They could shed their skin and just be Deacons. It didn''t matter that they were twenty miles deep in monster infested lands--it was still more free than they had been in the city. It had seemed, at one time, impossible for Ira to ever just be--and now he could. The only price was keeping his mouth shut.


    "I''m fine." He grit, "don''t waste your breath."


    "Okay," Melchior muttered after a long moment of dejected silence. "Then let''s keep going."


    Ira nodded, stiffening his legs to keep the tremble from them. "What''s the map say? Are we close?"


    Melchior''s fingers twitched over the page. His eyes darted from pine to pine, inspecting each passing tree as if he were trying to personally see every pinecone in New York. Or, if Ira was to make an assumption less daring, as if he was looking for someone. No, something. "I don''t need the map. I can smell it now, can''t you?"


    Ira tilted his head to the sun-kissed sky. It was just after high-noon. The heat had crescendoed to match the peak of the sun''s path. It''d made light work of burning away the dawn''s dew, leaving only a trace of humidity beneath the forest canopy. Only a slight and whimpering breeze brushed through the trunks of the fir trees. On it came the stench of summer-boiled rot.


    Ira shuddered. "Here we go again." He muttered.


    Each disposal site was the same. Lumps of half-charred and bone-picked flesh laid haphazardly in a pocket of the New York wilderness. Ira could squint his eyes and pretend that each one was the same, except that he desperately needed the clues he could gleam from looking for even the smallest differences. Ira studied the clearing to give himself time to prepare for the worst.


    Unlike the first site they''d found, this clearing was anything but natural. Ira entered the glade and turned slowly to observe the ring of trees. Each one had been snapped clean at the base. Once magnificent fir trees lay crippled in the dirt. Some logs had been shattered, completely flattened into the earth. Ira shuddered. Something had stepped on them, snapping them as easily as Ira could a stick.


    The carnage was in the middle of the wreckage, laid to rot on a bed of ruptured wood. The carcass was the size of their couch back at the apartment, adorned in skin so gray it was nearly smoke-blue. Except along the edges of the clump, where it was mottled pink and welted from boiled burns. Ira knew it must have been from holy water, but that answer only ended in more confusion.


    What had prevented them from finishing the job? No, that wasn''t the right question. It couldn''t have been a mistake. They''d done it too many times, even marking it on a map in some twisted trail for Ira and Melchior to follow. So, a survey? Some sick way of retracing the Beast''s steps back to the portal? No, there was no reason to leave behind the corpses--making the map was good enough. Then was Melchior right? Was this all just bait to lure in other creatures?


    Ira groaned in frustration, raking his fingers back through his flaxen hair. It just didn''t make sense. He''d lived his life under iron-strong dedication, even when that meant testifying before the Cardinal. Even when his past sins had been dragged from him in lashes that cut soul-deep. He''d been held together by these rules, and now he was powerless as he collected each shattered regulation along the way.


    It had started with Melchior''s strange circumstances. His mysterious curse, his secret tattoo, but it had only gotten worse from there. Culminating in the betrayal of the only law that mattered; keeping the monsters from the laity. Spilling demonic corpses from Catskill to Adirondack wasn''t subtle. It was chaos for anyone to find. Well, not that Ira had seen anyone else on the usually popular trails--another strange occurrence to add to the list.


    He was standing on the precipice of the collapse. Everything pushing him together was falling away. He was splitting into a million tiny pieces--fractions of a single being pulled between thousands of past lives. Ira pressed his palms to his forehead to stifle the ache there. His heart shuddered behind his ribs, pulsing so painfully Ira thought it might burst. He was spinning out. It seemed inevitable. He wanted Peter--he wanted to see Father Pine.


    "Hey, kitten."


    Ira flinched. His shock registered as a jolt of lightning down his spine, heating his nerves and burning his skin. He cheeks flushed pink, his eyes watered at the sudden temperature of them.


    "Help me poke at this massive dead husk." Melchior finished. When Ira leveled him beneath his scorching gaze, he saw he was smirking.


    Ira rolled his eyes and shrugged the duffle bag clear from his shoulder. It landed with a thump in the grass, the only disruption in the stillness. "I got your back. If it bites at you, I''ll put it down." Ira called back. He reached to his belt, jostling the dagger he kept holstered there.


    "I''d be relieved, but my backup is stationed pretty far away." Melchior laughed. Ira shrugged because it was true, and he didn''t have any intention of coming closer just yet, even though Melchior had entered the graveyard without hesitation.


    He shifted his bow from his shoulder, bringing it into focus in the palm of his hands. He was still Melchior, full of silly mutterings and lacking in grace, but his presence had changed somehow.  When he took up his dark polished weapon, he seemed suddenly older. He seemed dangerous. Ira ignored the pitiful patter of his heart and turned his eyes away.


    It was hard to admit, even to himself, that he was scared. Too frightened to come closer, too shaken to walk on his trembling legs. He hovered at the treeline, rolling his sore shoulders to ease his tension. He''d done this before. He''d counted corpses. He''d picked through fallen trees to find small scraps of skin. He''d stepped in it, fallen in it, smelled it. It was stuck on his boot. The rot was in his hair, under his nails. He was drowning in it.


    So, why now? Why was it so hard this time? The air was suddenly heavier. Ira was being crushed beneath it. He was choking on a fog he couldn''t dislodge from his lungs. He was dizzy, he was-


    "It looks like they got all the bones from this one, too." Melchior called. His voice sounded miles away, at the surface of the ice water Ira was sinking into.


    He was tired, not that it mattered. How could he sleep, knowing he was just going to be torn apart? He sat, rougher than he''d meant to. His knees had buckled beneath him, forcing him down next to their bag with a thump.


    Melchior whirled around, searching for the cause of the sound before settling on Ira. His piercing green eyes rooted him in place, locking him into skin and bone. Making him real. Ira inhaled through his nose. He was surprised how easily it came. "You alright, kitten?"


    "Don''t-" Ira stopped. He sunk his teeth into his tongue, pressing until he could taste blood. His words caught in his throat, fizzling away there. Don''t call me that--it''d risen out of him as quick as a lash--and Ira had just barely stopped it.


    The teasing had been boiling him all day, but beneath the anger was something stronger. He didn''t want Melchior to treat him seriously. He didn''t want his attention to ever ease, as if it was the only thing keeping him from dissolving. "Don''t worry. I''m just tired."


    "Okay," Melchior shrugged. "Then I''ll take this one, but you''re getting the next three as payback."


    Ira rolled his eyes. He relaxed his spine and flopped down in the grass, resting his head on his elbow. The lawn was cold against his sun-kissed skin, still damp from last night''s mist. The shade here had protected the small droplets from burning away beneath the summer sun. "Fine--not like they''re any different." His eyelids drifted shut, aching as bad as his burden. He was tired. No, he was exhausted. He''d been going for far too long, only falling deeper and deeper into his grave.


    "What are you even talking about?" Melchior laughed. "The last one was the size of a football. This one could fit, like, five players on it."


    Ira''s blue eyes blinked in the afternoon light, filtering through the pine needles. He stared into the cloudless sky for a moment, trying and failing to picture his analogy.


    "Weird measurement method aside," Ira eventually dismissed, "the size is irrelevant. Let me guess--gray skin, mostly smooth, but sometimes it wrinkles like an elephant. No fur--maybe a few fine hairs. Pink flesh, slightly burned, no bones, and no features--no limbs, no head."


    Ira could feel the sun lick along the thin skin of his eyelids as he allowed them to slowly shut. Melchior sighed in defeat. Ira smiled at his prizeless victory.


    "That only makes it more important that we check. If we find a difference, it might really matter." Melchior huffed.


    "Sure." Ira muttered, "Knock yourself out--but unless that difference is a neatly folded little map that says ''hey, portal to hell right here!'', I don''t see how it''ll be of any use."


    Melchior groaned and fell into a silence that was wholly unnatural between them. Ira''s muscles tensed in apprehension, and he welcomed it. He couldn''t fall asleep if he remained this uncomfortable. His head weighted heavily on the joint of his elbow, causing a numbness that he pulled into focus. The smell of the corpse carried on the breeze. Ira flinched and turned his face away.


    The forest was still without Melchior''s barking. Maybe that was why he did it. Ira strained his ears until he could hear the rustle of grass and swaying of branches, but he never heard a single bird. His eyes fluttered without opening. The grass tickled at the back of his neck. The cold soaked into his shirt. There were no crickets--did they usually come out at noon? He didn''t know. It was quiet.


    Ira''s heart shivered in his ribs. Why had Melchior stopped talking? It was unlike him. Ira''s elbow popped as he pushed it into the dirt, using it as leverage to launch himself up from the inviting grass. He blinked his too-tired eyes until the fog cleared from them. "Mel--where are you?" He coughed. He didn''t like the silence. It filled him with unease.


    Ira''s heart dropped. He didn''t see him anymore--where was he? Ira''s eyes fluttered across the glade, mulling over the carcass and the carnage. Had he left? Where could he have gone? Ira flinched as the palm found his shoulder, squeezing until his warm skin began leaking heat into Ira''s chilled shirt. He snapped his head to the side, meeting Melchior''s bright gaze with his wide blue eyes.


    "I''m here." He promised.


    Ira''s cheeks filled with heat, enough to rival the fire blossoming in his shoulder. He shrugged off Melchior''s touch, scared that it might burn him away into pink and blotchy blubber. Ira folded his knees beneath himself, tucking them into a tight embrace against his chest. He felt groggy, the way he did when he''d  just woken--but that wasn''t possible. He couldn''t sleep without the visions. He''d never been able to.


    He shuddered, realizing how vulnerable he''d been--and how stupid, too. He shouldn''t have laid like that. Not without recognizing how easily the sleep would have pulled at him. It''d been close. Way too close. He''d have to find some time soon to slip away and go back to the apartment alone. So he could finally rest.


    Ira shook his head. How could he do that? Last time they''d parted, he''d regretted it. He''d done nothing but pace their apartment, Peter at his heels. Pushed nearly to breaking by worry for Melchior. Who''d been late--and clearly scuffled.


    He must have taken a tumble at some point. There was dirt on his back and grass in his hair. His cheeks had been pale. He''d been pulling at his sleeve over his tattoo and fiddling with something Ira couldn''t see in his pocket. He said he was fine. Ira wished he''d picked a less obvious lie.


    "I thought you were going to fall asleep." Melchior said.


    "No." Ira muttered. "I wasn''t."


    He ran his fingers through his hair, hoping it made him appear collected. Melchior had settled in the lawn only a short reach from him. Ira couldn''t remember when he''d come so close. He must have done it while Ira was fighting the last of his waking. He had the duffle bag open and gutted, spilling entrails across the land. Water and granola bars littered the space between them. Melchior picked up a bottle and handed it to Ira, who accepted it rather reluctantly.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    "If you''re that tired, you can take a nap. I don''t mind." Melchior picked a granola bar for himself and tore at the wrapper. He stared down at the nutty cracker with a look of dissatisfaction.


    "I mind." Ira shrugged. He cracked the cap of his bottle and drank greedily until his stomach ached. He handed the empty container to Melchior, who was sitting closer to the bag, and who quietly placed the trash back inside.


    "Well, we have time." Melchior shrugged in return. "Like you said, they''re all the same."


    Ira crossed his hands over his knees and sighed. "I shouldn''t. . .have said that." He admittedly weakly. Melchior fit him with a curious glance, and Ira gave him a withering glare in response. Melchior laughed and turned back into nibbling at his granola. "I don''t know what to do."


    Melchior set his snack on his knee. He leaned back on his palms, turning his eyes up towards the cloudless sky. "You''re being unusually honest."


    Ira bristled. He scoffed and turned his face down into his arms, hunching over his lap. "Hey, even I have my limits. We''ve been running around in circles for a week now. We only have eleven left." Ira looked at the boy lounging in the grass beside him. His stomach rolled. He didn''t want to think about the day their hourglass would drain of sand. What then? What choice would he have left? He''d have to-


    "We aren''t going in circles. It''s linear." Melchior dragged his finger through the air, cutting a likeness of their travels.


    "I think that might be worse." Ira grumbled. "We''re making progress in treading tar."


    "I don''t even know what that means." Melchior laughed. His voice echoed off the bark of the withstanding evergreen. "Has anyone ever told you you speak so old-fashioned?"


    "No," Ira huffed, "they haven''t." He ignored Melchior''s futile attempts to change the topic. It couldn''t rewrite their fates. They''d have to face it sooner if they had no later. "We need to think of a better plan."


    "Don''t die isn''t good enough for you?" Melchior quirked an eyebrow.


    "I would. . .prefer if my plan included more steps." Ira admitted.


    Melchior sighed and reclaimed his granola bar from its resting place on his knee. "You''re picky, kitten."


    "I''m trying to keep you alive." Ira scolded. "We have eleven weeks--and then it''s judgment day."


    Melchior shuddered. "Ugh, I don''t like that at all. Can we call it something else? Oh, how about Tildy. I had a great-aunt Tildy. She was terrifying for a laity woman. I still get shivers whenever I smell peppermint--she always had it on her."


    Ira''s stomach rolled, sending a wave of hot viper venom up his throat. It soaked into his tongue and his teeth, turning them acidic. "Angels, enough!" He snapped. "Why can''t you take anything seriously! Don''t you care? I think I''m-" Ira choked on his words.


    "Going to kill me?" Melchior finished. "Well, then, kitten. You better make it look cool."


    Ira blinked, incapable of doing anything but staring into the grass. "Get upset, please." He whispered. He knew he must sound pathetic, but he was helpless to stop it. The words tumbled from his split lips. "You should hate me. You should run away from me--from all of them."


    "Angels," Melchior breathed. "How could I ever leave you?"


    Ira laughed bitterly. "I think being your executioner is a good enough reason."


    "You aren''t--not right now." Melchior shook his head. "We don''t have eleven weeks. We have eighty-eight days--that''s when our lunar clock finally reaches zero."


    Ira sighed, forcing out the knot of tension blocking his throat. "You mean. . . Tildy."


    Melchior smiled, unraveling Ira''s unease as easily as yanking a loose thread. "Yeah, eighty-eight days until Tildy. We only have to take it one day at a time. Don''t jump to the end yet, kitten. I''m trying to enjoy the journey."


    "This journey?" Ira laughed, "This miserable, hot, exhausting, terrifying, dirty, and unending hike? That journey?"


    "What?" Melchior gasped, "you''re not having fun yet?"


    "No, I guess not." Ira said, rolling his eyes at Melchior''s shocked face.


    "Well, that has to be fixed." He announced. Melchior began shoving their items back into their duffle bag. He fit his granola bar between his teeth and gestured at Ira with a nod. "C''mon," he mumbled around the food in his mouth.


    "What?" Ira gasped, but Melchior wasn''t listening. He''d already slung the bag over his back and turned to leave. Abandoning Ira to scramble in his wake. He quickly snatched Melchior''s discarded bow and quiver. "Hey, Mel--hey! Oh, angels!" He couldn''t push away the smile cracking across his teeth as he chased the other boy deeper into the trees.


    ? ? ?


    Ira could hear it before he could see it. His heart pounded in his chest to match the thunderous rush of the rapids. Melchior had ignored his pestering, simply insisting that''d he know it when he saw it--and now he understood. He laughed, and Melchior turned to look at him with a dangerously relaxed smile painted across the features of his handsome face.


    "You''re joking!" Ira called. He pitched his voice to make himself known over the sound of the current. It made sense that they''d cross eventually. They''d started in Slide and had been moving further north--towards Adirondack. It had been in between, but Ira had never dreamed of stopping unless it came with another corpse and an X on their map.


    A map that Melchior had tossed into the duffle bag. He ran forward with no guide but the music of water crashing on rocks below. "I''ll forgive you for that assumption since I am a pretty funny guy, but no. Dead serious."


    "Dead, sure," Ira agreed with an unhelpful rolling of his eyes.


    "Don''t ruin the mood, kitten." Melchior chided. His steps slowed, allowing Ira to match him at his side. "I think we can connect with the trail if we turn here. We might want the stairs."


    Ira nodded, following Melchior as he adjusted their course. He slipped effortlessly through the dense spruce, recognizing it to be nearly second nature now. Melchior took them slowly down, navigating the slope with a carefulness that didn''t suit him.


    Ira glanced over his shoulder, squinting to see between the trees. A few miles behind them was Laurel House Road. It was one of a few man-made rivers to slice into the Catskills, and it should have been causing enough traffic to rival the booming of the currents--but Ira couldn''t heat anything. They''d avoided crossing it, trying to keep their contact low and profile inconspicuous, but Ira felt as if they''d wasted their time avoiding the road. It was as abandoned as the rest of the forest. He pushed the thought aside before it could spoil his mood.


    "We''re here," Melchior announced. They''d come to a stop at the bottom on the ravine, standing before the cement slabs cut into the side of the mountain that would take them into the heart of the basin. Ira brushed past him, eager to see the rushing waters.


    He climbed the steps two at a time, only slowing as he crested the top of the climb. Ira sucked in an awe stricken breath. He shivered as mist coated the inside of his lungs. The waterfall tumbled down the carved sides of the rock, spilling into two pools a hundred feet below. The water hissed, spitting up a frothy white frost over the surface of the water.


    The basin was cut into the shape of ribs, giving a cave-like overhang that Ira could retreat into to escape the summer sun. He''d been here before with Father Pine. Well, what New Yorker hadn''t been to Kaaterskill? Ira''s skin prickled. They were alone. Again.


    "Wow, and we get the place all to ourselves? Lucky." Melchior said, joining Ira at the top of the steps.


    "Yeah. . . uh, lucky." Ira mumbled. He shook his head to dissolve the questions building there. "Too bad I didn''t bring a swimsuit." The joke was awkward on his tongue, as if the words understood their purpose to be only stiffly moving past Ira''s concerns. He wasn''t as gifted at shifting the topic as Melchior.


    "A shame." Melchior agreed. He paused for a moment before tilting his head and laughing.


    Ira wondered at first what he was laughing to himself about, and then turned bright red at the idea. He wrapped his arms over his chest defensively. "W-what?" He sputtered.


    "Nothing," Melchior raised his palms in surrender. "I was just trying to speak all old-timey for you, but it really doesn''t feel right."


    Ira narrowed his eyes. "Really? That''s it?"


    Melchior frowned. "What else?" His eyebrows squinted together in confusion, but Ira knew he''d suddenly understood when his jaw dropped, and his ears turned pink. He cleared his throat and turned his eyes away. "Uh, not that--we can come swimming another time." He ran his fingertips over the back of his neck, jittering with nerves.


    "Sure," Ira laughed, "another time then."


    He didn''t mind staying away from the water. He could feel the cool mist, thick in the air. It kissed along the surface of his skin, melting away the heat of the day. That was good enough. Ira crossed carefully around the lip of the riverbank to find safety in the cliffside. He could hear Melchior trailed behind him.


    Ira picked a place beneath the ledge where they could sit on a mostly dry outcropping of rock. They settled into a slightly awkward silence. Melchior dropped the duffle bag onto the stone beneath their feet, and Ira unslung Melchior''s gear from his back to return it to him. He took it with a small smile and laid it to rest on the canvas bag.


    Ira brought his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his kneecaps. He looked out at the falling water from their new place behind the stream. Ira watched the pool churn and thought how simple it all felt.


    For a moment, Ira could pretend that it was all just a hike. He''d only had one purpose as he left the city early that morning. It was meaningless adventure, crossing the Catskills to bask at Kaaterskill Falls. He''d return to the city tonight, and tomorrow, life would resume as normal. All this flailing in the forest would be something to recount to Father Pine as the most interesting part of his week and nothing more.


    Ira frowned, tugging on the lace of his boots to dull his restlessness. If he went home, where would Melchior go? Was there a place for both of them when this was over? How could the Progeny ever forgive the debt of the boy born for sin? How could they forget the boy who was meant to die for it? Melchior seemed the other side of Ira''s coin--a cursed and unlucky penny.


    Melchior shifted on his perch, drawing Ira''s unfettered attention. He held the edges of his jacket, tugging on it as if trying to cause a breeze. His neck was red, and the color was sprouting into his cheeks. Ira tilted his head on the surface of his knees. "Getting too hot?"


    Melchior sighed. He stopped messing with his clothing and held perfectly still. "It''s fine."


    "Okay," Ira nodded. Melchior looked at him with a skeptical gaze, as if not expecting Ira to surrender, "but when you pass out from heat exhaustion, I''m going to roll you right into the Kaaterskill."


    "Top or bottom?" Melchior asked.


    "The top. Maybe the drop will knock some sense into you." Ira answered.


    Melchior laughed. "I''ll do my best not to pass out."


    Ira groaned in hollow frustration. He unfurled from his spot atop the bolder and went to their pile of things. He carefully set aside Melchior''s bow and unzipped the bag. Melchior leaned over his seat, watching Ira dig through their possessions. "What are you-"


    "Here." Ira pulled the first aid kit from the canvas and held it out for Melchior to accept.


    He turned pale and pulled his arm to his chest. "I think emergency tattoo removal is kind of extreme."


    Ira rolled his eyes. He opened the red kit, digging through antiseptic and cotton swabs until he reached the bottom. Ira flicked through the bandages until he found one large enough to cover a gashed knee. He hoped it''d be enough. He waved it in the air, demonstrating to Melchior. "Cover it. Then you can take off that jacket, and I can stop wincing every time I look at you."


    Melchior seemed frozen. His fingers twitched at his sides. "I-I don''t know, Ira."


    Ira blinked in surprise. It was strange to be called by his name so suddenly. It was even stranger to come to expect something else. His cheeks heated. He turned his face back to his shoes to hide the color of them. "Fine, I was just worried for you, but I might have overstepped."


    Melchior frowned in thought, and for a moment, neither one spoke. Ira began to wonder how long he was going to kneel in front of Melchior''s rock, but finally, he said. "Thanks."


    Ira didn''t know how to respond, so he didn''t. Melchior didn''t seem to be waiting for a reply, either. He took the bandage from Ira''s grasp. Ira turned away, staring out at the glistening water. He didn''t peak, and he didn''t speak. He didn''t even move until Melchior''s fingertips brushed against the side of his bare wrist. "It''s fine now."


    Ira turned around slowly, trying to feel casually about seeing Melchior in a T-shirt. He''d bought it for him when he''d bought his own. Even then, he hadn''t really expected to see him in it, not without his suffocating jacket.


    It was silly to feel as embarrassed as he did. Ira rubbed the back of his neck and thought that this might be how the boys in all those movies felt, standing at the bottom of the staircase, watching as their prom date came down the steps in her formal gown. He was breathless, and he didn''t know what to say, and he didn''t know why it all mattered so much to him.


    Melchior pressed his left wrist into his lap nervously. Ira could see the edges of the bandage wrap around to the top of his arm. He must have been fully covered and just as unexplainably shy as Ira. His arms were the same deep, rich russet as the rest of him, never dulled by a lack of sunshine. He had arms attuned to the bow, and Ira suddenly understood why he seemed so powerful holding it. Ira cleared his throat and began sorting through the duffle bag again.


    "Water?" He choked.


    "Uh, sure," Melchior agreed. He folded his jacket over his lap, accepting the bottle with his right hand.


    Ira settled back into his spot with a granola bar. He stretched out his legs and sighed, understanding how Peter felt lazing in the sunspots leaking in from the windows. Ira was simply content. He didn''t think that had been possible for them, as long as Tildy loomed in the distance, but he''d been wrong. And for once, he was grateful to be wrong.


    "If we stay any longer, we might just get stuck for the sunset." Ira announced.


    "Let it." Melchior shrugged.


    "Okay." Ira agreed.


    So, they sat and watched the time flutter by. Melchior gazed out at the trees beyond, letting Ira soak in the peaceful silence. When the sun began to sink beneath the tips of the spruce, it cast an arc of burning color across the cloudless sky. Golden orange light licked across the sky, leaving behind traces of pink. The water turned peach-warm beneath the gaze of it.


    The spruce trees glittered emerald gold. Ira tucked his head into his knees, breathing in the cool evening breeze. Melchior seemed to be doing the same. He tilted his head back and sighed. Ira wondered what he was looking for on the wind. Maybe the smell of pine sap, the rich earth, the spray of the river mist. Anything was better than the stench of dead demons.


    He closed his eyes. He knew if he stayed this way, he''d fall asleep. Maybe that didn''t matter. If Melchior could shed his jacket, Ira could lower just a little of his guard, too. He nestled into the crook of his arm and let the soft sounds of the world pull at him.


    The vice-like grip on his upper arm forced a gasp from his lips and drained the sleep from his mind. Ira snapped his head upright, glaring at Melchior to sort out some explanation, but he wouldn''t get one.


    Ira gasped again, nearly spilling from his rock as Melchior began pushing him. "Mel-" Ira''s words died in his throat as Melchior''s palm came up to press into his lips. Melchior stood, and Ira followed to avoid being knocked down on the wet stone floor.


    He pushed at Melchior''s wrist, digging his nails into the new skin he found there. Melchior''s eyes glimmered as sharply as candle light in the evening hour. His gaze raked across Ira, filling his stomach with tension. That gaze that Ira had likened to stars, it frightened him now.


    Ira tumbled backward as Melchior began pushing him. His foot snagged on a rock, and he was slipping. He would have crashed into the sharp rocks, but Melchior gripped his waist and pulled him to his feet. Ira''s heart thrummed in his chest. He twisted in Melchior''s arms.


    Melchior loosened his grip, giving him just enough space to turn and face the direction they were moving in. Ira shivered as Melchior''s breath tickled along the back of his neck. Melchior brought his lips to the shell of Ira''s ear. He spoke so softly that Ira nearly missed him beneath the churning river. "Don''t speak."


    Ira nodded, and slowly, Melchior removed his hand. He gently pushed Ira''s back, forcing him deeper into the basin wall. Ira picked his feet carefully through the rough terrain. He couldn''t focus, and he kept missing the proper footholds. He stumbled, time after time, and Melchior kept catching him. He moved deeper until the soft sunlight sky couldn''t touch them. Melchior forced him roughly down on his knees, pressing him flat against the cold stone wall.


    Ira was afraid. He was confused, and he was silent. He stiffened as Melchior lowered into the spot beside him. Melchior pressed into Ira''s side, fanning his whispers across his cheek. "Something is coming."


    Ira''s heart stuttered in his chest. "W-" He choked down his words and sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. What''s coming? How could Melchior possibly know that? It was too loud near the water to hear anything, and Ira hadn''t seen anything. Ira blushed, shaking his head. He''d had his eyes closed, nearly asleep. What choice did he have but to trust Melchior?


    He gave in with a nod. Melchior slightly relaxed at his side. His head turned to look out of the mouth of the overhang. He held perfectly still, and Ira did, too. He didn''t move until both his feet turned numb. He sat as the stars began to blink into sleepy existence in the oil sky.


    He did nothing, burning with anger the longer he sat in silence. How long was he meant to blindly wait? He looked at Melchior. He was drumming his fingertips across his knees, seemingly lost in thought. Ira practically groaned. Did he even have an idea anymore?


    Ira shifted. Melchior stilled him with a palm against his leg. Ira shook him off, and Melchior fit him with a bright green look.


    "Wha-"


    "Shh." Melchior cut.


    Ira blinked before scoffing. "Did you just-"


    "Shh!" Melchior repeated. He raised his hand, aiming to cover Ira''s mouth again. Ira snatched his wrist. Melchior stilled. Ira could feel the rough fabric of the bandage in his palm. He let go, shaking off his hand as if he''d been burned.


    "I didn''t mean-" Ira began, his cheeks burned with regret.


    "Kitten, quiet." Melchior pressed.


    Ira scoffed. Nothing had happened. For the entire hour, he''d kept them squeezed into the back of the cliff''s belly. Ira rolled his eyes to soothe the heat he felt from being shushed. He shifted on his heels, trying to work out the discomfort prickling in his limbs. His neck ached, his spine, too. Ira twisted at his hips, trying to stretch out the stiffness.


    Melchior glowered at him. Ira turned away from him. He didn''t want to wither beneath his glare. Anything else seemed more tempting. He faced the rock wall to his back and focused on the curves and cracks there. He was driven to study rocks to pass the minutes. Ira sighed, leaning into the cave wall with his shoulder. He traced the walls with his fingers, skipping over small fissures and chips.


    There was a crevice bigger than the others, only a few inches from Ira''s nose. Ira froze. There was a sound coming from inside of it, a small shuffling. Ira felt equally drawn to it and repulsed. He leaned forward, peaking into the small and dark hole. For a moment, he saw nothing. He began to think that it''d been a trick from his tired mind.


    That was until the creature opened its piercing white eyes. Ira gasped, and the bat chittered angrily in response. It rushed forward on fluttering wings of soft brown flesh. Ira might have screamed. He liked to think that he didn''t. He shoved himself backward, just barely managing to avoid the small brown bat as it fled the hole. Ira winced as the back of his head knocked into the cold ground.


    "Ira!" Melchior hissed. His hands found him in the dark, righting him and pulling him away from the crevice. Ira''s heart was thudding so heavily. He thought he might be sick. "Why can''t you just listen to me?" He snapped.


    Ira blinked. Venom coated the back of his throat. "Listening?" He snarled back. "How could I do that when you''ve not spoken to me! I went where you so roughly shoved me, did I not?" His voice echoed off the ceiling of the cliff.


    Melchior winced. "Okay, just calm down-"


    "Angels!" Ira yelled, "stop telling me what to do!" His shout shook the cave. If there were any more bats, they would have fled from the force of it.


    "Kit-" Melchior froze. His head snapped to face the water. "Its-"


    The scream cut the night, sharper than Ira''s Ossein blade. He flung his palms over his ears to block out the wailing. It filled his stomach with aching. His ribs squeezed down on his painfully beating heart. It was the worst sound he''d ever heard, and it was getting closer.


    "It''s here." Melchior said.


    The Beast howled. The force of it rattled the stars in the sky and pine from the earth. Ira squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to the angels.

 14 | Everyone Hates Bezel

    Bezel might have been glad to leave Savalt''s wrecked apartment--except that he wasn''t all that happy and he couldn''t quite pick apart the reason why. Well, reasons. There were many thing happening now that could have dampened his non-existent mood to an even colder lump in his ribs. Mostly that he couldn''t be happy or sad or bothered, but that wasn''t a very entertaining answer and he was suffering from a very boring day.


    So he tried to think of things that might have upset him if they could. Such as the saturnine way Mayvalt conducted herself. Bezel assumed she would have taken her chance to flee the apartment, but after shutting the door she''d lingered. She bowed her head and didn''t flinch as the tips of her velvet antlers scratched into the cheap paint. She whispered softly to herself. Not so softly that Bezel could not hear--but enough so that he knew he was not meant to. And so he did not. He turned his golden eyes away, ignoring her as she pressed her flat palms against the imperfect wood and prayed. No, it wasn''t that. Mayvalt''s worries had never bothered Bezel before, and they didn''t now.


    So, it might have been the sickening iron scent in the air. Even though they''d sealed Savalt''s apartment, the heavy stench of the carnage inside leaked into the packed hallway of the apartment complex. It clung to the dreary paint and pilling carpets. It seemed so obvious in the air, it couldn''t have gone unnoticed. Especially to the sensitive-nosed Fauns. It was another question to toss at Wenroth, but not a reason bothersome enough to cause Bezel any discomfort.


    So, might it have been something as simple as growing weary? Bezel was known for his habit of running away. He often retired to his office whenever the Fauns caused him too much trouble. Maybe that aching hollow thud in his chest was merely an instinct. One warning him to go back to the Meatpacking District before his wards stirred up anymore problems. Yes, maybe that was it. He was quickly tiring of Bed-Stuy, the low-street, and all of its occupants. He could walk away now, buying time with Mayvalt by telling her that he was going to investigate at Eden. If he even cared to redirect her at all.


    He could wash his hands of all of it--and what could they do but mutter to themselves that Bezel had done nothing but uphold his reputation as a snake in the grass. They couldn''t find fault in the ocean for sinking ships, or in the winds for tearing away the fragile wings of a beautiful butterfly. It was only his nature, one that he would always return to.


    Bezel shook his head. Fine, he might as well offer Mayvalt a ride back home with him. "May-"


    "Thank you, Ba''al." She whispered. Her fingers twitched against the door, as if her prayer had filled her skin with electricity. "For helping me, and Savalt."


    Bezel froze. He ran his fingers through his oil-dark hair and winced to participate in the fanfare of fake emotions clouding the inside of his skull. Well, now this was going to be awkward. Maybe he should just leave on his own. Mayvalt could find her own way--and that would give him enough time to falsify some results from his goose chase.


    Mayvalt crossed the hall to stand beside him. She''d wrapped her arms tight around her chest. Her doe-wide eyes were trained on the stained gray carpets. "I know it''s not easy." She whimpered. Bezel tilted his head, mimicking confusion as blatantly as a dog so that she''d feel prompted into further explaining herself. What was easy or difficult to someone born to never feel the scratch of challenge? He was a creature beyond strife or suffering.


    "I know that you think you can''t care." Mayvalt said.


    Bezel scoffed only to sting her, "you know that I can not care, Mayvalt. You were there when the Fauns stripped it from me. In fact, if I am to perfectly recall the past, you were the one who led them right to me."


    Mayvalt stiffened. Her antlers sliced the air as her head snapped up to face him. Her cheeks had drained of their usual chestnut color. "Are you saying that I betrayed you, Ba''al? I was a child! And you left me--so that you could have a life with that bone-snatcher!" Her words flung from her before she could think better of them. They settled in the hall, as all-consuming as the stench of death. Her wide brown eyes blinked in shock. Her hands come up next, pressing tightly over her lips in remorse.


    Bezel stared at her with his glittering golden cat eyes. "I remember," he said coldly, "and I remember that you and I were reunited when you brought the rangale to tear him and I apart, so perhaps reminiscing on the past isn''t in anyone''s best interest."


    Mayvalt shook as the chills raced down her spine. From behind trembling fingers she whispered, "I didn''t think that they''d-"


    "Have him killed?" Bezel finished. He didn''t think it was necessary to hear her say it. He might have even preferred it so much that she didn''t, he could dare to say he didn''t want her to have to say it. There was a bitter taste in his mouth, ash left behind from the harsh words he''d spoken, and he knew how acidic the rot of it would have been to someone who could still taste. So it was better to swallow it himself. And yet, he could not stomach the vile retort spilling up from his chest. He spit it out at her, uncaring of the lashes it''d burrow into her skin. "Well, I guess no one could have predicted what the Heimrians would do to someone they deemed different. Right, Mayvalt?"


    She turned sheet-white. Her fingers sunk into her peach-toned frizz, where they gripped the base of her antlers and did not move. "I didn''t-" she choked on her hollow words and fell into silence.


    Bezel shoved his hands into his pockets and reclined his shoulders, trying to dissolve the look of his invisible tension. He shouldn''t pick fights in public places--and anything within a mile radius of a Faun''s flickering ear was public. If he had interest in continuing with her, he should at least take her to Eden, where no one was daring enough to eavesdrop. It was time to go home. None of this mattered--he was sick of pretending that it did.


    He looked at her, hunched shoulders, and slumped back. Her pale fingers were clutching at the living bone from her skull, trembling over the velvet. He sighed in defeat, "stop that now." He ordered. Her arms fell slowly to her sides. She kicked at the pilling carpet with the toe of her wide leather boot to dispense the anxiety eating at the wires in her brain. "Go knock on his door, and make it loud like you mean it."


    Her shoulders stiffened. She looked at Bezel with eyes full of disbelief. "You''re still going to help me? You''ll help me find Savalt--when I''m the reason you''re always looking for h-him?"


    Bezel shrugged. "What I know now, I knew this morning when you dragged me here. It will never change." He said, but it wasn''t true. Something had changed, his mind had changed. No, quicker than that. It had snapped. A tide had gone back into the sea, when everyone had been expected it''s landfall. He would finish this. Whatever it was. He''d help Mayvalt find the answers, even if they stung. So, that she''d know what it was to lose. So, she could have her heart carved out, too.


    "Mayvalt, the door." He gestured and she surged forward on her leather platform boots. She wiped the last of her emotion from her face, donning a mask eerily similar to the one Bezel always wore. It was nothing. Apathy soaked skin. She balled up her fist and slammed it into the door across the hall. The wood shook in its frame. The bang echoed down the hall, only deafened by the spike of heartbeats that followed. It was the music of fear.


    "Now, now, Mayvalt. We agreed you''d play good cop." Bezel sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in mock irritation. She shrugged, looking slightly sheepish beneath the teeth of her ruthlessness. Well, to Bezel. He was sure to anyone else passing by, she looked intent to kill--but she could never hide herself from him. It was in the corner of her eyes, a small glimmer of mischief in the oak-brown.


    "I can play both cops, boss. You should make yourself a little scarce." She gestured with open palms, dragging from his slicked back midnight hair to his polished leather dress shoes. "You''re just a bit much. Sorta cramping the vibe, y''know? Sap, I don''t mean it personally. Hm, how can I say it--it''s just that everyone hates you?"


    "Of course," Bezel muttered blankly, "not personal at all."


    Mayvalt shrugged. Bezel sighed, it was the last thing he did before fading into hollow smoke. Mayvalt popped him a thumbs up. Bezel almost rolled his eyes--but what would be the point if she couldn''t see it. He wasn''t actually annoyed, nor was he bothered by her antics, hurt by her past actions, insulted at her words, tired of helping her--he was nothing. Everything he did was just another illusion, strings in a web made by a spider who preferred to deter flies instead of catching them.


    The door swung inwards, coming to a sudden snapping halt as the chain lock reached its full length. "Whaddya want?" The Faun inside barked. He had a voice as pleasant as rock salt.


    "Wenroth," Mayvalt greeted coolly. Bezel cocked his head at her. She was usually bubbles and sunrise-warmed clouds to everyone she came across. Even those she disliked. Or maybe she was only that way to Bezel, and he''d never cared to note it before. He shook his oil-dark head to earmark his useless thoughts. She was only playing bad cop, he shouldn''t try so hard to understand every little emotional twinge she displayed. It was unnecessary. "You haven''t been coming by Eden lately."


    "I paid my debt," He snarled. His eye fit in the crack of the door, scowling into the hall. His vengeful gaze raked over Mayvalt, hot enough to scorch her flesh beneath her leathers.


    "Yes, six months ago. Congratulations by the way." Mayvalt nodded. She leaned forward, placing her palms against Wenroth''s front door. She pressed into it, causing the chain to creak beneath her strength. "Are we not to your liking anymore? Why''d you stop coming by?" She pouted playfully, blinking her wide eyes in mock concern.


    Bezel would have, if he could have, felt proud. She was a cat, perfectly poised over a squealing mouse. He blinked. That sounded familiar. He glanced over his shoulder, at Savalt''s apartment door. He was missing something.


    "Phrionnsa," Wenroth spat. Bezel tilted his head at the old curse. It was Heimrian, from the old island. The Faun had taken it from the stories they''d been told from the travelers. He didn''t know how it applied here, maybe Mayvalt understood his joke better. She laughed, it spilled from the smile splitting her face.


    "Sap, you''re funny." She smirked. "Now, while I''m still in this good mood--you should start behaving."


    Wenroth huffed, filling the small doorway with the acid from his breath. "I have nothing to say to his maggot."


    "Then, would you prefer to speak to our Prince yourself?" Mayvalt asked. She tapped her chin with the tip of her pointer finger, as if puzzling some sort of difficult question. Bezel could have rolled his eyes if she''d looked at him. She played with her food too much. He might have stepped from the shadows now, just to spoil her surprise, but he stayed quietly and contently concealed.


    Wenroth''s door creaked as it inched forward, tightening the gap he''d given into his apartment. Mayvalt rolled forward on her heels, shoving her shoulder against the wood before he could completely shut her out. The door whimpered as Mayvalt forced it back. Wenroth hissed, freeing his agitation with his tongue. "The Third Prince--the two-time traitor--has no right to us any longer!"


    Bezel flicked his tongue across his fang-like teeth. Two-time? What had he done now?


    "Is that what''s happened? They''re all fleeing on their contracts?" Mayvalt snapped, "because of the Demon-Born war? Sap, why now? The Prince paid for his sin centuries ago."


    "Sap, sap, sap!" Wenroth barked. "You have no right to our words, Phrionnsa! You''re no Faun--if only your poor parents could see what became of you, then they''d know what a waste it was to bestow you with the great Volt name!"


    Mayvalt froze. Her cheeks paled, turning silver as moonlight. "V-valt," she winced.


    Wenroth laughed from his perch beyond the door. "Ah, so the little maggot even knows grammatical gender--cling to our tradition as hard as you can, it will never make you one of us."


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Mayvalt growled, flashing the pearl white teeth behind her tulip red lips. "I agree. I''ll never be a coward like the rest of you. The boss protected you! He brought you here! And you''d abandon him? You''re pathetic."


    "He abandoned us!" Wenroth scowled. "He always has, and he always will."


    Bezel heard the footsteps before the Faun spoke. They had a voice as timid as cattails in the breeze, and Bezel had to lean forward on his toes to hear them. "W-Wenroth? Who''s at the door?"


    Wenroth sucked in a deep breath of surprise. "It''s no one! Go back to bed, Luvolt." He turned his lips back into the crack in the door. "Leave, Phrionnsa."


    Mayvalt shoved her boot into the doorway, uncaring as Wenroth slammed the wood slab into her false foot. He growled in frustered. Mayvalt smirked. "I''m not done yet."


    Bezel could see the cogs turning in her mind. Wenroth was nothing but a rotten tree stump, as she''d put it, and her attentions would be better turned to a new target. Mayvalt cocked her head. Her eyebrows creased over her wide headlight bright eyes.


    "Lu. . ." she murmured. Her mouth popped open in familiarity. Suddenly, Bezel was nearly grateful that Mayvalt spent so much time chattering on the floor of Eden. "Luvelt?" She called.


    Wenroth scoffed, the door creaked as he pushed on it again. Mayvalt pushed back, bracing her forearms against the wood. She glanced over her shoulder, somehow finding Bezel even when he was nothing but fog. He sighed his understanding and slid in beside her, forcing the door back. The chain groaned, links tore. Wenroth gasped. Bezel stopped pushing, mostly because Mayvalt had fixed him with a glare.


    "Hey, Luvelt, right?" She called again.


    The apartment was silent. Bezel wondered if they''d slipped out the window.


    "Luvelt?" Mayvalt asked.


    "Y-yes," came the weak half-bleat.


    "Enough! Go back to bed, Luvolt! Right now!" Wenroth snarled.


    "Don''t listen to him, Luvelt!" Mayvalt snapped back. "He''s an old goat."


    "Wenroth, what''s going on?" Luvelt murmured from inside of the apartment. "Is it Mayvalt? Let her in--we work together. She''s really not as bad as the rangale say."


    Bezel felt her stiffen beside him. She winced, turning her eyes down against the stained hallway carpet. "I guess everyone hates me, too, boss." She murmured. She blew out a small puff from her nose to laugh, but she didn''t seem to find her joke too funny.


    "Hush, Luvolt!" Wenroth barked. "Don''t speak ill of the rangale in the presence of a lowly outsider."


    "I-is it. . .about S-Sa-" Luvelt whimpered.


    The door fell back into the full length of chain. Mayvalt stumbled forward into it, wincing as the links groaned. Wenroth''s heavy foot falls echoed deeper into the apartment.


    "Hey! Wenroth!" Mayvalt yelled, she pounded her fists against the door. "Come back here right now! We weren''t done talking!" She glanced over her shoulder, into the empty hall. "B-boss, please, help me!"


    Bezel flung his heel forward, snapping the chain beneath the force of his kick. The door flew inward, and so did Mayvalt. She gasped, bringing her hands up over her eyes to block out the debris from the blow-up. The old wood slammed against the wall, shattering in a puff of sawdust. Bezel snatched her by the shoulder, keeping her from spilling into the shards of broken door littering the entryway of the small apartment.


    "Six Princes!" Wenroth cursed, flinging up his arms to cover his face from the commotion. "What do you think you''re doing?" Luvelt collapsed, dropping to their knees in the middle of the hall.


    Mayvalt sunk against the empty door frame, panting for each breath. Her cheeks were flushed pink, her eyes glazed--except for the small pits in the middle. Which were clear, and full of fear. They rolled over the apartment--looking for him. "Ba''al," she whispered.


    Wenroth choked, sputtering as he was hauled to his feet. He pulled with clammy fingers at the invisible hands wrapped around his throat. Bezel pushed him back, slamming him against the wall as insignificantly as he had the door. Wenroth coughed, he clawed at the fabric of his shirt where Bezel had grabbed it. The neckline was twisting, a rope over the neck of a bucking stallion.


    "Boss!" Mayvalt yelled. She pushed off the doorframe, rushing to Wenroth''s side. Her hands found him flawlessly, they always did. Even when he was less than smoke. Her shaking fingers sunk into the slick fabric of his suit, pressing into his arm with bone-shattering strength. "Don''t kill him!"


    Was that his legacy? A killer, a coward, a runner, a traitor. Bezel loosened his hold on the magic living in his skin. He shook it off as easily as rain, watching it slip down the length of him to shatter against the carpet. He looked at her, pale and trembling, and did not offer her any glimmer of humanity in his golden cat eyes. He wasn''t in the mood to play pretend.


    "M-my m-m-my Pr-Pr-"


    "Save it, Wenroth." Bezel snarled. Mayvalt''s fingers might have been warm against his unfeeling flesh, but there was much more than just fabric keeping them apart. He released the sputtering fish, just to stop feeling the water around his line. He shook free from her touch and crossed his arms over his still chest.


    Mayvalt went to him where he fell. She pulled at the stretched neck of his dirty old shirt, ignoring his weak hands as they slapped at her wrists. "That''s gonna bruise." She muttered sourly. She glared at Bezel, and he didn''t know why. Why she''d asked for his help, why it wasn''t good enough, why anyone cared what happened to the sniveling Faun on the floor.


    Bezel lowered himself to the whimpering man on the floor, perching his arms across the tops of his knees. "I remember you." The Faun flinched. He grasped at his red throat, his eyes fell to the ground and did not waver again. "You have horns the color of spoiled egg shells."


    Mayvalt''s gaze flickered to the top of the Faun''s graying hair--as if she could peak beneath the blanket of Bezel''s charms. It was impossible, of course. Not even Bezel could see something once he''d decided it was to be gone. His fingers slowly went to them, wrapping around something that no one could see.


    "You speak as if you''re rangale." Bezel said cooly. "Well, are you?"


    Wenroth pulled his lips back, revealing rotten fangs. "I am."


    Bezel struck quicker than a viper, his fingers sunk past the fragile walls of reality to seize the horns beneath his protection. He wrapped his grip over the keratin and pushed, snapping Wenroth''s head back against the hall with a heavy thump. Wenroth paled, and so did Mayvalt. Bezel could hear whimpering from down the hall, where Luvelt was still crumpled on the floor. "Rangale don''t believe in covering their marks. So, what does that make you now? Rangale, or just another coward?"


    "At least I''m not a fly pretending to be above the filth." Wenroth snarled.


    Bezel shrugged, "what else are wings for?"


    This was pointless. Wenroth was never going to tell them anything. Bezel thought he could shake it from him, but he was only fueling Wenroth''s determination. Mayvalt had likened him to silk strings the last time they''d spoken. She''d been right to judge him that way--but she had been wrong about the strength of silk.


    Mayvalt was not usually wrong. She''d been right to bring them here. Something was strange about the pair. Bezel blinked, shaking his head with a silent scoff. It was obvious. If one was no help, it was better to move on.


    He released Wenroth''s prongs and stood to his full height. He rolled his shoulders, dropping his agitation as easily as he had his second magical skin. It was easy to halt his anger, when it had never been real. He strolled down the hall, encroaching on the sound of pitiful sobs.


    "Ba''al," Mayvalt warned, "that''s enough."


    "How could it have been enough when we haven''t found what we need?" Bezel asked. He came to a stop next to the curled body on the carpet, staring down at it as apathetically as one might gaze upon a rat in the street.


    "Boss." Mayvalt''s hand wrapped around his wrist, trying to dislodge him from his set course. It was hopeless, a hummingbird could never disway a cyclone. It didn''t matter how hard she beat her wings.


    Bezel''s ears twitched to the sound behind him. Wenroth fell into the wall as he climbed to his feet, his heart pounded as loudly as cannonfire. Bezel smirked in mock amusement. "Your guest is leaving, Mayvalt. You should go get him."


    "What?" She balked. Bezel didn''t need to look behind himself to know he was right. The sound of booming footfall and Mayvalt''s colorful curse told him that he was right. "Princes! I''ll get him! Don''t do anything, boss! I mean it!" She spun on her heels, dashing out of the wrecked apartment.


    Bezel watched the Faun on the floor curl into a smaller ball with cold detachment. "Why she sees me as such an obedient little lap dog, I don''t know." He said. Luvelt didn''t reply. If not for the music of their rapid heart--Bezel might have believed them to be asleep.


    "I''ve heard that mother deer leave their young in tall grass patches. The fawn curls up, real small, and stays frozen all day. Just waiting for their mother to come back for them." Bezel said.


    Luvelt''s arms twitched as they tightened around their chest. Well, it was something.


    "I wonder--what would happen if their mother never returned? How long would the fawn lay there, until days had passed? Until it began to starve? When would it get up on its trembling legs and go out--would it ever?" He thought of a young child with wide brown eyes, marked by small nubs sprouting from messy dark hair. "What if the little deer did venture out, only to encounter the very thing that had snapped up its mother?"


    Luvelt whimpered, and Bezel sighed. He didn''t know why. Mayvalt wasn''t here to prod at him to act more natural. It had been nearly reflexive, except that Bezel could still taste the tension in his atrophied muscles from the effort of his action. "I''ll admit, back when I could hate things, I very much hated you." He shook his head theatrically, "not you you--all of you. Fauns. I can''t say it''s completely your fault. It''s just your nature to be. . . how can I say it politely? Pathetic? No, sorry that''s not what I mean. Ah, yes, you''re cowards!"


    Luvelt stiffened on the floor. They sniffled, a replacement to their sobs from earlier. "W-w. . ." Luvelt whispered against the carpet. "What. . . changed?"


    "I lost." Bezel shrugged. He should have been glad that his punishment had taken the ache from him. Except that he''d give anything to feel the weight of his loss, even if it would be the thing to tear him apart. It welled up, deep in the pit of his ribs, and then pittered out before he could even guess what it was meant to be. As pathetic as a candle in the midst of a thunderstorm--extinguished by forces he could never hope to overcome. "What, they don''t teach the shackling of the Fly Lord in school anymore?"


    Luvelt shook their head, ruffling their mossy green hair into even more of a mess. Slowly, they unfurled their face from the pit they''d folded themselves up into. Bezel met their waterlogged eyes, recognizing the familiar bark-brown of them. "They did." Luvelt nodded. "And they mentioned her--sap, everyone knows her. Phrionnsa."


    Bezel glanced over his shoulder. He smiled, a hollow mask that rolled off the surface of his skin. "The princess."


    Luvelt nodded slowly, "they say she came before."


    "She did." Bezel agreed.


    "So, what changed?" The Faun asked again.


    "She was braver than all the rest." Bezel admitted. "She knew what was right--even when it was hard. No, even when it was the hardest thing in the world." His throat was hollow. He''d have swallowed glass to make those words hurt how he knew they were suppose to. It''d been her sense of right and wrong that had seen Bezel''s heart burned--and then cut from his chest.


    Luvelt set their chin on their knees, sitting in a humble pose on the carpet. It''d been the only thing they could muster up to pull themself off of laying on the floor. It reminded Bezel of a child kneeling before their teacher. "I. . . want to do the right thing." They pulled their legs in tight beneath the embrace of slender arms.


    "Its only us now, Luvelt." Bezel said.


    Luvelt flinched, turning a crimson red in the peaks of their ears. Bezel wracked his mind, and couldn''t think of anything to justify the alarm. He''d used the right name, he was sure of it. Or, maybe Luvelt was just scared to be alone with the Third Prince. He was an imposing figure--and he''d bashed in their door.


    "P-Prince. . ." Luvelt whimpered. "Do you. . .remember all the marks you take?"


    Bezel could have listed them. He could have filled a book with everything that he had hidden, but he knew that Luvelt was looking for something else. No one could ever just clearly say what they meant. They always left Bezel to pick through their tangled riddles. "They reminded me of nails."


    Luvelt blinked. "What, sir?"


    "Your horns." He said, "They stuck so straight. And they looked so sharp. They were black, with ridges peeking from your hair--but it wasn''t green back then."


    Luvelt smiled softly. "Thank you, sir."


    He nodded his stiff acknowledgement. "Will you help us, Luvelt?"


    They grew still again. It didn''t take much more than his stunted intuition to see he''d ruined things. Bezel dragged his fingers through his hair to disperse the sense of frustration to his one-Faun audience. Mayvalt said it soothed people to know that he felt things--even the bad things--and even if it was all a lie.


    "The rangale say you''re a traitor," Luvelt murmured into their knees, "that you''ve never had our interest at heart."


    "That''s true." Bezel agreed. "I''ve only ever had one thing in my heart--and they took it from me."


    "Then why, sir? Why do you help?" Luvelt asked. Their voice was smaller than raindrops, and just as soft against his skin.


    Bezel could have recounted the catch of his deal. The rangale had taken everything from him--but they''d given him something else in return. They''d painted it as mercy. He''d taken it as payment. Yet it was only an assurance, one meant to keep him from biting the hand that''d slapped him, and then fed him.


    They''d given him a raft in his turbulently still waters. A way to make his cold heart stir. If he could return to his dead lover''s side--it would be as warm as living. Until the day that they were torn apart again, and they would be. It was the purpose of a Heimrian to die. How could he ever do anything but Satyrian bidding when they held his only hope in their palms?


    He shrugged, "I guess I don''t really have a reason--just an abundance of time which I''m trying to kill somehow."


    "I see." Luvelt nodded slowly. They creased up the lines of their eyebrows, as if trying to decipher the rhymes behind Bezel''s words. When it seemed they could not, their oak-brown eyes darted into the hall. When it fell silent between them, which it had now, Bezel could hear the symphony of racing heartbeats behind each door. "My loyalty lies with the Faun, sir. I''ll do what''s necessary to protect them."


    "Even if it''s hard?" Bezel asked.


    Luvelt flinched, they tucked their face back into the crook of their elbow and inhaled sharply through their nose. "Yes, sir. Even when it''s the most difficult thing to do."


    Bezel stared at the trembling shape on the floor. He could grasp them by their nail-like horns and force the words he needed. Mayvalt was busy now, not that she''d ever have the power to stop him. He ran his fingers over his face, soothing away his blank expression.


    "Okay." He surrendered. "I understand. I''ll take Mayvalt, we''ll go back to Eden."


    Luvelt snapped stiff, their cheeks drained of color and their eyes flushed with tears. "Y-you''re just. . . letting me go?"


    Bezel tilted his head, "We only came to ask questions, if you have nothing to say then I have no use for you." He glanced behind him, at the cracked door. Maybe if he was able, he would have felt embarrassed for breaking it down. Maybe he''d been right to come in when he did--he didn''t know. He''d ask Mayvalt later. "Do you have some other place to stay? I can keep Wenroth from coming back here--I could move you somewhere better."


    "I think . . . I''d just like to sit here a little longer." Luvelt murmured.


    He wondered how long Luvelt would wait in the grass.

 15 | Melchior Monster Bait Brisbane

    Melchior had been foolishly optimistic that things could change--but for every one brick that he tore out of the wall between them, three more appeared. The barrier was a living breathing beast, one that Melchior couldn''t peirce with his bone-tipped arrows or flee from on shaking legs.


    He''d thought that things might get better, and that''d been his mistake. It seemed the harder he tried, the harder the world came around to bite him. He''d been drawn into the silly idea of wasting an evening at the Kaaterskill, and the angels had returned to him something far worse. A reminder as to why these two boys were in the woods at all. A reminder of what those two boys were. The soul of the Progeny, and his sidekick, bitter sickness.


    That really was all Melchior could be in the story. There was the light, the soul, the hero--and the sacrifice. He didn''t mind. His life had been steadily spiraling downward since his accident. He knew that Ira''s blade was the kindest thing awaiting him at the bottom. He was only embarrassed to have thought he had a chance. And perhaps remorseful, too, that he''d dragged Ira along with him.


    He had tricked himself into thinking that Ira was his equal, someone like him. He wasn''t. Ira was his reminder--no different from the branding in the hollow of his wrist. It seemed clearer now, so much so that he didn''t know how he''d deluded himself into believing any differently in the first place.


    The proof of it was in their hearts, and Melchior couldn''t cut that out. Ira was promised by angels--Melchior had been made from the fibers of a nightmare six years ago. He knew that now, the same way he knew that Ira was falling asleep. He could hear it.


    Echoing from behind the shell of his ribs. Melchior tilted his head to better soak in the sound of his heartbeat. He let it wash over him as soothing as the tide. Each pulse filled his ears with deep and hollow thumps.


    Ishmael would have scolded him--Ailbe would have smacked the back of his head. He knew he wasn''t supposed to listen to the thing he wasn''t meant to hear--but he couldn''t resist. It was better than any secret. It was an electricity that filled his skin, his bones, and his mind until it began pouring from the inside out.


    He knew what he was thinking before Ira even knew it himself. Melchior could hear Ira''s fears better than he could feel his own. It was in the way his blood pounded as faithfully as the churning wharf of the Kaaterskill, deafening Melchior to anything else in the forest. He could hear it all--the rustle of pine, the chirp of crickets, the thudding footfall of a Beast--and he turned it all away. He only wanted to listen to Ira falling asleep.


    He shook his head until he was dizzy--he couldn''t afford to be so blinded. He was running out of time. He''d need to leave soon--which would be much easier if Ira would just give in. Melchior could have scoffed at that. Ira wasn''t so easily defeated. He fought his weariness as dutifully as he fought everything else. He sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. He tapped his feet, he clenched and unclenched his fists. He was burning with anger--it rose as his heartbeat slowed.


    They''d been sitting beneath the Kaaterskill cliffs for much of the night, shivering as the stars replaced the clouds, waiting with bated breath for the next move. Melchior''s gut was rolling with anticipation, while the stillness pulled at Ira''s eyelids.


    He could have found it amusing if there wasn''t so much to worry about. Which brought Melchior back to the reality of his situation. They had much bigger problems than the scent of Ira''s sickly sweet lavender soap or how close they were. There was a Beast in the Catskills--but it all paled in comparison to the warmth of his breath.


    Melchior was drowning in a thick pool of molasses. His thoughts skipped along the surface, buzzing as angrily as a swarm of wasps, but unable to reach him. He laid at the bottom, processing everything as white noise. His questions bubbled up from the river bank, pouring from him as rapidly as blood from a gaping puncture wound. They stung just as much.


    What am I going to do?  Is it my fault? How do I keep him safe?


    Ira was positioned between Melchior''s knees, hugging his own to his chest. Crouched over on himself, he looked small and fragile. Well, he might have if Melchior wasn''t familiar with the temper just beneath his appearance. Ira set his chin on the top of his arms. His heavy yellow lashes beat the air as he blinked. His heart skipped in his ribs with pitiful defeat.


    Melchior leaned forward slightly so that Ira''s back whispered a brush against his chest. His arms were cramping where they held him, wrapped over his chest. When Ira shifted, their arms brushed across each other. Melchior shivered from the warmth of him. His heat soaked into Melchior''s bare arms.


    Melchior thought this might be the first time they''d ever touched. Ira had stripped him of his armor, and now Melchior really wished he had more than just the patch over his wrist.


    And why did that matter? Melchior shook his head until he was dizzy. None of this mattered if they were about to die. And that seemed pretty likely. Unless Melchior could scrape together a plan to get them out of the grave he''d dug for them.


    How was he going to do that? He wasn''t even really a Deacon. His time served with Ailbe had been barely more than a cheap charade to buy himself time while his brother did all the real work, looking for a fix to Melchior''s problem. He couldn''t save them. He couldn''t even detangle his thoughts from the scent of Ira''s hair as it tickled his chin.


    Think, think, think. Melchior cursed to himself. He couldn''t. He was running out of time, and all he could do was watch the sand pour down the spout of the hourglass.


    As if sensing his defeat, the Beast trumpeted into the night wind. The sound shook the cave they''d crawled into. Melchior couldn''t see past their rocky cover, but he imagined that even the stars hanging in the oil-slick sky trembled beneath the force of the howls.


    Ira flinched in time with his heart''s stutter. Melchior winced, pressing his forehead into the small space between Ira''s shoulder blades to dull the ache from the echo rattling his mind. He could feel Ira''s spine beneath his skin, even the bones thrummed with the pulse of his fears. He was shaking.


    Melchior was dizzy. He couldn''t think. He couldn''t act--he couldn''t even move. He let his eyes draw shut, his lashes tickled his cheeks. Think, think, think--do something!


    "Let me go," Ira whispered. His voice sent shocks through Melchior''s chest. His arms moved before he could think, and he was pulling Ira in closer. Melchior tilted his head, ignoring the duet of their hearts, to scan the forest for any sign of the Beast pulling closer. And it was--Melchior could hear the steady thudding of it growing undeniably nearer. "Melchior, what''s your plan? Are we meant to sit here all night? We''ll have to act sooner or later."


    Melchior wished they could sit all night. He didn''t have a clue of what to do--and that was the least of his problems. It was him. If this Beast was anything like the monsters he''d faced all his life, it would be coming for the scent of his cursed blood. If  Beasts were like demons--he didn''t even know that much. He''d been born into a world cushioned by the Trammel, and he''d always been too preoccupied by wolves to worry about the Beasts of old.


    They had never made it past bedtime stories in his mind, and now one was drawing near, and he had no idea how to get them out of trouble. "I don''t have a plan yet--but I know that rushing out there is a significantly worse idea." He muttered.


    "Who doesn''t love a good bad idea." Ira shrugged. Melchior leaned sharply back to avoid getting knocked by the force of his movements in their confined space.


    "You, I thought," Melchior said bluntly, "and I''d prefer to keep you alive."


    "So, how do you plan on doing that?" Ira scoffed. "We''re Deacons, Melchior. Sure, maybe we spent most of our training eliminating He-Goats and Ze''ev--but a monster is a monster. They''ll all go down under an Ossein the same."


    Melchior flinched at the sting of his words and then froze perfectly still. What about that had startled him? Was it that he knew he''d never done any task worthy of Deaconship? Despite his well-defined aim, he''d never hit a moving target. He''d always lost his battles, and his brother had always had to bail him out. No, not that. Melchior already wore that guilt too deep down to let it harm him at the surface.


    So, maybe it was the bitterness soaking the air in the wake of Ira''s scorn. Ira had never been a gentle person, but something had changed. This one was different. Melchior was seeing a new Ira. One forged by his mentor for the task of killing. Melchior squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to force out a laugh. One meant to bash himself back into place, but nothing came.


    It wasn''t killing, he reminded himself. They never had life to begin with. Melchior winced against the tap of his heart. That didn''t count. He was. . . he could be different. He wasn''t like those things that Ira would wipe clean from the earth. Melchior''s stomach twisted. Wasn''t he? Didn''t Ira''s sword wait for him at the end, too?


    "I have twenty arrows--you have a dagger." Melchior choked on his misdirection. He aligned all the worries inside of his mind and shoved them down into a box, one disguised as concern for their supply. "That''s not enough."


    "How do you know that?" Ira scowled. "My mentor once took down a He-Goat with nothing but a pair of Ossein bone pliers."


    "It isn''t a He-Goat." Melchior mumbled.


    "Yes, but-" Ira bit back. His voice faltered as Melchior grabbed his arms. "What are you-"


    Melchior''s fingers wrapped around Ira''s wrist, resting against the pulse he found there. Ira tugged back gently, trying to free himself without raising a commotion. Melchior didn''t relent. He pulled Ira''s arms away from his captured legs and leaned them both forward, moving until Ira was pushed down into his own knees. He huffed in discomfort, but his body became fluid against Melchior''s prodding.


    Melchior pressed Ira''s flat palms against the cold stone floor. He rested his chin on Ira''s shoulder and whispered against his ear. "Focus."


    Ira''s cheeks flushed with heat. It stung Melchior''s face where they touched. He winced, of course he was angry. He usually was, even when Melchior wasn''t positioning him as easily as a Ken doll, but Ira didn''t struggle beneath him. He puffed out an annoyed sigh and shut his vibrant blue eyes.


    Melchior spread his fingers evenly across the tops of Ira''s hands. They were smaller than Melchior''s, and he could cover the entirety of them while letting his fingertips rest on the cold floor. He didn''t need to close his eyes to focus on the world, like Ira did. His senses were sharper. He''d been feeling the heavy thuds in the meat of his legs since before they''d escaped into the cave.


    It was another beat, one beneath the steady roar of the crashing river, one louder than Ira''s heart in his ears. Melchior pushed Ira''s hands flat until he could taste it in the dirt.


    Thump. . .thump. . . thump.


    Ira flinched, his fingers curled into claw-like formation beneath Melchior''s palms. He knew then that he''d felt it, too. Each footstep shook the forest, the echo of it sunk into the skin of their hands against the stone. "Wh-what is. . ." Ira whispered.


    "It''s moving." Melchior answered. He didn''t mention that each thud was growing steadily stronger. He didn''t think it''d do much good to make Ira aware that it was encroaching on the Kaaterskill. He pressed down, forcing Ira''s fingers back flat against the earth. "It''s much bigger than a He-Goat."


    That was a simplification. He-Goats weren''t much different from humans in standing. The largest demon Ira likely knew would be the Ze''ez. They spanned from oxen-sized to rhinoceros-heavy--but Melchior couldn''t bring the name to his tongue. It''d remind him of the other monster he''d seen in these woods, and he could only handle one at a time--if he was to exclude himself from the count.


    Whatever this Beast was, it caused quakes beneath its heels. It was only comparable to the footfall of an elephant--if Melchior was a flea. Their arrows would be lucky to tickle its hide, it''d only draw attention from a creature that they had no way of combating.


    "Depending on sense of sight, hearing, scent--it could be unaware of us." Melchior lied. He knew it must have already caught the trail of his cursed blood. He knew it was coming. "I''ll go out--I can scout out the area and see what way it''s heading."


    I can draw it away and--and what? How was he going to escape a Beast of old? He shook his head. He''d just have to worry about that part later. As long as he took it away from Ira--things would be okay.


    Ira shook his head, too, sending waves through them both, "I think it''s obvious what way it''s heading. I think it has great senses, and it''s coming this way because it knows we''re here."


    So he knew. He could feel that, too, when he set his mind to it. Ira''s voice never even trembled as he cemented their fate. Melchior felt childishly foolish for assuming Ira could be so easily tricked.


    "Maybe," Melchior shrugged, trying to seem casual. "We can cross that rickety old bridge when we come to it."


    "I prefer to burn my bridges before they can give me splinters." Ira answered.


    Melchior had a bad feeling about that. "What are you thinking about?"


    "Something reckless," Ira shrugged. He shook Melchior''s grip off and pushed himself away, breaking the touch they''d been awkwardly maintaining hours. "My mentor taught me something once--okay, he tried to teach me something once. I couldn''t actually. . . do it."


    "Angels, I really hate the sound of that." Melchior grumbled. He pressed his palm to his forehead.


    "Angels exactly." Ira agreed. "We''ll need their cooperation--and I''m not exactly team heaven''s favorite player."


    "What''s that supposed to mean? You were chosen by them, weren''t you?" Melchior balked before he could stop himself.


    Ira snapped his sharp blue gaze to burn holes into Melchior''s face. "We agreed not to talk about things like promises and curses, didn''t we?"


    "I-I''m sorry, you''re right." Melchior mumbled. "Then, you think you have something that can help us?"


    "If it works." Ira shrugged.


    Melchior''s stomach rolled as viciously as if he''d eaten something rotten. "Well, I feel much worse. Thank you for that clarification. What are you going to do?"


    "You''ll know if it does work." Ira winced.


    "And if it doesn''t?" Melchior scowled. He raised a half singed eyebrow, still smoking from Ira''s scalding look.


    "We''ll burn that bridge when we get to it?" Ira suggested weakly.


    "Just this morning, you were lecturing me about what makes a proper plan and what''s just madness--and now you''re throwing this at me. Does this plan even have steps? You said plans need steps!" Melchior sputtered. "At this rate, at least we don''t have to worry about Tildy. Why didn''t I think of it? Just die before we run out of time."


    "I have a plan!" Ira snapped defensively. "And it has steps!"


    "Oh, yeah? How many?" Melchior scoffed. "A plan you won''t tell me is not a sound plan."


    "Three, I think." Ira stared at his fingers, twitching them in thought. "Four! Four steps, and it doesn''t matter what you know--if you worry about what I''m doing, you won''t accomplish what I need you to do. I have your back, Melchior. Just have mine, too, and everything is gonna be fine."


    Melchior breathed in the cool night air. It was intertwined with sap, pine, and Ira. He remembered something his brother had told him once. They''d been words shared between them before the accident. Words that if he could go back, he''d have listened to more carefully.


    Melchi, sometimes things become so dangerous that it''s beyond brave to tackle them--sometimes it''s just plain stupid.


    Melchior placed his face in the palms of his hands, groaning in apprehension and then defeat. "Okay, what do you want me to do?" When the worst had already happened, six years ago, it was easier to face the likely outcome of death.


    "Be bait." Ira said. "And bring me the Beast."


    Melchior laughed. He couldn''t face his fear any other way. "You want me to be bait? Well, you''re in luck. That''s my specialty. My brother used to call me Melchior Monster Bait Brisbane."  He shook his head. He couldn''t help but think of something else that''d been said between them. "Well, Kitten. I did tell you to make my death cool."


    "You''re not going to die." Ira said. "Not yet."


    "Not yet?" Melchior pressed.


    Ira shrugged. "Well, I hope so."


    "Bad feeling intensifying." Melchior muttered.


    ? ? ?


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    No one had ever accused Melchior of being the quickest pup in the litter. He''d done reckless. He''d done stupid. He''d done careless. He''d somehow managed to survive all that--but this was the worst yet, and if he pulled it off, he was never going to tell Ishmael or Ailbe about it. Unless it was really cool. Then, he might be susceptible to bragging.


    Even if they both bopped him on the back of the head for it.


    Melchior rolled his shoulders to loosen the nerves stiffening his muscles. If he stood any chance of beating this thing--it had to start inside of himself. That was what Ishmael always said anyway. Stay fluid, stay alert, and stay calm.


    "Tension only exists in my string." Melchior whispered beneath his breath. Easier said than done. Melchior didn''t want to be inside his own head. It was loud in there. Only comparable to a thousand metal chair legs being dragged across cement flooring. He couldn''t focus. Every instinct in him wanted him to just turn around and go back to the underbelly of the Kaaterskill cliffs.


    Ira would be angry--but they could think of a better plan. One that didn''t require them to split up. Melchior froze, his fingers twitched against the wooden shaft of his notched arrow. Would it really be a better plan? How could he make a call like that when he had no idea what Ira was thinking.


    He groaned, wincing as the realization sunk into his skin. Ira was right, of course. Melchior was as simple as a racehorse. He''d need blinders if he was going to make it down the track. Ira knew that, and he''d only given Melchior half of a plan. A half that didn''t inspire much confidence--and only served to spur Melchior towards the cliff.


    He''d move forward, but he couldn''t help looking back. His mind was pulled towards the rushing falls, to the heartbeat beneath it. Ira''s heart. His pulse had been racing since Melchior left. It wasn''t entirely dissimilar to that of a rabbit''s in the height of fleeing. He tried not to let it worry him.


    There was a lot that he tried to keep from worrying him. What was Ira going to do once Melchior sealed their backs against the wall? If Melchior succeeded in luring the Beast into the Kaaterskill basin--they''d be trapped, too. It didn''t make sense. Melchior shook his head until he was dizzy. "Stop. Have his back."


    He didn''t know what Ira was going to do. It didn''t matter. That had never been the question between them. If Melchior would toss himself aside, giving in completely to Ira''s whirlwind--that was all that mattered. And he knew he would.


    The bottom of his boots trembled with the force of the Beast''s footfalls. Melchior steered himself into the direction of the creature and began to sink back into the spruce forest. He''d find the Beast, and he''d lead it back. If it didn''t kill him first.


    Tracking had always been easy for Melchior. He could pick a minnow from a stream using just the whisper of its fins against the current. Just as Melchior could still hear Ira, he could hear everything for miles.


    It was easy to peel back the layers of the world with just a little bit of focus. The heartbeat of the earth coated the forest, it was a fresh blanket of snow to sink into. Melchior braced himself against the rushing rapids, familiarizing himself to the crash of water against rock. The sound rested in the pit of his throat, pulverizing his sternum. It was heavy but hollow. He could flick it away with a simple brush.


    Beneath the waves were the trees. Pine needles scraping softly against each other. Wooden branches creaking in the midnight breeze. Sticks snapped beneath scampering paws--bark peeling as squirrels launched themselves up and up into higher perches. Crickets, hiding in tall grass, filled the night with their mournful chirping. The racket was cotton light, stuffed into the space behind the bone of his jaw.


    He didn''t need to dislodge it to find the noise he needed. The Beast cut through the forest, slicing it apart with glass-like shrieking. Melchior''s spine filled with the howl. It seeped into his nerves, lighting his skin with cold fire. The cracking echoed rolled his stomach until bile rose in the back of his throat.


    Melchior shoved it down into the space he''d reserved for his fears and pushed his body forward. His steps were stone-heavy, causing a tremble to radiate into the muscle of his legs. Melchior grit his fang-sharp teeth together and tilted his chin in mock defiance.


    He''d faced monsters before. He''d stared into yellow eyes. He''d fallen beneath snapping jaws. He''d been torn apart before, and he''d gotten back up. He wasn''t going to hesitate now. Showing reservation, turning away from reckless and stupid to find reasonable and responsible, had never been his move.


    Melchior had always chosen the path overgrown with thistles. He stomped through the brush, with skin as thick as copper plating. He could face this, too.


    The Catskills trembled as the Beast shambled between the trees. The mountains flinched as century old oaks fell to the heel of the creature. It was slicing through the forest, clearing a road paved by shattered wood. Melchior could hear each tipped trunk crash into the earth in a boom that echoed up into the bones of his legs. It was different from the heft of footfall. It ached, tensing his muscles in anticipation. The sound of treefall filled in the empty space between each earth-shaking step.


    thump. . . thump. . . thump . . .thump


    . . .boom. . .boom. . .boom


    The pain only grew stronger as Melchior drew near--no. They were both closing in. Heading for an equal center between them. Ira had sent Melchior to pull the creature in, but it was already coming straight for them. No--straight for him. The beacon, the bait, the cursed boy. The sting began to sour into a nauseous roll, tugging at his insides.


    In an instant, that dull thudding pain became something Melchior would have gladly returned to if it meant avoiding the agony that found him instead. The Beast wailed, closer than it had been before. The echo of it shook the trees, the earth, and the mountains. It was loud enough to shatter the stars in the sky. It was loud enough to shatter him. Melchior cried out, returning the howl of the Beast with a whimper. He stumbled, dropping his bow to cover his ears with his flattened palms.


    His feet were heavy--too heavy--he tried to move forward and found himself on the ground instead. His knees sunk into the dirt. He crumpled inwards on himself, balancing his elbows on his trembling legs. He''d felt it when it broke. Something in the back of his skull. His palms were wet and warm from the blood dripping over the shell of his inner ear.


    Sick rose in the back of his throat, and his vision began to cloud. He clawed himself back from the edge of consciousness, blinking away the haze over his eyes. He gasped for breath--he thought he did. His chest shuttered, and his throat was flushed by the cold, but it made no sound. Melchior''s heart stuttered behind his ribs in a rapid thud that he could only feel in his skin.


    Nothing made sound.


    The forest was quiet. The crickets that had once filled the space inside of his head were replaced by a ringing he couldn''t explain. He couldn''t shake it from his mind. All that existed was the ringing. And the panic. Melchior gasped in shocks of cold night air. He was blind--no. He was deaf--and it''d narrowed his world into something smaller than the tip of a needle.


    He was drowning in silence. He was kicking in the oil-black water, helpless to fend off the creatures beneath the surface. Melchior screamed--he knew he had. He could feel it tear the back of his throat. He could feel the tremble of it in his chest--and it made no noise.


    He pressed his forehead into the cold dirt and screamed into the moss until he was out of breath. His lungs shuttered, and he fell into stillness. His tongue flickered across the roof of his mouth, his lips split apart. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He''d been cut from his limbs. He reached for anything he could think of--the shake of pine needle, the chirp of squirrels, the steady beat of Ira''s heart. His fingers curled around nothing but the forest floor.


    It was the first time he''d ever felt truly alone. Melchior grit his sharp fangs, digging his canine teeth into the soft pink of his tongue until it broke. He froze, startled by the sting. The blood pooled along his lips, dripping out onto the damp moss carpet. He flicked his tongue along the wall of his teeth.


    It tasted like copper, where it mixed with the dirt it smelled as rich as petrichor. Melchior squeezed his eyes shut, pressing himself into the moss carpet. It was soft and damp, filling his skin with chill. Beyond the cold, he could feel the echo of the Beast. It was in the dirt, leaking into his palms and his forehead where he rested. It''d been the same way he''d taught Ira to sense things too far from what he could hear.


    thump. . . thump. . . thump . . .thump


    . . .boom. . .boom. . .boom


    It was the same pattern he''d heard--no, he''d felt it then, too. The shakes echoed in his teeth, rattling him as roughly as corn in a windy field. Melchior swallowed his fears because he wasn''t alone. He was in the forest with a Beast--and Ira needed him.


    He opened his eyes, drinking in the dark of the Catskills. Melchior could see between the trees, even in the dead of night. He could see almost as well as he''d been able to hear. The moonlight glimmered off the blue pine, turning the air around him into a luminous silver. The shadows were longer, darker, beneath the glittering waves of light. Melchior turned his eerily green eyes to them and tore them apart inch by inch. He could see the crickets nestled in the grass, trembling with soundless nightsong.


    He inhaled, soaking in the scent of earth and sap--and something else. It churned his stomach, forcing his nose down into the crook of his elbow. It was rotten flesh on a hot summer day--Melchior was familiar. He''d thought it was something they''d only achieved in death, but it seemed even living Beasts carried it on them. Heavy blankets of odor curled along the ground, chasing Melchior up to his feet. He swayed on shaking limbs.


    His panic was lodged in his throat so that all he could manage to do was dryly choke in air around it. He''d been knocked down--and getting back up wasn''t enough. He shivered as the small rivers of blood trickled down the skin of his throat.


    It had to be enough. Ira was depending on him, and on that, they''d staked both their lives. Melchior scrambled for his bow and arrow, pulling himself together as easily as if he''d never fallen apart. He slipped beneath his facade of calm, one he''d been faithfully maintaining for six years.


    He planted his boots, wincing as each thud vibrated up the bones of his legs. The trees shook, swaying violently. Pine needles began to fall, showering Melchior with the scent of citrus and mint. Melchior drew his bow, aiming into the space between the trembling bark. The fir trees began to bend, giving way as the Beast pressed forward.


    He didn''t need to hear to shoot. All he had to do was hold steady, reel in his chaos, and fire a toothpick into the mountain-sized target. The shadow of the Beast crept forward, Melchior sunk beneath the waves of it.


    His ligaments shook under his skin, vibrating with the rumble of the creature. It was here. He could smell the rot of it. He could feel the heat of its body. Melchior''s heart dropped, sending a rush of dizziness through him.


    He couldn''t see it.


    He couldn''t hear it.


    He had no idea where it was--only that he had fallen beneath its darkness. The entire forest had. The space between the fir trees was a perfect gray--one not even Melchior could see beyond. He held his breath, and he waited.


    Everything had gone still, only a breeze remained. It was warm despite the cool night, still radiating heat from being sun-baked in the hot summer day. It carried the scent of rot from the Beast, and it was coming from the dark between the trees. The direction of the Beast--straight ahead.


    The exhale he''d been holding became painfully tight in his chest, burning until he finally breathed over his knuckles. It was warm--it was as warm as the breeze.


    Thump-thump. His heart whimpered behind his ribs in a painful knock. He had a bad feeling building in the pit of his stomach. Well, he always did--but now it was rolling with gained momentum into an unavoidable crash.


    The blank space between the trees--the dark he couldn''t see past--looked smoke gray. They always were gray, every piece he''d found. He''d just never imagined how large the puzzle would be if he''d put them all back together again--and now he knew. It''d be larger than Ailbe''s cabin.  He turned his eyes into the distance between the trees, narrowing his gaze until he could see the wrinkles in the skin.


    Thump-thump.


    The breeze stirred the grass peeking up from the edges of his boots. It rolled shivers over his damp skin, flushing him with heat against the frozen night. He wished it was the wind.


    Thump-thump.


    He followed the shadow, running his eyes up the length of tree trunks to settle in the needle canopy over his head. The moonlight glimmered off the tusks, so they looked bathed in silver. They hung over Melchior''s head, appearing as milky ways a million miles away. His yellow-green gaze traced the tusks back into the trees. To the billboard big eyes staring down at him.


    Thump-thump.


    His eyes fell back to his shoes. Melchior held perfectly still, watching the bushes rustle in the wake of the Beast''s breaths as if he had all the time in the world. He whispered a prayer, or a curse--he didn''t hear it, and it didn''t matter. Melchior inhaled. He exhaled. And he released the string.


    The polished pine projectile shot through the molasses thick coating of the world, twisting through the air in slow motion. Melchior registered it as a shock when the arrow struck the wall of the Beast--a jolt as if he''d been struck himself.


    The shaft of his arrow shattered, splintering into sawdust. The bone-tip lodged itself into the hide, opening a wound as wide as the point of a needle.


    Nineteen arrows left.


    His toothpick attack was nothing to a creature as sturdy as a blue whale on four telephone-pole legs--but Melchior had spent a lot of time wandering the Catskills with Ira Rule, and he knew a thing or two about pressing buttons.


    Everything that had gone still rushed forward on a landslide. The trees burst under the crushing body of the Beast. The ground shook with the force of its advance. Melchior whirled on his heels--he was running before his mind could catch up.


    He hoped Ira was ready--because they were coming.


    Where the Beast stepped, century old oak trees exploded. Melchior ducked his head to avoid the sonic booms he couldn''t hear and the splintered projectiles of sharpened wood that he could feel. Woodchips the size of spears pelted the back of his thin shirt and whizzed past his exposed flesh. He hissed as a piece of bark sliced his cheek. A warm trickle of blood seeped down his face to follow the trail of dried copper from his shattered eardrums.


    He was sure there would be nothing left of the forest--he didn''t stop to check. Melchior kept his bow loose at his side, swinging in his arms as he bolted. It might have aided him to have his hands free--but he was very much under the impression that he''d be needing his weapon.


    He sunk his gaze on the tangled forest floor, leaping over roots and fallen logs. Branches tore at his skin, his clothes, his closely cropped hair. He bore it with a wince and never stopped running. He only hoped he was going the right way--straight backward.


    He never held still enough to feel the thunderous river in his feet. He couldn''t pick apart Ira''s heartbeat from the ringing in his ears. He was flying blind. He could have been running in circles. Without his ears, he was directionless. He was lost. He was--lavender.


    Melchior almost stumbled. He regained his balance, pushing himself upright on the side of a shaking cedar tree. There was lavender. He hated lavender. He always had. If scents could fall out of fashion, the trend would have been long past for it. It was an herb for old women.


    He might have shouted, he might have whispered. He called his name, and he hoped he could hear him. Melchior turned himself into the dizzying perfume of Ira''s soap--and he ran for it. He scampered over logs and rocks, panting in the cold night air until it became thick with mist.


    Melchior coughed, his throat burned. He choked down the sweet river air and screamed again. Ira better be ready--it was now or never. Melchior broke through the treeline, waving his arms in the air and barking nonsense.


    Ira''s gaze met him--and for a moment, they both seemed equally as confused. Ira, baffled by Melchior''s shouting--and Melchior concerned for why he was submerged up to his waist in the Kaaterskill. Ira''s mouth was moving. Melchior stared at him blankly. Which, he knew wasn''t the best use of their time--but why was Ira in the middle of the lake?


    Ira frowned, in the way that indicated he was going to bring this back up in an argument later, and abandoned his shouting to point beyond Melchior and the trees.


    Melchior shouted something that he hoped was similar to I know.


    Ira rolled his eyes and pointed again. He dragged his finger from the Beast to the water.


    What?  Melchior said, he hoped.


    Ira crossed his arms over his chest.


    Oh, come on!


    He knew by the way Ira rolled his eyes that he''d at least said that part correctly. He gestured at the water again, madly and angrily. Madly, because he looked crazed while doing it, and because just saying angrily wasn''t enough to explain the full range of his rage.


    Melchior grit his teeth together. He didn''t know if he was meant to go in the water, or if the Beast was, but if Ira was in the center of the pond--and with the plan--that was probably the place to go.


    He could feel the tremble in the land, see the ripples along the surface, and he knew the Beast would be on them soon. Melchior stepped into the cool stream.


    He thought feeling his eardrums shatter had been painful--this was agony. The water rose over the top of his boot, licking at the skin of his ankle. Where the water touched him, it boiled.


    His skin turned red and bubbled. Melchior fell back, gasping in deep breaths of mist laden air. It stung the inside of his nose. It scratched his lungs raw. He was burning.


    Where his palms rested on the wet rock, they steamed. He peeled his hands from the rock, leaving behind small scraps of skin that cooked away into nothing. He pulled his hands to his chest, wiping off the water on his shirt. He looked at Ira--and Ira looked back.


    A knot engulfed the space over his pounding heart. Ira had done it. Somehow. He''d turned the entirety of the Kaaterskill into a fresh spring of holy water. Melchior swallowed. He couldn''t move--terror held him in place. Terror of what Ira had just seen. Terror of what it meant. Terror that he was no different from the Beast.


    Ira was the first to move, the waded through the Kaaterskill, his blue eyes trained on the trembling trees. His lips were moving--Melchior was getting really sick of that. Ira climbed the bank towards Melchior. He stood before him, dripping in waterlogged clothes from the hips down.


    He extended a hand towards him. Ira had been gesturing so wildly just seconds before that for a moment, Melchior, though he was doing it again--but his brain clicked on in time to take his hand before he rescinded the offer.


    Ira pulled Melchior to his feet. He was glad for the help. He swayed. His ankle was weak beneath him. Ira grabbed his face, pulling him closer to look at the blood trails painted down his neck. Melchior rested his palms on Ira''s wrist. He tried to smile, but Ira glared at him with moon-wide eyes. Ira mouthed something. Melchior winced. He looked at his shoes.


    I can''t hear you.


    He choked on the words, the same way he choked on the river spray. Ira took Melchior by the chin, pulling his eyes up to meet his gaze. Ira nodded. Melchior didn''t really know what it meant, but Ira''s grabbed his hand and began pulling him along the riverbank.


    They were going back towards the cliff. Melchior thought he was going to be sick. Ira had seen him. He had nothing to say--he couldn''t even if he wanted to. So he bowed his head and limped behind him. Ira placed their backs to the falls and their front to the forest, with the pond between them and the Beast.


    Ira tapped his shoulder, and Melchior looked at him. He held his arms out from his chest and mimicked a bow being pulled. Melchior nodded. He fit his weapon in his hands and strung the arrow.


    And they waited.


    Melchior could feel the tremor of it in his feet. The lake began to shake. The trees swayed. And finally, the Beast poured into the glade. The creature was twice the size of an elephant, with a gray flat face only disturbed by minivan-sized tusks and glowing white eyes. It shambled forward on stumpy legs, made for crushing mountains.


    Ira released the string of his invisible bow--and Melchior fired. The polished pine glimmered across the lake, rushing as quick as the river. It shattered against the chest of the Beast. Ira drew his next arrow, and Melchior followed suit.


    Eighteen left.


    The Beast lifted its head, revealing a gaping pink maw. It must have screamed, Ira winced at Melchior''s side. He looked at him, tracing the line beneath his jaw with his gaze. Ira glanced back at him and shook his head. He mouthed that he was fine. He gestured with his chin back towards the Beast.


    Melchior hefted his bow and stared across the water. The Beast charged. Ira released--Melchior''s arrow shattered against the Beast''s tanker-wide skull. The air shook, and the mountains shivered. And the Beast stepped into the Kaaterskill basin.


    Seventeen.


    The steam exploded forward, curling off the bubbling surface of the lake. The Beast tilted its tusks to the stars and wailed enough to send quivers through the clouds. Ira released. Melchior''s arrow shattered against the wrinkled cheek of the Beast.


    Sixteen.


    The creature lurched forward, sinking another limb into the boiling water. It tumbled, sloshing forward on its chest. The water splashed up over the river bank. Melchior didn''t flinch, not even as his skin began to prickle beneath the mist.


    Melchior drew his bow. He stared into the wailing mouth, and he fired. His arrow disappeared behind grinding tusk, lodging in the ridged roof of the Beast''s mouth. It surged forward, sinking further into the pit.


    Fifteen.


    Ira tapped Melchior''s shoulder. He pointed at his eye, and then the Beast. Melchior nodded. He strung his bow and turned his attention into tracking the glowing white eyes of the Beast. He exhaled over his knuckles and let go. His arrow flew across the lake--striking the Beast in its wide eye.


    Fourteen--


    The Beast slumped forward, falling into the water. A geiser of steam filled the Kaaterskill. Melchior reached for another arrow. Ira grabbed his wrist, stilling him. He squeezed, pressing trembling fingers into Melchior''s bandage.


    Melchior froze, turned to ice beneath Ira''s touch. And then Ira was slipping away, falling to his knees. Melchior fell with him, pulling him into a tight embrace against his chest. He could feel the pounding of his heart. He closed his eyes and sunk beneath the soothing waves of it.


    And that was how they stayed. Melchior didn''t know for how long. They sat at the river bank, watching as the Beast sunk further and further into the water, burning and bubbling until nothing but foggy white steam remained.


    Ira leaned into his chest. His eyes began to drift slowly shut. Melchior might have laughed if he didn''t look so pitifully exhausted. He held him. Even as he began to fall asleep. He was too scared to move, to wake him, to face the new day full of new questions. Questions he couldn''t answer. After all, he said he wouldn''t lie. If Ira asked him what he was, he wouldn''t like what Melchior had to say.


    He pressed his forehead against Ira''s hair for the first time in his life, enjoying the heavy scent of lavender. And he sat, for countless more moments. Until the scratch on his cheek began to close. Until the burns covering his ankle began to disappear, as if they''d never existed at all.


    . . .thump. . . thump. . .thump. . .


    And he listened to the sound of Ira''s heart.

 16 | What Did Bezel Do Now?

    Mayvalt was angry. Bezel didn''t need to know the scratch of it to sense it in the air. Anyone could--from the moment she stepped out of his car and slammed the passenger door. She brushed past the Faun waiting at the curb, storming into Eden without so much as a second glance.


    The valet was trembling. They followed Mayvalt''s retreat with concern-filled brown eyes, twisting in place until it became undeniable she wouldn''t be coming back. "P-P-Phrionnsa!"


    "I do not think she will be coming back." Bezel repeated, soothing the obvious with his dull tone. The Faun flinched. Their eyes fell to their perfectly polished shoes, and they did not move. As if Bezel were a curious piranha and he could be shooed away with a little inaction. "You''re waiting for the keys, right?"


    The Faun swallowed, nodding their head so quickly birch-white hair tumbled into their cow-wide eyes. Bezel cocked his head, it wasn''t his best work. He could have narrowed his eyebrows, or clicked his tongue--but he thought that larger gestures might convey his false emotions more clearly to the frightened creature. "What''s your name?"


    Why had he asked? He didn''t particularly care. If he did, he might have spoken to this Faun years ago--but he never had. He''d never even had reason to. Mayvalt had always sorted the matter of the valet, well, the matter of everything and anything involving the Faun, and it was only in the failure of her duty that Bezel''s tongue had been forced at all.


    He had never even glanced in the direction of this Faun since the day they sealed their deal. They''d joined his servitude, and had disappeared. Just as their demonic horns had beneath Bezel''s blessing. He collected in his mind the memories of their markings, he withered a teaspoon more of his ocean of power, and then he forgot--because it took care to recall, and he had none.


    The Faun registered it as a shock. The muscles in their jaw twitched, and they spoke as if they''d rather try their hand at chewing glass. "Anvelt, m-my Prince."


    "Your Prince," Bezel repeated dryly, "that''s not a common sentiment these days, Anvelt."


    Anvelt''s cheeks turned paper pale. They arched their neck, training unblinking eyes on the cement sidewalk. They looked with so much commitment, Bezel thought they might actually be seeing Avernus between the cracks in the pavement. "N-no, it''s not."


    "I appreciate your honesty, Anvelt." Bezel remarked. He leaned on the roof of his car, placing his chin on the tops of his folded arms. "Then, will you humor me a little further? Why?"


    "Why, my Prince?" Anvelt asked.


    "Yes! Exactly!" Bezel exclaimed, "Why am I your Prince?"


    Anvelt wrapped their arms around their chest to stiffen their shaking. "The Third Prince opened the Trammel for us. He will hide our gifts, and offer us servitude in Heimr so that we can-"


    "No! No!" Bezel sighed, "you were doing so well, Anvelt. Do you think I wouldn''t recognize that sour propaganda? Anvelt, I made it! Now, tell me something real. I promise I won''t be upset." He forced a laugh over his dry tongue, to enunciate his joke. Anvelt flinched.


    "You won''t be upset." Anvelt murmured to themself. Their shivering subsided, and a calm as tentative as the eye of a storm settled over them. "Then, the Prince is only my Prince because. . . the Phrionnsa asked it of me."


    Maybe it should have stung. Maybe he should have been upset. Maybe he should have sat back, and wondered at what point his kingdom had begun to crumble. Instead, he laughed. "Well, it makes sense. The Princess couldn''t be a princess if the Prince was not a prince." He nodded, tapping his fingers in a melody over the metal shell of his flashy vehicle. "How loyal do you remain to your Phrionnsa?"


    "I would die before I betray the Phrionnsa!" Anvelt snapped, puffing up their chest in mock bravery. Or, perhaps it was real to them. It was no little thing to give your soul to a cause. Unlike the true-immortals, when an Avernian died--it died. Ceased. Never to exist again.


    Bezel forced wind through the cage of his teeth, distorting a chuckle from his blank expression. "Oh, brothers. Are you sweet on her?" Anvelt turned cherry blossom pink, and Bezel shook his head. "Well, you''re wise to keep that to yourself. She is quite tough, and she''s unfortunately quite wrapped up in something else at the moment."


    "I-I''m not! The Phrionnsa saved my life, when I was little more than a fawn. She''s the only family that I have!" Anvelt turned snow white and balked. "Ah, apologies, my Prince. I didn''t mean to insert myself into the bloodline of the Prince."


    Bezel shrugged. "You''re merely inserting yourself into the line of another Faun. Harms me none."


    Anvelt nodded stiffly.


    Bezel sighed. "The parking garage, Anvelt. Please." He held out his keys, and Anvelt accepted them with trembling fingers. It would have been kinder for Bezel to release the shaking rabbit from the trap, but he couldn''t help it if his thoughts had been arranged in an order devoid of compassion or reason. "Oh, one more thing!"


    Anvelt whimpered, lowering their eyes. Their heart pitter-pattered sadly behind their ribs.


    "I''ll be expecting a guest. Maybe now, maybe next month. Who can say--but when they arrive, bring them to my office. Your Phrionnsa will be very happy." He said.


    Anvelt looked at Bezel for the first time--and immediately lowered their eyes again. "For the Phrionnsa? Of course, my Prince." They nodded and slipped into the driver''s side seat, in the space Bezel had just vacated.


    With one problem solved, Bezel turned his attentions to following Mayvalt on her whirlwind path into Eden. He tried not to run after her--he didn''t want to be seen chasing her as if they''d had a bitter argument. He didn''t want to be seen at all. The opinion of the Faun shouldn''t have mattered--and perhaps they wouldn''t have, if she did not hold them all in the palm of her hand.


    Bezel ran his fingers through his oil-dark hair and huffed, feeling it as air gliding over his skin as he disappeared behind a wall of sweet nothing. Maybe it would just be best to eliminate her. He''d saved her on a whim, centuries ago, and she''d been slowly accruing his power since. What was the point of being a Prince of the Faun, if they had a princess instead.


    Bezel sunk beneath the flashing lights, the roaring music, and he found her in an instant. Her antlers hung above the crowd, catching on the pink neon spotlights so that they glowed. The crowd moved around her, schools of herring desperate to escape the barracuda entering the reef. She did not usually have that effect, it was clear in the confused whispering that followed.


    "The Phrionnsa. . ."


    "What''s wrong with the Phrionnsa?"


    "Perhaps he did something. . . "


    "He must have. . ."


    "Hasn''t he done enough harm. . ."


    Of course it was his fault, it always was. She startled each Faun she blew past, so that it became incredibly obvious who in the club was lower demon and who was Heimrian. Bezel might have used this opportunity to familiarize himself with the latter half of his patrons--but there wasn''t exactly anything inherently criminal about being Heimrian.


    Her anger turned the air around her to rot. It billowed off her in rolling, swirling, tornadoes of steam. It was almost as impressive as Ze''ev fetor. She slipped behind the bar, frosting over each drink she passed.


    "Mayvalt," a Faun with bright yellow hair balked, "you''re startling the guests."


    "Mind your own, Fenvolt, or bring me up a drink." Mayvalt hissed. She gripped the stairwell railing beneath her palms and began climbing, heading directly for Bezel''s perch. So, that he had no choice but to follow her. Bezel dipped and twisted to fit behind the bar without announcing his presence to the Faun working there.


    He climbed his stairs, reaching the top where Mayvalt had left the door propped open. He stepped beyond, into the dark of his room, and shut the door with a bang. She spun on her heels, crossing her arms over her chest.


    "Show yourself." She snapped.


    Bezel shook free from his disguise, he leaned back against his shut door, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that diffused disinterest into the space between them. It was different from her own stance, boxy and shut off with sharply angled arms over a wildly beating heart.


    "H-how could you?" Mayvalt whimpered. Her stiff arms broke formation over her torso. She pressed her face into the palms of her hands. Her shoulders were shaking, as if she was freezing beneath her black leather jacket. "You almost killed him--Wenroth!"


    Bezel blinked his glistening yellow eyes, drinking in her complaint. He rolled it over in his hollow skull. He didn''t know what to say.


    "You asked for my help." He said, finally. "You wanted me to go into the apartment, did you not?"


    "I-I thought Wenroth was going to harm Luvelt." Mayvalt admitted.


    "Then, he''s a bad person." Bezel nodded, "He should be put in his place."


    Mayvalt kicked her boot against the floorboards and dug her fingers into her soft pink curls. "Sap, Ba''al." She whispered. "I. . . I think that you''re one, too. And I know it''s my fault that you''re. . .like that. So, how could I blame you? It''s just. . .it''s just not okay, sometimes. You can''t do whatever you want."


    "I''m not a person, Mayvalt." He shrugged. She shuddered, making soft whimpering noises into the safety of her leather sleeves where they rested over her face. And Bezel let her. He was. . . he didn''t. . . he was nothing.


    There was a bubble in the center of his chest. He knew if he could just get it to crack, the words to soothe this all away would flood to the surface--but the glass shell would splinter and slice his heart into pieces. And he would die. And he''d stay dead. So, it was better to choke in hollow gasps around the intrusion, never knowing what was contained inside.


    "And Luvelt? Are they a bad person, too?" Mayvalt choked. "You broke up their home, and we don''t even have anything to show for it."


    Bezel tilted his head. He''d hurt Luvelt? When? He''d been careful, he thought. Bezel looked at her, trembling the same way she had on the day they''d met. When she''d been chased by monsters. Except, now, there was only one monster left. It stared at her with hollow cat-like eyes. "I don''t know what you want me to say. I push too hard, I let go too easy. Would it have made it better if I had gotten some answers? I did what I had to do to help you."


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    "Sap, boss, stop blaming me!" Mayvalt snapped. "I never asked you to terrorize them!"


    "I was just trying to help." Bezel repeated. He pushed off from the wall. With a few lazy strides, he crossed his office to park himself at his desk. He placed his elbows on the paper strewn surface and leaned his chin into the palm of his hands.


    She sighed, dropping her arms to her sides. "You can''t do things like that, boss. Promise me?" She said, wiping at the tears that trembled in the lines of her eyelids without falling.


    "Okay," he agreed, "I won''t."


    He didn''t exactly know what he was agreeing to. He decided not to mention his chat with Anvelt. It might have fallen outside the boundaries of their new agreement. She nodded and came towards the desk, pulling up a seat and collapsing into it in a huff. "Good." She said. "I''m glad."


    For not the first time, Bezel thought that Faun''s were much too sensitive. He was glad to not have any nerves left, so they couldn''t be grated away. Maybe, then, it really was for the best to keep Mayvalt around. Using her as a protective layering, buffering him from their whimpers. She''d been doing pretty well with at least that much.


    She wiped at her nose with the heel of her palm and sucked in a deep breath. "Okay," she murmured to herself. She tilted her head, so the fuzzy tips of her antlers crossed dangerously close to Bezel''s airspace. She closed her eyes, and prayed.


    She did that sometimes, when Bezel had done something particularly tactless. He would never feel remorse, he''d never feel regret or shame, and so all she could do was wait for the moment to pass. And it would, until the next time it came about.


    "Okay," she murmured, shaking herself loose from her prayers. When she lifted her chin again, a thick and iron-hot resolve had settled over her shoulders. As if nothing had happened at all. Mayvalt dug into her pocket. "I took these from Savalt''s apartment."


    It wasn''t the only thing she''d taken. Bezel could smell the blood from Savalt''s broken horn in the breast of her jacket, but she didn''t mention it, so neither did he. Mayvalt leaned over the desk, placing a few folded up papers on top of Bezel''s assorted tax forms. Bezel picked one off the top and flattened it.


    "What is a mouse?" He read. He sighed, blinking his lazy yellow eyes. "This again?"


    "It''s the last few pages of Savalt''s writings. . . when she was unwell." Mayvalt stroked the wrinkles from the paper, as if soothing a crying child.


    "Mayvalt, it means nothing." Bezel shrugged. He spread the papers across the desk, looking at the randomly scribbled letters with more than slight disinterest.


    "You can''t say that! Not for sure!" Mayvalt snapped. "A mouse. It''s, um," she glanced up at Bezel, into his glistening yellow eyes. "Prey! To a cat, it''s prey. So, maybe she meant pray? We have to pray? Or she wanted to pray? Or maybe she felt like prey. Maybe-"


    "Okay, that''s really great stuff." Bezel interrupted. "I''m just going to go get us a couple of drinks."


    "Boss!" Mayvalt snapped.


    He stood from his desk, waving his hands dismissively. "Right, right. I''m focusing, really. I just think you might focus better with a little distraction." Bezel couldn''t get drunk. The same way he couldn''t satisfy his hunger, or fall asleep at night. He was an absence of all things--but he''d hardly be the first businessman in New York to sip at some expensive scotch to fit into a crowd.


    "Sap, boss! Listen to me!" Mayvalt slammed her hands down into the desk, causing a bang that nearly covered up the sound of nervous knocking on the office door. Bezel paused, tipping his head in mock interest. Mayvalt froze, turning into ice and then stone. "Did someone really just knock on your door?" She ran her palm over her face and laughed into the tense silence to follow.


    "Huh, interesting. I didn''t think they''d come so fast." Bezel noted. His tone was dripping with static, betraying just how intriguing he really found it to be.


    "Oh, you''re expecting company?" Mayvalt puffed, as if she was telling some kind of joke. She stood from her chair, turning to face the door with creased eyebrows. "It''s probably just Fenvolt with the drink I asked for. You don''t have any friends, boss. If you did, I''d still be the only one dumb enough to stick around you."


    He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at her as he crossed his office. "Color me insulted. No, really, go ahead and imagine that I''m torn up inside. Let that satisfy your growing dissatisfaction with me, and call it a day. All these bitters words would suit someone else better."


    "Someone like you?" Mayvalt filled. "No, boss. Petty isn''t your style, either."


    "I will take that as a compliment and assume you''re no longer upset with me." He sighed, letting his breath hover in the air as delicately as a fluttering monarch. Or, it might have also dripped with enough sarcasm to sting stronger than the needle-end of a wasp. Those little distinctions sometimes got away from him.


    Mayvalt sputtered, gasping for air as dramatically as a stranded goldfish. "That''s just not how it works! I am mad! Furious! You can''t fix this so easily, boss! I swear--I''ll-"


    He seized the doorknob and yanked the old-fashioned seal open quick enough to startle Mayvalt into silence. And, if she had been correct in her assumption, it certainly would have been enough to send Fenvolt tumbling back down the stairs with her cocktail--but on some very rare occasions Bezel turned out to know what he was talking about.


    "Anvelt," Bezel greeted warmly. "You have news so soon?"


    "My Prince," Anvelt stooped, bowing in a way that had Mayvalt gawking with wide brown cow eyes. She turned them on the outline of Bezel''s shoulders, burrowing into his italian suit with her questions. "They were asking about you on the floor, I thought they might be your guest."


    "Thank you, Anvelt." Bezel nodded. The Faun lifted their chin, making a show of lingering on the platform before Bezel''s perch, looking sheepishly proud to be standing in a place reserved for their precious Phrionnsa.


    Bezel turned his shimmering yellow eyes to the hooded figure lingering in the doorway. They trembled beneath their cloak, tugging on the edges to further pull the fabric over their face. Wisps of curled green hair peaked from the edges, over their ghost white face. "I wasn''t sure if coming was the right thing to do."


    Bezel nodded, inhaling the words of this near perfect stranger. "Why did you?"


    "I have my reasons," they said steadily, "but to be honest, none of them were worth the risk. So, I thought I''d just stay sitting where you left me--but I remembered something else you said. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is the right thing to do." The Faun murmured from beneath their frayed brown fabric. They sucked in a rasping breath, pausing as if waiting for the scent of the wind to tell them if this was a mistake.


    Bezel extended his hand, bridging the thousand mile gap inside the edge of the doorframe. "Would you like to come in, Luvelt?"


    ? ? ?


    Mayvalt fluttered over Luvelt, frowning and fussing with as much dedication as a nurse maid. "He didn''t do anything to you, did he?" For a moment, Bezel thought she was talking about him.


    "No, no," Luvelt shook their head. They''d removed the hood of the cloak soon after Bezel had shut the door, and now seemed to be regretting that course of action. They blushed and shyed beneath Mayvalt''s concern flecked eyes, fingers pulling on the fabric where it bunched around their slender shoulders. "He didn''t even speak to me. I think the Prince scared the bleat out of him." Luvelt said.


    Mayvalt narrowed her eyes, glaring at Bezel with equally fierce dedication. "Yes, I apologize for all that."


    Bezel had taken great care to study the actions of others, so much so that he thought himself nearly impervious to surprises--until he suddenly wasn''t. He had no explanation for what happened in that moment, but suddenly Luvelt laughed--and neither Mayvalt nor Bezel knew what to do.


    They doubled over, vanishing beneath the body of their cloak. Luvelt tried to stifle their laughter, and only ended up giggling into a thin shield of fingers pressed against their lips. "Please, don''t be sorry. I''ve never seen him scared. Maybe it makes me awful, but seeing him like that--sap, I felt like I could finally breathe. I don''t know. I''ve never felt anything like that, it was like someone woke me up from some horrible nightmare and I realized that monster watching me sleep had just been the chair in the corner."


    "I''m sorry, I don''t understand." Mayvalt said with a frown.


    Luvelt smiled, "All I mean is. . . thank you."


    "T-thank you?" Mayvalt sputtered. "We broke down your door! We terrorized you in your home!"


    "There was terror in that place far before the Prince." Luvelt said bitterly.


    Mayvalt nodded. She sighed, her brown eyes darted to Bezel--seeking something. Whatever it was, she didn''t find it. She turned her gaze back on Luvelt and smiled softly. "Then, I understand."


    Bezel had perched himself on the edge of his desk. He let his eyes dance back and forth between the two Fauns, but he didn''t speak. It didn''t feel necessary--no, it felt detrimental. He very much knew he lacked the words. He had a tongue as sharp as glass and as kind as famine. Or, that was what Mayvalt said.


    "There has been. . . fear for us all." Luvelt said. They glanced at Bezel. He could hear the spike of their heart, racing behind the shell of their ribs. "I meant what I said, sir. I am loyal to the Faun, and therefor I can not be loyal to you, or the Phrionnsa."


    "Luvelt-"


    "-but I want to do what I think is right." Luvelt finished. "What happened to Savalt was. . . unnatural. Twisted. If it could happen again. . . I''d rather see it stopped."


    Mayvalt''s heart thumped, as graceful as basketballs tumbling down a flight of stairs. "What?" She choked. The color began to drain from her oak sheen cheeks. Mayvalt was crumbling as quickly as century old infistructon against a typhoon. It was as clear to see, as the mistake in Luvelt''s words had been to hear. Savalt was a crack in her armor, and Luvelt had jammed the blade in-between the slit, hitting just right. She''d sink, if he didn''t patch the tear in her hull. If only it was that easy.


    She''d land on her feet, she always did. So, he moved on, before the focus could be pulled away.


    "If it could happen again? Well, that''s rather odd. I thought it had been happening. We''ve lost quite a few Faun already, haven''t we, Mayvalt?" Luvelt bristled, and Bezel knew he was right. It was times such as these that he wished he could still feel the thrill of the hunt. Mayvalt blinked, working with great effort to pull her mind from the fog it''d fallen into.


    "Yes, boss." She murmured. "That''s correct."


    "I know it serves me none to lie. So, I won''t. I will say that I never have--but I''m only here to offer insight on the matter of Savalt. If you seek something else, I''ll take my leave." Luvelt tilted their chin. The little Faun squared their shoulders and stared unabashedly at Bezel. They might have looked brave, if not for the racing of their young heart just beneath the surface of their skin.


    "If you know that I can hear your lies in your pulse, then do you think I can not hear your fear?" Bezel asked.


    Luvelt did not wilt, as Bezel had expected them to do. It had only been hours ago that they had trembled before him. Or, had they? Even then, the Faun had engaged him in questions and refusal. They''d followed him, into the heart of his domain, and did not bend. "I am afraid. As you said, it is my nature, but I am not afraid of you, sir."


    Bezel cocked his head and stared with unblinking yellow eyes. "Well, why not?"


    Luvelt laughed, shaking their head with a sigh. "They say you can''t feel--but you act in such curious ways."


    "A five-legged dog is curious." Bezel muttered. "I am the Third Prince of Hell."


    "Yes, sir. So, I thought about it--and I just couldn''t make any sense of it. I thought, why would the Prince remember Wenroth''s horns? Why had he remembered mine? Why had he called me by the name I''d chosen for myself--why did he offer me a place to go?" Luvelt shook their head. "They didn''t seem like actions of a Prince. They seemed like actions of a ruler--and I thought it might all drive me insane until my head popped off, because how could that ruler betray us?"


    He might have scoffed. All this fuss, over such useless fanfare? He glowered at Mayvalt so that she knew she was in trouble for spreading the idea that his curse could be pulled back as easily as an old shag rug. He didn''t know why they all wanted to see the floor so badly. It was nothing but scratched hardwood.


    Bezel could remember a great many things, that had never made them matter to him. He could remember the first time he''d stepped on a pebble--and how badly it''d hurt. It took effort to hold disdain, disinterest, dislike. So, he didn''t. He did nothing--and somehow that''d become even more meddlesome.


    "I could answer much better if you gave me a hint." Bezel said. "What''d I do now?"


    "Ba''al," Mayvalt warned. "We should only ask about Savalt."


    "Brother," Bezel cursed. "So, now the other Faun don''t matter? It''s hard for me to follow along, Mayvalt."


    "Of course they matter, boss!" Mayvalt hissed. "I''m just trying not to ruin our only lead."


    "We have the papers." He said.


    "You said they were meaningless!" She snapped.


    "Well, I still think that." He agreed.


    "You have papers?" Luvelt interrupted. "From Savalt?"


    Mayvalt''s venom died on her tongue. She stuck it out at Bezel to soften the taste of it before turning back to Luvelt. "Yes. She was doing some research projects. It was all normal until the last one. The last few pages are, well, they''re nonsense."


    Luvelt nodded, slowly. "May I look at them?"


    "Of course-"


    "Not." Bezel finished.


    "What?" Mayvalt sputtered. "Ba''al, Luvelt wants to help."


    "I''ve yet to see that." Bezel shrugged. "We can''t hand over everything we have, not until you give us something in return. Sounds fair, doesn''t it?"


    "Boss." Mayvalt growled. "We aren''t playing good cop bad cop right now. This is serious. Savalt is in real danger. She needs us. We can''t sit around doing make-believe detective. There are no plea deals."


    "There will always be a new deal. Life is just one long game of trying to get the better half." Bezel corrected. Mayvalt might have blown a fuse, if not for Luvelt speaking up suddenly.


    "He''s right." They nodded. "I''ve come here and expressed my distrusted of the Prince, and of you. It''s only fair that I work to earn yours in return."


    Mayvalt crossed her arms over her chest, tipping her head in exasperation. "Fine. Go on then. Tell us what happened to Savalt." Her voice had turned sharp, burning the air with frost. Bezel turned his ears away from the rapid thudding of her scared heart.


    "I will," Luvelt promised, "but first, we should sit."

 17 | Ira Is Sick Of Sleepovers

    His spirit was weak. His mind was full of discontent. He''d been too spoiled all his life and had lost the ability to step over pebbles in the road. His memories were as fragile as paper anchors, and Ira thought he could change the tide of them with a mere ripple of his imagination.


    Ira turned his fingers to stone, delighting as his claws scratched deep into the lacquer over the polished keys. The piano wailed, a whale beneath Ira''s harpoon.


    "I see why your mother hired me," the tutor laughed. "You are. . .terrible."


    "I''m not terrible!" He snapped. Ira prickled, his cheeks heated beneath his anger, his joy at causing harm had quickly melted in favor of ice cold discontent.


    He might have bit off his own tongue before he admitted the truth. He was terrible. It was undeniable. Ira didn''t know how to play the instrument at all. There was no point in arguing, and yet he still did.


    He might have simply shook his head, and said that it was just his nature, except that it had felt different. It had stung in the pit of his chest. His pride had been wounded. Ira wanted this man to know how great he was. As if he really had some talent hidden in the bones of his slender fingers.


    "I just don''t want to be here." He defended weakly. His tongue froze over the last of his words: in this dream. He couldn''t push them up past his teeth no matter how hard he tried. They were stuck, tensing his throat so much that he could hardly breathe around them.


    "Ah, I see," the tutor nodded, "Playing the piano from the luxurious safety of your mother''s manor is just. . . much too stressful."


    He waved an open palm at the room around them. It might have been an impressive home--Ira didn''t know because he couldn''t see anything beyond the edges of the grand piano. It was his life raft, in a pitch black sea. Nothing else mattered, and so nothing else existed.


    Ira stiffened, a rolling heat had begun smoking in the hollow of his sternum. How could this man speak to him that way? Didn''t he know who Ira was? He scoffed, blowing a hot puff from his nose in a rather animalistic lack of etiquette. One day, he was going to take over the company--and this man would still be droning on about Beethoven to elementary children.


    Ira froze. A sudden and sickening thought had begun to wash over him, as if realizing the water in his pot had always been slowly boiling him.


    No, no, no. He shook his head. He was in control! He had to be--or it meant that he never would be. Ira tensed his fingers and slammed them down into the black-and-white teeth laid before him. His fingers had moved, the keys had pressed flush into the panel, and yet no noise had been made. It was all trapped inside his head. Just as Ira was.


    "What''s wrong? Cat got your tongue?" The tutor teased. He''d elected to sit next to Ira on the bench, so close that their thighs brushed and their elbows touched. Ira crooked his head to the side to fix his gaze on the man.


    Catlike. Something seemed familiar about that. Perhaps, because it was a very good way to describe the man. His olive-toned face had been cut into such sharp angles that he seemed almost feline in design. Ira couldn''t quite explain it, but he expected the man to gaze at him with eyes as dangerous as his beauty was terrifying.


    Instead, he looked at Ira with eyes only a shade lighter than his midnight oil hair. The dark brown irises seemed much too plain for his face, as if they did not belong.


    Ira stared down at his fingers. They flexed over the piano''s polished teeth, tapping into it a rhythm that Ira couldn''t hear. "I''m not a mouse, so I have no reason to fear a cat."


    The tutor sighed, shaking his head with a gentle huff of laughter. "It''s only an expression, Tomas."


    Ira huffed back, with equally gentle irritation. "One that I have never heard, then." He frowned. His piano teacher seemed to know everything. "It''s only that. . . well, no one''s ever spoken to me the way that you do."


    "I''m sure, young master." The tutor laughed. It was a sweeter sound than any melody Ira could coax from the musical table. "Do you find me rude?"


    "Possibly," Ira mused gently, the vitriol soaking in his mind was entirely lacking from the words he could muster. It was as if Ira was incapable of hating him, no matter how stiffly they argued. It seemed some sort of game between the two.


    Ira''s eyebrows creased together across the plains of his face. The piano shook beneath the plates of his fingers, making no noise and yet playing a song he''d heard before. Something he''d said. It had seemed so familiar.


    Each feeling of familiarity came and went quicker than flashes of lightning, leaving Ira feeling only sick instead. They stuck in his skin, too deep to pry free and too deep to see. So, he pressed his fingers into the keys to cause a sting. So, that even if he could never be rid of them, he would always remember that they were there.


    I am Ira Rule.


    When it hurt, he could breathe. He became momentarily aware of his existence in his cage.


    I am Ira Rule.


    Ira banged his fists against the hard shell of the boy''s skull. He slammed down his fingers, pressing into the teeth of the piano until it groaned--but nothing changed.


    I am Ira Rule.


    He was stuck, trapped by the oil clear walls surrounding the piano. Ira ached to be in a place very far from here, only that he couldn''t imagine where that was.


    I am.


    He closed his eyes, and found something stronger than believing. It was knowing. His pulse thrummed in the skin of his throat, telling him a story. Or, a terrible folktale. Somewhere, impossibly beyond reach, there was a mountain.


    One shaded beneath a wide blanket of ivory blue pine. The glimmering golden sunlight lay in dappling drops across the green forest floor.


    It warmed his skin until it had become unbearable. He''d been melting beneath it. And so had he, but he was just too stubborn to admit it. Ira laughed, even if it was only to himself.


    He shook his head, surrendering to the myth billowing in his mind. No, that hadn''t been the reason--he wasn''t stubborn. He often put up with more than he should. So, why had he insisted on that attire? Those shirts with the too-long sleeves.


    Ira froze. Where had those thoughts come from? He''d never left the city before. Father wouldn''t allow it, and he''d always wholeheartedly given his agreement. There was nothing beyond the doorstep but dirt and strangers marred by unkindness.


    Ira pressed his fingers to his lips. No, that couldn''t be true, either. After all, he''d come from outside. He''d come from impossibly far away.


    Ira had always been jealous of his travels, so he''d feigned disinterest in his stories of crossing the South China Sea, and in his wild adventures across Asia. He''d rolled his eyes and tapped idly at the piano as the hazy room was filled by the vibrant tales of his home.


    An island that Ira had only ever dared read about in textbooks. Ira had never left Warsaw. To him, Palembang seemed someplace unimaginable. For now. Maybe someday he would be brave enough to go. He thought, at least, if his teacher asked him to make the trip with him.


    Ira''s head pulsed as if throbbing in reaction to being thrown against a wall. He was slipping, no matter how desperately he clutched at crumbling footholds.


    His head was operating as a blender, mixing up his past and present, until he couldn''t even begin to pry apart the two. Who was who? Did it matter anyway? Ira was here now, with him. His charming piano teacher, with the paintbrush tongue and golden ideas.


    If Ira would just quit being so stubborn, he could replace that miserable and sweltering hike across the preserve with an evening spent lounging and laughing at the foot of his mother''s piano. It seemed better here.


    "Why are you so stubborn?" The boy teased. His voice dripped in honey-warm affection. It was thicker than his polish accent.


    Ira blinked, rubbing at his eyes until he thought he might press them back into the sockets. He had the sickening feeling that the boy had been speaking to him. That he''d found Ira lurking in the back of his skull and had directed his taunt at him.


    "I''m not stubborn," his teacher laughed in response, "I''m just. . .patient."


    "Is that why you''re stuck here? Just for the practice of patience? It seems a waste, doesn''t it." His voice echoed in his skull, rattling the bar''s of Ira''s cage. He was mocking him--he was sure of it now. "Wouldn''t you like to go home someday?"


    "Tomas," he sighed softly, "what is this about? If you asked me to stay, I would never leave. Not even for a single minute."


    "Do you swear, Mr Pangeran?" Tomas whispered. He paused, as if caught in a crossroads. He shook his head, until Ira felt dizzy inside of it. "No. Promise me, Bezel."


    Ira couldn''t breathe. His lungs were no longer his own. Each breath, each beat of life, was slipping out of his control. He was disappearing--he was being consumed.


    He stared across the opened stomach of the grand piano, at the veins of wire strung there. He had an unexplainable feeling that if he could make the instrument sing for him, it would fix everything. He reached out, with fingers that trembled, and grabbed ahold of the cold string.


    "Are you feeling alright?" Mr Pangeran asked. "You''re acting strange."


    Ira blinked. When had he put his knees on the bench, why was he reaching into the menacing gullet of his mother''s piano? He opened his mouth, and he made no noise. It was better that way. He had no explanation, it didn''t matter that his words had thickened into glue, and they were sticking along the walls of his throat.


    Ira turned back into his task. He wrapped his fingers around one black wire. He pulled until he thought it might slice into his skin. The piano cried beneath his cruelty, telling him a story that sounded so unfamiliar.


    There was someone waiting for him. Even if it was beyond his imagination, he knew that he had to be real. It was the only explanation for the horrible aching Ira felt. The unwavering need to find him. He missed him, more than he missed the breath from his lungs. And he didn''t know why.


    He wanted to hear his voice. He wanted to hear him call his name--something better than his name. To lock him into his skin and make real his existence.


    "Tomas," Mr Pangeran whispered. His voice was thick with fear. So much so that it rolled Ira''s stomach. "You really don''t look well. Would you like to stop the lesson now? I''ll explain to your mother."


    Ira wanted to stop. He opened his heavy lips to agree and found himself as soundless as his piano had been. His tongue had fallen asleep. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn''t put together any sensible sentiment.


    Ira sat back down on the piano bench with a thud. Why couldn''t he speak? His fear rose up his throat, filling the quickly tightening space. He gasped, trying to suck in air around the emotions piercing his lungs. Nothing came.


    He was drowning, right here at the mouth of his mother''s piano. Ira balled up his fist and banged it into the center of his chest. It hurt. It hurt so bad.


    He was scared. He didn''t know what to do. He slammed his fist into the keys, and they screamed for him. Finally giving him the noise that he''d wanted--because it''d been Tomas'' touch that''d finally found them.


    "Tomas, what''s wrong?" He grabbed his shoulder, trying to shake him loose from his fit. Ira wished it was possible. His vision had begun rotting at the edges, fading into a blank and sightless black.


    "May, come here quick!" Mr Pangeran screamed.


    Ira almost laughed except that he couldn''t even gasp in enough air to scoff. What did he expect his apprentice to do? She was only fifteen and seemed completely uninterested in partaking in her teachers'' lessons.


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    His head felt so heavy, stuffed with cotton and nonsense.


    If he could just rest for a moment, maybe it would be better when he woke. That was what he thought as he tumbled onto the cool linoleum floor.


    Mr Pangeran was on him in an instant, ripping at the buttons over Ira''s throat. "Breathe, breathe, breathe," he pleaded.


    Ira swatted weakly at his hand. He was going to come undone if his seams ceased holding him together. He just knew it. "May, do something! I can''t-"


    Ira sputtered. His piano teacher was pushing him beneath the tile, pressing on his sternum until he thought the bones would crack. His lungs shuttered in his chest, and he was screaming with all he had left--and it made no noise.


    He was trapped, submerging beneath the dirt. Ira kicked against the weight pushing down on him, trying to rise above the tides he was drowning in.


    "-itten!" Ira couldn''t see anything through the black fog filling his skull. He was going to die--no, he had already died. "Kitten! Hey, wake up!"


    Ira dug his claws into the first thing he could grab. He was only relieved to find something real. It was warm, and soft, and undeserving of his force. He pressed until he felt it break beneath the tip of his nails.


    He would apologize later, after he''d clawed himself out of the darkness. Ira spat, choking on the dirt filling his throat. He''d been buried alive--he was going to die again.


    "Breathe!" Mr Pangeran snapped.


    Ira gasped. Cold air filled his lungs, crystallizing as ice in his chest. His mind was full of fuzz, and his vision was spotted. He choked, and then he was throwing up.


    "Woah, woah. Okay, just take it easy, Kitten." He was there, pushing Ira onto his side and stroking a hand down his spine. Ira coughed and spat until he was sure his stomach was empty and his throat was clear.


    His weight felt unnatural, pressed into his shoulder and elbow. Had he been laying? When had he fallen asleep? The floor beneath him was cold and uncomfortable. It pressed hard into his hips, filling him with chill and discomfort. Everything ached, though that might have more to do with his nightmare.


    "Wh-" Ira sputtered, his tears were heavy in the cradle of his blue eyes. He choked on his words, and spit them into the dirt. Where were you?


    "Breathe." He murmured softly. The word rolled Ira''s stomach. Luckily, he had nothing left to give.


    "P-please. . .don''t," Ira gasped. He scraped his teeth against the flat of his tongue and shuddered. He blinked his eyes. He was sure now that he was awake, so why couldn''t he see anything? His fear uncoiled in his stomach, a live snake with fangs ready to tear him apart from the inside out.


    "Okay, okay. I''m sorry." He apologized. "It''s alright, I promise it''s alright." As he spoke, he never stopped stroking Ira''s back. Ira let him, until the haze began to slowly melt from his mind and the comfort became withering hot embarrassment.


    Oh, angels. I just--no, he couldn''t even bring himself to repeat it in the cold cage of his own mind. Ira cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, knocking away the gentle heat of his palm. His warm hand departed, keen to Ira''s suggestion. "Ah, right. Sorry."


    Ira pushed himself carefully upwards, trying to avoid his own sick puddle. He wiped at his lips with the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes prickled with hot tears of humiliation. He didn''t know what to say to explain himself. He didn''t know how to even begin to apologize--so he didn''t. "It''s too dark, I can''t see."


    "Sorry--hold on." He stammered. Why could Ira could feel him more as he left. The absence of him sent chills down Ira''s spine, as if the cold had only just scraped his skin. He pulled his knees to his chest, and wrapped his arms around his legs. Ira tried to suppress his whimpers and his childish fears, there were no more monsters in the dark than in the day. That was just a myth.


    The flashlight blinked on a moment later, flooding Ira with a wave of too-white light. He flinched, blinking with wide blue eyes to soak up the sight of Kaaterskill at midnight. Well, not exactly. He really had no idea how much time had passed--because he''d fallen asleep. The thought washed over him as another wave of dizziness. His stomach rolled again, forcing his knuckles against the pink skin of his lips.


    "Are you okay? Is it the cold? Are you sick, do you feel feverish? Angels, I knew I should have carried you back home. I just thought you''d hate that--but I should have." He rambled near nonsense, and Ira couldn''t help but laugh. Maybe he really did have a fever--nothing else could explain how warm he was.


    Ira''s eyes sought after him, chasing him as a child their kite. He was hunched awkwardly, between the rocks cutting the riverbank, balanced on his knees. He rubbed at the back of his neck, as if wondering what to do next. He glanced back at Ira with a glittering green gaze. His eyes were dangerous, as if better suited for a man who taught piano in Poland, but Ira wasn''t afraid.


    "Melchior,"  Ira breathed. He pressed his palm into his forehead, testing his temperature. He''d been boiling a moment ago, but the name came over him, washing him in cool air and calmness.


    He was real. Ira hadn''t made him up.


    "Yeah, it''s me." Melchior agreed lamely, and then suddenly aware of how strained he''d sounded, he laughed awkwardly. It was a sound as beautiful as shattering glass, and as soothing as asphalt.


    Ira could have listened to it all day. It was impossibly more beautiful than any grand piano.


    "Want to go get some air by the water, or drink some water? Ah, not the Kaaterskill! A bottle, from the bag." He flushed rose pink and ducked his head. His skin was going to start peeling if he didn''t stop rubbing at the back of his neck.


    "I''m not that disorganized that I''d start drinking the Beast foam soup." Ira said it before he could register the words tumbling from his lips. He froze. His heart thumped against the bottom of his stomach. Melchior stopped rubbing at his neck.


    "Angels! The Beast!" Ira snapped. He whirled around, scrambling to his feet on numb legs.


    Melchior was quick behind him, gripping him by the elbow to steady him. "Woah, that was hours ago. The whole thing is cloud-fodder now."


    Ira stumbled. He was suddenly glad for his closeness. Ira sagged into Melchior''s offered support. He tipped backwards on his heels, feeling fragile on his glass legs. His back pressed flush against Melchior''s chest, until he could sense the thump of his heart in his shoulder blades.


    Instinctively, as if only because he''d come so close, Melchior wrapped his arms over Ira''s stomach. Ira glanced down at his arms, where the bandage covered his left wrist and where his skin rested against the thin layer of Ira''s shirt.


    Ira''s eyes flickered over the small crescent moon indents in the smooth skin of his forearms. Ira remembered clawing onto something when he was trying to fight free from his dream, and now he knew what. He blushed, falling victim to another wave of embarrassment.


    How terrible did he look? And how much worse was it now that he clung to him, but Ira couldn''t bring himself to push Melchior away. Mostly, because it was too hard to detangle himself and process the gears in his head chugged past the glue gumming them all together. He must have still been half-asleep. Nothing he could remember made sense.


    "By the way, that was really impressive, Kitten. Your little trick with the holy water--but let''s not mention it. I''m sure the Progeny won''t let us off for burning away all that Ossein." Melchior added. His breath was warm against Ira''s ear.


    He''d seen the Beast burn. He''d seen Melchior--he''d seen what? Melchior slip by the riverbank. No, he hadn''t slipped. He''d fallen.


    He''d fallen because--because the water had touched him, too. Ira had seen the smoke curling from the top of his boot. He''d seen the horror reflecting in his glassy green eyes, the color draining from his cheeks.


    His cheek!


    Ira spun around in the cage of the other boy''s grip. He took Melchior''s face in his hands and smoothed his fingertips over the rise of his cheekbone, where that gaping cut had been.


    Had been. There was nothing there. "I thought you--but you couldn''t hear me, right?"


    "I''m fine." Melchior dismissed. He caught Ira''s fingers, giving them a light squeeze. "I just got too close, and I guess I was a little shell shocked."


    Ira shut his eyes, forcing his memories through the glossy haze in his head. He''d seen blood. It''d been dripping from his ears, rolling down the sharp cut of his jaw.


    Ira didn''t think he would ever forget the look of fear in his eyes.


    "You did?" Ira asked. "You got really close? Did you hit it with any arrows?"


    Melchior laughed, "yeah, nothing like what you did to it but I definitely sunk a few tips into it. I was so close to it, I thought it was the sky. It just stood over me, watching me. I guess it was trying to decide if an ant was worth the effort or not."


    Ira chewed on the inside of his lip. Melchior had wounded it, and then he''d stood beneath it. If it had been bleeding, if it''d gotten on him--it''d have burned away in the water.


    Ira recalled the first hunt he''d ever been on with Father Pine. Or, more accurately, the harvest after. When the night had closed and the sawing had begun. There''d been a Deacon there, a few years older than Ira.


    He''d burned beneath the water too, all while screaming and howling that he was being possessed. Ira had been terrified--until the others began to laugh at him. He''d coated his hands with the cooling blood of the He-Goat, and made Ira into a laughingstock. More than he already was among the Progeny.


    Ira studied Melchior beneath the moonlight. There was no blood. Not anywhere on his face. It was Beast blood--and it had smoldered.


    Or, it was his, and in that case he''d have to had washed it off in the Kaaterskill. That would have burned him even further, but he looked perfectly fine.


    Ira''s eyes fluttered towards the duffle bag. They had water in that bag. He could have used it to wash off--but if Melchior had never been hurt, then it wasn''t his blood.


    Ira turned back to the soft skin of his cheek. Had Ira really even seen a gash? Now, he was sure it was only a smudge of blood. And it had all been washed away. Just more evidence of a Beast, and they''d burned it all away.


    "How. . . do you feel?" Ira tested.


    Melchior raised his eyebrows. "I think I should be asking you that. You''re acting weird. Well, more than usual. Very un-kitten like." He announced.


    "What''s that supposed to mean?" Ira frowned, welling up his eyebrows in a way noting his confusion.


    He paled, and his cheeks flushed with warmth. His embarrassment was again stronger than his upset, and he thought he might get sick on it--and then he''d have another round of stomach-cramping embarrassment to weather. "A-about getting sick? I-"


    Melchior huffed a laugh from his nose. He brought his fingers up to the lines of his cheekbones and took Ira''s hands in his own. He pried them gently from his face and let their entangled fingers fall to the empty space between their chests.


    Ira was turning amaranth. How long had he been cradling Melchior''s face between his hands like some lovesick puppy? No, worse. He''d been behaving more as a fretful grandmother consumed by concern.


    He''d never before thought of which mortifying self image he''d pick if it came down to just the two, but now he knew it wasn''t the worry-weathered grandmother.


    Ira was burning alive. Had he just cornered himself into lovesick puppy territory? His heat rose to eat at the flesh of his cheeks. He was melting beneath it, and Melchior wasn''t helping.


    He''d been unaware before, but now he couldn''t shake it from his mind. Melchior''s grip was too warm were it rested over his knuckles. He slowly retreated, pulling them apart.


    Melchior smiled. "There we go," he said, "very catlike."


    Ira paused. He tilted his head and furrowed the lines of his scowling face. "Have you been calling me that because you think I''m. . . aloof?"


    "Ah," Melchior clicked his tongue, "busted."


    Ira laughed. It rolled from between his ribs, filling him with feelings as fleeting as popping soap bubbles.


    "I thought it was because cats have nine lives." He admitted shyly. He sighed, and shook his head until flaxen hair tumbled into his blue eyes to banish the embarrassment tearing up his insides.


    Melchior flinched. "Angels, I just thought of that! I''m sorry, I should have been more aware. I''ll stop, it was kinda silly anyway."


    "No!" Ira said. Too quickly, he realized. He stilled, holding so frozen his breath frosted over on his tongue.


    "I''m not a T-Rex. I can see you." Melchior teased.


    "You know that''s a myth, right?" Ira grumbled, but he was glad for the distraction.


    "How would you know? Have you ever asked one?" Melchior asked.


    "I''ve never asked an apple if it''s red." Ira retorted bitterly.


    "Ah, are they?" Melchior asked, clicking his tongue for added annoyance. "I thought they came in a bunch of colors."


    "Are you being sarcastic?" Ira mumbled.


    "Okay, maybe a little," Melchior surrendered, "I know apples are red, obviously, but I really am color blind."


    "What?" Ira balked. "Really?"


    "Yeah, dichromatic." He shrugged.


    Ira paused, and then nodded. "I''m impressed you know such big words."


    "I''m so glad you''re back to normal, I''m just going to take that." Melchior huffed. "For now. We''ll circle back to it later, trust me."


    Ira laughed, more at himself than anything. He distantly recalled a time, in the height of his fever, when he''d thought that Melchior wasn''t stubborn.


    His heart, which had been slowly rising like warming dough, suddenly deflated back into the pit of his stomach. He remembered his dream. He remembered suffocating to death. He remembered his teacher, the monstrous Mr Pangeran.


    And he remembered losing control of his stomach, and somehow that was worse. So much worse. He groaned, laying his burning face in the cupped resting place of his palms.


    "Alright, I told you my dark secret. So, are you going to tell me what happened?" Melchior prodded.


    Ira wrinkled up his nose. Had he? Was that really all he had to hide? No. Ira knew it wasn''t. There was the curse, the very thing binding them together. Whatever it was, it was enough to place Melchior beneath his blade.


    So, maybe it was also enough to cause his skin to burn. If that were true, there had to be more to the story. Things didn''t burn just because they''d come in contact with demonic energy. If that were true, any battle hardened Deacon would melt. So, this curse, it had to have left something behind.


    And if it did--what? A source of energy? A blemish? If it burnt, could it be burned away?


    Ira shook his head. If it was that simple, he was sure Melchior would have done so instead of ending up as his sacrificial lamb.


    Ira sighed. It was pointless to let this consume anymore of his mind. The curse, the suspicion, the doubt--it''d tear him apart if he let it and he''d already promised to place his trust in something unsteady. Until their time was up. The curse, even it was a hole torn in the hull of Ira''s ship, was something he''d swore he wouldn''t mention.


    "Kitten, you alright?" He asked shamelessly.


    Ira flinched, and resolved himself to glaring down into the gaps between his shaking fingers. He''d never told him to stop, Angels, he''d done the opposite--but how could he ask Melchior to act as someone he wasn''t?


    Someone with a quick tongue, full of honey-sweet flirtation. With grace and balance, enough to rival any butterfly in flight. Someone who would have thought of what it meant to tell the reincarnated boy he was catlike before he did it. Someone, someone, someone--he knew who he meant and it rolled his stomach up tighter than a carpet destined for the dumpster.


    Why, after all this torment, did Ira still think of him?


    "It was nothing." Ira said. His words settled as heavy as rocks in his stomach. "Just a bad dream."


    "Okay." Melchior breathed. "Do you want to go home? I think Peter probably misses you."


    "I think Peter probably misses you, too." Ira admitted sourly.


    Melchior grinned. "Are you jealous?"


    "What?" Ira sputtered.


    "Angels, you are!" Melchior laughed. He lifted his left eyebrow and cocked his head. "Wait, of me or of her? Think carefully, your answer matters."


    "You''re ridiculous." He muttered.


    "You''re not denying it." Melchior countered. He strolled back towards their bag, on legs that didn''t limp or waiver. Ira studied his ankles as he jumped over rocks and picked apart a path. He was fine. There''d been blood on him, and it had burned away.


    Ira sighed. He turned himself back towards the Kaaterskill, watching as the mist churned up from the bottom of the falls. He wrapped his arms around his thin shirt, shivering into the early morning chill. He laughed, softly to himself. Maybe he really was acting strange. No matter the goosebumps raised over the pale skin of his arms, Ira was burning with heat.


    He looked at Melchior, sorting their granola bars and water bottles back into the duffle bag, and he was warm from the inside out.


    "It''s okay." He murmured beneath his breath.


    Melchior turned to look at him, with glistening green eyes as lit as the silver moon. He tipped his head, as if waiting for Ira to call to him. So, he did.


    "Hey, hurry up!" He shouted over the crashing river. "I want to go home."

 18 | What Bezel Lacks In Curiosity He Makes Up For In. . . Style?

    "Savalt lived across the hall from us," Luvelt began, "she was a good neighbor to have. Whenever Wenroth got really bad, she''d invite me in."


    The Faun spoke so softly, the sounds almost lost to the gentle hum in the floorboards from the music down below. Bezel had to tilt his head and shut his eyes to fully hear the small whimpering.


    "She always said just to have some Satyrian tea--but I knew she was looking out for me." As Luvelt spoke, they cast nervous glances to the door behind them. As if scared someone would interrupt.


    It was incredibly unlikely. There existed very few Faun foolish enough to knock on his door, and with Mayvalt already inside of the office the chances were even slimmer.


    "That sounds like her." Mayvalt smiled weakly.


    Bezel stared blankly at his hands, twisting his fingers up into odd shapes in a motion that might have seemed driven by boredom--but he wasn''t. Well, to be completely fair. He wasn''t quite entertained either.


    He simply observed, settling into perfect silence to allow the Faun time to speak around him. For now. Mayvalt often said he spoke too much--and most often when no one wanted him too, but it was hard to tell those sort of things apart.


    Luvelt nodded in gentle appreciation. "Right, so it was strange when she stopped coming by. I mean, it was like clockwork. Everyday. He''d start shouting, and she''d knock and ask me to come try some tea. And then. . . she didn''t. I didn''t really think something had happened to her. I thought, well, it was never her job to save me. Maybe she got tired of it."


    Mayvalt leaned forward in her seat, placing a gentle palm on Luvelt''s shoulder. The trembling Faun smiled softly at the gesture.


    "Well, then even stranger things began to happen." Luvelt continued nervously.


    "Things like?" Bezel pressed. Mayvalt glared at him, but he didn''t know why. She should have more reason than him to get to the bottom of this. He offered his surrender in the form of a shrug and she rolled her coffee-warm eyes in acknowledgement.


    "Like. . . noises." Luvelt whimpered. They gasped in small shocks of air around the shaking knuckles they''d pressed against their teeth. "Whispering."


    Mayvalt tilted her head, slicing the shared airspace with her fuzzy antlers. "From Savalt''s apartment?"


    "Not at first." Luvelt grew paler than moonlight. "At first it was. . . i-in my head. Or, in the room where I slept. S-something was. . . calling to me at night."


    Bezel creased his midnight black eyebrows over the glimmer of his yellow eyes. "Are you sure?"


    "Boss!" Mayvalt snapped. He scowled, trying to piece together why she''d snapped at him.


    Luvelt sighed, deflating into Bezel''s leather chair. "I know. I know how I sound. I thought I was going crazy, too, but then the whispering just. . . stopped."


    "When?" Mayvalt asked.


    Bezel could have pouted, if he cared enough to be bothered. Why was she allowed to ask questions? Maybe they''d begun playing good cop bad cop again.


    No, even bad cops got to interrogate. So maybe they''d begun a round of good cop and paperweight.


    Luvelt twisted up their fingers, clutching at their cloak. "The same night Savalt didn''t come."


    "So, you think it might be related?" Mayvalt asked.


    "I didn''t! If I had maybe I would have gone to her. I don''t know. I might have been able to tell her not to listen." Luvelt swallowed hard.


    A sullen shadow of guilt graced the Faun''s fine features as they continued. "The things it was saying were awful. A-about getting my revenge on Wenroth. About hurting myself if I couldn''t. It wasn''t just words. It was this feeling, too, like being all charred up on the inside."


    Mayvalt glanced at Bezel, her eyes filled with slight recognition. It was hard to pick apart, so deeply tangled into her worry.


    She looked as if she had gone to see a play, but only realized at the final act that she''d heard of it before--and it was barreling towards a tragic ending.


    Inside of her irises, there was something else, too. It was so small, he might have missed it if he wasn''t so attuned to fitting into a mask. The corners of her eyes sharped. It tasted as bitter as blame


    He thought he might have had an idea as to why, but for the sake of all of Heimr--he''d better be wrong.


    "Have you ever wanted something so badly you''d do anything to get it?" Luvelt asked. "I mean anything. Steal it, destroy it, kill for it. . .die for it."


    He knew the weight of Luvelt''s meaning. He knew that death was a luxury that the immortal soul would never afford. When they died--they simply ceased to be. And still he knew that he would.


    "Yes." Bezel said dully.


    Mayvalt flinched. Her eyes fell to the floor, and they didn''t move again.


    "Yes." She whispered.


    And he knew, without even glancing at her, that they were thinking of the same night. The night when the rangale had ripped Bezel''s body into two halves. When they had left all of his heart in the wrong side.


    Only now, Bezel didn''t know who she spoke for. Was it the bitter child that had wanted him punished or a regretful sinner who wished she could take it all back?


    Luvelt laughed, and it was a sound full of scorn. "You two are very much alike."


    Mayvalt grimaced, but Bezel wasn''t particularly offended. It must have stung to be separated from her kind, tossed aside to the uncaring Prince. By his side was a very lonely place to be.


    Luvelt glared down at their hands, "Well, I hadn''t. Not until it began whispering to me. It had promised me everything I''d ever wanted--things I hadn''t known I wanted. And then it was just gone. And I stayed awake at night, flinching with every creak, hoping that it''d come back because now I''d had done anything to get what I wanted. I was torn apart by this feeling."


    "Greed." Bezel said. "The feeling of greed."


    "Yeah," Luvelt nodded.


    Mayvalt tensed, she stiffened with something worse than fear. It was confirmation. It was watching the curtains peel back from the stage, only to see the actors move into their death throes.


    She shifted on her feet, and a look of blank fretfulness slipped over her expressions. Bezel might have smirked with invented pride. Sometimes, she was better at faking it than he was.


    "You said not at first. So, eventually, the whispers came from Savalt''s apartment?" Mayvalt pressed.


    "Not exactly." Luvelt breathed. "At night, when I was waiting, I began to hear something else. These knocking noises. I thought it was just apartment living. We had a new couple move in upstairs, they had a young fawn. I thought it was the baby. . . because of the crying."


    "It wasn''t?" Bezel guessed. "You think it was Savalt?"


    Luvelt nodded slowly. "She came after four days. Wenroth had begun screaming, and she knocked. I went out to speak to her-" Luvelt whimpered, placing their face into their open palms.


    "What? Luvelt, what?" Mayvalt pushed.


    "Mayvalt, she. . . she wasn''t right. She stared right through me. I kept trying to talk to her, but she never even spoke. She just. . . left. She went into her apartment, and she slammed the door. I didn''t see her again. I just kept hearing that knocking--all night. And later I heard these awful whimpering sobs." They said.


    Luvelt rubbed at their eyes where the tears pooled. "I think now that she was asking for help but I didn''t help her. After everything she''d done for me, I did nothing."


    "It wasn''t your fault, Luvelt. You couldn''t have known what was happening." Mayvalt soothed. The corners of her lips twitched, a small muscle in the sharp line of her jaw jumped just beneath her skin. Her throat flexed as she swallowed down her resentment.


    Bezel often thought that contempt looked as pretty as rose petals when Mayvalt smoothed it down deep into the hollow of her chest, containing it there as a live viper. There was something deeply enticing to him about watching others choke on what he could no longer eat.


    "We went to her apartment but she wasn''t there. Looked like she hadn''t been in awhile. Did you ever see her leave?" Mayvalt asked. She sunk back beneath the soothing tones of her concern. Bezel didn''t doubt that it was real, he just knew that it weighed less than her anger.


    "I''m sorry." Luvelt sniffled, wiping at their red nose with the bunched up fabric of their cloak. "I never saw or heard her leave. Her apartment. . . what was it like?"


    "It wasn''t pleasant." Mayvalt grit between her teeth.


    "The blood." Luvelt whispered.


    Mayvalt flinched. A thin sheen of sweat broke across her brow. "How did you-"


    "The scent of it was obvious from the moment we arrived in the low-street." Bezel cut in. "I''m sure there''s not a single Faun in the place that couldn''t smell it. Am I right?"


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    Luvelt pulled their cloak tighter around their chest, trembling. "You don''t get it."


    Almost as beautiful as the acrobat, is the moment they slip from the tightrope. Mayvalt''s performance ground to a definitive halt. Her porcelain mask slipped, shattering against the floor so that she could never pick it back up.


    "No, you''re right, I don''t," Mayvalt snarled, "how could an entire building of Faun sit by and do nothing? Sap, you all speak of unity but when she needed you--no one was there! You all just sat in your rooms like cowards!"


    Luvelt flinched. The last of the pink in their face drained away.


    "Mayvalt dear," Bezel warned in his hopelessly void tone, "settle."


    They''d get nothing more if they weren''t careful. Mayvalt glared at him. She huffed from her nose and paced across the office to the large oval window, staring down at the Hudson with a scowl across her face.


    "We knew, you''re right, but what could we have done?" Luvelt deflated, sinking into the mounds of their cloak. "That''s why I came. I know I made a mistake, but I want to help now. I''m putting myself in danger by being here. Speaking to the Prince, even if it means helping Savalt, is at great risk to myself. If the rangale knew I was here-"


    "The rangale," Bezel dismissed with an exaggerated scoff, "they''d first have to choke on their hypocrisy. Any Faun in Heimr came because I allowed it. They stepped through doorways I made. They dress with blessings I gave them. There are no true rangale here, merely tantrum-bound toddlers."


    "You have changed the rules with your action, sir. Even the Satyrian clan is beginning to see you for who you truly are." Luvelt murmured, and in cryptically unhelpful Faun fashion began to ramble something as incoherent as Savalt''s essay. "You may hide from the rain beneath your metal umbrella, but the lightning will seek you."


    "My action?" Bezel pondered, "no, I still don''t get it."


    He riffled through his mind, pushing through the web-coated shelves to several weeks ago when the Faun had begun to slowly disappear one-by-one. On the day Mayvalt had first mentioned it to him, he''d been sitting catatonically in his office, passing the time by blankly staring out the window.


    Mayvalt said it was a creepy hobby to nurture, but he didn''t see how it was particularly offensive.


    And before that, it''d been much of the same. Well, maybe there had been something. The failed attempt to open another gate in the Trammel. He tipped his head and frowned. That little episode? It''d just been a hiccup.


    He''d opened several other gates perfectly fine over the course of his centuries. He could almost enjoy the hum of them now, always simmering in the back of his mind as they leached off his energy.


    If they wanted more gates so badly, he could try again at the next full moon. When the barrier between the three worlds would be at its weakest. It was hardly cause for so much complaining.


    "Okay, I give up." He shrugged. "Mayvalt, what''d I do?"


    "Me?" Mayvalt sputtered, she snapped to attention from her place by the window, "how should I know?"


    "You always know!" He protested, "even when you''re not there, like that time I told Fenvolt he had no talent for cooking. You were on me within the hour demanding I apologize."


    "He cried!" Mayvalt shouted, waving her hands dramatically through the air. "Remember what I told you, always start apologizing when they start crying--it usually means you messed up."


    "Fauns always look a little teary when I speak to them." Bezel shrugged.


    "Boss." Mayvalt sighed.


    "That''s enough!" Luvelt interrupted. "I have no temper to deal with a Prince who takes his actions against us so lightly, he can''t be bothered to recall."


    "Does it make it better or worse to say I usually don''t remember the things I do?" Bezel asked. Mayvalt wrinkled up her nose and shook her head. So, he fell silent.


    "I came to help with Savalt. I told you all that I know." Luvelt sighed. "I''m sorry it''s not enough."


    "It''s more than we had." Mayvalt admitted weakly. "It fills in some holes."


    "It does? Which ones?" Bezel puzzled absent curiosity.


    "Her research papers, boss." Mayvalt might have rolled her eyes, but she seemed to be lacking the strength to do so. "They''re just nothing. If she was suffering from a crisis it could have been doing untold damage to her mind."


    "That''s hardly the golden goose at the end of the trail mix." Bezel remarked.


    Mayvalt blinked. Luvelt tipped their head. The room turned silent. Bezel could sense the thrum in the floor from the music downstairs.


    "What?" Mayvalt finally balked.


    "I was trying to do that riddle thing you Faun do all the time," Bezel muttered sourly, "fine, I''ll stick to speaking plainly. I meant, it''s really not an answer it''s just another idea."


    "We do not-"


    "Wait, a riddle!" Mayvalt cried. "It''s a riddle, isn''t it!"


    "Is that a question or a statement?" Bezel asked.


    "I''m confused." Luvelt grumbled.


    "Me too," Bezel agreed.


    Mayvalt rushed to Bezel''s desk and began peeling through the mess he''d left there. She picked up the papers from Savalt''s apartment and triumphantly held them in the air. "What is a mouse? It''s not a question--it''s a riddle."


    "I hardly see the difference, Mayvalt." Bezel said.


    "If it''s a riddle, there has to be an answer." Mayvalt lectured.


    "Que-"


    "No they don''t." Luvelt interrupted.


    "Oh, come on! You had no idea what I was about to say." Bezel protested.


    "You were going to say that questions have answers." Luvelt rolled their eyes as if it was a stupid thing to think, "you could fill the rest of your eternal life with pondering the simplest questions asked of us, and still never get it right."


    "Well, I certainly have no answer for the question of why Faun are so bothersome." Bezel agreed.


    "Sure you do, boss," Mayvalt laughed, "it''s just in our nature."


    "Well, then, I have no further argument." He shrugged. "Anyway, didn''t we know that before? What was all that nonsense you had to spout about prey or praying or whatever?"


    "Sap, boss," Mayvalt groaned. She shook her peach toned curls and sighed. "I was being too literal. I was trying to answer a question instead of solving a riddle."


    "I''ll pretend to see the difference." Bezel noted coolly. "You think this is a game? You think Savalt left you with, what, a knock-knock joke to remember her by? It seems just Satyrian nonsense."


    Mayvalt glowered down her nose at him. "I won''t need anything to remember her by when I find her." She snapped.


    Bezel paused. She was angry, most likely because he''d stepped outside of their bubble of pretend. Pretending that Savalt was happy, albeit hornless, waiting for them somewhere. He studied the fragile skin of her blinking eyelids, and he saw no tears.


    "Sure," he agreed, "so, what would make this a riddle?"


    "Well, riddles usually come with clues. Sometimes that''s just your prior knowledge of the language." Luvelt suggested. "Historical context, I suppose. When is a door not a door?"


    "Before you put the hinges on it?" Bezel asked.


    "When it''s ajar." Mayvalt finished. "You''re really bad at this, boss."


    "Satyrian senselessness." He muttered.


    "So, what is a mouse?" Luvelt murmured. "It''s sort of strange, isn''t it."


    "Obviously." Bezel muttered.


    After tossing him a heated glare, Mayvalt turned herself back towards Luvelt. "How so?"


    "Well, it doesn''t really follow riddle structure at all. It''s just seemingly so direct. It''s hard to see what possible puzzle could be made of it." Luvelt hummed, more so to themself.


    "Faunish foolishness." Bezel puffed.


    "So, you think it is just a question?" Mayvalt asked, deflating into her leather jacket.


    "Not necessarily." Luvelt said. "I just feel like, well, something is missing."


    Mayvalt perked up. "We brought more papers. Would you like to see?"


    "May-" Bezel warned.


    "Please." Luvelt finished. Mayvalt rushed to Bezel''s desk and pushed his paperwork to the furthest corner. In the space she''d triumphantly cleared, she spread out the essay clippings from Savalt''s home. Luvelt joined at her side and stared down blankly at the writings.


    They blinked. Bezel knew they must have been scrambling to detangle the jibberish on the page.


    scilla sik tallis til lilac sta lisk taksicll sill act ikll sikl ticals sakti ilk tiks lis sial scall tilaks--for pages and pages, in countless more combinations. It was giving even him a headache, and he hadn''t been able to hold one for centuries.


    Bezel rubbed at the sharp line of his jaw. He''d tried to warn her that it was all nothing and now her last hope was about to be crushed. He turned his blank yellow eyes to the window overlooking the Hudson.


    "Do you have a pen?" Luvelt asked. Mayvalt nodded and gestured at Bezel, who obediently retrieved one from his desk drawer. Luvelt took it from him with a slight tremble in the tips of their fingers. "Have you tried decrypting it?"


    Mayvalt chewed on her bottom lip. "Decrypting it?"


    "Using the letters Savalt gave us to try and finish the riddle." Luvelt answered.


    Mayvalt shook her head, and Luvelt nodded. "Then, let''s start there."


    Luvelt pointed with the tip of their pen at each break in the letters. "There''s never been a ''word'' to exceed eight letters, so whatever the message I think it''s safe to assume it''s less than that."


    Mayvalt nodded.


    "Okay, we can make it easy first. We can pick out the words that are real. Lilac, tick, stick, tall, tail, calk, task, silk." Luvelt circled each one, and then immediately crossed them off.


    "Hey!" Mayvalt protested.


    "They''re just distractions. Whatever is hidden here isn''t going to be so plainly written." Luvelt dismissed.


    "Do you solve a lot of puzzles in your spare time?" Bezel asked. "You seem suspiciously adept at this."


    Luvelt turned pink in the tips of their ears. "I wanted to study Heimrian literature, it''s why I crossed in the first place."


    Bezel nodded. "Well, good. It seems we''re in the presence of an expert."


    "Thank you, sir."  Luvelt blushed even further. "Mayvalt, you take the first half of pages and make as many words as you can."


    "What? Me?" Mayvalt sputtered. "I might like an occasional pun, but I can hardly focus on anything but my worry for Savalt."


    "I''m sure the focus will come to you to help her." Luvelt said.


    "You''re going to split up the pages?" Bezel asked. "What if the message requires a combination of several papers?"


    "I don''t think so. It should still remain beneath eight letters, remember?" Luvelt said.


    "Well, I guess." Bezel agreed. He had never studied Heimrian literature after all.


    Luvelt nodded, "so I''ll take the rest, we can-"


    "What about me?" Bezel interrupted.


    "S-sir?" Luvelt squeaked. Their eyes darted to Mayvalt, but she only shrugged.


    "Give me a few pages." Bezel said.


    "You''re going to help?" Luvelt asked. They twisted their fingers in their lap.


    Bezel cocked his head. "Have I not this far?"


    "No, not really," Mayvalt agreed unhelpfully.


    "Oh, no, I just meant--you want to keep helping us, sir?" Luvelt asked.


    "No, of course not." Bezel scoffed.


    "Oh, um," Luvelt frowned, confusion heavy in the cut of their brows. They chewed on their lip, and tensed beneath their cloak.


    "It''s pointless to grasp him, Luvelt, just toss him a couple of pages." Mayvalt dismissed, waving her hand in the air.


    She took a stack for herself and retreated to Bezel''s decorative couch. Decorative, because he hadn''t rested for centuries, but that wasn''t a problem for the young Faun. She had left antler indents in the soft velvet from her overuse.


    Luvelt stayed where they had been seated, seemingly frozen, and Bezel returned to his desk to dive into more paperwork. He picked off a section from the stack on the table, and Luvelt pulled the remainder into their lap.


    The Faun flipped disheartedly through their own pages. Luvelt''s eyes fluttered between the nonsense they''d claimed and Bezel''s desk, torn in focus between what they had to look at and what Bezel had begun doing.


    He dismissed it as Faun nerves and turned his attention down into his own gibberish.


    ctsak tksal tsall askl atsllik tkilsa atsl til ilkat cilt ll iatsk ill actlikls .


    What is a mouse?


    Bezel combed over the words, as Luvelt had instructed, and picked apart each fragment. He broke the body of the word into chunks, scrambling it and bashing it back together as kindly as a fitful toddler to an old toy.


    What possible reply could he weave together with this pitiful collection of letters? Savalt had only given him two vowels, a and i, and just by personal preference at least one of them was clearly the worst vowel.


    How many words was he supposed to make? How many could he make? If his word bank was what laid before him, he had only eight letters he could use.


    Bezel froze. A realization as slow as cooling oil came over him.


    He only had eight letters. The same eight letters, over and over, mashed and broken. Bezel ran his finger down the page, resting on the longest pseudo-word he could find. Luvelt had warned them of red herrings, but had failed to calculate that none of it mattered at all.


    It had never been meant to be patched back together. It was only meant to be rearranged.


    tlaickls.


    Bezel picked apart each letter, moving them forward or backwards in their confined space. He stared down at his paper, and he huffed. A small show of amusement.


    Mayvalt perked her head, cutting through the air with her velvet antlers, "Boss?" she called softly.


    "Did you find something? I-I have to admit, I can''t focus at all. I''m not getting anything. Luvelt, you?" She chirped anxiously.


    Bezel looked across his desk at Luvelt. They clutched their papers to their chest and stared back at him with pale cheeks and wide brown eyes. Their moon toned skin had taken on a rather sudden sheen of slickness.


    tlaickls.


    What is a mouse?


    "Cat''s Kill." He said.


    Luvelt''s heart thudded in their chest. Their fingers dug into the papers they held, crinkling it beneath their shaking palms.


    Bezel scoffed in cold amusement, "but you already knew that, didn''t you?"

 19 | Melchior Considers A Different Sort Of Future

    "Peter!" Ira greeted warmly.


    He fell to his knees and extended his arms outwards to her. She trotted forward, mewing angrily. Melchior smirked to himself. They really were alike.


    Ira scooped her into his arms and pulled the grumbling cat to his chest before he rose. He entertained himself by placing gentle greeting kisses along her soft and small ears.


    Peter seemed content to give in and quickly stopped her fitful meowing. Ira tucked his nose against her soft shoulder blades and fell silent himself. So, Melchior greedily turned his ears to what he could still hear; the faithful thump of Ira''s eased heart.


    He could have stood there all night, listening to the soft beat of Ira''s heart just as he would his favorite song but the world kept ticking by, and eventually the reminders of reality began to settled. Melchior winced, giving in to the pain gnawing at his stomach.


    "Are you hungry?" Melchior asked because he was, and Ira had much less in his stomach at the moment. Melchior didn''t mention it, though. Ira had seemed pretty shaken by his brief episode by the Kaaterskill.


    He''d never seen Ira that way, and he was still trying to piece it together. He''d dissolved a Beast as easily as cotton candy, but waking up from a simple nap had left him pale and gasping. He wanted to ask again, but he thought he might start encroaching on the perimeters of the deal he''d stricken.


    Ira wouldn''t ask Melchior about his curse, and Melchior wouldn''t treat him as the Soul of the Progeny. And they could just be two pilgrimaging Deacons.


    Melchior shrugged off their duffle bag, shivering as the rough straps scraped along his bare arms. He dropping it at the mouth of their apartment, thinking to himself that he''d take care of it later.


    He placed his palms against the wall to balance his aching body and began the troublesome task of fighting himself free from slightly damp leather hiking boots.


    Once he''d finally struggled out of his muddy boots, he occupied himself with rolling his sore shoulders and rubbing at the back of his neck. Every muscle ached, and each fiber of being thrummed with discomfort, but somehow, he was just happy to be standing next to Ira and Peter in their simple dormitory.


    Ira laughed. The sound was muffled by the tabby''s striped coat. "You''re not worried I''m gonna lose whatever you feed me?"


    "Oh," Melchior blushed. He hadn''t expected Ira to bring it up first. He couldn''t suppress his smile. Ira was always doing what Melchior least anticipated. "I didn''t think you still felt sick. Do you just want to go to sleep?"


    "No!" Ira said quickly. He froze, and his heart pittered pitifully. "I''m too gross to go lay down, I''m gonna take a shower. You can eat without me."


    "Oh." Melchior said. He furrowed his brows and forced his teeth together to contain the questions fizzling on his tongue. He couldn''t press on Ira''s bruises. It wasn''t fair. So he forced his mind to wander off, think about what to make for himself, but it quickly pittered out.


    He didn''t really want to eat without Ira. He didn''t have a reason, either. It just resonated inside as a wasted opportunity somehow. Melchior frowned. Well, maybe when he was clean, he''d feel better, and he could try convincing him again.


    "Okay, I''ll make something." He agreed.


    "Will you feed Peter, too?" Ira asked. He set the cat on the floor, causing her to again grumble in protest. She rolled her flank along the bottom of Ira''s worn jeans, flicking her tail in all manner of direction.


    "Of course." Melchior promised.


    Ira smiled briefly. He sighed and stooped to give a final stroke along Peter''s spine. The cat made a soft mm''rope type of sound before padding off to the kitchen in anticipation of Melchior''s service. Ira dismissed himself with a tired sigh, trudging across the apartment to the bathroom.


    When his golden hair disappeared behind the door, Melchior turned his attention back to Peter, who was walking circles around the kitchen tiles and meowing loudly.


    "Now, what do you think you''re doing? You just know I''m about to make dinner, don''t you? I wonder how much Ira has spoiled you." He spoke to her so easily, knowing that she''d never respond.


    There was a comfort to be found in animals that didn''t speak back.


    Melchior''s heart thudded painfully behind his ribs as the harsh reminder settled into his mind. The Ze''ev from the forest had quickly fallen to the bottom of his list of priorities, but considering the intensity of the list, that still wasn''t a great place to be.


    He flicked down the imaginary list to occupy his racing mind as he went about the mundane task of making dinner.


    He scooped kibble into a small bowl and started at the beginning.


    The Trammel was torn, and Beasts were emerging.


    He scratched Peter''s ears as he placed her food on the ground.


    The rip had to be somewhere in the mountain range of New York. He had two months and a half to figure out where from--or Ira Rule was going to kill him.


    Peter ate in giant gulping gasps that seemed surprisingly ungraceful for the little creature.


    Was Ira going to kill him? How sure could Melchior really be about his loyalty to him or to the Progeny? That was pointless to worry about. For now, being killed by Ira wasn''t the right problem. To meet Ira''s blade, they''d have to survive the full three months, and on that particular matter, Melchior had his doubts.


    He crossed the kitchen to wash his hands in the sink.


    The countdown from the Cardinal was pretty generous, considering that he was running out of time much faster than what he''d been given. Melchior''s fingers ached to dip into his pocket. He had a habit of fumbling with his pill bottle whenever he was nervous. And he plenty of reason to be. Melchior''s curse had been worsening.


    The shower hissed from the bathroom as Ira turned on the faucet. It seemed so much louder than the sink, even behind the thick oak door. Melchior quickly shook his head, turning his eyes back down into his own task and worries.


    Maybe it was connected to the hole in the Trammel. Maybe he was always going to run out of time. He didn''t know. He didn''t think the reason mattered. Much more pressing was the count: one bottle, twenty-two pill capsules.


    Ailbe hadn''t sent him with any more than that. Then he was out, and he didn''t know what happened when he was.


    He had no one to blame but himself. It''d be easy to excuse himself, saying he thought it had been obvious. That he''d never hidden that he''d been making more, taking more, and needing more--but he knew that he''d intentionally never said it.


    He hadn''t wanted Ailbe to worry because he didn''t know what side of the blade it would have put Melchior on if he did.


    Melchior retrieved a pot from the cabinet to the left of the sink. Even drowning in his own concern, he could still be glad that the apartment had come furnished, and fit, and with a few days of extra pantry items. Even if he had never been greatly interested in ramen packets.


    He sighed to himself. It was starting to become increasingly evident to him that the lies mounted on the shoulders of this curse were growing. The weight was building up to a crushing force against his bones. He thought they might break, but what else could he do but wait for the moment they did? Would it suddenly make it all feather light if he told Ira the truth?


    He placed a pot in the sink and watched as it slowly began to fill with water.


    How could he? If Ira knew what his curse could really do, he''d never agree to wasting all this time, hoping they could figure it out. In the three months they''d been given, the Trammel could worsen, or the Third Prince could make another move althogther. They were playing with too much risk. If Melchior lost his shield of human appearance, Ira would take him straight to the Cardinal for his execution.


    He clicked on the stove and watched as it grew red-hot. Melchior flinched, wrapping his arms around his chest. He had to turn his eyes away from the heat. His stomach rolled, thinking of the way the Kaaterskill had melted his skin down to the muscle over the bones of his feet. He could still feel the freezing chill in his newly grown skin.


    He wished he''d never promised Ira any honesty. Well, did that promise even matter? He''d made plenty of false pledges. He''d told his brother he''d do what it took to survive, even if it meant ending Ira before he could end him. Had he ever meant that? He was sure he didn''t.


    He''d just wanted Ishmael to let him go. Why? So, he could put the golden soul of the Progeny beneath his eerie green gaze? Melchior didn''t know why he''d put himself up for so much risk. It was an unexplainable feeling. A knocking in the base of his skull, a whispering that told him he belonged here.


    Maybe it was the angels, telling him that he really was the boy from the Prophecy. He scoffed to himself. Angels, really? Speaking to a boy like him? His head was already too full of Ze''ev barking.


    The price to pay for world peace. It was no small thing, but was that really all he was? Was Ira going to kill him? He would if he had no choice, and the Third Prince had left them short of options when he''d ripped through the Trammel wall.


    Melchior placed the pot on the burner and covered it with a lid.


    "It''d be better that way." He murmured to himself. He wanted Ira to be the one to do it if he was going to die at the end anyway. His heart hammered in protest against his mind. The taste of being split in half was bitter.


    He didn''t want to die. He just wanted Ira.


    Melchior''s thoughts halted, slamming against an invisible brick wall in a massive fiery collision. Why had he--when did he--where had that come from? It had washed over him as easily as breathing, and now he had no idea why.


    No idea? Really? Melchior groaned to himself. He placed his burning face in his palms and swallowed down his eagerly pounding pulse.


    It was true that he had thought Ira was pretty the moment he''d first seen him. How could he not? He sparkled brightly even in Melchior''s color-lacking world.


    Melchior frowned. Somehow, that didn''t feel right. He didn''t like Ira just because he was pretty.


    Angels, Melchior cursed to himself, do I like Ira?


    The question knocked against his ribs as powerfully as a second heartbeat. Melchior groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. Did he like Ira? It was such a childish thing to think. He knew his brother would have chided him until his ears fell off. Even in the privacy of his own head, it stung with bitter embarrassment.


    He had real problems to handle. Life threatening, world ending, actual real problems. His dwindling supply of both medicine and Ossein arrows, the clock hanging over his head, the punishment waiting for him if he failed, the Ze''ev in the forest--the apex predator it warned of.


    Not to mention--Melchior ''Monster Bait'' Brisbane was dragging the Soul of the Progeny around behind him, attracting all manner of sky-big Beast from across the entire National Park region of New York.


    The scent of his blood was submerging Ira in more danger than he knew. So, there couldn''t be any room left to worry about Ira Rule--not in that way.


    Melchior trapped his bottom lip between with teeth and chewed on it to express his frustrations. It would be smart, he reasoned, to quickly dismiss this bubbling confusion. It was just a distraction.


    Then again, Melchior would have greatly liked to be distracted from the downward spiral he feared he was trapped in. And he''d never been known to make the smart decision--so he stilled his mind before he could finish chasing the thought away. And for a moment, he let himself sink into childish what-if-ism.


    What if he liked Ira Rule? He wasn''t lacking reason. He was as charming as he was ill-tempered. He lit up redder than christmas lights every time Melchior teased him. He was smart, brave, and a little bit cold--until he was with his cat or stuck to Melchior''s side in the aftermath of a Beast hunt.


    On that note, they had spent days locked in a constant state of contact.


    They''d been living together, fighting together, and bickering since the moment they''d met. It would almost be stranger if Melchior didn''t start counting the seconds when they weren''t side-by-side.


    Except that it didn''t feel very comforting to think of it that way. Maybe Melchior was only a spoiled lap dog, and he was developing separation anxiety disguised as a first crush. It was true that they''d always been together--and it was also true that all that lifetime of terror had been crushed down into one long tumultuous week.


    Ira had come into his life only a week ago. How could Melchior even begin to pretend to know him? No, he couldn''t. There remained too much in the dark, on both sides, to say they had any sort of connection.


    So the tightness in his chest must have come from the fear he''d been submerged in since arriving in New York. All this fondness was only understanding. Ira was just as trapped in this nightmare as Melchior was, and that fact filled Melchior with comfort equally terrible as it was calming. It must have been tricking him, making them seem closer than they really were.


    Melchior frowned down at the bubbling water, wishing he could pull his thoughts from his head and dispose of them in the pot so that they''d burn away. If he was absolved from this responsibility tomorrow, would he leave New York without any regret? Was Melchior by Ira''s side because he wanted to be, or because he had no other place to go?


    The realization settled as heavy as rocks in his gut. There was no way he could like Ira. This was all just textbook trauma bonding. He liked Ira the same way an abandoned duckling liked the first thing to walk past. It wasn''t real. It was just something his mind had cooked up to help him through. It had to be because the world weighed a whole lot more than his ill-fated crush.


    It was better to let his mind pull on the tail of his heart, reeling it back down with pesky reminders of reality. It didn''t matter what he wanted.


    "Idiot." He muttered sourly.


    It was better to burn it out before it got any worse. Ira wasn''t an option--not for him. The Forgotten Prophecy was pretty clear on the matter. They existed as opposite sides of the same coin, with no way to cross through the centimeter of metal between them. There was the boy given by the angels, and there was the cursed blood he was meant to bathe the world in--and there was no happy ending.


    Not for him. He''d lost his chance six years ago. Angels, he''d lost everything. All that remained now was the husk of a boy. Melchior Brisbane was just a shell. One maintained by the parasite inside of him. He would gasp for each breath, fight for every second, until the curse outgrew him. It would expand inside of him, consuming first his organs, then his bones. It''d rise to fill him, eating away the thoughts inside his skull. Until there was no more room to take in shallow breaths--and then he''d shatter.


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    He''d explode. He might even burst into a thousand particles of sawdust. It was only a matter of time before the thing inside of him became him instead. And then? Well, there was no great conclusion. It''d just be the end. It would only be the moment when Melchior really had nothing left, and it would mean nothing more.


    Melchior stared down at his wrist, where with trembling fingers, he''d sealed away the marking of his curse. He shouldn''t have done that. It was a mistake. He''d already begun to forget the shape of those stiff letters. He''d already begun to fool himself into thinking that he could have something.


    He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed the bones of his knuckles into his thin eyelids to keep them that way. How much did his feelings matter? If he told Ira the truth about everything? Could he say he knew him then?


    Everything spinning around inside of him was making him dizzy. One second, he was daydreaming of a coffee date and a late night movie--pretending for just a fraction of a second that they were laity college-aged kids in some silly summer romance--then just as quickly he''d stumble.


    He''d falter to his confusion and his fear. Did he like Ira? Or did he just want Ira to like him, so that maybe when the time came to kill him, he might hesitate. If Ira would look at him, even if for only a second, and pause--then Melchior didn''t care if he finished it, because it would have been worth it.


    Melchior shook his head until his brain was as scrambled as the rest of him--he sounded crazy. He was crazy. He had the sensation that all of his fears were coming alive inside of him. He was being eaten alive by a million of writhing snakes, each one hissing their worries.


    He could almost fool himself into feeling them all, slipping around inside of the space between his ribs. Melchior pressed his palm to his chest, feeling the pitter-patter of his heart through his skin. An invisible snake must have wrapped around his fragile organ, squeezing it until it couldn''t beat anymore, because he had no other explanation for why it all hurt so much just to think about.


    Melchior blew a breath from his nose and scoffed. He wished there really were snakes inside of him. That scared him less than the only real thing settled into the marrow of his bones. His curse.


    The bathroom door clicked open--and all the thoughts whirling inside of his mind suddenly halted. Melchior froze, feeling unable to do anything but turn pink and look down at his socks.


    He knew that if he turned around, Ira''s cold blue gaze would see right through him, and he''d know all of Melchior''s embarrassing childish whims. He couldn''t swallow down the bitter taste of guilt filling his throat.


    "What''re you making?" Ira asked.


    Melchior suppressed his flinch. "Uh, I haven''t added anything to the water yet. We have pasta, ramen, or macaroni, so,"


    "Are you letting me pick?" Ira asked. As he spoke, he shifted his footing. Melchior''s ears twitched, following the sound of his necklace rustle against his skin.


    It was a light silver chain, weighed heavily by the two keys he wore against his throat. The small artifacts made soft tinging chimes as they bumped against each other.


    "Yeah." Melchior murmured.


    He liked that sound. His fingers darted to his own, reflexively stroked the copper key Ailbe had given him. The metal was warm from his skin. He dropped it, causing it to make a small p''ff against the fabric of his shirt.


    Melchior paused.


    "I thought I told you to go ahead and eat without me." Ira chuckled softly.


    He lifted his chain and dropped it again. It made an explosive chime as the keys knocked together and a hollow thump as it landed against his T-shirt. It didn''t rustle. It didn''t glide across his skin.


    Melchior''s heart flipped in his ribs. A sudden realization pierced him. Ira had only just left the bathroom--but he hadn''t taken any clothes in with him.


    Melchior''s throat tensed, and his tongue dried. Was Ira, the source of his latest internal panic, standing behind him in nothing but a towel? Melchior squeezed his eyes shut, hoping he wasn''t as red as he felt inside.


    "Melchior?" Ira pressed.


    He almost whimpered in response.


    Everything seemed so much more alive behind the thin skin of his eyelids. Peter''s heartbeats fluttered by his feet. He could sense the heat rolling from her soft fur.


    The humidity from the shower seeped into the rest of the apartment, carrying with it the heavy scent of Ira''s lavender soap.


    Small drops of water tumbled from Ira''s hair, making muffled taps against the skin of his shoulder. He was--he had to be--"Uh, sorry!" Melchior barked.


    "What?" Ira asked, a small laugh lifting the edges of his voice.


    "I''m gonna--I need to--shower! Okay, so you can finish dinner--sorry--sorry," Melchior stared down at the floor as he rushed out of the kitchen. His cheeks were hot enough to fry eggs on.


    "Okay, su-" Ira began, but Melchior slammed the bathroom door before he could finish.


    Melchior sagged against the door, sinking into his skin the same way he did his embarrassment. He dropped his burning face into his hands and swore a curse against the angels. His heart hammered in the confines of his throat.


    "Angels." He whispered. "I do."


    ? ? ?


    The steam collected on the mirror. Melchior wiped it away with his palm, trying to deafen the fitful memories it invoked in him. He couldn''t shake the chill from his body, no matter how much skin he grew around the wounds.


    He inspected his ankle with prodding fingertips. It was fine, as if nothing had happened. He grit his sharp teeth and shook his head.


    That''s right, nothing had happened. He''d already signed his deceit when he washed the blood from his face with their drinking water, when he''d played the fool and shrugged away Ira''s concerned gaze.


    He had no choice. If he wanted to survive, it''d require a few more little white lies because there existed several horrible truths to Melchior Brisbane, and no one but him knew each one.


    He was a puzzle made of shattered glass. It was easier to sweep away than reassemble--and he couldn''t expect anyone to try to understand. So instead, he''d except that he was destined for the rubbish bin unless he could extend his time.


    His fingers traced over the smooth skin of his forearms. Ira had grabbed him so tightly earlier that his fingernails had punctured his flesh. Of course, the marks had all healed, but Melchior could still feel the sting from Ira''s fear. Why had he been so scared? It was only waking.


    Melchior flinched at the soft knock on the bathroom door.


    "Yeah?" he called.


    "Want me to bring you some pajamas from your suitcase?" Ira asked through the wood.


    Melchior tilted his head, drinking in his confusion. "Uh, sure?" He shrugged.


    He swallowed down his fear with a disarming shake of his head. His small dagger had been left in the duffle bag by the door, and he''d taken his pills into the bathroom with him. There was nothing else he wasn''t quite ready to explain. Well, besides everything.


    Melchior listened to the tap-tap of Ira, retreating deeper into the apartment. He breathed into the uneasy silence to follow. It was strange to hear Ira''s heartbeat falling from his range. He didn''t like it.


    He couldn''t even focus on his own, not until Ira''s soft pitter began to return.


    "Okay," Ira announced through the door. Melchior drank in the arrival of his pulse, shutting his eyes to sink beneath the waves of it.


    He didn''t know why he always needed it so badly. Maybe it had gotten worse since the Beast had shattered his eardrums, and he''d been without it. All he knew was that Ira carried both their heartbeats with him.


    "Let me know if you need a new bandage for your wrist." Ira called.


    Melchior frowned down at the damp brown bandaid. It was cold, full of water, and slipping from his arm. He shuddered in repulsion and peeled the soggy cover away from his tattooed skin.


    Melchior wadded up the bandage and tossed it into the trash. He glared down at the blemish seared into the hollow of his wrist; ?????. It was everything he wished he could tear out, but it was only a simple reminder. One Ailbe had given him when he was thirteen.


    It wasn''t the cause of the curse or the source of his fears. It was just a taunt that he could never forget. He suddenly gave into his wave of rolling guilt. He should never have covered it. When he looked down at his hands and saw only bandage and skin, it made him feel relief.


    Relief, like his fondness for Ira, was something he couldn''t afford.


    "Did you grab a long sleeve shirt?" Melchior asked.


    It would have previously been a question that he''d never be able to ask, but Ira had bought him T-shirts nearly their first night together.


    Melchior didn''t know why. Maybe it was in rebellious defiance of Deacon attire. Or, maybe it was as simple as hating the way Melchior looked burning beneath the New York summer sun.


    "Yeah." Ira answered.


    "Alright, it''s fine," Melchior said, "thank you."


    Ira was quiet for a moment, but finally, he hummed a small noise of acknowledgement and said, "Sure, just hurry up. Noodles are getting cold."


    Melchior waited until he heard him step away, and then he stuck his arm out to retrieve the pajamas. The shirt was a dull white, and the sweatpants were a simple gray color. The fabric was soft, and the material fit loosely over him.


    He didn''t have many answers for the questions asked of him these days. Even now, Melchior was speechless. He couldn''t explain why clothes picked out by Ira suited him so much better.


    Melchior pulled the sleeve down over his tattoo. He fit his keys back around his neck and stuffed his pill bottle into the pocket of his joggers. Melchior patted the last bit of dampness from his hair and exited the bathroom.


    Ira had taken up residency in the kitchen. He glanced at Melchior and then glanced away.


    His hair was longer than Melchior''s and was still curled at the edges with residual wetness. It hung over his slightly flushed cheeks, giving him a kinder look than he usually had.


    Or, maybe what was more disarming was his white T-shirt. It was three sizes too big and hung down to the thighs of his pajama pants. He looked like a little kid, swallowed up by his father''s suit.


    Ira placed two plates of macaroni on the table and gestured at Melchior to sit. He did, feeling slightly apprehensive at the sudden softness Ira was displaying.


    "Thanks," he said again.


    He smiled softly to himself, watching as Ira poised over a plate of food.


    Ira only shrugged. He twisted his fork between his fingers. Was he nervous? Melchior tipped his head, tuning into the heavy thump of his heart. It was only a little quick. He frowned. What did Ira have to be scared of?


    "Hey," Ira murmured.


    Melchior sat back in his chair. "Yeah?" He answered.


    "I don''t really like to apologize for stuff. I''ve had to a lot. . . and," Ira mumbled. "It doesn''t matter. I just think that actions mean more than whatever words you can make up in the moment."


    "Uh, sure?" Melchior said.


    He ran his fingers across his lips, trying to keep his tongue from spilling out stupid accusations such as why are you being so weird, why are you acting so casually, why are you suddenly not speaking in the manner of an eighty-two year old widow--because Ira was still Ira no matter how relaxed he seemed at the time; and Ira was always on the edge of irritation.


    And Melchior was always one stupid statement from being the thing to push him over.


    "Well, anyway," Ira sighed, "I didn''t mean to freak you out. I thought it''d be fine since we''re both guys."


    "What?" Melchior sputtered. He choked on a mouthful of macaroni and swallowed it down with a gasp.


    "I guess that was outdated of me." Ira winced, "I''m not really used to sharing spaces with others. It''s just been Father Pine and I for a long time. I''m not trying to make excuses, I''m just trying to say I didn''t think about it." Ira explained, except that Melchior wasn''t receiving much explanation.


    "Um," Melchior said unhelpfully.


    "Anyway, I''ll be more careful in the future." Ira blew a huff through his nose. His laughter was sweeter than his scorn, but somehow Melchior wanted them both. "I didn''t think you were the shy type."


    Melchior sputtered, coughed, and then fell perfectly silent. He might have remained frozen all night, but his heat began to billow up from his cheeks to his ears until he began to melt. Melchior slammed down his palms on the table, causing Ira to flinch and widen his eyes.


    "I''m not!" Melchior said. Or, he wished he had, because he was definitely shouting.


    Ira laughed. He brought his palm to his lips and giggled down into his hands. Melchior turned pale and watched with wide, unblinking eyes. Ira was making those noises? Of his own free will? He began to laugh so hard his shoulders trembled beneath his parachute big T-shirt.


    "Okay, sure," Ira agreed playfully, "you just seemed like-"


    "We don''t really know each other!" Melchior blurted.


    He slapped his hand over his mouth, wincing down into his plate of macaroni. He''d been wanting to learn more about Ira since the Kaaterskill, but he hadn''t meant to say it that way.


    Ira paused, tipping his head with a small frown. "Uh, I mean, I guess not. No, I know we don''t--but we already agreed-"


    "I don''t care about that." Melchior interrupted. He sunk his teeth into his tongue and wished he could just bite it off. "I care! Angels, I care. I''m sorry, I mean I want to get to know you, kitten. I don''t want to hear about what the Progeny thinks of you."


    Ira turned pink, as he always did when Melchior teased him. "I. . . don''t know what to say."


    Melchior frowned down at his plate of macaroni. He didn''t know what to ask. Peter mewed gently, breaking the silence they''d fallen into. Melchior''s eyes darted towards her. He watched as she jumped up on the couch and curled herself into a little ball.


    "Why Peter?" Melchior asked suddenly.


    Ira glanced up from his food, "huh?"


    "Why''d you name her Peter?" Melchior said.


    Ira laughed softly, "is it weird?"


    "A little," Melchior admitted, "but it''s cute."


    Ira flushed red and glanced away. "Uh, I just liked the name, I guess."


    "Kitten," Melchior laughed, "I''m trying to get to know you here."


    "Fine." Ira rolled his eyes and looked down at his plate. "I found her when I was ten. She was just some sickly little alleycat, clinging to life in a pile of trash. I begged Father Pine to take her home with us, and for some reason, he agreed."


    Ira sighed, turning his eyes to her sleeping form on the couch, "I stayed by her side for an entire week. I was so scared. I thought if I looked away, she''d be gone when I looked back. When she finally started to eat, I knew she''d make it. I just. . . felt so happy. I kind of wondered if maybe that was how Father Pine felt once upon a time when he brought me home."


    Melchior tilted his head. Right, he''d heard that the Soul had been given to them as an abandoned orphan. He quickly shook his head, discarding anything Ira didn''t tell him himself.


    "I knew she was part of our little family of strays, and I wanted to give her a traditional name--a name befitting a member of the Progeny." Ira blushed and chewed on his bottom lip, "I know how silly that is--but I was ten, so,"


    "So, Peter?" Melchior laughed.


    Ira huffed and crossed his arms. "I really do just like the name, okay?"


    Melchior smiled and shook his head, "then. . . Father Pine? Is he your mentor?"


    "He is, but he also raised me." Ira said.


    "My mentor raised me, too," Melchior admitted. He paused, suddenly realizing he shouldn''t have. Deacons did always spend missions and training with their mentor, but it wasn''t common practice to be raised by your teacher. "Uh, sort of. I left home when I was twelve, and he took me in."


    "Really?" Ira asked. "Why?"


    Melchior''s tongue was dry against his teeth. He''d definitely made it worse.


    "Oh, is it hard to talk about? I shouldn''t have-" Ira flushed.


    "No, no! It''s fine!" Melchior said, but it wasn''t. He blew a breath from his nose and shrugged. "My family. . . well, they''re the Brisbane legacy--and I just didn''t fit anymore."


    "Your family are legacies?" Ira asked. He blew a huff from his nose and nodded. "Wow."


    "Yeah, for more generations than I could count." Melchior shrugged. There were only two ways to become Progeny. Be born into it, or find it. "Father Pine? Is he like a priest or something? A real one? I mean, that''s a strange title by Progeny standards. Is he New Progeny?"


    "Angels, no. He''s definitely not New Progeny. He might have once been, but the world is much larger than the simple myths the New Progeny want to believe in." Ira laughed, shaking his head, "but he was a laity priest, once upon a time. He found the Progeny through his service to the church. He was trying to solve problems much bigger than a laity man could, and that was how he met the Cardinal."


    Melchior raised his eyebrows. "He knows the Cardinal?"


    "Yeah, their relationship is how Father Pine came to raise me," Ira nodded, "but so does your mentor, right?"


    Melchior shrugged, "sure but Ailbe is-" more of a warden, "an archbishop, so,"


    "Right, I noticed. He carries himself very well, but he seems quite fond of you. I was a little thrown off, to be honest. He must have had a thousand Deacons, but he seemed to really care for you." Ira smiled and shrugged shallowly. He barely seemed to move from beneath his large shirt.


    Melchior frowned. Was that true? He didn''t think Ailbe seemed that keen on him, but he had given him a lot more chance than he deserved.


    "Yeah, he was actually my brother''s mentor. That''s how he came to be mine." Well, technically all true. Melchior was just more of a part-time prisoner and full-time headache than he was a student.


    "You have a brother?" Ira asked.


    "Several," Melchior noted dryly. "I have five."


    Ira choked on a bite of macaroni and turned pale. "Five siblings?"


    "No. Five brothers," Melchior laughed, "I have eleven siblings."


    Ira began to cough, and Melchior had to sit on his hands to resist reaching across the table for him. "E-eleven? Plus you? Angels!"


    Melchior rubbed the back of his neck and laughed awkwardly, "Legacy families are like that."


    "I think it''d be nice to have a big family. I''m an only child," Ira suddenly frowned and titled his head, "I. . . think," He stared down into his food, looking as if he was thinking of someone far away.


    "I like having siblings." He murmured. He shook his head and sighed, "I''d like."


    Melchior leaned forward, "are you okay, kitten?"


    Ira smiled and shrugged. "Yeah, I was just thinking. So, are you going to answer?"


    Melchior frowned down into his lap. He didn''t know what to say. He wanted to comfort Ira, but he didn''t know how with the bitter memories he held. His family? Were they nice? They might have been--if Melchior had been a better child.


    You''re going to ruin our family! How could you do this to us! Ishmael, how could you let this happen? Generations of Brisbane blood lost! We''re going to lose everything because of that mongrel--


    "My oldest brother taught me how to shoot."


    Melchior forced down the bitter sting of his mother''s words for something warmer. "He''d come visit me often, and he always made me jealous with stories of his hunts and of living in the city."


    "You wanted to live in the city?" Ira asked.


    "No, no, I''m really not cut out for it," Melchior shook his head quickly, "he just had this way of speaking about it that always made it seem so nice. I think because of Leah."


    "Leah?" Ira pressed.


    Melchior blushed pink and twirled his fork into his plate of food. "My brother''s fianc¨¦e. She makes him see the moonlight instead of looking in the shadows for the next monster. I was always jealous of that."


    "Leah," Ira murmured, "it''s a Progeny name."


    "Yeah, she''s from a Legacy family, too." Melchior said.


    "Is she pretty?" Ira asked.


    Melchior frowned, "my brother says she is?"


    "You don''t agree?" Ira raised an eyebrow.


    "Oh, I''ve never met her," Melchior shrugged.


    He''d heard a million stories, but there hadn''t seemed to be an occasion suitable for them to actually greet each other.


    How was Ishmael supposed to justify a trip out to the forest? He couldn''t exactly say they were going to meet his little brother, the one they kept hidden in the cellar of a cabin.


    Ira smiled for a moment and nodded his head. "Okay."


    Melchior turned his attention back to his plate and forced a few bites down into his flipping stomach. "Hey, kitten,"


    "Hm?" Ira hummed.


    "Are you okay?" Melchior asked.


    Ira paused, fork midair, and tipped his head. "Right now? I''m fine."


    "I mean. . . earlier." Melchior winced. "There was a moment when I couldn''t wake you up--and when you finally did, I felt like I was talking to. . . someone else."


    Ira''s fork clattered as he dropped it. He stood up quickly, knocking his chair backward to clatter against the kitchen floor. Melchior flung himself up in response. "Kit-"


    "Stop!" Ira snapped. His heart was pounding harder than the Kaaterskill. "I''m going for a walk."


    "It''s late-" Melchior choked on his words. He ran around the edge of the table to catch Ira''s wrist as he began to exit the kitchen. Ira flinched, but Melchior didn''t let go. "Stop. I''ll go. You can just lay down. If you want space, then let me leave instead. It was my mistake."


    Ira tugged himself free and wrapped his arms around his chest. His sky blue eyes fell down to his socks, and they didn''t follow as Melchior turned away.


    Idiot. Melchior cursed himself.


    The apartment door swung shut behind him with a bang. Melchior slumped against the outside of the wood and placed his face in his hands. A horrible stinging feeling began rolling around the inside of his ribs.


    Everything was ruined. This was worse than being back at square one, because now he knew what he was missing each time Ira iced him out. Why couldn''t he just keep his stupid questions to himself? Why did he always have to push it? Now, he had nothing.


    Not even the one thing he always sought. Out in the hall, Melchior couldn''t even hear the thump of Ira''s heart.