...HE'S A LITTLE CRAZY...
~ CAIN ~
Enveloped by trees draped in red, orange, and yellow leafage, stood a peculiar structure. I marveled at the sight, taking in every pitiful detail. The outer walls were built out of rotting pine logs, a tree not native to this region, and the roof was made from rusted corrugated iron sheets slapped together in a hurry.
It was neither a castle nor a manor, by no means special, just a temporary holding thrown together in a short amount of time. But this insignificant box of wood was guarded more closely than the average royal affair.
Kade had spent every meticulous second protecting his cabin from the outside world, having built it by hand, no doubt, in the middle of fucking nowhere.
The forest had tried to bury it, roots tangled in its foundations, branches reaching down to suffocate its outline, leaves scattered over the roof in a constant, silent protest. It didn't want to be found. Kade's spell suffocated it, forcing even the trees to hide its existence.
'Considering the strength of the surrounding barrier, this must be where Kade's been keeping my familiar… but there is no trace of him. Not even a spec of his mana nor a whiff of his scent. Is he elsewhere? No, this must be the place...'
I glanced at the shrubbery surrounding the cabin. Fear. I could taste it. A smirk tugged at the corners of my lips and the Fyre standing beside me released a guttural growl of satisfaction. I clicked my tongue. Fetch – that's what one click meant – commanding the Fyre to retrieve the Daemun hiding nearby.
My six-legged wolf snatched the little thing out of a bush and crushed its small body between razor-sharp teeth. Returning to my side, he tossed a Katyr down at my feet. The black cat was frozen stiff, terrified of my mere presence.
I extended my hand and the Fyre complied with my wordless request. He crushed the Katyr's skull, dug out its shard, and dropped the fragment into the palm of my hand. Red, because of course it was. Demicaux had spies everywhere. It didn't surprise me to find one lurking inside Kade's domain.
I tossed the crystal into my mouth and glanced at the cabin's lopsided porch. I crushed the Daemun between my teeth, severing its connection to its crystal, and clicked my tongue twice in quick succession, producing a more rounded sound. Lead. The masked wolf stepped out in front of me, and we approached Kade's cabin together.
'So, then, no welcome party? Surely, my presence was no secret,especially after sending hundreds of Fyres to knock on their door.'
My gaze gravitated upwards, glimpsing a silver ball of light behind thick clouds blowing in from the west. It would rain soon. The forest knew it too, whispering amongst the sound of rustling dried leaves.
The porch groaned as I climbed the steps, not from age, but protest, like the wood recognized me and tried to recoil. The shadows gathered near the door and retreated across the floorboards, slipping back as if my boots might burn them.
The door didn't creak. It whimpered. I pushed it open, and it swung wide on its last remaining hinge, the rusted metal barely holding let out a cry of surrender.
My hand slipped into my back pocket and retrieved my favorite weapon. It was a useless trinket, a kunai, which I raised in front of me. I tilted the blade and toyed with its weight in my hands, enjoying its insignificance. I flipped it once, catching the hilt with ease, and watched the metal drink in the low light.
I could take people out with a simple glare if I wanted to. But that was too easy. Too boring. I lived to exert myself. The struggle was what made every fight fun. Wining too fast was like busting a nut but having my climax ruined.
I inhaled deeply–taking in the smell of rotting wood, mountains of dust, and, of course, Mold covering the walls like a layer of old paint.
'My unwashed ass smells better than this dogshit excuse of a house...' I thought, smirking. Truth be told, I found the horrid structure quite suitable.
The shadows in the corners bled out of existence. The space itself seemed to expand in my presence, pulling away from me like it feared being touched.
The Fyre moved first, gliding down the corridor without a whisper of sound. Not even the floor dared complain beneath him. I followed, slower. I could sense Aria nearby. She was alone. The weight of it clung to the walls like damp ash. She'd been fending off Daemun without help for longer than anyone should. It was a gift, really, and one I wasn't about to ruin with early interference.
We passed through the hall. Shadows and dust parted. We stopped at the threshold to what passed for a kitchen. And there she was, hovering near the back door, so focused on breaking the Daemun's mask that she didn't notice me staring at her.
I folded my arms across my chest and leaned against the archway, wondering how long it would take her to notice me. The wood practically shivered against me, terrified.
The Daemun swiped at her belly, ready to slice her in half, which she hurriedly blocked with a broomstick she had grabbed out from behind the door. As one would expect, it snapped in half and was abandoned on the floorboards.
She backed away from the Fyre, clutching her knife firmly. The Daemun lunged for her. She ducked out of his way, causing him to collide with the cupboards behind her. Then she kicked him off his feet, jabbing the knife she was holding into his mask. A crack appeared between his three eyes, and the mask slipped from his face. Turning to ash, he joined his brothers in the underworld.
My gaze swept across Aria. Her long dark ponytail reached her ass, and it was one hell of an ass. She wore sleek black clothes. It was Runetag, the day of the moon, when black was worn in reverence to the Goddess of Night. Just another Monday for me, but I'll admit, I was mildly surprised to see her still clinging to Ri'elle's customs after six years away from our world.
She took a step back, lowering herself into a defensive stance, and I watched as her ass jiggled.
As though sensing the other Daemun's arrival before she could even see it, her gaze fixed on the back door. With a soft click, its head protruded and moved slowly into the kitchen. The Daemun in question was female. She had a slinkier build and was smaller than her male counterparts.
Good. I wanted her stripped down to her instincts, but not dead. That's why I told the Fyres to come one at a time. To exhaust her. To let her feel clever, strong, and desperate. It made watching her all the more entertaining.
The new arrival approached cautiously. Aria darted back and grabbed a pot. Her sudden movement prompted the Fyre to lunge at her. However, she threw the pot in its face and charged straight for it. She smacked its mask, but it did not crack, which disappointed her.
The Daemun snarled, annoyed by Aria's attempt to return her to her brethren, but Aria refused to give up so easily. She swung again, still within range. Just as she drove the knife toward the Daemun's mask, it struck her wrist and threw her to the floor. The blade clattered across the wood, stopping just shy of my boots.
She kicked the Fyre off, rolled to her stomach, and reached for the knife—then froze. Her fingers hovered, inches from the hilt, as if a current of cold had locked her in place. She hadn't seen my face. She didn't need to. My boots alone were enough.
I remained still. Silently watching her. A breeze passed through the kitchen as if the house caught its breath.
Behind her, the Daemun settled into a crouch, no longer attacking, just guarding the door like it had been told to wait.
Aria shifted, no longer trapped in a spell of her own fear. She grabbed her knife, swung it in front of her, clambered back up, and pushed against the sink. She glanced between me and my hounds, looking desperate. It was amusing.
I flicked my wrist, almost lazily, and watched the kunai cut into her shoulder, causing her to drop her regained weapon. She tried not to make too much noise. Perhaps she was worried I would be satisfied. Of course, I was. Almost enough to get turned on.
"I was... beginning to think that you'd never show up..." Her tone was caustic and nasty. She was out of breath. Exhausted from fighting so many Daemun. I had asked them not to murder the Whites, but keep them busy until I arrived. If they had battled seriously, Aria would have died long ago, but instead, they indulged her. After all, there were hundreds of them eager to play with her. And it was finally my turn.
She removed my kunai from her shoulder, tossed it aside, and stood up straight. Her deep brown eyes met the Fyre next to me, and most likely the others lurking behind him in the darkness pressing up the walls behind me, almost as if it's been pinned there. The Fyre disliked being gazed at. He growled slightly and pulled his ears back as he snarled.
I looked at her carefully. The blood in her veins appeared to struggle through her arteries. Her heart was becoming weaker by the second, beating slower than it should and in an uneven pattern. Her lungs did not take in as much air as before. Her respiration was labored and brief. Anyone else would have assumed it was a sign of aging, becoming weaker as the years passed, but I knew otherwise.
Layer 365 lacked mana and could not replenish what she had wasted. Maji needed mana to survive, but there wasn't any left in her crystals. So, much to my dismay, she was already dying.
Still, a smirk formed in the right corner of my mouth. Whatever. Tormenting her was going to be enjoyable. She was at their dilapidated home, unprotected, and I thought she would have gone with her husband and child. But she remained behind as if to bait me and buy time for her family to escape.
I clicked my tongue. Two in quick succession, but high-pitched and delivered with the tip of my tongue at the front of my palate, right behind my teeth. Attack. The Fyre beside me started to circle her, but the one she had previously battled was still at the door, obstructing her escape. Every two seconds, both clicked simultaneously.
Each click chipped away at Aria's confidence. She glanced at the knife again. Even from this distance, I could tell that it had been dulled from the number of masks she'd broken with it. She couldn't kill me with such a feeble blade even if she tried.
"Go on then. Take it," I finally spoke and pushed off the arch.
I walked to her fridge. She grabbed the pathetic blade off the floor and held it out in front of her again. She was shaking so much that I was impressed she managed to keep her hands steady. The Fyre followed me, guarding my back to prevent her from stabbing it.
'Stars. I need to calm down. The taste of her fear is too exciting, and I hate that I am feeling so exhilarated by such a repulsive wench. It's making me feel sick.'
"What do you want, Cain?" she asked, her voice tight in her throat.
"You know exactly what I want."
I opened the fridge. Glancing over its contents, I smiled when I saw a box of tropical juice. It was partly hidden behind a milk carton.
Aria moved, encouraging the Fyre to snarl and snap his jaw shut in warning. I took the juice out of the refrigerator. It's been decades since my last glass of juice. The boys at home weren't avid drinkers. They favored water and an early-morning coffee. And, frankly, so did I.
I found a wine glass in one of the top cabinets and filled it to the brim. Raising it to my lips, I savored every drop. Mango, pineapple, and passionfruit filled my mouth and sweetened my palate.
"Why are you here? Why are you stalling?" Aria asked and moved a step back.
Her feet dragged lines into the ash covering the floor. She was walking over them like they were nothing. I spent a lot of time and energy summoning them to this layer. And that wasn't even mentioning the ridiculous amount of mana I spent clawing my way inside Kade's isolation bubble. It took me six months to break through it.
Six. Fucking. Months.
I lowered the glass, raising an eyebrow. The Daemun lunged at Aria. He moved too quickly for her to react, biting and crushing her forearm with his jaw. She shrieked, dropped her knife, and used her free hand to pound at the bone mask that appeared to be affixed to the wolf's face.
"When opportunity presents itself, I don't let it go to waste. You knew that. That's why you didn't leave with Kade. You stayed so I'd play with you… just long enough for him to disappear."
She didn't answer. She didn't need to. The flicker in her eyes and the way her breath hitched just slightly, was enough. She knew I'd seen it too. That small giveaway, that silent nod.
"I'm not stalling. I'm enjoying myself."
I let the words linger. She knew I meant it. I was enjoying myself. She was foolish enough to think this would slow me down. But this was merely a small but welcomed setback.
"It's been a while, Aria. A very long while."
I could see her weighing options she didn't have. Every line in her body told me she wanted to run but knew better. Even if she managed to kill every Daemun I summoned to this layer, she couldn't outrun me.
"Why don't we go outside? Breathe a little fresh air and talk. Just the two of us. I promise I'll behave."
The lie hung in the air like a carcass strung from a tree. It was bloated, rotting, and humming with flies. She knew I couldn't touch her. But the Daemun had no such bindings.
Her jaw clenched. A muscle ticked beneath her eye. But she didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stared at me like she was trying to remember which version of me she was dealing with. The one who'd toy with her or the one who'd tear her apart.
The hound dragged her outside. I tossed the empty glass of juice over my shoulder. Breaking fragile things felt just as good as taking a few happy pills. If only I could break Aria with my bare hands, but my directives were clear; find Claudiseus and return to the island. There was no room for deviation. The most I could do was entertain myself for a few minutes, and even then I couldn't directly interfere.
I walked to my kunai on the floor and picked it up. I wiped the ash off my thigh and strolled out of the house. I loved the atmosphere. Ominous didn't quite cover it. The forest had fallen into a hush, a breath held too long, as if the land itself feared to make a sound in my presence. The moon had retreated behind bloated clouds, its silver eye unwilling to witness what was to come. The stars were gone. Snuffed out by the creeping veil of cloud and shadow. Even the typical nocturnal insects: crickets, moths, and beetles, were hiding in dirt and bark as if they, too, knew what lurked beneath the boughs tonight.
The trees pushed aside, their branches twisted like crooked fingers, creating a living tunnel of bark and gloom. The wind didn't move. It coiled around me instead, like it was listening. Watching. The earth was wet and rotting beneath our feet, the forest floor fed by decades of decay and now by something else: fear.
The Daemun dragged Aria, her body cutting a shallow groove into the moss. Every time she twisted to fight back, it jerked her harder, pulling her deeper into the trees like a child claiming a stolen toy. Her breath hitched in ragged gasps, and I could hear her fingers clawing through leaf-litter and mud, desperately feeling for something, anything, she could use to free herself.
She found it. A jagged rock, dark with lichen, cold from the damp. She gripped it like a weapon forged in panic and smashed it against the Daemun's mask. Once. Twice. A splintering crack echoed through the forest like brittle glass underfoot. Still, it dragged her. Still, she fought.
Shadows peeled off the trees, slipping past her like silent mourners, and vanished into the undergrowth as if even they didn't want to be near me.
I followed. I was calm, despite the rage searing the fleshed cage around my heart. I was measured. Every footstep was deliberate. The forest parted for me not out of respect but out of dread. It sensed what I didn't show, what lingered beneath the surface like rot beneath the bark. It knew why I had come, and there was nothing it could do but stand still and watch, hoping my wrath would pass it by.
There were two ways Aria could get rid of the Daemun dragging her. The first was to damage the bone mask and return him to the nether until somebody else summoned him to do their bidding. The second was to rip out his crystal and consume it. That way he couldn't be summoned again. Not for a few hundred years anyway. Daemun could not be killed. They could only be returned to Ataraxia'a. And if their crystals broke, they couldn't return until they grew a new one which allowed them to travel between worlds.
"That's far enough," I said, sounding bored already.
The hound let go of her. She scurried around on the ground like an injured rat. The Fyre trotted to my side and pressed his head into the palm of my hand. I ran my fingers through the long black fur on top of his head and moved my hand down to his scruff.
Aria got up, but I didn't give her the chance to run. I ran my thumb over the sharp edge of my kunai, coating it with a small amount of my blood, and pinched the kunai's blade between my thumb and four other fingers. I raised my arm, aimed at Aria's leg, and threw the weapon.
With blinding accuracy, it sliced through the veins above her right ankle. She stumbled over her own feet and clutched her leg with both of her hands as blood leaked from her cut. The blade was now laced with a toxin that slowly paralyzed her. One of the properties of my silver blood. Even if she wanted to run, she couldn't move her legs anymore, and slowly, as the poison spread through her body, she wouldn't be able to move at all.
"Kiera will never love you," she blurted out.
I stared at her for a few seconds. Taken aback by her words. It was the most ridiculous thing she had ever said.
"I didn't come all this way for your child." I walked closer and lowered myself onto my haunches. She grabbed the kunai. Her hand was trembling, already affected by the toxin.
"Of course you didn't. Why would you care–"
"I don't," I cut her off, removing it from her fingers. I lowered the blade to her leg and sliced a giant smiley face into her thigh while watching her blood soak into her pants and stain the fabric.
She screamed and grabbed my arm. She tried to push me away, but she had no strength left. I raised the blade to my mouth and licked her blood off its edge.
'It tastes like shit. No, shit would probably taste better than this.'
"So, where is he?"
"Are you going to kill me?"
I scoffed, "Of course not."
She appeared relieved. She's always been a dull blade never worth honing. She was a wanted woman in Raemalia, but I was not a bounty hunter and didn't care for money. I came here for one purpose. And one purpose only. Retrieving my familiar.
I turned the kunai over and dragged my tongue along the other side, cleaning it with deliberate slowness. Her blood tasted like spoiled milk left to curdle in the sun. It was thick, sour, and laced with fear. It turned my stomach. I used to drink blood for the thrill of it, to taste the life leaving a body. But somewhere along the way, it had all begun to rot on my tongue.
Everyone's blood disgusted me now. Except Rivian's. His was different. I drank it not out of hunger, but because he wanted me to. Because he enjoyed it.
"They are," I added, motioning at the Daemun surrounding us.
Their red eyes glowed brightly in the darkness, and their mouths salivated from the mere thought of getting a taste of Aria. They've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for this.
"She's my daughter, Cain. She will never accept you." I smacked her face so hard that she nearly fainted. It was a reflex I swear, a sliver of anger that managed to slip through the cracks.
"You don't have the luxury of worrying about her right now," I purred, my voice a sickeningly smooth promise. "But it's alright. Since you and your shitbag of a husband won't be here to take care of her, I'll be the kindhearted stranger and take her in. It's the least I can do, really."
I leaned in, watching the horror creep into her eyes. "And I'll do so much better than you ever could. My house has room for another stray, my resources are endless, and I'm the kind of person who can give her everything she needs—and more. So, really, you don't have to worry about her anymore. I'll provide for her. Teach her. Break her, if I must."
I paused, letting the weight of my words settle between us like poison.
"I'll spoil her with things you never could, and I'll make her forget you entirely. I'll be the one who watches her grow. I'll teach her what true darkness feels like. And when she's scared... when she misses you… I'll remind her, gently, why you're not there to comfort her."
She spat on my face and offered me a nasty glare. We never did get along. We had a history, even before she and her husband ripped my familiar out of my shadow and imprisoned him in an ancient artifact.
"You're sick, Cain," she hissed, her voice trembling with a fury barely held in check. "Truly, deeply sick."
Her eyes glistened, not with weakness but with rage and horror, and she clenched her fists so tight her nails dug into her palms.
"I hate you," she said, the words low and venomous, like a curse spat through gritted teeth.
She stopped herself there, and bit down on what would've been her final insult. The one she knew would provoke me. The one she wanted to scream in my face more than anything.
"I'm glad I'm able to reciprocate your feelings."
I wiped my face dry with the sleeve of my jacket. Standing up, I stared down at her, enjoying the crazy look on her face and the taste of her fear getting sweeter as she experienced more of it.
"I hope they kill Claudiseus when they find him!" she shrieked.
"It was nice seeing you again, Aria. You did well for yourself these past six years. Though, I suppose it's been much longer for you on this layer." I stepped back, preferring to distance myself from her stench. Gods. Her blood smelled terrible.
"Sine Claudiseus, Aesi re ni'il, Cain. Ni'il!"
"Ni, Aria. Sine Hibi, Aesi re ni'il," I corrected her.
I took a few steps back and clicked my tongue, ordering the Fyres to attack her. They piled on top of her, biting, scratching, and tearing her apart. She screamed until one of them ripped her throat out. They fought over a bite, rolled about in her blood and guts, and played with her dismembered limbs.
The Fyre at my side joined them, not partaking in her filth, but rather retrieving a clump of her crystals. It was her core. He brought it to me, and I gladly bit off a chunk of it, eating it like candy.
I was filled with a powerful sense of joy. I really was, because Aria White was finally dead.