Chapter 11
ELEVEN
THING
For the first hour of our trek, we are both silent. And then the second hour also.
It is strange, being with a quiet human. After getting to know Hannah, I assumed they were all. . . talkative.
This human is not talkative.
At first, I thought I liked it. Walking with her was a little like being alone in the woods.
Except, I realized that was foolish because I was constantly aware of her.
I walk slowly to make sure she is able to keep up with me.
I wonder if she is getting tired because the pace I’m setting is still too fast, and she simply does not complain.
But whether I slow down or go faster, she matches me exactly.
I frown, wondering what she is thinking. So then I try to listen to her breathing and eventually land on a pace that does not seem to have her breathing too heavily.
I know that if I were with Hannah, she would be very vocal about her discomfort, but I have the feeling this one would continue in silence even if her limbs were burning.
At hour three, I decide to do something entirely novel and ask. “Do you need to rest?”
She seems startled that I’m breaking the silence. “Do you want to rest?”
I blink back at her. “I am asking you. You are the human.”
She stiffens. “I’m keeping up just fine.”
“I did not say you weren’t. But what do you want? Do you want to rest?”
She stays silent for a long moment. “I—” But then she breaks off as soon as she begins and is silent again. Finally, she picks back up. “Well, maybe I should stretch some, then we can continue.”
I nod.
She leans over and begins to stretch. Strange positions I haven’t seen humans contort their bodies into before. But then, besides Hannah, I have not been around humans in a very long time. She stands on one leg and grabs the other, bending it behind her in a graceful move.
“Your name,” she says, surprising me by talking. “Why haven’t you changed it?”
I blink, surprised by this question she’s asked. “It is my name, given by my Creator-Father.”
“He sounds like a dick.”
I frown, not following. Sometimes this happens with Hannah when she uses words that mean different things in modern language than before.
“If he wasn’t nice when he gave you a name, you should choose your own name.”
I frown further. “Can you do that?”
She laughs, and I like the sound. “Of course you can. It’s your life. Your name. You can be whatever you want to be. Whoever you want to be.”
Hmm. “I will think about it. I have been Thing for a very long time.”
She nods at that, finally standing up from stretching.
“You have not told me your name.”
Her gaze, always averted, moves towards the forest. We are staying beside the frozen river, the forest off to our right. She is so quiet that if I did not have the excellent hearing I do, I might have missed her next words. “My name’s Ksenia.”
Ksenia. A beautiful name for a beautiful person.
“It is a good name,” I say.
She nods but seems distracted.
“That’s a Slavic name, yes?” I ask, hoping she’ll divulge more about where she is from and how she got here.
But she ignores me and just starts walking again. “Who’s Angel?”
I sputter a little as I start walking again, easily catching up with her short legs. “What do you mean?”
“Your brother kept warning you that I’m a spy for someone named Angel. I want to know who they are.”
“You tell me nothing about yourself and demand I tell you things?”
After a moment’s silence, she nods. “Yes.”
“That seems like something a spy might do.”
“I’m not a spy,” she bites back.
And I believe her. Despite Abaddon’s paranoia, I don’t think she’s working for whatever angel is stalking us. I think she’s an unfortunate human who somehow stumbled into our realm. It was bound to happen after all this time.
So after we walk a few more steps, I finally answer her. “It is not anyone named Angel. It is an angel.”
She misses a step in surprise. I reach out two hands to steady her, but she yanks back, steadying herself at the last moment. “I’m fine,” she snaps. I pull my hands back.
“An angel,” she breathes out. “Like a literal angel? You mean from heaven?”
I shake my head. “Not exactly. They are simply from another plane. There are many planes of existence. This is merely one.”
“And you and your brothers. . . you’re from a different one?”
Again I shake my head.
“Our Creator-Father was. He was angel-kind, from a plane we call the Great Hall. Most angels retired there long ago. Our Creator-Father refused to go with them. Well, he went,” I hedge, then admit, “but just to steal enough angel spark to bring back here and create my brothers and me in his forge.”
“You were made. . . in a forge?” she says, her tone disbelieving. “Is that a metaphor? Or are you being sarcastic? I’m not good with sarcasm.”
“No, it was a literal forge,” I say. I suppose I’ve never thought about how strange this might all sound to a human. I was not there when Abaddon explained it to Hannah to know how that went. Or perhaps he was not so blunt.
“Okay,” she says slowly, as if she’s not sure whether to believe my words or not. I suppose that is up to her whether she will believe.
“My brothers can scry with angel runes because of the spark inside them, and they have seen that another angel somehow remains on this plane or perhaps has come back. They are watching us, and Abaddon thinks they mean us harm. He worries because of his baby daughter.”
“What about your Creator-Dad or whatever? You said he’s an angel—”
“He’s dead,” I say sharply, and the image of him burning on the pyre flashes before my eyes.
She frowns, but her head bobs up and down, nodding. “If anyone told me this, I’d say they’re nuts. But, well. . . I guess after meeting you guys. . .”
Then she asks, “How long have you been in that castle? Why doesn’t anyone know about you?”
It’s good she didn’t ask all these questions last night. Abaddon would have been suspicious. I’m just happy she’s decided to talk instead of being silent. And I’m so curious about her. Maybe if I answer some questions, then she will, too.
“The castle was created around a thousand years ago. I suspect while our Father was alive, he. . .” I shake my head, “Cast some protection runes over the land directly around us so that no mortal could find us. And after his death, well, we had our own means of dissuading anyone from coming near.”
I see her frown, and she doesn’t ask any more about that. I’m glad. Even as I look around at the familiar landscape, my chest tightens. In another two days, we’ll pass by the place of death.
“What did you do for all that time in that castle in the middle of nowhere?” she asks. “For all those thousands of years?”
Now it’s me who looks at the ground.
Because of course we did not keep to the castle all that time.
We were out doing what we were born to do.
For thousands of years before and almost another thousand years after the castle was built, we were the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Murdering and spreading destruction, war, and death everywhere we went.
“The sunlight is difficult for me,” I lie. “You travel for a while. I’ll be in the shadow plane.”
“The what?” she asks, startled. “What does that mean?”
It means I need to be alone. The beast inside me is restless, and I do not trust him when he is restless. I might not have another being splitting me as obviously as Romulus and Remus, but sometimes I also feel two-natured. There is a darkness inside me that’s only calmed by shadows.
“I’m not only a monster with extra arms and blue skin,” I manage, speaking through my teeth as I stretch my neck like I sometimes see Romulus and Remus do when they are trying to hold the other back.
I understand it now because I worry the shadow inside me will be dangerous if I don’t keep it leashed.
“I have other abilities, and one of them is to slip into the shadow plane. I need to spend time there each day.” Another lie, but a safer one.
This frail human does not know that she has asked Death to travel with her as her companion, and I do not want her to know.
I have never been so ashamed of what I am. It is a foolish dream to change my name. A thing I was born, and a thing I will always be.
I see her tense with alarm at the thought of me leaving, but the mid-morning sun is bright and the river a clear guide. She will be fine.
“I will return in a short while,” I say.
She turns towards me, and I hear her start to say something, but the gnawing is too great. I cannot stand the light or her kind presence and prodding words.
I breathe out in relief as I slip into the darkness of shadow.