Chapter Thirty Three
“When I was young a World Eater came to my home. It was massive. It blacked out the sun and the sky. There were no stars, no moon when it settled on our world. For days it stayed unmoving in the sky. The only thing we could do was despair and mourn the life that was to be lost, sacrificed to its hunger.” Jaak pauses and I put my hand on his.
We’re inside, in the living room with the book safely tucked away in the basement with more magic than I probably should have used to guard it.
I spelled the entire place until I felt lightheaded.
My power came rushing back the second I used it, not at all like the first time I accidentally used it at the Hell Maw with Jaak.
I look at the demon beside me. The morning light makes him look angelic. The only thing I want to do is comfort him. Such a far cry from that very first night he spoke to me through the crevasse before I knew who he really was to me.
“Take your time,” I tell him.
He gives me a wry smile. “As much as I would like to, the end of the world is near, my heart. Haste is needed for this story but it must be told all the same if we’re to understand what we face today.
The World Eater is a Titan of old. So ancient that even when there was nothing it existed.
There have only ever been a few at a time, the last born some hundred millennia ago. ”
“What do they do?” I ask. I can’t wrap my head around why something like this would even exist.
“To keep order, maintain balance among the worlds. Though who determines the balance is to be challenged,” he says, voice hard.
“There are rules made by entities that have long forgotten what it means to be alive. The World Eater was a tool they created to maintain their asinine ideas of harmony. When the World Eater came to my home, we knew the end was near. It could have claimed us, devoured our world and simply moved on but it did not. It lingered, announcing itself in the heavens until despair filled us. It wanted our fear. Our resignation of a fate it alone decided.”
“That’s fucked,” Charlie whispers.
“Yes, it was. Very much so. But the World Eater did not eat my world. My home was saved that day.”
Hope surges in my heart. “What? That’s wonderful! How did you do it? Maybe we can use it to save our world.”
Jaak shakes his head. “No, my heart, that’s not possible.”
“But, you just said it didn’t eat your home.”
“That is because I sacrificed myself to it. I made a deal with the World Eater to be its servant, its agent of chaos and strife among all the worlds so long as its heart beat. That is how I saved my home. Such a deal cannot be struck now. There are none to make it.”
Charlie and I go silent. I look at him and he looks at me. It’s easy to see what we’re both thinking—we would both make that deal if we had to.
Jaak sees it plain as day and points between the two of us with a low growl.
“Absolutely not. No mortal will make this deal with a World Eater. They are wrong. Twisted. It is why the Fates refused to create any more of their kind because while they were made for balance, they relished sorrow and pain. I will not allow another to be bound to them like I am.”
I feel my heart stutter and stop, it’s so painful that I have to put a hand to my chest. I look at Jaak.
“What? You mean were, right?” When Jaak doesn’t answer, I keep pushing, my voice growing more frantic.
“You can’t, I mean, I’m your anchor. How can you be bound to a World Eater?
You mean were, right? Jaak? Please tell me you mean were bound. ”
I grab his hand with both of mine. “Jaak, please.”
“I am sorry, I cannot say what you ask, my heart. I am still bound to my master.”
“No, no, I won’t- you will not have a master. Not anymore.” I stand up and swipe at the tears that are suddenly streaming down my face at the thought of Jaak sacrificing himself for the ones he loved only to now still be enslaved. “I don’t allow it. I won’t allow it.”
“Meadow, calm yourself. I have a master in name only. I have not seen Eri in a very, very long time. Not for hundreds of years before the Fates imprisoned me. I’m sure they have forgotten me by now. World Eaters strike many bargains. Mine was but one of countless others. You have nothing to fear.”
Jaak stands and holds his arms out for me to come near and I do. I fling myself into his arms and hold him as tight as I can. He cradles me, hands rubbing my back in soothing motions.
“I will never forsake you. I promised you this, don’t you remember?”
“You are my life. I will not forsake you. So long as my heart beats I will always be at your side, Meadow. Even if hell opened itself up to claim me again, I would fight my way back to you. I will always fight for you, my heart. I will never leave you. I swear this to you as a vow.”
“You can’t leave me,” I whisper to him. I close my eyes and press my cheek to his chest, listening to the sound of his heart beating steady and strong.
Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. The sound calms me a little.
Jaak is here and he won’t be forced away from me to serve some ancient world eating monster that gets off on pain and suffering.
How was it, having to serve such a thing?
I can’t think about what Jaak must have gone through to fulfill his end of the bargain, but I do think of something else that I’ve never considered before.
“Wait a minute, so you’re not a demon? Not really. You became one, didn’t you?”
Jaak hesitates before answering me. “Yes. I was mortal once.”
“What were you?”
“I was like you.”
“You were a person?” Charlie squeaks.
Jaak nods. “I was. Not exactly like you but I was mortal once. My deal cursed me, it made me into the beast you’ve seen.”
“Your demon form isn’t a beast. It’s you,” I tell him quickly. “And I love it.”
He nods and gives me a gentle smile as he cups my face.
“I know you do, my heart and fortunately so, as there is no separating me from the demon. Not at this age, but those are things we can discuss later.” Jaak’s firm on that because when I go to ask him another question about the mortal to demon process, he hits me with a “once you have saved the world you can ask me as many questions as you like.”
“Once we save the world,” I correct him.
“Once we save the world,” he agrees.
“This is cool, we’re like superheroes.” Charlie claps his hand and rubs them together. “Alright, let’s go kick some demon ass.”
“You’ll do well to arm yourself, Gamemaster,” Jaak says on his way past Charlie and towards the door.
“Oh I’m armed. I got thunder and lightning right here,” Charlie says. I know he’s talking about his fists so I bring my hands together and conjure a bow for him. A bow is good, it means he’ll be a way away from the main fight.
“Here, use this and if you see the fight going downhill, I want you to get out of there.”
Charlie takes the bow and quiver of arrows from me. “Is this your way of calling me a Ranger?”
“A what?”
“You’re right I’m more of a rogue, but I don’t know how to use a bow. What am I supposed to do with this?” he asks, looking at the bow and arrows like they’re alien artifacts. “Throw them at them? I mean, wrangling a rat demon on a stick is one thing but this? I have no idea what to do.”
“Let me fix that for you.”
“What are you do-”
I click a finger against Charlie’s forehead. “Boop.”
Everything that Jaak knows about bows, I know. Now, courtesy of my magic, so does Charlie. He goes cross-eyed when I remove my hand from his head and I start to worry that maybe I overdid it. It’s not like I have a manual for any of this, I’m flying blind. Oh my gods, why did I boop him?
“Charlie, are you…okay?” He shakes his head and blinks a few times, and thank the gods his eyes uncross. “Charlie?” I ask again when he doesn’t answer me.
He slings the quiver over his shoulder and adjusts his grip on the bow. “Ohhhh, I’m a god now! An archery god.” He looks down at the bow and cackles. “Is this how you and Buffy feel all the time?”
“Um, maybe? How do you feel?”
“Like a bad bitch.”
“Yes, that’s exactly how I feel.”
“Wondrous.”