17. Care for her
Olian was a creature of habit. She wanted to torture Rayna and punish me, and that meant taking her to the bricks, a system of tunnel connected rooms in the middle of the wastelands. They were the operation facilities for one of the collectors, a powerful demon who had other demons working for him. In those tunnels were rooms for captors, tortures, and other dark activities. This one belonged to Olian’s father.
Olian would be able to tell Rayna and I had been together. She’d smell me on Rayna. Her twisted mind would have definitely come up with some sort of sex play to mix into her torture plans. There was only one place she did that kind of work.
“Are you really going to do this?” the deep voice of Cufio spoke from behind me.
I turned to find the shadow demon, his thin frame radiating with the murky energy. Cufio spent so much time in the shadows, it was hard to distinguish where his body ended and the shadows began.
“Why are you here, Cufio?” I scanned the area to be sure my old friend was alone. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“I figured you’d come eventually. News spread fast about Olian bringing your human here. Funny how the rules don’t apply to the boss’s daughter.” Cufio pointed to the system of rooms off in the distance. “Any of us do what she’s planning, and we’d lose our necks.”
“And you risked coming here. Why?” I asked. “You’d be in just as much trouble if they found out you were here talking to me. What do you want?”
“I want to try to talk some sense into you, Meti. You could fix all this by just coming back.” Cufio looked at me, his thick brow furrowed over grey eyes. “They’d take you back. That’s all they want, for you to be back on the team. You were the best of us. It was a hard hit to lose you in the field.”
“You and I both know that won’t fix this.” I laughed. “Olian will still try to kill Rayna because of what she means to me. Going back to work for them won’t fix that.”
“Wow, the human really does mean something to you? I thought they were all insane when they said you cared for her. I figured the Meti I knew could never feel anything for a human.” He paused, looking back at the tunnels. “What’s the plan here? Are you going to go in there and kill everyone? Then what? There really won’t be any turning back from that. What happens next?”
“Don’t worry about what happens next. Just stay out of my way,” I warned.
When Cufio returned his attention to me, I made a point to show him I meant what I said. My muscles stretched, skin warmed, and horns grew. It wasn’t often I revealed my true form. It wasn’t as pleasant to look at, but this wasn’t a time to care about outward appearances. I could see the fear in his eyes as I changed, the same reaction every time someone saw my true self.
“You know, I wasn’t even here today.” He threw his hands up and turned to leave. “Take care of yourself, Meti. Some of us still want you to be okay.”
As Cufio disappeared back into the haze of shadows, I ran for the room where Olian held Rayna.
She used the same room every time. It was her special quarters, decked out to look like it wasn’t sitting in the pits. As I ran, I caught the scent. Olian was there, and so was Rayna. First came that sweet scent of vanilla, and then blood—her blood, and she’d lost a lot of it.
There wasn’t any time to deal with doorways or pleasantries. I couldn’t waste a moment trying to talk my way inside. They’d drag it out just long enough for me to lose her. Instead, I circled around the poorly guarded building to the wall I knew to be her space. Just as I suspected, sounds of loud and aggressive sex came through the high windows.
“I’m coming, Rayna,” I said as I ripped away the final layers of my clothing. If I was going to take on an orgy, I needed my full strength. The clothes wouldn’t survive the expansion.
One of the reasons the boss loved me was the hat trick. My dick wasn’t the only thing customizable. I drew in the energy of the world around me, the darkness that kept the Bane going, and as I did, my body doubled, then tripled in size. Clenching my fist, I brought razor-like ridges to cover my flesh and create a shield of armor across my body.
When I finished the transition, it took one swing of my fist to knock the entire wall in. I drew back and smashed it in, then watched as the naked demons scattered.
“Metice, you bastard!” Sintk, a bull demon with three dicks, was the only one bold enough to take me head on. He lowered his head, aimed his horns at my chest, and charged me.
I caught him easily by the horn and held him in place. The smell of her blood came to me again, and my eyes followed the trail. There she was: my soulmate, chained to the wall and barely alive. My vision flooded with red.
“I’ll make every one of you pay for this.”
“Me-” I didn’t hear what Sintk had to say. I lifted him in the air by the horn and, in one swift motion, ripped the dirty dicks from his body. When I dropped him, he quickly bled out.
Each demon who dared to approach me died. It didn’t matter who they were or what relationship we once shared. All that mattered was her, getting her out of there alive. By the time I reached her, the floor was slick with multi-colored blood.
She lay there, battered and clinging to life behind the heavy bars. Damn searching for a key. I had to get to her. I grabbed the bars and pulled. The metal groaned in protest, but the fight was short lived before they were ripped from their posts. When I tossed them behind me, they flew into the wall and removed the head of a fleeing demoness. An unfortunate casualty of battle.
It didn’t matter to me. I would remove the heads of a hundred more if that’s what it took. I cared about nothing but her, the hardheaded human woman tied to my world. She was nearly gone. Her chest fluttered with the final breaths of life, and I knew I had to act quickly.
I picked her up from the floor, ripping the chains that held her from the wall, and ran. As I did, I picked up my clothing but didn’t stop moving. I had to get far enough away to give her the elixir, but I could already hear them coming.
My chest burned with the fear that I hadn’t made it to her in time. It took me too long to get to her, and now, I was losing her.
“Please stay with me,” I whispered as I ran, pulling her limp body close to my chest. “I need you to survive this.”
Just ahead, a shadow flickered, a sign from an old friend who would put a target on his back if they knew he helped me. Cufio. I let my body shrink but held tightly onto Rayna as we slipped into the shadows and away from the battlefield.
Cufio taught me well to follow his path through the shadows. I had to shrink myself and never step a foot out of bounds. Many were lost trying to follow a shadow demon through their passages. Theirs were the back doors through worlds where the unstable energy waited to snatch people away from their lives. This was the hell the humans knew, eternity trapped in endless suffering, all because you missed a step. If you weren’t careful, the ones lost in the dark corridors would pull you in with them.
A moment later, I stepped out of the shadows and into the caverns. This hidden system was one Cufio and I discovered many years prior. We’d stocked it with supplies for such a day as this, when the world turned its back on us.
Cufio wasn’t there; I could see the marking of the shadow he used to escape. In another minute, no one would be able to trace him.
“Thank you,” I said, though I doubted my friend could hear me.
I carried Rayna to the small cot to the left of the space and carefully laid her there. From the jacket I’d ripped away during my transition, I pulled out the box Likosa gave me and took out the first vial. On it, written in Likosa’s hand, was Rayna’s name.
When I popped the cork, the clear liquid fizzled and turned golden.
“I hope that was supposed to happen,” I muttered. There was no time to find Likosa and ask her. I put the vial to Rayna’s lips and poured its contents into her mouth.
“You have to survive this,” I spoke to her, unsure if she could hear me. “I know I’ve been stubborn, but so have you. It’s what makes this work between us. But now is not the time to be stubborn. Stay with me, Rayna. Promise me years of your stubbornness. Please do as I ask. Please fight to stay here.”
Rayna’s face flushed with warmth. It lasted a moment, but it was enough to convince me the elixir was working. I pulled her hand into mine, but her fingers were cold as ice. If I didn’t warm her up, she wouldn’t make it. I knew that.
In the center of the hideout was a fire pit, and above it, a small vent to allow smoke to escape through a series of pathways, keeping our location hidden. It seemed my friend had thought ahead. There were fresh cut logs and plenty of kindling. I got the fire going quickly, then lifted the cot with Rayna still on it closer to the fire. It would have been good to get her something more to keep her warm, but to leave her was out of the question, not until I was sure she would be okay in my absence.
“They’ll be looking for us, but we’re safe here. You don’t need to worry about that.” I talked to her because it felt strange not to. Pulling her hand back into mine, I continued. “When you’re awake, I’ll tell you everything, anything you want to know. You were right; I shouldn’t have hidden so much from you. It was na?ve to think I could protect you from any of this. I won’t do that anymore. This is my promise to you. I will support you in this journey and protect you from my enemies. Whatever life you want to lead, I’ll be there to guard your dreams and soothe your heart. You deserve that and so much more.”
My confessions continued until my eyes grew heavy and my head dropped. Before sleep took over me, I added two logs to the fire. One last look at her, and I saw the color returning to her face, restoring that deep chestnut brown. My last thought before I slept was that I hoped to look into her eyes once more.
When I woke, Rayna had not yet regained consciousness, but she looked better. Her breathing was stronger, and her skin looked warmer.
“You should be okay on your own for a bit.” I rubbed her hair, still matted with dirt and blood. “I’ll be back soon.”
I hoped she wouldn’t wake and find herself alone, but I had to get supplies for her.
Back in her house, I gathered things to care for her. In her garage was a large plastic bin that I loaded with jugs of water from her kitchen and canned soups from the pantry. I grabbed her clothing, towels, soaps, and other things to clean her wounds. She had a small bin with first aid items, which I dumped into the larger one.
Before returning to her, I grabbed some bedding, two pillows and a comforter to help keep her warm. I looked around her home again just to make sure there was nothing else she needed.
The painting she was working on sat there, closer to being finished, and as I appreciated the surety of her strokes and admired the transition of colors, I realized this painting, this place from her dreams, was familiar. I’d been there once before, when a witch nursed me back to life and told me of the woman tied to my soul.
“Dammit.” This couldn’t be a good sign.
Rayna was still sleeping when I returned to her. I poured some of the water into one of the pots we had in the cavern and warmed it over the fire. Then, using the towel and soaps I took from her home, I washed her body of the blood and dirt. The elixir had already healed her injuries, leaving only one scar on her leg where the worst wound was. The others healed without a mark.
I washed and carefully combed her hair before putting it in the twists taught to me by a young girl in South Africa, then covered her hair with the bonnet I grabbed from her bedside. Dressed in fresh clothing and clean of the filth and blood, she looked more like my Rayna.
It was strange to me how much I enjoyed caring for her. She’d given me nothing but trouble, but all I wanted was to make sure she was okay. I looked forward to detangling her hair and washing her skin. The thought of bringing her any form of peace made my chest warm with something unfamiliar to me.
Yip! Yee! Yip!
The sound startled me, and I jumped from my seat next to Rayna. Had someone found us? This place was secure and had been for years. Had they captured my friend and forced him to reveal our secrets?
As I braced, preparing to do all I could to protect her, the sound grew near, and I heard the trumpeting sound of a demon dog’s fart. Before his little blue body appeared in the doorway, I smelled the sickly-sweet odor.
Piko.
He crossed the room, and in one leap, landed in my arms.
“Of course you found us.” I laughed and patted his head. “Easy boy. Settle down.”
He licked my face, and as soon as he saw her, he jumped onto the cot with Rayna. The mutt didn’t leave her side for the next two days.
Over the days, I made sure to give her water and kept talking to her as much as possible. Though I wasn’t sure if she could hear me, I told her all about my life, laughing at myself because these were things I would have to tell her again.
On the fourth day, something changed. Rayna’s body hummed with an energy I’d never felt from her. I stood from my seat as the light, golden like the elixir I gave her, shined beneath her flesh. Two steps into my approach, and that mental connection that was once a gentle frequency became a sharp sting in my mind. Needles punctured the surface of my brain, and my body seized.
My knees cracked against the ground, sending lightning strikes of pain up my thighs and into my gut. Rayna stirred. I fell to all fours, and her eyes opened. The box, Likosa’s gift. I crawled to it, fighting my seizing limbs. It took all my concentration to open the vial with my name written across it.
“Metice?” Her voice was dry as her eyes searched for me.
“I’m so sorry.” I closed my eyes and poured the fizzling gold liquid down my throat.
And the world went dark.
I didn’t get to look into her eyes.