Chapter LIV
LIV
I know Sarmodel would have leaped after him, with no regard for the body he inhabited. The violent current pounding through the canyon below was of no consequence.
But his control was waning quickly, and he could barely stay on his feet. The spasms I had felt were increasing in strength, like reflex points rapped with a knuckle. Even as Sarmodel faded, I was returning to myself.
Oh, but he resisted. I felt him clinging to my centers of consciousness like a child refusing to relinquish the reins after a pony ride. I could feel his hunger and his desperation as my own. He began to drag us toward the edge, a low growl rolling in our chest.
Sarmodel.
Sebastian, we must go after him! Please!
With a mental heave, I forced him out. I felt him shoot up above me, billowing like a storm cloud, as I settled back into my familiar position of control.
Well, perhaps not entirely familiar.
The monstrous body Sarmodel had created would take time to revert, and for now it was mine.
Hurry! Hurry! he fretted above me. He was weak and depleted after his excursion into the flesh, but his passion was palpable.
I tested my powerful limbs. Already droplets of plasma were condensing on the skin of my extremities; soon the tissue would begin to dissolve, but until then . . .
Until then I had the upper hand. The Beast was broken. His heart was mine for the taking. Saliva squirted into my mouth at the thought, and a deeper, more carnal compulsion stirred in my loins.
After the transformation and the chase, my body was in need of replenishment. I was starving.
The water roared below me. I could not see any sign of the Beast. It would be almost certain death to follow him into the flood. But my hunger was stronger than my reason; I was already looking for footholds on the cliffs.
Yes, Sebastian! We will never be hungry again, said Sarmodel. Go! If you want that empire, you can build it yourself. We will be a power in this world, a rival to the Archangel himself.
. . . Michael!
I shook my head. The desperate red lust in my mind gave way to a moment of clear thought. In a rush I remembered the looming disaster I had left behind at the Bow and Brace.
I spun around and looked back down the slope. Even without benefit of my preternatural sight, I could see the whirling pillar of flame shining on the mountainside. The lodge was utterly ablaze.
Leave them! They’re already dead! said Sarmodel.
We don’t know that! Antoine is still in there! I looked down into the crevasse and then back to the lodge.
Finish the hunt! Don’t you want to feed?
But . . . Antoine. I told him I would return.
You will return—with the heart of a god beating inside you! You may ride back on a comet and rebuild that lodge from marzipan and moonbeams if you want to, but you need to move now!
I do. Yes.
My body was crying out for sustenance. The hunger was a kind of madness, growing to obscure my every other thought.
I think, ironically, that it was the fire that saved me. Looking at the distant glow, I saw not the peril it represented. Rather I saw Antoine’s face squinting in concentration over a hundred campfires, and his careful enunciation of the nonsense words I had taught him.
Sim Sala Bim.
I pulled away from the brink with an anguished whimper.
I can’t, Sarmodel. I’m sorry.
I closed my mind to his howling. I gathered all of my remaining strength—both physical and mental—and fled back down the mountain.
I remember little of what happened next.
There are a few moments of clear recollection I can piece together.
I remember the courtyard roaring with flames and the huddle of terrified faces at its center, surrounded by corpses.
There were perhaps twenty of them still alive.
What did they fear most between the fire, the storm and the slaughter, I wonder.
I remember the horrifying abomination circling them.
Soeur was stalking around the group on her misshapen forelimbs, dripping red from muzzle to tail.
I recall that the sound of breaking glass punctuated the screaming—the constant, many-throated screaming from every corner of the lodge, like a high chorus above the roaring of the storm.
A small figure faced Soeur in the courtyard, dressed all in black but also shining with gold and emerald radiance.
It could only be Bauterne; the Archangel had decided to lend his aid after all.
He held the ravening hound at bay with a long ceremonial spear, no doubt taken from the publican’s collection.
I remember the miasma of intoxicating aromas that washed over me as I descended on the courtyard. Blood. Smoke. Fear, and its various organic companions; sweat, urine, tears. Blood. Wine. The sour tang of Soeur’s gangrenous flesh. Blood.
Worse than the memories, however, are the parts I can only imagine.
I can picture the survivors’ fresh horror at the naked abomination suddenly appearing in the midst of the chaos; at the carnage as it tore apart the monster that had once been the lieutenant’s favorite.
Then a pause, perhaps, as the creature cast about, looking for something, or someone.
How much did they see, those few survivors, and how much did they understand? How far had my body reverted? Did they recognize the eloquent Professor Grave, who had sparred so nimbly with Bauterne over dinner, in this new monster’s face?
The next is a memory I would gladly replace with ignorant speculation.
“Abomination!”
Bauterne lunged with the spear, the Archangel’s radiance whirling around him. Verses of scripture flew from his lips as he struck at me again and again.
I snatched at the spear with one of my limbs and flicked it away. Unable or unwilling to release it, Bauterne was flung across the courtyard into a pile of burning rubble.
The rest were silent now. The onlookers only cowered as my gaze returned to them.
I believe that was the point at which I truly went mad.
It had grown too much to bear, you see. The smell of blood and freshly killed meat was more than I could stand.
I began to eat.