Chapter 22 – Draven
DRAVEN
Fucking hell. My brain is frozen. It can’t make sense of our attack on the hellhound and of Cerce lying bleeding and battered at the bottom of the pit.
“She’s the hellhound,” Soren says, and his words are numb and frightened.
“No.” Kage shakes his head. “Hades would have told us the hellhound was a shifter. And a woman. It was just supposed to be a mindless creature. Just a dangerous monster.”
“But it wasn’t,” I say, because now my brain knows. It’s accepted the truth. And it can never forget it.
Silence descends between us. My flashlight still illuminates the hole below us. The one stained by blood. Her blood. Our beautiful neighbor.
I fall to my knees. The flashlight tumbles onto the ground beside me.
None of us would ever hurt a woman. We could never bring ourselves to do it.
And a woman we cared for? Cerce. The frustrating creature with her little smiles and the softness she hides so well?
No. We couldn’t have hurt her.
Never.
I hold up my hands. Even in the dim light from the flashlight I can see the bruises on my knuckles from punching the dog. I remember the sound of it whimpering. I remember the blood that matted its flesh, and the sound of its bones breaking.
And then I see her, staring up at us. Cut and bleeding. Bruised. Covered in mud.
I hurl, spewing my dinner into the pit. Never in all my years of battle have I thrown up after an attack. But this wasn’t an attack. This was something so much worse.
A beating. A violent betrayal.
“That’s why she didn’t fight back,” Kage says, and I think he’s about to completely lose his mind.
She didn’t even fight back, rolls through my mind, and if I hadn’t already hurled, I’d do it again. Because she hadn’t. She only seemed to be trying to get away.
My entire stomach heaves, and my chest feels so tight it’s almost impossible to breathe. We beat the shit out of her, and still she refused to hurt us.
We’re fucking monsters.
Another minute of silence and Soren collapses onto his knees beside me.
“Fuck. I told her she could trust us. She had those scars all over her. Scars she said her father gave her.” He shakes his head, looking lost. “She said they hurt her for not being what they wanted. She said that no one could love her.”
“She also said she was hurt a lot as a child. I think by her family. Her father.” Kage paces.
Suddenly, my mind starts to turn. The hellhound, Cerberus, was supposed to be a three-headed dog that guarded the gates of hell. But suddenly, I don’t see a three-headed hellhound. I see Cerce, our Cerce, in the dark. Afraid and alone.
We need to fix this. Even though it’s unfixable.
What we did we can never put right. What we did can never be forgiven.
And yet, we need to help her. We need to do everything in our power to let her know that we never meant to hurt her. And that we’ll give up anything we have to in order to help her now.
“So where is she?” I ask. “Where did she go?”
One second she was there, and the next she was gone. But we had to find her. Now.
“Did she die?” Soren asks the question none of us wanted to say aloud.
“No!” Kage shouts. “No!”
“But the zombie thing disappeared when it died. And you said those dogs did too—“
Kage shakes his head. “She was talking to something down there. I think she’s somewhere. We just need to find her.”
I’m not sure he’s right, but I don’t know how any of us will ever go on living if we don’t find her and help her. Heal her wounds and explain to her that we didn’t know.
Standing, I grab the flashlight and fight a wave of dizziness. All of this feels unreal. Like a nightmare we can’t wake up from.
When I turn to go, I raise my light and suddenly a strange creature stands before us. I jerk, nearly tumbling back into the pit, but catching myself just in time.
It’s a woman. A naked woman, and yet very clearly not human. Her skin is slightly green. Her eyes are purple, and two small horns stick out of her pale hair, which is weaved with the same bright purple that almost glows in the darkness.
She tilts her head, studying us.
“Do you know where Cerce is?” Kage asks, his tone on edge.
“I don’t know that name,” she begins. “But I don’t know any names. Not even my own. I have to go to the Underworld. I can’t ignore my summons much longer. I just wanted to see you. I thought if I saw you I could figure out why she didn’t want me to kill you.”
“She?” I ask. “Are you talking about Cerce? The—the woman who was in injured down there?” I point to the pit.
The creature studies me, then glances down at the pit. “Yes. The woman on the edge of death.”
“Where is she?” I plead, desperate.
Anger flashes across her face. “I am a Shade. A creature of Hades, of the Underworld. I am born from an act of violence so terrible that it cannot be excused. I kill the vile beings who committed the act and drag their souls to the Underworld to be tortured for eternity.” Her expression freezes.
“That is what my kind do. Always. But she said I have freewill.
And so I did something that Shades don't do. I tried to help her, rather than to avenge her pain. And then I obeyed her when she said not to kill you.”
“All of this was a mistake,” Draven says. “We want to make it right. She’s hurt, and cold, and alone. We want to help her.”
The creature, the Shade, glances at him. “I don’t know enough of man to know if you lie or tell the truth, but the woman who brought me to life is in the woods. Safe from you. And no small act will make her trust you again. I would never trust men such as you again.”
She tilts her head as if listening to a voice we can’t hear.
“Where is she?” Draven pleads. “Please, take us to her.”
It takes her a long minute before she looks back at us. “I would rather slit your throats and pull your souls from you like I’m plucking your spines from your flesh and bone.” Then she gives an eerie smile. “But I will obey her.”
And then she’s gone.
The three of us look at each other, and I realize that never before have I seen us look so frightened or miserable.
This is the worst thing we’ve ever done.
“We’ll find her and make this right,” Kage says.
And reality hits me. “Some things are unforgivable.”
“No.” Kage moves to stand in front of me. “We’re good men. We’re gargoyles. We can make this right.”
Something inside of me cracks. “I’m not a good man. I’m a liar. I… lied.”
Soren is at Kage’s side. “Lied about what?”
I swallow hard. “I said the last time we awoke was together. That we fought a war and awoke to our family being dead. That wasn’t true.
” The memories come back to me. “I awoke. Disturbed by something I couldn’t name.
Our family was sick in their beds. Dying.
And I could do nothing to stop their deaths.
I watched them, one after another, be consumed by the disease.
Then I buried them and went back to sleep. ”
Both men are staring at me in shock.
“You might be good men, good gargoyles, but I’m not. Cerce isn’t the first woman whose blood is on my hands.”
After a painfully long minute, Soren’s face crumbles and he grasps my shoulder.
“Things are not black and white the way we once thought. That simple life is gone. Now there are things that gargoyles can’t fight, we don’t always make the right choices, and we can fall in love with a monster and not even know it. ”
He takes a deep breath that shakes his whole frame. “And we can betray her, while foolishly thinking we’re doing the right thing. Forgive yourself for the past, Draven, because there is enough to hate ourselves for in the present.”
Then he turns and starts to walk through the woods.
After a minute, Kage gives a simple nod and follows him.
I walk more slowly after them. I always thought revealing my secret would destroy us, but I guess the failure that’s eaten at me for so long before this means nothing compared to what I’ve done now.
And that’s another thing. Soren is right. Somehow, we’ve come to love Cerce.
Now there’s no chance of her ever loving us back, but perhaps we can find a way to help her.
The rain continues to fall and the cold night stretches on. But the trail of footsteps we find disappears after a time, whether from the mud and rain or the strange creature’s powers. All we know is Cerce is out here somewhere, and yet we can’t help her.