Chapter 8 Help Has a Name #2
The creature whimpers, side-stepping the fire as the orange light shines across the beast’s side. I move cautiously toward the dark figure still holding out my weapon.
It’s a…dog? Small wolf?
Black shiny fur and funny white markings on its chest. Funny ears that don’t stand upright but hang floppy against its cheeks.
“Ouch.” The voice echoes again. “Hurt paw.”
I lower my sickle.
“Could still be a demon,” Niklaus warns.
“Dellilian no demon,” the childlike voice says. I’m surprised that I have no impression of the sound being creepy or disturbing. It’s sweet and somehow exactly what I would expect to be the voice of a small wolf.
“That is what a demon would say.” I narrow my eyes.
The animal steps out into the light slowly, cautiously, as if it’s trying not to spook us. With small brown eyes that look positively too human to be a beast, it watches us as it blinks curiously. Each paw is white and speckled like snowy boots, and that long tails sways back and forth happily.
I move closer, lowering myself to the ground to get eye level with it. On the edges of that dog-like frame, a glittery dust seems to dissolve from its charcoal fur. Like a midnight, mystical breeze. Like magic.
And I’m not sure what it is exactly, but a calmness washes over my chilled skin.
Trust. Purity. Loyalty. Safe. Safe. Safe.
I sense no threat or danger. In fact, the midnight creature lowers itself to the ground, sprawling out their hind legs and crawling on the dirt to get closer to me.
A submissive attempt to ensure my feelings ring true.
“Spitfire,” Niklaus warns under a hissing breath.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
The animal blinks twice, then that small voice answers in my head, “Dellilian.”
“Her name is Dellilian,” I tell Niklaus.
“Thanks.” He slowly lowers his weapon in annoyance.
I glance over her features again, studying the way those human-like eyes study me back.
“What are you, Dellilian?”
“A Morphing Onyx Short-Haired Windila!”
Huh.
I glance back at Niklaus who can’t wipe that stupid look of revulsion from his face.
“I’ve never heard of that one before. You’re not here to harm us?”
She shakes her head with a chuff. “No harm. Helped you escape, ’member?”
I stare blankly, remembering the black puff of cosmic smoke that came soaring from that hole that sucked us out of Vexamen. Was that her?
“Been sent to help you, Sapphy!”
Me? I stare at her with a furrowed brow. This is a fever dream—it must be, right? I’m at home, sick and near death, probably. None of the recent events are logical. Nothing makes sense.
“Why?”
Dellilian tilts her head. “Need Sapphy’s help one day. Here to help Sapphy on time journey!”
Niklaus leans forward. “Time journey?”
Oh, fuck.
Sinisterly, Niklaus slides his glare to land on me, jabbing into the side of my face like a hot fire poker. “Time?” he repeats himself slowly.
I swallow down the nauseated saliva building in my mouth.
“Dellilian…are we”—I clear my throat—“are we not in our own time anymore?”
Niklaus doesn’t take his hateful eyes off of me as she answers.
“Sapphy moves time. Time moves Sapphy.” Her human-like eyes shoot over to the fire Niklaus stands in front of. “Rabbit is yum.”
My mind goes blank, then explodes into chaos. “Oh, shit! How? Why? How?!”
I rise to my feet, hands in hair, pacing in front of her.
“Because you have a fucked-up head like your parents,” Niklaus seethes, though he doesn’t seem surprised by this revelation.
I don’t even have it in me to snap at the comment.
Maybe he’s right? My mother can supposedly go into the void and peer back at old memories as if she’s actually there.
My father had the inner world with his many alters, I’m told.
And those alters were split to suffer in different ways, bear different forms of trauma.
Could my DNA have been altered because of them?
“Fallen Saint. Patient Thirteen.” Dellilian nods her head, still fixated on that cooked rabbit.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
Dellilian blinks up at me casually, then narrows her focus on the rabbit again.
“Send. Us. Back.”
I turn to face Niklaus with my mouth still hanging open.
Everything that’s happened since those Vexamen Breed soldiers attacked us on the street hasn’t made any sense.
Waking up on Vexamen soil with blood still wet on my body.
The Meat Carnivals active again. Waking up in the snow a moment later. This is truly the only explanation!
Niklaus takes a predatory step in my direction. “Now.”
Bewilderment lines the acidic bubbling in my stomach.
“Are you fucking deaf?”
“I don’t know how!” I say in exasperation.
“Bullshit!”
I cough out a laugh. “You think I can control it?!”
“Yes,” he answers, soft blue eyes turning vengeful and black.
“Why would I intentionally send us to Vexamen before Aunt Ruth and Uncle Warrose made it safe? Why would I leave Uncle Niles behind and not go back for him already?!”
The fire crackles and pops before he thinks of a reasonable answer.
“Because you’re a psychopath like your parents.”
Normally insults to my parents don’t bother me. I say worse things in my head. But in this particular situation, that one hurts.
“I don’t know how to send us back.” My hands clench into painful fists at my sides. “Can you help me control it, Dellilian?”
Sitting close to the fire, Dellilian finishes off the last of the rabbit, licking the bones clean. She’s sort of adorable, blissfully unaware of us talking anymore.
Niklaus explodes.
“Did I say you could eat our food?” He stomps aggressively in her direction, forming a puff of dust and dirt around his boot. “Get out of here! Go!”
Dellilian scurries away from him, limping toward me as if she’d been struck. Her soft whimpers tug at my heart.
I glare up at the monster guarding the leftover rabbit bones. “And I’m the psychopath. She’s here to help us, you idiot!”
Dellilian sits by herself in the dark, her head hanging, pouting in silence.
“Please,” I whisper softly to her. “Can you help us get back?”
The midnight animal glances up at me in sorrow. “Can follow and protect. Cannot lead.”
“So, she’s fucking useless.”
Anger simmers under my skin, prickling at my nerves.
“Then leave! Have fun trying to get back to save your dad without me! Or getting back to our own time for that matter.” I stare him down for several seconds. “No one’s stopping you. Go on, leave!”
Niklaus moves toward me, dilating pupils, tightening jaw, like he has something evil to say. Something to wound me with. But after a single deep breath, he turns around.
“I’ll find more firewood,” he says coldly.
The rigorous tension in my muscles and bones begins to deflate. I fall to a seated position, unsure if I want to cry or scream. Wishing Krimson was here. Wondering with racing, unstable thoughts if I’ll ever see my mother again.
“Dellilian sleep right here?” the gentle creature says, reaching into my mind to snag my attention.
My face drops into my hands as I nod. “Yes. Let’s sleep now.”