Chapter 7 The Bastards We Know
Aster was behind me in an instant, but he didn’t pull me back this time. He was seeing what I was. Riley. Who was now completely still, the threat long gone after his mission was complete. His fingers slipped from me the moment after he whispered that single name.
His face was calm, no pain. His skin was no longer red from exertion but tanned like I remembered it. Apart from the overgrown hair, the black blood that leaked from his cuts, and the dark bruises on his face, he looked normal. Peaceful even.
He looked like the Riley I remembered. But then a flicker of darkness rippled under his skin and his chest rose with a deep breath as I held mine. Watching. Waiting for his next move, knowing it was too good to give into hope that somehow, he had beaten the darkness in him for good.
“Hang on for me, Riley… just hang on a little longer, you can beat this… I know you can,” I whispered after letting my head fall to the mesh.
My moment of comfort came from Aster, who lay a heavy, reassuring hand on my shoulder.
“Come. There is nothing more we can do for him now,” Aster said, his voice softer, more understanding now that the threat had calmed.
I nodded once without words, pained to see Riley like this. At least I knew he still had some fight left in him, and my hope that he would get stronger had significantly increased.
I also knew that Riley wasn’t the only man I cared for who was in trouble, and it was like Aster said, there was nothing I could do for Riley right now. But as for Atlas, well, that was where my focus needed to be.
So, I let Aster lead me from the woman’s prison, with its single prisoner, and just as the door locked behind me, I looked at him.
“Riley gave me a name,” I told him.
Aster’s hand paused after hooking the keys on the wall before turning to me slowly.
“It was Demitrios.”
Aster’s face twisted in rage, making it clear that he was no stranger to the name. His jaw hardened before he turned suddenly, his heavy footsteps taking him along the path and out of the small courtyard.
“You know who he is, don’t you?” I said as I caught up with him.
He only stopped when we got to the SUV, looking around to see if we were alone before telling me, “Not here. Get in the car, we are making our way back to the Capitol building, we need to talk to the others.”
I nodded, taking him seriously enough not to question him as I slid into the passenger side because it was clear Aster intended to drive. Then after a few tense moments, he started the car, put it into drive, and looked at me, saying only two words.
“Tell me.”
After this, it was like a dam had broken, with words replacing the torrent of water I described everything. Every second of my visions as if they were being played out in real time once more.
Aster didn’t comment, didn’t interrupt. He just sat there behind the wheel and gritted his teeth through all of it. Then, finally, when I was done, he hissed an insult, one I could tell was only the first of many.
“Vile, cockroach bastard.”
I arched a brow and turned to face him.
“Yeah, pretty much.” His jaw clenched, and he slammed a fist onto the steering wheel before cursing in what I imagined was his own ancient language. I almost asked what it meant, but I had a far more important question I needed answering.
“There is one thing that I don’t understand, though.”
“Which is?” he asked, glancing at me sideways before trailing his eyes back to the road. Not that I understood why, it wasn’t like we would hit traffic anytime soon. Christ, I think if I saw another car on the road I would scream in shock.
“Alex?” The sound of my name brought me back to what I wanted to know.
“I took one look at this guy and could instantly tell that he was related to them… and not just like a cousin or something, but he looked like them. Just like Lazaros looks like Atlas… I mean, how is that possible, Aster?”
“I don’t understand. That can’t be right,” he replied, looking more than a little confused as his head turned to me and then back to the road again a few times in quick succession.
“I know what I saw. But how is it possible that Atlas and Lazaros didn't take one look at this guy and think to ask him, Hey, why is it you kind of have our face…? Okay, so you look confused,” I said, catching his frown, one that looked like it could have snapped his eyebrows off.
“That's because I am,” he admitted, making me shake my head.
“Wait, so that means you've never seen this guy?” I assumed.
“Oh no, I've seen the slimy bastard, Alex, and I'm telling you now that he doesn’t look anything like Atlas or Lazaros.”
I jerked back a bit in my seat, shocked by his reply.
“But how is that… of course!” I cried out as it came to me.
“What?” he questioned quickly.
“The smoke, the face, all of it’s real, and what’s beneath is the illusion,” I whispered under my breath.
“Earth to Alex, you wanna share with the rest of the class?”
“It was all a lie,” I muttered in response, making him groan.
“What was? Gotta give me more here, little human.”
I ignored the unflattering nickname and told him, “Okay, so we know this guy must deal in spells, right?”
“Yeah, and?”
“Then it's obvious he cast some sort of spell on himself, not only to make him look different but so that he could hide his true nature. What he was doing, and for some reason, I must have seen right through it. I mean, I could see everything, Aster.” I said, my voice rising as my emotions caught up.
“What do you mean by everything?”
“I mean, I could see the darkness coming off him in waves, the way they coiled around him before branching out and reaching Lazaros on the throne. I could see it controlling him, like turning him into some fucking zombie or something. He was being controlled, but it was like nobody else in the throne room could see it but me,” I said, turning to him as I finished, and now I could feel his anger coming off him in waves.
After that, he put his foot on the gas without a word, and I could tell that he now that same urgency as me too. Minutes later, we came to a screeching stop outside the Capitol building.
“Aster?” I said his name, trying to calm him because his hands were clenched tighter around the wheel as if he was seconds away from crushing it in his fists.
I could see he was struggling with this.
It was as if he had almost hoped that my first vision in the basement hadn’t been real.
That in that prison, when speaking to Riley, I would have discovered that it had all been a ploy to trick me.
But now that the threat was real, I could see that he, too, was as worried as I was.
“We have to go to him. We have to cross the Rift, you know that, right?”
He released a shuddered sigh as he let his head hang before nodding. Finally, I felt relief, but I knew that it came at a price, so I put what I hoped was a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Whatever Demitrios has planned, it’s been a long time in the making, but now we have an advantage. We can stop this, Aster… we will stop this.”
He finally turned to me, his eyes blazing with hatred for the one who was behind this madness.
Then he took my hand and said the only words I wanted to hear…
“Let’s go kill that bastard!”