Dearly Departed

1

“The Oracle pinned the blame on you, Ivan.”

He stared down at me, his pale yellow eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. I simply sat quietly and watched him, noting the unsure quiver in the accusation that still hung in the air. He was having a difficult time swallowing what Desmodena’s demons were feeding him…I could see exactly how wrong it tasted to him, how down in the deepest part of his heart, he still knew that his brother couldn’t have committed such a depraved act.

“Desmodena will be here soon…she’s going to read your soul. She’ll be able to tell me for sure, Ivan…I’m sorry it has to be this way.”

Such introspective focus on every word that came out of his mouth…he never heard the telltale click of the locks on my wrist shackles releasing. I kept my arms in place behind my back as I cocked my head at him.

“Ivan died years ago, Joseph. You deny what you are, what she is, and you set yourself up to condemn me to death by her word and her word alone. You’re as much her slave as the rest of her demons; only I know that you’ll care when you can’t wash my blood off your hands like they never would. We both know what she’s going to say, regardless of what the black magic she works on me tells her.”

He winced and looked away, but his grip tightened on the hilt of his massive war axe and he made no move to release me. Things had already progressed too far for him to just up and renege on the deal. He sighed heavily as he looked back at me, his expression growing wan.

“I have waking nightmares, Ivan. Not a day goes by where I don’t watch you do it. Desmodena didn’t ask me to do this, they did. Asked for closure so that they can move on.”

I smirked behind my mask and shook my head lightly, my eyes locked with his.

“That sounds more like a manifestation of your own second-hand guilt over the fact that you weren’t able to help them than it does a manifestation of spirits from beyond the grave with a thirst for some sort of cosmic justice. You know what Desmodena and her pets are capable of, yet you take her word like it’s gospel.”

His eyes dropped to the floor and I watched his face for a few silent moments.

2

She entered, purple robes flowing behind her like a pool reflecting the night sky. She pursed her lips distastefully as her gaze settled on me, ostensibly shackled to a chair in the centre of the room. Joseph stood tall at the sound and immediately moved to her side to hold a conversation with her in hushed tones.

“Did he admit to anything, love?”

“No…though he didn’t put up any sort of fight either when I explained my intentions to him or when I carried him off in irons.”

She looked over at me once again, a dubious expression creasing her brow. I stared back blankly with catatonic stillness until she let out an unsettled grunt and turned her focus back onto Joseph.

“If…when…his soul shares his secrets with us, we will sacrifice him to Garesh…a pact with a demon is strongest when forged in the blood of a traitor, and there is no greater act of treachery than kinslaying.”

Joseph nodded weakly, his resolve still shaky on its legs. She spun away from him and approached me where I sat, holding up a pale blue ball of crystal that burst into dark green flames in her claw.

“Ivan Wallace, you stand accused of kinslaying. You have this one chance to confess your actions and purge your soul.”

I cocked my head slightly and stared into her eyes over the dim flickering of the flames, but said nothing.

“Silence and shadow won’t be your savior anymore. You will suffer eternally as you sowed suffering. Ryleh caspan ibleth oain vetnes!”

Her crystal pulsed in her claw, the heat from it pushing against my face and causing my skin to tighten. The flames flickered as though caught in a stiff wind, then sputtered and extinguished entirely, leaving the crystal a jet-black color with a thick, inky residue leaking between her fingers and down the arm of her robes.

“You have been judged, Kinslayer.”

3

The runes on the floor in front of me glowed and faded, glowed and faded as I watched with clinical detachment. She kneeled and chanted in the tongue of the Infernals as a tempest brewed within the circle. Joseph stood back in the corner of the room, an expression of grim resignation settled on his face. After a few moments, her spell was complete and she threw her head back as though in the throes of ecstasy. A sulfurous reek filled the room as the demon entered, standing no less than ten feet tall in plate mail as dark as night.

“Garesh, I command you by your true name to slay the Kinslayer and become my…”

In her haste to dominate the demon before it could break the tenuous initial bond she held on it, she failed to notice that I had vanished from where I was supposed to have been held captive. One solid blow from my sap to the base of her skull and she was prone on the floor, completely unconscious. The demon paused for a moment in the runes, and then took a tentative step out. I sat in the shadows at the corner of the room, phased entirely out of view, watching the scene unfold.

Joseph’s eyes widened as the gravity of his situation dawned on him. He took a defensive stance with his axe, but the demon was far too powerful for him to contend with. He swung fiercely at its face, but it caught the axe by the blade with ease in its heavily plated hands, and then pulled him into its arms.

“Ivaaaaaannnnn…!”

He screamed my life-name as the demon squeezed him in a bear hug. The sound of his bones being crushed filled the room as his voice trailed off. Once he stopped struggling, the demon pulled his limp form back to the runes and disappeared back into the tempest, Joseph in tow.

I phased back into view and took my seat once again, folded my claws in my lap and waited for Desmodena to come to. She did a short while later, looking first at the runes, then at me, her mind still dim from the blow she’d sustained.

“Iv…wh…”

Her words wouldn’t come to her quickly enough for my liking, so I rose to my feet, picked her up and sat her in the chair that was supposed to have kept me captive for my makeshift trial and execution. She didn’t put up any struggle at all as I shackled her wrists with the bindings that failed to hold me.

“See, now you’re truly in the sort of situation where a person can appreciate the seriousness of sacrificing another being for the sake of demonic favors. Garesh incapacitated Joseph and then took him back to whatever hellhole you dredged him out of in the first place. I don’t think you’ll be seeing either one of them ever again.”

She tried to lunge at me, but the chains that kept her wrists bound behind her back also kept her solidly in place. I smirked behind my mask as I watched her struggle.

“You…you just…watched him be damned?”

Her voice dripped with loathing as she stopped thrashing to address me. I nodded sagely.

“Wasn’t he planning to do that exact thing to me anyhow? Funny how fortune can pull an about face on you when you least expect.” I kicked her squarely in the chest, knocking both her and her chair onto their backs. She grunted in pain and craned her neck to look at me.

“I’ll destroy you, Pusrot…you’ve left me with nothing to hold dear. Apart from securing your demise, I have nothing. NOTHING!”

I stood directly over her and leaned in closely.

“You’re in no position to act on that at the moment. I suggest you reflect on what your existence has become until you can figure out a way to free yourself.”

With that, I stood straight up and walked outside, closing the door to the small cottage behind me.