Blurred Memories (22 page)

“
Over there,” Jen pointed
ahead to the right of the mountains. “That’s the
prison.”

Marc raised his hand to
shield his eyes from the sun. From where he stood, the prison
looked like a child’s construction set, innocuous even though Marc
knew it was anything but.

“
Let’s go,” he said
gruffly. “We don’t have any time to lose.”

Climbing down from the
outcropping took them almost as much time as going up, but they
soon reached the ground again. Jen continued to lead them through
rocky terrain, and eventually they reached a path where the rocks
underfoot had been trampled to a fine dust, like in the clearing
around the breach. Glancing back, Marc could make out the forms of
the demons on the road and the shimmering glow of the breach behind
them. The demons didn’t seem to have moved at all; the glamour was
still working, then. Marc observed Simon; he still appeared
unsettled, but he didn’t look anymore like he’d soon be
sick.

The prison had looked to be
a few hours’ walk in the distance, but it was growing closer much
faster than it should have, and soon Marc revised his estimation to
twenty minutes at the maximum. Even Simon noticed something was
off; he was frowning at the prison ahead of them, a look of
concentration etched on his face.

“
Is it an optical
illusion?” Marc asked Jen, who had fallen silent ever since they
had climbed down the outcropping. “The prison doesn’t look as far
as it was just a minute ago.”

She glanced at him and
shrugged. “Distances can be hard to judge here. At a good pace, it
doesn’t take more than fifteen or twenty minutes to get there.” She
was quiet for a second, then sighed. “So how do you want to do it?
There are usually between fifteen and twenty demons at the main
entrance, but once we’re past them, the cells are pretty much
unguarded, unless someone is working on a prisoner. The back
entrance only has a couple guards, but that’s close to where they
do magic, and they’re much better than your little mage here. I bet
they’d see through his trick in a second.”

Marc expected Simon to
protest at the slight against his person or talent, but all he said
was, “I can feel the magic. It’s shooting straight out of there
toward the breach. I wonder…”

His voice was an awed,
breathy whisper as it trailed off. He blinked, as though awakening
from a trance, and looked at Marc.

“
I need to see what they’re
doing.”

“
We’re here to free the
prisoners,” Jen snapped. “Whatever magic they do is not your
concern.”

“
Can’t you see?” Simon
sounded exasperated now. “They’re directing magic toward the
breach. The same breach
our
magic can’t close. When will I
have a better chance to figure out how they keep it
open?”

“
That’s not the plan,” Jen
said. “Freeing a few prisoners is one thing. Messing with demon
mages is
not
what I agreed to.”

“
Funny,” Simon said, but he
didn’t sound amused at all. “I thought you wanted to be freed from
demons for good, and here you are, complaining when I try to
understand their magic to better work against it.”

They had all stopped in the
middle of the road, and while Simon and Jen glared at each other,
Marc couldn’t help but notice her hand drop to her thigh to scratch
absently at the tattoo hidden under her clothes. A pang rang
through Marc at how familiar that gesture was; he had watched Blake
do the same thing far too often. Simon had managed to counteract
the magic of the tattoos, but some effect remained.

“
We’ll go through the
back,” Marc said in his most decisive tone, the one that made it
clear he wouldn’t be swayed. “Our priority remains the prisoners,
but closing the breach was always a secondary goal.”

It was obvious that Jen
didn’t like that, but her sullenness silenced her rather than
drawing her into further argument. She showed them the way around
the demons that guarded the prison to the back. Killing the two
demons that stood by the smaller, door-less entrance was almost too
easy; they never knew Marc and Jen were anywhere near them until,
at the same moment, steel slashed their throats. They collapsed in
a gurgle of bitter blood—and soon vanished into thin air. Marc
glanced at Simon, who nodded absently and threw his powder at the
corpses.

“
Easier to do glamour on
something that’s not moving.” He paused and grimaced like he had
tasted something foul. “At least for a while. We should go, and
fast.”

Jen took the lead again,
entering first, but Simon soon passed her and strode through the
stone corridor as though he knew exactly where he was
going.

“
Simon!” Marc hissed,
hurrying after him. “We have to stay together!”

“
But I can
feel
it,”
Simon replied without even looking back at them. “It’s coming
from—” He stopped abruptly in front of a closed door and stared at
it with round eyes. “—here. It’s so…” His voice dropped to a
whisper. “How can they manipulate so much magic at
once?”

Marc didn’t even have to
think about it twice. Demon magic was the key to everything:
closing breaches, but also making Blake feel safe again, beyond the
demons’ reach. Maybe it’d even help them understand how to help him
heal.

“
Only one way to find out,”
he said, and before Jen could let out more than a startled, “Wait!”
he threw open the door and strode in, sword in hand.

He entered a large, vaguely
circular room, in the center of which two demons were seated on the
floor, facing each other, a glowing sphere set in between them in a
circle of symbols inscribed on the floor. A third demon stood
beyond them, watching. All three were wearing long robes rather
than the usual leather and metal armor of demon fighters—and all
three looked at the open door as Marc stormed in. He didn’t stop to
wonder whether they could see past the glamour and used their
surprise to his advantage, slashing at the two seated demons’ necks
before they could do more than grunt in the harsh sounds of their
language.

Jen had rushed in after him,
and with a muttered curse, she killed the last demon. It was all
over in a matter of seconds. The orb continued to glow for a few
seconds more before the light emanating from its core faded and it
turned a dull grayish color.

“
Oh, wow,” Simon said,
sounding breathless.

Marc closed the door after
quickly checking in the corridor that no one had heard the
commotion. “What is it?” he asked Simon.

Simon approached the demons
that had been sitting on the floor, careful not to step in their
blood, and bent over the gray sphere to examine it, although he
didn’t touch it.

“
The magic came from this,”
he muttered to himself. “Or, no, they channeled it through this.
And the symbols…”

He crouched closer and
continued to mutter under his breath.

“
If the magic stopped, then
the breach can be closed, right?” Jen asked in a strained voice.
“Let’s get on with the plan, then.”

But Simon didn’t appear to
hear her as he pulled a small notebook and pen from his bag and
started to scribble in it, referencing the symbols on the
floor.

“
We can give him a few
minutes,” Marc said, throwing her an absent look.

She huffed and slammed her
sword back in the sheath before crossing her arms, but didn’t say
anything more. Even if she had, Marc might not have noticed.
Something on the wall had just caught his attention, and he found
himself approaching it without even realizing what he was
doing.

A long, wooden shelf was
attached to the wall at waist level. From one end to the other, it
was covered in strange objects, all about the size of Marc’s closed
fist, similar to the orb on the floor. At first, he thought they
were made out of glass, like the paperweights of old his mother
used to collect. But as he came closer, he realized they weren’t
glass. It didn’t look like rock, either. They were translucent and
yet not, mostly smooth but of irregular shapes, and in some of them
colors swirled like a multicolor fire. One of them in particular
seemed brighter than the others, its inner light pulsing and
glowing faster when Marc grew closer to it, attracted as though by
a beacon.

“
Be careful.” Jen’s voice
seemed far away and weak. “I’ve seen weird things happen to humans
who were forced to touch those.”

I’m not human
, he
wanted to say, but words were beyond his reach. The orb, on the
other hand, was not. He sheathed his sword as if in a dream and
touched the strangely shaped, gleaming object that seemed to call
to him. His finger merely brushed against it, but he could
immediately feel warmth radiating from the orb. He could also feel
pain: he snatched back his finger and realized he had cut himself
on a sharp, hidden ridge. His blood stained the orb… or did
it?

As he blinked, the object
seemed to absorb the drop of blood. The next second, a flash of
light emanated from it and blinded Marc. He shut his eyes tightly,
feeling disoriented. When he opened them again, the world shifted
around him. Nothing, no one moved, but Marc felt as though he were
caught in a sudden earthquake. Everything slipped out of
focus.

He blinked several times,
trying to clear his vision. It didn’t work. Instead, it got worse.
His ears buzzed, and while he could hear Simon say something, he
couldn’t make out the words. Raising both hands to his ears, Marc
pressed down on them, closed his eyes, and tried to steady his
stance. When he opened his eyes again, everything was different.
Including him.

Chapter 19

Blake’s Master was leaning
against the wall, watching Blake sleep.

Watching, and
planning.

He doubted he’d ever get
tired of what a pretty boy Blake was. Even more so when he was
naked and covered in blood.

Blake’s Master expected that
the boy would be both things quite often under his charge. Blake
was as stubborn, as willful, as he was pretty, and it would be
quite interesting to teach him to submit. Really submit. There was
no room here for half-hearted games. Blake’s Master wanted a toy,
nothing more, nothing less, and he would have it. It didn’t matter
how long it would take, or what he needed to do to break
Blake.

The only thing that
mattered was for the awakening boy to learn his place. And his
place, his Master quickly showed him, was on his knees, and
silent
.

* * * *

Marc shook his head, trying
to get a grip on himself, on who he was, but the memory clung to
him, like a second skin. They weren’t images in his head; they were
a lot more than that. He remembered what Blake had smelled like
with caked blood and dirt staining his skin. He remembered the
muted sounds of crying and pleading from the other prisoners. And
every thought that had crossed that creature’s mind was as clear as
if it had been Marc’s own.

* * * *

With an angry growl, Blake’s
Master stormed out of the cell, pushing the demon guarding the
corridor out of his way. The insolent boy had defied him. Again.
Months of working with him, of teaching him with fists and whips
and his cock, and still Blake wouldn’t understand that resistance
was useless. But he would learn. His Master would see to it. And if
punishment didn’t work, there were other ways.

They had finally managed to
get the girl’s blood a few days earlier. It had been hard for the
demons to find a specific human. To demons, everything with a
beating heart was the same: something to kill. Blake’s Master had
asked for a spy to be sent with a group of demons, and while all
the demons had been killed, the spy had retrieved a sword covered
in the girl’s blood. A flesh wound for her, but for Blake’s Master,
the opening he had been waiting for.

The demon magic that changed
the Master’s appearance, transforming his human body to match the
larger, younger-looking body of his toy’s Sire, transformed another
prisoner into a replica of the human girl that held Blake’s
heart.

A heart was a very dangerous
thing to give away. Blake’s Master had learned that lesson from the
demons a long time ago, and now he would teach it to
Blake.

Blake’s Master had wanted to
break the girl in a little more, shape her into the proper toy he
wanted Blake to be, and show Blake how to stop the beatings. But he
could work with this.

Oh yes, it would work just
fine.

She kicked and screamed all
the way from her cell to Blake’s, and for that, Blake’s Master
added fifty blows to the fifty she would receive in lieu of Blake.
The boy strained against his chains when his Master entered with
the girl, and she stopped fighting back instantly to stare at him.
Blake’s Master used the opportunity to throw her down to the
opposite corner and turned to Blake.

“
You earned fifty strokes,”
he reminded him darkly. “But since you don’t seem to care about
pain, I thought we’d try something new. You can thank your girl for
taking your punishment in your place.”