Savior (18 page)

              “Marcus!” she screamed, her voice shaking with urgency.

              The creature took a step toward her, and said, in a voice like a hissing snake, “He can’t hear you.”

              She looked helplessly at him. For the first time really, she took a good look at the creature before her. He was as tall as a man, and his outline was that of a man too. But his body was nothing more than a dark shadow.

              Alyssa yelled for Marcus again as the creature continued to advance slowly toward her. With her heart pounding wildly in her ears, she realized that he was right. There was no way that Marcus could hear her all the way under the cabin. Even if Marcus would be angry at her for going into the chamber though, she would have given anything to have him next to her.

              She took a deep breath and struggled to assess the situation the way Damascus had taught her. She forced herself to look away from the creature’s red eyes. The door, it was open, but no, it was too far away. She would never make it in time. She took a step backward, away from the icy breath of the creature. Cold steel pressed against her neck. The sword. Even a weapon that was too heavy for her was better than none at all. She pulled it off the wall and grabbed the hilt with both hands.

              “Stay back!” she warned in the strongest voice she could muster.

              “Or what?” the creature mocked.

              “I’ll cut you! I swear I will!” she yelled desperately at him.

              He only smiled. It was a smile that was not a smile, merely just an opening of his shadow of a mouth. With one fluid thrust Alyssa slammed the sword, up to the hilt, into the creature’s chest. The shadow rolled his eyes and pulled the sword out, a look of annoyance, crossing his face. “Look at me Alyssa. Do you really think a simple little sword could kill me?”

              She shook her head, furious at herself for believing that it could. Ruben had said the same thing to her that time she had tried to kill him. She believed that a sword would work then too, but it hadn’t. And he had mocked her, just as the shadow creature was doing now. He held the sword up with his fingers, the blade pointing down. “What are you?” she asked, her voice no more audible than the flapping of a butterfly’s wings.

              “I am a shadow demon. My name is Slypher,” he replied softly. As she retrieved the sword from him, he took a seat on the stone floor. Alyssa returned the sword to its resting place and joined him, her legs folded in front of her. “I don’t want to kill you. Even if I did, it is impossible for me to. Killing you would bring me no closer to my goal.”

              “Which is?”

              “To kill Marcus.”

              Alyssa raised her eyes to his. He had said it so bluntly, so quickly, she couldn’t be sure if he had really said it at all. But as they stared at each other, she knew that he had. “I wont let you,” she said darkly.

              “You will try to stop me of course, but you have no defense against me Alyssa. You are still so inexperienced in all things magical. You wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to kill me.”

              She folded her wings around her body. Chills ran through her, but whether they were caused by Slypher or the chamber being cold, she couldn’t tell. “You are evil, aren’t you? And more just a little evil, almost everyone is a little evil. You are pure evil.” She had felt it, almost like being kicked in the stomach when she had first realized he was behind her.

              Slypher nodded and grinned. “Yes. I am evil.”

              “Then I do know how to defeat you,” she replied. Her nerve hardened as she stared into his red eyes. If he was evil, she knew exactly how to defeat him.

              “Oh? I am surprised. Marcus must have taught you well,” the creature said dryly.

              “Marcus did not teach me this,” Alyssa said with a smile. There were few creatures that she knew how to destroy, and this was one of them. “Anything evil can be conquered with good. It is the balance of all nature. But if there is more good than evil, the evil will then be destroyed.”

              Slypher laughed and shook his head. “Even if you were pure, little angel, there wouldn’t be enough good in you to do that.”

              “Who said I was talking about me?”

              He was confused, but only for a second. His eyes shot to her stomach, to the glowing circle just under her dress. “A unicorn…” he whispered as the red orbs of his eyes widened. She thought she could almost see fear in them.

              Alyssa nodded. “Next to newborns, unicorns are the purest form of good imaginable. I think I know what would happen if one were to touch you Slypher.”

              “Then why don’t you do it then?”

              She sat back, her head resting against the stone wall. “First, tell me why Marcus keeps you down here.” There were many questions she had for the creature. That was only the first. She had overcome her fear of him and her curiosity had taken hold. He was right, killing her was impossible for him. Shackles, made of nothing more than shadow, hung on his wrists. From them, shadowy chains held him to the floor. He could move no more than a few feet in any direction. She chided herself for not noticing them sooner.

              “Marcus keeps me here for his own sick amusement,” the creature replied with a wave of his hand.

              “What did you do, that he would take such notice of you? There must be many creatures like you.”

              Alyssa hadn’t seen anything like him of course, but she was sure that he wasn’t the only one.

              Slypher smiled at her. “I know a secret of his.”

              “Oh?”

              “I know who killed that pretty little wife of his.”

              Alyssa sat forward, her attention brought to a sudden point. “Jasmine?” The creature nodded.

              “Who killed her?”

              Slypher’s shadowy face turned upward into a wicked smile. She suddenly realized that she didn’t want to know, but the question had already been asked. She couldn’t take it back now. “What did he tell you about it?”

              “Only that a monster killed her,” she replied.

              “Yes, a monster did kill her,” the creature hissed. “That monster though was Marcus.”

              “No…”

              Slypher nodded. “Of course he regretted it later on. But he did kill her.”

              She quickly rose to her feet. “I’ve had enough of your lies creature,” she said as she walked past him and back into the other chamber. Alyssa closed the door behind her and leaned against one of the bookcases.

              “I know you are out there little one,” Slypher called after a few minutes. His voice was as smooth as glass. If she wasn’t so afraid of him, she might have thought he was beautiful.

              “No I’m not!” Alyssa yelled back. Her hands instantly went to her mouth as she realized her foolishness. She could hear him chuckling from behind the door.

              “Come back in here. I won’t hurt you.”

              She was hesitant to trust him, but he was chained to the floor so she opened up the door and sat down. He was a good ten feet from her and her back was to the trapdoor, so she felt safe. Safe for the moment anyway.

              “That’s better. Am I really that scary?” he cooed. Slypher was sitting on the floor, his back straight, his hands folded in his lap. She quickly nodded. “I didn’t mean to frighten you; it’s just that I get visitors so rarely down here. This place feels so much like a prison.”

              Alyssa brought her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. Her arms wrapped around her legs, hugging them against her. The room did remind her of a prison. It was just like the room Ruben had kept her in when she was bad. “Why are there so many weapons down here?” she asked softly.

              Slypher looked around the room at them, his gaze lingering on each. “He uses them often enough, so I guess it is out of convenience.”

              “He only ever carries the one that is on his hip. And I see nothing in here to practice on…” Her gaze shot to him and he nodded. Her stomach felt like it was twisting into knots. “Marcus uses them on…you?” Slypher nodded softly. “I’m sorry.”

              “Don’t be. I can’t feel it of course, but it is still so unnecessary.” He paused and smiled sadly. “It is only demeaning sometimes. And only then if I let it be. Some people do things that hurt others because they don’t like something in themselves, do you know what I mean?”

              Alyssa nodded. She knew very well what he meant. Her scars were beginning to burn as she thought about them. Her hand brushed over them slowly as her wings wrapped around her shoulders.

              “Marcus isn’t like that though,” she whispered. It was mostly to assure herself. The creature had to be wrong, he just had to. He was evil after all and evil was good at lying. But she really didn’t know that much about Marcus and he hadn’t told her everything about what had happened with Jasmine, she was sure of that much.

              “Then you knew her right? Jasmine, I mean,” Alyssa asked as she raised her eyes to the creature.

              “Yes, I knew her.”

              Her insides were starting to twist in on themselves. “Was she pretty?”

              “No.”

              Alyssa’s brow knotted in confusion. “No? Why not?”

              Slypher smiled and rose to his feet. He was nearly as tall as Marcus, but his form was not quite as muscular. He was willowy, which was how she would have expected a shadow to be. Somehow though, she would have never imagined a creature like him existing. There were many things in the world though, so why not something like him.

              “You don’t want to know if she was pretty,” he said.

              “I don’t?”

              “No. You want to know if she was prettier than you,” he replied, a wicked smile forming on his lips.

              Alyssa’s eyes darkened. “What does that matter?” she grumbled.

              Slypher only shrugged and continued to smile. “Yes, she was pretty. But she was pretty in a different way than you. She was exotic pretty, with dark eyes and long silky hair. You are angel pretty; innocent, sweet, and adorable. Like a bunny really.”

              He was mocking her and as he began to chuckle her cheeks heated. “I don’t want to be like a bunny,” she murmured.

              “Whether you want to be or not doesn’t really matter right now. You are who you are, there is no changing that. You can’t be her, and she isn’t you. So what difference does it really make?”

              “None, I guess,” she grumbled. And it didn’t really. She would still have liked him to say that she was prettier, but that was selfish and more than a little childish. Once again Alyssa scolded her human side for its faults.

              He watched her softly. For an instant she thought maybe there was a hint of sadness in those red spheres. “If it’s any consolation, he didn’t care for her like her cares for you,” he murmured.

              Alyssa sighed and rocked slowly back and forth. “I don’t understand him sometimes. I know that he loves me, there’s no question about that. But he’s… well he’s…”

              “Cold? Uncaring? Selfish? A pompous arrogant fool that thinks only of himself? Stop me when I get close,” Slypher said with a mischievous grin.

              She shot him a dark scowl and rose to her feet. Slypher watched her curiously as she went into the other room and fingered a small box on the shelf. It was painted bright red with intricate golden symbols along the edges. “He’s not like that, but he’s not exactly the most forthcoming person I’ve ever met,” she said idly. Marcus hadn’t told her much about his life and she usually felt like he was hiding something from her. But he wasn’t cold, and he certainly wasn’t selfish.

              Alyssa slid to the ground, her back resting against the bookshelf. She could feel Slypher just around the corner, watching her.

              From the solemn darkness of the underground shrine suddenly came a bolt of blinding light which slammed into the chest of the demon. Its nether form twisted cruelly in the power of the blast until finally the shadow was vaporized. The room again fell dark and cold, the torches on the walls seemed to cower at the onslaught of this terrible power. Alyssa stood paralyzed near one of the shelves, her hands fingering a few various artifacts. Marcus yelled out for her, his heart racing with fear. Finally, Alyssa managed a faint squeak, “I am here Marcus.”

              Marcus rushed over to her and embraced her body tightly. Tears were running down her cheeks, moistening the fabric of his uniform.

              “I was so worried Alyssa, there are dangerous things down here…not to mention Slypher.”

              Alyssa nodded into his chest and whispered, “I am so sorry Marcus, I was just curious.”

              “Please do not feel too bad, I am just glad that you are safe. However, I will need to know what you touched down here and what the demon said to you.”