Devil to the Damned (Prequel #2 )

Epilogue

Kimberly's delicate face was still present in my mind long after I slipped away for the night. I couldn't stop thinking about her crying, and how similar it felt to the burden inside of me. How in the grand scheme of things, her problems are so trivial to everyone and everything. Yet, to her, each and every harsh word or swift action is monumental in developing a crass, bitter young girl.

It is, in a word, unfortunate.

My body approached the earth faster this time. My eye fluttered open, defying the blistering wind, and observed the farmland below as it drew nearer. My finger twitched, and I reset. Thousands of feet from the ground, I floated briefly from the halted momentum before my own weight pulled me back to the surface. The fall started again.

My hair lashed wildly, my eye shut and my body went entirely limp. As I fell for the tenth time, I settled on a new thought. Ken and Magcrow, Mehron and Amerylla, all the Teufel I've come across to bargain or kill. My mother and father, along with Michael and Phoebe.

Not a single being I've encountered hasn't spawned a duplicate in my mind; the only one to never speak is Sean the librarian, and he seems less frantic than ever before. He just stares from the corner of whatever room I'm in; rebuking me. All these people came together as a crowd, filling the auditorium in my thoughts, and collectively cycled their lungs in a deafening depressurization of air.

I opened my eye; the ground was closer this time. My finger twitched and I reappeared thousands of feet in the air. My left hand was going numb, and my neck felt stiff. I lingered in place, the land beneath me nothing more than a grid of buildings, forests, and fields. I sucked in a deep breath and shut my eye. I started falling again.

My belly churned with hunger; it was almost time to feed again. I can't remember what human food tastes like. The effort of eating anything but what Sin feeds me only serves to make me ill. Water is the only drink, and it never satisfies my thirst. I rotated myself, falling towards the ground back first. My hair bombarded my face with aggressive loose strands and the fabric of my gown flapped loudly with the building speed. Every time I sensed the ground I opened my eye out of fear and restarted the fall.

A little higher, a little faster. Turn off my senses, and ignore the alarms. Maybe if I can't see it coming, I can finally. . .

A familiar ping reset the fire in my chest against my will. It sounded almost like our fire detector back home when the battery needed changing. Something my father would always put off because he felt its placement in the dining room wasn't standard code so it shouldn't be active anyway. . . Distracted. . . It came again and this time it sounded more like my name. Odd, the cadence was all wrong.

A stout breath jammed in my lungs while the ground approached second by second. Gravity wanted to claim me so desperately, and for the past hour, I've done nothing but tease it. Though it would seem, fate is here to make sure I don't get carried away with my gamble.

I didn't even make it halfway to the ground before I opened a door in my path. My back hit the frame and my body fumbled through the open door; crashing and rolling then coming to a skidding halt in a mound of coarse white sand.

I reacted quickly and got to my feet before the grains tried to swallow me whole. My brain lagged behind a moment while I reconfigured where I was, before I located the second door of my chosen destination. The Rift was blinding, leaving me debilitated while I sauntered across the uneven ground and took the smooth knob.

The musty waft of his barren, dungeon-like chamber almost acted as a mirror veil. The instant I stepped across the threshold, I was entirely Crism. His doll, his tool, his daughter. My muscles engaged and relaxed, my expression went entirely blank and soulless, and my movements became that of a string puppet. The door shut behind me with an announcing click and the warble of this otherworldly place fizzled in the corners of my thoughts; distorting and restricting.

The wall of clocks ticked, softer than ever before. A steaming brew from the corner pot filled the air with a varied sweet aroma. All the candles were snuffed. In the dark, I latched onto his bold shape in the back corner; disturbingly slumped over the desk. Immediately I was set on guard and cautiously stepped to the center of the room, before my old cage.

He was breathing hoarsely; erratic with a defined painful tonality. His hand waved limply towards a mound of wax on the desk and the wick was set alight; though the fire was anything but lively. It was small like a pupil and shivering in the cold air; illuminating only enough to define his edge. Sagging to one side, his head rested on the wooden desk and faced my direction. One eye peeled open and the iris settled on me; or rather, it vaguely settled towards me and assumed my shape.

"Do. . . not come. . . any closer." His voice was forced yet hushed and dry; preceded by soft reverberation and a crackling filter.

My stomach turned but I did not drop the persona. This is new.

His lungs emptied, then came a whisper. "Forgive me, sweet child." With each word, his voice bounced between demonically deep and almost humanly baroque.

I couldn't help it, he had me perplexed and frightened. My voice trembled, "For what?"

His eye audibly closed, shaking before his spine gave a crack and he raised his face off the desk. His body swayed in a slow circle and his head flopped like it was barely attached before settling upright as a stuffed voodoo doll. Back to me, he peered over his shoulder and looked me dead in the eye. His perpetually yellow tinted whites were now a darkened opal with filthy yellow splotches like paint spatter.

He swiftly turned away and groaned like a wounded animal; a dense heat distorted the air around his body, and the fickle candlelight flared brightly, then reduced again. My chest quaked and I prepared myself mentally for a fight. However, a fight would not come. Instead, he sighed loudly, almost satisfied, then inhaled a dirty breath before speaking in a drawl.

"I won't let it see. Pretty. . . tiny. . . inklings." He sniffled and sucked air through his grit teeth. "You've been careless at times. . . It doesn't know."

My heart was racing but I did my best to compose myself. His blackened shape quivered unnaturally, and I feared that at any moment he may strike. The air didn't taste hostile, nor were there any signs of benevolence. Strict paranoia suffocated us equally and for the first time since I've known Sin, I felt the illusion falter. He could see me.

In the corner of my eye, I could see Christine. She was standing in the shadows with a devious smile split across her face and an ominous orange glow painted her skin without a source. Sin's gurgling breaths left me dizzy, panting, and feeling inside out.

Desperate hollow words turned to static in my ears, "I will. . . grant you a string. . . Umbra can. . ." He wheezed, trailing off.

All at once, I came to a crashing realization. And for the first time, she and I overlapped perfectly. In tone, in heart, in soul. Christine and I expelled shock in sync.

"Ahkrum?"