Tainted by Darkness

In The Name Of Love

Sometimes, we must do terrible things in the name of love.

I watch her sleep, my little love, her arm curled around that flaming dog in an embrace I wish she could share with me. The veil between our realms will not permit it, nor will it allow her to see me. Perhaps that's a blessing for I am no longer the man she once called Dad.

The blast that took my life also scarred me in death, disfigured me beyond recognition. I glance at the photo on her beside table, the one Laura took of Sophie and me together the day before I left for Afghanistan. She looked so happy. We both did.

No amount of training could have prepared me for that day, the day I heard the click and felt the sand move beneath my foot. They say your life flashes before your eyes, but I can assure that's not what happens - at least not in my case.

The sand rose in slow motion around me. I watched with sadistic fascination as my boot disintegrated, the flesh flayed from my limb. I felt everything. Every molecule of skin and tissue as it broke away. The flames that followed the burst of sand seemed to stop before they engulfed me completely. Their heat seared as they flickered and licked at my skin. From their depths appeared a horned creature with breath hotter than Hell itself.

"So young," it said. "Your one desire is within my power to grant, if you wish it, but it comes at a price. Are you willing to serve me in exchange?"

"Anything!" The word left my throat in an agonised scream. I felt almost detached from it, as if someone else had said it.

How could I have known the deal I made with the creature would guarantee my eternal damnation?

Flames spewed from the creature's mouth with its triumphant roar, swallowing me and bathing me in blistering agony once more.

When I opened my eyes, I stood at the sandy roadside devoid of my army issue clothing. My comrades rose to their feet from where the blast had thrown them, and they stared through me to the ground behind. I turned, following their line of sight. In the bottom of the crater left by the road mine, sat a limb, a left hand. It wasn't mine; mine was still attached to my arm. I searched the faces of those left alive to determine whose it was. They were all accounted for.

"Jesus," Bill rasped, sweeping the helmet off his head. "Where's the new kid?"

His words confused me. I'm known as the new kid and I was standing right in front of him by this point. He moved forward, straight through me, and I felt his body heat. It wasn't unpleasant, a little uncomfortable perhaps, but not something I would go out of my way to avoid. I know he felt something too, because he looked around with a frown creasing his forehead, then shook his head as if to clear away an unwelcome thought. He used a rag to pick something up from the ground beside a few nearby boulders, wiped it, studied it for a few seconds and tucked it into his breast pocket.

"Someone want to retrieve the kid's hand? Looks like that's all that's left of him," Bill asked as he patted the pocket he placed the item into. "Apart from his dog tags."

The enormity of what I'd agreed to became apparent within a matter of moments. The creature appeared beside Raz and made a gun shape with its hand, pointing it at his head.

It showed its teeth with a fiery grin as it spoke. "I don't care how you get it, but I want this one's soul."

"What?" I stuttered. "Not Raz, please. He's my friend."

"Was your friend, you mean. Would you rather collect another soul, one a little closer to home, perhaps?"

With a snap of its claw-like fingers, we stood at the edge of a road. My road. Outside my neighbour's home. The street looked different than I remembered, the moon seemed unnaturally big and the colour of everything muted with tones of amber. Reasoning dictated that it was the sudden change from bright desert sun to the overcast late evening of a town several hundred miles away that affected my vision.