Jezebel

Part One: 3

When you wake up...think deeply about your choices.

Jireh bolted upright, wheezing as he looked around in panic. He recognised his coarse woollen blanket bunched around his waist, that and the fact that he was in his dinky room and it was almost night. How did he get home? How long had he slept?

It was all a blur. From the moment he heard Signa's subtle command... Signa.

Jireh shoved the blanket aside and swung his feet to the floor, a sense of desperation flooding his mind. The demon would come for him. He was more than certain of it.

Signa would be back for your body, and he would come with more...

Terror seized him, its taste spreading at the back of his tongue like poison. Springing to his feet, Jireh rushed to the door to do what? He couldn't run from Signa. He turned and sunk to the floor, his back pressed to the door.

Hopelessness joined his paralysing fear. How much more would Signa bring? Ten? A hundred?

Jireh hunched and hugged his knees to his chest. The increasing feeling of helplessness caused his throat to ache with the need to shed tears. He wanted to weep for his stupidity. I should be dead by now. When the memory of the burning feel of Signa seeping into his body filled his mind, cold sweat broke across his forehead.

And the Brotherhood of Dahw; he didn't even want to think in that angle. Bowing his head some more, he shoved his fingers into his hair and groaned. Harel and the brothers would come for him, they would ask questions and if possible force him back into the fold.

"I would die this time, surely. Why was I even saved?" Allowing his hands drop, Jireh absently fiddled with his fingers. Though his mind was still a bit foggy, he tried hard to think of a way out, a means of escape.

Try and resist when he comes back.

His fidgeting fingers stilled at the fleeting words; they caused a stirring within him, introducing an idea in its wake. Rising to his feet, Jireh looked around and frowned at the low burning oil lamp. He was more than certain he had no oil in the thing the night before. Who left it burning? Walking to the lamp and lifting it, the vague idea solidified as his gaze dropped upon them.

Scrolls upon scrolls littered his desk. He had spent all his inheritance searching for the unknown, seeking power, giving his all to the Brotherhood. When his desire finally came, it was nothing like he expected. It had drained him, controlled him, consumed him; at a point life became...

He sighed then took determined steps to the desk. Dropping the lamp on the wooden surface, he proceeded to gather each scroll with shaky hands. As he ripped them apart, his heart hoped, even dared to pray that he survives what was coming.

Walking to the hearth at the corner of the room, he dumped the shredded paper in the blackened hollow before retrieving a lighting stick to set it all ablaze. After a short while, Jireh watched it all burn. The glow from the fire warmed his body and its light flooded his face. But it was all external. His soul was still black and he doubted anything could change that.

When he finally turned from the dying embers, he made up his mind. He would return to Obadiah. For some odd reason, Jireh's uncle was the only man Harel was wary of. That would keep the Brotherhood away.

What of Signa?

Jireh ignored the question as he snatched his cloak and dashed out of his house like the place was ablaze.

***

The wagon was rickety; a battered wooden carriage on the verge of falling apart. A corroded metal cage held about twelve humans, all possessing queer physical attributes. In the jumble of dirty bodies and filthy clothes, a flash of dull white made Olivine step out of the night's shadow.