The God and His Moon

10 ~ Flames

Through the night, Io had done a fair amount of thinking.

Who had put this 'curse' on him? He knew nothing about it... just that it was a curse.

Pan mentioned him having done this over and over again. But he wasn't quite sure what all that entailed. Remembering, then not remembering? Was that what it was? How could he forget all of this so easily?

He wondered if he should try to speak to Amory again...

He found a little leather recliner in the far end of the dressing room, and sat upon it, closing his eyes as the sun rose.

Amory would be awakening. Io would just take a little nap, then be awake for when Pan returned. He swore it to himself...

~

Io. A voice echoed through his sleeping mind.

"Io!" The voice called again. Warbled, as if through water.

Slowly, Io opened his eyes. But it was as if he was moving through fluid. He could feel his lashes dragging through something thicker than air. He could tell his hands and legs were slowed.

But soon he felt palms on his face. Warm palms. He heard a fast heartbeat in his ears, and knew.

It was Amory.

His eyes flew the rest of the way open, quickened by adrenaline. They stared deep into the eyes of his lover.

"Amory!" He choked, reaching up and holding to his shirt. But parts of it came away in shreds. He felt something sticky on his hands, and the smell of something tinny. He tried to look down, but Amory held his face up.

He was beaten. He looked like he had been through a blender. A large gash was etched through his right eyebrow, thankfully missing his eye, and continuing down onto his cheek. His face was bruised, his lip was bloody. One of his eyes was black.

"Io, I do not have much time, please focus and listen!" Amory gasped, breathless, as if he had been running. He was in tatters. Whatever it was had torn him well. "Io, even though you may have forgotten time and time again, you and I have always been together, through centuries, through the ages of these humans. Wherever you are, stay away from me! I love you, do not come for me! You are in danger, follow Pan, tell him, and run!"

"What are you talking about?" Io almost shrieked. Panic built in his chest, forming pressure in his throat, threatening to irrupt forth from his mouth. "Amory, what has happened to you? Please, let me come and help you!"

"There is no time." Amory shook his head, letting out a shaky exhale from his thin, straight nose. His dark eyebrows drew, partially covering deep set eyes. "I love you. Do you love me?"

"More than anything." Io whimpered.

Amory gripped Io's face on either side, leaned down, and kissed him with a last desperation, the meaning of which Io did not understand. Io kissed back, wishing he could keep hold of his Amory forever. He ran his fingers through the brunette hair, and soon, Amory had faded away, into nothing.

Io looked down at his hands and found them covered in blood. Tinny, red, thick blood.

He felt he might vomit.

Only a moment later, his eyes snapped open to the dressing room in the nightclub. His body flew forward from his chair, and he fell to the floor, where he tried to wipe non-existent blood off of his hands.

There was nothing there, but he could still feel it. Tinny. Thick. Running all over him. He gagged, body jerking violently, before he managed to his feet and ran to the bathroom.

Amory was hurt. Amory was in danger. Io couldn't help him. What was going on?

He bent over the toilet and puked up anything he had eaten in the past three days, which wasn't much.

Amory had told him to run. Io was in danger, just as much as his lover, it seemed. He wanted to scream. He wanted to pull his hair out.

But no. He needed to run. But he wasn't going to run away, he was going to run toward Amory.

He wiped stomach acid off his mouth and stumbled dizzily to his feet, slamming the door open. It ripped off the hinges and crashed to the floor, the metal bent and crooked.

Io ran down the hall. Through the door he had entered the night before. He fell into the nightclub's main room, where disco lights were still going, and music was still booming.

There weren't as many people, thank whatever God could hear him. He gripped the amulet under his shirt without realizing what he was doing.

He ran to the far corner of the club, where he spotted Pan, dressed in his usual freaky leather getup. His shirt was open. Some woman seemed to be enjoying touching his chest, and he was enjoying whispering into her ear. But Io paid Pan's business no mind. He grabbed the man by his arm as hard as he could, jerking him away from the woman.

"What the hell?!" Pan gasped, almost falling atop Io, as he ran to keep pace toward the door. "What are you doing?! I told you to wait until I came to get you!"

The frustrated woman let out an angry roar like a lion, and turned away. A tail flicked out from under her dress, but Io didn't have time to process it.

"Amory." He panted, feeling the need to say no more. His vision was swimming. He had one goal, and he would accomplish it.

Pan seemed to understand that questions were useless.

They fled into the dawn, and people in the Town began to scream as four giant wolves caught up behind Io and kept pace. He jumped atop one, and threw Pan to the other, with strength he never knew he had.

Amory.

The wolves knew. They raced back toward the cabin. Across a highway or two, until they were safe within the pine woods, running up the mountainside.

Io could smell smoke on the air. He could feel dread in the breeze. Something had gone wrong.

Pan yelled something to him. But he didn't listen.

They reached the tiny, overgrown gravel drive, and Io jumped off of his Wolf. Pan fell off of one of them, and came running after him. Yelling at him to stop.

"It's too dangerous!"

The cabin was up in flames. Years of memories, burning. Io ran right in, throwing chunks of flaming wood out of the way. An entire beam, from the roof, he lifted and tossed to the side.

His skin slicked with sweat. His eyes darted about, fear ruling over common sense.

"Amory!" He screamed. His voice cracked with agony.

But Amory was nowhere to be seen.

Only a scrap of his shirt, pinned to the wooden table, with a knife.

Someone had left a note.

He stumbled into the flames, grabbed it, and read it over quickly.

'Come, take his place, and we will spare him.'

He looked up, shock overpowering his senses.

A man stood in the flames. Or perhaps, he was the flame.

He smirked over his shoulder at Io, his red eyes alight with burning, searing, hot anger.

The note fell out of Io's grasp, as the world went blank around him, and the heat overcame him. Pan jerked him out of the flames, and the cabin collapsed into ruin, once and for all.

This was who they were. These were the Kind. And he was one of them. They had taken Amory.

Io had never felt hate. But in his last moments of awareness, he hated the Kind.