Chapter 9D: Golden Eyes, Glowing Embers

The assailant announced as she tore down the door, “This world has no place for the broken anymore. Ever since I was cursed by the demon of shifting shadows, I have felt its madness poison my brain. I am not the person I used to be. I killed four people in the streets just so that they would not interfere. I killed the baker, and all this block will burn so that I can bury your ashes. But even all this murder is a token gesture compared to the tragedy you will unleash upon this world. I know you can’t admit it, but it isn’t a coincidence that you suspend your victims in the same way as the Interfectus.”

But in that moment, Aeliana threw herself through the shadowed streets and stabbed her dual daggers into my enemy from behind. Both blades bloodily burst through her chest, and the weapons glistened in the fiery light all around us. I was certain these two stabs would strike down our golden-eyed enemy, but she instead dropped her shield and swerved around. Even with two daggers lodged in her chest and blood pouring down her body, the woman seized Aeliana with both hands and then threw her into the rain with extraordinary strength. She then illuminated her arms with a fiery light as she prepared to obliterate her enemy in the rain-soaked street, but I didn’t give her the chance. Before she could even unleash her attack, I crashed my sword in through the back of her skull from behind. Her whole body halted and seized with a shower of blood.

“For her I would annihilate everything that exists. I believe in a fate that does not allow coincidence. You may be right that I am the shadow demon locked in human form, but I never cared about why or how I was born. I don’t care for this hopeless world or the people in it; compassion is a poison that I quickly learned to quit. I pose a threat far greater to this world than anything you say, and I see this darkest side whenever she is in harm’s way. I am more merciless and savage than I ever could admit, which is why you cannot conceive the crimes I know I must commit. Your curse warned you of a monster, but it’s already too late. We will take what we want from this world without reason or debate. You said you sought me as a mission to kill or else complete, but you’ll become a piece of me when I burn you in the street.”

Without another word, I flexed my arms and pierced my enemy so deeply that my chipped blade erupted from the other end of her head in a burst of blood and brain. I sank my sword so savagely into her skull that I touched her with an Array of Black Fire. I had inscribed the lurid symbol on my sword after I had killed Kalairo by using a special pen I stole from his body. The Array of Black Fire then activated with a shimmer of light which contrasted the fiery glow behind me. Thunder rumbled across the sky and forced the street to shudder, but Aeliana and I focused our eyes only on the way the black fire burned the body of our assailant. It was in this moment that the golden-eyed marauder became nothing more than another iteration in a diminishing sequence. She was an infinitesimal increase inching toward an unreachable asymptote.

I said to my love in words I knew were true, “She would have killed me if it were not for you.”

But Aeliana smiled shyly and stepped slowly through the rain. She stepped upon our fallen foe and kissed me without shame. We embraced in the rain as she stood ankle-deep in brain. I saw her swell with joy when she kissed me and said, “You aren’t in this alone; put that out of your head. You speak of our future as if it’s something you alone must do, but we are only at our strongest when I am right beside you.”

It was then that our kiss escalated into a heavy embrace. Aeliana jumped into the air and wrapped her legs around me, but my back could not support her weight after the damage it had taken. We fell together onto the headless body of our soulless enemy. She giggled as she splashed faceup into the bloody puddle, but she wrapped her arms around me to pull me closer. I set my left hand onto a chunk of brain which popped in a bloody splash as I tried to support my weight. Blood splashed into my hair as I deeply kissed the love of my life. Our bodies wriggled together as one on the torn-open corpse of my attacker, though I suppressed the new spirit inside my head as she strived to barge into my brain. Nothing mattered in that moment except for Aeliana.

I whispered to her as she tore off my bloody shirt, “Until I met you, I lived in a cycle of hurt. You are better than anything I ever dreamed of. We could crush entire worlds fueled only by our love.”

Aeliana smiled widely and sank her fingertips into my shoulders, but then I heard a sudden clamor pierce the gentle din of falling rain. Two trash bags fell over on the other side of the street to reveal a person cowering in the shadows. As soon as he saw that we saw him, he scurried to his feet and strived to sprint away. But he had witnessed both the fight and the black fire, so he could not be left alive; he would otherwise endanger us both if he ever told anyone. So without wasting a moment, I lifted my left hand from Aeliana’s body and prepared to use my new power for the very first time. A spiral of fire shot across my arm and summoned a blazing sphere which overwhelmed the darkness and the rain. Steam swirled through the street. I unleashed this fireball at the witness as he tried to run away, but even the recoil of this massive attack could not separate me from Aeliana.

The inferno struck the witness and devastated his body; he crashed into a wall with so much force that twelve bricks cracked on impact. He collapsed onto the street and strived to drag himself forward, but fire clung to his clothes and overcame the rain. It was not long before the fire burned through his will to escape. It burned through his will to survive. He died a short distance away and flooded the air with the stench of burning flesh, but Aeliana and I ignored it as we caressed each other atop our dead adversary. Rain fell gently from the sky as blood soaked our skin beneath us. As a second body burned out of existence just a short distance away, Aeliana giggled and pressed her lips against mine. She wrapped her arms around my back and pulled me closer.

“Our enemy’s now just fuel for the monster from which she fought to save this world,” I whispered into the rainy air where smoke and steam both swirled.

Aeliana smiled shyly and said as she stared into my eyes, “Her self-righteous dream designed her dark demise. For all the crimes she committed to consummate her goal, she became nothing more than the candlelit bed on which we will become one for the first time.”