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Soulkeeper Page 40


  A corked glass jar.

  “Got you,” a pleased, muffled voice spoke from above. Tesmarie held on to the side of the jar for balance as her captor lifted the jar. She saw the smiling face of an older woman with wrinkled skin and six strings of beads and stones hanging around her neck.

  “Let me go!” Tesmarie shouted at her. Her fists banged futilely against the glass.

  “Let go?” she asked. “Oh no. Not likely.”

  Tesmarie spun, trying to see through the thick distortion of the jar. Nora, why wasn’t Nora doing anything? There she was, only she was talking with a customer. Her captor had waited until she was preoccupied, the fiend! The ugly woman quickly put her chest between the two and hustled away. Tesmarie clenched her fist and summoned her moonlight blade. Oh, she’d make the bitch pay once she…

  The moment the light sparked from her fingers the woman jostled the jar violently from side to side. Tesmarie screamed as her body slammed into the unforgiving glass. She couldn’t orient herself in time before the next jostle, and with each blow her strength waned. Her heart hammered within her chest as panic set in, but she knew how dangerous that was, too. There were no holes in the jar, nor in the thick cork sealing her inside. Already she felt light-headed, made worse by the pain emanating from her bruised and battered body.

  “No escaping,” her captor chided, as if she were a naughty child. “I’d hate to hurt you.”

  Too late for that.

  Tesmarie leaned on the glass and struck it repeatedly with her fists. Even if she couldn’t escape on her own, she didn’t have to. The wrinkled woman carried her past dozens of people throughout the market, and Tesmarie shouted to them at the top of her lungs.

  “Help! She’s kidnapped me! Stop her, stop her, stop her!” Finally a man looked her way. She stood up a little straighter, and at his confused look, she shouted it again. “I need out!”

  The man shot a look to her captor, and he frowned with distaste.

  And then he turned around.

  And then he kept walking.

  “Where are you going?” Tesmarie asked. She slammed her fists against the glass, not caring that blood started to flow from her knuckles. “Help, help, I need help!”

  Her frustration grew at how no one looked her way. Could they not hear her? Maybe the glass muffled her voice more than she realized?

  There, a woman carrying a bushel of apples! Tesmarie waved her arms and hopped up and down. The woman asked something of her captor, words too quiet and distorted by the jar for her to make out.

  “Just taking her where she belongs,” her captor replied.

  And… and that was apparently enough. The woman barely shot her a second glance. Several more men spared her a worried look before resuming whatever they were doing. The only one who seemed to really care was a young boy being dragged through the market by his mother.

  “Mom, it’s the faery!” he shouted while pointing with his free hand. Tesmarie dared hope, but then the mother tugged his arm so hard he grimaced with pain. “But, Mooommm!”

  Maybe it was the lack of air, but suddenly Tesmarie found she couldn’t much stand anymore. She slipped to her rear in the center of her bottle. These… these people. Hadn’t she danced and sung for them? Had they not given her presents and laughed? Yet now she received only subdued, embarrassed glances. Couldn’t they see her trapped in that bottle? Who could look at this predicament and think it was all right? Tears fell from her eyes to ping and clatter off the glass. Her captor paused to look around, spotted an empty alcove, and rushed inside.

  “Oh my,” she said. “Oh my, oh my, are those what I think they are?”

  Tesmarie grabbed at her spent tears and clutched them to her breast.

  “No,” she said weakly. How dare her captor look upon her suffering and desire more from her? These tears were hers. Her sorrow was hers, damn it.

  The terrible woman clutched the bottle to her chest and looked about, as if suddenly worried someone would steal her precious treasure. She sprinted, the movements jostling Tesmarie against the sides of the glass. The little diamonds spilled from Tesmarie’s hands. Her captor did not stop until she found a deep alcove behind a permanent stall and the back of a store of some sort. Finally alone, the woman lifted the jar to her face and leaned in so close her bulbous nose flattened against its side. Her breath fogged the glass.

  “Oh my, oh my, they are diamonds,” she said. “You are just a wonder, aren’t you? And I thought your wings would be the real draw. Can you cry more, my dear? Cry more, and I’ll poke a hole in the cork, just for you.”

  She’d rather suffocate. Everything hurt, even her heart. If her captor was upset, she didn’t show it. A shrug of her shoulders, and she started back toward… wherever she was headed. Home? A shop? A new, better prison? Tesmarie thought of being caged like a pet and broke down further. Her tears slipped over her hands, unable to be stopped. Little diamonds. Her diamonds.

  “Pardon me, but I do not believe that belongs to you.”

  Tesmarie blinked through her tears. A man had stopped her captor at the entrance of their little alcove. She could barely make out his long dark coat. Her captor stood to her full height and sneered.

  “And who are you to say so, young man?”

  In response the man shot out his hand and grabbed her captor by the throat. The woman gargled out an unintelligible protest.

  “Who must I be to call you a monster?” this strange man asked. “A king? A prince? Must I have wealth to know that you imprison a living being inside that jar? Tell me, so I may become him. What is the minimum power required to protest your heinous acts?”

  Her captor wheezed and flailed at the iron grip about her neck.

  “Beauty in a glass jar,” the man continued. “That’s what I see you holding. I’d make you the same, but there is no beauty in you to behold. Just ugliness and want.”

  He gently took the jar from her captor and, using only one hand, popped the cork free. Tesmarie gasped in a wonderful breath of fresh air. Her wings weakly fluttered until she could lift herself out. She felt lost in a dream. This wasn’t happening. None of this was.

  “I hope you are well, my dear,” the stranger said, and he flashed her a smile. He wore no shirt despite the cold, and his hair was split between shades of green and shades of black.

  “Who… who are you?” she asked him, certain she’d seen him somewhere.

  “My name is Janus,” he told her, and an image of a wanted poster immediately flashed into her mind. “I’ve come to save you.”

  Magical power flowed from Janus’s hand and into the woman’s body, as visible to her eyes as a rainbow, and just as shimmery. The skin on her captor’s body began to turn translucent. It wasn’t disappearing, though, for she could see the texture changing as well. Hardening into glass, Tesmarie realized with detached horror. Glass spread to her teeth and nails, and then sank into her muscles and bones. Even her clothes turned crystalline clear. The pulpy insides, however, did no such thing. Blood pulsed through visible veins. Intestines twisted and slithered inside the grotesque mess that was a human’s innards. The woman’s eyes locked in place despite the wiggling of the connected cords. Faint tears slid down her glass cheeks.

  Two men had heard the argument begin and approached the secluded alley. Upon seeing Janus’s “artwork” they immediately screamed and fled. Tesmarie shared in their horror. Only her confusion and pain kept her from vomiting. Somehow, through some cruel magic, the woman was still alive.

  “It took me years to understand this,” Janus said as he stepped back to observe his handiwork. “Not all art must be pleasant to the eye to be beautiful. There is an undeniable pull to the truth, however wicked.”

  Tesmarie floated away from the horrific creation. She tried telling herself she’d been a bad human ready to kill her, or worse, but she could not shake her revulsion.

  “Is she… is she in pain?” she asked.

  “Oh, most certainly,” Janus said. He smiled at the gla
ss-and-guts construct. “I left her nerves intact. They’re the little yellowish spiderwebs connected to her spine and brain.”

  Tesmarie didn’t know what nerves were but she understood pain. The way her captor’s eyes shook, the way the visible heart hammered at a hundred miles an hour… she was screaming. Somehow she heard that phantom howl despite the woman’s mouth being sealed into a tight-lipped frown. Air whistled in and out of her nostrils, producing her only sound, that of a constant, desperate wheeze.

  Janus might have saved her from her captor, but witnessing that grotesque artwork had her fearing him more than any fate in a glass jar.

  “Please,” she said, unable to look at it any longer. “Please, kill it. It’s too awful.”

  “Humanity itself is awful. Would you have me kill them, too, Tesmarie?”

  Tesmarie fluttered a few feet into the air.

  “How do you know my name?” she asked.

  Janus flashed her a smile of rainbow opal teeth.

  “I have seen you during your displays in the market,” he said. “Come now, stay with me a while. I would have us talk.”

  Talk was the furthest thing from Tesmarie’s mind. This man was dangerous, and no doubt whom Devin and his fellows scoured the night searching for. She clutched her hands into fists, torn between fleeing and using her moonlight blade to slice apart the glass-and-gore construction. It made no sense, but she felt weirdly responsible for her captor’s suffering. If only she’d paid attention, if only she’d not slept so low to the ground, none of this would have happened.

  “I-th-th-thank-you-for-the-help,” Tesmarie blurted. She rotated in air and tried to shoot for the sky, but Janus was somehow faster. Terrible pain shot through her back and spine as his fingers closed about her wings. A scream escaped her lips. If she struggled harder, she might rip them right out from their sockets.

  “I’m sorry, little faery,” Janus said. “But consider this a much-needed lesson.”

  Numbness crept throughout her wings. A sudden weight dragged at her shoulders, and she gasped at the new pain. Janus calmly put her atop his shoulder once the numbness had completely enveloped her, and to her horror, she saw that her wings were no longer thin, translucent chitin. Their rainbow of color was replaced with a dull gray. Stone. He’d turned her wings to stone.

  “Please, don’t,” Tesmarie whimpered. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear, please, let me go.”

  Her wings rested against his shoulder, and his support was the only reason they did not tear the skin off her back. She might not be inside a jar, but she felt just as confined, and just as powerless.

  Janus returned to the bustle of the market, carrying Tesmarie with him. Nearly everyone stared, discreetly or otherwise. Slowly people began to recognize him from the wanted posters, which led to a wildfire of panic. Most quietly fled, as if making even the slightest noise might earn his unwanted attention. Shops slammed their doors shut. Men and women in stalls ducked behind them, and Tesmarie heard several praying as they passed.

  “Think back to when you were inside that jar,” Janus said, seemingly oblivious to those fleeing all around. “I want you to remember the way the humans looked at you amid your imprisonment. I want you to remember how not a single man or woman lifted a hand to help you.”

  “They were just confused,” Tesmarie said. Did she believe that? She didn’t know, but deep down in her core she wanted to deny every single word this man said. “These people, they, um, most don’t know what I am. They couldn’t hear me. They’d have helped if they understood, I know it.”

  Janus gave her the most patronizing of smiles.

  “Your naïve innocence is heartwarming, Tesmarie, but it proves the need for my lesson.”

  “And what is that?” she asked. “That humans are awful, terrible things who hate me? Well, you’re wrong. I-I-I played with them, and sang, and danced with them, and they brought me fruit and laughed, and-and-they gave me other gifts, too. Can you explain that?”

  “You’re a lovely novelty, Tesmarie. You’re tiny and cute, and because of that, they do not see you as a threat. That’s why they’re happy to embrace you, but it’s not as equals. You never will be equal in their eyes. If these humans had their way, they’d adopt you like an exotic pet. Yes, they’ll love you. Yes, they’ll give you food and padded pillows to sleep on. They’ll laugh as you perform your tricks and smile as they listen to your songs, but the moment you try to escape the caged life they’ve given you?”

  He snapped his fingers, making her jump. Where her wings connected with flesh exploded with pain.

  “Down comes the lid to your cage. You’re free only so long as you stay on your leash, which is no freedom at all.”

  He resumed his walk, and as the roads gradually widened Tesmarie discovered their destination. A large crowd gathered up ahead around a small stage with a curtained backdrop. The man addressing the crowd wore a finely tailored suit so white it bordered on obnoxious. Faithkeeper Nolan, Tesmarie assumed. Janus had brought them to the humans’ ninth-day sermon.

  “Janus, what are you going to do?”

  He gently lifted her from his shoulder and set her down atop a windowsill overlooking the square. His opal teeth flashed amid his wide smile.

  “I live in no cage,” he said. “And so I work to take my city back from those who stole it.”

  His right arm became a blade of steel so long and sharp it mocked the talents of human smiths. His left thinned and extended, bone liquefying, skin becoming hardened bark with serrated glass leaves. He gave the people no warning. Only a handful turned when the first man died, his entire body cleaved in half by that impossibly sharp sword arm. Then the long, branchlike whip lashed across a half dozen, and the people realized they were under attack. By then it was already too late.

  Tesmarie sobbed as she watched Janus tear through the crowd like a savage predator of blood and gore. Not even bone slowed the cut of his steel arm. In gruesome juxtaposition to those perfectly clean amputations were the glass-shard leaves ripping flesh and muscle in wild, uneven directions. People fled in all directions, some dragging wounded with them to escape Janus’s fury. The monster paid them no mind, for he carved a swathe directly to the mummer’s platform, where Faithkeeper Nolan cowered on his hands and knees. The whip looped around him, covering him from neck to ankle. The leaves dug into him, sinking deeper and deeper, but not tearing. Not yet.

  “Amid all this you merely knelt in prayer?” Janus asked him. The screams of those in flight formed a chorus of mockery. “Did you think your prayers would stop the bloodshed?”

  “Sisters have mercy,” the Faithkeeper cried out.

  “They’re not the ones holding your life in their hands,” Janus said. “I am.”

  The branch arm tightened, and now those leaves ripped and tore, now they showered blood and spilled intestines, and Tesmarie was screaming, screaming out of horror and desperation as they ripped and tore, ripped and tore.

  “Stop it!” she shrieked. Her moonlight blade appeared unbidden in her hand, but what might she do with it? Cut off her own wings so she might flee? Her sword trembled. She almost did it. In that moment, forfeiting her flight to live grounded and slow almost seemed better than witnessing another second of the slaughter.

  The chaos finally summoned a trio of soldiers armed with spears. Their leader halted at the edge of the massacre, stunned by the sight. The other two were soulless like Jacaranda had been, and they patiently waited for additional orders.

  “Run away,” Tesmarie screamed at them. “You can’t help!”

  Her warning only startled the leader from his stupor. He pointed his sword at Janus.

  “Kill him,” he said.

  The two soulless soldiers rushed into the clearing with eerily synchronized timing and steps. Janus brought his gaze their way and frowned in disgust. He shook a few ropes of stubborn intestines off his sword arm.

  “You’d use these unfortunate shells as your slaves?” he asked. “Has your race no limit
to its depravity?”

  The two soldiers pulled their spears back for thrusts as they charged. Janus casually strolled to meet them, showing no worry for their weapons. The soldiers thrust in unison, and Janus weaved between them as if he’d known the exact attack they’d make before it began. In a single looping slash he decapitated both of them. Their bodies crumpled to the ground with a wet clatter of armor and blood.

  “Soulless deserve peace. They deserve pity. Not you, though, slavemaster.” The third soldier shuddered considerably. “You deserve a far worse fate.”

  Janus’s arms retreated back to their normal pale flesh. His legs bound across the clearing with staggering strength. The soldier didn’t have time to move or react. Tesmarie doubted that it’d have mattered if he did. Janus slapped the spear out of the man’s hand, clearly dislocating several fingers in the process. His smile spread ear to ear. His fingers jabbed against the soldier’s chest.

  “I’ll give your worthless mass a purpose,” he said as the man’s body went rigid. “After all, a painter must have his paint.”

  Janus’s fingers suddenly sank several inches into his rib cage. A deep red color washed over every part of his body, even his clothes. His legs buckled. His features began to goop and lose focus. Like a wax figure melting, Tesmarie first thought, but that wasn’t quite right. Beads of sweat rolled off his skin in sudden waves. His helmet melded into his hair. The color deepened, washing over everything, every last detail…

  Oh dragons and goddesses, he was becoming blood, all of him, blood, the bones and muscle and tissue liquefying into a crimson waterfall that splashed across the clearing and sank into the cracks of the cobbles and the floorboards of the stage. His head was the last to change. Did he feel it happening? Did it hurt? The violation of it? The horror? Tesmarie frantically sped up her time. She couldn’t watch. She couldn’t bear to witness each drop splashing down and the ripples growing and the stink of fresh blood clogging her nose with her every breath.

  An eerie silence replaced the horror. Tesmarie reluctantly slowed her time, for Janus stood before her, waiting, watching. The two of them were all alone in the clearing, alone with the bodies and the blood.