Bladed Wings (2 page)

              “Help me,” croaked Cipher. He stumbled into the room for baptisms. A spike jutted from his shoulder, ice melting down the wound.

              Timothy saw a guy on fire. He heard him ask for help.

Timothy did what made sense.

              He pushed him, almost tackling him into the water. They could deal with the spike later after someone called 911. The fires came first. They had to put those out or he’d die.

              Despite the thrashing, Timothy held Cipher beneath the surface of the water. Cipher thrashed and kicked, but they had to put the flames out. He wouldn’t drown. That took more than the couple seconds Timothy needed to put out the fire. Then he’d shout for help or call 911.

One second at a time, the flames suffocated beneath the hiss of steam. The fire would be out and Timothy would deal with the spike. He’d run and get help, but he couldn’t leave this guy there to burn away. The fire had to go out. Another second and he waded in there, splashing water over this guy, excited and desperate with every drop, every hiss of flame and line of smoke.

              The last traces of fire went out as Timothy blinked. Panting, he wiped the stray droplets from his forehead and tried to catch his breath.

              And the body had disappeared.

              Cipher was gone, just gone. Timothy spun around and searched, splashing through the water, but he was alone. The water was clear. There wasn’t a body. Water dripped from his clothes, his hair was messed up, and he couldn’t see proof of what just happened. Confused, freaked out, Timothy stumbled out into the hall.

              And there stood three of the students from his class.

              “What happened?” Amy asked. Her forehead crinkled as she looked like someone who wanted very much to laugh.

              “I need to get out of here,” Timothy said. He jogged down the hall back to the emergency exit. He passed the spot where the guy with the spikes disappeared. There weren’t any burns. There wasn’t any evidence that something happened. He pushed through the door and ran to his car, wet and itchy, without any explanations.

              “Dude, you okay?” Jeremiah asked as he slid into the seat across from Timothy. A mostly full soda sat in front of Timothy, his reason for sitting in a fast-food restaurant. “You’re soaked.”

              “I’m—” he stopped, swallowed, “I don’t know.”

              Jeremiah tilted his head, “What happened?”

              “I, uh, I tripped.”

              Right after he escaped the church, Timothy got in his car and drove to the McDonald’s a couple blocks from campus. He called Jeremiah because he needed to talk. Timothy thought that if he said this out loud, maybe it would make sense. Jeremiah was the guy he’d known since high school, his roommate for a year and a half. When he got there, the words choked in Timothy’s throat. He couldn’t speak without sounding insane.

              He couldn’t say anything.

              “Did you take some pills, maybe the ones without a label?” Jeremiah suggested.

              “I don’t know what happened,” Timothy said again. That was so true, because he thought about it and it still didn’t make sense. There weren’t any bodies. There weren’t any burns or blood or anything else to prove he wasn’t crazy. “No, dude. I just, I didn’t get enough sleep.”

              “Enough sleep?” Jeremiah asked with two words, and the right tone to promise there was no way he’d believe Timothy.

              “Yeah.”

              “Did you do something stupid? Something stupid with say—a neighbor? Maybe the one with that curly brown hair, the neighbor you’ve been fawning over for way too many months?”

              “No.”

              “Interesting.”

              “What?”

              Jeremiah squinted, lost in calculation. “You sound sincere, like maybe you didn’t do something wildly bizarre. I mean, I can’t hear any deceit in your voice. No rapid-eye movement or shallow breathing, but then you’re soaked. You really look like the aftermath of a romantic comedy gone horribly wrong. Did you try to sing at her window only to get knocked into a fountain?”

              “Nothing,” Timothy decided he’d say. “Nothing happened. I’ve just been having a bad day.”

              “Did she break your heart?” Jeremiah’s version of compassion.

              “Nothing happened. Not with her.”

              “Well, you want to go somewhere and get some real food? I’ll even pay, because I’m always up to hang out with people who have no idea how to lie.”

              “I’m not lying,” Timothy said though he knew Jeremiah wouldn’t believe him. Timothy didn’t want to call this denial, but he didn’t have any evidence. Without proof, he couldn’t get in trouble, and he wouldn’t break his life to prove a delusion. So he could let it go. Aside from wet jeans, he didn’t get hurt, no broken bones, not even a bruise.

Or he could tell everyone what he saw. He could talk about one guy on fire and his buddy who sprouted spikes of ice. And Timothy couldn’t think of a faster route to a mental institution.

              For the next couple hours, Timothy didn’t think about what happened. Confusion still hovered on the edge of his mind, but he refused to think about it. He had classes and work to keep him busy. He went through the Anthropology lecture, pretended to pay attention, then went downtown to work.

Pushing a mail cart through a labyrinth of cubicles, Timothy let the music blast out of his ear buds as he focused on normal. But the songs changed every few minutes, his player paused, and memories flashed back to life.

              What was he supposed to do with this memory? He watched someone explode and saw someone else disappear. They threw ice blades and fireballs.

              Timothy held someone underwater, terrified of the fire burning him to death. Then he was gone, vanished into nothing. No trace.

              He considered going back to that church. Maybe he could find some evidence. But then what?  He wouldn’t find anything, and even if he did, it wouldn’t help. Proving someone died would mean he was part of a double murder, definitely something he didn’t need.

Instead of investigating, Timothy went through his four-hour shift and passed out manila envelopes or packets of memos. Office workers said hi and hello. He waved back and smiled the same way he did every day. This was life. Nothing freaky. No one dying.

When his cart was empty, he went back to his car and drove back to his apartment. Life felt semi-normal as he made a sandwich and watched TV. After a couple hours he went to bed, where the transformation began.

              Timothy fell asleep without realizing it. For a few minutes he waited in the dark and wandered through random thoughts about school and Jenny and work and Jenny and replaying songs that stuck in his head. Before he fell into dreams, he saw Jenny’s face one more time.

When he opened his eyes again, he stood in a fog. Everything blurred, but he didn’t know it was a dream. The air felt cool as he walked through the mist. A few feet of visibility stretched in each direction. Even when he looked down he didn’t see ground. His feet floated on the same diffused stuff of fog. This felt normal like any other part of his life.

              Something lashed at him.

              Black, a blur, it shot from the mist.

              It snapped at Timothy and whipped against his shoulder. Almost jumping, Timothy fell back and landed on his back to see two tendrils hovering above him like headless snakes. They writhed on the air, shining and leathered, strong and sharp enough to cut.

              Rolling over, Timothy jumped to his feet as they slammed back down, striking the nothing where he had been a second before. Timothy twisted away and ran, pumping his arms and kicking against the invisible ground. His shoulder stung with the heat of blood running from the wound. Nothing made sense, but it didn’t matter because tentacles chased him.

              He ran without thinking. He didn’t know this nightmare would determine whether or not he got to stay Timothy. That’s because he didn’t know what was inside of him now.

              The tendrils shot out, faster than he could ever run. One sliced his back, a thin cut that hissed pain throughout his body. It couldn’t knock him down, but the second tentacle coiled around his ankle and yanked him into the ground. He thumped to something solid and the punch of momentum slammed the air from his lungs. The world flashed white and painful.

              Trying to choke or cough, Timothy rolled over to see those tentacles. They reminded him of black scorpion tails, each one tipped with a poisoned spearhead. He could try to run, but the same thing would happen. And he didn’t know if he could run, if he had the breath or if his legs could take his weight. For that moment, the tendrils hovered over him, waiting to snap down and tear him apart.

              A voice asked, “What were you doing?”

              “Doing?” Timothy coughed. He propped himself up on his elbows and searched for the voice but didn’t see anything. He tried to trace the tentacles back to the mist and wherever they led, but whoever controlled them was safely hidden by mist.

              “When you shoved me in that water, what did you want? What were your intentions?” It was Cipher, Cipher’s voice, the same voice that asked Timothy for help in the church.

              “I wanted to help you.”

              “So you didn’t work with her?”

              “Who?”

              “Despada,” Cipher spat the name and made it sound profane.

              “I don’t even know who that is,” Timothy said, feeling honest and helpless.

              “I see.”

              “Who are you?”

              “I was Cipher. I don’t know who I’ll be when you’re gone,” said the voice. Timothy was going to ask something else, but the tentacles ripped back down. Timothy tried to scramble away, to escape their hold. But in less than two seconds one had his torso, his arms trapped beneath the coils of hot black. His muscles strained against the coiled tendril, but he couldn’t break its hold. He felt like a princess trapped in a dragon’s claws.

              The second tentacle wrapped around his throat. “Goodbye Timothy,” Cipher said, “And thank you for the amusing anecdote. I’m sure my companions will enjoy it.” The coils tightened. They squeezed into Timothy’s skin until pain flared out, and he thought he’d hear bones break. Air was gone, his lungs trying to move, his throat blocked.

              The edges of his vision blurred and his concentration faded.

              Timothy didn’t have the air for fear. He squirmed, kicked, and tried to break Cipher’s hold, but it was all automatic, the struggles of anyone terrified and desperate to survive. He thought he’d die in this purgatory of mist, a nowhere where nothing happened.

              For some reason, Timothy wished he could have died somewhere else. In class, in a bank, a grocery store, the images flashed until he saw something special. He’d rather die in the laundry room. Because she might be there.

              He might get to see her one more time.

The mist rolled back and disappeared like a movie coming into focus. Still dying, Timothy hung in the air over the linoleum floors at The Verge’s laundry room. It was empty, the windows darkened squares. In front of the door stood Cipher, the hairless man who ran through a church, engulfed in fire. Now he leaned against the doorframe with half a smirk, the tendrils running along the ground and up to his shoulders.

              Squeezing, Timothy managed to squirm one arm free, and he pried his fingers into the leather. He tried to get it away from his windpipe. Seconds of struggle, of pulling and tugging and he broke it away. Dropped to his knees, Timothy grasped his neck as he gulped air back into his body. After a frenzied gasp, he looked up.

              Tentacles gone, Cipher approached as Timothy leaned on one of the washing machines, panting. “You’re stronger than I would have guessed,” but Timothy couldn’t hear the tinge of fear coloring those words. “But it won’t change anything, Timothy. It can’t change anything.”

              “Why, why are you doing this?” Timothy managed with stretched breaths.

              “You killed my last body. Now I claim yours. That’s justice, right?”

              “What?”

              “Is it really that difficult?” Cipher asked, a stride closer.

              “What are you?”

              “A soul, a demon’s soul. And as with all living things, I need a body. But make this easy. Don’t fight me, and the next few minutes don’t have to be painful. Just let go.” He leaned down, his words low, “Let me in. Give in, and let me take control.”

              “You’re kidding.”

              “I’m not.”

              “You have to be.”

              “I’m not,” Cipher insisted. “Everything here is real.”

              “It can’t be,” Timothy said, his palms cold against the washing machine. The floor felt sticky, rough with dirt and dust bunnies. “No, no way. I’m dreaming.” He said without believing it. Everything seemed too real, too solid to be fake.