The three of us stared at our hopes turning to ash. Beneath, a small estate burned, alongside proof of House Leyden’s wrongdoings. The light was radiant, blinding; I could barely stand to look at it. Someone had torched the place.
“The evidence,” Sash muttered, “it’s all on fire.”
Those words were enough to spur Blake into action. He started forward and began stumbling down the incline, towards the manor. I ran after him, yelling at Sash to hide somewhere nearby. I was still an uncoordinated mess, new instincts screaming at me to move faster, to move better, but Blake moved as if he’d been hit in the head. Only moments later I was grabbing the back of his shirt and tugging him towards the grain field.
“We can’t do anything,” I hissed at him. “Let’s go get some help, sift through what’s left.” I wasn’t always the best at knowing when to quit, but even I couldn’t visualise making it through the fire alive, even with the Lizardblood I had assimilated from Drue eight years ago.
He shrugged my hand off and continued forward in a stupor. I quickly grabbed his arm. “It’s over. We’re not fireproof.”
He pointed towards the house with his free hand. I squinted through the bright light, and somehow, I was able to see what he had been heading towards. One section of the mansion, along its rightmost side, was built of tough looking redbrick, unmarred by moss or mould – probably a recent extension. Though there was a flickering light coming from its upper windows, compared to the inferno tearing through the rest of the house, it was pristine.
“You’re joking,” I said. Getting to it required either going through the front entrance – currently on fire – or through one of the lower windows, too high off the ground for either of us to break effectively. “There’s no bloody way.”
Blake spun around, glaring fiercely. “This is all we got, Orvs. It’s this, or my Boys get stomped by an oversized Lizard.”
I wilted under his stare, yet kept a grip on his arm. “There’ll be another way.”
He gritted his teeth. “You don’t know that.”
“Look, I’m not letting-“
My protest was interrupted by Blake swinging his fist at my head. Despite being unprepared for it, I instinctively managed to slip out of the way, only to stumble and trip as I attempted to place my legs in the exact position my new Foxblood demanded. He used the opportunity to tear himself out of my grasp and sprint towards the burning house. I rose and ran after him, muttering obscenities.
I was almost certain Blake had no plan, and the suspicion was proved correct when he reached the front entrance and began kicking it. Seconds later, I was there, yanking him away. He whirled and tried to headbutt me, but I tucked my chin, forcing him to crunch his nose against my forehead. He staggered backwards, and I front-kicked him to the ground, the movement provoking only mild disapproval from my blood.
He swore and began shoving himself upright, however the attempt was halted as I placed a foot on his chest, pushing my full weight onto him. “There’s no better time,” Blake wheezed, struggling to draw a breath. “Can’t be any in that mess.”
“You’re an idiot,” I spat.
He let out a strained laugh. “Says you?” The words were cold as ice. “I’m goin’, whether you like it or not.”
A punch to my calf unbalanced me, and a sweep of my legs toppled me. He sprang upright, only for his ragged tunic to be caught by my hands. He cursed. I spoke before he could throw me off again. “Okay!” I sneered. “We’ll go in, and check it out. A few minutes, then we’re out again. That’s the deal I’m offering, otherwise I’ll hold onto you all night.”
Blake breathed out. “Alright. Come on then.” He made to kick the door again. I shook my head and gestured to the lower windows. In a routine we had performed a worrying amount of times before, I braced myself against the brick wall, while my friend stood on my shoulders, smacking the window.
A few moments passed. Impatience ate at me – I could sit here for hours, even with Blake’s weight, yet if we didn’t move fast we would have the weight of the entire house on top of us to contend with. I passed up Ma’s scabbarded sword, to Blake’s muttered thanks. In a concerningly unbalanced motion, he reared backwards and shattered the glass, sending a few pieces raining down on top of me. He vaulted inside, and briefly, I wondered whether he would leave me and our deal behind, then search the manor until it collapsed on top of him.
Then Blake stretched his hand down. I grasped it, and began a mad scramble upwards – me scrabbling up the wall, him heaving me. It was always a struggle for others to lift me - Lizardblood made a person more dense - but I must have gained weight recently or something, because neither of us seemed to be making much progress. Just as I became certain I was too heavy to get up, my fingers caught on jagged glass and I pulled, slicing skin, our combined efforts throwing me through the window.
Smoke and heat clutched at me like the hand of some omnipresent god. I could see Blake about to make a quip about my weight, but he coughed instead. As I sucked my bloodied digits, I surveyed what looked to be some manner of study, already half-obscured by inky smog.
I pulled Blake down, squatting underneath the darkness swirling above. “You-“ I spluttered, the dry air turning my throat into a desert. Resisting the urge to cough, I continued. “You find a way up. I’ll look in here.” It was a good plan – Blake couldn’t read, and I doubted my ability to navigate with overwhelmed senses. He nodded, then passed me the blade back.
We split. My friend crawled out of the room, ducking beneath the noxious fumes with one hand over his mouth. I stayed, scouring the furniture around me. The office was surprisingly bare, containing only a few cabinets, shelves, and a single desk; tearing everything open revealed them all conspicuously empty of any documentation. The smoke made investigating any nooks far more difficult, however, beyond a few quills and drying inkwells, almost nothing remained. Either this area was rarely used, or someone had removed everything important already. If the rest of the manor was like this, we would have risked our lives for nothing.
The search finished, I leaned out of the shattered window, gasping deliciously smokeless air. I resolved to hold my breath; in perfect conditions, I could go nearly ten minutes without needing to breathe. Blake slid out beside me, spitting a wad of yellowed phlegm. “Found it,” he rasped, “but we needa get through some fire.” I tsked, self-recriminating. What had I been thinking, to have led the three of us here, in the dead of night?
Having gotten his fill, Blake grasped my hand, placing his mouth in the crook of his elbow, and dragged me back into the blaze. Ubiquitous smog and shimmering air made our surroundings insubstantial – I would’ve thought we were walking through a mirage were it not for the impossible heat. Around us, the manor cracked, groaned, and fell apart. Hopefully, neither of us were next to be crushed.
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We scurried like rats, avoiding bonfires made of armchairs and dining tables with plates swapped for pyres. A pang of grief tore through me at all the lovely furniture reduced to firewood, however another part of me was ecstatic to see the place turn to ash. The latter sentiment had been taken from Bab, I was certain. After a few tense moments of navigating the flames, the brick walls ended, to be replaced with wooden ones, rapidly being consumed by the inferno. Blake pointed, and through the orange swirls I could see a staircase, only a few paces past the divide between wood and brick.
I peered at him, about to discuss a plan, only to be interrupted by my friend’s heaving coughs. Underneath the ash, my eyes picked out a sickly pallor seeping into his skin. We didn’t have time. I wracked my brain, and produced a hodgepodge plan - one of my worst. However, the dumbest method of ingress I could think of was also the only one I could think of. Barehanded, I grabbed the side of a flaming table and shoved it length-ways towards the stairs, forming a raised platform between us and the second floor. Resisting the urge to gasp, I tore my palms off the table, leaving strips of skin behind, and immediately curled around the wounds. I was grateful the Foxblood didn’t enhance my perception of pain, but my awareness of the precise contours of the injury was almost worse. I could feel blisters rising on the surface of my mangled skin.
Blake stared in horror, but neither of us could afford to mope - we were fresh out of time to lose. I kicked him, the agony in my hands making the blow weaker than I would’ve liked, and he righted himself, hopping on the table and then leaping to the stairs. I followed, somehow retaining my balance despite my instincts castigating my poor acrobatics. He sprinted upwards and I followed.
Despite having no flames, the second storey was both hotter and smokier than its brother beneath. Luckily for me, the hallway we found ourselves in had only two doors. The first was unlocked, and completely empty of anything but a single window. Its twin, identical in every way, refused to budge. I attempted a few half-hearted kicks, only managing to make the door rattle. Blake muscled me aside and smashed it open.
We stumbled inside. Immediately in front of us was a massive cupboard, complete with embellished glass doors revealing it packed with paper, stamps, and even a small rug. It was positioned in the centre of the room, which was otherwise filled with ransacked cabinets and desks, various miscellany spilled onto the ground. A pale face peeked around the side of the bizarrely-arranged piece of furniture. He let out a string of accented curses, then a feeling of profound peace filled me. The house was seductively hot. I felt like just laying on the floor and having a nap. Blake seemed to agree with me, dazed as he was.
Pain from my seared hands pulled me back. I dug my fingernails into my palms, tearing open bloated skin, the wound forcibly tearing me out of the stupor. I lunged forward, kicking the cupboard over. The Dolphinblood swayed out of the way, but unfortunately for both of us, the weight of the falling wood was enough to smash through the boards beneath us, presumably weakened by the fire beneath. Standing as close to it as I was, I fell too. I twisted around, reaching out for a ledge or a hand, yet all I caught was the sight of Blake’s eyes, fog draining from them.
The tranquillity fled alongside the air in my lungs as I smashed through the cupboard’s glass. My face bulged as I supressed the urge to gasp, inhaling the smoke around me. Instead, I removed the scabbard of Ma’s sword, which jabbed into bruising ribs. With unprecedented speed, I rallied my senses and extracted myself. Nearby, someone was screaming; I glanced sideways to see the ugly man batting at the black robes draped over him, the thick cotton being eaten by the blaze. Emotions cycled within me; anger, sorrow, depression, hatred – all replaced by another at a moment’s end. Kept afloat by the agony dripping from my hands, I stood on the lip of the cupboard and kicked the strange Blooded in the chin.
He fell flat into the fire, and began wailing and moaning. I dragged him upright by the scruff of his clothes, his skinny body preventing most of the flames from reaching me. The emotions became increasingly tense, only the excruciating feeling of rough-hewn fabric rubbing against my blisters keeping me sane. A glance upward revealed Blake’s writhing form, dangling halfway through the newly-formed hole – Blake was experiencing the same thing as me, only without the pain keeping him centred. He’d asphyxiate if I couldn’t stop the Dolphinblood in time.
The suffocating heat and smog swirling around us resembled my own mind – wracked with foreign detritus that refused to dissipate. A half-arsed idea cut through my hazy brain.
I swore, cajoled, abused, and punched my opponent over to the nearest window. Gripping his head with both hands, I smashed it through the glass, then repeated the motion, using his skull to clear out the remaining shards. A manic glee filled me at the violence, and laughter bubbled out of my throat. After the window was emptied, I threw him out of it. Still cackling, I jumped after him.
The drop wasn’t high, but having a supernaturally heavy adolescent land on your back, knees first, is enough to knock the wind of anyone. Foreign sentiments licked at me, yet beneath a shroud of mindless glee I was unassailable. It felt as if I had the entire world in my grasp – ready to be crushed or released as I saw fit. I heaved my quarry to his feet, and he stumbled away from me, drawing a small dagger and waving it towards me. But I was a god – unstoppable – and I remembered all the times this little ape spat towards me, stirring my emotions to make them easier to manipulate; easier to blackmail me into doing their dirty work. I had been a coward, then – knowing the insidious incursion into my mind, and powerless to prevent it – yet here he was, eyes full of fear, fully comprehending his own helplessness.
He stabbed towards me – weak, lazy, undignified motion – and my instincts guided me as I used one hand to hold his wrist and the other to break it. A concerto of snapping bone was accompanied by a shriek of agony. His knife dropped, and I snatched the blade mid-air, snubbing my own weapon in favour of his. Like a viper, I struck his skin, careful not to cut anything vital, for this was a meal best savoured.
My prey spun, fleeing up the slope, towards the fields behind him. I let him run for a few dozen seconds. It was a simple thing to imagine his thoughts: the happiness at having evaded his pursuer for a few more moments, the hope of a brighter future brewing in his gut. All of that torn away like a blanket from a baby as a blade tore open the tendons in his leg.
He turned towards me as he fell. A flash of white approached from the green stalks behind. It was a small girl, sprinting towards my possession. She was so incredibly irrelevant. As she leapt on the man’s back, choking him using his own charred robes – dextrous, elegant – I became infuriated with her interference. Yet, the thought filled me with a strange unease so I discarded it, like trimmings from meat. She was unnecessary for my pleasure.
I approached the man, vainly struggling, his pupils two black moons embedded in his skull. The girl stopped and started her strangling, moving according to the weak beat of the emotions he was sending out. His attempts were worth less than dirt to me. I could almost taste the veins and arteries throbbing under his skin, flowing to the terrified beat of his heart, and the panic in his sweat was more divine than any of Ma’s cooking.
Ma. My mother. I stopped. Let the knife fall from my hands. The sadism permeating my mind dissipated like breath on a breeze. What was I doing?
The beast inside my skull vanished. Nausea gurgled in my gut. I felt myself collapse to the ground, however that was something happening very, very far away. The memories of what I had just done and the thoughts that had sparked through my head, all replayed themselves a thousand thousand times.
The Dolphinblood was crawling, Sash perfectly still behind him. Apathy tried to crush me, but I was shielded by horror at myself. I saw with supernatural clarity as he picked the dagger up from next to me, and began to draw it back, angling it towards my neck. I knew, more than I knew anything else, that letting him kill me would be the best gift I could give to this world. My sister was getting up, screaming, and internally I apologised, but it was an older brother’s duty to protect his siblings from the dangers around them. My existence was evil, I had known it all along, in the depths of my soul.
Then he thrust the blade downwards and I was scared and I wanted to live but it was too little, too late.
A foot crashed into the side of his head as Blake flew past. The robed man fell. Fear departed.
Blake panted. Sash slumped backwards and sobbed. I got up, and vomited into the grass.