The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (37 page)

“
The decision you have
made today, Kring-Hël, to invade my private sanctum should very
well have cost your life and that of your friend as well, if I had
deemed it such. Believe me, I most certainly would’ve killed you if
it were, in fact, up to me. Alas, it is not for me to decide your
fate on this day. Oh, how I wish it were otherwise!” she rasped
with surprising force “It is prudent that you leave at this time,”
concluded Nixy as she walked toward them. Her flickering torch
illuminating her pallid face in such a way, at times, she looked no
more than an animated corpse, talking and moving unnaturally, and
not alive at all.

It made Anthony’s skill
crawl.

“
My Lord Nihhûs wishes for
you to survive the Rending, to taste the beginnings of your full
potential before he snatches it from you, in the very moment the
dawn of your powers are realized. Then, he will take everything
that you are. In what might’ve been your greatest triumph, he would
turn it to your greatest failure.

“
This is why we will not
attack the two of you today. It has been ordained. You both shall
remain unmolested, unspoiled, so the Lord of the Storm can taste
your defeat for himself. That is why my poor Jätung and I must
forebear the tearing of your flesh and the devouring of all your
juicy, meaty parts. No matter how exotic you might have tasted in
our throats.” She flashed them a brief glimpse of her teeth - teeth
that had somehow grown and sharpened to points in a matter of
minutes. “Go now, and know! You will not have much longer to
live!”

Suddenly, they were
plunged into darkness. Nixy had somehow extinguished the torch,
light-blindness overtook them, and, for a moment or two, they could
do nothing, but wait until their eyes adjusted.

Eventually, their vision
returned. They could partially see through the dim illumination
provided by the storm still raging outside. Neither of them so much
as glanced back to where the demon-girl had been
standing.

Ever so carefully, they
edged their way out of the doghouse and onto the muddy clearing.
The Isighünd growled and clawed at the ground, but didn’t move,
other than to swallow the last of its’ meal. It seemed rooted in
place, despite no evidence to the contrary.

Again, the wind and rain
pounded them, drenching them further, cold seeping into the deepest
recesses of their bodies. The boys crab-walked toward the muddy
road, which was now a river of mud, pebbles and other debris. All
of it was flowing toward Milbur Street and the city beyond. When
they finally reached it, they both glanced back. In the doorway of
the giant doghouse stood Nixy, her dress ever white and unblemished
by the tempest about them. She had thumbs and forefingers upon its’
hem, an impossible leer upon her face as she hiked up the garment,
taunting them with the prospect of revealing her
womanhood.

The Isighünd was
gone.

The boys peered at each
other through the downpour, sickened, simultaneously blurting,
“Let’s go!”

Without a second thought,
they were off. They bounded down the hill and back toward some
semblance of reality.

*****

At the same time, just
over the ridge separating the two communities of Highland Park and
Eagle Rock, Joaquin had a foreign thought enter his
brain…

…
Isighünd - a beast,
usually a pack hunter, but sometimes a familiar of individuals
strong in the arts of Vyche; a terrible four-legged, wolf-like
creature made from the darkest, cruelest of magics, birthed from
the rotting flesh of the tortured…

…
a moment followed, a
sharp pain pierced the front of his skull. He grabbed his head, his
car swerving slightly before he caught a hold of the steering
column, righting it. He forced himself to think through the agony,
praying he could make his way safely back to his parents’
house.

Then more words began to
pour into his brain, words that were not his, words describing
horror and terror, death and desolation.

*****

While, a second after
that, back on the other side of the ridge, Elena sat playing on the
rug in the room she shared with Mikalah. Her younger sister, sat up
from her bed. Without warning, she tossed aside the book she’d been
reading.

“
Owww!” screeched Mikalah,
holding both sides of her head.

Elena was going to ask her
what was wrong when a similar pain hit her as well – sharp and
powerful, in the middle of the frontal recesses of her
brain.

Both sisters clutched at
their heads for a few seconds, twisting and turning, when, just as
abruptly as it appeared, the pain vanished. The girls were left
panting, their eyes tearing up. Their breathing was labored. They
looked exhausted, like they hadn’t slept in two days.

They stared at one
another, looks of terror shared between them. Their fright
palatable in their small bedroom, it mired the atmosphere, soupy,
thick.

“
What is happening,
Elena?” asked Mikalah, her voice small and trembling.

Elena gazed back at her
sister, just as scared. “I don’t know
what
is going on, but whatever is…
it’s not good,” concluded the older girl. She stood all of sudden,
joining her sister on the bed, reaching for her. They came together
in a rush. She hugged Mikalah tightly, while her younger, though
bigger, sister hugged her back, fiercely.

“
Yeah,
it’s
not
good… at
all,” mumbled Mikalah from Elena’s shoulder.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Conclusions

Monday, November
22
^nd
,
7:31 pm…

Anthony had come home
immediately following his encounter with Nixy and her
Hound-from-Hell, after a rushed - if not frantic - good-bye to
Andrew. He was so flushed, he was near feverish. He knew if his
parents had seen him in such a state, they would’ve figured he was
on drugs or else in dire need of medical attention. To prevent this
inevitable misunderstanding, he’d hid from them for a while,
letting time pass. He needed to get his head around what he’d just
experienced. He needed to get his feet back under him. He had to
give his mind time to slow down, had to let the fear seeped from
the center of his soul. However long it took, however lingering
were those notions, he had to stay away from his family.

He had quickly changed out
of his sopping wet clothing, leaving the entire outfit, jacket
included, hanging in the bathroom to dry. He put on some sweats,
underwear and fresh socks with a plain t-shirt under a matching
sweatshirt. He barricaded himself in his bedroom, lying on his bed
listening to music on his Mp3 player, not really hearing it. He was
too busy trying to regain his calm, his center of being, but could
barely contain the raging emotions coursing through his
brain.

He’d kept replaying the
entire sequence of events in his head, over and over again. The
clearing, the over-sized doghouse, the storm breaking almost
directly overhead, the mad stumbling dash to the wooden building,
Nixy and finally the horrid beast, the Isighünd, the creature the
wicked little girl had called Jätung. He could still see every
detail of the giant canine – its’ incredible size, its’ massive jaw
and teeth, its’ claws, and, of course, the thing he couldn’t get
out of his mind. It was the one feature that made his thoughts
scrabble in his head every time he saw them – its’ eyes. There had
been no irises within, pupils absent, nothing other than a uniform
red luminance. A sight that sliced through the thick of him, as if
every thought, every memory and every event in his life could be
easily read by the monstrous mind of the beast. Those dead orbs had
seen right through him.

He remained upon his bed,
still trembling with fear, for a long while. He tried to shake free
of the vile memories. Tried to make himself think or do something
else, something more constructive than lying there like an invalid.
It was a good idea, but it helped little. He couldn’t stop himself
from reliving the experience all over again. He had lost the
ability to control his own mind. He would see it again from the
beginning, in vivid detail. Every time, it was like seeing it all
for first time. The terror so raw, so powerful, he couldn’t escape
it.

This went on and
on.

After a while, when he was
sure he’d be capable of putting two sentences together, without
sounding like a complete idiot. Just when he felt he was able to
function like a normal human being and not drool all over himself -
his thoughts more or less his own again - his mother had announced
it was time for dinner.

The timing couldn’t have
been any more perfect.

He would have to go along
for the ride. He would have to try and stay as calm as humanly
possible. Hoping he could cope with the visions of the Isighünd,
the awful, evil
thing
that had looked insane for a taste of his flesh. He had to
keep the memory from creeping into his brain, scattering his
thoughts, causing him to forget where was or what he was doing. He
had to be cool.

Now, from across the
dinner table, he could sense Elena’s eyes on him, boring into the
top of his downturned head. Her stare was like a deep-sea oilrig,
drilling for information in the confused grey matter of his brain.
He knew she’d already figured out something significant had
happened when he’d gone outside and had come back soaked, in a
fright, looking like he had just seen a ghost. Elena was too smart
not to notice the tiniest of details. The girl never missed
anything. Her scrutiny of him now, left little doubt she’d hound
him the rest of his days until he told her what he’d promised he
would tell.

Next to her, Mikalah sat
was watching Elena almost as intently as Elena was watching him,
aware something was amiss, but not certain of the cause or the
effects. At the same time, though, he could sense something had
happened between them, while he’d been out in the storm, running
for his life down the hill, sloshing through the thick mud and
rivulets of cascading water. He could tell by the way they stared
at each other, longer than usual, no snide remarks from either of
them - the norm when one of them felt the other was staring for too
long.

Something was
up.

All three of them ate
their food slowly, quietly, while their parents were babbling on
about another issue in a long, long string of issues that were
multiplying at his mother’s store. Anthony had long since put them
out of his mind as he tried to grapple with what had happened. How
he was going tell his sisters without them freaking out about
monsters and the like? It was the last thing he needed right now.
Yet, he had to tell them, he had to, because the longer he dwelt on
the matter, the more he was convinced - they were in danger. There
was no getting around it now. They were put in this position by
some unknown, unseen entity (so the girls’ demonic friend had
said). She had said something about the Lord of the Storm, a man or
a monster, something she’d named
Nihhûs
. There was also something
about this “Lord” who had “major” plans for all of them in the
coming days or weeks.

They were all going to
pay
… Nixy has said that as
well.

And… what had she said was
coming?

Anthony wanted to say she
had said something about tearing, but that wasn’t the way she’d
phrased it. It was close, but it didn’t sound right. It didn’t even
seem to have the same meaning.

He glanced up and found
Elena staring back, right into his face, frowning, because she
could easily read the fear written there. Maybe she could actually
see the ever-growing sense of foreboding building in brain
too.

Something was coming, and
soon
.

Elena had muttered
something similar on Friday morning. The morning after he’d had his
nightmare. Had she not? Hadn’t she said something was coming and
there was not a single thing anyone could do about it? Anthony was
almost certain she’d mentioned something along those lines in
between her sobbing and snuffling. He’d heard it as his father held
her and tried to make her feel better.