Page 180 of Lost in the Dark

“I have never seen a butterfly in mid-October,” I observe. “It’s so sad when something so beautiful dies.”

Gralius looks up from his hand, his bright eyes peering straight through me with an intensity that seems all his own.

“That is because you cannot see them as I do. They are not much different from you. They are so beautiful that their brief lives seem tragic until you can see the beauty when they release this form and you see is what they truly are. Watch.”

He expels a soft breath, the force of which ripples across its wings. A flash of energy that sparks across my mind’s eye responds, and then it flickers again in a myriad hue of oranges. Dark patches streak over it as it dances up from his palm, a soft light shifting all around the beauty of its pulsing energy. Familiar dark threads of energy appear from the far corner of the room, twisting through the air.

Before I can jump to my feet in terror as their barbs enlarge and flex, buds filled with fangs erupting along their stalks to snap ravenously at the air, they withdraw as quickly as they came. Afterward, there’s nothing but the fan of luminescence as the monarch’s wings of light flutter, carrying it high into the air before it disappears entirely. Wilox chirps with such pleasure at that display of beauty that I would not have otherwise noticed myself that I find myself grinning at the demon beside me.

“That was amazing,” I breathe, and then shiver at the memory of those terrible brambles extending through my room. “Those things, though…” I frown, uncertain of how to express just how the sight of them made me feel.

Gralius tips his head as he considers me and my words. “The selin, those things as you call them, do what they were designed to do. They have very basic systems that allow them to seek out the one thing that sustains them so that they fulfill their sole purpose.”

“They’re horrible,” I protest.

“They respond to the presence of death energies’ current,” he says solemnly, his eyes meeting mine. “As do I. We both perform our functions in response to the same energy. Does that make me horrible?”

I balk, unable to believe that he is even comparing himself to them. “That’s different. You are not some sort of mindless, parasitic thing.” I shiver again, my skin prickling. “There must be something wrong to have drawn them to torment me. Something out of balance if the death current’s energies are that strong to draw even you. I can’t imagine what, but it’s clear that whatever it is, the purification I did didn’t work. But it wouldn’t if there is a greater problem going on that is attracting death energy to me, and therefore those things,” I mumble thoughtfully. “Something I must have come into contact with. Maybe some sort of energy parasite that’s causing an accumulation of that energy. Spiritual parasites have been known to do their fair share of damage.”

The thought of having spirit parasites attached to me causing all of this is enough to make my skin crawl, and still Gralius’s silver eyes bore through me, leaving me to puzzle through it aloud. I know he’s waiting for me to come to some sort of conclusion, but my mind withdraws from it. My discomfort increases until my skin crawls as if something unseen crawls all over me, a panic filling my mind with such speed that I wrench my thoughts away, turning blindly back to the computer screen, staring at the document still waiting there for my attention. Minimizing it, I pull up the browser window and clear my throat.

“I will see what information I can find. Maybe someone out there has had experience with these sorts of things.”

Someone has to know something.

Gralius says nothing but stands as I begin to Google, my intended work forgotten. I am aware of his shadows shifting over and around me as he moves. For a time, he even talks quietly to Wilox when my familiar stirs to wakefulness. Mostly, however, I can feel Gralius’s eyes on me, watching as if waiting for something before he too disappears from my room with a flutter of dark fabric and wings, his long hair streaming behind him as he departs.

I search and search tirelessly, with nothing but dead ends piling up in front of me everywhere I look. There are some interesting ideas presented in feng shui material I find that suggests that certain ill-suited arrangements can attract bad energy and cause stagnation. It doesn’t feel quite right for my particular situation—it doesn’t mention anything like what I have experienced—but I bookmark it anyway and continue my fruitless search. As I work, Gralius comes and goes, sometimes just briefly to brush a wing along my arm and speak quietly to me to entice me away from the computer.

But he doesn’t understand. I can’t. I must at least try to figure this out—I have a terrible feeling that there is more than my sanity at stake if I can’t figure out the cause of these attacks.

All the while, I can’t forget the way he looked at me, his eyes glowing as he watches and waits. That image of his knowing gaze follows me as I work even when I want to scream with frustration. And Gralius is always there, even if half-hidden in the shadows, he is there to wrap comforting arms and wings around me.

I am not sure when I fall asleep at the computer, but I know the moment that my reality shifts as everything dims as if looking through a gray veil. I jump to my feet when the barbs—the selin—snap up around my desk to ensnare me. At my shout, Gralius is at my side, his fingers threading through mine. Lifting two fingers, he summons a pale blue ethereal flame, establishing a barrier that they can’t cross even as everything around me tears apart and twists in on itself.

I watch it all from this bubble of safety, fear clawing at my throat as the selin climb around us, buds opening to hiss and snap as they weave together, climbing ever higher like a bamboo fence if it had glossy, black barbs that can flay skin and ravenously hungry flower buds with a multitude of long, thin, inky tongues that extend from them to taste the air.

Through it I hold tight to Gralius, throwing up wards as I cast banishings that slam through segments of them, obliterating the small walls of twisting selins in small masses. Unfortunately, they are quickly replaced with others, multiplying like the heads of hydra. Terror climbs up my throat as they fill more and more of the room, the dark fissures from which they sprout growing larger, filling the room with more and more darkness until I can feel it practically choking me out. More ruptures and splinters form rendering my room an unrecognizable environment of pure predatory hunger that seeks to devour nothing else but me.

Gralius’s wings fold around me the moment that I scream. I cling to him, my rock within the storm, but I can’t stop screaming. Not until the dream fades to blessed unconsciousness as I remain tucked within my demon’s arms.

Gralius

Istep outside, fanning my wings wide around me, stretching them out as I do every morning. As always, I don’t step far from her house, just far enough to enjoy the fresh air on my wings. The stagnation within the house is increasingly oppressive, creating its own distinctive scent of death that inhabits most haunted places—in addition to the foul food smells. A shame that there are limits to what I can do corporeally in this world, or else I would have done something about the latter. My wings stiffen as I pause, my eyes snapping to a nearby shadow that shifts, and my lips pull back away from my teeth in a silent warning.

I have never been an easy male to overtake, and my more recent experiences within the Fire Realm has hardened by further than even my brethren would have guessed.

Turning my gaze toward the street, my eyes narrow as a shadowy form lingers near the same tree I stood beside previously, the edges of his cloak blending in with the falling darkness of night. Although many entities wear dark robes as they move through the human world, it is the sculpted white mask that truly gives his presence away even as it gives him is anonymity.

An anonymity I no longer have. I may not know which demon this is, but he will not be able to mistake who I am.

My wings expanding around me, I take a step off the porch, each feather vibrating with tension, drawing the thanatos’s attention to me. He pauses, one pale hand brushing the trunk of the tree beside him and cocks his head. To my surprise, his opposite hand lifts and he slowly pulls off his own mask, a thing unheard of for any thanatos to do in this world, to peer at me. My surprise morphs into annoyance, however, with recognition.

Nemonios, a demon who was not only my peer but also my greatest rival during the days of our education and training, stares curiously over at me. He appears to consider approaching, his weight shifting forward, but then seems to think better of it. The male has a reputation of being too soft-spirited but I know he is a vicious fighter when pressed, so I am glad that he rethinks what could lead to an unpleasant encounter between us.

“Gralius?”

“Nemonios,” I reply coolly with a tip of my head in greeting.

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