Page 83 of Souls We Rip

I grabbed the Mirror and began my search, dread passing through my skin. “He can die?” My voice changed from a second ago; it was harsher, hoarser and ready to shout.

“Not entirely. As all of us, you and he can be tortured, beaten, stabbed, gutted, and a lot more. In your human form. With your skull on, you are untouchable.” He floated closer to me. “The only one who could die is his spirit.”

Trying to ignore the images out of my head, I grabbed my Mirror again and tapped it. Red spread over the glass as if the Mirror knew exactly what I was missing. A smile spread over my lips.

I refused to let Tiberius die. Not when we were halfway through fulfilling that wretched contract.

The Goat Man

“Brother, such a joyous reunion!” the Elk shouted, waking me up from my daze.

I couldn’t open my eyes; they were too swollen. I lost count of how many times his hooves had hit me in the past days, as if I were a rag doll. He pushed his antlers into my skin, and he kept me alive only to feel my organs bleed.

The candles flickered once when he entered the room.

“Too bad you cannot talk.” He was right about that. He used his powers to sew my mouth shut with wool. Poetic. Wool was how our parents made a living. “Therefore, I will talk, little brother.”

He sighed, taking a seat next to me. “When you killed me, I didn’t know you had the nerve. You were so sure with the scythe; I knew what to do in death.” He hit his hooves together once, pushing my body jerk forward. “Humans are so meagre in thinking there’s no Hell out there. Because it exists, in our subconscious, in our sins. And I have plenty of those.” The sound that came from his chest was close to laughter, but it sounded more like a cough.

“Before your scythe took me,” the bitterness returned to his voice, “I prayed.” I heard him pace, the clack of hooves drumming in my ears. “It was the first time I did it, brother. Such a weak thing! However, I prayed not to God, but to the Devil. And he listened.”

My brother stood quiet for a time, during which I hoped he would think better and leave. Still, he spoke again.

“After all, he is mightier than any deity men and women think of.” The air swished as the Elk moved. “He provided me with these powers, and thus I created a means to an end.”

The Elk sighed as if he was out of breath. “In any case, I chose to create this Order because in my search for you, I was bloodthirsty. You might wonder why I kept you alive until now.”

No, I wasn’t. But as I was incapacitated from searching for a way out of his lair, I had to stay and listen to him.

“I wanted to keep you alive until you have something precious to hold in your arms.”

My pulse stilled as my thoughts flew to the woman who was hunting for a fifth soul. The bastard of my brother wanted us to fail from the start. His obsession with corrupting the pure – was it power or punishment?

If he got his hands on someone like Ana, then his plan would have failed from the beginning.

“Our parents wronged me in so many ways. I begged them to write down that they would leave everything to me. I might even have provided you all with alimony.” He laughed again, but I couldn’t place the joke. “No, that was never the truth. I didn’t work this much, so you could take a part of what is mine.” The Elk panted, rustling the dust. “The length one must go to achieve this. The begging, the cries, the prayers thrown into the cauldron.”

“Still, let me put your mind at ease. She does not love you. A woman like her would never waste her breath on a monster like you.”

Lie to yourself, dear brother, if that soothes your pride.

“She’s too caught up in her misery or faith, however you want to call it. But I just made her doubt herself with my request. I am that evil!” His laughter made me vomit. It travelled all over the walls, making the candles flicker, their shadows reaching my eyes.

“Once you die, I can bind myself to someone and turn into a human, just as you will do. That mind of yours was wasted on you! But I digress,” he chuckled. He stopped in front of me, his antlers grazing my face. “That is why I want pure souls.” I heard a smile in his voice. “They would be easier to trick into signing my humanity with them.” The Elk took another step forward. “And then I’ll just end them.”

He roared again and held his stomach. Acid reached my tongue. I squeezed my lids shut to keep myself from vomiting.

“And once you, dear little brother, will die and reach Hell, then I will be the owner of my birthright.”

Ana

The sixth soul

My Mirror guided me to the east side of my country.

The sand was soft between my feet, the seashells cutting into my skin. And the sea…

The shifting of the waves pulled me to it, their song the most bewitching sound I heard. The murky water of the Black Sea was calling my name, the salt filling the air, clinging to my skin.