Page 4 of Commanding Flame and Shield
JUST A DREAM
AUGUST
The thing about music is that while it can be taught, it can also be intrinsic, too. Like oxygen in our lungs, or water passing over our lips. Something built and bred within someone, flowing out like a lifeblood whenever its vessel was sliced open.
It had always been that way for me. Since childhood, my mother often told me I was born with music in my bones, and she did all she could in order to ensure I understood how to set it free.
The late sun warmed my skin through the large panes of glass, illuminating the loft in an orange haze. I kept my eyes closed as my fingers effortlessly worked their way across the piano keys. I enjoyed leaning into the warmth, more than witnessing its bright reflection off the glossy black instrument in front of me.
There would be other melodies dancing with this one—under and over, an entire composition braiding together in my mind. I felt her energy behind me, a smile creeping onto my face before I felt the touch of her fingers, chilled by the glass they’d cradled only moments before. She gingerly stroked the back of my neck, careful not to be too distracting, and then gently ran her fingers into the short curls she loved so much. I kept it this length for her, unable to disappoint those sweet sapphire eyes by cutting it shorter.
Layla inched around to join me on the bench, and I scooted over to make room without breaking the melody. I opened my eyes to drink her in. The red satin of her nightdress clung to her curves, mercilessly peaking across her breasts, thin straps set precariously on the edge of her shoulders. She slowly lowered her hand onto my back, eyes closing as she breathed in the song. Cascading golden waves of hair were determined to wrap around her shoulder.
Finishing my new song, I transitioned into her favorite, and her smile broadened.
The summer had been a long one, chaotic in its best moments, and I was regretful that businesses had dominated my time, leaving her to her own devices more often than not. Her patience for me was endless, and for that, I was grateful. She had her own hobbies, and work kept her busy most days, but her hours weren’t nearly as long as my own. And then there were the dreams that had kept me staring at our city most nights. Nightmares that, even now, made my blood turn cold as I remembered the sight of them. The otherworldly demons that plagued my mind.
Between sunrise meetings and terror keeping me from my mattress to scowl out at the city, Layla must have grown tired of cold sheets and lonely evenings. But somehow, through God's grace, here she sat, thin lips stained red, brushing along my arm in thanks forhersong. She inched them up over my shoulder, desire building in my core as she traced my collar, teeth teasing my neck before she whispered in my ear.
“Come to bed, my love.”
I nodded slowly, leaning my face to hers as she pressed her lips into mine, burning with desire and demand. The melody came to an abrupt halt as I turned towards her, pulling her against me as longing grew urgent.
“August,” it hissed, eyes like hot coals piercing my soul. The creature was as black as the gap between stars, its webbed hands dripping with foul smelling liquid. “Where are you, half-breed?” The thing demanded in a breath. Its razor teeth coated in what looked like blood.
I didn’t answer—couldn’t answer as the air trapped in my chest. Not that I would have wanted to tell that creature anything, even if I could regulate my damned breathing. I looked around the alley, finding only trash against the large dumpster and an abandoned box home—nothing to defend myself with outside of my own hands. The creature shuddered forward, crab like, as it advanced, baring its fangs, which I was now certain dripped with blood.
Other horrors emerged from the shadows of the buildings—all different shapes and sizes, all dark as night, darting in and out of the black along the walls. I felt my body shudder as I turned to run—swearing at my helpless, unarmed state. Of course, I was fucking barefoot.
Muscles firing obediently, I sprinted from the alley, nearly being sideswiped by a taxicab as I darted into the street. I risked a glance back over my shoulder, to see the creature who had spoken had swollen into a gargantuan shadow in the alley, long fangs bared in anger, as the rest of the shadows flew from the lane, blending effortlessly into the blackness under the cars racing across the street, hiding from the streams of lights above them.
Skidding to a halt after a long leap over one of the stretching silhouettes onto the sidewalk, I threw my arms out to repel my body from the brick wall, ignoring the scrape of grime and gravel below my naked feet, and ache of my hands as small beads of blood sprang forward on the skin.
Unsure of where else to go, my feet led me towards home. Could monsters be killed with bullets? Knives? I hadn’t a clue. But I didn’t know what else to try. I bypassed the elevator at the front of the building, noting the absence of the reception team and security guards. The stairs burned through my legs as I raced them, painfully aware of the terror building in my body as I forced my muscles to keep leaping up the flights of stairs.
You will not die. You will not die.
I burst through the front door, turning for our room where we kept the pistols, but staggered to an abrupt halt. Layla.
Long tendrils of hair eerily dancing in the air, Layla was suspended above the ground as though by magic. Her eyes unseeing as their empty pupils stared straight at me. Through me. Past me? Her face was horrifyingly slack, a small trickle of blood escaping her lips. An animal scream ripped from my chest as I lunged for her.
Just in time for the shadow creature to emerge—somehow concealed behind her limp body—and run a blade through her heart. The scream being torn from my throat turned barbaric, my body running cold as I lunged at the thing, energy swelling in my chest in a frantic cry of panic. I threw up my hands, and an enormous light blinded me as the room filled with white—a twisted howl of pain coming from the creature as someone, or something rammed into me, throwing me to the ground. I pushed myself up, back to my feet, frantic, only to come face to face with emerald eyes, ringed with gold—wide with panic, grief-stricken tears raining down a perfect, intensely pale face. The woman’s high cheekbones were glittering with tears. Long brunette waves framed either side of her face, caked in dark, viscous liquid, blood splattered along the side of her neck.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was breathy, as though she had just run up the stairs after me. In any other circumstance, I would have been spellbound by her radiance. She stood, wearing white linen beneath ancient silver armor that could have been metal, but moved like leather. Her torso was draped in a silver chain—a bandolier—with sheathed daggers on either hip. An antique leather archer’s glove on her hand. Her body was long and lean. A warrior. Too perfect. Tall enough to wrap her defined arms around Layla, freeing her from whatever horrifying magic bound her. She lifted her as though her body weighed nothing at all and set my fiancé on the floor in front of me. She gently closed those haunted, unseeing eyes. I hadn’t realized I had fallen to my knees until I felt the blood pooling on them as it poured from Layla onto the glossy concrete floor.
“I’m so sorry,” the ethereal woman whispered, eyes distant. I couldn’t fully tell if she was speaking to me, to Layla, or to herself.
The light in the room faded, and I could make out the shapes of others like her in the corners, hands extended eerily in front of them. Their undeniable energetic presence demanding as the sea upon the shorefront. As my vision returned, I realized they all were very much alike, tall and serene looking, eyes staring unseeingly forward, as Layla’s had been.
The screams assaulted my ears before I realized they were my own. “Help her!!” I demanded, fury seething like fire in my lungs. I repeated the phrase, reaching down and scooping her to me, her blood soaking my bare skin.
“Aren,” the woman called over her shoulder, too calmly, in her metallic voice. A man circled around at the sound of his name. He had at least eighteen inches on me—and I am no mouse of a man. He nodded solemnly, eyes darting warily to mine. As thoughhedidn’t trustme. He bowed his head, holding out his enormous arms as if to ask my permission.
“Help her!” I begged again. He nodded once and scooped her out of my arms like a child lifts a doll, her bloody body limp, cradled against his broad chest.
The woman looked at me, eyes narrowing intently. “Where are you, August?!”
The demand sent a shock through me, and I held my breath, looking from her to the mountain of a man walking away with Layla, her blonde hair tinged with crimson. Was this a rouse? Was she a siren, damnably perfect, come to retrieve the information the monster had failed to claim?
