Orior

Orior

        “Hey, I was sitting there!” James whined half-heartedly. He knew it was no use—his spot on the pier railing was lost. Maybe if Sully had shown up he wouldn’t have this problem, but then again, maybe he would. He gave the twelve year old, with his one year of stupid superiority, one last angry glare as he turned to walk off the pier. As he turned his eyes from the brute’s face, James felt the familiar pang of uselessness. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and counted the number of sidewalk blocks it took to go from the pier’s edge to the bike rack around the corner of the Snak Shak. Seventeen, eighteen, ninte—



         With a painful smack, James found himself on the floor, tangled with another boy around his age. The boy looked really quite average, save for the red tips to his short dark hair and mischievous glean to his eye. The boy popped up quickly and reached out to James with his arm extended, a dazzling smile splayed across his face. Hesitantly, James locked wrists with the boy and was standing on his feet in no time. “Hi,” the boy said confidently, “I’m Kai. You’re James.” Surprised the boy, Kai, knew who he was, James only managed to nod in response. Few people knew his name; surely James had met this Kai before, but he was sure he hadn’t. He would have remembered the anxiety he felt as Kai’s confident stare continued to rest on him like a weight on his shoulders.



         Quickly, James managed to excitedly stammer, “Y-, yes that’s me!” Kai’s hand shot out and James shook it violently. Kai looked down at their hands, still in motion, and gently cleared his throat. James abruptly dropped his hand and took half a step backward, waiting for this boy to explain, but an explanation never came. Kai stood with his hands in his pockets, feet open like he was waiting for something. “How do you know my name?” James prodded. Kai smiled and looked around James as if making sure no one else was around before answering.



         “Listen, James, I’ve got an adventure I’ve got to take care of. Would you help me?” Kai asked. Now James’ interest peaked. An adventure? What kind of thing was Kai talking about? James hoped it wasn’t illegal, he didn’t want to say yes but he also didn’t want to lose the potential to make a friend other than Sully. “Well?” Kai prodded.



         “Okay,” James agreed, “I’m in. What are we doing then?” Kai pivoted on the heels of his feet and began to walk away, talking as he went. James had to run to keep up. By the time he caught up, Kai was already half way through his sentence.



         “… just need to collect a few things and then we should be set. We should be able to get it all at one place, even the powdered demon’s blood. We can get some from Old Man Flannery’s shop. You know where that is, right?” Kai didn’t look at James as he spoke, just kept walking but James stopped short.



         “Powdered demon’s blood?” he awkwardly repeated. He raised an eyebrow to Kai and Kai raised one in return.



         “What, it’s for the ritual. Don’t worry about it; it won’t hurt you,” Kai reassured, but that hadn’t been what James had been asking. As the murky stretch of sidewalk continued to loom in from of them, James feared they would never stop walking. Suddenly, Kai’s hand shot out and grabbed James by the shirtfront into a dark grimy alley. It was the type of side street you would never notice if you weren’t specifically looking for it.



         Week old trash cans littered the street and a small homeless woman was slumped on the ground a few yards away, begging for loose change. There was something off about her that James couldn’t exactly place. The pair continued to walk down the alley just beyond the begging woman, stopping in front of a faded yellow door lit only by a small yellow light in the corner, illuminating just enough of the door to see words written on it. James stepped forward, intrigued by the place they had come to. He wiped his sleeve across the dust on the door, revealing the words “O’Flannery’s Mystical Gifts and Pub”. Kai pushed the door open with a flick of the doorknob and the yellowed words faded from sight, instead replaced by an entirely new scene. A cloud of overhanging smoke escaped from the ceiling out the door. James followed Kai inside as the door shut behind them and James was overwhelmed with the stench of body odor and alcohol. Huge men glared from behind their mugs as Kai hurried James to the shop area in the back.



         A crooked old man was wiping glasses behind the counter and appeared not to notice them. The room was amazing, more spacious than James had imagined could occur in the back of a pub. Not much space was left available; every wall was covered in posters and maps James had never heard of. Surely they must be fake, James wondered. Every corner and counter top was filled with strange items and mysterious jars containing unknown substances. James gaped as he stood in the entrance to the room. Kai was not as impressed and walked right toward the counter. Slowly, the old man looked up from beneath his thin framed glasses and threw the towel over his shoulder.



         “What can I do for ya, boys?” he asked in a thick Irish accent.



         “Are you Mr. O’Flannery?” asked Kai. His body was that of an eleven year old but his demeanor could pass for much older. The old man straightened, curiously leaning over the laminated countertop.



         “Who wants to know?” the old man asked mysteriously.



         “We’re looking to buy.”



         “I’m afraid I don’t know what yer talking about, lad.” The old man stated, clearly lying but not willing to give information out freely. The two considered each other for a long minute before Kai responded.



         “That’s fine, we’ll take our money and go,” Kai bluffed. The old man’s murky brown eyes shone green as he considered the seriousness of the boy in front of him and the possibility of a lost sale. Slowly, Mr. O’Flannery leaned back against the railing behind him, crossing his arms over his body.



         “Well, what were you looking to buy?” the old man asked. Kai’s face transformed from hard set determination to an accomplished grin in a second as he leaned over the counter to start his bargaining. About fifteen minutes of heated bartering later, Kai piled several strange looking coins onto the tarnished countertop in exchange for an assortment of misshapen items he collectedly placed in his bag. As soon as all the items were accounted for, Kai turned and walked out of the room without even acknowledging James’ presence. Hastily, James followed until they were back in the alley.



         James noticed Kai’s step had quickened since they’d entered the Pub but still had time to notice the beggar woman was still slumped along the alley’s wall. Just as they were about to step back into the daylight James chanced a glance back at her and finally noticed what was off about her – instead of fingernails she had claws two inches long and eyes that held nine lives. James quickly turned away as a shiver ran down his spine.



         Kai refused to answer any of the questions James directed toward him and James felt the strong urge to leave Kai and run like mad in the opposite direction, but there was something about the boy that James could not resist. James was rushed by so many emotions all at once, he felt curious, useful (though he didn’t know why), intrigued, and a desire somewhere deep within him to impress this boy he stood next to.



      Finally, Kai turned off the main street and down another gloomy walk though this time it wasn’t nearly as dark and instead of an alley the walk eventually became a stone laid street with iron fencing on either side. Businesses became few and far between until the iron fencing became an iron gate. Here, Kai stopped.



      “Can you just tell me what’s going on?” James pleaded. He looked over Kai’s shoulder in front of him and saw where the gate led to. A large, timeworn cemetery loomed in the background. The headstones looked like they hadn’t been attended to in decades and tree roots grew up across many of the plots. James panicked, the idea of dead bodies frightened him and he wanted nothing more than to run from this place of death. A bead of sweat ran down James’ face as he stared into the cemetery. Kai grabbed him by the shoulders, turning him so his body blocked the view of the cemetery.



    “This is where I need you, James. I need you to be brave like a man. I need you to come with me in here and do a little chant. I need you to say a little poem from my book and help me out a little bit. I need you, James. And I need you now,” Kai persuaded. The look in his eyes could have convinced angels to burn cities to the ground and James could do nothing in response other than nod. How could he say no when someone needed him so badly?



    Kai nodded with James and kicked the gate’s lock until the doors hinged open with a rusty scream of protest. James followed Kai down an intricate twisting path, lacing through the unorganized headstones and avoiding stepping on as many graves as he could though it was hard to tell where one stopped and another started. The unkempt grass tickled his ankles as Kai led them off the path down a slope to the bottom of the gravesite. The largest headstones were located here and Kai walked to one with a large flat white top.



    He lifted the bag off his shoulders and dumped the contents on the top of the headstone. A dark gray stone bowl clattered around until he rested his hand on it, settling it in the middle of the stone. Vials of powder and liquid rolled and clanked against each other, almost tipping off the edge of the top. Finally, a large tome with a leather cover was pulled from the pile. Its pages were yellowed and fragile, the words inked on by hand and drawings sketched in its margins. With a look over his shoulder, he beckoned James to his side.



    Hastily, James skirted up next to the headstone and peered down on its top. The bowl rested with the vials perched along the sides and the book open to a page labeled in a language James couldn’t read. A long, sharp dagger lay near the back of the headstone. Just looking at its slicing edge made James hands sweat. He swallowed hard as Kai moved to stand directly behind him, looking over his shoulder with his mouth at the back of James’ neck.



    “Okay James, it’s your turn now. Time to be brave,” Kai whispered. His breath was hot on the back of James’ neck but his body suddenly became very cold. James shivered as a chill ran up his spine, clearing and fogging his head at the same time.



    “What should I do?” James asked in a low voice. His hands were shaking but he wanted to do this. He needed to do this.



    “Take the purple vial, yes the powder. Dump it in the bowl and say, ‘cornu pretium’,” Kai whispered the instructions against James neck and James did what he was told. After adding the next vial, a sticky black substance and repeating ‘sanguis daemonis’ the mixture began to smoke. More vials were emptied into the bowl, each with its own phrase and its own reaction.



    Soon, all the vials had been emptied into the bowl and the mixture had turned a molten violet. James looked to Kai for instruction but he was no longer standing behind him. Panicking, James swung back to the front and saw Kai standing opposite the headstone, dagger in hand. Holding the shaft in one hand, Kai drew the knife across his palm in a deep slit, only wincing a little as the blade lifted. James gasped and drew back but Kai shot him a glare that dared him to move any farther.



    James stepped back in and watched in amazement as Kai closed his fist over the bowl, allowing the blood to run into the mixture, sizzling with every drop. When enough had dripped into the bowl Kai drew his hand back, quickly wiped it off and shook his hand a bit. When he lifted his hand back to grab the knife again, the palm where the cut had been was completely healed. James gaped in amazement but Kai offered no explanation.



    Then, Kai reached for James’ hand. James wanted to run, scream, he knew what would happen and he knew he couldn’t heal like James but he couldn’t move. He was frozen to the spot and couldn’t resist as the dead weight of his hand was lifted. Kai drew the blade across James’ palm and the pain was deep. It shot up through his arm and into his brain before dulling down to an aching throb. Kai forced James’ hand into a fist and closed it over the bowl, allowing the same dripping of James’ blood to occur. The mixture turned a brilliant red and smoke rose in unnatural patterns.



    “Almost finished, James, almost there,” Kai encouraged, or as close to it as he could get. The red tips of his hair were disheveled, the excitement on his face difficult to hide as the mixture neared completion. James cringed as his hand started to swell and heat up. Kai moved in front of the headstone and dipped an empty vial into the mixture, holding it out at arms length and shouting, “resurgunt mortui!” before drinking the hot blood. When he finished draining the vial, his eyes were crazed. He dropped to his knees and looked to the sky, hands by his sides and cried out into the night.



    James looked on in horror, slowly unfreezing himself from his place and moving to stand further away from the scene playing out in front of him. The questions began to rise as he watched the ground begin to rumble in front of him. The questions had been suppressed while he was in Kai’s company but now that he stood further away he allowed them to come into his mind. With his questions, though, there was no explanation, no reason to be given as to what had happened or why Kai had chosen him. He could only look on as the grave’s plot seemed to rise and crack with Kai resting on top of it.



    Kai gave an excited yell as the concoction had begun to work. James did not know what to expect from the mixture but this certainly was not it. Soon, a bony hand, white as death reached up from the grave and clawed at the earth, digging its way out. Soon, an arm emerged, then a shoulder, and soon enough the top half of a human skeleton became fully exposed on top of the grave. Kai shouted in triumph as the skeleton began to crawl toward him, but his excitement was short lived.



    The skeletons hands grabbed Kai under the knees and began to pull. Kai shouted at it, tried to kick its maggot rotted face away from him but the pull of death was too strong. He suddenly seemed to remember James was still there as he tried to free himself from the grip of the zombie.



    “James! Help me! Help, get him off! James, please! James help me you insolent fool!” Kai screamed as he struggled but James was frozen to the spot, aghast at what was transpiring. He didn’t know how to react, the spell of Kai broken as he stepped away from him. He no longer felt the need to impress him, to make him like him, to be his friend. All he could see was the demon that lived inside Kai, being torn from the world of which it did not belong and dragged back to the depths from which it was born.



    James watched as Kai’s body disappeared beneath the earth of the grave. The dirt settled back into place, the crack sealing like the cut on Kai’s hand. James didn’t understand. He didn’t understand one bit but he knew that he had only one extinct. Run. So James ran. He left the bowl, the vials, the book, and the bag all behind. He ran through the gate, onto the walk, down the street and all the way back to the pier. He ignored the burning in his lungs, the pain in his hand and the dirty grime on his clothes. He ran until out of breath he found himself back on the piers edge where he had begun.



    “Hey James, where have you been?” a small sandy-haired boy asked, looking curiously at the mess of a boy in front of him.



    “Sully, you will not believe what just happened to me.”