Rebecca Lim - Fury

I tighten my grip on Nuriel, murmuring in her ear so that she understands, through the haze of her pain, what I’m asking her to do. As the boat moves alongside us, we make ourselves wingless and human-sized, so as not to overwhelm Bianca and Ryan. We wear the simple, sleeveless raiment that we always effect when we are ourselves.

Ryan leans out to help Nuriel aboard, and looks as if he’s going to be sick when he takes in the number and severity of her injuries. No mortal could survive what she has survived.

Bianca spreads a blanket hastily along one bench seat and Nuriel lies down upon it silently, curling herself into a tight ball before closing her eyes. The light of her dims, fading until her skin is almost matte, almost human, and only I can see the luminosity that seeps slowly out through her pores.

So quickly that none except me caught the shift, she has changed her outward appearance so that she’s wearing the same pale blue puffy down jacket, blue jeans and snow boots I first saw her in, outside Atelier Re. The same Fair Isle knitted cap is jammed low over her long, wavy, dark hair. She looks almost peaceful lying there, as if she’s asleep. But I know that it’s a sham, that she’s holding all her hurt inside. Her wounds are still there, disguised beneath her unremarkable veneer. Though her eyes are closed, her suffering is so tangible, it’s leaching into the air.

Ryan holds out his hand to me, but I shake my head. His eyes go flat and he is instantly wary and still. ‘Don’t,’ he says fiercely.

‘I need to take care of one more thing,’ I plead. ‘I’ll explain later. Get her back to shore? Keep her safe? For me? ’

He nods tightly, muttering, ‘Isn’t it always? But yeah, sure. Whatever.’

Before he can say anything more, before I can lose my nerve, I dive back below the surface of the water, shedding shape and colour as I go.

I’m almost too late.

Remiel is already at the rock, witnessing the last vestiges of Ananel’s energy melting away into the dark water. In seconds, all that remains is the blazing weapon I used to kill him, its twisted, lethal blade still embedded in the stone, almost up to the hilt.

Remiel pulls the weapon free, trying to determine its make and maker, cursing as it flares brightly in his hand before it, too, scatters into nothingness. And I’m reminded, suddenly, that only the one who created such a weapon can hold it.

He gives no sign that he can sense me. But he’s wily, and his power has been fully renewed. As I drift closer, he turns suddenly, his great hands reaching through the water, twisting into me, the stuff of which I’m made, seeking to hold me fast though he can’t see me. I twist and struggle, as invisible as the current, as he roars, ‘ Appare! ’ Show yourself!

And despite everything that I am, everything I’ve regained, his voice is like a terrible invocation that cannot be disobeyed. I am suddenly there before him, in the water.

For a moment, we are eye to burning eye. I glare into pupils the colour of molten silver. The eyes of an animal, or a ghoul.

One of his great hands is around my neck and I can’t pull free of his fingers; it’s like they’re knotted in me, as if he’s merging into me the way he forced himself upon Nuriel, and all I can feel, hear, see, is pain .

With his other hand, he keeps my slender wrists imprisoned upright between our two bodies, so that it’s impossible to manifest any kind of blade against him. If I do, he will use my own weapon against me.

I see the moment of recognition dawn in his eyes. His lips draw away from his teeth, beginning to form my name, as Ananel tried to. The pain in me seems to treble, to explode. If he utters my name, I will be powerless to do anything. The punishment that Ananel promised Nuriel will be mine.

Remiel still holds my wrists imprisoned. He’s too close for me to use a blade, too close.

Time seems to speed up and slow down all at once as I watch his mouth form the first syllable: ‘Han—’

Hell roars open in my head, as though every part of me is rejecting the name that is as much a part of me as the light. My soul, my very soul, is tearing apart at the sound of my own name.

Suddenly, as though answering my need for a weapon, there’s a gun in my hands: sleek and heavy, with the look of a semi-automatic about it. A perfect replica of the real thing, requiring no speed, no strength, no finesse to wield. Only proximity and dumb luck.

I am fear, I am disgust, as I force the muzzle up underneath Remiel’s jaw, then pull the trigger. A single shot, the bullet as deadly as any cutting surface I ever devised. It blows him away, and a blast wave of heat and energy and dark matter knocks me to the lake floor.

When I open my eyes, there’s nothing left of him. All that heat, all that venom, that negative energy, already returned to the universe, already dispersed.

I stare at the gun in my hand, catching a rivulet of blue flame playing quickly across its surface before it disappears. Just a single lick of fire, the only sign it is not a weapon of this world. Then I let the gun fall from my trembling fingers, revolted, and it, too, disperses, melting away into the water.

My head breaks the surface of the seething water near the jetty, and I see Ryan waiting for me, sitting with his back against one of the pylons, his cap pulled down low against the wind, the hood of his sweater pulled tight over its crown, knees up under his chin, just staring out over the lake like a statue. He is the living embodiment of everything that’s good about this world, and something catches in me when I see him.

I pull myself out of the water so silently that he gives a yell when he realises what he’s seeing.

‘Christ, Mercy,’ he says as I lie down beside him in my true form, but human-sized. ‘ What happened to you? ’ He bends low over me, but even then the wind rips the words out of his mouth. ‘It’s been hours. It’s almost midnight. I’ve been out of my head …’

I crawl into his arms and just lie there for a while, my bone-dry skin gleaming white-hot in the absolute absence of light. There’s a dark, building belly of cloud overhead, roiling like smoke, like a live thing. I can’t seem to put my horror into words; at what was almost done to me, what I did. Without hesitation.

I’m a killer . Only chance separates me from the creatures that Ananel and Remiel became.

‘What happened?’ Ryan insists, turning my face up to his.

When I still don’t reply, unable to force the words past my lips for fear I will see revulsion on his face in place of that steady, anchoring love, Ryan stands suddenly, bends down and swings me into his arms.

‘ Let me ,’ he says fiercely, looking down at me as I struggle. ‘You think it’s been easy for me to let you just walk away? Help me salvage a little pride here. It scares me when you’re like this, all frozen, with that look on your face. Don’t shut me out. Talk to me, damn it. Come back to me , the way you said you would.’

I stare at my hands, imagining the blood of demons on them.

Ryan strides down the jetty and up a set of stone stairs, talking rapidly as he goes. ‘You know the thing that gets me the most? Is that you don’t actually need me. In this entire scenario, I — am — completely — unnecessary.’

He’s almost roaring the words, and I know I deserve his anger. He waits for me faithfully, holding out for love and forever after, and what do I do? Act as if I can neither see him nor hear him, like he’s invisible.

‘You’re necessary,’ I croak, so quietly that he snaps, ‘ What? ’

‘Necessary,’ I repeat through the strange knot in my throat. ‘You’re necessary. To me. Without you, I’d go mad. Without you, I’d have no compass.’