HOBO Kyle - chapter 5

Nerio clenched his fists so hard they shook and a low rumble began to pour from his throat.

Adristya had been his most reliable complement, and his most beloved.

Her death sent a ripple of pain through his consciousness, accompanied by a surge of power. The Reckoning in absentia was a rare phenomenon, and the shock of the experience hit hard. The expiration of a complement was a foreign and bizarre feeling to the old vampire, but the curiosity of the sensation quickly gave way to agony.

The essence that Nerio gave to Adristya so long ago had returned to him with a violent intrusion. All of her experiences. All of her hunts. All of her kills. All of her memories. Everything flashed through Nerio’s psyche in an instant.

Nerio’s eyes bulged and were quivering. The spontaneous influx of centuries of information was like a spike in his skull. His lips parted, showing stained teeth. The sweet amaretto smell he emanated had dissipated and the stench of rotten eggs now filled the air. The rumble grew in volume and intensity.

Two men sat at a nearby table and noticed, but ignored, Nerio’s bizarre behavior up to this point in their evening. Both men turned towards the red faced man when his growl reached a volume above the din of the restaurant.

The larger of the two leaned over and pushed his hat up onto his forehead. Uncertainty crept across the man’s weathered face.

“You okay, buddy?” he asked.

Nerio did not respond. The torment he felt bubbled around his insides like melted glass. He became more and more red with every passing second. Saliva puddled in his open mouth and began to spill over the sides in long strings.

The smaller of the two men started to lift himself out of his seat and turned to the larger man.

“I think he’s havin’ a seizure or sumpin’.” his colloquial expression belied his concern.

The larger man shrugged in response with the double meaning of not being sure of his friend’s diagnosis, and not being sure what to do about it.

Both men stood and hesitantly moved toward Nerio. They were stopped just short of the table by the wall of sulphurous emissions. The larger of the two turned away and immediately tucked his face into his elbow. The smaller man gathered up his shirt tail and covered his mouth and nose, desperately trying to muffle the smell.

Nerio’s unfocused and unblinking eyes watered profusely. Tears cut trails across his cheeks and chin.

The men continued to reel.

“Sweet Jesus!” the larger one exclaimed.

“Ugh!” the smaller one added, before his gag reflex choked him.

Nerio’s mouth slowly fell more and more open, filling the space with a thicker and further reaching cloud of the ghastly stench. The waitress and the other diners were starting to notice, and sweater collars, shirt sleeves, and napkins were being employed throughout the room to stifle the horrible stink.

Nerio’s low frequency yowl began to intensify as well, and the glass coffee carafe on the table started to vibrate and warp. The flatware on his table began to bend in on itself. The ceramic mugs and saucers shivered and cracked.

Both men backed away from the table, concern overrode their utility.

Nerio spasmed hard as a bubble of psychic energy formed around him, then expanded out like a shockwave.

Those who had not already been alerted, quickly turned to see what was happening. All eyes were on Nerio and all were stunned into breathless silence. Curiosity held all of their attention, but the odd man’s dark magic held them in their seats.

Nerio’s despair came to a crescendo and his low gurgling growl became a deafening, harrowing scream.

Glass, plastic, and hot coffee exploded in all directions as the carafe on the table detonated from the telekinetic barrage.

The other patrons, at first startled by the sounds, grabbed for their ears, desperately trying to blot out the horrible noise coming from the fat man. They screamed and shouted in pain, but could not be heard over Nerio’s wail.

The larger man fell back into his seat. He unfolded his arm from around his face to grab at his ears and noticed an expanding blood stain on the inside of his sleeve. He cupped one ear against the sonic onslaught and with the other hand, touched his upper lip, which came away warm, wet, and red. His thumb brushed against his cheek and was also smeared with blood. The assaulting noise from Nerio was awful and disorienting, and the larger man could not stop to rationalize why he was bleeding, he just covered both ears and prayed for it to end.

Everything in the diner began to vibrate and splinter. Dishes burst. Tabletops cracked. Pipes and hoses split throughout the diner, spraying water and fire. The large windows fronting the building wobbled violently and burst out.

The sulphurous rotten egg smell filled the space, thick enough to taste, and everyone began to vomit. Blood mixed with bile and undigested food as the volume and harmonic resonance of Nerio’s shrieking ruptured the soft palates, nasal septums, and ear drums of everyone in close proximity. All manner of fluids poured from the burst orifices.

The larger man’s vision blurred as blood coated his lenses. He blinked through the obstruction and saw his companion, the smaller man, convulsing, hunched over the table. Dark goop rained from his face onto the plate of half eaten biscuits and gravy.

The waitress began to twitch and heave, lifting her hands to her mouth. They could not contain the volume, and vile muck sprayed from between her fingers. Her skin hardened and turned grey, squeezing the bones and connective tissues to the point of fracture.

The men’s skin rippled and paled. The larger one began to collapse in on himself. First he deflated like a balloon, then his skin sucked tight over his skeleton as if he were being vacuum sealed. The smaller man did not see what was happening to his friend, but succumbed to the same horror a moment later. Dark foam poured from their mouths and their eyes exploded into red jelly.

The other diners writhed in pain and confusion, and just like the waitress and the two men, their skin collapsed to the bone as if they were being drained, like a juice pouch.

The chaos of death and destruction ended when Adristya’s vitality had finished filling Nerio, and his scream subsided.

In that moment, a knowing serenity washed over him. An aura of calm, accompanied by a memory.

He was back in Mieza. He was 16 years old. He was seated in a large open room, surrounded by endless scrolls and stacks of parchment. The tutor was near and reading from his latest work.

Despite being indoors, he could feel the warm summer sun penetrating and invigorating him. Breezes kept everything cool and in motion. Life was always moving, growing, and changing. His emerging power allowed him to hear the skittering of every tiny insect in the lush grass. The beat of every wing from every bee on every vibrant flower was a symphony. The sea was far off on the horizon but the smell of the spray carried notes of a multitude of life. Everything was alive, and it was all for him.

On any other day he would have been captivated by the lessons from his tutor, but today his attention was drawn to another.

The girl had entered the chamber quietly so as to not disturb the young prince and his instructor. She was carrying a jug of wine, undiluted per request, and set it on the table. She took up the empty jug and the platter that had been arranged with bread, cheese, figs, and salted fish, then turned to exit. She never diverted her eyes from her duty, and left the room as quickly and quietly as she had entered.

The tutor took no notice, but his young student most certainly did.

Her musk was intoxicating, and she moved like a fox. Just before crossing the threshold out of the room, she cracked a sly smile. She was certain the young man would not see it, but he did indeed notice.

He stifled a powerful urge to run after her, but good training and respect for the tutor kept him in his seat.

He turned his attention back to the lesson and found the tutor had stopped speaking. He acknowledged the tutor apologetically, and the tutor simply waved the boy off, indicating his permission.

“Thank you, Master” he said, bolting from the seat. Just before rounding the doorway out of the room, the tutor called out.

“Her name is Adristya” and waved him off again with a smile.

He caught up to her quickly, approached from behind, wrapped his hands around her waist, and buried his face in her hair. He inhaled deeply and she quivered. Her response was immediate and relinquishing. She leaned back into his body as his hands searched the soft curves of her hips and thighs. She dropped her head back against his shoulder and he caressed her stomach, then moved up to cup her breasts. His hands read her every contour, and he could feel her strength, and her spirit.

“You are mine, forever.” He breathed into her ear.

“Yes, my prince.” She replied.

He spun her to face him, and she was ashen and bloody. The youth and beauty had been beaten out of her. Her jaw hung slack and broken, and a horrible tear in her neck bubbled with thick, black blood. Her eyes were dead and cloudy. He released her and stepped back. She shuffled forward, arms raised in a pleading gesture. He retreated and turned away from her.

Passing by a large polished bronze mirror, he saw that he now shared that horrific appearance. His hands were gnarled and broken as if from a terrible battle. His teeth were jagged shards, and blood poured from his shredded stump of a tongue. Pain was all around him. Adristya’s pain, and it was unbearable.

He turned back to her, and she dissolved into a cloud of dust. The particulate dispersed to reveal a cloaked man with a silver spear. Behind him was the faded outline of another woman, scared yet confident. And behind her was the faint but familiar silhouette of a man with hair like fire, and a terribly knowing grin.

Gargoyle

The word flashed again, accompanied by the pain of dozens of herculean blows to the head. Throbbing distorted everything, and waves of dizziness, nausea, and confusion destroyed the barrier between Nerio’s old memory and Adristya’s last.

Hobo

The cloaked man with the silver spear, who was once some nebulous idea, had been revealed to be all too real, and all too competent to dismiss. The last images of the fight flashed in quick succession in Nerio’s mind, and a pattern emerged. It was very slight, and Adristya was able to see it, but not agile enough to take advantage. The Hobo was fast beyond human measure and strong enough to beat the greatest among Vrykes, but he was not without flaw. It was Adristya’s final gift. The potential for victory.

Nerio allowed this small ray of light to shine through and a spark of joy twinkled his eyes, but only for the briefest moment.

The visage of the Hobo thrust his silver spear up and in for the killing blow, and Nerio felt the sting of the point penetrating his anus, skewering his organs, and bursting through his eye.

Then, Adristya went quiet. No more thoughts. No more feelings. No more passion. No more pain. Just as Nerio had promised.

As the memory faded completely, the Hobo’s incantation passed through the membrane of consciousness.

“liji weyimi wisha, inē yihini ‘alemi igedilalehu”

It was Ahz’mahdi, the old magic, the pre-civilization magic. Elemental power that was unknown and unknowable, or so it was believed. The words were easy enough to learn, but the sympathy involved in evoking their potential was foreign to even the most practiced sorcerer.

The heat and light of the fire from the invocation consumed the last of Adristya’s memory along with her body.

Nerio’s despair finally waned and he was back within himself and able to see the carnage that was spread out around him. He had allowed his true vampiric power to be expressed, and the absorbed bodies and indiscriminate destruction gave him pause, as he had forgotten how powerful he could be.

Usually a slow, steady, and delicate process, the siphoning of one’s life force was not only necessary to Nerio’s continued vitality, but a sensuous and satisfying ritual of carnal pleasures, followed by the eager imbibing of the very life essence itself, and culminating in the consumption of the reproductive organs.

But, this was something different.

This was an act of rage and anguish, meant to fill the hole in his heart left by Adristya’s death.

This was an act of fear and hate, meant to fuel the monster within him.