Childhood Demons Ch. 03

His tail had begun to make it's appearance by then. But also by that time, he knew how to hide it. It had been rather easy, using an easily-maintained conjuration. It didn't happen until much later, but his wife had been the only one who'd known of the appendage. Though she'd been frightened out of her wits by the discovery, she'd soon come to love that about Kari, once she'd learned of what it could do for her.

Not long before he'd graduated, things began to go from an unpleasant foreboding that he had to the point where he knew somehow that something was very wrong. He'd been waiting for his parents to come to escort him home that last time, after seeing him graduate. But they hadn't come. He had barely enough money to get himself and his single suitcase back home. He never forgot the long walk home from the train station. It was well over twenty miles of worry.

As he left the double ruts which represented the road out that far from town, he saw at once that something was very wrong. There were no animals to be seen. He didn't see one until he got almost there. Then he saw them.

They were all dead.

Walking into the weather-beaten old house, the first thing which assailed him was the smell and the blood - especially the blood. It was everywhere - on the floors, the walls, sprayed high up on the ceiling.

There were corpses there in that house, and not all of them were easy to identify, they were that badly torn apart.

Kari had run out of the house and though he'd had nothing to eat that day, he threw up anyway.

Eventually, the authorities established that Kari hadn't done it. Unfortunately, they never did establish who in fact had performed the slaughter. They hadn't even established the identity of more than four of the eight deceased. The rest were never identified at all and there were no missing persons reported within two hundred miles other than the ones in the house.

But Kari had seen enough to make a few guesses. The priest was among them, along with another man. So his parents and those two were known. The rest of the bodies were not thought to be human and Kari knew that they weren't. Other than one, he just didn't know exactly who the last three were.

What was tragically important to him as he struggled, walking away from the place that he'd been born, was that his mother and her female demon friend were dead. His father was dead as well, along with the other two. Who the other three which he recognized as demonic had been, he didn't know. He'd just assumed that something terrible had happened and that his friends had died in it as well, for they'd have been large enough to have been among the bodies if there had been enough left of them for him to make a guess.

He looked into her eyes and she shook her head, having read his thoughts. "We were there at first, but our mother forced us away. Your father went to the village and came back with the priest and another man. He'd found out that our mothers were friends. It went badly enough when he learned what my mother was, but while you were gone to school those years, our mothers became closer than friends and your father was not the only jealous one.

I was outside, but I knew what was happening. My mother's male came with others and when the priest arrived, that began it.

They all attacked each other and when it was still in there, there was no one to tell us to stay away, so we went in. We found our mothers dead together, in the corner where my mother had tried to protect yours. The priest was barely alive and the other man as well. My mother's male was also alive."

She looked at Kari, "Forgive us if what we did was wrong to your eyes, but we killed them all after that, finishing what their stupidity and hatred had begun. Then we ate and we left after sealing the portal so that it could never be found."

She shrugged, "After that, we stayed on this side for a long time, living as forest beasts. When I had to, I called myself Anja and went on, not knowing where you were. Finally, we found a doorway back and I slipped inside to live with our own kind for a time. It wasn't much better for us. Tonight, I saw a rough portal opening and as several of us stood watching to see who was on the other side, I was pushed at the right moment and pulled through.

I never thought that I would see you again. Where did you go?"

He shrugged, "I came home from school alone because my parents didn't come for me. I walked from the station to the house and I saw... everything." He looked at her for a moment, "I thought... I thought that - "

She put her arms around him and held on, pulling his head to her shoulder, "No. we must have been far away by then. We were searching for you, but we didn't know where to - "

She sniffled, "I changed so that I could ask after you, but I think now that you hadn't come back yet. We looked for... a long time."

"I went to Karelia for a time," he said, "then I came back, but I never went home again. I met... Thrud and...

But then our home was crushed by snow from the mountain while I was out hunting. When I came back and saw it, I knew that I must be cursed somehow. I left to become a sailor on a steamer - a ship."

He shook his head, "There is much more to my tale of misery, Ahnyazh. At the end of it, I am here and likely facing my death this night or tomorrow morning at the hands of a few of that one's friends. We have been fought down to only four. The others are outside, asleep across the way. I should go back and watch over them. At least, I should go and see that they are alright and not frozen."

"Wait!" Felldis hissed looking as though he was about to weep, "Please don't... Not leave us. Not go."

Kari looked over and saw the thin body of the male, so alike to his sister and just as lovely as she was. For almost all of his life, there had been a pair of beings who'd haunted his thoughts, and he thought of them often, wondering if they were still alive, and where they might be. He saw them on the backs of his eyelids as he closed his eyes more often than not when he tried to sleep.

Even when he'd been so in love with Thrud, deliriously happy for the time that they shared, they'd been there in his mind, seeming to only peek out in his thoughts, as though they didn't wish to intrude.

Whenever he masturbated, on those rare occasions when he had the privacy for it, it was always those two beings who he'd imagined himself with. In those fantasies, he was with the only people who were excited to have a human man - with a tail, because they knew the rest.

Kari shook his head and reached out to touch Felldis' cheek, "I won't lose you again. We didn't even begin. This can't end between us all now, not after seeing you both again.

But this is a bad place that I'm in now."

The demon tilted his head, all emotion gone save the one that was left, "Who is the foe? Tell us!"

Ahnyazh placed her arms over both of their shoulders, "Our mothers chose each other because of us. It was their gifts to each other's children that we know each other - even across the veil.

I have lived my life with the knowledge that there are two males for me. The one who was missing has come to do for me what no other of his kind would knowingly do. I have no wings anymore, but only tell me who I must kill. We would do anything for you."

Kari suddenly felt more confidence that he ever had after marching all of the way here against his better judgement but having no say in it. For the first time, he felt fairly certain that he wouldn't die up here. He might have never shown it to anyone, but to him, it was no small thing. He smiled and kissed them both for a moment.

"Other than the few men out there asleep, I have found a strange ally this night not long before I came here. She is large, dark also, but brown-skinned and wearing a lionskin cloak. Come with me, if you wish, only do not harm that one or the three sleeping men dressed as I am out there.

Any others... do what you will."

The pulled apart and turned to go.