Chapter Thirty Five

Listen closely to the thunder of His voice, And the rumbling that goes out from His mouth. Under the whole heaven He lets it loose, And His lightning to the ends of the earth -Job 37:1-18

I wasn’t planning on staining my pants with the blood of the last boy I'd ever love but I did drag a defenseless human into an angelic battle. Guess it was fate.

Guess that's my motto.

Guess I was fated to love him. As much as he was fated never to survive that. Yes, he was always fated to die. In the tilt of my head and the grind of my teeth. Because I won't let him go.

The others are all gone. Coral was a walking corpse long before now. Fabian abandoned us. Blaze sacrificed herself. To give us a chance. To give him a chance.

Mark. Mark Chance. Middle name Never-stood-a.

Fallen still lurk in the pines around us. There aren’t many left, their shadows flit silently through the underbrush. I don't extinguish the fires among the trees, instead I feel Blaze’s soul igniting around me, her noise and her heat and her fury. She took most out them out with her. But there is enough. Enough to stop two stupid sixteen year olds. I tried. To get us away. To get us safe.  But saving lives has never been my strong suit. So I got out my knife, Italian stiletto, nine inches, ebony hilt. I’d been saving it. The prom condom. The happily ever after. Guess not.

Mark. Mark covered in so much demon sweat and blood, they’ll have to peel him apart before they realize he’s human. They’ll break him and discard him in the dirt for the forest to reclaim. Mark left inside out. Mark’s rotting meat renovated into affordable housing for maggots. Mark’s blood fertilizing topsoil for another future urban sprawl. Marks bones a hidden treasure for a scrawny kid and his idiot dog to find in their yard one day. No. I won’t let them have him. No one can have him. He’s mine.

Our Mark, My Mark. On my Mark. Get set. Go.

I don't even think about it. It's instinctual, carnal. The winds pick up. Swirling around us. Pressure drops. Circling flames, caught in the churning air, encapsulate our bodies in a cocoon of embers. A roaring like thunder permeates my eardrums. He is exquisite, so softly illuminated by the dawn. His bullet is still lodged inside my leg. His words are still ringing in my ears. These things are temporary. But he isn’t. He can't be.

Burning. The forest is burning. And my boyfriend is dying.

His eyes are large, glassy, lucid. Those eyes. That watched me so often in bewilderment yet somehow knew me better than anyone I’ve known. The kind of eyes that make you think- the kind of eyes that were my Eden. It’s a blessing I can never return but perhaps I can repay. Intimacy with death. The only gift I have to give. I am at heart, an artist. Death is my medium and he is my muse. His skin a pallid canvass stretched taut over bones too long for his body. He deserves a beautiful death. He deserves this. I owe him this. I owe him this.

An angel lunges at me, driving my back into the forest floor. It’s smaller than the rest and caught me by surprise. A shriveled form the size of a fifth grader. I bring up my good knee sharply and send the fallen careening over my left shoulder and through the eager edge of my knife.“Can’t you just leave us alone?! For once just leave us alone!” I shriek tightening the funnel of wind so it stings my eyes and lashes my hair around violently.

He is not finished. I’ve only cut the preliminary. The line work. Blunt incisions.  I need to free him. Metempsychosis. I can feel we were genesis in a past life, falling through time together. My soulmate. I didn’t know that was possible when you don’t have a soul.

He is alive if only in the purely biological sense of the word - his arterials are still spurting when I sever them. I slide the blade up each foot, a precise line of ruby drips onto the leaves. I twist a gentle curve up his side, caressing his ribcage with the knife. Crimson leaks out in a Mona Lisa smile. Then I drive the switchblade into his slender shoulder, slipping into the socket and levering his arm out of position. I cleave the other arm off entirely. Carving him into a graceful reminder of Rome. His ivory skin liquid marble. The slashes in his flesh cracks from eons of wear. A masterpiece. A Venus de Milo of the modern era. A perfect casing for a perfect spirit. After all, he was always trapped in the shell of his own body.

I crawl on top of him, sitting on the burgundy pudding of his viscera. Suddenly I’m drowning in the bliss of our embrace.  His pharynx is a lollipop, his tongue chewing gum. I’m polishing his teeth with my saliva, nibbling playfully on his eyelashes and jamming my tongue under his eyelid. I lick the blood off his ear and clean it from the hollows of his mouth. My lips drift south, blown by the blustering wind of gases escaping his trachea. I pause over his abdomen, my kisses grow more ravenous, insatiable. My teeth skim the surface until I summon the courage to dive in. Ignoring the urge to choke I force cold chunks of meat down my esophagus. And as I sink into his torso all I can think is -finally. I’m able to reach his stomach with the help of my nails. I want to taste the last thing he ate. I want to share everything. I tug on the smooth muscle until it bursts. Spewing gastric acid and the zombie remains of lunch all over. I vomit uncontrollably.

“Mark?” I cough out. “Mark come on. We have to go. We're going to be late.”

But he doesn't answer.

I crawl up next to him and lay my head down beside his.“Come on Markie stop playing. We're going to be late, I made reservations. A proper date. They're cooking your favourite. I can smell it already. Practically taste it,”I wipe something slimy off my lips. “Can’t you?”

I brush a strand of hair aside and lay a kiss over the scar I gave him an eternity ago. Then on the Alpine slope of his cheekbone. Down his jaw. Nothing.

“God damn it Mark. Why’d you let me do that,” I say softly. “Now we’re going to be late.”

The air seethes and crackles above us. I reach my hand towards the sky and lay the other on his chest. His gorgeous chest. Focus. I channel the electricity. Not around my body but through it, taking the brute of the force. A human is roughly two thirds water, enough to be a decent semi-conductor. Let's hope my demon half will keep me alive. The lightning touches my fingernails first and from that moment my entire body turns to fizz. It doesn't hurt, but my teeth feel like they're going to pop out like pearly little bullets.

He convulses sharply. His spine an arcing. Veins jump along his hands. And then he's limp. Limp as a raggedy Ann Tizya doll. I am eight years old again.

God damn it. Mark. GOD DAMN IT.

Raindrops begin to fall on his face. I curl my hand to pull the clouds out of the sky because nothing- nothing gets to touch his face, before I realize there are no clouds. And there is no rain. And I’m crying. Why am I crying?

And why do I feel so afraid?

I’m still shaking so violently even though the lightning’s left my body. And I feel so afraid. And so small.

I’m still trying to resuscitate him when the cops arrive. I’m still pushing air into his lungs when they press their guns to my head. I’m still sparking lightning into his chest when they drag me off.

“I'll tell them Mark!” I yell into the fading stars, struggling feebly against my restraints. “I'll tell them Coral! I'll tell them Blaze! I'll even tell them what you did Fabian you piece of Euro trash! I’ll tell them all,” I double over sobbing my throat swelling shut. I'll tell them all how you guys were the best friends a monster could ask for…

I want our story to be told. I want us to be remembered as we were, what we were. Not to fade into gossip and hearsay and slander. Reverberated into scandal. Echoed into distortion. I don’t want to be five runaways, or truants or criminals. The cliche pinnacle of troubled youth. A dumb cautionary tale about impulse control. Three demon hybrids on the run from angels with their half sister and boyfriend. Who could believe it? That we were the victims. Even if our side was heard it'd be simplified, streamlined and conventionalized until we once again took the roll of pitiful antagonists. They'll never know how Fabian's rare smile made his eyes shine more gold than red, and how he must've been touching up those purple tips as much as he denies it. They'll never know the way Corals hands curled around her sweater cuffs when she got upset and her hiccuping polar-ice-vodka-drunk laugh. They'll never know how Blaze made sure everyone was asleep before closing her eyes and the way her voice shook whenever she mentioned her mother. And Mark, they'll never know his subtle acts of heroism, the way you can catch him late at night smiling at something ridiculous I said, past the point of exasperation. They'll never know the gentle, brave soul I fell in love with. They'll never know.

It isn't fair, but I guess that's the bittersweet reality of a myth.