Necromancer Legacy - 2. The beginning

Outside wasn’t safe, either. Nowhere was safe. Everywhere he saw blood. And he saw people becoming deformed, their shapes elongating, surrounded by shadows.

He fell on his knees, trembling. In front of him stood the man he had seen in his dreams—the one with the black hood covering his face. There was an added detail now: a sword, sheathed and attached to his back with a leather strap. Nick could see its black hilt. There was a tiny red snake curling around it.

“Why are you so afraid of me? I just want to help.”

He was speaking to Nick for the first time. His voice sounded young. And… British. He revealed himself now, pulling back the hood. Nick couldn’t help being a bit shocked; he looked like a completely normal person. Pale skin, blue eyes, light blonde hair.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Cyan. I’m a reaper. And you don’t need to introduce yourself, I already know who you are.” The British accent sounded exaggerated, and it made Nick want to laugh. Reaper? What was this guy talking about? “By the way,” Cyan said, pointing a finger, “I wouldn’t talk to me, if I were you. Not here. People are already staring enough as it is. They can’t see me, or hear me. I’m only showing myself to you right now.”

Shit. Nick looked around. The blood and deformities were gone. There was just a bunch of normal people in the street, in front of the bar, and most of them were indeed staring. One of them held up his phone. Nick hoped he wasn’t calling the cops or anything.

Or maybe he was filming, hoping to later put the video on youtube: ‘Crazy dude talking to himself outside of bar.’

Nick tried to get up, but his legs were trembling too much, and they wouldn’t obey. He felt like he was frozen in a block of ice.

“Hey! There you are.”

Sasha had just pushed open the bright red door. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, but he didn’t look cold. He grabbed Nick’s arm and pulled him to his feet. Some people stopped staring now—now that there was a normal person involved.

“Are you okay?” Sasha asked in a low voice. “You don’t look okay.” Even though he looked concerned, there was still this forced edge to his tone. This nervousness about him. “Listen,” Sasha said when Nick didn’t answer, “do you want to come to my place tonight?”

“Really? After all this,” Nick looked to the side, where he could still see Cyan, “you still want to take me home?”

“Well, yeah. If you want to.”

Nick thought of his bedroom. He used to associate his bedroom with comforting thoughts. It was always clean and nice; he even had house plants. But lately he associated it with inevitable nightmares. And the self-proclaimed reaper was still here. Surely he would follow Nick home, and haunt his nightmares some more.

To his horror, Cyan actually stepped closer. His pale blue eyes seemed to gleam under the streetlights.

“That’s it, Nicky. Go with the little fox.” Again with that thick British accent, almost like he was from another era. Also, Nicky? The reaper went on, “You need him right now. You need each other.”

“What?” Nick whispered, unable to stop himself. “What do you mean?”

Sasha didn’t seem to hear any of this.

“Come on I’m getting us a cab.” Sasha pulled him closer the way an adult would a disobeying child.

One cab seemed to come out of nowhere and stopped when Sasha hailed it. They sat in the back and Sasha leaned forward to speak to the driver.

“34^th Street please, near 2^nd Avenue.”

The driver nodded and Sasha settled back in his seat. Nick shuddered when he saw—although he wasn’t so shocked anymore—that Cyan was sitting in the passenger seat. Nick tried to ignore him. But his words still echoed in his head. You need him right now.

“Why do you want to take me home?” Nick asked Sasha.

Nick’s hand was on the door handle, like he was ready to jump out of the moving vehicle if Sasha gave a wrong answer. He must have looked like a crazy person. Which he was, really, considering he could see someone currently sitting in the passenger seat and no one else could.

“Because I… want to,” Sasha said, but it sounded almost like a question. He didn’t sound sincere at all.

“Prove it.”

“What?” He shifted uneasily in his seat.

Nick shrugged. “Prove it. Prove you’re into me. Kiss me or something.” He couldn’t believe he had just said that. So maybe the drug was still working after all.

“I can’t.” He glanced toward the driver.

And clearly the driver had been listening. “Oh, I don’t mind,” he said with a wave of his hand. “This is New York. You think I’ve never seen two dudes kissing?”

Sasha took a deep breath, and took Nick’s hand, lacing their fingers.

“It would be my first,” he explained, before looking up with those pale green eyes. There was no brown or gold in them, just green. Nick had never seen someone with eyes like that before.

“That’s sweet,” Cyan said, smiling fondly. Of course, no one else heard him. Nick closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them his unwanted imaginary friend would be gone. But he was still there. Still smiling.

“You’re so cold,” Sasha said softly.

It was true. Well, either that, or Sasha’s hand was incredibly warm.

He found himself wishing he could trust Sasha, and feel safe with him. But he couldn’t. Not really.

“How old are you?” Nick asked.

“Seventeen,” he admitted. “You?”

Nick had been looking at the buildings lining the street without really seeing them. He turned to glance at Sasha.

“Eighteen. How did you get in the bar?”

“How did you get in?”

“I know someone.”

Sasha cleared his throat, and changed the subject. “Did you take drugs earlier?”

“Um… well…”

“Don’t worry I’m not against it or anything. You just seemed really high at some point.”

“Sorry about that…” He was still supposed to be high, actually. But he wasn’t. Clearly there was something seriously wrong with his body. Now he wanted to change the subject. “Is your name Jewish?”

“No it’s short for Alexander. My mother was Ukrainian.”

Nick noted the past tense, but he didn’t push it.

Sasha was still holding his hand. He looked nervously outside the window, like he couldn’t wait to be home.

“You can drop us off here,” Sasha said when they reached Lexington Avenue. Nick reflexively reached out for his wallet but Sasha stopped him. “It’s okay, I got it. You paid for the drinks earlier.” He took out a few bills and told the driver to keep the change.

They hit the sidewalk and turned right on Sasha’s street. It was a nice area—nicer than where Nick lived, but then he supposed it wasn’t difficult to do better than Hell’s Kitchen—with clean looking buildings and fancy little coffee shops. A bus puffed to a stop, dropped off some people, and then drove on. Sasha was still holding Nick’s arm, urging him along.

Nick realized he was being really slow, which was probably why Sasha was doing this. His legs just… wouldn’t listen.

“I’m sorry,” he panted. His entire body hurt and he felt sick. He was very aware of his heartbeat. It was erratic and it frightened him, like his heart wanted to come out of his chest. He felt so cold that it almost burned. He just had to stop for a moment.

“We’re almost there,” Sasha said urgently.

“Listen to the little fox,” Cyan said in a singsong voice. “You’re almost there. He’ll make you all better.”

“Shut up, demon,” Sasha hissed.

Nick’s eyes widened in shock. “You can see him?”

“Yes.”

Cyan smiled, tucking a blonde strand behind his ear. “Only because I want you to. But I am a reaper,” he corrected. “I don’t much like the term demon.” Swathed in black from his boots to his fingerless gloves, Cyan looked like some Batman cosplayer. Only the mask was missing. He added, “Besides, I have a name, you know. It’s Cyan.”

“Like in Dragon Ball?” Sasha stared.

“What? No! Like the color.” Cyan looked all offended.

Sasha’s grip tightened on Nick’s arm, so much that the pale skin was turning red. They must have looked like an odd pair. Someone passed them on the sidewalk, but they had their hood on, listening to their music. People didn’t pay attention.

“All right. I don’t have all freaking night,” Sasha said. Suddenly he lowered himself so he could grab Nick and haul him over his shoulder, like some heavy package or something. Nick really felt sick, though.

“What are you doing? Shit. Stop.”

But he was walking, holding Nick’s legs against his chest with one arm. The pavement was crunching under his black converse shoes.

“As you can see,” Cyan said near Sasha’s ear, “Nicky isn’t in the best of shapes. He really needs your help.”

“I’m the one that needs his help.”

What the hell was going on? More importantly—

“I’m going to be sick,” Nick warned.

“He really is,” Cyan confirmed with a look at Nick’s face.

With a sigh Sasha helped him down. Nick crawled to the side of a building, panting. He had never felt so horrible in his entire life. He really felt as though he was going to die. His heartbeat was fast, then slow, then fast again—that couldn’t be good. He felt an unpleasant burning sensation in his chest, but everywhere else he was freezing cold, and he was trembling.

Apparently Sasha—or whoever this guy really was—wasn’t completely heartless because he lowered himself into a crouch next to him so he brush Nick’s hair away from his face. His fingers stroked the piercings in Nick’s ear as his hand pulled away.

“Get away from me,” said Nick.

“It’s okay. Just get it over with.”

And he did. Those mojitos, which was nothing to be too alarmed about, but then… blood. A lot of blood. His body was racked with spasms and his lungs were on fire as he coughed some more of the thick red substance. He was terrified, but he couldn’t stop. Sasha had a hand on his trembling back.

“So you too,” he whispered.

“What?”

Sasha ignored him. As he finished coughing, Sasha pulled him up. But this time he slid his arms under him and scooped him up, pressing him against his chest and carrying him like this. It was embarrassing. How strong was this guy?

“What are you doing? Put me down.”

“No.”

Even if he had, Nick couldn’t have walked. He couldn’t even keep his eyes open anymore. His head rolled onto Sasha’s shoulder, and he wasn’t sure if he fell asleep or passed out.

…

Unfortunately, this blissful rest didn’t last very long.

When he woke up, Nick was on a double sized bed, in a dark room. There were lit scented candles on the desk, dresser and night table. The smell was pungent, and Nick almost felt sick again. The only thing he could tell from the person living in this room was that they liked reading; there were loads of books, magazines and even newspapers piled up all over the place. Wasn’t that dangerous, with all those candles?

He realized there was someone lying down next to him on the bed. He also realized their hands were tied together, with shoe laces or something. Nick turned his head to look at him properly; early twenties, short black hair, pale skin. They actually looked rather alike. It was a bit frightening.

Your brother never used it. Will you?

That voice in his head had said something like that. Did he really have a brother? Was this him? In any case, he didn’t look so good. He was unconscious, very pale. And his breathing was strained.

“What’s going on?” Nick asked.

Sasha was looming over the bed now, looking determined and focused. His palms were glowing softly. There was a strange, soft wind blowing in the room, even though the window was shut tight. This wind didn’t come from outside. It wasn’t cold at all.

“Who is he?” Nick insisted.

“Someone I need to save.”

With one knee on the mattress, Sasha pressed his palms to their linked hands in the center of the bed. Nick swallowed a lump of fear.

Dark shadows crept up from the other guy’s body, like they were seeping from his pores. Even if Nick didn’t know what was going on, his body knew, apparently. Because he craved those shadows. This dark energy. He knew it was his, somehow.

It went through Sasha first. A shadow crossed his eyes, and there was a pained look on his face. He gripped Nick’s hand so tightly that he thought the little bones in his fingers would break.

Suddenly the room was filled with blood. It was leaking from the ceiling and pouring all over. On the books, and down the sides of the furniture, and onto the floor. But Nick wasn’t afraid of the blood, for once. He felt… relieved, somehow. Like he knew it would all be over soon.

‘No… it won’t be over. It’ll be the beginning.’

Cyan was watching from the corner of the room, his arms crossed. He looked worried.

The dark energy was still going through Sasha, and there were beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his face. But now it was leaking from him, and into Nick’s body. Finally.

His heart started beating inhumanly fast. And it hurt. It all came rushing through him in waves. A powerful energy, something unstoppable, fierce and terribly frightening. But he needed it. He was dying without it. He knew this instinctively. Every fiber of his being ached for it. And it filled him now, as surely as oxygen in his lungs or blood in his veins.

But there was too much of it. His body couldn’t handle it. The black shadows made him suffocate. The blood overwhelmed him. It got in his eyes, and in his throat. He felt like he was drowning, and he panicked. He knew the blood wasn’t real, but he panicked still.

And then he was somewhere else. The room was gone. Sasha was gone. Everything was quiet.

The change of scenery was even more abrupt than a dream shifting to something else. He was in a dark place with what looked like snow underfoot. Even though it was dark, he could still see menacing darting shapes in the night. Silhouettes made of shadows. They were threatening him, taunting him, mocking him. What were they? They were getting closer.

His head jerked to the side as he heard moans in the distance. Like someone being hurt, tortured. He took a step toward that voice, but then a harsh, strong wind rose, preventing him from even moving. That wind carried the sickening smell of smoke and burnt flesh.

Those darting black shapes were still here. They were almost on him. He squeezed his eyes shut, and brought his arms up to shield his face.

Then he heard Cyan’s voice, cutting through the thick darkness.

“Nicky, come back, all right? It’s not over for you yet. I’ll explain everything later. But for now, come with me.”

Again, everything changed. Shifted.

Nick breathed in sharply and sat up on the bed. There was no sound except the almost imperceptible whoosh of the candles. And Sasha was looking at him with glistening eyes, panting.

“You’re alive.” He sounded shocked.

“Apparently.”