Ander - Part 6: Subchapter 155
155
Banno could see them up ahead; golden squares of light in the storm, beckoning him closer. Every snowflake falling past that light was transformed into a dying flame, as if her very presence was enough to make them real.
"Don't worry, girl, we're almost there..." Banno hoisted the eggshell of meat higher up on his shoulder and continued to climb, following the path as it wound its way up the hill. "Just a little further..."
Three buildings materialized out of the white haze of the storm. One was very similar to the house he had woken up in on that warm autumn day oh so very long ago, the day he first met Valery. The second was an attached storage shed. The last was the tallest and ended in a pointed ceiling, reminding him of the watchtowers back home, except for the spokes sticking out of the face at right angles, forming a kind of cross. He didn't really care about that, though. It was just part of the background. What really interested him were those pure squares of golden light and the smiling piece of perfection waiting for him just beyond. Did she know he was coming? Did she know he was bringing a special friend?
It wouldn't surprise him.
Banno approached one of the windows the same way he would approach a deer slaking its thirst by the riverbank; very slowly, very methodically, each step carefully planned and executed. He came in from the side, so his shadow wouldn't fall across the square of light fanning over the snowdrifts, and peeked inside.
He could see some logs burning merrily in the fireplace, some comfy-looking chairs, and part of a curving staircase, but what really caught his eye were the sketches hanging on the walls, done in a very familiar style. The firelight glanced off their glass coverings in wavering orange coronas, and he just knew he had the right place. She was in here somewhere, without a doubt. He could feel it in his bones.
Banno held his breath to avoid fogging up the window and leaned just a little bit further, running his tongue across his lips in anticipation.
A table came into view. Then a chair. Then the elbow of the person sitting in the chair.
Banno swallowed back a mixture of saliva and blood and leaned a bit further still, until the Fox's face appeared. It was Luke, fast asleep with his head resting on his crossed arms. His back rose and fell ever so slightly with every breath. Dreaming of his sister, perhaps? Of draining her until she was nothing more than an empty husk, just like him?
Banno stepped further into the light, barely able to contain himself any longer. The shell of meat lightly scraped against the wall, but that was fine. Her belly, the only important part, was snuggled up against his neck, nice and safe.
Sitting next to Luke was his afterbirth of a brother. Banno could barely even remember his name. Tim, he thought it was. Like his brother, he was fast asleep, except he had forgone the comfort of using his arms as a pillow and was just lying there with his face all mashed against the table. A small puddle of drool had accumulated underneath the corner of his mouth and was slowly spreading across the surface, rippling slightly with every snotty, nasally breath. Disgusting. To think that these two had almost gotten the better of him, had almost ripped little Valery away from him... and for what? So she could slowly wither away before their eyes? Turn into just another walking corpse? They weren't real. They could never understand.
But Valery... she was a different story. She was real. She was alive. In this world of death and ashes, she was a lone spark of colour. But she needed him to... _finish_her. Make her complete. She knew this. That was why she sent him that message of scent on the cheek of her cousin. All so she could lead him here, to this very spot, so he could look upon her, hear her, smell her, touch her, taste her, and finally...
With his face pressed up against the glass, Banno edged a little bit farther into the light. Something was coming into view, something...
Banno stood in that square of light, staring in at the slumbering family until the snow began to drift around his remaining ankle. He knew there must be a reason for what he was seeing, but he just... couldn't...
It was Valery. His darling little Valery. All curled up into a tight little ball right on top of the table, sleeping soundly beneath a light blue blanket. She had it pulled up over her muzzle, so only the top of her head was sticking out. He could see the tips of her ears, a golden shade of yellow far more beautiful than anything a paltry fire could produce. We wanted to see more. He wanted to see everything, outside and in. But his view was being blocked... blocked by the arms of that... that...
"Didn't I kill you?" Banno whispered, fogging up the window pane. Seething with anger and confusion, he dragged his claws along the wall, tearing four shallow scratches into the wood.
The dead Fox twitched his ears, shifted in his seat, and pulled Valery closer, hugging her like some toy. And to make it even worse, Valery was hugging him back. She had her arms wrapped around his face and neck, holding him close. Very close. Close enough for them to breathe each other in.
Banno's teeth ground together, making a sound like the agonal groaning of an icy lake. Blood seeped from his gums and dripped down his fangs.
How? How could James still be alive? He was dead. He was more than dead. He was beyond even the walking death of every blasted 'living' thing in this world, so dead that even the other dead things had to acknowledge it, not merely 'dead', but DEAD, so dead he should be decomposing back in that little house in the middle of nowhere, dead with a spear of iron sticking out of his chest, the spear Banno himself had put there!
DEAD!
He remembered it. He remembered every moment. He remembered taking that black iron spear with the short wooden handle and thrusting it straight down, skewering James's corpse straight through like a cockroach. His limbs even groped and grabbed like that of a lowly insect. His mouth opened and closed. Blood shot out of his wound in thick, black spurts, discolouring his clothes. He even remembered the sound his ribs had made as they collapsed in on each other. A sharp crack that pierced through his mindless gargles and put an end to his vile unlife once and for all, severing the unholy grasp he had over his daughter, freeing her, rescuing her, liberating her...
So how he could he be here? How could he be sitting in that chair, sleeping so soundly, with his face pressed up against Valery's body, breathing her in, taking her scent, stealing tiny pieces of her into himself, making them dead and fake, just like him? And how could Valery let him do it!? How, when she must have known that he would be coming for her? She sent him that message, so why...
Could he be too late?
Banno pressed his face right up against the glass. All he could see was the top of her head, the shape of her body beneath the blanket, and the white tip of her tail. Everything else was being concealed by her father's groping arms. It was like a spider devouring a butterfly, sucking it dry even as it fought for its life, twitching feebly against the creature's grasping pincers, except this butterfly was real. It was real, and he was watching it become not real.
He was watching her dying.
No!
Banno did not know how James could be back. Maybe, for those such as him, there wasn't much of a difference between 'alive' and dead. Or maybe it had something to do with Valery. Maybe, being the father of something real had imparted some of that realness to him over the years, something like a residue. Just enough to keep him going when he otherwise should have rotted away and disappeared. Or maybe it was because Valery willed it to be so. He still did not fully understand her rules, so maybe?
It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered right now was getting her back, ripping her away from the creatures sucking her dry.
Her nectar was for him, and only him.
Banno limped around to the front door, breathing heavily, and gave it a good, hard knock.
He would make them pay for hurting her.
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