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Breathing Lessons
It was already full dark when the Prime of Darkness stepped into the living room, finding Gracey at the couch with a book and her knitting. He wondered fleetingly how she managed to do both at the same time.
Hearing him approach, Gracey set her needles in her lap and smiled. Darkness thought she looked tired — her skin looked ashen and she had the beginnings of her circles under her eyes. He could see faint lines in her forehead. Worry lines, she’d called them. He wondered how much of her worry was for the murdered man and his wife and how much was something else altogether.
He hated to worry her further. And what he had to tell her would certainly worry her further. He had never before wished nor cared for the ability to lie. He felt this wish burn deep in him now.
There was nothing to be done about it.
“Gracey,” he said. His voice was even, steady. He looked her in the eye, held her gaze for several beats before saying, “I have to go out for the night.”
Frowning, Gracey glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s late,” she said, her voice tinged with an unfamiliar weariness. “Where you off to?”
The demon clenched his fists. “Gracey. I have to breathe.”
She was confused only a moment before realization clouded her face and her mouth opened slightly as she began shaking her head. She closed her eyes. “How long?”
The Prime of Darkness shrugged, never taking his eyes off her. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll be back before morning. It’s not safe for me out in the day. You know that.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on her. There was nothing she could say that would make him stay, of course. What he did was done not for wont or desire but for the basic fact of his existence. “Breathing” was thus as apt a term as any. Still, she was human, and her field of vision was different from his. He couldn’t expect her to understand or give even tacit consent. What he was about to do, even though he had no choice, she would consider evil. And perhaps, from a certain point of view, it was evil.
There was nothing to be done about it. One cannot help but breathe. Even if one doesn’t want to.
Night envelops him like a glove. He slips into it easily, weaving strands of shadow and darkness around his figure like a weaver at a loom. The spiked pauldrons, which would have gleamed under even the softest starlight, are safely tucked into shadow where curious eyes will pass right over them, finding nothing of note upon which to linger. The motorcycle is harder to conceal for the terrible rumble it makes as it vibrates beneath him, but with small effort he extends his obfuscation to include the fantastic hunk of metal he has come to love so well, cloaking it both in darkness and silence. Hidden in his twisted, tenebrous veil, the Prime of Darkness is not strictly invisible, but unless one knows precisely what to look for, he will remain unnoticed.
There are those who know what to look for, however. Angels with holy agendas, demons from enemy lordships, wanton spirits and unhappy ghosts seeking chaos, adventure, challenge. Groundless violence is as prevalent amongst the traditionally bodiless as amongst the corporeal, and the Prime of Darkness, though he has existed since time out of mind, is not ready to transcend existence and lose his individual identity. He is even more vulnerable in this ridiculous body, with its lumbering limbs and clumsy movements, its slow reaction time and tendency toward injury. To keep himself safe from those who would see him destroyed, he fashions for himself a blade forged in shadow and tempered in calamity; a blade so black it seems a hole in the world. Into that blade he pours despair and destruction. One cut would be all it took. He could kill a mortal in a fraction of a second; they’d never even see him coming. But the blade isn’t for mortals. The blade is for adversaries unknown. A soldier must always be prepared.
Forging the blade has used much of his reserves. He’s running on empty. He hasn’t time to waste.
He revs the bike and looks toward the horizon. The thrill of the night’s promise ripples through him, sends waves of electricity through his being. He can ride for a few hours if he must. Take his breathing to a place as far from Love & War — as far from Gracey— as he can.
He avoids bars. They buzz with an energy he doesn’t understand and can’t tolerate. The overt sexuality clings to his skin like oil, makes it difficult to concentrate. He often wonders if that was what intoxication felt like, and why anyone would seek it out.
Humans are beneath his understanding.
He drives past bars, past liquor stores, past alleyways and all night diners; he rumbles past movie theaters, gas stations and empty parking lots. The city at night is a glorious thing; neon lights flash gaudily against the dim gray of night, the natural blackness of the sky sucked into the city’s ambient light. What the city’s night lacks in starlight it makes up for in street lamps, the burning ends of cigarettes, the eerie glow of a cell phone screen. He hums in near silence through the city’s slick streets, past hookers and drug dealers, past groping couples, past homeless men, none of whom turn a head in his direction, none of whom sense his presence. For them it is just another night. He glides past them, right through their night, ensconced in near-invulnerability, looking for a place to breathe.
Desmond Street turns into Munroe, winding away from downtown toward the river. He follows the yellow lines, obeys the traffic signals, sniffs the air for a sense of direction. Looking for a place to breathe. When he rounds Munroe’s soft bend, unsuspecting, finding black grass backing up to a small amphitheater, he knows he’s found sanctuary.
He parks the bike, saunters into the amphitheater. It is set into the side of a hill, crude concrete benches arranged around a small, moodily lit stage. He surveys the crowd, finds it is mostly women. The performer is an indie rock singer with a twelve string and a twang in her classically trained voice. It makes for a dazzling combination. Her voice, not big by any standard, carries surprisingly well. It is a sparse audience, but for his purposes more than adequate. The Prime of Darkness only needs one soul to consume.
Two women sit at the back of the theater, one collapsed happily against the other, their fingers entwined. The woman leaning against the other, a freckled, strawberry blonde wearing an oversized red sweater, is humming along with the singer, a hazy smile on her face. The other woman sits upright, expression mostly impassive, stroking her lover’s hair unconsciously, pumping a crossed leg to the song’s beat.
It takes less than a second for the Prime of Darkness to strike. Nestled deep in his armor of shadow, the demon’s consciousness reaches out to the redhead, piercing her heart and soul with a cold blackness he reserves specially for these occasions. He penetrates her quickly, finding the core of her warm and welcoming, the perfect feeding ground for this mission. As soon as he is inside, the black spear of his consciousness blooms into a thousand inky tendrils seeking out every crevasse of her being.
Possession.
Invaded, the woman sits up, pulls away from the woman caressing her. The smile slips from her face and she reaches up to her chest, clenching at her heart. Her consort leans forward, places a steadying hand on her back. “Shannon? You okay?”
Tears spring unbidden to Shannon’s eyes as overwhelming sadness descends upon her. She doesn’t understand where it is coming from. “God, this song,” she says, her voice low and uncertain. “I just…Jesus it just really gets to me.”
The tendrils grow into blossoms, thousand-petaled flowers of icy blackness in the center of Shannon’s being. The flowers swell, finding each other, winding their way like parasitic vines around each other’s stems. The darkness seeks out Shannon’s memories, eating them like acid, leaving holes and emptiness where deposits of her human existence had been. As memories of joy, childhood, happiness and expectation crumble into nonexistence, the flowers grow thorns, puncture her lungs, letting the warm breath of her life seep slowly out.
Corruption.
She opens her mouth to breathe, the tears falling freely from her eyes. Her girlfriend sits forward, grabbing Shannon’s arm. “Shannon! Honey, what’s wrong?”
Shannon leans her head back, shaking, ignoring the tears as they fall hot and salty on her skin. “Please don’t touch me,” she says. Her voice is flat, devoid of emotion. Her girlfriend pulls her hands slowly, confusedly, into her lap.
The flowers and their thorns crystallize into ice, spreading waves of frozen despair through Shannon’s veins, into her heart, into the deepest recesses of her thoughts and emotions. Her eyes glaze over and the tears dry up. The ambient sounds of the evening drain away until all she hears is the low surf of her blood going out with the tide. She doesn’t feel the press of her lover’s thigh against her own, or the bite of the cool night air on the skin of her cheeks. The shadows of the amphitheater meld together, forming a bleak gauze that fade her surroundings into a mere impression of space. The numbness begins at her heart, growing outward until everything is encased in gray. Her eyes move over her lover’s face. They hold not a mote of recognition.
There is no music. No sky. No concrete bench, no girlfriend, no nimble fingers, no breeze of breath, no glory, no joy. No sadness, no anger, no memory, no sound, no itch, no desire, no echo. No red sweater, no freesia perfume. No nothing. The black ice of the demon taking her soul fills her up, pushes everything out until all that makes her Shannon is gone, and only a shell of meat and bone remains.
Depletion.
As Shannon drains away, leaving a well of emptiness, the Prime of Darkness’s energy meters slowly begin to tick toward full. He surges toward wholeness, every atom of his being replenishing. Her siphoned energy fills him like a balloon, and he expands, invigorated, taking her in, drinking down all that she is, leaving nothing to waste. As he gorges on her golden energy, the sky becomes brighter, colors richer, the sweet voice drifting from the stage more silken, dripping with honey. Warm life roils inside him, sending him spinning, a vortex, a universe of a billion exploding stars all his own. He prickles to life, once again replete, robust, his ultimate, shining self.
He throws his head back and roars, a soundless rumble that charges the night air around him. He laughs, bewildered at the glorious gift of existence. All this for so little! It took only the spark of one girl. A small, mostly insignificant sacrifice.
The Prime of Darkness smiles, relaxes in a way he hasn’t in a long time. Having breathed in, he is ready to spend the next several months breathing back out.
April 30th, 2011
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