My Black Beast Read online

  “Stay,” she said again, patting him intently as if asking for an answer.

  “O-okay? Yeah, fine.”

  With that she moved around him and quickly made her way out the doorless entryway. Lowell ran to follow but by the time he had made it to the threshold she was gone.

  He let go a deep sigh and turned around to look back over the house, or what of it he had access to. He could no longer hear the siren and he wasn’t entirely sure if it had stopped or if the thick stone walls of the house were responsible for deadening the noise. Either way he was thankful. It wasn’t much of a bother while they’d been moving but now the noise in his brain was more than enough to make him uncomfortable.

  Left without Marka there to steel the idea that he had a purpose in this place, the strangeness of it all began to seep in. There must be someone he could explain things to, surely. But then, what could he possibly explain? Even if he wasn’t in some weird, European Wizard of Oz place, the police would be more than happy to drag him to jail without so much as even trying to hear him out. If he couldn’t explain it to seemingly reasonable adult human beings, what hope did he have of explaining to whatever demon lord ruled over a place where people opened doors with purple glowing shit?

  Lowell resolved to consider what he might say if he managed to find Marka’s parents. Lots of apologizing. Or so he thought until he remembered how scared she’d been to even make a sound and that stupid brave resolve filled him back up. But she’d come back on her own so maybe there was a reason. He clicked his tongue and wondered why things couldn’t be more straight forward. A bad guy was a beautiful thing. Uncomplicated.

  He poked around the room and looked at the carved figures. There wasn’t much to say about them. Heroic looking people in heroic looking poses, most of them men, especially the statuettes that were visibly older. They began to change and grow slimmer and younger the less worn the carvings became. Family members maybe? There were letters on the base but he couldn’t understand them, though the symbols looked vaguely familiar. Something like an ornate version of the alphabet. The words weren’t familiar though. Across the statues, many of the names seemed to repeat, regardless of the gender.

  On the far side of the room from the entrance, there was a bookshelf hewn into the rock of the wall. Most of the books were gone. Lowell picked up one of the remaining ones the way he might have in a library where everything was in German. He knew he couldn’t read it but the habit was still there. He flipped the pages, mindlessly, waiting for the words to make sense but they never did.

  He flipped through a half dozen or so until he came across a very old book that seemed somewhat unlike the others. It was bound more loosely and didn’t seem to have been made with quite the same care as the other things on the shelf. It had fairly crude drawings of monsters. One even looked like the creature Marka had fought in a way. Lowell turned the pages a bit more carefully. The book seemed hand written. Maybe they all were, but this one didn’t follow any sort of real convention. The top of each page had the same line or two before the text proper but otherwise the pages were a mash of long runs of text and small paragraphs jotted hastily and patterns or drawings with small notes. It could have been a scientific thing maybe?

  Shifting rocks outside the entryway startled Lowell and he dropped the book. One with patterns similar to Marka’s. He shifted and watched the door intently in what he imagined was a good fighting stance. After a quiet moment, he slid closer to the door and took a look out. There was nothing that he could see. Just some rocks deciding that that had been the perfect time to shift. The tension fell away and the knot in Lowell’s stomach loosened.

  He returned to the book and as he picked it up off the dusty floor, a piece of paper fell from the pages. He chastised himself for having ruined a book, though it was unlikely it belonged to anyone who cared. He grabbed the page and flipped it over. There was a picture on the paper. Not a photograph, but it had the realism of one. It looked like a rubbing, but there was no indentation in the paper. It showed a woman standing in a large square with a massive building behind. She was holding a child bundled in a sheet and the look on her face wasn’t happy in the least. He squinted and leaned toward the picture. The woman in the picture was scared and sad.

  Lowell slid the picture back into the worn pages and placed the book haphazardly onto the shelf. He turned, prepared to look around the house for more clues when a loud, deep thud sounded from a place that felt close. A split second after the thud a black-purple glow ran like a wave through a half dozen dust colored orbs that were placed around the room. Lighting, maybe? But the colors dissipated and Lowell braced himself for something worse, just in case. A few seconds passed and he left his awkward crouch for a more normal posture.

  He’d started toward the doorway to check the street when the sound of bare feet slapping against the ground found his ears. Marka. It might be. He couldn’t know. Did they all go shoeless in this place? If they were guards it was best to stay still and hope they passed him by.

  The footsteps turned to the click of rocks as they moved over the crumbled wall. Marka appeared in the door in front of Lowell and it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing. She was covered with blood, her forehead split and gushing. The tattoos on her leg pulsed with a fading light.

  “Run.” She drew a breath. “Go.”

  Before Lowell could stammer a response, she was flying toward him at tremendous speed. She collided with him with all the force of a tiny truck and he felt himself lift from the ground briefly before they both clattered down. Marka made no sound as they landed but Lowell couldn’t hold the ache in. He groaned loudly. She pushed off of his downed body and flew across the room. As swiftly as she’d crossed the room she flew to the side and into the thick stone wall. It did not give way only sounded the sickening slap of flesh against unmoving rock.

  Lowell looked back to the door to see what had happened and there was a boy. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten and his arm glowed with the same intense, strange light that everything else seemed to. The statues were beginning to make sense, as were the tattoos.

  Laying on the floor, he could have sworn he heard the voice of a young girl, but there was no one behind the boy and no one else in the room. When the voice stopped the boy with the glowing arm walked toward Lowell with distinct purpose. Lowell scrambled backwards and quickly found himself against the bookshelf. He wasn’t sure what his views on attacking children were in general, but this one had put Marka into the wall without much effort. Maybe bargaining would work.

  The boy stopped in front of him and Lowell opened his mouth to speak. He saw the bright magical glow fill his vision before he felt the stone of the bookshelf against his head. All muscle control ran away into some corner of his brain while the cells scrambled to right themselves. They failed and the world turned dark around him.

  Chapter 7

  His eyes opened to the slowly clearing haze of a head wound and there was the distinct kick of dragging heels off the street beneath him. He was being dragged. It wasn’t Lowell’s typical mode to be a quick thinker, but he knew well enough in this situation to stay still, at least until he could get his bearings. They were carrying him by his arms. It was much more uncomfortable than he’d imagined when they carried people that way in movies. Still, the position allowed him a view of more than the sides of the guards who carried him. It struck him that the guards were adults, dressed in simple black linen shirts and pants. Grown men and more muscled that he’d prefer if he was going to be able to do anything about the situation.

  Glancing to the sides, there were people finally. They stared with horrified eyes moving between the strange interloper and something behind.

  Behind. Marka.

  He looked back through his armpit as gently as he could in the hopes they wouldn’t notice him. Sure enough she was behind. Her tiny, bloodied body slung over the shoulder of some other guard. The wave of panic and anger washed over him all at once. He looked at t
he arms of the guards carrying him. Muscled as they were, they weren’t tattooed the way that boy’s had been. Maybe he could do something. He had to try. Nothing good ever happened at the end of dragging a pair of unconscious people down the main street of a weird alien city. It just isn’t a situation that can end well.

  A short glance forward showed an opening square with stalls in the street selling food. The smell of it was strange but it looked to be the best crowd he could hope for. Maybe the panic would buy him some time. Lowell resumed the boneless act as best he could and counted the steps. After thirty or so, the sounds of the market had picked up around him and he figured it was as good a time as any.

  The sudden shift caught the guards unaware as Lowell dug in his feet. He pulled as hard as he could in a wrenching motion. The guard on his right tumbled forward, hitting the ground and rolling. The second lost his grip on Lowell’s arm and gave him some room. The look of shock on the still standing guard was plain. Lowell wheeled with the momentum of pulling himself free and was now staring down the guard who held Marka. He hadn’t yet processed what was going on. Lowell tried to will his body forward into the guard but the moment he put a foot forward the wound on his head caught up with what he’d done and he ended up placing his other foot wide out to catch himself in the resulting stumble. He brought a hand up to steady his head but it was enough time for the guard to react.

  The large man knitted his brow and shouted something in a language that Lowell couldn’t begin to guess the origins of. The guard let out a huff and said something that seemed vaguely accusatory, pointing to the guard that was still scrambling to his feet. Neither of the guards who had carried him made a move and it occurred to Lowell now that the man carrying Marka was easily four inches taller than him and that he was built more like the side of a cliff than like a normal human. The other guards watched the large one intently. He dumped Marka on the ground and stepped forward.

  The small girl’s body hit with another thud that would induce wincing in the strongest of dispositions. Lowell couldn’t stand the sight of it but he knew there wasn’t much he’d be able to do against the behemoth that was facing him down. A quick scan of the sides of the market made the spectacle of the ordeal clear. A street that had been mildly populated before now teemed with onlookers waiting to see the freaky interloper get his skull crushed.

  It’d taken its sweet time but Lowell’s head finally caught up with itself and gave him control over his body again. There was simply nothing to be done about the guard, but there wasn’t anything trailing along behind him so there was a shot. He’d have to be fast but it might work.

  Lowell stood up straight and puffed out his chest, tearing off his jacket. This was going to be stupid but maybe he could get his point across.

  “Bi— tch.” His voice broke. Embarrassing. Not a great start. “You think you can take me? HUH?!”

  He got louder and put on the meanest face he could imagine with no idea whether it’d work or not.

  “You got a big set of balls on you, right? Big tough fucker with a stupid face. You suck.” Not the strongest finish, but he said it with every ounce of conviction he had.

  Regardless of how well the taunting might’ve worked elsewhere, the guard seemed to go for it. He was shouting things back in his language and walking forward. Lowell did everything he could not to look down to check on Marka, knowing it might give the game away.

  The guard was arm’s length now and it was time to act.

  “WHAT’S THAT?!” Lowell shouted and pointed off into whatever direction his arm was facing.

  There was no way it could work but it was all he had. No possible way… only it did. The big guard, the smaller guards, and every single person in the square around him looked to the side, some even gasped. In truth, he didn’t notice that it had worked until he was halfway to Marka’s limp body. If there wasn’t a meat mountain behind him with the urge to kill, he might have even let out a laugh.

  Marka hadn’t made a move the entire time. There was no blood on the ground around her so whatever injuries she had didn’t seem to be untenable externally, but he didn’t have time to really examine her. He slid his arms under her and that was when he heard a man shout from the sidewalk, drawing attention to him. He had to be gone, now. It wasn’t likely he’d be able to outrun the guards with Marka in his arms, but he had to try.

  On the way to his feet, the world spun again and Lowell fell to one knee. Worse than that, Marka slipped free and fell back to the ground.

  “No. Damnit, no!”

  His brain wouldn’t have it. He couldn’t work his arms the way he wanted. There was a grunt of exertion from behind him but no time to brace himself for what he knew it meant. A wide fist plowed unyieldingly into his ribs and sent him hard onto his side. He could swear he heard something crack and the wind was gone from his lungs. There were gasps and mumbled words from the onlookers.

  Lowell waited there in the dirt for another blow to come down but nothing did. The large guard was satisfied. Maybe he was taking pity on him even. The two smaller guards came and dragged him up by the arms, this time the pain was searing. There was definitely something not great happening to his ribs. As he came up, Lowell let out a loud groan. He heard a few people mutter at the sides. Back in the arms of the guards, he had a proper look around. He didn’t know fully what he’d expected, but they all looked human. Most even had fairly normal hair and none were as striking as Marka was or as the boy had been. Beyond that, there were few tattoos to be seen. However normal they looked to him, the sentiment wasn’t shared. It was nothing but wide-eyed stares and half-whispers as the guards dragged him away.

  Most of the trip was spent wincing and looking at the ground, but before long excited orders were shouted and the sounds of people shifting brought Lowell’s head up. Another stone building, this one completely lacking in outer decoration of any sort. It stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the city. The stone doors slid open, smooth and effortless. The glow that moved them showed itself on the inside. The entire interior that Lowell could see was lined with carvings. They were taking him inside.

  He lifted his head in a half-panic, trying to find Marka. The pain stopped him on his first attempt but he tried again, slower. He looked around as frantically as he could manage, but she was nowhere.

  “Where is she?” The guards ignored him. “WHERE?! WHERE DID YOU TAKE HER?!”

  He struggled against them but there was nothing he could do, not with his ribs screaming the way they were. Still, he tried. Wrenching and tearing as best he could. The guards were prepared for him now and if they were bothered by his weak thrashing that didn’t show it.

  “NO! NO NO NO!!”

  They neared the door and he protested as loud and as violent as his body would allow. His head began to spin again.

  The door lead into a building with a long hall and at the end of it was a figure making its way slowly toward the oncoming guards. They stopped just outside of the building, waiting.

  As the form in the hallway grew closer he could see it was an old man. Bald, frail, spotty, and clean shaven. He was dangerously thin to the point of looking like he might be troubled by a stiff breeze and he said nothing. He moved close to Lowell who had fallen silent staring at the aged creature.

  “Where is Marka?” He barked the words aggressively.

  A bony finger rose to Lowell’s lips and the man leaned down to look him in the face. The finger tapped his lips a moment.

  “Shhh.”

  The old man put hand on Lowell’s chin and turned him side to side, examining his face. When he was satisfied he stood and said a few words to the guards before moving aside.

  They dragged Lowell into the building. The hallway was a maze of carvings that all seemed to flow in the same direction. At the end of the entryway, the path broke and he was taken left into a widening room with incredibly high ceilings. There were distinct rectangles along the path down each with a single carved line running down to a small
sphere carved in the middle of a blank expanse of white stone. The guards stopped him in front of one of the rectangles and waited. Lowell hung there limply trying to find an angle that dulled the pain in his arms and ribs.

  The door opened in the way all doors seemed to in Marka’s world and Lowell was ushered inside and dumped on the floor. His jacket was tossed in as an afterthought. It was nice of them not to just leave it in the street. The guards took their leave and Lowell simply let himself sprawl on the cool stone ground. The cell was spacious, almost upsettingly so. It didn’t seem like the sort of place you kept criminals. Not exactly a hotel either. There was a slit along the wall about halfway up and it let in light from the outside. The light never changed in the time Lowell had been outside and was the same now. He wondered idly if there was such a thing as night here but gave up on the curiosity before he made it too far along. Protruding from the far wall out into the room was what looked to be an observation deck and the first thing he’d seen that wasn’t made of stone. A tall glass wall with no one on the other side. He stared up at it, waiting. After about five minutes the guards that had left him there found their way in. They stood, staring. Lowell squinted up at them. The glass wall didn’t appear entirely sealed.

  He sat up. Not easily, but he got it done. The motion must have been curious to the guards as one looked to the other and Lowell could hear their voices. It wasn’t sealed.

  “Hey!” He struggled to get enough volume but it caught the attention of both the guards. “Where is this? Where is Marka?”

  One said words but not words he could understand and so he slumped in defeat and then rolled over onto his good side. He was exhausted and he might as well sleep. He couldn’t actually get himself to sleep, but at least it was something to do. There was a slab with a flat mattress maybe twenty feet away but he couldn’t be bothered. The floor was fine. What was the difference? He was probably going to get executed to these people’s weird demon meat god or something. Maybe the floor would at least make him tougher to chew.