“Because of him, my soul is sick, perplexed, and yearning…” I whisper, voice trembling. “His speech upon my heart…” The verse falters upon my tongue, the rest lost to the cavern’s suffocating air.
Even like this, half undone, with the last strength that still remains, my maker continues to subdue me, attempting to form broken gasps into words of torment. I crush the throat that once birthed endless suffering, knowing with terrible clarity that mycreator’s death shall indeed be my own as well. But my end means nothing to me now.
I know we are all but prey for worms, and without Astaire at my side, I have no desire to inhabit this world anymore.
My maker’s eyes widen in terror; they bulge and blur as I squeeze the life from his throat. Black fluid trickles from his lip, at first sluggish, then spilling in greedy rivulets, as though even his blood seeks escape from its wretched vessel.
With one last silent farewell, I sink my fingers into the ruined cords of his neck. His tendons snap beneath my grip. Hardened muscles split, and at last, his head falls free, tumbling with a dull crack to the stone below.
I close my eyes, awaiting my own demise, preparing for the last breath to leave my body.
But the silence does not claim me. Instead, a soft, choked sound creeps into my ears, a gurgling, faint and wet. I ignore it.
Some final rattle of the damned, I think. Something deep within me stirs, a sort of fluttering of breath. Perhaps it was Lucifer himself, descended upon this realm to claim me. I open my arms wide to welcome death with joy, but my torment does not end, for I continue to feel the agony of despair as I did before.
Still, I remain. Still, I suffer.
I open my eyes. The body before me, my creator’s shattered shell, sits motionless, as abandoned as a cast-off husk. He is dead, yes… I am certain of it. And yet I am not weakened. My strength has not left me.
And now, the sound comes again. Still, I do not turn, having no desire to lay my eyes upon my creator’s face again. I gaze instead upon my stained form, my limbs awash in gore, my garments heavy with bile and viscera. I turn my hands slowly, and yet death feels no closer than it did before.
The sound swells. Slurping. Devouring. Something drinking with hunger not of this world.
Could it be? Could he, in defiance of death, have survived even this? I had been so thorough in my annihilation of his malignant life.
I turn at last, bewildered.
There, sprawled upon the floor, lies Astaire, like the god of death. Chest stained crimson, gilded hair draped over his shoulders like the finest cloth. Eyes closed, long lashes beaded with droplets of blood like a crown forged in carnage.
And between his slender hands, he cradles the severed head of my maker, fingers curled around it with unnatural grace. He drinks from the gaping artery, lips pressed to the ragged wound like a chalice.
His pale pink tongue moves with slow, deliberate hunger, lapping between shattered bones to draw out every last trace of life.
And then, I see it. That freckle. A detail so small, so inconsequential, and yet, it arrests me utterly. I stare, transfixed. He is not merely beautiful.
He is terrible.
He is divine.
Even the old masters, in their most fevered genius, could not have imagined such a creature as this.
His lashes flutter, and my breath halts when Astaire turns toward me. And then, slowly, sinfully, his gaze falls upon mine. A gaze of golden eyes that shine like freshly minted coins. As he draws the last drops of my maker’s blood into his mouth, a satisfied smile parts his delicate lips.
XXIII
It all starts with one drop.
Amidst a puddle of blood filled with countless others, one single drop wants to be different.Needsto do different.
It chooses the path to the black maw calling to it in the distance.
It drags and crawls.
Rolls and slithers.
Wields the effort of a lifetime to fulfil its most desperate need.
The blackness calls to it like the sweetest song.
