The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

Finally, having lost all hope, he hugs the dead baby, tears in his eyes. Varakh sits, swaying from side to side, and weeps bitterly. He has no idea how he will tell Kors about this. But Kors feels that his friend doesn’t even think of leaving the child in the forest, and, be that as it may, he is going to bring him to Kors, who at this very moment is sobbing inconsolably over the grave of Inness that he dug out. Varakh knows that he will increase his friend’s grief, but he doesn’t even think of lying, and now Kors doesn’t understand why this didn’t happen in the end and Varakh lied. He doesn’t understand… The crackling of breaking branches makes Varakh distract himself from his grief. The horses take off and run away with a wild neighing, and Varakh freezes in horror, because something is moving towards him from the darkness of the thicket. Something nasty, large, black, with an elongatedreptilian muzzle and a serpent’s tail goes over many long spider legs moves with on the sides of the flexible scaly body, creeps, writhing and hissing, and sticks out a long and thin forked tongue. With a trembling hand, Varakh tries to grab the sword, but it falls out of his suddenly numb fingers. Varakh can’t move, and suddenly he clearly hears an order in his head:

“Give me the baby!”

Varakh, with the last of his strength, presses the baby to his chest, but the monster approaches him.

“Give me the baby!”

And Varakh, closing his eyes in fear and trying not to look at the monster, obeying, slowly puts the son of Kors onto the ground. The front spider legs gently lift the baby, surrounding it with a tenacious cocoon. Turning around, with incredible speed, only flashing black scales, a terrible creature is hiding in the darkness of the forest. And Varakh remains seated. Finally he gets to his feet, pale, staggering like a drunk, and walks along the road, trying in vain to look for his horse. He would return to the garrison and tell Kors nothing, keeping what had happened to him on that damned forest road as a terrible secret that no one needed to know about. The secret that the son of Kors died, and he was carried away by a monster from the underworld itself.

“So that’s why you didn’t believe that Nik was my son! That’s what you knew, Varakh!”

Covered in cold sweat, Kors sat up in bed with a jerk. With some kind of horror, he looked at Nik, at his boy. And he, as if sensing his wild look, woke up and opened his eyes. He lay on his side and silently looked at Kors. Just looked.

“My son is dead,” Kors said in a dull voice, looking into his eyes, into the bright false eyes, “I saw you take the dead child from Varakh.”

“No,” Nik sat up in bed.

“If not, I want to talk to my son,” said Kors, “get out of his body now, let us talk.”

Nik quickly ran his hand over his face, brushing back his tousled hair.

“I am your son, talk to me.”

Kors shook his head in denial.

“You are a demon.”

And Nik seemed to be worried:

“Am I not your son? You are my Demon Daddy, you are above me in the hierarchy! Well?”

“Please let the human go…” Kors asked tiredly again, “I need to talk to him.”

Annoyance appeared on Nik’s face.

“Vitor, I recognize that look of yours. I don’t like that look of yours when you stare at me like I’m a piece of shit. Have you fallen out of love with me again? Eh? You told me that I was your favorite kitten, that you would never stop loving me!” Nik raised his voice in annoyance. “Why are you cutting the kitten into pieces now?! Why did you divide him into a human and a Demon? You are shredding him into separate pieces! You are ripping off my skin and dig into the insides! I’m in pain! Love cannot be cut into pieces!”

“I’m not tearing you in half!” Kors shouted back as well. “I love this symbiosis of human and Demon! It is you who constantly tear my heart to pieces with your lies!”

Nik closed his eyes and hit himself on the head with his fists several times.

Kors didn’t stop him. Before, he always stopped Nik when he started hitting himself on the top of his head, but now he just watched indifferently and waited for him to stop.

Nik lowered his hands, relaxed his nervously clenched fists, and looked at Kors in confusion.

“Why don’t you want to let me talk to my human son?” Kors’ voice was cold as ice.

Nik dropped his shoulders.

“And what about those words of yours, Vitor? You yourself told me: ‘…you add fire to a beautiful appearance… an ideal combination… external andinternal complement each other… when a person and a Demon are not separately, but together, you become whole, become a person!’ And what was that? Again your empty chatter? Well, daddy, if now you don’t want to perceive me as… as a person, as a whole, so be it…” Nik looked up at Kors, eyes full of expectation and hope:

“Why do you need a human? I love you!”