The Twins of Noremway Parish (18 page)

He could hardly remember the events at the Waterman House after being bitten by the wolf. The wounds in his arm and stomach were healing themselves rapidly, but he couldn’t understand why; and whatever Franz Phoenix’s connection to the evil inside that house was frightened him.

He had heard it. Phoenix was making a deal with those monsters. There was talk concerning some sort of story teller, but he couldn’t recall anything specifically about it. All he knew for sure was that a tide of change was coming in the form of Darkness. The protection offered by Ragas was no more.

He was scared he would soon lose all control of his faculties. Did he want to continue living when he knew the inevitable outcome was that he would become a wolf permanently, unable to control his thoughts or actions, and being a slave unto the
Ujimati
? He had already been given a directive by these people that would not only spell the end for Noremway Parish, but would destroy their 2,000 year history. Could he allow this to happen?

He went to the back of the house. The courtroom’s majesty was brilliant in the dark as bright white light from the moon penetrated the stained glass windows, allowing for a colorful presentation of celestial light.

But he wasn’t here to admire the court room’s moonlit prominence. No, tonight was the night it would all end. He found his way to a side room where the instruments of death could be found. He had never presided over a case in which the death penalty was imposed. His great grandfather—a chancellor from a century ago—sentenced many to death. This was during a skirmish with the
Ujimati
in which nearly a quarter of the parish chose to aid and abet them in their endeavor to kidnap children. It was something that only few in the parish knew about, and only one person remembered. Mica Jones, the oldest person living in Noremway Parish, had been but a small girl kidnapped by the
Ujimati
.

That was a time long ago, and now as he rummaged through the antiquated room, he found exactly what he was looking for: a noose. This would end tonight–he would not be a pawn to the
Ujimati
or the Darkness, or whoever was pulling the strings. His great grandfather had been a family hero—someone he had always looked up to. He could not allow himself to be taken by the enemy.

“
John, please be with me,” he said aloud, forgetting the usual prayer to Ragas in favor of one to the former chancellor. John Urey had been the longest reigning chancellor. Even though there were other chancellors between him and Ghora, John Urey was by far the most famous.

So as he lifted the noose from the old pile of rarely used equipment, he took a moment to look at the other forms of execution that had been used throughout history, but was not familiar enough with any of them to make any sort of identification or determination of purpose.

He left the courtroom, walking back into the house, and slipped out a side door leading into a closed-off courtyard containing the gallows, the tall wooden structure used for hanging. He looked up into the sky. The stars stood out brightly. He had never had an interest in the stars or the moon until quite recently. If he had ventured to give it any thought, he would have discovered his newfound appreciation for these nightly lights had come with the onset of his wolf transformations.

He climbed the gallows, taking each step slowly, and twisting the noose in his hands. Suicide was something that he had never considered before, and even now he didn’t think what he planned to do was truly suicide. He was killing the evil being within. Something had taken and infested his soul, eaten it from within. This corruption could only lead to further destruction of Noremway Parish if it could not be stopped.

He tied the noose from the cross bar above the trap door and placed it over his neck. He took a moment to think about what he was doing and came to regret it. This was hard, much harder than he had anticipated.
I am sacrificing myself so that Noremway Parish can live! So that the power of Ragas can live on!

Despite these thoughts, reluctance remained. He stomped on the trap door, hoping that it would quickly give way. He had no such luck. He stomped a few more times before jumping in the air and pushing down as hard as he could with both feet. Suddenly the trap door broke through, and he fell to his death.

***

The snap of his neck was immediate, but strangely, death did not immediately follow. He hung there unable to move, unable to breathe, and also, apparently, unable to die.

***

He couldn’t be sure how long he hung there, neck broken, unable to move. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours because it was still dark when the wolves came. Some materialized beneath his swinging feet, others on top of the gallows.

One leapt through the air and caught the rope in its mouth of razor-sharp teeth, severing it from where it was tied to the wood and sending him to the ground like a limp sack.

His neck had been broken, but now so were his legs. Luckily, he couldn’t feel a thing. He remained still—paralyzed—as the wolves circled his body, howling and growling as they did so. He could feel nothing, not even fear, but as they began licking his face, his neck, his hands, a tingling sensation, starting in his gut, spread throughout the rest of his body, and soon he discovered he could feel his limbs.

He stood. His head was cocked sharply to the right. He grabbed it in both hands and pushed it back to the left with a loud crack. The wolves stepped back, frightened by the sound. There were four of them total.

“
Ah, my neck,” Urey said as he moved it around in a circular motion.

The lead wolf stepped up and spoke in a clear voice. Of course to any other observer it would have sounded like a series of growls, barks, and howls. “Urey, we need you.”

He shook his head, attempting to stop the spinning in his vision. “Why do you need me?”

“
To complete the plan for Noremway Parish, the Chaos of Darkness must take hold. Only then can we return to our human selves. We must return to our human forms, Urey. It has been too long.”

“
Who are you?”

“
What do you mean? Do you not remember us?”

“
I mean, who were you…before you were wolves?”

“
The lost ones your great grandfather left for dead, when the
Ujimati
came all those years ago and stole us from our beds. The carnival they brought here–so many children were stolen that day. It was a travesty, and your great grandfather—Chancellor John Urey—called off the search for us. He grew frightened when he discovered we had become the wolves that hunt and terrorize the nights in Noremway Parish. He said we were impure, that we were beyond saving.”

“
He was clearly correct,” Urey said and prepared to face an onslaught of angry barks and growls, but the wolves kept their composure.

“
Correct? We have found a way and you dare say he was
correct?
” He could feel in himself the physical transformation taking place, but the transformation was not only physical. The Darkness, or the chaos, or whatever it was called, was taking over his soul, and he knew he could only fight against it for so long.

Urey spoke, “You would sacrifice Noremway Parish, your former home, for something that is only but a dream to you? Your humanity is gone. You’re never getting it back no matter what you do. I can feel it within my own heart. All that made me who I was is disappearing, and there is no getting it back. Even if you do succeed in reimagining your human forms, your souls—what truly makes you human—are corrupted beyond repair.”

The lead wolf bared its teeth, growled, and leapt at him, pushing him to the ground. Its jaws clenched around his throat, ripping it out in bloody strings of flesh. All three of the other wolves came to Urey’s rescue, pushing aside their leader.

Despite having his throat ripped out, Urey felt perfectly fine. It was like how he had hanged himself and survived. He was coming to realize that no matter what happened to him, he would never die.

The four wolves—three on one—fought. The leader, who was the biggest and strongest, managed to push away the other three, throwing them to the ground, and forcing them to plead for mercy. “Do not cross me,” the leader said, addressing all of them, even Urey.

The chancellor said, “But you attempted to kill me. In their defense, you were single-handedly seeking to undo all that you claimed you came here to protect.” Despite the fact that his throat was ripped out, his voice came out surprisingly clearly.

Then from behind the gallows emerged one of the imps. He walked confidently up to Urey and offered his hand in a human greeting. “Good to see you’re alive. Let me fix that for you.” The imp placed his mouth over Urey’s gouged out neck and breathed heavily. A dull red light glowed from the space between the creature’s mouth and Urey’s wound. It quickly healed, revealing no evidence of a wound having been there at all, let alone one that took out nearly the whole of his throat.

Then the imp turned away from Urey, toward the wolves, and said, “Let us not forget why we have come here. We must take back Noremway Parish from the followers of Ragas Moliere.” He spit the name as if it were the worst tasting thing to ever graze the surface of his tongue. “The chancellor will be of great use to Franz Phoenix. No harm must be done to him.”

Franz Phoenix?
Urey thought.
What does he have to do with this?
He had known something was amiss concerning the sheriff ever since their journey to the Waterman House. He wished he could remember the details, but knew those memories would never return.

The imp asked Urey in a deep gravelly voice, “Are you alright, Chancellor?”

He thought for a moment before responding. This had been the weirdest night of his life. He transformed into a wolf, hanged himself, was saved by a pack of wolves whose leader then ripped out his throat, and then was finally saved again by an inhuman looking creature. He didn’t know if he was alright, or not, but he was curious about a few things, and despite the strangeness of the situation, or perhaps
because
of it, but most certainly
in spite
of the danger the parish was in, he wanted to know more. He wanted to satisfy his own curiosity. “Who are you? What is your name? I know the wolves are former humans. Who are you? You speak just as those in the parish, but you do not look like us.”

The imp squatted down on his hunkers and motioned for Urey to join him in the crouched position. He ran his long fingers through the sand and let it slide through his fingers. “This land was once ours,” he said. The sand fell straight to the ground like sand flowing through an hourglass. The fence surrounding this partitioned land blocked any form of breeze. He said no more on the topic, but instead flashed his long scraggly teeth in what could possibly have been an attempt at a smile. “Since you killed yourself tonight, Chancellor, you are like us—one with the Darkness. You are a servant, and now you will live an eternity—”

“
In hell,” Urey said.

“
It’s hell if that’s how you see it. The quality of any experience in life is what one makes of it. If you see you’re in hell, that this gift of immortality, of eternal life, is a curse, then you are in for a very long eternity indeed.” Urey remained silent. Then the imp said one last thing before disappearing and leaving him alone with the wolves.

***

The imp said, “You are our day-time eyes, Chancellor. We need you to ensure that the twins come to us.” Urey managed to stand. The wolves remained in the enclosure around the gallows, appearing as though they had no interest in leaving. Why would they? They still had work to do.

“
What about Franz Phoenix? Zuriz Falcon?” The second name—Zuriz Falcon—came to his mind from where he knew not, but at the sound of the name exiting his lips, the wolves turned their heads sharply toward him.

“
Do not speak his name. He is our father,” one of the lesser wolves said.

Then another one piped in, “He is so far above the likes of us that even to speak his name would be blasphemy.”

The imp waved his long-fingered hand to silence the wolves. When they were quiet, he said, “Allow Franz Phoenix to deal with Zuriz Falcon. Only he has the wits to contend with our father. We have arranged for them to meet just as soon he comes back to Noremway Parish. He’s having himself a little bit of fun at the expense of Rita Morgan.”

“
Why Franz Phoenix?”

“
He is marked not as mere servant of the Darkness, but as a
Motiq
, or the one to guide our father in his moment of need immediately after his resurrection.”

“
Resurrection?”

“
Aye, Falcon has returned to us from his fall in the Battle for Noremway Parish. And now that he’s back, the followers of Ragas do not stand a chance.”

Chapter 11

The sun rose the next morning, and its rays found the thin black cloud known as Zuriz Falcon drifting around above the desert wastelands outside Noremway Parish. He noted the large wall surrounding the parish.
Don’t they ever feel trapped?
he wondered, but of course when it came to human thoughts, he rarely had to wonder. He just
knew
. His memories were still vague, and he was still unsure exactly what he was—or who he was—but he could say one thing for certain: only one person in Noremway Parish felt trapped, and that was Teret Finley; her longing for a man’s warm embrace–even more than that her desire for a
child
. Ah, wasn’t it convenient that now there were two children, tethered together by flesh, mysticism, and fate within her reach, allowing her, no,
forcing
her (because who else but the parochial vicar would be worthy of raising such special children?) to become a mother. This could get very interesting.