Page 17 of Jagged Souls

For Louise Warner.

For any healer in this fucking town.

Any necromancers.

But no one comes to help me.

I spin around to face my brothers, to beg them to go get Mom, to please get somebody to save my wife, but when I turn, I find the hall full of line-dancing goats.

I scream as I backpedal, squeezing Micha tighter against me. They’re dancing in sync, moving sideways, their arms lifting at the elbows, then dropping again as they advance. Their soulless, demonic eyes latch onto me as their heads cock to the side in small jerks that crack their necks. They keep twisting and twisting and twisting until their heads are upside down. Sweeping their arms out, they part the air in front of them and slide forward, their hooves scratching across the floor. Their heads shoot back upright, then lean further back so they can stare at me down their noses.

But they’re not the cute goats I’ve conditioned myself to be afraid of for Rudy. These are half-decaying monstrosities, with matted hair and wriggling maggots. Flesh falls free, revealing rancid muscles and infected bone. One’s eyeball falls out as it comes for me, but it just sticks out its tongue and catches it, pulling it into its mouth for a wetsquelch. Blood bursts out from between its teeth, as does a half-eaten maggot, which lands in its goatee and stays there.

“Rebeccaaaaa,” they sing as they creep closer, tapping their hooves on the floor. “We’re comiiiiiing for yoooooou.”

The fuckers have always used names that aren’t mine. I fell for it when I was a kid, thinking they weren’t after me, that I could just stay still, and they wouldn’t get me. When they danced past me, I thought I was right, but it turned out, they just wanted to stab me in the back with their horns.

So I know better now than to stay still.

But to fight, I will have to let her go, and my heart is breaking at the thought of it. At the moment, she is still warm. When I finish killing the goats and get back to her, she might be cold.

“Fucking hel, Leno! What the fuck were you thinking?” Maddox screams, his voice ringing far in the distance.

“I thought it would calm him down!”

“It’s fuckingVarius, bruh! He’s obviously going to have a bad trip!”

“Well,sorryfor –”

“Shut up and help Micha!” I shout as I finally find the strength to lay her down on the ground. When I stand, my eyes go to my left palm, and a cry of pure agony rips its way out of my lungs. I fall to my knees as I look at my little girl.

Bambi lies squished against my fingers, so flattened that there’s no identifying features left. She’s just a red and black blob of lost kisses and hugs and love. And I did that to her. I lost myself to the bloodlust and destroyed the only part of her I have left.

Screaming, I stagger to my feet. I need to kill something, to make the world as destroyed as I feel. Tenderly wiping Bambi across my heart, I meet the goats head-on.

One lowers its head to impale me, but I grab hold of its left horn as I pivot out of the way. I snap my foot into the goat next in line, kicking it back. But my foot sinks into its chest, and the broken ribs cut up my leg. Gritting my teeth, I yank myself free and twist around on my other foot. I swing the goat I’m holding by the horn into the second beast.

Flecks of rotten skin with tufts of matted fur drop to the floor, followed by wriggling maggots. I set my leg down, but as soon as it takes my weight, I nearly buckle. The pain is nothing, though, compared to the horror I see crawling out of the wounds. Maggots and worms and cockroaches and centipedes. And everywhere they crawl inside me, a black disease weaves its way through my veins, visible beneath the skin.

As they start eating me alive from the inside out, I pull out one of my many knives and start hacking at my leg. If they reach my heart, I’m dead.

“Dammit, Leno, pull him the fuck out!”

“I’m trying!”

A hoof slams into my hand, cracking the little bones. I drop the knife, but I twist and grab it with my other hand. Almost as soon as I do, though, I’m throwing it on a feral scream. Four goats have run past me and are now dancing on Micha’s corpse, stomping her into the ground.

My knife embeds itself into one of their shoulders, but it doesn’t stop them at all. Doesn’t even slow them down. I lunge in their direction, but strong hands grab me from behind, the goat who kicked me having taken advantage of my distraction.

I scream as I pull against him, my eyes on the still form of my wife as they beat her viciously. There’s no more blood left in her to puddle around her. I killed her, and they’re desecrating her. If they damage her enough, not even a necromancer can bring her back.

So with every sickeningcrackof her bones, with every hard stomp of a hoof, I fight against the goat holding me back. But every time I manage to rip free, I’m grabbed again by another beast.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” I scream, my voice mirroring the cracks erupting across my heart. The goats are merciless as they stomp on her. They break open her head and send bits of her brain flying. “Nooooo! Nooooo! Leave her aloooone!”

A goat steps in front of me, its two demonic eyes bearing into my soul. Grabbing both sides of my head, it wrenches my gaze up to the ceiling. I can feel the insects crawling through my skin, eating their way up my leg and burrowing deeper inside of me.

“Varius! Varius, listen to me!”