#fff67

The noise around would have been deafening to any other. The screams of agony, the wailing of pain and the rattling of the dying would certainly drive a man mad. They all threw themselves at Jonathan, trying their best. But he was otherwise disposed. He was trying to stay alive amidst the fires of war.

He had managed to crawl rather safely behind a rock formation. He had seen experienced leaders vanish in an instant, only a mortar hole left in their place. He had seen friends die after a cannon ball took their head. He was not inclined to join them, just yet.

The pain he experienced told him otherwise and he dared to look down. His stomach would have certainly turned at the sight before, were he not holding his own guts in his arms. Arm. He had to correct himself. A cannon shot had separated his right arm from his body before Jon had even noticed that a shot had gone off.

Now that he was stationary the pain really started to come through. He saw red, then black, and even white before his vision returned to normal.

“Why did I have to join this war, Lord?” He asked himself for the thousandth time. For the last time.

“No need to look so glum, dear. Your medic is here.”

The voice was surprisingly clear among the symphony of war. If he hadn’t been hurt, Jonathan would certainly have jumped. Before him stood a young woman, a bit too close for comfort. Her pitch-black hair and cracked alabaster skin, made her look like a corpse. The piercing blue eyes seemed at least inviting. But that was completely offset by her bloodstained arms didn’t really sell the image of the saving grace medic that Jon had come to known.

The thing before him wasn’t a medic. It was a devil. Come to torture him in his last moments.

The woman kneeled. “Let’s see what we have here. A ripped abdomen? And a lost arm? You’ll be up and running in no time.”

Her smile was razor sharp. Clearly hoping to reassure him. But it only reminded him of the machete that made his way into his stomach.

“What… are you...?” His voice was starting to fail him.

“Like I said, I’m a medic. Name’s Galina.” She rummaged through a bag. “Let me get my needle and thread, so I can stich that right up. It’s rather foul looking, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes…”

“Now this will sting a bit, and I’m all out of opium. So be a brave, little soldier for me. I’m going to count to three, alright?”

Exhausted as he was, Jonathan just nodded.

“One...” He braced himself. “Two.” And Galina went in. The pain spiked like nothing Jon had felt before. “Sorry love”, she said apologetically, “you lot always tense up at three. Which doesn’t really help us medics.”

He closed his eyes, as she tried to stich the hole together.

“If it helps just look into my eyes, darling. I find that it helps my patients relax.”

Carefully he opened his eyes and turned to look at her face. The once blue eyes had turned a deep, dark red.

Jonathan tried to scream, but no sound could escape his lips. They had been sown shut.

“I abhor the screams of mankind. Why do you believe that it will safe you? It’s just noise. And I prefer the sweet sounds of war. The sounds of muskets firing, the sound of a mortar shell hitting the ground.

It’s music to my ears.”

He hadn’t realized he was half-way into the woods until a rough hand dragged him back.

“What do you think you’re doin’?” the old caretaker snapped.

“I….” The words died on Jake’s lips, his brow furrowed.

“Stay outta the woods.”

The wind came howling back, the old man muttering something about the confounded thing.

“I heard it last night, thought the whole place was about to come apart at the seams.”

“You may want to cut your visit short, we get some awful storms right early.”

He laughed. “What, a snowstorm in September?”

“Might be time to move on from your lost love.”

“Excuse you?” Jake squeaked out.

“I’ve seen you moping around.”

Jake shook his head. “Not broken up, yet.”

“Well maybe you ought to let them in on the decision makin’ process.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said, with a wink to the old man, who didn’t seem to appreciate it.

And besides. Going back meant facing That. Jake made a face.  

The old man pointed a grimy finger in Jake’s face. “Just stay out of them woods.”

He wouldn’t budge until Jake followed him back to the house. Jake headed for the stairs—for his room—and stopped on the first landing. The mellow painting of an old cowboy and his dog had disappeared sometime after he came down for breakfast. In its place was a complex oil painting, in full 19th century grandeur.

“New painting?” he asked, eyes still on the sweeping image of an angel in the woods, curled up with his wings over him, back against a split open rock.

The old man looked at him like he was nuts, “Same one that’s been hangin’ there all week.”

He leaned closer. The hand written scrawl underneath said “the devil himself.”

“Isn’t he supposed to have horns?”

The old man shrugged. “He’s always been a fallen angel.”

Jake paused, hand on the banister. “You’re sure it’s not new?”

The old man looked at him, steady and unreadable. “You’a got to be careful ‘round here, the mountain light will play tricks on your eyes.”

He was safe and sound in his bed that night until the wind started back up sometime around three am. Rattling the panes out of the windows and dragging Jake from the depths of what wasn’t a pleasant dream.

David was going to kill him.

Not if you do it first.

He sat straight up, but none of the shadows moved. The only sound in the room was his own breath, and the rattling wind. Any whispered words faded from the air, leaving a sense of urgency in his chest.

The song was back in the wind, ancient and beckoning.

Jake was never sure how or when he’d ended up outside, barefoot and bleeding down that overgrown path. If he’s been a less sane man, he would have sworn he saw eyes gleaming in between the branches.

The song overtook the wind as he stumbled deeper in the woods until it was the thudding through his veins and the only thing he could hear.

He broke into a clearing, branches clawing at his shirt, to find a split stone and the most beautiful man he’d ever seen. He swayed closer to the being of light. Promises, ideas, power tumbled through the air, bleeding off the man and into his very soul. He couldn’t remember why he’d ever thought anyone else held the path to righteousness.

Riches beyond measure.

Left with a promise ghosted over his lips. If only you can take it.

He blinked. Visions of knives danced in his head as the water lapped gently at the edge of the lake. His pants were wet. Well, just the hem of his jeans, soaked through with…. dew? He was standing in the grass, just out of the woods, staring at the lake.  A second ago he’d been…. where had he been…

There was light, or music. The faintest murmur of something was at the edge of his mind when a twig snapped and the old man cleared his throat. He’d appeared at Jake’s elbow, two mugs in his hands.

“Saw ya from the winda, you’d better sit down,” he said, holding out one of the mugs. It burned Jake’s fingertips.

He snuck a glance up the hill. There were no windows on this side of the house.

With his eyes and ears wide open, the Watcher's fingers twitch. A caw from below raises his attention.

Another caw makes his mouth tremble.

A third caw makes him get up, walking long steps towards his shrine.

The old harp sits silent under a tree, its leafy branches cascading towards the ground, knotting onto the instrument.

The Watcher dusts off a couple of petals before sitting in front of the strings. He closes his eyes, deep in thought, and let the fingers play the dreaded song of disgrace.

Down in the village, all the people raise their gazes towards the sky as soon as the first note hits. As the song goes on, the villagers look at each other, eyes agape and mouths trembling.

Somebody screams, yelling to seek shelter immediately. As the disgraceful notes hit the air, the village echoes in a stampede of footsteps and shrieks, the strees overflowing with their panic.

Dark clouds loom over ahead, covering the sun. The Watcher keeps playing his song, tears stroking his cheeks, as the sun stops lighting the earth. The birds below have stopped flying, resting in their nests along with their families; the forests devoid of the scuttering of the small creatures, every pair of eyes fixated on the dark clouds above. The song is barely heard anymore.

The roar of a thunder shakes the heart. The streets are empty, silent alleys that are still covered in the panic of its people, thousands of eyes that look out from their windows, hands joined together in prayer.

The song comes to an end. The rolling thundering clouds have filled the sky, leaving the world in the dark.

The Watcher remains seated in front of the harp, the wind howling in his ears, the tree above him swaying wildly, the leaves leaving their branches.

There was too little light for the girl's weaker eyes. He could see the way her pupils widened and her eyelids slid closer together, squinting to make out the pattern printed on the rich green wallpaper and the subjects of oil paintings whose varnish caught the soft candlelight as they passed.

The girl shifted weakly in his arms and reminded his numbing mind that he could do nothing for her. The scent of sickness and death already swelled from her in too-pungent wafts.

He'd never truly gotten used to how powerful his senses had become, and isolating himself in this deep-forest mansion after accruing his wealth had been partially a result of that; he'd wanted to escape the overwhelming chaos of sights and scents and sounds that came with other people.

But smell had been the worst for him. Catching the scent of vomit in drunks' mouths, the filth from the bottom of shoes, the decay in ill-cared for teeth, and especially the sickly smell of those who were not long for this world more often than not left him feeling ill himself.

And now she had brought that scent here. Despite all his vast wealth, all the dark powers he'd sewn into his soul to gather it, the gruesome price of those powers, and the unnatural number of years he had lived he could do nothing but make his strange, human companion comfortable as she faded.

He himself was no longer human, and had not been for a long time. He'd felt the searing of hellish magic under his skin for over a hundred years now, the taint first claiming him as the blood of his closest friend sank into the chalk-marked stone floor. At the time, alluring whispers of greed assured him that the sacrifice was justified, twisting him into a demon-like vessel of the sin. Nearly 90 years later, love and guilt had found its way back into his heart after a series of events that hurt him to remember, but the compilation of crimes he had committed was enough to weigh on him for the remainder of his long-lengthened life.

The girl had come to him three years ago, stumbling across his ornate forest home after her parents had been killed by a pack of wolves. She'd been on holiday and too young to help him find where she came from.

He took her in. Partly because of her unwavering friendliness towards him, partly in hopes that caring for her would help atone for the friend's child he left fatherless all those years ago, partly because he could find no one better able and willing to take her.

The cobwebs in his home slowly made way for dolls and hair ribbons. Bland meals he prepared for himself turned to cakes and elaborate meals on her request. The empty house, once silent save for the creaking of the wood and the echoes of his footsteps, became filled with her songs and laughter.

They had both been happy for those three years. Carefree, until she'd collapsed before him.

Now he made his way to her favorite place, the conservatory framed in elegant glass windows and filled with a well-tended garden at the back of the house. Even as exhausted as she was he could see her lips curl into a smile as she stared up at the stars painting the windowed ceiling.

At the end of the long room was a sitting area set with a few elegant couches and an ebony grand piano washed a deep blue by the moon. He laid her carefully onto one of the couches, sitting beside her and squeezing her hand gently as he shifted her cold fingers into his.

He struggled to dissolve the silence between them, usually so full of her voice that he'd have difficulty getting in a word even if he wasn't always so lost for words.

"Sing?" The word was so weak in her voice that even he could barely make it out.

His hand tightened slightly over hers. After a moment he nodded. "Of course, my dear. Shall I play for you as well?" Even his own words sounded weak.

At the tiniest nod he pulled her into his arms again, moving her limp form to the bench beside the piano she always occupied on the rare occasions she convinced him to play.

He'd not played as a human, his ability was a result of his powers, but it was still beautiful. As his fingers hesitated over the keys, he wondered what he could possibly play, but another glance at her brought him an answer.. Soon the conservatory was filled with a gentle, hopeful lullaby about the fading of day into night and the promise of the soon-to-rise sun. It was a song she had taught him to sing long ago, one her parents had sung to her.

Though his voice was not the most trained, it was soft and soothing, harmonizing with the piano's strings as the girl formed another weak smile.

The devil's music played around them even as he caught scent of the mouldy fabric of the reaper's robes. It was another smell he hated, even if his crimson eyes hadn't ever revealed the spirit.  

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I hope this is readable, I have no time to edit.