Ink

Cam stood under the shower head, letting the hot spray ease some of the soreness out of his muscles. His hands were planted on the tiled wall in front of him, his head bent down, so that the water ran in rivulets from his chin and chest.

He was staring at the water swirling down the drain at his feet, trying not to think about anything. Thinking was going to make him panic. Thinking reminded him that the book hadn’t burned. The fire just wouldn’t take to it. No matter what they did.

Jake had dragged a tin wastebasket into the back yard, tossed the book in and doused the whole thing with kerosene. Then he threw in a match. They’d held their breath as they waited for the moment the book would burst into flames. It never happened. The match was out before it hit the bottom, as if some unforeseen force had blown out the flame. Jake then tried shredded paper, sticks, charcoal, any damn thing he could think of that might burn. He’d even thrown the book into licking flames. The fire always snuffed itself out.

The book didn’t even smell like the kerosene Jake had doused it in. They matter as well have thrown holy water on it.

That was last night. Mom had come home, and Jake had made Cam promise to stay upstairs. Cam just couldn’t act normal no matter how hard he tried. He’d slept in his brother’s bed for the first time in ten years. The book was in Jake’s room on the dresser and considering the circumstances neither of them wanted to be anywhere near it while they slept.

Cam was exhausted. He knew his brother hadn’t slept either because he’d felt Jake turning and tossing all night. What he wanted to do was have a good cry. Like if he could sob hard enough all the bad things in his life would simply slip away. But crying wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

He knew that because when he woke up this morning the tattoo was still on his arm. No amount of crying was going to change that.

Cam reached for his bath cloth and the bar of Ivory soap on the rim of the tub. He realized he couldn’t stay in here forever. Mom had already gone back to work and he and Jake needed to figure out what they were going to do next.

The bathroom was full of steam from the constant flow of nearly scolding water Cam had flowing from the pipes, but there was an unnatural cloud of it gathering behind him. Darker then steam had any right to be and solidifying into a shape at rapid speed.

Cam was soaping up as the cloud slowly took shape. Now the steam was a black, swirling mist, it stretched out until it was longer than Cam was tall. A black cloak flickered into existence. Silver glinted off of metal. Green eyes narrowed down at Cam. The silver shape was raised in the air, level with Cams head.

Light ran across the edge, painting the deadly curve of a sword. Cam dropped his bar of soap and ducked down to retrieve it.

The tiles over his head exploded.

Cam instinctively lunged out of the bathtub. In too much of a hurry to draw back the shower curtains, he took them with him. He heard the metallic pop of the shower hooks as they snapped from the rod. The shower curtain got tangled around his legs.

Cam looked up in time to see a huge man wrenching his sword from the wall. Impossibly green eyes settled on him and made his blood run cold. Cam heard a weary moan, and realized that it had come from him.

The man put one foot on the rim of the tub. Cam found his voice. “Jake! Jake!”

Cam scrambled backwards on the palms of his hands and heels kicking furiously at the shower curtain. He was shaking his head. “Please, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Jake’s heavy fist banged on the door. “Cam, open up!” When he heard Cam’s scream, Jake backed away from the door and kicked it, throwing half his body weight into the act. The lock ripped from the door seal. One hundred thirty-five pounds of quivering, naked flesh scrambled past Jake.

Jake looked up at the man who’d been in the bathroom with his brother. He should be running, but the man was too close. If he ran, he’d be cut down anyway. The man didn’t attack though, he spoke.

“Get out of my way!”

Jake shook his head. “He’s my brother. Who the fuck are you man?”

“He wears the mark!”

Mark?! Oh, fuck. “Cithru.”

The stranger looked as if he wanted to strangle Jake. “Do not speak his name, unless you are in a hurry to meet him.” He looked over Jake’s shoulder at Cam, who was now close to shock again. He was clutching at Jake’s back like his brother was a lifeline. “Give me the boy. I’ll make it quick.”

“Fuck you! You’re not killing my little brother. Why do you want to? He hasn’t done anything.” Apparently rage on his brother’s behalf had addled all his good senses, but Jake just couldn’t let Cam be hurt.

“He is a demon follower. So as long as one lives, the demon can walk the Earth.”

“He’s not a demon follower. He didn’t mean to bear the mark. He didn’t even know what it was when he drew it on his arm.”

This seemed to give the giant pause. He looked at Cam and really seemed to study him, noting how pale the boy was. Those wide brown eyes made him seem almost fragile. Slowly he lowered the sword. He did not look like any demon worshipper the man had ever seen.

However, he didn’t put his blade away. He’d lived long enough to know that the most innocent faces sometimes hid the cruelest natures.

“Where did you find it?” He didn’t need to elaborate; both boys understood what ‘it’ was.

“In a book,” Jake said, now that the surge of adrenaline was fading from his system, his muscles were starting to feel like jello. That much false bravado had cost him.

The man nodded. “Show me.”


*****
When Cam had finally gotten dressed and composed himself enough to join his brother and ‘the man who had just tried to kill him’ in his room, he found Jake standing near his bed, and the stranger across the , flipping through the book.

“It’s called Libri of Everto Rex rgis.” The stranger glanced up at the two young men and snapped the book shut. Book of the Demon Kings. Until today we thought it was lost, maybe some wizard had found a spell strong enough to destroy it. He passed one hand over the book, and when he lifted it, the book was gone. “But that was not to be. I see now that it was lost in the human world.”

“Who the hell are you?” Jake asked.

“Wizard?!” Cam gasped.

“I am known as, Aimon.”

“So you’re on the good side right?” Jake frowned. “I mean if you’re against this demon then your what . . . an archangel or something?”

Aimon laughed.

Jake and Cam exchanged worried looks.

“Oh I wouldn’t say that,” Aimon said. His eyes flashed, darkening from the impossible green of emeralds to near black. “You fight demons with demons. You fight angels with angels.” Aimon lifted his hand showing them his own mark. The same three circles with barb, but inside his was a strange black bird with a serpent in its beak. “You fight Demon Kings with Demon Kings.”