Candy Kisses

Candy Kisses

Chapter Nine

“Sometimes I Feel Like I Can’t Even Sing
I’m Very Scared For This World
I’m Very Scared For Me”
-- R.E.M.

Nicholas stood in one corner of the living room, with his arms wrapped tightly across his chest. In vain, he hoped that their added pressure might be enough to subdue the pounding of his heart, but his heart continued to thud, slamming into the walls of its bone cage. Nicholas felt sure that if someone were to rip it from his chest, it would still beat as they held it, taunting him with its relentless chant: traitor, traitor, traitor...

And yet, despite the booming that sounded as loud as thunder inside Nicholas’s head, no one else seemed to take any notice of him. When Nicholas let the two men in -- if they were indeed men, instead of something much worse -- they hadn’t spared him so much as a glance. Instead, their attention immediately focused on Marzi. One knelt beside the unconscious sorcerer, and rolled him onto his back, while the other one stared down at his partner.

“So this is Kale’s stray bitch. I can’t say that I see the fascination.”

“Taintlings. Who knows what gets them off?” The kneeling man pinched Marzi’s arm, and waited for a response. But Marzi remained limp. “Well, he’s not shamming. Let’s get him out of here.”

“Shouldn’t we tie him up first?”

“Yeah, that’ll look real inconspicuous. Don’t be an idiot. We’ll tie him up when we get him into the van. He won’t put up a fight before then.”

Together, they got Marzi to his feet, supporting him between them, with his arms draped over their shoulders. Just two guys helping their drunken friend. No one who knew Marzi would be surprised to see him blissed off his ass on god-knows-what.

Nicholas stared after the two men as they carried Marzi out of the apartment. His role in this was done. It had been finished the moment he let the men inside. And the sane, rational part of Nicholas’s mind insisted that he should just walk away. After all, he’d gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? He had a voice that would make him great. All he needed to do was return home and start scheduling auditions. When he could truly pursue his art, when each day was filled with singing and applause, with glowing reviews and giant paychecks, then surely he would no longer regret the price he had paid for it. Surely he would no longer care that he had betrayed someone who liked and trusted him.

No. He would always care, always regret. But at least he could keep his promise to Marzi. He could look after Pepper. Closing his eyes, Nicholas imagined taking Pepper around the world with him -- imagined choosing the greatest of love songs and reshaping them in her image. He would give her jewels, dresses, sweet perfumes, and even, if she wished it, something as plain and meager as his heart. He would give her everything she could possibly want.

Except that Nicholas knew, as deeply as he knew anything, that no matter what he gave Pepper, one day she would look at him with caramel-colored eyes, and ask: Nicholas? What happened to my brother? And if he couldn’t give her the answer to that, nothing else mattered. Not even his heart.

Yanking himself out of the corner, Nicholas raced after the two men carrying Marzi, only to find the hallway already empty. For a moment, Nicholas thought he’d lost them. Panicked, he dashed down two flights of stairs, before bursting through the apartment building’s rear exit. And relief flooded into him as he spotted the two men, loading Marzi into the back of a van.

However, now that he had his quarry in sight, Nicholas hesitated. What was he doing? Trying to save Marzi? No, he was no hero. He was just an ordinary man, and ordinary men didn’t thwart demon lords, especially ones that terrified them. Nicholas shuddered as he remembered Raedeman revealing his true form. That was something he never wanted to see again.

But he needed to know how this ended. Nicholas didn’t doubt that his deal with Raedeman had earned him damnation, utter and complete. Heaven would not forgive him. But perhaps, if he could be honest with her, if he could give her a true answer when she asked about her brother, perhaps Pepper would. And her forgiveness meant more to Nicholas than the mercy of all God’s angels. Drawing a deep breath, Nicholas forced himself to walk over to the van. He hoped that the men would continue to ignore him, even as he started to climb into the back, but his luck didn’t hold.

“Hey,” one of the men snarled, grabbing Nicholas’s shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Um. I need to see Raedeman.”

The man exchanged a look with his partner, who shrugged.

“Fine. You can ride in the back with me and Sleeping Beauty.”

“Thanks,” Nicholas murmured, scrambling into the back of the van. One of the men followed him, pulling the van doors shut. A few moments later, the engine rumbled to life, and the van jerked out of its parking space, tossing Nicholas backwards.

While they sped along, the man riding with Nicholas retrieved several coils of rope from the van floor, and bound Marzi’s ankles together, before tying his hands behind his back. Finally, he ripped off a length of duct tape, which he pressed down over Marzi’s mouth. And this last act struck Nicholas as worse than all the others. During Nicholas’s time working at Sugar Hearts, he had seen the way that Marzi used his cheerful banter like a razzle-dazzle fireworks show, distracting his audience with bright bursts of light, while somewhere in the darkness, unseen, he hid his own fear and grief. To take that from him, to strip him down to silence, was to leave him utterly naked. Defenseless.

Timidly, Nicholas reached forward, and brushed his finger across Marzi’s cheek. “It’s going to be alright,” he promised, with no idea if it really would be alright, if he could ever make it be alright. “I think. I hope.”

Like a princess awakened by her lover’s caress, Marzi stirred, and his eyes twitched open -- eyes that revealed such a vast and bottomless sadness that Nicholas forgot to breathe. Again, he felt like he was looking through Marzi, into the soul of someone else. Someone familiar. If only he could remember...

Abruptly, the van bumped to a halt. Nicholas’s companion crawled forward, and pushed open the van’s rear doors, allowing Nicholas to recognize the alleyway where he’d been brought for his previous meetings with Raedeman. A moment later, the man’s partner appeared. Together, they slid Marzi out of the van, and carried him over to the building’s back entrance. Nicholas bit his lip. He could still walk away. Or, better yet, run. But despite his memory of Raedeman’s fiery anger, he didn’t. Instead, he followed the men inside.

As before, Raedeman sat at the room’s only table, reading a scroll. Except this time he wasn’t alone. A large circle had been painted onto the floor, and four men stood evenly spaced around its edge, one at each compass point. In contrast to the men who had brought Marzi, they were not dressed in modern clothes, but wore black robes with hoods that hid their faces. None of them stirred when Nicholas’s companions carried Marzi into the room. Raedeman, however, rose to his feet and offered his guest a mocking bow. “Marzipan Penicandey. After all that Kale has told me, it certainly is a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

Marzi made an unintelligible noise, which Nicholas suspected was probably a muffled version of “Fuck you”.

Raedeman seemed unbothered by Marzi’s rudeness. He just stepped closer, and smiled as he straightened the collar of Marzi’s shirt. “There’s really no need for all that. I only want to help you. Your ex-lover, in his haste to grab power he was never meant to have, botched a certain ritual. I’m going to set things right.”

Marzi’s eyes widened. Until that moment, his expression had been angry, but now fury gave way to panic, and he thrashed against the grip of his captors. Unfortunately, the ropes held him too well. Still smiling, Raedeman gestured at the circle, and Nicholas’s original companions carried Marzi over to it, before tossing him down in its center. Immediately, Marzi tried to roll outside of the painted lines. An action promptly rewarded by a swift kick in the stomach.

“Don’t hurt him,” Raedeman reprimanded, as Marzi curled in on himself, his moans stifled by the duct tape across his mouth. “I believe Kale feels he has exclusive rights to that privilege.”

“But boss, he keeps trying to get away.”

Raedeman looked exasperated. “There are two of you, and only one of him. Not to mention the fact that he’s tied up. I’m sure you can hold him still without beating him senseless.”

Obediently, the two men knelt on opposite sides of the circle, allowing one to grab Marzi’s feet, while the other pinned his shoulders to the floor. Apparently, this held him motionless enough to satisfy the robed figures. Moving for the first time since Nicholas’s arrival, one stepped forward, and crouched down beside Marzi, as the remaining three began to chant. Nicholas didn’t recognize any words. But the low, whispering voices seemed ominous, like snakes slithering through piles of dried leaves. Shivering, Nicholas stepped back from the circle, and pressed himself against the wall.

The robed figure kneeling next to Marzi unfastened the buttons of Marzi’s shirt. Then, with a swift gesture, he pulled back the fabric, baring Marzi’s chest. A sharp cry of protest tried to force its way past the tape stuck across Marzi’s mouth. But the tape held fast, and the cry tumbled back down his throat, like bird shot out of the sky. Ignoring Marzi’s distress, the man reached into the depths of his black robe.

Nicholas flinched, expecting the man produce a knife. But instead, he drew out a silver disk, which he placed on Marzi’s chest. Now, two of the other robed figures left the edge of the circle, and walked over to a large mirror propped up against the wall. Lifting it between them, they carried it back to the circle. Strangely, even as they held it angled over Marzi, Nicholas couldn’t see anything reflected in its dark depths.

The chanting got louder, and Marzi tossed his head from side to side, unable to manage a more effective struggle. Then, the final robed figure stepped into the circle, and pricked his finger, allowing a drop of blood to fall against the silver disk balanced on Marzi’s chest. Instantly, Marzi’s entire body arched into the air, as if something was being ripped from him. Streaks of gold light seemed to shoot up through the silver disk. Nicholas blinked, unable to believe his eyes, and when he looked again, the gold light had vanished. But now he could see an image in the large mirror. A beautiful woman, with brilliant red hair.

For a moment, she seemed confused and disoriented. Then, she turned toward Nicholas, meeting his eyes with a gaze so familiar that it broke his heart. With love’s sudden certainty, he understood. Even before she spoke, he knew who she was, knew how he’d been tricked.

“Nicholas? Oh god, Nicholas, stop them! Don’t let them take my brother.”

But Nicholas’s thoughts weren’t on Marzi. Instead, fury rose up in him like lava finally pushed from its volcanic depths, spilling free with scorching intensity. His glare must have carried some tiny hint of hell as he focused it on Raedeman. “You bastard.”

Raedeman turned toward him, acknowledging his presence for the first time. “There’s your pain, Nicholas Foster, just as I promised you. You found love. And you betrayed that love. I think you’ll find that your singing now possesses a proper range of emotion.”

“You goddamn son-of-a-bitch!” Nicholas leapt at Raedeman. But even in his human guise, Raedeman possessed dangerous strength. Like another man might swat an insect out of the air, he struck Nicholas, and sent him flying backward. Nicholas heard a crack as his head struck the wall. For a moment, the world seemed to stop moving, frozen in place by the intensity of his pain. Then everything dissolved into shadows. And, finally, into absolute darkness.