Page 36 of Blood and Hexes

Bare Hands

When he was still human, long ago, Mikar's people used to fear the long nights. The cold was a death sentence to all if the harvest wasn't good. One particularly harsh winter had been far worse than the others. Not only were they all emaciated, dying of hunger, but sickness had spread through the land. Now, with his modern understanding of medicine, he knew it had barely been more than a common cold, easily spreading in a time when basic hygiene hadn't been anyone's priority. But the lack of food and remedies had made it deadly all the same.

In his family he alone, the strongest of his five siblings, was left standing after a time. There also was a young man who'd arrived a few years back. Strangers weren't always welcome, but the man was beautiful enough to please the ladies, and he’d pulled his weight with whatever work needed to be done.

Mikar and that man, his friend, hadbeen hunting as much as possible in order to feed the village, but one night, his mother took him aside. She had another mission for him. She asked him to get to the caves where no one was allowed but their tlamacazqui, the priests, and pray to their gods.

Aztec gods weren't as simple as the Christian notion later brought to South America. There were nature gods, gods of creation, gods of fertility, gods of death. Some were kind, others wicked.

Legends were that people could bargain with them, if they caught them in the right mood.

Part of him thought about waking his friend up, but he wasn't about to condemn another man to death, if his excursion ended as he feared it would.He hiked alone, up the frozen mountain, wrapped in fur, braving wind and snow.

And he found the shrine, on top of hundreds of stairs carved in the rock. By the time he reached its door, Mikar collapsed, spent. He knew he didn't have enough strength to ever get back down to the village. But he was here with a mission. He prayed for his family, for his little sisters and brothers, like his mother had asked him to. He prayed for Runa, the pretty girl he'd considered taking as a wife. Mikar had been a man for quite some time, but he’d been reluctant to leave his family. With his father gone and his siblings so young, his mother couldn’t spare him. Still, he had hopes Runa might accept to remain home. She got along with his mother well enough.

Mikar also prayed for his closest friend. Belial.

Mikar thought that his vision was playing with him when he saw Belial right in front of him, in nothing more than a tilma and a simple loincloth. He should have frozen to death, but his pale skin didn't so much as shiver in the storm.

"Malikar. You shouldn't have come here, friend."

Mikar had stared, speechless.

"You're dying," Belial told him. "I had not planned for you to go. Not now."

"What are you?" Mikar managed to croak.

"Here, take this." He handed him his lined tilma, but Mikar brushed his hand aside.

His voice rose to a shout. "What are you!”

Belial's eyes settled on him for a long moment. "They call my fatherMictlantecuhtli, here. Other names, elsewhere. I'm a lord of the underworld."

Mikar didn't register shock at all, as though he'd realized it the moment he'd seen him, unharmed here. As though part of him might have known it all along.

"My mother," he said. Talking was getting hard, freezing as he was. "My siblings. They…please, Lial."

He couldn't manage more.

Belial looked away. "Your mother sent you away. I should have known she would." He shook his head. "She died today. She killed the children first, so they would not suffer any longer."

His tone was so calm, indifferent. For the first time in his life, Malikar Ashkii knew hatred.

"You could have…you could have…"

"We cannot interfere with every mortal life. If we did, this world would crawl with too many souls, and wither. But I did help," Belial stated evenly. "I protected you from the illness."

Mikar wanted nothing more than to throttle the monster who'd found him worth saving and condemned his family to death. "Why?" was all he managed. He was starting to lose feelings in his fingertips, his feet, and his vision had long since blurred.

"Because one day you saw a stranger with red hair, unlike everyone you've known your entire life, and instead of attacking me, you asked if I was lost. You took me to your village, to your home. You're a rare soul. And you're my friend, Malikar."

He must be joking.

Belial sighed, dropping to a crouch beside him. "I cannot warm you. The flames I wield would turn you to ashes. I cannot stop death. You're at its door. I can only give you another life beyond the veil."

Mikar hadn't realized what he'd said yes to, then.

Almost two thousand years had passed since he'd been turned, and in all that time, he'd never felt this conflicted.

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