Page 9 of Runes To Rain
Then the band starts playing. At the first notes, the crowd becomes insane. I am caught, somewhere between a celebrationand a feeding frenzy. At every moment, I am at risk of being crushed against their flow, and yet I am lost in the beauty of the sound that is being created. The crowd worships every minute.
After some time has passed, The Boys go silent, the music pausing, and the madness increases until they start again. This time, as the crowd surges forward, I fall as someone behind me runs into my back. On my knees, I scramble for safety, but the people around me are simply too frenzied to care.
A foot comes down suddenly on my back, and it knocks the wind from my lungs. I’m gasping, crushed against the dirty floor. At that moment, everything slows down. I notice every tiny detail from the size of the foot on my back to the groupings of dirt, dust, and old food on the floor in front of me.
As I’m beginning to panic, there is suddenly a hand on my shoulder pulling me back to my feet and through the crowd to another empty pocket of space against the wall.
Gasping and still feeling lost, I pull air into my bruised lungs, trying to find the breath to thank my savior. I finally look up and see Malam.
With my vision working better than last time, I get a closer look at him. Light green eyes sit within a face that is chiseled with high cheekbones and an olive complexion. A mop of textured black hair sits on his head. As he brushes his hand through it, pushing it out of his eyes, I note how predatory his movement is.
His shoulders are broad, straining against the black, long-sleeved linen shirt he wears. Tailored black pants sit low on his hips.
For a moment, as I look into the green eyes of my creator, I am lost. Everything that is me evaporates, and as the sound plays over us, I am frozen, unable to feel anything except the music pounding through me. It feels as though I’m looking at a part of myself, an oddness that makes the breath freeze in my lungs.
Vaguely, I am aware that The Boys have moved on to their next song and the crowd, their next frenzy, but I remain lost from myself, still unable to react.
Malam grins, a look that is both terrifying and comforting. “Interesting crowd you fell in with,” he says dryly.
Somehow, despite the noise, I am able to hear him clearly as though we are standing in a quiet room together.
“They are kind and the only people I know,” I say. Even I am aware of the irritation in my voice.
He frowns and examines me carefully, and then looks away, seeming satisfied that he found the answer to his question. As he looks up at the band, he says, “I was admiring your choice, or rather chance, more than questioning it.”
He looks back at me again and grins.
A chill runs down my spine. Something about the grin screams of violence despite the clear lack of that emotion on his face.
I begin to watch the band again, my mind trying to find the path back to my tongue. Triumphantly, it succeeds, and I turn back to Malam only to find his lips moving, following the words that Reem sings. He looks as lost in the music as I feel, but he also fits into this crowd, this place, in a way I do not.
Finding me watching him, he becomes still and then more quietly says, “They have been my favorite since before any of these people knew them. None of their success was a surprise to me. You being taken in by them, on the other hand, is a wonderful and bittersweet twist to the story.”
After a few moments pass, he continues,“I rarely attend their concerts, but I am often around to support them in their work to learn dark magic, so I will be seeing more of you than I expected. Perhaps the deities above us are laughing about it even as we speak.”
As I consider his words, and try to make some unconscious decision myself about this being who seems to feel he knowsme, he suddenly looks behind me. I watch as his eyes grow hard, and I turn to see what he is looking at.
Whatever it was is hidden from me at the moment, and I turn back to him to ask what is wrong, but Malam is gone, missing from the spot he occupied just moments before.
I turn back to the crowd and try to find something out of place, something that would make a demon mad, and this time I see him. A man stands quietly in the middle of the crowd, but perhaps I shouldn’t call him a man.
Bright shadow wings, the opposite of Malam’s, jut from his back. Although it should be hard for him to stand in the middle of that wild crowd, he is poised and standing with an unnatural stillness. There is a peace to him standing there in the middle of the frenzy that is wildly wrong. Thanks to Malam’s memories, I know he is an angel. Thanks to Malam’s memories, I also feel rage as I look at him.
Then he focuses on me and opens his mouth. A hush falls on the crowd. I note that they don’t seem to see him and continue their celebration, but their sound is now lost to me completely.
In my awareness, there is only me and him.
I turn and walk, or weave, or dance more calmly than should be possible through a crowd that doesn’t seem to see me. I know he is at my back and narrowing the space between us. However, some part of my mind has calculated the equation between the danger behind me and the door well enough to be content in my seemingly slow progress.
Reaching the door, I pull it open and am on the street before I am consciously aware. I am acutely aware, however, of the landscape in all of its detail, and which of those details will help me in my plight and which will hurt me.
An unbidden thought comes to my mind of a weapon, a form of safety, on the back of one of the haphazardly parked carriages. I turn, trying to find that which some instinct hasalready located. I move left, down a long row of carriages of all types, colors, and sizes.
Some part of me can feel him behind me, but even as my ears strain to catch the sound of him, I am moving along the street.
The horses’ focus is on me, and with ears tipped to the danger behind me, they watch my progress like spectators at a bullfight. Trapped, fastened to their carriages, they have no ability to run or to help.
I see it then.
