Page 76 of Marked By Feral Monsters
Dina
"It's notsupposedto be realistic," I groan, snatching the remote back from Eric, who tries to stuff it in the couch cushion, as if I wouldn't see it straight through his body.
Eric usually avoids wasting energy on frivolous things. He saves it for when we need to communicate, or for the bedroom. Ifhe expends too much too quickly, then he becomes nothing more than a cold spot with feelings.
Since the rain started and hasn't let up, we've just been lounging in the living room, watching movies. When we came across an old movie with a cartoon ghost, I screeched. But apparently, Eric finds the fluffy white spectral offensive, because he's done nothing but complain—as much as he's able—since it started.
Eric rushes my body to steal it back, and I laugh, but since he's non-corporeal, I can't shove him off. I manage to click the TV back to the correct channel just in time for the ghost on TV to say, "Can I keep you?" when the doorbell rings, making us both freeze in place.
I look toward Eric as if he might have some type of explanation, but he's silent and still.
I get up off the couch, my steps slowing as I approach the front door through the darkened hallway. A loud crack of thunder shakes the house, but with Eric at my back, I feel safe, so I wrap my hand around the handle and swing open the door.
The storm roars, and I'm splashed in the face with whipping rain. The nearby waves crash loudly against the rocky cliff dozens of yards away. And standing there, dripping wet, filthy with dirt, is Nix.
It's Nix, but not Nix.
Even though it takes me a moment to recognize him, the pieces still don't click. We stand there, staring at each other.
I recognize the heat in his eyes, the flare of gold and fire behind his beautiful irises.
His nose is slightly hooked, longer, and pointed. Beak-like. Deeply inset eyes peer beneath the filthy cake of dirt matted into his hair—no, not hair.
Feathers?
His gold, sparkling eyes burn with rage, brighter than his sharp, gleaming white teeth, which snarl as I gasp and jump back.
His hair, impossibly longer from mere days ago, hangs in thick, long strands. The jet black I remembered looks like they fold into red feathers, glowing as the embers fade to ash in the air, sizzling against the rain battering around him.
Before I can say a word, he shoves me aside, storms into the house, miraculously grabs Eric by what I assume is his throat, and smashes the non-corporeal form against the mirrored wall.
Glass shatters around them, and I scream, as Nix pulls back and slams him again, his fist sprouting fine feathers down the length of his arm, growing larger up his shoulders, forming massive wings torn through the filthy shirt on his back.
Glass shatters, rain pelts down outside, thunder and lightning rage in the night sky.
"Nix?" I cry through the noise, trying to separate the two, but it's impossible, because I can't feel Eric the way he can.
Torn in a thousand directions, trying to make sense of all of this—that Nix is here, and alive, that he's some kind of… bird monster, that he knows Eric isrightthere. Eric, my invisible ghost.
Nix doesn't answer me. He pulls his hand back and shoves Eric harder. I reach out for Eric again, but my hand goes through him, like always.
But Nix grips Eric as though he were solid.
"Can you see him?" I ask dumbly. "Wait, Nix, stop! What is this? What are you? Eric, are you okay?" Words, questions, all my confusion spills out of me.
"Your wraith is fine." Nix snarls.
"Let him go. Please."
Nix side-eyes me, but doesn't turn his head. "Do you condone this creature's behavior?"
"He's not a creature," I cry. "He's—please just let him go." How do I explain this? Eric is my lover, my best friend, my cold-hearted killer. Flaws and all, he's mine. "I'm sorry for what he did to you. He shouldn't have done it."
I can't tear my eyes away. The feathers on his hands are retreating, slithering slowly back into his skin, disappearing, leaving nothing but black dots in their wake. The feathers crawling up his arms, folding into the expanse of black fading to red, glowing wings, remain. I can't believe what I'm seeing. Almost absentmindedly, I whisper, "I thought you were dead. That he killed you."
"And you helped him. You got rid of my car, I noticed. It's a ‘67 Shelby. It better not have a fucking scratch on it. Where is it?"
I didn't have the heart to drive it into a lake like I did with that electrician's van. Nix's car is parked a few miles from here, in a strip mall parking lot. It was stupid of me to keep the keys, but I still have them. I tell him this, and add, "Let him go. I'll drive you to your car. We can forget this ever happened. It was an accident."
