Evil Town
Chapter Three
Dead Stars
A/N: I'm so sorry it took me so long to update, I've been really busy lately. I'll get back to updating regularly, I hope people are still reading after that long hiatus. I would like to thank Mala Suerte, T.I.B.E.-sway- and Musa Rox, I am very grateful for your advice and encouragement.
Chapter name comes from a song by Addicted2Fiction.
1
Bathed in the burnt orange glow of the streetlights, Yuki Aizawa tears his way down the deserted street. It's dark, far too late to be out on a school night, but that doesn't seem to matter. His concept of time has shifted dramatically, along with his priorities. Why should he care if he's tired the next day at school? If not for conflicts to bring to an end, revenge to wreak on everyone who had ever abused him and made him feel like shit, why would he even bother showing up tomorrow? All he wants to do is fight, run, and just generally push his body to the limits.
And he is definitely doing that now. His legs hit the pavement fast and hard, muscles searing and bones feeling like they're about to snap beneath him. His lungs burn with each gulp of air, and there's a weird sensation like his chest is about to collapse in. His arms hang forgotten at his side, making him flap around like some horrible parody of a child's doll.
But that doesn't matter either. All those sensations, all that awareness is distant, like his body is a separate entity from him. And what's wrong with that? Aren't there more benefits than downsides? All he has to worry about are pure physical limits, not mental or emotional or even social boundaries dictating what he can and can't do. If anyone objects, he can take 'em. If this body gets injured in the process it's no big deal, he can just take another one now that he's free.
Those weren't my thoughts, Yuki thinks, shocked.
Did you just realize that? the dark force taking over his mind mocks. Like it or not, I'm going to avenge you. Think of it as my way of rewarding you for my freedom. Once again, the demon engulfs his consciousness as their minds merge.
So Yuki runs on through the smoky night air, beneath the star studded sky. He spots a figure off in the distance and decides to test out his strength. He sprints over lawns, runs through the streets with no attention to his peripheral vision, only focusing on one goal; to catch that person. The figure is drawing nearer and nearer, and he now sees it is a young female, maybe in her mid teens.
Headlights shine bright in his eyes as a car comes hurtling towards him. He jumps as the vehicle swerves to avoid him but fails; airborne, his sneaker comes down on the hood of the car and he manages two clumsy steps on to the roof before the momentum and sheer speed causes him to topple off. He rolls off in a clumsy somersault and seems to hang in midair for a split second before connecting with the pavement, clothes and skin tearing on impact.
The driver emerges from his car, slamming the door behind him. He's breathing heavily, in a total panic with the knowledge of what he may have just done.
But as he frantically searches the area, there's nothing to be found.
He reenters his automobile and simply sits and waits allows his heart rate to return to normal. When it does, he presses down the gas pedal and takes the wheel in his shaking white hands.
And the stars in the sky passively gaze down as the scene unfolds.
2
"Yo, John!" calls Ian as he enters the classroom, late as usual. It's an art class, with students from the regular program and advanced program all mixed together and a lenient teacher who didn't mind them talking as long as they get their work done.
It doesn't look like John had been doing work though, unless scraping his initials into the table with a pair of rusty scissors is the assignment.
"'sup?" responds John impassively.
"Ya know where Kyo is?"
"No. You?"
"Me either. You think maybe he got suspended for fighting? I haven't seen Aizawa either. Come to think of it, I haven't even seen Marcus," notes Ian.
John shrugs. "Kyo does cut class a lot. Maybe he's just embarrassed about losing to that dork. As for Aizawa: I could care less about where he is. Marcus on the other hand has some explaining to do. I'd like to know why he deserted us yesterday, as he seems to be doing a lot lately."
A girl doing her math homework suddenly calls out, "Hey, anyone know what eleven plus three is?"
"Fourteen," answers Ian automatically.
The girl smiles at him. "Thanks, Ian! You're so smart."
"Yeah, Ian. You're a damn genius," leers John.
"Would all of you geniuses please go and work on your art projects," intervenes the teacher, fixing them with a stern look. "And Ian, go get a late slip."
"What a brilliant suggestion, Mrs. Goldman," says Ian, doing a bit of a dance as he exits and slamming the door behind him.
Out in the halls, Ian places himself in The Hiding Space: a small gap between the lockers that can't be seen if one is looking down the halls. Even walking by, most would miss it unless they know it's there. The space is tiny, and about the only reason Ian is ever grateful for his diminutive size. He produces a cell phone from out of a pocket in his jeans. Cell phones are forbidden in school, but hey, he needs it. How else is he supposed to communicate with friends who might be half way across the room? Or in Kyo's case, halfway across the country for all Ian knows the majority of the time.
He punches in the orange-haired boy's number, and the phone rings once. The phone rings a second time, then a third. Fourth. Just as Ian is prepared listen to the message of Kyo where he sounds like an old French dude for some reason, there is a clicking noise followed by a "Uhhh, hello?"
"Um, hi? This Kyo?" asks Ian, truly unable to tell if he is speaking to a just-woken Kyo or an actual old foreign dude.
"Who else would it be?" the voice snaps. Yeah, definitely Kyo.
"Man, where are you? I thought you weren't going to cut anymore, you sick or something?"
There's a pause on the other end, and Ian thinks they have been disconnected until Kyo says, "I'm at Izzy's."
Izzy? Ian didn't know an Izzy, did he? "Who's he?" Ian asks.
"She. That girl we met yesterday, remember? The one with, like, the weird hair."
"What you doing visiting her so early, dude?"
"I got here after school yesterday. I just haven't left yet."
"Whoa," Ian says. "You mean you-"
"No, it's not like that! It's not what you think!"
"Then what should I think?"
"I… I can't explain right now. Maybe later, but not right now. I'm sorry," says Kyo. Ian doesn't think he sounds sorry. He sounds the same as ever, and that pisses Ian off.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he exclaims. "I've been your best friend for years, and you treat me like a fucking moron! I've been there for you when you needed someone and now you just completely shut me out of your life."
"Ian… I'm sorry. That's not what I'm trying to do, believe me man."
"Then what are you trying to do? If you have reason for being such a damn jerk, feel free to share it with me." Ian winces a little at the sound of his own words. Does he always talk like such a chick? At least the cursing might make it sound a bit more masculine.
"I can't-""Can't explain right now," Ian finished for him. "I know. Save it for someone who gives a shit."
There was no response.
"Oh, fuck off," Ian said, punching the END CALL button and shoving the phone back into his pocket.
He leaves The Hiding Space and starts to head towards the office to get that late slip. He sees a few students along the way, and it might just be his imagination but they all seem to be giving him a wide berth like they're avoiding him. It somehow manages to make him feel even worse, so he enters the washroom, needing some alone time. Thankfully it's deserted; there aren't even the usual guys lighting up in the back.
Ian catches sight of himself in the mirror and finds himself gravitating towards his image. Contrary to how the students in the halls had treated him, he didn't seem to have acquired bubonic plague. He's not radiating anger either, which rather surprises him.
Then he sees it. His eyes are beginning to tear up. That's not the same as crying, he reminds himself. You haven't cried since you broke your arm in fourth grade, why would you cry now? You're pissed off, not sad. He can't stop his eyes from staring at their reflection and it gives him a weird feeling, like he's being absorbed into the mirror. He's being sucked into his own betraying brown eyes. He turns on the tap and there's a ssshhhhh sound as water travels through the pipes. He splashes the water on his face, washing away all emotion. He looks into the mirror again, and this time the image is more reassuring; apathetic expression with a bit of anger mixed in. Good. Dangerous. He notices a few drops of water clinging to his long dark eyelashes, and he hastily brushes those away.
Much more confidant and calm, Ian resumes his trip to the office and fills out a late slip. A few people looks up, then go back to their work as he rejoins the class. He goes to turn in his late slip, but is interrupted by the end of class bell. He looks over at the art teacher, but she's not paying him any attention.
He leaves to go to his next class.
3
"I heard that remark about my hair," says a voice from behind Kyo. He whips around, startled to see Izzy standing right there.
"How much did you hear?" he asks, inexplicably nervous.
"Just enough to know that you were talking to some angry guy who cursed a lot and that you think my hair is weird. Oh, and that your friend doesn't know about you being a demon."
"Half demon," corrects Kyo through gritted teeth.
After her trap had made him all stripy, Izzy had insisted that Kyo come over to her place until she could find the counter-curse. Kyo hadn't understood why. "I thought you said it would look like shadows to other people," he'd reasoned.
"True," Izzy had agreed. "But won't your friends get suspicious when they notice you have weird shadows on you all the time?" At her place, she had spent hours looking up cures to her spell, both on the net and from some strange old-looking books written in the same weird language the magic piece of paper had been covered in. She let him do whatever he wanted as she researched, saying that she felt she had to make it up to him. Well, duh, Kyo had thought. She put a weird tattoo all over my body and forced me to stay here. But he had to admit, it was nice to be treated with such respect. From a demon hunter no less. He'd made himself a sandwich and a big bowl of some healthy cereal stuff that he consumed while watching a crime drama on television, followed by a stupid but entertaining movie about a psychic who a mob of pyrotechnicians wanted to kill for no explained reason.
At eleven o'clock, Izzy had suggested they turn in for the night. He had slept peacefully on the couch, covered in warm blankets. He couldn't remember ever sleeping so well before. It was ten in the morning when Ian had awoken him with that phone call.
This thought brings Kyo back jarringly to the present.
"Whatever," says Izzy. "If you don't mind me asking, how come John doesn't know about you? It sounds like you're pretty close, judging by how angry he was on the phone."
"John?" asks Kyo, bemused. "I was talking to Ian."
"Oh. I just assumed that John was your best friend."
"You heard that part?"
Izzy shrugs. "It was hard not to. Dude was loud."
Kyo sighs quietly. "Ian's my best friend, I guess. I have more in common with John, but I've known Ian longer. He can be annoying, but he's always been there for me. But now… I think I've fucked that up too."
"What is it with guys? You realize you're allowed to have other emotions besides anger, right? Friends fight all the time; it's no big deal. If you want to fix things just apologize and tell him the truth. If you can't trust him with that, he's not much of a friend, is he? I told my best friend," says Izzy fiercely.
"Yeah, yesterday," Kyo points out.
"And she hasn't turned me in to the demons yet, so I'd say we're safe. I should have told her earlier. I would have if I'd been thinking straight. It was conceited of me to assume the revelation of my secret was going to be the most exciting thing to happen in her life. Just tell him, he'll probably take it the same way."
Kyo doesn't want to point out that from where he was standing, it didn't seem like Sharla had taken it that well. She'd looked shocked and been pretty quiet, then left. But maybe Izzy had been expecting something worse. Hell, Kyo can't even figure out what he is expecting to happen if he tells Ian. Just something…. Well, bad. He is about to say something, but Izzy speaks first.
"I think I've got it. Here, hold this," she says, handing Kyo… a vegetable.
"Is this a turnip?" he asks dubiously.
"Yeah, the spell calls for a turnip," says Izzy.
"I thought you just had to write these things out for them to work."
"Sometimes they require ingredients too. And chanting. In this case we need you to hold the turnip and stand in the middle of a diagram of a rune while I sing."
It seems really anticlimactic to Kyo, but he stands still, turnip in hand, while she uses a piece of blue chalk to draw a complex diagram around where he is standing in the center of the living room floor. Then she begins to sing in what he can only assume is the spoken form of the weird written language. He has to admit, it's as beautiful as it is strange, like no language he has ever heard before, yet he is startled to realize he understands it. Or at least he gets the gist of what she is saying. She's singing of life and death and rebirth; of the natural and of the spiritual world. She's singing of things that there are no words for in any other language.
The room seems to disappear and a sphere of swirling multicolored wind surrounds him. The sphere gets smaller and smaller and the colors come closer and closer to him, until he can feel them whipping through his hair and skimming between his fingers. Suddenly the sphere is going through him, actually inside of him. He can feel its power, its energy pulsing through him in rhythm with his heartbeat; so overwhelmingly alive. When it is completely inside him, the pulse suddenly pauses. Then –
RELEASE.
The energy swells and bursts, leaving his body in a sudden gust. The black pattern that was tattooed on his skin unravels and follows the tendrils of color. And once again, he is standing in Izzy's living room.
Kyo looks down at himself, breathing hard. His skin is back to its usual tan tone, no tattoo to be seen. And his clothes are ripped to shreds. He is standing in the middle of a girl's living room with shreds of cloth hanging off him, nothing but his boxers intact.
Those are intact, right? He looks down through the strips of cloth that remain of his pants. By some miracle, his underwear has survived.
"I can't believe it worked! This is the most complicated spell I've ever performed, and it didn't even have any downsides!" exclaims Izzy proudly.
"Um, Izzy?"
"Yeah? Oh," she says, noticing the rags he is wearing. As though to emphasize his point, half of Kyo's shirt falls off onto the floor. "I'll go find you something to wear. But you have to admit, as downsides of spells go, this one was pretty mild."
""Pretty mild?" Do you realize how much those cost?" mutters Kyo, but Izzy doesn't hear as she has already left to find him something to wear. A minute later she returns, her arms loaded with garments.
"These should fit you," she remarks, holding up a pair of blue jeans with rips at both knees and dumping the rest of the clothes on the sofa.
"Those your brother's or your dad's?" asks Kyo.
"They're mine. But they're made for guys, I just couldn't find them in women's style and they were about my size. They should fit you." She tossed them to Kyo and he examined them doubtfully. Sure enough, the label read SIZE 28, MENS.
He was about to put them on, when he noticed Izzy still standing there. "Could you, umm," he said.
"What?" asks Izzy.
"LeavesoIcanchange?" he says quickly.
"Oh! Yeah, I'll… just go do that then," says Izzy.
Kyo rolls his eyes. She was such a ditz, and she was the one protecting the town from evil demons. Didn't that just make him feel safe?
The pants did fit, really well actually. He rummaged through the pile of other clothes and selected a white T-shirt, plain except for the logo of some band he'd never heard of. "Done yet?" called Izzy from the hall.
"Yeah, I'm done!" Kyo shouted back.
Izzy reentered, examining Kyo with her eyes. "Ya look good. Those pants fit you better than they do me," she observes.
"They are guys pants," says Kyo.
"Well, on to the second order of business. Yuki Aizawa and his demon," says Izzy.
Kyo winces internally. Aizawa had completely slipped his mind, and who knows how much damage he has done by now? He really should have brought it up earlier.
Izzy continues. "Do you know what demon it is?"
Kyo shakes his head. "He got Haru to summon it for him. A ninth grade kid, doesn't go to our school. He's really interested in the supernatural and stuff, and he's friends with Aizawa."
"Do you know where he lives?"
"Sure," says Kyo, and states the address.
"Great, I'll just head over ther…" She suddenly slumps forward, and Kyo reaches out to catch her.
"Are you okay?"
She nods weakly. "Just… tired…"
Kyo guides her to the sofa and she sits down. "I don't think you had better go anywhere," he says gently.
Izzy nods in agreement.
"I'll go speak to him," suggests Kyo.
"No… I need to watch over you for a while… make sure no errors in the spell suddenly materialize." Kyo thinks she seems more like the one who needs watching over, but he doesn't say so. "I'll call someone to go talk to Haru." She removes a cell phone from her pocket and started dialing.
4
Haru sits on his bed playing guitar and staring out the window at the treetops, rooftops, and sky. He's grateful it's a PD day and he has a chance to relax. He plucks a three-note sequence and then strums a chord. That sounds good. Sort of like the intro to an emotional rock song. He plays it again, this time adding in a few other chords. Suddenly the thickest string on the instrument snaps and Haru lets out a groan. Why did that have to happen when he was so inspired? Making his way downstair he calls out, "Mom, I need a new G string! The big kind-" he cuts off abruptly, seeing a girl in the doorway speaking with his mother. "For my guitar, I mean…" he clarifies lamely.
"Oh, there you are Haru. You have a friend who want to speak with you," says his mother.
"Hi," Haru tells the girl who is apparently his friend, though he's never seen her before. "So, what's the occasion?"
"I'll leave you kids be," says Haru's mom, returning to the kitchen to finish making dinner or lunch or something. She always seems to be cooking.
"My friend sent me to talk to you," says the girl. "I'm Sharla, by the way."
"Haru. So what do you need me to do for you?"
"I'm supposed to find out about Yuki Aizawa. Apparently you, um, summoned something for him. Can you tell me what it was?" She looks nervous, Haru notes.
"I'm sorry, I need to protect my client's confidentiality."
"Clients? You're, like, fifteen."
"I'm sorry," he says, "I can't tell you."
"Why not? It's not like you'll get in trouble. You think I'm going to tell your mom and she'll ground you for summoning demons or something?"
Haru grimaces. "My mom doesn't like me studying this stuff. But no, that's not what I'm afraid of. I just can't tell you. Yuki…"
"You're protecting him, aren't you? Typical. Don't you realize that if we don't find out what this thing is and get it out of him, your friend will be gone forever?" says Sharla fiercely. That was what Izzy had told her to say, right? It must have been, because it has quite an effect on Haru.
"No… Yuki…" he moaned.
"So are you going to tell me?"
"I will," says Haru, meeting her gaze with his huge, gorgeous brown eyes, "If you can promise me that you're not going to use this against Yuki. Just to help him, because he has a lot to deal with already and he never intended to hurt anyone. He just wanted those guys to leave him alone and give him some respect."
"I promise, Haru. We want to help him, just like you do," says Sharla, suddenly feeling sympathetic towards the younger boy. He's just scared for his friend, like she would be for Izzy. Actually, she is scared for Izzy right now. What was she thinking, getting herself involved with all this stuff? Izzy may be intelligent and probably knows what she is doing, but still…
"I thought Yuki had enough self-control that he wouldn't let it take over him," Haru says vaguely.
"And what is it exactly?"
"The spirit of Trevor Westweaver."
Sharla gasps. Trevor Westeaver is one of the most notorious figures in history; so terrible that Sharla can vividly remember every awful detail they had learned about him in history class. Westweaver had been a notoriously brutal war general, and had been put to death for slaughtering many of his own men as "retribution" over minor incidents.
And he was here in their little blink-and-you'll-miss-it town.
"What the bloody hell would Aizawa want with Trevor Westweaver inside him?" she says quietly.
But she knows the answer:
Retribution.
5
The lunch hour bell rings and students flood into the halls, chatting happily. But not for long.
He bursts through the doorway, slamming the first student he sees against the wall. A few screams ripple through the crowd as people try to make sense of what is happening. He'd missed this, after all those years of imprisonment, his coal-black soul bound to the earth but unable to do anything but observe. Not anymore. He lashes out at a few more students, relishing in their fear and confusion. Just listen to those shrieks.
Suddenly his ears pick up something else. Not a scream, not rapid fire horror-powered footsteps. It's the sound of defiance.
"Stop right there, Westweaver," demands the defiant voice. He wheels around, coming face to face with what Yuki's memory recognizes as Kyo Hirozuka.
Kyo charged at him.