Ignis Fatuus
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Author's Note
After viewing the first two parts of the trilogy again recently – the films starring Mr. Julian Sands – I felt a small tug of inspiration. Why should a character as fascinating, innately evil, and undeniably chic as the Warlock be deprived of a following in the fan fiction archives?
Regarding the continuity – I've decided that although Armageddon was clearly meant to act as more a remake (and, in my opinion, a terrible one) than a sequel, I will in fact treat it as a sequel. I apologize if this becomes confusing.
I originally wrote this in the throes of a brief obsession with the character, so I can't say whether or not I'll ever finish. No surprise, right? Enjoy.
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The turning of the autumn leaves was long overdue; here the sparse woods were a tangle of greens, whites, and browns embroidered by the frequent splash of gold and red. Soft and damp underfoot, the dark mountain soil shone in bright droplets of midmorning light filtering from between long, white branches and color-dappled foliage.
Yet – in that moment – this was a dark place.
Footsteps stirred up a mound of loose dirt, and a handful of black ants raced angrily beneath the sparse cover of brush and leaves littering the ground. As the moment passed, the scene became taut with a foreboding lack of any further motion.
The girl, too, paused and cast her attention back over the wide gash in the landscape – the public trail— one hundred yards behind her and to the right. A dilapidated old bicycle of an indeterminable color lay abandoned at its edge. She shook her head, buried her fists deep into her jean pockets until their heels took in the warmth of her thighs, and turned sharply around the trunk of an unusually wide aspen.
To her utter disgust, the frayed toe of her sandal immediately snagged under something firm.
"Shit!" She was down. Hard.
Her knees and elbows took the brunt of the blow before she collapsed into the dewy, earthen dandruff beneath her smarting limbs. The brittle stem of a leaf rattled against the inside of her nostril as her face took a dive into the dirt. She sneezed. Warm droplets of saliva clung to her cheeks.
"God damnit." The fallen damsel's lids cocked, and with the back of her hand she rubbed furiously at the moisture on her face before shooting a scalding glare back over her shoulder.
Oh my God...
That the thing hadn't given under the pressure of her fall had immediately made its victim certain that the culprit had been no more than a bare root, or a deeply anchored rock, or... almost anything else.
What sat hunched beneath the tree – though thoroughly covered in both – was neither vegetable nor mineral. Human it was; or so the cold, blue irises glowing from beneath the grime suggested. She could not, for the life of her, distinguish any other trait about its "person" that would imply such a thing.
Its skin was black with soil, caked over with a crust of both dry and wet mud in various stripes and patches. In all, it disclosed neither sex, nor age, nor even whether or not it was clothed. A dark veil hung limply from the scalp and fell down about its shoulders. She could only assume that this tangled mess was its hair. Varying shades here led her to suspect that muddy brown was definitely not its natural hue.
The woman scrambled to her feet and winced as the ball of her knee slid in its joint.
"Holy shit. Hello? Are you alright?" She wouldn't bother with an apology; the unfortunate creature appeared burdened with problems far beyond her lumbering feet. The eyes swung to acknowledge her for the first time. She would swear – as ridiculous as it rang in her mind – that those sky-colored points became yet more lifeless in their sudden mobility. No further response sounded from the clay-covered being.
Unease began to crawl out toward her extremities.
"What are you doing out here?" It was ridiculous, of course. The real question, however, remained unspoken as she tried to discern where the filthy person ended and the mound of loose mud and clay upon which it sat began. The response was sharp and immediate.
"I am waiting." The teeth that flashed beneath the black mouth shone blindingly white. The voice was softly, chillingly, undeniably male. She shuddered and briefly considered turning tail to make a swift exit. Her attention began to edge toward the path, and she leaned slightly as she made an attempt to massage away the sharp sting rising in her knees.
He couldn't catch me.
He could.
There's no way.
He would.
Screw it. I'm gone.
A twitch shot down her thigh. She wanted nothing more than to move, to sprint the distance to the ranger station, and to—
Blue eyes – staring.
How did a human being look that way?
A dull ache mounted deep in her temple, and she shivered.
"Waiting... for what?" The young woman stiffened her back, stuffed her hands back into her pockets' warm folds, and coughed out an implausible chuckle. Somehow, she doubted he concerned himself with the fragile veneer.
The eyes remained still.
"I know not," the mud-man purred. The rhythm of that archaic lilt snapped frostily at her nerve endings.
"Do you, uh," her voice began to catch as it surfaced from her throat, unease evolving into a precognitive panic, "Need... anything?"
The head tilted, the heap stirred, and suddenly a hand emerged flexing from the mass of grit, followed promptly by another. He threw his back into the blackened trunk and, arching his body, sprung expertly to his bare feet. A spray of mud slapped against the woman's left side. Rivulets of the stuff rolled off the stranger's shoulders, dropped from his fingertips, and trickled down his calves as he straightened and stood.
What the Hell am I doing? Sense had, apparently, returned home from its untimely holiday. She made to run. Shit. Pushing aside the minor discomfort mounting in her legs from the fall, she turned on her heel and sprinted. She hadn't put but ten feet behind her before stumbling, flailing, and hitting the dirt. Again. This time, it was her skull that suffered as the point of her chin broke into the soft earth.
The world dipped in and out of focus. Her lungs pulled desperately, but were, expectedly, rewarded with more dust than oxygen.
A rustling.
A rush of clay and mold mingled with the unbearably earthy scent of leaves and dirt. And then she was on her feet, suspended by the nape of the neck before the human mud pie.
A thrashing worm sprung from the grime surrounding his knuckles.
The dark creature stared in silence, and she struggled to wrench her gaze from the electrifying hold his own cast. A trickle of hot moisture ran from her chin to the far edge of her jaw.
Blood.
She felt it pour from her gums and sting the sensitive buds carpeting the surface of her tongue.
"A youth yet unscathed. Should you value a continued purity of soul and body," he lifted a thumb to the wide wound spitting blood and dirt that split the girl's chin, "You would do well to deliver unto me a truth." She winced against the relentless bite of his finger in the messy laceration, and lashed with white-knuckled ferocity.
"Tell me... where might I find water?" The absurdity of the order briefly pacified the woman's aggression.
"Water?" The syllables dripped incredulity as she repeated them. Although the being's lips tightened about their edges, he voiced his distaste at her sudden sluggishness without the aid of a verbal confirmation. Instead, his fingers moved from their tortuous contact to stroke and then to tenderly grasp either side of her jaw. If this was aimed to retrieve her attention, it succeeded.
"Wh-what kind of water?"?"
Abruptly his gentle grip became viselike. A gurgle issued up from her throat.
Water? Mind racing, her eyes wandered furiously until she felt herself unwillingly snared by the pull of his magnetic gaze.
Such a stubborn songbird. Sing.
All at once, it was not the steel grasp – oh no – but the shining cobalt rounds that held her there. Oh, Christ...
Sing!
Air hissed back into her lungs.
"There's a lake. It's here in the park." Though the placement of his hand prevented the formation of any coherent sound, he seemed to read the soft vibrations budding beneath his fingertips with little difficulty.
"Show me." She pointed out beyond the old path, and the grimy – yet unnervingly elegant – lips rounded into a wicked grin. The stranger's interest lingered with his captive for half a moment more.
"So small a price you pay for redemption." He released her collar so abruptly that the materialization of solid ground beneath her feet would have sent her stumbling into the solid, filthy surface of his broad back had he not already completed at least one long stride toward the trail. She swayed like a young tree in a high wind.
Crack – her attention snapped back as the yellow corpse of an aspen leaf crumbled beneath the man's bare heels. The tiny sound elicited a moment of pause from the creature, and he pitched his head in such a fashion that the streaked hollow of his cheek filled with a pool of warm light as it came around. Beyond it, only the fine tip of his nose was seen.
"You are free to go and lick your wounds," his eyes could not be glimpsed at such an angle, and she was glad for it, "And I would not tarry..."
His hands moved to the mud caked atop either shoulder – mud that sucked and squelched at his fingers as he dug them in. With one sound jerk and a sickeningly damp pop, the remnants of a jacket slithered from his arms and heaped about his ankles.
"...Dried blood is so much more difficult to remove." The girl bolted, and then her tormentor turned his face to the sky.
"I imagine we'll be favored with warm weather."
He walked, and the desolate Rockies rose up behind him.