‘I’m going,’ I whisper through clenched teeth, racing away from him, down the stairs, adrenaline coursing through me. There’s no time to think, no time to hesitate. She’s not the sort of girl to stay outside the wall if she’s decided to come in.
The raksasa screeches as I fling open the front door and run down the steps. It flurries over my head, its enormous wings rustling. I duck my head as it dives down, a red-skinned, furious creature that has stalked my nightmares and my night-time reality for as long as I can remember now. It fills the night sky, striving to break through the barrier to reach the girl outside the wall. I realize I can smell her blood. Her fear. I run towards the gate as she starts to scale the wall next to it, and by the time I get there she’s pulled herself to sit on top of it.
The creature flies at her just as I reach the gate.
‘Get down!’
The look on her face as I climb through brambles and reach up for her. She’s just watching the raksasa, her eyes shining. Like she’s daring it to come faster, come harder, because it’s just what she was waiting for.
I pull at her arm and brace myself as she falls into me. The raksasa screeches and hurls itself at us, and I’m holding on to the gate with one hand, Angel with the other. I bend forward to shield us both with my back, and she slips through my fingers, landing lightly on her feet below me as the creature thrusts its claws into my robe, its wings beating either side of my face. I tear the robe away and the raksasa wheels up into the sky, screeching.
It’s not done yet. I steady myself, turning on Angel.
‘Go. Run!’
She steps up to me, her eyes flicking between me and the raksasa.
‘No.’
‘You’re making it harder!’
She puts her hand on my chest.
‘You have to fight!’
‘No,’ I push her away, towards the gate. ‘Run!’
She staggers, falls. Looks up into the amber eyes of the raksasa, and howls.
The monster flies right at me. Oh, I know it’s madness. I’ve flipped. Lost it. But I couldn’t hear that sound in my dreams another night and do nothing. It’s like I’ve been sleeping for a year, and now I’m awake, and it’s electrifying. Bavar steps over me just as the thing gets within striking distance and puts his arm up to thrust it away. He seems to grow as he does it, as broad and long as the monster itself, shouting as he throws it on to the ground. Its wings beat against him and he bows his head, stretches up to the creature’s neck. Something roars, I can’t tell whether it’s Bavar or the monster, the air sparks around them and then there’s a massive crack and a new, absolute silence. An absolute stillness. The air rings with it.
In the darkness it’s hard to make out the details. Silhouettes of shapes. Of sinew and muscle, wing and outstretched arm. Slowly Bavar moves away, pulling himself on his elbows out of the tangle of limbs. He keeps his head low as he rises to a crawl, retching, making for the shadows at the edge of the garden.
‘Bavar . . .’
He sits against the wall and tips his head back, stretching his legs out. I walk unsteadily, suddenly freezing, crouch by him. Watch tears roll down his cheeks. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.
I find his hand on the ground, put mine on top of it. It fits in his cold palm.
‘I’m sorry.’
Did I?
Did I have to? Was there another way? If she’d stayed behind the wall.
If I’d stayed in the house. Never gone to school.
My hands, around its neck. Hairless skin, like crumpled leather.
Crack.
It’s so quiet now. The sky is so clear; a thousand stars bright above my shame. And it’s cold, and I can’t feel anything except her hand in my palm. So small. How can she put it there? How can she touch me now? Touch those hands, my hands, when they just did that? The raksasa lies stiff, a massive shadow over everything else.
It took an instant, that’s all.
One moment, to make me the monster they’ve been asking for all this time.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how long we’ve been just sitting here while frost gathers around us. I can’t move. There’s this weird feeling, like if I take my hand away now, he’ll be gone. I know it doesn’t make sense; there’s just something so unnaturally still about him, like he let go. I try not to look at the monster in the middle of the garden. For a second, in the heat of it all, it was hard to tell them apart. His roar, his rage was just as powerful as that of the creature he fought. Is that what he’s been so afraid of? After a while I realize I’m just counting breaths; mine and his. They plume in the air, regular and soothing.
‘Should we go in?’ I ask, when the cold is biting deeper, and our breath is slower. ‘It’s too cold, Bavar . . .’
‘What happened to you?’ he asks in a whisper.
I look at him; his eyes are still on the sky. I get it – he doesn’t want to look down, to see what he did.
‘That happened,’ I whisper, gesturing at the monster. ‘One of those. It came for us.’
He whips away from me, rises to a crouch.
‘What?’
I back away. I’m not sure he even heard me – his eyes are glazed, sick-looking. ‘Bavar, we should go in; you need help.’
He looks down at himself, his clothes torn, skin scratched by the creature’s claws. He looks at the monster. And then he looks at me, and starts to laugh.
I saved an angel. I killed the monster and saved the angel.
She said something that made my blood run cold, but now I can’t . . . I can’t remember why. My jaw aches, my hands are throbbing, my stomach hurts, and there are a million little darts of pain over my skin where the raksasa’s claws scored into me.
Aoife is running towards us and her mouth is moving, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. The girl stands, and they both stare down at me.
‘Bavar, come!’ Aoife demands. ‘Who knows when the next will strike. You’re in no condition to be sitting here just waiting for trouble.’
‘What’re we going to do with it, Aoife?’ I ask, my eyes on the creature, a wave of nausea rolling in my stomach.
‘Don’t worry about that, just get in the house!’
I notice the girl, Angel, is coming too. Will she even be able to walk through the door of the monster house? How is all of this happening? How did the world change so fast? It spins around me as I head up the steps, as I watch her disappear into the light ahead of me. I feel myself falling, catch myself on hands and knees, head for the light, the clamour of the house.
They’re howling.
All the ancestors in all their heavy frames. Howling, hooting, crowing, as I crawl into the house. They think I’m the victor; they think I’ve come into my own. And here I am on my knees, while the world spins, and the angel comes at me as I kick the front door shut, and so I lower my head because I’ve seen enough. Enough, enough, enough.