Cupidity

Willow woke up to a brilliant starlit night. In place of the ceiling.

Rubbing her eyes blearily, cursing the smear of makeup that came with that. Feeling shaky. Jittery. All sorts of messed up, as though caught in the throes of a vicious fever. Her throat aching dry. Her mouth the texture of sandpaper. Temples cleaving hatchets into her brain with each stutter of her heart…

The first thing she noticed upon sitting up: the Trees of Life on her right fingers had transformed themselves to Trees of Knowledge. Bearing miniature skulls for fruit and serpents coiled round and round for trunks…

The second thing she noticed: she and Sable were lying on a little island of house. Where the rest had apparently been obliterated…

And the third thing she noticed: there was a choo-choo train of emergency vehicles orbiting their destruction like windup toys on a track.

Just… orbiting… lights flashing… silent… around and around they went…

Sable. Well what was left of Sable, was sprawled across their carpet island in a heap of sizzling flesh and bone.

A reeking carcass smoking sulfur. A corpse looming outwards from a viscous puddle of oozing black blood. Something out of a horror movie. It was as though the universe itself had hooked its talons into Sable’s flesh. And ripped outwards in a frenzy of demise. Spewing guts. Splattering tissue. And trashing the place with smears of gunk the texture of brains but the toxicity of gasoline…

The kitten he’d thrown at her was curled up beside his face. Sniffing him from time to time. Glancing at Willow. Licking Sable. Glaring at Willow. Nuzzling Sable. Staring at Willow. Kneading the ground fretfully. Her little ears rotated radar across their surroundings. Her long whiskers twitched to the rhythm of silence suffocating their surroundings.

What the fuck… actually even happened…?

Somehow, Sable’s face actually appeared intact. And he looked to be sleeping, really. As though a grenade had gone off within his stomach, and the indigestion thus inflicted had caused him to decide on a quick nap. Glasses glimmering in the signal lights. Blue… red… blue… red…

Willow was overcome. By a sudden. Overpowering. Urge to see what he looked like without those glasses. She earned it after all, didn’t she? Sitting through a demonic spell with a kitten on her belly and a pentagram’s noose around her neck? She’d been patient. She’d been brave.

Now she felt like Mary Jane with the chance to unmask Spiderman. To see or not to see, who this idiot was behind the nerdy gimmick at innocence…

But when she reached to remove the over-sized glasses…

His eyes flashed open.

Fingers wrapped firmly around her wrist.

EEK!

What the fuck?!

Scuffling backwards, panting. Detesting the wheezes her throat coughed out in a flurry of surprised little hiccups.

“You know, generally people ask before they go about undressing someone.” Sable grumbled. Sitting up creakily for a cigarette. How, Willow didn’t know. Because Sable didn’t exactly have a chest to fill with cancer at the moment. Or an ass to sit upon. Or any semblance of viable legs to curl up as he lit the cigarette. But he was sitting up nonetheless, resting his smoking arm upon one skeletal knee and watching the blood stream around him in reaching fingers of gore.

Glasses are accessories. Not clothes…

“I still do not believe that we’ve reached that level of acquaintance yet.” Sable blew the plume of menthol in her face coolly.

We’re not to the level of acquaintance where I can see you without your glasses. But we can perform satanic rituals that leave me riddled with funky ass symbols from hell?

“Well of course.”

What exactly… did you do…?

“I think I might have… intertwined our eternal fates.”

YOU WHAT?! YOU?! HUH?! Is that… is that even possible…?!

“In a manner of speaking, anything is possible. If you want it bad enough.”

WHAT THE FUCK! Eternal fates… how am I even supposed to believe that… how am I even supposed to believe any of this?!

“Who said anything about believing? Nine times out of ten your own priest doesn’t actually believe in God.” Sable chuckled self-indulgently, “You don’t have to believe me angel-heart; you don’t even have to believe in me. I’m quite simply relaying to you my suspicions.”

But… if you did…. If you did do that… Wait. Is… is this really how you demons operate?! Like oh hi, nice to meet you. Wanna spend an eternity together? Cool, I barely even know your name but let’s skip marriage and get straight to the eternity. NO! FUCK NO. That is NOT how humans work! You could have at least taken me out to dinner first. Or ya know. Asked permission. Why would you… even how could you… why would that be what you did…

“Don’t blame me, blame your mother for the constructions of your protections.” Sable grimaced and picked himself up, “Now, in regards to why, I’m not fond of my things burning and maiming me. And in regards to how, even Lucifer once wore a halo… Quite simply I replaced your mother’s spell with my own, and thus inflicted a side-effect upon our respective dooms.”

And apparently. It was that simple to him.

As if explaining to her his recipe for banana bread. Or conveying to her his answer to the latest crossword. No biggie. Just another day at the demon shop. Eternities change all the time. Of course. They’re like the weather. Fates intertwine like rain falls, and destinies untangle like sun shines. Tomorrow they’d be divorced. And the next day Willow would wake up in bed, late yet again for another shift at The Laughing Pinnacle.

Right?

Sable scooped up the cat up as well. His clothing tattering around him in decremented rags soaked by carnage. Hardly concealing… anything.

Exposing the way his flesh was creeping. Sneaking. Tip toing. Crawling muscles across his skeleton. Tugging tendons taught between bones and opening the flood gates on rivers of veins. Swaying idly. Shoes squelching in the puddle of blood. For a moment, he simply watched the train of cops, ambulance, and fire trucks contemplatively.

Holding his kitten like a football. Puffing. Puffing on the cigarette, “Check out your necklace, darling.”

Willow glanced down. But… she wasn’t wearing a necklace. And if she could scream, she would have screamed. She would have wailed for the sky. She would have echoed across galaxies in the sudden searing pain that stopped her heart and snuffed her breath. Burning. Burning so hot it was exploding amongst the confines of her ribcage in a series of violent contractions.

Holy shit.

Healing. Maybe. Possibly. Slowly. Numbing as abruptly as it had lacerated. Her skin burbling and bubbling beneath goosebumps of horror and streaking torrents of nervous sweat. Simmering towards. A scar. Of some kind.

And then, oh. She was going to be sick… nausea heaved a torrent of repulsion against the back of her throat. Gagging her with remnants of coffee and leftover bar peanuts. Choking. Swallowing her inherent disgust for the wound. Blistering. Broiling devilry above the space where her cleavage began to swell.

Her necklace… yeah it wasn’t gone. But more so, it was seared into her flesh. Like a brand. A cauterized permanency of evil. Stitching itself to the very fibers of her sternum. Glowing red. Seething orange. And. It was no longer Jesus Christ who adorned her chest… No. But a glittering inverted cross. Glowing. Ebbing and flowing through rising and falling coals of magic.

Because the universe has one sick sense of humor.