In five days, they’d covered more than half of the disposal sites scattered across the Belleayre mountain range. It should have inflated Ira with hope, it should have notched his belt, except that he had nothing to show for it--unless they were counting the pink and gummy clump of flesh stuck to the bottom of his boot. Which, he did not really want to think about.

“Black bears are generally more fearful of humans. If you see one, just wave a big stick. It’ll probably leave you alone. Now, if it was a grizzly bear--pray to the angels, cause you’re cooked.” As he spoke, he swept the path ahead with the pointed end of a stick he’d collected. It might have looked like just another instance of Melchior’s nonsense, except that three miles back he’d been on the topic of venomous snakes, and now he was jumpier than a house cat in a cucumber patch. “A lot of people think deer are all cute and friendly--but have you ever been hissed at by one? It’s terrifying.”

“Hissed at?” Ira scoffed. It eased the never ending blabbering to simply participate. That had been a lesson learned through rather painful methods. As Ira walked, he rubbed his boot along the pebbled path, accomplishing nothing but spreading the goo from his arch to his heel.

“Yeah, hissed. You gotta really experience it yourself to know.” Melchior said with a shudder.

Ira laughed, “I’m good.” He rolled his shoulders, lifting the thick strap chafing at his neck. The bag had been supplied for longer trips into the forest and now weight considerably more than it had the first time they’d strayed from the city.

Ira readjusted his shirt with a wince. He’d shed his black Deacon attire for a plain white T-shirt, but it was too thin and his skin was too exposed to the rough canvas. Ira pressed his knuckles against his warmed skin. He knew it must have been red and raised from the constant pressure.

Melchior glanced over his shoulder, his wide hazel-green eyes flickered towards the collar of Ira’s shirt, and to the marks he’d been gathering there. “Want me to take a turn with the bag?”

“No.” Ira grumbled defensively. “You need to keep your bow ready. It’d be harder to do that while carrying the bag. Besides, I got it just fine.”

A slight exaggeration, maybe. His muscles had begun aching a few hundred yards ago, and he wanted nothing more than to crumble into the cool grass.

So, why did he keep stomping recklessly forward? Well, it was obvious--because Melchior had never once slowed. The burden of calling defeat seemed entirely hung on Ira’s head. Melchior persevered with steadfast determination or superhuman durability.

Ira couldn’t decide between the two, but watching Melchior bound ahead along the trail in his black jacket, uncaring for the high summer sun, certainly made the case for something supernatural. Just looking at him was giving Ira secondhand heat stroke.

“It’s fine, I’d know if anything was around. So, can’t you just let me take it?” Melchior pouted his lips childishly, his fingers tapped along the polished belly of his wooden bow to betray his nervousness.

Ira stroked the rough canvas strap pressed into the crook of his neck. There was nothing wrong with admitting that he needed help, Father Pine had scolded him only a million times on the matter. It wasn’t a competition, and Melchior wouldn’t have gloated even if he had won.

Maybe Ira could lower just a fifth of his guard. He could ask Melchior to take the bag--angels. He could ask for so much more. If he let his imagination run dangerously wild, he might request a water break, too. Ira’s gummed up boot stuttered on the path ahead. He could spill all of his secrets and ease the fog rolling in the tight cage of his ribs. He could tell Melchior that he hadn’t slept for days because he was scared of falling asleep, but also because he was terrified of Melchior learning of his night terrors. He didn’t want to explain his own rotten existence. It’d been partly why he’d agreed to Melchior’s deal.

It’d been an offering more tempting than gold. They could shed their skin and just be Deacons. It didn’t matter that they were twenty miles deep in monster infested lands--it was still more free than they had been in the city. It had seemed, at one time, impossible for Ira to ever just be--and now he could. The only price was keeping his mouth shut.

“I’m fine.” He grit, “don’t waste your breath.”

“Okay,” Melchior muttered after a long moment of dejected silence. “Then let’s keep going.”

Ira nodded, stiffening his legs to keep the tremble from them. “What’s the map say? Are we close?”

Melchior’s fingers twitched over the page. His eyes darted from pine to pine, inspecting each passing tree as if he were trying to personally see every pinecone in New York. Or, if Ira was to make an assumption less daring, as if he was looking for someone. No, something. “I don’t need the map. I can smell it now, can’t you?”

Ira tilted his head to the sun-kissed sky. It was just after high-noon. The heat had crescendoed to match the peak of the sun’s path. It’d made light work of burning away the dawn’s dew, leaving only a trace of humidity beneath the forest canopy. Only a slight and whimpering breeze brushed through the trunks of the fir trees. On it came the stench of summer-boiled rot.

Ira shuddered. “Here we go again.” He muttered.

Each disposal site was the same. Lumps of half-charred and bone-picked flesh laid haphazardly in a pocket of the New York wilderness. Ira could squint his eyes and pretend that each one was the same, except that he desperately needed the clues he could gleam from looking for even the smallest differences. Ira studied the clearing to give himself time to prepare for the worst.

Unlike the first site they’d found, this clearing was anything but natural. Ira entered the glade and turned slowly to observe the ring of trees. Each one had been snapped clean at the base. Once magnificent fir trees lay crippled in the dirt. Some logs had been shattered, completely flattened into the earth. Ira shuddered. Something had stepped on them, snapping them as easily as Ira could a stick.

The carnage was in the middle of the wreckage, laid to rot on a bed of ruptured wood. The carcass was the size of their couch back at the apartment, adorned in skin so gray it was nearly smoke-blue. Except along the edges of the clump, where it was mottled pink and welted from boiled burns. Ira knew it must have been from holy water, but that answer only ended in more confusion.

What had prevented them from finishing the job? No, that wasn’t the right question. It couldn’t have been a mistake. They’d done it too many times, even marking it on a map in some twisted trail for Ira and Melchior to follow. So, a survey? Some sick way of retracing the Beast’s steps back to the portal? No, there was no reason to leave behind the corpses--making the map was good enough. Then was Melchior right? Was this all just bait to lure in other creatures?

Ira groaned in frustration, raking his fingers back through his flaxen hair. It just didn’t make sense. He’d lived his life under iron-strong dedication, even when that meant testifying before the Cardinal. Even when his past sins had been dragged from him in lashes that cut soul-deep. He’d been held together by these rules, and now he was powerless as he collected each shattered regulation along the way.

It had started with Melchior’s strange circumstances. His mysterious curse, his secret tattoo, but it had only gotten worse from there. Culminating in the betrayal of the only law that mattered; keeping the monsters from the laity. Spilling demonic corpses from Catskill to Adirondack wasn’t subtle. It was chaos for anyone to find. Well, not that Ira had seen anyone else on the usually popular trails--another strange occurrence to add to the list.

He was standing on the precipice of the collapse. Everything pushing him together was falling away. He was splitting into a million tiny pieces--fractions of a single being pulled between thousands of past lives. Ira pressed his palms to his forehead to stifle the ache there. His heart shuddered behind his ribs, pulsing so painfully Ira thought it might burst. He was spinning out. It seemed inevitable. He wanted Peter--he wanted to see Father Pine.

“Hey, Kitten.” Ira flinched. His shock registered as a jolt of lightning down his spine, heating his nerves and burning his skin. He cheeks flushed pink, his eyes watered at the sudden temperature of them.

“Help me poke at this massive dead husk.” Melchior finished. When Ira leveled him beneath his scorching gaze, he saw he was smirking.

Ira rolled his eyes and shrugged the duffle bag clear from his shoulder. It landed with a thump in the grass, the only disruption in the stillness. “I got your back. If it bites at you, I’ll put it down.” Ira called back. He reached to his belt, jostling the dagger he kept holstered there.

“I’d be relieved, but my backup is stationed pretty far away.” Melchior laughed. Ira shrugged because it was true, and he didn’t have any intention of coming closer just yet, even though Melchior had entered the graveyard without hesitation.

He shifted his bow from his shoulder, bringing it into focus in the palm of his hands. He was still Melchior, full of silly mutterings and lacking in grace, but his presence had changed somehow. When he took up his dark polished weapon, he seemed suddenly older. He seemed dangerous. Ira ignored the pitiful patter of his heart and turned his eyes away.

It was hard to admit, even to himself, that he was scared. Too frightened to come closer, too shaken to walk on his trembling legs. He hovered at the treeline, rolling his sore shoulders to ease his tension. He’d done this before. He’d counted corpses. He’d picked through fallen trees to find small scraps of skin. He’d stepped in it, fallen in it, smelled it. It was stuck on his boot. The rot was in his hair, under his nails. He was drowning in it.

So, why now? Why was it so hard this time? The air was suddenly heavier. Ira was being crushed beneath it. He was choking on a fog he couldn’t dislodge from his lungs. He was dizzy, he was-

“It looks like they got all the bones from this one, too.” Melchior called. His voice sounded miles away, at the surface of the ice water Ira was sinking into.

He was tired, not that it mattered. How could he sleep, knowing he was just going to be torn apart? He sat, rougher than he’d meant to. His knees had buckled beneath him, forcing him down next to their bag with a thump.

Melchior whirled around, searching for the cause of the sound before settling on Ira. His piercing green eyes rooted him in place, locking him into skin and bone. Making him real. Ira inhaled through his nose. He was surprised how easily it came. “You alright, Kitten?”

“Don’t-” Ira stopped. He sunk his teeth into his tongue, pressing until he could taste blood. His words caught in his throat, fizzling away there. Don’t call me that--it’d risen out of him as quick as a lash--and Ira had just barely stopped it.

The teasing had been boiling him all day, but beneath the anger was something stronger. He didn’t want Melchior to treat him seriously. He didn’t want his attention to ever ease, as if it was the only thing keeping him from dissolving. “Don’t worry. I’m just tired.”

“Okay,” Melchior shrugged. “Then I’ll take this one, but you’re getting the next three as payback.”

Ira rolled his eyes. He relaxed his spine and flopped down in the grass, resting his head on his elbow. The lawn was cold against his sun-kissed skin, still damp from last night’s mist. The shade here had protected the small droplets from burning away beneath the summer sun. “Fine--not like they’re any different.” His eyelids drifted shut, aching as bad as his burden. He was tired. No, he was exhausted. He’d been going for far too long, only falling deeper and deeper into his grave.

“What are you even talking about?” Melchior laughed. “The last one was the size of a football. This one could fit, like, five players on it.”

Ira’s blue eyes blinked in the afternoon light, filtering through the pine needles. He stared into the cloudless sky for a moment, trying and failing to picture his analogy.

“Weird measurement method aside,” Ira eventually dismissed, “the size is irrelevant. Let me guess--gray skin, mostly smooth, but sometimes it wrinkles like an elephant. No fur--maybe a few fine hairs. Pink flesh, slightly burned, no bones, and no features--no limbs, no head.”

Ira could feel the sun lick along the thin skin of his eyelids as he allowed them to slowly shut. Melchior sighed in defeat. Ira smiled at his prizeless victory.

“That only makes it more important that we check. If we find a difference, it might really matter.” Melchior huffed.

“Sure.” Ira muttered, “Knock yourself out--but unless that difference is a neatly folded little map that says ’hey, portal to hell right here!’, I don’t see how it’ll be of any use.”

Melchior groaned and fell into a silence that was wholly unnatural between them. Ira’s muscles tensed in apprehension, and he welcomed it. He couldn’t fall asleep if he remained this uncomfortable. His head weighted heavily on the joint of his elbow, causing a numbness that he pulled into focus. The smell of the corpse carried on the breeze. Ira flinched and turned his face away.

The forest was still without Melchior’s barking. Maybe that was why he did it. Ira strained his ears until he could hear the rustle of grass and swaying of branches, but he never heard a single bird. His eyes fluttered without opening. The grass tickled at the back of his neck. The cold soaked into his shirt. There were no crickets--did they usually come out at noon? He didn’t know. It was quiet.

Ira’s heart shivered in his ribs. Why had Melchior stopped talking? It was unlike him. Ira’s elbow popped as he pushed it into the dirt, using it as leverage to launch himself up from the inviting grass. He blinked his too-tired eyes until the fog cleared from them. “Mel--where are you?” He coughed. He didn’t like the silence. It filled him with unease.

Ira’s heart dropped. He didn’t see him anymore--where was he? Ira’s eyes fluttered across the glade, mulling over the carcass and the carnage. Had he left? Where could he have gone? Ira flinched as the palm found his shoulder, squeezing until his warm skin began leaking heat into Ira’s chilled shirt. He snapped his head to the side, meeting Melchior’s bright gaze with his wide blue eyes.

“I’m here.” He promised.

Ira’s cheeks filled with heat, enough to rival the fire blossoming in his shoulder. He shrugged off Melchior’s touch, scared that it might burn him away into pink and blotchy blubber. Ira folded his knees beneath himself, tucking them into a tight embrace against his chest. He felt groggy, the way he did when he’d just woken--but that wasn’t possible. He couldn’t sleep without the visions. He’d never been able to.

He shuddered, realizing how vulnerable he’d been--and how stupid, too. He shouldn’t have laid like that. Not without recognizing how easily the sleep would have pulled at him. It’d been close. Way too close. He’d have to find some time soon to slip away and go back to the apartment alone. So he could finally rest.

Ira shook his head. How could he do that? Last time they’d parted, he’d regretted it. He’d done nothing but pace their apartment, Peter at his heels. Pushed nearly to breaking by worry for Melchior. Who’d been late--and clearly scuffled.

He must have taken a tumble at some point. There was dirt on his back and grass in his hair. His cheeks had been pale. He’d been pulling at his sleeve over his tattoo and fiddling with something Ira couldn’t see in his pocket. He said he was fine. Ira wished he’d picked a less obvious lie.

“I thought you were going to fall asleep.” Melchior said.

“No.” Ira muttered. “I wasn’t.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, hoping it made him appear collected. Melchior had settled in the lawn only a short reach from him. Ira couldn’t remember when he’d come so close. He must have done it while Ira was fighting the last of his waking. He had the duffle bag open and gutted, spilling entrails across the land. Water and granola bars littered the space between them. Melchior picked up a bottle and handed it to Ira, who accepted it rather reluctantly.

“If you’re that tired, you can take a nap. I don’t mind.” Melchior picked a granola bar for himself and tore at the wrapper. He stared down at the nutty cracker with a look of dissatisfaction.

“I mind.” Ira shrugged. He cracked the cap of his bottle and drank greedily until his stomach ached. He handed the empty container to Melchior, who was sitting closer to the bag, and who quietly placed the trash back inside.

“Well, we have time.” Melchior shrugged in return. “Like you said, they’re all the same.”

Ira crossed his hands over his knees and sighed. “I shouldn’t. . .have said that.” He admittedly weakly. Melchior fit him with a curious glance, and Ira gave him a withering glare in response. Melchior laughed and turned back into nibbling at his granola. “I don’t know what to do.”

Melchior set his snack on his knee. He leaned back on his palms, turning his eyes up towards the cloudless sky. “You’re being unusually honest.”

Ira bristled. He scoffed and turned his face down into his arms, hunching over his lap. “Hey, even I have my limits. We’ve been running around in circles for a week now. We only have eleven left.” Ira looked at the boy lounging in the grass beside him. His stomach rolled. He didn’t want to think about the day their hourglass would drain of sand. What then? What choice would he have left? He’d have to-

“We aren’t going in circles. It’s linear.” Melchior dragged his finger through the air, cutting a likeness of their travels.

“I think that might be worse.” Ira grumbled. “We’re making progress in treading tar.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” Melchior laughed. His voice echoed off the bark of the withstanding evergreen. “Has anyone ever told you you speak so old-fashioned?”

“No,” Ira huffed, “they haven’t.” He ignored Melchior’s futile attempts to change the topic. It couldn’t rewrite their fates. They’d have to face it sooner if they had no later. “We need to think of a better plan.”

“Don’t die isn’t good enough for you?” Melchior quirked an eyebrow.

“I would. . .prefer if my plan included more steps.” Ira admitted.

Melchior sighed and reclaimed his granola bar from its resting place on his knee. “You’re picky, Kitty.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.” Ira scolded. “We have eleven weeks--and then it’s judgment day.”

Melchior shuddered. “Ugh, I don’t like that at all. Can we call it something else? Oh, how about Tildy. I had a great-aunt Tildy. She was terrifying for a laity woman. I still get shivers whenever I smell peppermint--she always had it on her.”

Ira’s stomach rolled, sending a wave of hot viper venom up his throat. It soaked into his tongue and his teeth, turning them acidic. “Angels, enough!” He snapped. “Why can’t you take anything seriously! Don’t you care? I think I’m-” Ira choked on his words.

“Going to kill me?” Melchior finished. “Well, then, kitten. You better make it look cool.”

Ira blinked, incapable of doing anything but staring into the grass. “Get upset, please.” He whispered. He knew he must sound pathetic, but he was helpless to stop it. The words tumbled from his split lips. “You should hate me. You should run away from me--from all of them.”

“Angels,” Melchior breathed. “How could I ever leave you?”

Ira laughed bitterly. “I think being your executioner is a good enough reason.”

“You aren’t--not right now.” Melchior shook his head. “We don’t have eleven weeks. We have eighty-eight days--that’s when our lunar clock finally reaches zero.”

Ira sighed, forcing out the knot of tension blocking his throat. “You mean. . . Tildy.”

Melchior smiled, unraveling Ira’s unease as easily as yanking a loose thread. “Yeah, eighty-eight days until Tildy. We only have to take it one day at a time. Don’t jump to the end yet, kitten. I’m trying to enjoy the journey.”

“This journey?” Ira laughed, “This miserable, hot, exhausting, terrifying, dirty, and unending hike? That journey?”

“What?” Melchior gasped, “you’re not having fun yet?”

“No, I guess not.” Ira said, rolling his eyes at Melchior’s shocked face.

“Well, that has to be fixed.” He announced. Melchior began shoving their items back into their duffle bag. He fit his granola bar between his teeth and gestured at Ira with a nod. “C’mon,” he mumbled around the food in his mouth.

“What?” Ira gasped, but Melchior wasn’t listening. He’d already slung the bag over his back and turned to leave. Abandoning Ira to scramble in his wake. He quickly snatched Melchior’s discarded bow and quiver. “Hey, Mel--hey! Oh, angels!” He couldn’t push away the smile cracking across his teeth as he chased the other boy deeper into the trees.

𓆙

Ira could hear it before he could see it. His heart pounded in his chest to match the thunderous rush of the rapids. Melchior had ignored his pestering, simply insisting that’d he know it when he saw it--and now he understood. He laughed, and Melchior turned to look at him with a dangerously relaxed smile painted across the features of his handsome face.

“You’re joking!” Ira called. He pitched his voice to make himself known over the sound of the current. It made sense that they’d cross eventually. They’d started in Slide and had been moving further north--towards Adirondack. It had been in between, but Ira had never dreamed of stopping unless it came with another corpse and an X on their map.

A map that Melchior had tossed into the duffle bag. He ran forward with no guide but the music of water crashing on rocks below. “I’ll forgive you for that assumption since I am a pretty funny guy, but no. Dead serious.”

“Dead, sure,” Ira agreed with an unhelpful rolling of his eyes.

“Don’t ruin the mood, kitten.” Melchior chided. His steps slowed, allowing Ira to match him at his side. “I think we can connect with the trail if we turn here. We might want the stairs.”

Ira nodded, following Melchior as he adjusted their course. He slipped effortlessly through the dense spruce, recognizing it to be nearly second nature now. Melchior took them slowly down, navigating the slope with a carefulness that didn’t suit him.

Ira glanced over his shoulder, squinting to see between the trees. A few miles behind them was Laurel House Road. It was one of a few man-made rivers to slice into the Catskills, and it should have been causing enough traffic to rival the booming of the currents--but Ira couldn’t heat anything. They’d avoided crossing it, trying to keep their contact low and profile inconspicuous, but Ira felt as if they’d wasted their time avoiding the road. It was as abandoned as the rest of the forest. He pushed the thought aside before it could spoil his mood.

“We’re here,” Melchior announced. They’d come to a stop at the bottom on the ravine, standing before the cement slabs cut into the side of the mountain that would take them into the heart of the basin. Ira brushed past him, eager to see the rushing waters.

He climbed the steps two at a time, only slowing as he crested the top of the climb. Ira sucked in an awe stricken breath. He shivered as mist coated the inside of his lungs. The waterfall tumbled down the carved sides of the rock, spilling into two pools a hundred feet below. The water hissed, spitting up a frothy white frost over the surface of the water.

The basin was cut into the shape of ribs, giving a cave-like overhang that Ira could retreat into to escape the summer sun. He’d been here before with Father Pine. Well, what New Yorker hadn’t been to Kaaterskill? Ira’s skin prickled. They were alone. Again.

“Wow, and we get the place all to ourselves? Lucky.” Melchior said, joining Ira at the top of the steps.

“Yeah. . . uh, lucky.” Ira mumbled. He shook his head to dissolve the questions building there. “Too bad I didn’t bring a swimsuit.” The joke was awkward on his tongue, as if the words understood their purpose to be only stiffly moving past Ira’s concerns. He wasn’t as gifted at shifting the topic as Melchior.

“A shame.” Melchior agreed. He paused for a moment before tilting his head and laughing.

Ira wondered at first what he was laughing to himself about, and then turned bright red at the idea. He wrapped his arms over his chest defensively. “W-what?” He sputtered.

“Nothing,” Melchior raised his palms in surrender. “I was just trying to speak all old-timey for you, but it really doesn’t feel right.”

Ira narrowed his eyes. “Really? That’s it?”

Melchior frowned. “What else?” His eyebrows squinted together in confusion, but Ira knew he’d suddenly understood when his jaw dropped, and his ears turned pink. He cleared his throat and turned his eyes away. “Uh, not that--we can come swimming another time.” He ran his fingertips over the back of his neck, jittering with nerves.

“Sure,” Ira laughed, “another time then.”

He didn’t mind staying away from the water. He could feel the cool mist, thick in the air. It kissed along the surface of his skin, melting away the heat of the day. That was good enough. Ira crossed carefully around the lip of the riverbank to find safety in the cliffside. He could hear Melchior trailed behind him.

Ira picked a place beneath the ledge where they could sit on a mostly dry outcropping of rock. They settled into a slightly awkward silence. Melchior dropped the duffle bag onto the stone beneath their feet, and Ira unslung Melchior’s gear from his back to return it to him. He took it with a small smile and laid it to rest on the canvas bag.

Ira brought his legs to his chest, resting his chin on his kneecaps. He looked out at the falling water from their new place behind the stream. Ira watched the pool churn and thought how simple it all felt.

For a moment, Ira could pretend that it was all just a hike. He’d only had one purpose as he left the city early that morning. It was meaningless adventure, crossing the Catskills to bask at Kaaterskill Falls. He’d return to the city tonight, and tomorrow, life would resume as normal. All this flailing in the forest would be something to recount to Father Pine as the most interesting part of his week and nothing more.

Ira frowned, tugging on the lace of his boots to dull his restlessness. If he went home, where would Melchior go? Was there a place for both of them when this was over? How could the Progeny ever forgive the debt of the boy born for sin? How could they forget the boy who was meant to die for it? Melchior seemed the other side of Ira’s coin--a cursed and unlucky penny.

Melchior shifted on his perch, drawing Ira’s unfettered attention. He held the edges of his jacket, tugging on it as if trying to cause a breeze. His neck was red, and the color was sprouting into his cheeks. Ira tilted his head on the surface of his knees. “Getting too hot?”

Melchior sighed. He stopped messing with his clothing and held perfectly still. “It’s fine.”

“Okay,” Ira nodded. Melchior looked at him with a skeptical gaze, as if not expecting Ira to surrender, “but when you pass out from heat exhaustion, I’m going to roll you right into the Kaaterskill.”

“Top or bottom?” Melchior asked.

“The top. Maybe the drop will knock some sense into you.” Ira answered.

Melchior laughed. “I’ll do my best not to pass out.”

Ira groaned in hollow frustration. He unfurled from his spot atop the bolder and went to their pile of things. He carefully set aside Melchior’s bow and unzipped the bag. Melchior leaned over his seat, watching Ira dig through their possessions. “What are you-”

“Here.” Ira pulled the first aid kit from the canvas and held it out for Melchior to accept.

He turned pale and pulled his arm to his chest. “I think emergency tattoo removal is kind of extreme.”

Ira rolled his eyes. He opened the red kit, digging through antiseptic and cotton swabs until he reached the bottom. Ira flicked through the bandages until he found one large enough to cover a gashed knee. He hoped it’d be enough. He waved it in the air, demonstrating to Melchior. “Cover it. Then you can take off that jacket, and I can stop wincing every time I look at you.”

Melchior seemed frozen. His fingers twitched at his sides. “I-I don’t know, Ira.”

Ira blinked in surprise. It was strange to be called by his name so suddenly. It was even stranger to come to expect something else. His cheeks heated. He turned his face back to his shoes to hide the color of them. “Fine, I was just worried for you, but I might have overstepped.”

Melchior frowned in thought, and for a moment, neither one spoke. Ira began to wonder how long he was going to kneel in front of Melchior’s rock, but finally, he said. “Thanks.”

Ira didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t. Melchior didn’t seem to be waiting for a reply, either. He took the bandage from Ira’s grasp. Ira turned away, staring out at the glistening water. He didn’t peak, and he didn’t speak. He didn’t even move until Melchior’s fingertips brushed against the side of his bare wrist. “It’s fine now.”

Ira turned around slowly, trying to feel casually about seeing Melchior in a T-shirt. He’d bought it for him when he’d bought his own. Even then, he hadn’t really expected to see him in it, not without his suffocating jacket.

It was silly to feel as embarrassed as he did. Ira rubbed the back of his neck and thought that this might be how the boys in all those movies felt, standing at the bottom of the staircase, watching as their prom date came down the steps in her formal gown. He was breathless, and he didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t know why it all mattered so much to him.

Melchior pressed his left wrist into his lap nervously. Ira could see the edges of the bandage wrap around to the top of his arm. He must have been fully covered and just as unexplainably shy as Ira. His arms were the same deep, rich russet as the rest of him, never dulled by a lack of sunshine. He had arms attuned to the bow, and Ira suddenly understood why he seemed so powerful holding it. Ira cleared his throat and began sorting through the duffle bag again.

“Water?” He choked.

“Uh, sure,” Melchior agreed. He folded his jacket over his lap, accepting the bottle with his right hand.

Ira settled back into his spot with a granola bar. He stretched out his legs and sighed, understanding how Peter felt lazing in the sunspots leaking in from the windows. Ira was simply content. He didn’t think that had been possible for them, as long as Tildy loomed in the distance, but he’d been wrong. And for once, he was grateful to be wrong.

“If we stay any longer, we might just get stuck for the sunset.” Ira announced.

“Let it.” Melchior shrugged.

“Okay.” Ira agreed.

So, they sat and watched the time flutter by. Melchior gazed out at the trees beyond, letting Ira soak in the peaceful silence. When the sun began to sink beneath the tips of the spruce, it cast an arc of burning color across the cloudless sky. Golden orange light licked across the sky, leaving behind traces of pink. The water turned peach-warm beneath the gaze of it.

The spruce trees glittered emerald gold. Ira tucked his head into his knees, breathing in the cool evening breeze. Melchior seemed to be doing the same. He tilted his head back and sighed. Ira wondered what he was looking for on the wind. Maybe the smell of pine sap, the rich earth, the spray of the river mist. Anything was better than the stench of dead demons.

He closed his eyes. He knew if he stayed this way, he’d fall asleep. Maybe that didn’t matter. If Melchior could shed his jacket, Ira could lower just a little of his guard, too. He nestled into the crook of his arm and let the soft sounds of the world pull at him.

The vice-like grip on his upper arm forced a gasp from his lips and drained the sleep from his mind. Ira snapped his head upright, glaring at Melchior to sort out some explanation, but he wouldn’t get one.

Ira gasped again, nearly spilling from his rock as Melchior began pushing him. “Mel-” Ira’s words died in his throat as Melchior’s palm came up to press into his lips. Melchior stood, and Ira followed to avoid being knocked down on the wet stone floor.

He pushed at Melchior’s wrist, digging his nails into the new skin he found there. Melchior’s eyes glimmered as sharply as candle light in the evening hour. His gaze raked across Ira, filling his stomach with tension. That gaze that Ira had likened to stars, it frightened him now.

Ira tumbled backward as Melchior began pushing him. His foot snagged on a rock, and he was slipping. He would have crashed into the sharp rocks, but Melchior gripped his waist and pulled him to his feet. Ira’s heart thrummed in his chest. He twisted in Melchior’s arms.

Melchior loosened his grip, giving him just enough space to turn and face the direction they were moving in. Ira shivered as Melchior’s breath tickled along the back of his neck. Melchior brought his lips to the shell of Ira’s ear. He spoke so softly that Ira nearly missed him beneath the churning river. “Don’t speak.”

Ira nodded, and slowly, Melchior removed his hand. He gently pushed Ira’s back, forcing him deeper into the basin wall. Ira picked his feet carefully through the rough terrain. He couldn’t focus, and he kept missing the proper footholds. He stumbled, time after time, and Melchior kept catching him. He moved deeper until the soft sunlight sky couldn’t touch them. Melchior forced him roughly down on his knees, pressing him flat against the cold stone wall.

Ira was afraid. He was confused, and he was silent. He stiffened as Melchior lowered into the spot beside him. Melchior pressed into Ira’s side, fanning his whispers across his cheek. “Something is coming.”

Ira’s heart stuttered in his chest. “W-” He choked down his words and sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. What’s coming? How could Melchior possibly know that? It was too loud near the water to hear anything, and Ira hadn’t seen anything. Ira blushed, shaking his head. He’d had his eyes closed, nearly asleep. What choice did he have but to trust Melchior?

He gave in with a nod. Melchior slightly relaxed at his side. His head turned to look out of the mouth of the overhang. He held perfectly still, and Ira did, too. He didn’t move until both his feet turned numb. He sat as the stars began to blink into sleepy existence in the oil sky.

He did nothing, burning with anger the longer he sat in silence. How long was he meant to blindly wait? He looked at Melchior. He was drumming his fingertips across his knees, seemingly lost in thought. Ira practically groaned. Did he even have an idea anymore?

Ira shifted. Melchior stilled him with a palm against his leg. Ira shook him off, and Melchior fit him with a bright green look.

“Wha-”

“Shh.” Melchior cut.

Ira blinked before scoffing. “Did you just-”

“Shh!” Melchior repeated. He raised his hand, aiming to cover Ira’s mouth again. Ira snatched his wrist. Melchior stilled. Ira could feel the rough fabric of the bandage in his palm. He let go, shaking off his hand as if he’d been burned.

“I didn’t mean-” Ira began, his cheeks burned with regret.

“Kitten, quiet.” Melchior pressed.

Ira scoffed. Nothing had happened. For the entire hour, he’d kept them squeezed into the back of the cliff’s belly. Ira rolled his eyes to soothe the heat he felt from being shushed. He shifted on his heels, trying to work out the discomfort prickling in his limbs. His neck ached, his spine, too. Ira twisted at his hips, trying to stretch out the stiffness.

Melchior glowered at him. Ira turned away from him. He didn’t want to wither beneath his glare. Anything else seemed more tempting. He faced the rock wall to his back and focused on the curves and cracks there. He was driven to study rocks to pass the minutes. Ira sighed, leaning into the cave wall with his shoulder. He traced the walls with his fingers, skipping over small fissures and chips.

There was a crevice bigger than the others, only a few inches from Ira’s nose. Ira froze. There was a sound coming from inside of it, a small shuffling. Ira felt equally drawn to it and repulsed. He leaned forward, peaking into the small and dark hole. For a moment, he saw nothing. He began to think that it’d been a trick from his tired mind.

That was until the creature opened its piercing white eyes. Ira gasped, and the bat chittered angrily in response. It rushed forward on fluttering wings of soft brown flesh. Ira might have screamed. He liked to think that he didn’t. He shoved himself backward, just barely managing to avoid the small brown bat as it fled the hole. Ira winced as the back of his head knocked into the cold ground.

“Ira!” Melchior hissed. His hands found him in the dark, righting him and pulling him away from the crevice. Ira’s heart was thudding so heavily. He thought he might be sick. “Why can’t you just listen to me?” He snapped.

Ira blinked. Venom coated the back of his throat. “Listening?” He snarled back. “How could I do that when you’ve not spoken to me! I went where you so roughly shoved me, did I not?” His voice echoed off the ceiling of the cliff.

Melchior winced. “Okay, just calm down-”

“Angels!” Ira yelled, “stop telling me what to do!” His shout shook the cave. If there were any more bats, they would have fled from the force of it.

“Kit-” Melchior froze. His head snapped to face the water. “Its-”

The scream cut the night, sharper than Ira’s Ossein blade. He flung his palms over his ears to block out the wailing. It filled his stomach with aching. His ribs squeezed down on his painfully beating heart. It was the worst sound he’d ever heard, and it was getting closer.

“It’s here.” Melchior said.

The Beast howled. The force of it rattled the stars in the sky and pine from the earth. Ira squeezed his eyes shut and prayed to the angels.

13 | Ira And The Beast

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