After, Taras and Theron: Beyond Jerusalem

David McAfee
TARAS

On the road to Antioch, 33 A.D.

Taras stumbled down the dusty path. His flagging strength made every step a chore, but he was determined to reach his goal before sunrise. A month of traveling at night-sometimes all night long-as well as the lack of fresh blood in his body had taken its toll. He’d tried to feed on some passersby along the way, but each time he tried he remembered Abraham’s torn and bloody throat, and he stopped himself. What kind of monster had he become? What would Mary think if she saw him murdering innocent travelers? In the end he was left with his hunger and his weakness, wandering though Israel with only his memories for company.

Gods, how he had loved her. Even though he’d seen her torn and bloodless body with his own eyes, he still had trouble accepting her death as fact. Often, he would catch himself looking up at the sound of a woman’s voice, always expecting to see Mary’s face staring back at him. Of course, it never was. Mary’s body remained in her tomb at the Mount of Olives, hundreds of miles to the south and east, while he was on the road to Antioch.

It should have been me, he thought. He would trade places with Mary in a heartbeat if it would bring her back. Surely death would be better than his life now, if only he had the courage. What was it Jesus had told him that night outside her tomb? There is always an option, even if it’s not always a very good one. None of Taras’ options were particularly good. He could swallow his fate and start killing more people, or he could die. At the moment, only the latter seemed to offer any type of rescue.

By the time he reached the outskirts of Antioch he could barely stand. Still he managed to find just enough strength to take one more step, and then another, and another. But it couldn’t last. Without blood, he would eventually fall over and be unable to rise. Then the sun would come and burn him to ashes.

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

The walls of the city loomed ahead. Taras would have to go over the wall or take his chances with the guards at the gate. At least the gate was open. That was a good sign. Several other cities he’d come to were locked tight against the spreading influence of the dead Jewish rabbi. The guards at those cities had chased him away with arrows and swords. They couldn’t kill him anymore, of course, but an arrow to the shoulder still hurt like the Abyss.

Taras decided to try the gate, mostly because he was too weak to climb the wall. As he approached, one of the guards looked up. The other leaned against the gate, his breathing soft and even. Asleep. Taras shook his head. The sleeping guard would not have lasted in Jerusalem. Marcus would have had him imprisoned for such an infraction. The other guard eyed him for a moment, then waved him through without asking a single question.

The difference in discipline among the Antioch city guard and those stationed in Jerusalem could not have been greater. Marcus had run a strict watch even though Rome continued to send him the dregs of the Legion to garrison the city. The soldiers in Antioch just didn’t seem to care. Yet despite his distaste for the two men, he was thankful for their lackluster attitude. It allowed him to walk into the city unmolested.

Thinking about Marcus brought new pain. The Centurion had been more than just a commanding officer, he’d also been a good friend. But for the treachery of his Second, he would still be alive today. But the Second, a man named Gordian, had betrayed him at the request of his long dead brother, and Marcus became another victim of the web of lies woven by the damnable Bachiyr.

Bachiyr like me, Taras thought, I am one of them now. He watched his feet as he wandered into the city, not trusting himself to meet the gaze of others. Could they see it on him? Would they know? Taras walked through Antioch with his head down. He might as well have the word “Evil” painted across his face. The Jews believed that a man named Cain, who murdered his brother, was sent out into the world with God’s mark on his face so that all would know of his heinous deed.

If Taras looked in a pool of water, what would he see? Did the Jews’ God mark him?

As he walked through the city, he felt many eyes on him, but he dared not look up to confirm his suspicions. If the people of Antioch stayed clear of him, so much the better. The hunger gnawed at him like a wild thing, and he didn’t know how much longer he could control it. So whether the people stayed back because they sensed his evil or because they simply distrusted strangers, they were safer for keeping their distance.

Safer than Taras, at any rate.

He passed a noisy tavern on his right. The sounds of drinking, laughter, and fighting poured from the doorway and out into the street, along with the smells of ale, wine, and sweat. Taras risked a glance up the street and saw that both sides were lined with taverns and brothels, all of which seemed to be doing a brisk business this evening. The people of Antioch certainly enjoyed their pleasures.

One dirty man in ragged clothing walked up to Taras and fixed him with a half-lidded stare. The sour smell of wine rolled off him like flies on a pile of dung. The bleary-eyed stranger wobbled on his feet, then fell forward, wrapping his arms around Taras’ neck to break his fall.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” the stranger asked, his slurred words barely discernible even to Taras’ keen ears. “You’re the one she talks about.”

Taras blanched, not sure what the man might have heard. He tried to pry the drunk’s hands away, but the man grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

“Don’t lie,” he said. “I know it’s you. She’s mine, so stay away from her.”

Taras stared at the man’s flushed face and blotchy red nose. His eyes moved to the man’s throat, and he found himself wondering if he would taste the wine in the drunk’s blood. His belly rumbled, and a sharp pain stabbed through his gut. He could feel the fangs in his upper jaw start to extend, and the claws on his fingers itched, as though they, too, wanted to taste the man’s blood. Taras stared at the man’s neck. So hungry. So weak. The man was too drunk to feel the sting of his teeth, it would be so easy to-

No!

Taras squirmed away, finally freeing himself from the man’s wine-induced grip. “I will,” he said, as he gently pushed the drunk away. Then he turned and walked as fast as he could down the street. The man’s voice followed him, but Taras didn’t listen. He wanted to get as far away as he could lest he give in to his hunger.

He rounded a corner and stopped, trying to calm the angry buzzing in his head. Across the street, the sound of music poured out from another brothel, while men and ladies danced in the common room. A rumble in his belly rivaled the noise of the brothel, and another sharp pain flared through his abdomen, worse than the last. Taras sunk to the street in agony, leaning against the wall and clutching his midsection. He shook his head, trying to clear the vertigo, and was surprised by the wetness on his cheeks. It couldn’t be tears, he could no longer make them. Taras reached a trembling finger to his face, rubbing the wetness under his eyes, and then examined his hand.

It was red.

Blood. That’s what’s on my face. Blood was leaking from his eyes.

Another spasm of pain sent him the rest of the way to the ground, and he swallowed a scream. His hunger hollowed him out, scooping up his innards and throwing them aside for the rats. He realized then that, despite his best efforts, his hunger was going to win.

He’d tried to resist it, even if it meant his death, but he wouldn’t make it much longer. In Jerusalem, the Bachiyr who killed him had stabbed him in the gut with his claws, leaving Taras to die in a pool of his own blood and innards as both leaked out onto the cobbled street. At the time it had been the worst pain he’d ever experienced. This was worse. This pain came from inside, and it ran dizzying circles through his mind as well as his body, lighting little fires everywhere it touched. If dying felt like this, he didn’t think he could do it. He wasn’t strong enough.

There is always a choice.

Lying in the dirty street, Taras made his.

He would have to feed, after all.

The next night found him standing in darkness, hiding behind the corner while waiting for his victim. The light of the city’s lamps did not penetrate the shadows of his hiding place, which suited him fine. He’d long ago grown accustomed to biding his time in dark places while he waited for his victims to reach just the right spot. Long before he’d become one of the Bachiyr, his years as an assassin in the Roman Legion honed his patience to a fine point. He stood watching the drunkard who would be his next meal, his muscles coiled like a tightly woven rope, waiting for the right moment to spring into action.

His target stumbled near the alley, a cracked mug of mead or wine in his hand, and sang a bawdy tavern song as he leaned against the building. The smell of sweat and alcohol drifted toward Taras. Almost time. A few more steps and Taras would have his meal. The emptiness in his belly screamed at him to attack, but the time was not right. The man needed to be directly in front of the alley so Taras could take him without being seen. This particular street had too many taverns and far too many brothels to ever be truly empty.

A woman in a garish dress caught up to the man and, laughing, placed a bright red flower in his hair. He turned and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her close for a drunken kiss. The two laughed together, and then they turned away from the alley and walked across the street, entering a brothel that sported half a dozen brightly dressed women just outside the door and double that number in men looking for entertainment.

Taras watched them disappear into the building. The hunger in his belly faded to an insistent rumble, but he ignored it. He had eyes only for the red flower, which the man had removed from his hair and stuck into the woman’s cleavage. It was the same kind of flower as those he brought to Mary’s tomb. Had it really only been less than a month ago? It seemed like a thousand years had passed since the events in Jerusalem. His life had taken a turn for the better when he met Mary and a turn for the worse when he met the Bachiyr, Theron.

Not even a month, he thought. Yet his clothes were as ragged and threadbare as if he’d been laid to rest years ago. Upon his death in Jerusalem, the Legion had buried him in uniform. On his third night as a Bachiyr, he had acquired clothing from one of the Judean peasants. The man had not willingly given up his clothes, of course. He’d been one of Taras’ first victims, just before some of the people in the city began to glow in that strange, unearthly manner. Taras had no idea what the glow meant, but it made him uncomfortable enough to leave those people alone.

Not everyone glowed, of course. Here in Antioch, very few people did, especially in his current location. But it seemed like every evening Taras would see at least three or four of them walking through the city. Even now, one such man walked through the middle of the street, keeping his distance from the brothels and taverns, and talking to a young boy who did not glow. Taras had seen this before, too. Sometimes the other person would begin to glow, as well, and sometimes not.

He thought it had something to do with the dead rabbi, Jesus.

Thinking about that-and his part in the man’s execution-caused the rumblings of his hunger to fade further, leaving only a queasy feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. He’d killed so many people already, and none of them had deserved to die. But he was weak. He couldn’t help it. Yet somehow he had managed to avoid killing for the last twenty nights, ever since he left the Mount of Olives and Mary’s tomb for the last time. Every time he found a new victim, he would think of Mary, and he would lose his stomach for the kill and walk away. He knew it was the right thing to do, but the lack of blood was taking a heavy toll on his mind and body.

Taras turned around and walked down the alley, using the wall for support. If anyone had seen him, they would probably take him for a drunk, as well. His unsteady steps faltered at every turn, and more than once he had to pick himself up off the dusty, dirty street and force his body to keep moving.

Twenty nights without blood. How much longer could he last? Perhaps it would soon be irrelevant. Maybe he would fall to the street and lie there until the sun burned his corpse to ash, mingling it with the dirt of Antioch’s busy streets. Maybe that would be better. Maybe that’s what Jesus had meant when he said Taras had options.

An hour later Taras reached his door, a creaky, rotting piece of oak that led into a crumbling, abandoned dwelling on the outskirts of the city. He had discovered this long abandoned section of Antioch after leaving the tavern district the night before, and found it to be a perfect place to wait out the day away from human eyes. Here, all the buildings stood in a similar state of disrepair, and his dwelling looked no different than the many others that lay around the place falling into ruin. With one exception.

His had a cellar dug into the earth. A stout oak door, unweathered by the elements because it remained inside four walls and under the tattered roof, led down into the cool, dark place where Taras slept away the daylight. It wasn’t perfect. Other homeless people wandered this area of the city, as well. Sooner or later, a vagrant or brigand would find his hole and try to use it for his own purpose.

He dreaded that day. If they came while he slept, they would probably cut his throat in the night and steal his few possessions. If they came while he was awake, he would have a difficult time defending himself against them in his weakened state. They probably would not know how to kill him, but they would make his life uncomfortable.

More uncomfortable, he corrected, as the hunger in his belly rumbled, echoing off the walls of his cellar home.

Taras sat in the corner, waiting for the sun to rise, and reflected on his status. Once proud and strong, he had served Rome from the shadows, making certain her enemies could not rise against her. Now here he was, huddled and afraid in a dark cellar, helpless and hungry while starvation slowly claimed his life.

What would Mary think if she saw him now? Would she be ashamed? Would she hate him for what he had become? Or worse, would she pity him?

He shook the thought from his head and closed his eyes, waiting for sleep.

The next evening, Taras woke to find he was not alone in his hole. During the day, a beggar had found his hiding place and fallen asleep a few short paces from the slumbering Bachiyr. For a wonder, the newcomer hadn’t tried to kill him. The man’s breathing was even and deep, the pattern of a man deep into his cups. The occasional snore crossed his lips, and every once in a while he would belch in his sleep. It was this very noise which had woken Taras to begin with, although the night would have done so soon enough, anyway.

Taras would never have a better chance. They were isolated, hidden, and in a part of the city where a man might scream for hours and no one would come to investigate. If he was going to feed, now was the time.

He crept over to the sleeping drunk, wrinkling his nose at the smell of old wine. As the hunger swept through his entire body, his canines seemed to extend of their own free will. Taras crouched over the prone beggar. The man’s clothes were tattered and dirty, much like Taras’s own. His matted, filthy hair hung over his face in stringy brown tangles. He lay barefoot in the dirt, his left hand clasped around an empty jug. It would be an easy kill.

Except…

There is always a choice.

Jesus’ words came back to haunt him. Gods help him, his hunger was driving him insane. It felt like a white-hot knife in his abdomen, and the one thing that would ease the pain lay helpless at his feet, and still he heard the words of a dead rabbi who may or may not have been completely mad. Worse yet, he knew he would heed those words regardless of his pain. It went against every instinct of self-preservation he had, yet he could not deny that something had tempered his violence since that night outside Mary’s tomb.

He did have a choice. His hunger might make it a difficult choice, but the decision was still his to make. If he killed the beggar, he would be doing it of his own free will, and thus he would have to accept the responsibility of that. Could he do it?

What would Mary say?

Cursing, he turned his back on the prone beggar. Taras had killed men in their sleep before. As an assassin for Rome he had done many things he preferred to forget, but this was different. Before, he had done his duty for Rome and her cause. Now, it would just be murder. Taras was many things, but he’d never considered himself a murderer. Even the many people he killed the night he fled Jerusalem had been because of a malady of the mind.

Sooner or later that malady would return, and he would be unable to stop himself.

Maybe he should find a nice, comfortable perch in the city and wait for the sunrise. It would be nice to see the beautiful orange glow of the morning sun again, even if it would only be for a very short time. His entire world had become a constant array of grays and blacks. Torchlight only brought the faintest whiff of color to his eyes, and the acrid smell of pitch always accompanied it. But true sunlight… he hadn’t thought he could miss it so much.

Taras gathered up his meager belongings and stumbled up the stairs to the cellar door. He would have to find a new place to wait out the day. Just because the beggar hadn’t tried to kill him this time didn’t mean that would be the case every time. In addition, the man might have friends accompany him someday, and Taras did not like the idea of being surrounded by strangers while he slept on, helpless.

He plodded through the streets of Antioch’s forgotten houses, his once tall and strong frame bent halfway to the ground in hunger and pain. His mind battled back and forth between wanting to go back to feed on the beggar and looking for a place to lay down and die. So far the latter held the edge. Would he see Mary again if he died? Was there room for someone like him in the afterlife?

Probably not.

The faces. They came to him sometimes during the day. Not in dreams, Taras had not dreamed since he died, but in his memories as he lay waiting for sleep to claim him. He could still remember the faces of the people he had killed in Jerusalem: the two guards at the Damascus Gate, the woman and her son on the road to the city, the potter and his family… all leapt into his mind in vivid detail each time he laid down at dawn.

His kills for Rome had never haunted him this way.

Whatever gods had watched over him in life would have no love for him now. Taras stepped over another drunk, this one snoring in the street, and walked on. The hunger gnawed at his insides like a rat trying to escape a burning box. His mind screamed at him to go back and feed on the drunk, that no one was nearby to see. Still he walked on, his feet dragging on the ground because he no longer had the strength to lift them.

His feet carried him not deeper into the city, but farther out, close to the city’s edge. He soon found himself wandering the roads leading away from the city. Here, the twisted silhouettes of acacias blended with the curvy outlines of a pair of wild olive trees. Most such trees near the city belonged to orchards, where wealthy landowners hired men or bought slaves to harvest their fruit for oil and other uses. To see a wild olive tree was extremely rare, and he stopped a moment to take in the sight. The smells of the olives ripening on their branches came to him, and he remembered their taste on his tongue. Mary had loved olives.

He stepped to the nearest tree and reached his fingers up to the tart, round little fruits. They would be ready soon. Perhaps someone from the city would come and lay claim to them, or already had. He snapped off a branch and brought it to his face, inhaling the aroma. In many countries, the olive branch was a symbol of peace. Maybe the tree was a sign. Maybe he should make his peace. Maybe it was time to die, after all.

He clutched the branch to his chest and resumed his walk down the road. At least now he knew what he was looking for. A clearing. Someplace to sit and wait for the sun. In the morning, he would eat an olive and watch the sunrise over the eastern horizon.

Once, shortly after he began to court Mary, he gave her a bag of olives as a gift. She had clapped her hands happily and eaten several right away. She offered him a few but he declined, preferring the look on her face to his own indulgence. When she smiled at him the sunlight had seemed to reflect from her face, filling him with warmth and love. That was all he’d ever needed. Later that night they shared their first kiss, and Mary’s breath had tasted like olives. He wanted to have that taste in his mouth when he died.

He walked along the path for almost an hour before he came to a suitable place. A wide clearing in the trees just off the path, big enough that the sun would shine through it early, but not so big as to be someone’s field. As an added bonus, in the center of the clearing lay a large boulder against which he could rest his tired, angry back.

Perfect.

Taras smiled as he stumbled through the high grass and into the place that would see his death. The olive branch clamped firmly in hand, he set his back against the boulder and waited, hoping the weather would hold clear on the morrow and allow the sun its full force. He hoped it would not be a slow, painful death, even though he deserved no less. He hoped the fire would cleanse him of his misdeeds and allow him a place in the afterlife. He hoped to find the gods in a forgiving mood tomorrow morning.

But most of all he hoped to see his beloved Mary again.

He sat against the rock for over an hour, living in his memories and occasionally humming a bawdy drinking song from the white lands to the north. The memory made him feel cold, and the thin garments he’d stolen from the peasant in Jerusalem could not keep him warm, because his body no longer cast any heat of its own. I am a reptile, he thought. A lizard in the house of men, needing the warmth of their fires to keep me alive.

Their fires or their blood, but he was only willing to take one.

A sound to his right caught his ear, and he turned his head to face it. The brush rustled, something large was coming through the trees toward his clearing. He reached for his sword out of instinct, forgetting that he no longer carried one. His claws had become his primary weapon, but as he sat and waited for the thing to make itself seen, he had to wonder why he bothered. So what if it killed him? What difference did it make? A wolf, a bear, or the sun. They all amounted to the same thing. He left his claws in check, waiting for whatever the gods had sent him.

Still, he was not prepared for what he saw.

Mary walked out of the darkness on the edge of the clearing, a huge smile on her face as she showed off the ring he’d bought her. A sparkle shone from the depths of her deep brown eyes. Her hair was black as the night sky, and her smile reflected the moonlight, magnifying it and casting the clearing in a soft, welcome glow. Her blue dress fit so tight he did not need to use his imagination to picture what lay beneath. She looked just like he remembered her, and in her hands she carried a single red flower.

“For you, my love,” she said, holding the bloom out to him.

It was the flower that showed him the truth.

“You are not here,” he said, reaching for the stem even though he knew it wasn’t real.

The vision of Mary frowned. “What do you mean, my love?” she asked. “I am right here. Where else would I be but with you?”

“You are in Jerusalem, where I left you. I placed this flower by your tomb.”

Her eyes drooped. The smile faltered, and Taras’ heart broke as a tear spilled from the corner of her eye. “It’s not true, my love. I’m here. Touch me.”

Taras’ hand reached the stem of the red flower, and closed on empty air.

Mary was gone.

His rational mind told him she was never really there at all, yet a small part of him wished she would come back, even if it wasn’t real.

Taras laid his head on his hand and tried to cry, but tears would not come. Their cleansing power was another thing denied him by his condition, along with true sleep and rest. The sunrise could not come soon enough.

The next time he heard rustling from the brush, he ignored it.

Right up until the moment the club cracked him on the back of the head.

When he awoke, his hands were tied behind his back, and he was propped against a tree. His ankles were lashed together by a length of twine tied to a stake in the ground. Clearly, someone did not want him to go anywhere. But who?

He lifted his head and looked around. He was in another clearing, albeit a smaller one, surrounded on all sides by trees and scrub brush. The ground under him was littered with pine needles and dried leaves, but no grass. In the center of the clearing a small fire crackled and spit. Three hunched figures sat around the fire, casting long, dancing shadows into the night. They wore coarse, dark tunics and black breeches with soft leather boots on their feet. Despite their clothing, they huddled around the fire to ward off the night’s unusual chill. Taras could not see their faces, but their conversation drifted to him over the noise of the woods.

“Not a damn coin on him,” said one. “We should have just cut him and left him.”

“Aye,” said another. “Poor as the desert is dry. Who’d pay a ransom for the likes of him?”

“Did you see his hair?” said the last of the three. “He’s not from Greece, or Judea either.”

“No,” said the first man. “If he has any family, they are far away.”

“Why did we keep him, then?” asked the second man.

“I’ll tell you why,” said a new voice. Taras turned his head and saw a large, heavily muscled man step into the clearing, dragging a woman behind him. Like Taras, her wrists and legs were tied with twine, but she had the additional misfortune of having a gag in her mouth. “Because there is someone who will pay us for him,” the big man continued. “Balize.”

All three of the men at the fire cursed, and one of them spat in the dirt.

“Balize?” he said. “You would trade with that creature, Grummit?”

“She will pay good coin for him, Hio,” Grummit replied. “The woman, too. At least a gold for the two of them, perhaps more.”

“If she doesn’t kill you first, you mean,” said another of the three.

Grummit dragged the woman over to where Taras sat, then proceeded to tie the rope around her legs to a spike in the earth, similar to the one with which they had tethered Taras. The bandit finally looked up and noticed his captive was awake.

“He lives,” Grummit said. “We wondered whether you would wake again, northman. You were so weak when we found you.”

Weak. Taras was weak. And hungry. And these four men, having kidnapped him and tied him to the ground, smelled of steel, sweat, and blood. He found himself looking at Grummit’s neck; at the pulsing rhythm of the jugular vein as blood pumped through it. The image made his belly rumble. The sound rolled through the clearing, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Grummit laughed. “Hungry are you? Don’t worry, northman. You won’t be hungry long.”

He turned his back on Taras while Hio and the other two bandits laughed.

“What about the girl?” Hio asked.

“What about her? She will go to Balize, as well.”

“Seems a waste,” Hio said, staring at the woman’s torn clothing and flashing a crooked smile. “Balize won’t have near as much fun with her as I would.”

The two men by the fire chuckled, and Grummit turned to take another look at the woman. The look in his eyes changed from greed to hunger, and his hand went to his crotch. “Balize probably wouldn’t care if we played with her first. Especially if she didn’t find out.”

“Yes,” Hio said. “What difference would it make to her, anyway? The Bachiyr will only be interested in her blood.” With that, he stood up and fingered his belt. The other two men rose to their feet behind him, smiling and reaching for their belts, as well.

Bachiyr? They planned to feed him to another Bachiyr? The men didn’t realize he was Bachiyr, but this Balize surely would. She might even recognize him if word of his existence had spread. If so, she wouldn’t kill him, most likely. Rather, she would probably turn him over to the one called Ramah.

Killing him would probably be kinder.

“I’m first,” Grummit said. The look Hio flashed his leader was one of pure contempt, but he said nothing.

Taras turned to look at the woman, whose eyes grew wide as Grummit approached. The gag in her mouth muffled her screams, and the rope around her ankles held her in place. She backed as far away from the lumbering bandit as she could before it snapped taut, then she could go no farther. Her sobs echoed through the clearing, generating another round of laughter from their captors.

Grummit passed Taras on his way to the woman. He looked down and winked. “Sorry, friend,” he said. “You’re not invited.” Then he kicked Taras in the face.

Taras’ head snapped back. The pain was accompanied by the sound of crunching bone as his nose gave way to Grummit’s boot. Blood leaked out of his nose as the bandit walked by, still smiling.

The smell of his blood was almost more than he could bear. It called to Taras like a mother calling her child home for dinner. His belly rumbled again, this time sounding like an angry wolf, and the pain curled him into a ball as Hio and the other two men shuffled by.

Taras watched their backs as they gathered around the woman, and realized that no one was watching him. They were preoccupied with fondling her breasts and talking loudly about the many things they planned to do to her. He tested his bonds. They were strong. He would be able to break them easily if he was at his full strength, but he was weak. Too weak to run from another Bachiyr. Probably too weak to fight, as well.

Grummit dropped his pants and knelt in the clearing by the woman’s ankles while Hio and one of the other men grabbed her legs and pulled them apart. She screamed again, and Taras saw her face. Her skin was dark, but not brown like the men from south of Egypt. She had the same coloring as Mary. Dark hair, brown eyes. A little thinner and smaller through the chest, but still lovely in spite of the gag and the look of raw fear on her face.

Was that the look Mary wore before Theron tore her apart?

Grummit climbed on top of her with a grunt, and the woman screamed through her gag. But it was not her voice Taras heard, it was Mary’s. Mary’s voice screamed for help. Mary’s face twisted in fear. Mary’s legs pried open by brigands. His beloved Mary, lying in her shredded blue dress as four men had their way with her.

Suddenly his hands were free, cut into tatters by claws that had appeared of their own volition. He cut through the twine around his ankles and turned toward the men. They stood a few paces away, huddled around the woman, who cried and screamed through her gag. Taras’ vision blurred, and the entire clearing faded. As he stepped forward, it seemed everyone else moved much slower than they should. Voices became deep and slurred beyond understanding, and the insects that buzzed madly through the clearing now floated gently between Taras and his victims, their wings beating a slow but steady rhythm in the air. The woman’s scream droned on, a slow, scared monotone as he watched his hands stretch toward the closest bandit.

His clawed fingers shot forward, tearing through the flesh of the man’s back. Taras wrapped his fingers around his victim’s spine and yanked backward. The bones popped free of their moorings and ripped through his skin. Blood sprayed everywhere, and some of the droplets landed on Taras’ face. The smell drove him forward while the man screamed, then fell silent. By the time he hit the ground he was dead. Taras, meanwhile, had moved on to the next man.

The second bandit had just started to turn around when Taras plunged his claws into the man’s throat, twisting his hand and rending skin and tendons. He wrapped his fingers around the man’s Adam’s apple and pulled it free. The flesh ripped apart, sending more blood into the air. The man gurgled, and then he fell to the ground to lie in a growing pool of blood. His right hand clutched his throat, while his left hand still fingered his belt.

Next was Hio, who moved a bit faster than his two comrades. He reached for the sword at his belt and had it halfway out of its sheath by the time Taras grabbed hold of his head. The Bachiyr placed one hand on either side of Hio’s head and began to squeeze. Hio screamed and let go of his sword, grabbing Taras’ wrists and trying to pull them apart. But the human bandit was no match for the Bachiyr’s strength, and soon his eyes rolled up into his head and his arms fell limp at his sides.

The sound Hio’s head made as the sides caved in reminded Taras of breaking a clay pot filled with moist bread dough. First came a sharp crack, then a liquid plop as his hands tore through the soft material beneath.

The smell of blood hung in the air like a red mist. Taras inhaled great clouds of it, sending his hyper-developed senses into a frenzy. He pulled his hands from Hio’s shattered skull and turned to find Grummit standing over Mary with his sword hanging over her neck. The bandit was still naked from the waist down, and his erection pointed toward the sky as he poked the sword into the soft flesh of her throat.

“Whatever you are,” Grummit said, his voice wavering, “don’t take another step forward or I’ll cut off her head.”

Mary stared at Taras’ hands, her fear worse now than when Grummit had been about to rape her. Her heart thumped madly in her chest, buzzing like a hummingbird. Could she truly be more afraid of Taras than Grummit? A thin trickle of blood leaked from a cut on her neck, caused by the point of the bandit’s sword, but Taras barely noticed. His attention was focused on the look of fear in Mary’s eyes.

Why would Mary be afraid of him?

In his confusion, the vision faded, and he saw the truth. The woman on the ground was not Mary, and never had been. Mary was dead, killed by Theron. This woman was a stranger. She meant nothing to him. He should just walk away now while he had the chance.

But he didn’t.

Perhaps it was the smell of blood combined with his hunger, or maybe it was the thought of what Mary would think of him if he left the helpless woman to die, or it could have been the words of a dead Jewish rabbi, but something kept him rooted to the spot.

There is always a choice.

Taras took a step forward.

“Stop,” Grummit commanded.

Taras shook his head. “You are already dead, Grummit,” he said. “Release the woman and I will kill you quick. Kill her and I will make your death very slow. Choose.”

Grummit looked from Taras to the woman, then to the bodies of his three fallen comrades, killed in less time than it takes to blink. His sword arm wavered. For a moment Taras thought he would run, but then he looked back to Taras and screamed. He pulled his sword away from the woman’s neck and charged.

Grummit was a brute; vile and mean, but he was little more than a strong farmer with a sword. Taras had spent years training in the Roman Legion and had the added benefit of his enhanced reflexes and strength. As the bandit charged him, his heavy sword held over his head in a clumsy overhand chop, Taras ducked down and twisted to the side, jabbing out with his right hand and raking his claws across Grummit’s belly. They tore four long gashes into the man’s tender flesh, and several slimy ropes of intestine spilled out to hang, dripping, from Grummit’s abdomen. The bandit screamed in pain and tried to come around with his sword, but his angle was off and Taras swatted the blade away with his left hand.

The blood! It rolled down Taras’ arm from the gaping wound in Grummit’s gut. The scent of it pulled at his mind, tearing into it like an angry badger. His strength flagged as his sudden surge of speed took its toll, and Taras felt himself sinking back into weakness. Next to him, Grummit fell to the clearing floor, sobbing and grabbing as much of his innards as he could and trying to hold them inside.

Taras looked toward the woman, who now lay still. Her heartbeat had slowed to normal, as had her breathing, leaving him to guess that she had fainted. A thin trickle of blood ran down her neck.

Grummit had done that to her.

Taras stepped over to where the man lay in the dirt and leaves. He looked down at the writhing, squirming figure and felt no pity. The man deserved to die. Taras had meted out his death sentence already; the wound in his belly surely would kill him unless some opportunistic predator smelled the blood and did it first.

A predator like Taras.

At last, he had his answer.

He reached down and grabbed Grummit by the shoulder, then hauled him to his feet. Grummit swatted weakly at him, but the man’s strength had left him, and the blow rolled off Taras’ shoulder as if it were a child’s. Taras spun the man around and embraced him from behind, plunging his teeth into the exposed throat.

The blood poured into his mouth, and Taras sighed as he swallowed mouthful after mouthful. He had been as a man wandering through the desert, his skin ablaze with the sun’s heat and his body dry as ancient bones. Now he had found an oasis, and he drank until he could not drink any more.

Strength surged through his body like lightning, feeding his muscles and his foggy mind. Until then, he hadn’t realized just how weak he had become. But as power vibrated through his body, humming with energy and vitality, his senses exploded.

The scent of the clearing poured into his nostrils like a great waterfall: the green of the tree leaves and the brown of the earthen floor. The sweat of the woman’s body, and the sour odor of urine from one of his victims. Even the smell of Grummit’s steel, tainted with old blood, found its way into his nose.

A cacophony of noise surrounded him. Birds fluttering their wings, snakes slithering across the ground, mice bounding through the brush, and many more. He heard every blade of grass that bent to the wind, every leaf that fluttered to the ground, and every insect that buzzed through the trees. He heard them all so well he could almost see them with his ears.

As the blood poured into him, the woods around him seemed to explode into light and detail. A squirrel chattered in a tree on one side of the clearing, and Taras saw it so clearly he could have counted the hairs of its tail. On the other side, a bat fluttered through the trees, and Taras saw the gnats that it chased. The moonlight bathed the whole area in a soft, surreal glow, and no shadow was too deep for his eyes to penetrate..

This was the feeling he’d had in Jerusalem after Mary’s death. This was the euphoric sensation that caused him to run down and kill dozens of people that night. Taras was more than just a predator, he was the predator. The top hunter in a world filled with prey.

He couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to.

He drank from Grummit until the man stopped moving, then he cast about for another victim. Not far away, the bandit Taras had stabbed through the neck writhed feebly on the ground. Without Taras’ interference the man would die soon enough, but he wasn’t dead yet. Taras leapt on him, placing his mouth over a font of spurting blood, and clamped his lips tight over the wound. In less than a minute, he had drunk a second person dry.

The only living person left in the clearing was the woman. Taras walked over to where she lay and watched the subtle rising and falling of the artery in her neck. She was already unconscious. It would be easy. He leaned over her, his hunger raging through his body. The roar in his ears drowned out most everything but her heartbeat, which still came in a slow, steady thump. He leaned in and put his mouth on her throat.

The woman spasmed, and started to scream through her gag again. Taras pulled back and saw she had regained consciousness. Her eyes went wide as she looked at his face, and Taras couldn’t help but notice the shade of her irises. They were a deep brown, like a chestnut.

Like Mary’s.

Taras stumbled back, falling over backwards in his haste to get himself away from the woman. Gods, he almost killed her! He’d been so close. He would have to be careful. Men like Hio and Grummit deserved to die, but she was a victim. An innocent. She did not deserve this.

Mary would have wanted him to help her.

She continued to scream her muffled scream, and Taras rose to his feet. He walked back over to her and grasped the spike in the ground. It came up easily, and he tossed it to the side. Then he pointed to the knife in Hio’s hand.

“It’s sharp,” he said. “Use it on your ropes.”

With that, he turned away from her. He wanted to stay and make sure she made it to safety, but the sound of her blood pulsing through her veins called to him, and he forced himself to keep walking. If he stopped again, he would kill her. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

He passed Grummit’s body and looked down. The bandit’s flesh looked sunken and dry, as though he’d been dead for months instead of minutes. Taras tried to feel remorse for killing him, but it wouldn’t come. Grummit had been a vile man bent on doing vile things. So were Hio and the other two bandits. In Jerusalem, in the days immediately following his death, Taras had killed without malice, pity, or reason. But this was different. Taras had simply meted out justice. That he had been able to satiate his gnawing hunger in the process was a bonus.

Taras stopped in his tracks, turning an idea over in his mind.

Maybe he didn’t have to die, after all.

Men like Grummit and Hio were everywhere. Antioch was full of them. So was the rest of the world. He knew; he had traveled through most of it in service to Rome. People everywhere murdered for money, or fun, or no reason at all. Men found sport with unwilling women, often beating or killing them in the process. Robbers would steal the bread from an honest man’s table. Powerful men and women stepped on the throats of the innocent. And there was worse. Much worse. All of them deserved justice, and Taras could deliver it to them.

He walked out of the clearing and into the woods, headed back to Antioch with a newfound strength and skip in his step. He had finally figured out what the gods wanted of him.

Maybe when the time came for him to die, he would get to see Mary again, after all.