Viribus

Chapter 20: Ice Cold

My eyes slowly open to see the unwelcomed sunlight creeping through the window. I turn my eyes to Dimitri, who's still sleeping and I wonder if I could just savor this moment and close my eyes again. Viribus was waiting for me eagerly at the end of the bed.
"Okay, okay...it's breakfast time I guess right?" His tail wags vigorously. I get up and finish my morning routine and then something is telling me to check my phone. There's a text from Beau.
"Have you talked with Dimitri about the plan? This needs to happen as soon as possible."
I sigh.
"No, but soon. Tonight is the night."
As hard as it is, I know it's the right thing to do. I want my life back.
I head downstairs to feed Viribus and to start making breakfast. It's a nice morning and after a few minutes of doing this I can hear Dimitri stirring upstairs.
I hear a voice from upstairs say,
"Hey babe, can you come up here for a second?"
"Sure, I've got bacon cooking so give me just a second."
I finish up the bacon and set it aside. I get upstairs and it is freezing.
"It's freezing up here!",
I say as I get to our bedroom and Dimitri is nowhere to be found.
I grab by cardigan out of the closet and put it on.
"Yeah, I got a little hot while I was sleeping.", I hear Dimitri say.
I don't see him anywhere though and the top floor of this house is very large.
"Where are you at?"
"In the last room down the hall, I'm looking for something can you help me?"
Hm, that's vague. I've never even been this far down the hall, I thought Dimitri said he never goes in these rooms. I make my way to down the hallway, which seemed like it went on forever.
"Here I come! What exactly are you looking for anyway? I thought you never used these rooms?"
"Oh I don't really; just storage sometimes."
I finally get to the end of the hall and see Dimitri crouching down with his back turned to me. He was rummaging through a cardboard box.
This was strange and I felt a little bit uneasy. As soon as Dimitri heard me enter the room, he stopped rummaging and paused for a second, then he turned around.
"Hey Vivi, I was looking for one of my old watches, I just can't find it anywhere."
Relieved, I went over to him and began helping him sort through some of the boxes. 
I thought maybe this would be a good time to bring up my plans for tonight.
"So Dimitri? I was talking with Beau last night at the coffee shop and I think he's figured out what this thing is and how to stop it."
Dimitri rolls his eyes.
"Viviana, do we really have to start our morning talking about Beau and his newest delusions? I mean we had an amazing night last night. Do you even care?"
"Of course I care, Dimitri, you know that I love you and I want us to have a long, happy, normal life together. That's why I'm doing this."
I put my hand on his and he grabs my hand firmly. It's cold as ice.
For him to have claimed to be so hot, his hands sure are cold...I thought to myself.
"Okay, I understand, go ahead and tell me." Dimitri says as he looks me straight in the eyes.
His eyes looked like swirling pools of icy cold water sloshing about in an Arctic whirlpool.
"We think this is an Odyium, an Odyium is a creature that used to be a person but is the result of hate turned inwards. It seems to be a mixture of all the worst super natural beings like skin walkers, demons and spirits. There's only one way to kill it.
"...and what's that", Dimitri says. His eyes still locked in place with mine.
I've never seen him look so intensely, so attentively.
"We have to say his name. We already know the initials. I think the letter has his name in it and that's why he reacts so strongly when we talk about opening it."
"I see...Viviana, I've been thinking about this as well and I think our lives would be much easier if we just burned the letter and appease this thing." Dimitri says, still keeping his eyes as still as possible.
"You can't be serious? After all we've been through, we can't give up that easily? What's gotten into you?, I say as I study his face.

It was then that I could smell the faint scent of smoke drifting into the room and I realized that the toast was burning.
I run down the hall as fast as possible but what I see in the corner of my eye as I pass the bedroom catches me off guard and makes my blood run cold. I skip a step and topple the rest of the way down. All I see is red and all I feel is searing pain. I jump up as soon as I realize what just happened and run into the kitchen. Dimitri comes running down the stairs to help and as soon as he wraps his arms around me, it feels like a block of ice. At that moment, Viribus jumps into Stance and starts barking and snarling. Dimitri looks at me with those swirling eye balls and he finally blinks, one eye at a time. I take the knife I had grabbed just moments ago and thrust it deep into his throat. He hits the ground dead with a thud. With tears in my eyes, I run back upstairs to the bedroom to face the horrifying thing I had seen in my peripheral vision when I passed by. It was Dimitri in the bed, still sleeping just as I had left him. His ear buds were in so I suspect he hasn't heard anything. That person dead downstairs was not Dimitri, it wasn't even a person. I wake Dimitri up and tell him what happened and he's immediately horrified. We run downstairs to see the corpse of the doppelgänger. It begins to burn and turns to ash.
I collapse into tears because even though I know that wasn't Dimitri that I killed, at the time that I did it, I wasn't 100% sure. I couldn't say anything except. "I could have killed you." A million times. Dimitri held me until I calmed down.
Once I was finally able to speak in complete sentences and the tears finally stopped, I told Dimitri about the Odyium and the plan we had to kill it once and for all over breakfast as I held big Viribus in my arms. I couldn't imagine losing either one of them. Dimitri thought it was a great idea and seemed happy that we had reached a breakthrough. He put his Ill feelings towards Beau behind him and acknowledged that he was very helpful.
"So when are we going to do this?",
Dimitri asked as he nervously pulled at the cuticle on his right thumb.
"Tonight is the night.", I said trying unsuccessfully to sound brave.
"Tonight we get our lives back.", Dimitri kisses me softly on the lips.
"There are some things that we are going to need tonight. Beau gave me a small list of things that we will need to bring." I looked at my phone for the text.
Unscented red candle
Red yarn
Matches
Salt
Crucifix
Holy water
I read the list out to him and it was found that we had every item we needed in the house except the holy water. Dimitri seemed to know exactly where we should go to get that.
Dimitri grew up Russian orthodox and although he didn't go to church nearly as much as he used to, he still kept close ties with the church. The doors were always open.