The Wicked & Divine

Chapter 25- Death is Warm

"Artemis! we must leave now!" Karl does his best to remain quiet, gripping onto my arm- desperately trying to pull me back.

I have suddenly been granted a strength, well, not so much a strength as it is a numbness. I cannot feel my leg, I cannot feel anything. Karl's desperate attempts to lull me into the darkness of the forest behind me is an idea that holds no appeal. I think of the body I have left behind, tumid and purple and dead. 

Dead and rotting. 

My ripped dress has been knotted in a loose fashion at my thigh. It is stained with blood and other bodily fluids. There is a metallic taste in my mouth, copper has flooded my senses. I know I am splattered in his blood, it has drenched my arms and face. 

"Please! if we go any further they will see us!" Karl has become pestlike at his urging and half hushed yells. Amalia and Zelig wait obediently behind, although I have no contempt left- it would be unfair to drag him with me into the jaws of death. I know where I am headed, I do not mind but I will not decide that fate for Karl. 

I stop in the snow, my feet blistered and cold and bare- I can't feel it. 

"Karl" has my voice always sounded like this? so flat and small. My hands feel miles away from my face, it feels as if my neck has grown like a bean stalk, holding my head atmospheres from the white snow at my feet. In the distance, warm firelight flickers, illuminating the small village that will soon burn. 

"Karl, take the horses and go. I will distract them, just point to me where your leader will be" this voice is not mine, this is throat of another, the rumblings of a woman I am not.

"Please... Artemis, let me help, at the rising of sun we will be out of the snow and we will get you help" I turn, he's shaking now. His face is tired- as if an old coat hung to dry. His hands and legs tremble against the urge to turn and flee. So weak, so scared...it is if I am looking in a mirror.

But by dawn Karl will be safe and warm, I will be dead and frozen in the ice.

"Karl, I need you to listen to me. By dawn I will find you again but now I have unfinished business. Now, tell me, where is she?" I am impatient now, the need to have her thin neck between my hands is not me. That's how I justify it, it was not me with that man, my broken glass wedged between his slippery flesh. It was simply the woman who speaks now, a murderous stranger. 

He looks back again and after a moment of internal debate his shoulders slump in defeat. "It will be the largest one, facing west, she will have two stone sheep on either side." He fidgets, turning back once more, expecting to see a villager passing by in the snow. We are still a stretch of path away from the main village, it seems all have gathered in it's center. 

 "Leave Karl, I promise I will find you." Lies.

He looks at me fully for just a moment, clawing into my eyes and reading my mind. He retrieves something from his pocket, quickly shoving it into my hand. But he says nothing, leaving just as quickly as he came.

I glance down, looking and feeling what looks like a zippo lighter. It is a pale steel, I flip the hood to see if there is any fluid- sure enough a blue flame emerges from the small box. I thank him, but he is scurrying off already. Quickly, I rip some of the cloth at the bottom of my dress, using it to fasten the lighter tightly to my left thigh. 

I watch to make sure no one approaches him, it is only when he is swallowed by the dark flurries of snow and trees that I resume my trek forward. 

The largest house with the stone sheep. The largest house with the stone sheep. The largest house with the stone sheep. It becomes my mantra, the flow of my new dogma. Death is my god, and murder is my savior.