“Is that so?” he asked, holding her up by the one leg. The fox mask had long fallen off her face, leaving it exposed, with traces of tears blackened by mascara. “Please, I will give you anything you want. You can have my daughter, if you want. You can have everything. Let me g—”
Adam’s jaws opened so wide it should have been physically impossible. Terror twisted her features just before her imminent death. Like the others, she didn’t deserve a grave, but she would be the last of the four-meat feast he’d been destined to celebrate tonight.
Emil had foretold this. Whisperer blood had been strong in him, and he’d been able to see into the future when even Chort hadn’t known what awaited them tonight. The meat of a pig, a wolf, a fox, and a deer—a four course meal of sinful souls.
Smaller than the others, Mrs. Golonko fit into his mouth whole, but despite the bitterness of all the bile in her body, her meat left him sated by the time he glanced into the sky, where a crescent moon cast a spotlight down at him.
The rush of bloodlust was gone, but there were other desires he longed to satisfy.
Adam blinked, looking far into the distance, taking in all his subjects, and roared into the sky. A choir of howls, hoots, and bawling answered his call, celebrating him with a different prayer.
Lord of the Forest, you came back.
This was his domain, and once he understood that the soul of every living being in the valley and beyond belonged to him, it became clear he would no longer waste his life on foreign superstition. If other gods existed, they weren’t here. But Chort was. Adam was. They were.
He didn’t need to rein in his instincts or feel guilt over loving the wrong person, because nature made no mistakes. Nature had nothing to do with morality or belief, but a man could only be content if he made peace with who he was. Adam’s love for Emil had never been a mistake nor was it a sin, and the doubts of the narrow-minded man he used to be dispersed when he finally saw the world with clarity.
His place was here, in Dybukowo, with Emil at his side, bound to the mountains forever.
Chapter 25 - Emil
Words couldn’t describe Adam’s transformation, but when one of his eyes clouded to resemble a polished coin, Emil knew he’d lost him.
He pulled on the binds until his wrists hurt, his will to live growing with each drop of blood spilled in the sacred grove. For all the love he had for Adam, he would not just lie there and invite the beast to rip into his naked chest.
He’d heard stories of this creature all his life, he’d seen it in fantasy drawings, but nothing could have prepared him to see the beast in the flesh. Taller and more muscular than any man Emil had ever seen, Chort was covered with gray fur, denser on legs, which had large hoofs and were shaped like those of a goat’s, and thinning on deceptively human-looking pectoral muscles. The thick, ribbed horns were as large as a man’s arms, and the monster’s features, stained with the blood of his latest victims, expressed a wild palette of ever-changing emotion.
The ground shook upon Chort’s approach, but as the mountain of a beast stopped a few paces away from its human sacrifice, hope drained from Emil’s heart.
Emil yanked on his restraints a final time but then fell back, resigned to his fate. He’d come here ready to offer his freedom so that Adam could leave, and he would have given his life for him, no questions asked, but this imminent death would be a waste, because there was no one left to save. He’d be Chort’s dessert, forgotten and missed by no one.
He imagined Adam’s parents coming back to Dybukowo twenty-six years since their initial visit, desperate to find their son. And as he looked up at the horned monster with burning eyes, his hope was that they wouldn’t find him.
Adam was gone, consumed by the beast that had twisted his body into its own beastly shape, and if it wasn’t for Emil’s bad advice, none of that would have happened. Just this past morning, Adam had been desperate to leave, even if that involved borrowing Father Marek’s car without permission. It had been Emil who persuaded him not to make such rash decisions. It was fitting that he’d pay for his transgression in blood.
He tried to be brave as the monster approached, but his teeth clattered when Chort leaned over the altar, hovering its huge paw over Emil’s form. It huffed, watching him without earlier urgency, as if its appetite for blood and violence had been sated for now.
Or maybe he liked to play with his food. Emil closed his eyes, unable to handle the tension anymore. He didn’t scream, just wheezed as the beast rubbed its wet nose up his stomach. Maybe it would really go for the heart first and Emil didn’t have to suffer for too long?
The enormous body radiated heat that was in such direct contradiction to the icy surface of the stone that Emil found himself leaning into it against his better judgment. The velvety nose briefly stopped at his breastbone, but as he tensed, prepared for the huge teeth to bite him, Chort continued his exploration, eventually settling his warm muzzle at the side of Emil’s neck.
Fear mixed with a strange sense of relief. He was at the end of his road. He no longer had to struggle. By the time Chort pulled back, Emil breathed out.
He was ready.
“You fear me,” the creature said in that same strange voice that sounded like a piece of breaking wood sliding over the strings of a dissonant violin.
Chort still had one of Adam’s eyes, but it had become somehow more brilliant, like a cloudless sky at the height of summer, and looking at it shining right next to the one that was brassy and alien had Emil on the verge of sobbing with despair. If there was still a part of Adam left in the creature, Emil hoped he was at peace at least.
“If you’re going to fucking eat me, just do it!” Emil whined, ready to face his doom. But there was nothing even remotely aggressive in the shining eyes watching him from above. He flinched when the tips of Chort’s claws slid down his chest, but they did so without piercing the skin.
“I would never hurt you. Chort cannot hurt you. He promised,” the creature said, leaning in again to breathe in Emil’s scent.
Emil swallowed, and as the implication of what he’d heard sank in, clear air flooded his chest until his mind got fuzzy. He hadn’t dreamt up this nightmare. The supernatural was really a part of nature, and the proof nuzzled his pec.
“You won’t?”
The beast lowered its head and sat back by the rock, pulling his knees up to his chest in a surprisingly human gesture. “Of course not. I love you.”
Emil’s eyes went wide and he tried to sit up in shock only to be pulled back by the rope around his hands. “Adam? What? How?”
The goat-like features twisted. Just like that, the monstrous presence didn’t seem to take up nearly as much space, and its face gained a vulnerable quality that was so reminiscent of Adam Emil wanted to scoop him into his arms. But he couldn’t move. Chort—no, Adam—reached out and cut the rope with his sharp claws. “We’ve reached an agreement.”
Emil frantically pushed the loosened binds off his limbs and rolled off the altar, curling his toes when his feet landed on the damp ground that sent a flash of ice up his legs. “No. You shouldn’t have. You should have just—” What? Cut Emil’s heart out and eaten it as steak tartare? Blood thudded in him faster with each passing second and reached a crescendo when he looked at Adam, who sat next to him, face buried between his furry knees.. “You said you l-love me?”