Where the Devil Says Goodnight (Folk Lore 1)

Chapter 26 - Emil

Jinx’s limbs stopped kicking and trembling as his dark blood soaked into the dirt, but the protruding bulges on his underbelly kept shifting, as if there was a nest of snakes in there about to be released. Emil’s muscles were stiff like thick wooden branches, but he flinched when Adam kneeled next to him, his gaze fixed on the movement inside the animal’s cavities.

Emil gestured to the knife. “Should I…?”

Adam glanced at him, his animalistic face tense. “No. Stay back,” he whispered, and despite his drive to act, this time Emil followed his lover’s request and watched his giant form scoot close to the corpse. They both gasped when something pushed from inside, as if it were trying to reach Chort but couldn’t pierce the animal’s flesh.

Adam dug the claw of his index finger into the bared abdomen and pulled it along the length of Jinx’s body, cutting through tissue and releasing the odor of blood and… moss?

Emil screamed out when a small hand pushed out from the animal’s innards. Covered in blood, it moved before Emil could have imagined all the horrendous ways in which it might have gotten there. Its digits dug into the ground like anchors, and a naked woman poured out of the horse’s belly like the contents of an egg leaving its broken shell. With black hair as her only covering, she looked around, dazed as if it was the first time she’d seen the world.

Her legs were still inside the open abdomen, revealing that instead of intestines and organs, the horse was filled with moss and mushrooms, as if his mount was empty inside, a living breathing ecosystem to sustain a small woman.

“W-what are you?” Emil uttered yet couldn’t help the feeling that there was something familiar about her face. She was neither very young nor old, with fair skin that revealed blue veins underneath and fine lines by her eyes and mouth. She frantically got to her knees and covered herself with her long hair, which was thick enough to form a coat around her slender form.

When her gaze met Emil’s, everything stilled. Even the first morning birds went silent in respect of the wondrous moment taking place in front of their Lord.

“It’s your grandmother,” Adam said.

Emil wouldn’t blink, staring at the stranger without a single thought in his head. He remembered the young woman his grandmother had been in the old photos, and the resemblance was undeniable. Taking into account that his grandmother also dabbled in magic, or that Chort existed, Emil couldn’t find it in him to question what he was seeing.

“Is… is that true? I’m Emil Slowik.” He held his hand out to her, but quickly flinched and took off Adam’s coat, which he wore for warmth over his own.

She accepted the woolen garment, but her gaze wouldn’t leave the brown leather jacket covering Emil’s chest. “It’s Zenon’s.”

Emil gave a choked exhale and rubbed his face, overcome with emotions he couldn’t identify. This woman, while undoubtedly a stranger to him, was also the grandmother, who’d been such an important presence in his life even without being there. “It was. But he… Grandpa gave it to me,” he whispered, leaning into Adam, who pulled him close with one of those strong arms he was learning to love.

She lowered her gaze, contemplating his words for several moments. “I hoped I’d see him again, but it all took so much longer than I’d expected. How old are you?”

“Thirty.”

Grandma frowned, clenching her hands on the coat she still hadn’t put on. “Didn’t you get my letter? I thought… I thought that if it didn’t happen before you were twenty-one, bringing Chort back would be a lost cause. And too dangerous for you.”

Emil shook his head, filled with sudden anger. “Only then would it be too dangerous? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”

Her lips paled when she pressed them together, but she finally covered her nakedness with the coat. “The valley was suffering. We had to do something, and to whom should I have offered all that power if not to my own grandchild?” she asked, briefly settling her gaze on Adam. “I assumed your grandfather would have protected you from the anger of other believers until Chort came back. Had he really died so young?”

Emil swallowed and cupped his head, his throat full of the anger he longed to express yet couldn’t make himself, because this was still his grandmother.

“Emil, please,” she whispered, taking a step closer, her features twisted with pain. “I know this must have been hard on you but we all make sacrifices.”

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “What? No one asked if I wanted to make one! I lost my home, my life’s been a streak of shitty events, and now my boyfriend is literally the devil, so don’t talk to me about fucking sacrifices!”