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Kurtis was holding the simple black duffel bag in his hand, foreboding gnawing at his insides. Standing in an underpass at the city outskirts, the only sounds in the dirty pungent tunnel were the buzzing of a fluorescent strip light, scuttering of tiny rodent feet and his own fast breathing. It had picked up when a nondescript stranger had approached him ten minutes ago, claiming to be nothing but a messenger.
And the delivery wasn’t for Vance Renner. It was for Kurtis Heissturm.
Kurtis had made very sure his real identity was kept secret.
There couldn’t be many people who could have sent it to him and he couldn’t imagine it would be anything… good. Maybe this was more than just a bad feeling. Maybe it was a different kind of feeling, coming not from his mind but from what the bag contained.
He felt like he already knew.
The one light on the ceiling still worked, just with the occasional sputters dimming the area. Kurtis could go elsewhere, or he could look at the contents right here. Neither choice felt better. Opening the bag would be like opening Pandora’s box, only with things and memories he had stuffed there himself and threw into a lake never to see them again.
Someone had fished it out then.
Raising his free hand, dismayed but not surprised that it was shaking, he grabbed the zip and pulled.
Right at the top was a folded sheet on paper, with nothing but Kurtis written on top. His mom’s handwriting.
He took the letter with his trembling hand and resolutely stuffed it into his leather jacket which was doing nothing against his shivers.
The only other thing in the bag was something wrapped in fabric. No, two bundles, set side by side. One almost round, the other more elongated. Like the pull of a magnet, his fingers were drawn to the round one, calling to him, calling to him in his mind like an old acquaintance, a friend, a danger, a burst of power. An inseparable part of someone else the last time Kurtis had felt its presence.
He took the bundle and dropped the duffel bag. It thudded onto the dirty ground with an echo Kurtis didn’t register, eyes trained on the plain dark fabric. He unwrapped it jerkily to reveal a beaten up but well-maintained weapon cask. A vasculum. The worn leather felt both foreign and familiar, too painfully familiar, even if the cask itself had more nips and scars since the last time.
Kurtis lost the count of time, standing like a statue, eyes barely blinking. It was the truth, it had happened. Had he thought it would have eventually happened? Possibly, if he had allowed himself to think about it, think about the… War.
The War.
This was his invitation back, extended to him by his mother.
She knew why he had left, yet she still thought he would accept? That he would return to the carnage, death and darkness?
That he would stop being a coward, stop running?
Kurtis let out a breath which sounded loud to his ears, and looked around blearily as if he had forgotten where he was. And perhaps he had. Too many memories, a whole life he had left behind.
But had he ever? No matter how much he had kept running, there were always strange things happening, dark things reminding him who he was.
He moved his eyes down at the bag. The other bundle of fabric… what was it? And would it be useful for what he would encounter in the battles ahead?
Had he accepted his return so fast?
Maybe he had stopped pretending he had managed to escape.
As Kurtis leaned down for the other object, he noticed his hand was no longer trembling. He was calm. Not at peace, but… numb. And at the same time too aware. It would scare him a little, the eeriness of it, if he was able to be worried at the moment.
He pulled at the fabric and two identical objects tumbled out on the bottom of the duffel bag, glowing ever so slightly blue in the dim, irregular light.
Kurtis could feel his breathing, calm, deep and even. What else could this have been? Maybe he had expected it as well.
Would it be useful for him?
Immensely.
More than that, he had just been given the keys to finish the War, if he was able to use them. He had been given the ability to end it.
He had been given the responsibility of being the only one capable of ending it.
It should stress him, it should frighten him, it should make him rage for not having been asked if he wanted to be part of it, just like back then.
Still so calm, the only emotion he could even slightly feel was… relief? Incomprehensible. Should he not be experiencing grief, at the very least?
He reached down, his hand still steady, and grasped both Periapt Shards. They were cool but not cold, subtle power emanating from the touch.
Kurtis tucked them into his pouch deftly. They would need to wait their turn.
With the duffel bag empty and still in the strange trance, Kurtis pulled out the letter from his mother again. He opened it with one hand, the other still holding the vasculum.
The message was in Navajo, and further written in a secret script, creating a combination very few in the world would be able to read, but which came to Kurtis naturally despite the long years since he’d last seen such letters.
The contents were… predictable. There was certain lightness in learning that both his mother and brother were safe, but otherwise… Yes, as expected.
His father was dead. Murdered.
The last word bouncing through his mind almost made something in him stir, but even that dimmed quickly.
He knew.
He was simply unable to process it, that much his rational mind could supply him. Which meant that it would happen later and he wasn’t looking forward to it. It was empty and safe, for now, feeling like not much more than a spectator of his own life.
Last time he had seen his father, he had been so angry. They argued, not mincing words. And then he had left. Never to see his father again. Had he expected it back then, that it would be their last moments together?
No, he hadn’t permitted himself to think of that, determined to start a new life.
There were no accusing, damning words in the message. Just information, and a hope for his good health. No convincing him what to do.
Mom knew him. She knew she didn’t have to.
Not when she even supplied the name of the murderer. Eckhardt himself, the looming shadow over Kurtis’ life since he had been born. Shadows could be chased away with light, he had always been told. He was one of the lights, he had been told.
He looked up at the flickering strip light.
And he hadn’t wanted to burn himself out, his proverbial light, on some hopeless War.
It had been silly of him, to think like that. Stifling the light just meant more shadows all around, and they had been following him wherever he went.
“Oi, Vance, what’s up!” a clear and loud voice called through his thoughts, dragging him back into the real world, out of his increasingly philosophical musings. Kurtis blinked and shook his head, turning towards two men swaggering towards him, one chewing, with one hand raised in greeting, while the other kept hands in his pockets and just nodded.
Kurtis remembered why he had come here. He had a meeting. A job that felt rather inconsequential and damning at the same time, in light of the news:
He had been hunting tiresome, city-dwelling demons.
Because the shadows had never left him and it was easier to shine a little of his light on them to dispose of them, rather than keeping the reminders around.
As if fighting them was any less of a reminder.
“Josh, Barry,” he nodded back at them, trying to assume his Vance Renner persona with some difficulty.
“Looking kinda down, eh? Not backing out?” Josh challenged, still chewing.
Kurtis sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for it now, but he had started it, he should finish this one thing before beginning a new chapter of his life. He combed his fingers through his hair. “No, sorry, I’m still in. Just received some bad news.”
“Hm,” Barry finally spoke up, “let’s go then.”
“Ignore him,” Josh laughed as they started walking, Kurtis leaving the empty bag behind, “he’s been like that all day. So, bad news you say?”
“Yeah. Personal.”
“Aw man, knocked up a girl some something?” Josh was way too cheerful for what Kurtis was going through, but somehow he didn’t mind. Maybe because it was all faked.
“My father died,” Kurtis told him, just to hear it out loud. A little masochistic of him maybe. Trying to speed up the realization, to make it truly real.
“Shit, man, I’m so sorry!”
Kurtis looked at Josh, or rather the demon inhabiting a body of a man whose soul had long been consumed, and managed to crack a smile. He wasn’t looking for sympathy, and so the hollow, fake words felt welcome for some grotesque reason.
“Thanks, Josh.”
“What’s in your hand?” Barry asked. The more perceptive of the two demons, Kurtis had learned from their short acquaintance. Maybe he felt something from the cask?
“Inheritance,” Kurtis smirked. It was a fake smile, this whole conversation was a performance from all present. But even this little was hard for Kurtis to act out when he still felt mostly hollow.
“Yeah, what’s in there?” Josh asked, completely oblivious. He tended to talk a lot, draw attention to himself. It made their victims pay less attention to other things.
Kurtis just shrugged non-committally in response. He would have disposed of them already, but he was aware of their real plans – to lure him to their friend, a weak demon with no host body. Maybe Kurtis would have found him by himself eventually, but this was much quicker, if riskier.
Or at least it would have been riskier for most other people.
With Josh prattling along, they walked for maybe ten minutes before they reached an old rusty door, supposedly hiding some goods they could appropriate and sell later. Lured by the idea of petty theft. Kurtis wondered what kind of people would be caught in the trap if he hadn’t been there.
Barry made a show of picking the lock and they slipped inside, Josh turning on a flash light, only for it to die almost immediately.
“Shit!” he said kind of convincingly. “Barry, you have any?”
“It was your job.”
“Damn. Vance?”
“Sorry,” Kurtis replied blandly. He could probably stop trying to act altogether and they wouldn’t abandon their quest, so close to their goal.
There were only vague shapes visible in the darkness, some old crates and boxes. They stumbled forward until they reached the other side of the fairly spacious room.
“Well, we’re here,” Josh announced merrily. Maybe some of the joy was even real this time. “Didn’t even need the light.”
With those words, the darkness ahead moved, and a vaguely humanoid shape rose from a pile of wooden trash. It was slightly luminescent, bathing everything in sickly, greenish colour.
Kurtis sighed. With just one more action, this chapter of his life would really be over. He would stop dimming and suffocating his light.
The bodiless demon flew towards Kurtis and the demon hunter put one arm up, palm forward. With a simple telekinetic push the demon was flung away. Weak indeed.
“What the fuck!” Josh screeched, his voice a little inhuman and echoey now that the jig was up.
“Yeah, sorry,” Kurtis turned to him and let his powers flow more freely than he let himself in the past ten years, “I had a light with me all along.” Without having to see himself in the mirror, he knew his eyes were glowing white.
With a yell, Barry attacked from behind and Kurtis swept him away with one hand.
“You wanted to know what was inside?” Kurtis asked Josh, the power coursing through his veins waking him up, waking up his emotions, crawling over his skin almost painfully, vivaciously, like an electric current.
His father was dead. Murdered in a senseless War stoked by a mad alchemist that had already been living for much longer than he deserved.
Kurtis unbuckled the vasculum and with a movement almost automatic fitted his fingers into the holes in the cold metal.
“Aiyessu,” he whispered the Chirugai’s real name.
The metal no longer felt cold, and the sudden golden glow further illuminated the surroundings. With a short, sharp sound, five blades sprung up.
Thrill shot through Kurtis’ body, mixing with the power and pain.
His father was dead and his murderer would pay. Kurtis would stop it all once and for all.
“Shit!” Josh wailed.
“This was inside,” Kurtis said in an eerily calm voice that was no longer congruent with his inner feelings. He threw.
In one arc, Chirugai decapitated Josh, Barry who had been picking himself up, and the formless demon who simply dissipated into thin air.
Kurtis caught the weapon expertly, as if he had been doing it for years. And he had been – in training. But this was the first time… the first time he wasn’t training with his father¨s weapon. It was his own.
This had hardly been a fight, Kurtis was aware he hadn’t been hurt, yet the pain coursing through him was racking his body, causing him to fall to his knees. Even if he wanted, he couldn’t keep up the calm voice from just seconds earlier and as tears started to fall, all he could let out was a loud sob.
In the darkness of the filthy room, his light shone as a promise to the future.