Boelik (16 page)

Bo was following a herd of deer through the
plains as he reminisced when he felt Dayo enter his head.
Dayo
? he asked, continuing after the
deer.

“
Bo, I am so, so sorry,”
Dayo said immediately, a wave of guilt coming with the
thought.

What’s wrong?

“
I am sorry,” Dayo
apologized again.

Dayo, tell me what it
is,
Bo thought. He was getting a very bad feeling.

“
I am so sorry, I wasn’t
paying attention. You were followed, Bo. You were right. That demon
was weak; there was something wrong. The real problem demon was in
the water.”

“
I knew it!” Bo growled,
too impatient to think anymore as he sprinted back to the cabin.
“Where is it, Dayo?”

“
I’m not sure. I’ve lost
sight of it. Its movements are fairly slow, however.”

“
Probably because it’s on
land,” Bo said, storming over the bridge and stream. He stopped at
the cabin, which had been broken into. The door was half broken,
and the interior was torn apart, though nothing seemed to be
missing. Bo cursed. The sky overhead cracked, thunder rolling as
rain began to fall. “Perfect!” he snarled at it.

“
Bo, I think it was after
Ryan. You yourself said something was wrong with the water, didn’t
you?”

“
Yeah, why?”

“
Did Ryan swallow
any?”

“
Well, yes. Tell me your
point,
Dayo,” Bo snapped.

“
The water seemed to be a
way of tracking prey; whatever ingests it gives off a particular
scent.”

“
So Ryan just became a
walking beacon for a demon as he walked into a human village?” Bo
growled as he leapt into a sprint towards the village. He’d made it
only a few steps before a girl’s scream echoed through the forest
beside a cry of pain. “No!” Bo cried, charging even faster.
Not again
played over and over in his
head.

He found Colette in a tree, holding onto a
branch for her life, her hair flattened to her head as the rain
poured down. “Are you all right?” Bo called. She nodded. “Where’s
Ryan?”

“
A demon took him that way!
He put me up here!” Colette called, pointing in the direction of
the brook.

Bo cursed to himself again, looking toward
the river. Turning back to her, he called, “I’ll be back for you!”
before he ran off.

“
Bo!” he heard from the
river as he got close.

“
Hold on, Ryan!” he roared,
stopping at the bank.
I won’t just let you
die,
he thought as he glanced up and down the water, already
rushing with the downpour. “Where are you?” he muttered before
spotting something large downstream and darting to follow it. He
pulled up beside it and matched its pace.

Ryan was fighting to get his head above water
as a demon pulled him downstream and tried to drown him. The demon
was large and appeared to be some sort of lizard-horse beast, with
sharp teeth sunk into Ryan’s arm and clawed horse legs and a lizard
tail and gills on its throat. It wasn’t allowing Ryan to get out of
the water despite his efforts, and began tearing into the arm it
held. Bo yelled and dived onto it without a second thought, finding
its scaled neck and trying to press his claws under its jaw, but it
kept its vicious hold. It began thrashing in the water and kicking
out, and Bo could see Ryan was getting pummeled.

“
No you don’t,” Bo snarled,
squinting to keep the water from blinding him. He jabbed his claws
into the monster’s eyes, blinding it. It let go of Ryan as it
screamed, and Bo managed to snap its neck with a yell.

Bo let go of the demon’s body and dived into
the water to find Ryan, grabbing him and letting the demon’s
carcass pass over before springing out of the river as lightning
cracked overhead.

“
Come on, Ryan,” Bo said,
laying him on the bank. The boy looked like a drowned rat, his
clothes torn and his hair plastered to his face, his eyes closed.
His right forearm was badly torn, and he was covered in gashes from
the demon’s claws. “Dayo!” Bo called, turning his gaze to the
sky.

“
I can hear
you.”

“
Then help me,” Bo pleaded,
listening to Ryan’s silent chest, the rain melding with the tears
that ran down his cheeks.

“
I can’t.”

“
Help
me, Dayo!” The dragon was silent for a
while.

“
I will take care of the
demon’s body.”

“
With Ryan,” Bo cried, his
voice and heart breaking at once. He knew Dayo could do nothing,
but he wanted him to try. To at
least
try.

“
Boelik, you know that I
cannot.”

Bo looked at Ryan’s pale face, at the human
and demon all at once. The sharp eyes that couldn’t see anything
anymore, open or not. The face with two sides, each side making him
a monster to the other. Bo wanted to vomit. He stumbled away and
did just that in the river.

Coming back to Ryan, he knelt beside him and
let the rain douse him in his grief. “Ryan, I am sorry,” he said to
his friend, his voice as lifeless as Ryan’s face. “You have no idea
how sorry I am that you had to be born like me. You were like my
own son.” Raindrops fell at the corners of Ryan’s eyes and it
looked to Bo like Ryan was crying with him.

It was a little while later when the rain
began to let up and Bo heard Colette calling him. He got to his
feet, his body cold and numb, and went to her. “Bo! Are you all
right? Is it safe?”

“
It’s safe,” he replied
with an empty voice, leaping up and bringing her down from the
tree. Once on the ground she peeked around Bo to the woods where he
came from.

“
Where’s Ryan?” she
asked.

“
Not coming back,” Bo said.
Colette stared at him, her wide green eyes searching his
face.

“
Not coming back?” she
asked, her voice trembling. “You mean he’s…?” Bo nodded, and she
fell to her knees and began to cry.

“
I’m sorry,” she sobbed to
Bo, covering her face with her hands. “It’s my fault. It came after
me.”

“
It’s not your fault,” Bo
said, kneeling next to her. “It came after him. He was trying to
protect you, but it had the advantage. He didn’t know how to swim.
It’s my fault for failing to teach him.”
Everything is my fault…like always.

Colette looked up at him and threw her arms
around his neck, crying on his shoulder. He embraced her in a
comforting gesture and took her back to the ravaged cabin. They
grieved together until the storm let up, Bo in silence and Colette
in tears. When the storm finally stopped, the evening sky hidden by
the moving storm, Bo escorted Colette home.

“
What will we do now?” she
asked him just outside of the village. The girl and half-man would
part ways here.

“
Well, I think I will
continue to use the cabin as a home when I’m not needed anywhere
else. As for Ryan, I’ll bury him when I get back.” Bo locked a hard
gaze on Colette. “You should forget about us.”

“
Forget about you?” she
said in a hurt voice, curling her dainty fists to her heart. “How
could I? You both saved my life, and I…”

“
You loved him. I know. But
he’s gone and you should move on.” Colette looked at him, searching
his face.

“
You won’t,” she
accused.

“
No, I won’t. But I don’t
have anyone to move on for, either. You have a family—parents, a
sister. I’m sure you’ll find a good man, and you’ll have children.
Ryan wouldn’t want you to stop your life because his is over. You
know that.”

“
I didn’t think he would.
But I don’t think I could love someone else.”

“
Keep living. I’m sure you
will find someone who makes you feel safe again; choose him,” Bo
said. “If anything, have kids, then tell them about a young boy
with a strange face who saved a young girl from a horrible monster.
About the strange man who lives somewhere in the wood.”

Colette stared at him for a minute before
nodding. “All right.”

“
All right,” Bo replied,
turning around and heading back to the trees. He heard Colette go
back into her house, heard her greet her family, forcing a happy
tone. He continued to the river.

At Ryan’s body, Bo had almost expected him to
sit up and say something. Maybe yawn. Maybe stretch. Maybe he
expected him to move. But none of that happened. He was just where
Bo had left him, just as pale and cold. Just as dead.

Bo knelt next to Ryan and took a moment to
look. Ryan’s face appeared calm despite what he’d been through, and
the blood was mostly washed away by the rain. As Bo bent over to
pick him up, he paused, having a realization. Then Bo pulled the
boy close to him.
I never did this while you were
alive, did I?

Three years, and I never
hugged you.

I was a fool.

After some time, Bo scooped up Ryan’s limp
body the same way he had swept up Olea the day he took her home and
sang her to sleep in his arms. He sang softly to Ryan’s closed ears
as he carried him, not bothering to swallow the tears that fell
down his cheeks. He carried him through the dark woods, his voice
winding, forlorn, through the dying leaves that fell from the
trees. “My heart breaks again,” he sang softly. “I lose what I
love, and live with what I lose.”

When will I lose
myself?

Bo continued singing to his deaf audience as
he gently put Ryan on the ground and dug a grave for him in the
fields they had once come from. Dayo landed as Bo finished digging,
silent as Bo continued singing in a whisper to the dead, tapping
the tip of his tail in a soft drumbeat to Bo’s grief, and watched
as Bo carefully put his companion in the ground. Dayo pawed the
loose dirt back overtop, and the two were silent.

“
I am sorry, Bo. I did not
mean for this to happen,” Dayo said, eventually breaking the
silence of the cold night. The life around had hidden itself away
from the rain and the beasts it had brought about.

“
I know. I would have
buried him anyway, someday, I knew,” Bo said. “He did not stop in
time like me. He wouldn’t have. But it wasn’t supposed to be today,
Dayo. He was supposed to live in the happiness I
couldn’t.”

“
You did let him live that
happiness, Boelik, I’m sure. All of the training one takes can only
prepare him for so much, however. Death takes her prey in every
chance she can,” Dayo said. He looked at the new grave, his wet fur
hanging in tight white locks. “I was preparing to meet him. I am
sorry that I never had the chance.”

“
So am I. You would have
made quick friends, I think; you both have more patience than I
could ever have,” Bo said with a bitter smirk.

“
Bo,” Dayo rumbled. “There
are still no new assignments. Will you be staying here?”

“
Yes.”

“
All right. I shall find
you when the next half-demon is ready to be trained.” Bo held up
his hand in a wave without glancing at Dayo. “Good-bye for now,
then,” Dayo said, lifting off and flying away.

Bo walked back alone and found Ryan’s hat on
the ground by the river. He dusted it off and took it home, putting
it on the back of Ryan’s chair as he reset the table and chairs and
cleaned up the cabin. He ate a dinner in silence for the first time
in years. As he went to bed, he breathed in the scent of his former
partner. He dreamt of Ryan that night:

Bo stood near the bridge,
on the side that looked out to the field. Bright light filtered
through spring trees, breathing new life into every tree and
shadow. Ryan waved to him from across the bridge, a grin on his
face as snowflakes began to fall. He seemed to call something out,
but Bo couldn’t make out what was being said.

Olea appeared behind Ryan
as Bo moved to approach, making Bo freeze in his tracks. His wife
gave him a little wave and a sorry smile as she guided Ryan away,
and Bo could see her telling the boy something. Ryan looked back at
Bo with regret written on his face as he was led away. Bo reached
out, words forming on his lips to call them back to him and to
apologize.

And then he woke up.

Bo sat with another meal in front of him,
staring at the hat on the chair across from him. He remembered
talking and laughing as he had eaten just a few days before. He
remembered having someone to laugh with. He stood and went outside,
leaving his wooden plate behind on the table. The food was
untouched.

Autumn passed, and winter came and went. When
spring returned, Dayo informed Bo of a new assignment. Bo traveled
to the village and let Colette know of the new development, and she
hugged him as she said farewell. He told her he would be back
within ten years, but just to check once or twice a year for a fire
in the cabin. With that, he went to his new charge.

Bo protected and trained his new half-demons
until they decided Bo was no longer needed; so he left one night.
When Bo informed Dayo of this, he was told to let them go; the
half-demons were trained well enough to make something of
themselves.

Bo went back to Ireland two years earlier
than he’d expected.

He and Colette soon reunited for a picnic,
and she informed him that she’d found a suitor. Bo told her that he
was glad for her, and feigned happiness despite the hole he felt
inside. It was not long before Bo had another assignment and left
the country again.