Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (3 page)

             
The light smile that lit up on the producer’s face was a bit ironic but as much pleased; it seemed that I had really managed to shock him a bit, or at least to surprise him.

             
“Ah –” he suppressed his laughter as my face was still radiating immense rage. “I am terribly sorry, forgive me... adorable –”

             
“Huh,” I fixed my eyes on the ceiling for a moment to ruthlessly mock his apology, and then sharply turned my back on him again, and hurried towards the stage from where I was to perform my extract.

             
And it was just then when I noticed that the stage was already occupied...

             
The astonishment couldn’t have shown on my face as I was in full control of myself, but I did feel monstrously stricken to the depths of my soul – and not only because the boy on stage attracted me instantly even before the first second in which we were exploring each other with deep unbending gazes had passed.

             
The first thought that flew around my mind while the stranger and I were both staring at one another was that the explosion of a fervent conflict between the two of us was definitely unavoidable – his strong adamant personality was as easily perceptible as mine, and that was simply a guarantee for an instant and lasting zealous confrontation.

             
My next silent remark was that the extreme glowing heat it would radiate would either set my whole world in untamable flames and burn it to its pretty stable foundations, or cast the ultimate glorious light upon my life so as to finally fill it with meaning.

             
Or it would easily do both...

             
Oh, he did look like a deity – the perfect balance of danger and charm, he was at the same time fascinating and inaccessible, distant because of his demonstrated flawlessness, and possessing such strength of character that he was dismaying and at the same time utterly attractive in an enticing and forbidden way.

             
His hypnotizing eyes – stunningly intense-gray like dead starless skies – were emitting such powerful threatening breath-taking brutal beauty that they had immediately grabbed my attention and blocked all my perceptions, even the blast of thousands of sincere and imaginary feelings circling around me. A refined thin pale-gray line was underlying his irises on the inner side, but this silvery hint was delusive – his stare was all steel, tough and unbending, filled with mighty radiance of such admirable overpowering inner force and ethereal but significant menace, that I almost forgot I was in the role of an overly proud neglected goddess, and was ready to gasp in stupefaction.

             
And it was not only about his eyes – even though they were the first thing no-one could help noticing about him; the features of his face and his figure as a whole were so bewitchingly impressive that they weren’t letting gazes simply slide over them either. His slightly wavy hair was refracting in all existent nuances of scarlet from the almost fair fluttering honey-coppery to the utterly dark wine-coloured precious crimson which in the scarce light looked as black as the colour my own hair possessed; free and – yes, I couldn’t deny it, wanton – his ringlets were curving in alluring shapes down his pale skin to cover his neck, and were falling deceptively softly over his wide clear forehead as if to hide the evidence for his piercing mind of a strategist. However I was trying not to focus on his lips too intensely, their lines were irresistibly enticing above his decisive chin of a warrior, but his mystifying penetrating eyes were making him look more like an always-composed invincible spy than a carefree and bohemian soldier of fortune.

             
My intuition was whispering to me that, in fact, he was one of those precious possessions about which you are sure from the moment when you see them that you will never be outstanding enough to have, but this isn’t preventing you from craving for them more than for your own life.

             
And, despite his undeniable attractiveness, something about him was categorically proving that he was despising seducers and was not one of them, that he believed having a girl would mean she had him as well – and he obviously wouldn’t allow himself the weakness of being possessed by anyone, as he fanatically desired to be unattainable.

             
Yet, he was staring at me carefully, his graphite-gray eyes fixed onto me with strong and confusing persistence, and I didn’t demonstrate silent haughty arrogance like I usually did in such cases – indeed, the display of interest by such an extraordinary person made me secretly feel flattered.

             
There definitely was something utterly unique about this boy, something special which I was insistently trying to understand rationally so as to withstand – as I didn’t want to be possessed or defeated either – but it seemed that, although the edges of his irises was misleadingly light, the darkness filling them was shielding his soul from any outer intrusive stares, and I could see nothing behind them, as though I was in front of a mirror detecting all my emotions but not showing me any of its own.

             
“Adorable,” Mr Shelton the producer turned towards me, and this time there was almost no sarcasm in his tone. “Please greet my and your own supreme deity – Cardew – he is already chosen for the male leading part. Feel free to improvise –”

             
Cardew...

             
Such a rare quaint name suited him, I quickly remarked in my mind; he himself was something rare, un-possess-able, one of a kind – I had never before met such a creature and probably would never again.

             
A slightly mischievous smile shimmered temptingly on the gray-eyed boy’s lips, and he went on gazing insistently right into me as though he wanted to confuse me with his so obvious ultimate perfection. However, I had already come to my senses, and – even if I wasn’t playing a dignified lady, I still wouldn’t have bent my head before him to admit his superiority; I raised my chin at once, cast him a murderous upward glance through my lashes, and, laying my hand on my waist in an overly self-confident manner, walked decisively towards him, stopping at such a small distance that most people would drag a step back not to feel intimidated.

             
But Cardew didn’t yield, and the sparks of dark amused satisfaction in his eyes prompted me that he was enjoying my self-reliance as much as I liked his; someone reinforced the lights as I was already on the stage, too, and millions of ardent nuances blazed up passionately into Cardew’s scarlet-dominated hair – in an utterly unfairly distracting way.

             
“Deity?” I repeated challengingly in secretively quiet but openly forceful tone, and his overpowering smile widened as I raised my brow ironically to provoke him defend his desired position of being with higher status than me.

             
The sudden wild flare of relished excitement in his intense stare indicated that such a passionate rivalry like the one that was already forming between us was exactly what he had been craving for – an overly dramatic struggle for dominance against an equally strong enemy, in which the enrapturing pleasure of the game itself mattered far more than who the winner would turn out to be... Nonetheless, neither could give up and confess they had been conquered, as this would automatically mean that they had been weaker...

             
Or faster to fall in love to the point of dependence...

             
“Adorable –” Cardew pronounced evenly to rise to my slightly seductive challenge, and smiled with his absurdly subduing mesmeric charm so as to show me clearly he was just as brilliantly agile a fighter as I was; the warm enchantingly thrilling timbre of his voice was caressing me so bewitchingly tenderly that it was playfully flinging me into immense tantalizing anguish like violent kisses of fire, and I unconsciously shivered, as he was irresistibly striking me with pure crystallized admiration – the same shade of contently approving delight that was proudly twinkling in his eyes as he was staring at me with his obsessive mysterious gaze.

             
Equal rivals respecting each other – my favourite type of war.

             
An unstoppable smile tickled my lips and I bit the lower one not to let my naturally echoing laughter ring aloud inside the whole hall; with a cruelly inquisitive glance, the boy lightly bent his forehead towards me and his eyelid winced in an almost unnoticeable wink.

             
The pleasurable tension ruling the atmosphere was so perceptible everywhere around us that I had to remind myself the producer and several more people were witnessing our talk, and that I was called there strictly to play my part, not to tease mischievously, or outrageously flirt with the one who would be my partner if I was chosen.

             
Thanking the fact that my composure was still unbroken, despite the stunningly tempting distraction standing in front of me, I focused precisely on the moment of the scenario that I had to perform, and tossed my hair backwards, staring heavily right into Cardew’s eyes.

             
“This war has to burst out!” I announced insistently, the burning might in my voice filling it with the sense of sincere threat and unbending, trouble-causing stubbornness; a little step aside and I was fiercely glaring at him from under my lashes from such a position that our audience could see both of our faces into the bright unnatural light. “We can’t interfere with the deeds of mortals!”

             
A fiery sparkle of intense admiration blazed up in his eyes, but that was just for a single moment – a blink and he was the macabre and majestic god from the ancient mythology – the deity inspiring such tremendous awe and irresistible submission that I heard people in the hall gasp.

             
“This is a world we created!” Cardew pronounced with sharp authoritative uncompromising tone and cast me an imperious glance from his imposing height; he was so flawless at playing that he was even faking the shivering of his voice which would be naturally caused by the faint attempt to control his rage.

             
“We!” he went on, and his hand opened up between us as if he was holding an imaginary globe. “I and you, lovely! –” I suppressed a smile, as the last word was definitely nowhere in the script, but this did not disturb him at all. “We can’t let mortal men ruin it.”

             
“This is not up to you!” I hissed in adamant opposition, and, in a slightly barbaric but still refined gesture, ferociously bared my tightly clenched teeth. “You gave them souls, you gave them power – now you can’t order to them!”

             
Nobody in the audience dared to breathe, and I was flattered to notice some of them instinctively step closer – as if they were preparing to immediately interfere in case my passion-flared struggle against Cardew spontaneously turned physical...

             
But suddenly all peripheral thoughts evaporated from my consciousness straightaway...

             
Because it was then when Cardew went berserk!...

             
Oh yes, he was more than simply furious – he was a true embodiment of the most ardently volcanic, explosive wrath ever – the reason for this disastrous, catatonically destructive anger, and the unavoidable catastrophic consequences from it – he was the unscrupulously evil revenge, the unforgiving acid rage filling his whole being with brutal cruelty...

             
He was pure dominant power...

             
Petrified, I could only distantly feel relief at the thought that Cardew and I were not by ourselves in the large echoing hall – so utterly and realistically furious he was that – had my faithful instincts of self-preservation been separate creatures from me – they would have fainted from the unanticipated shock.

             
Undeniably beautiful but thus even more ominous, Cardew’s sinister stormy-gray eyes were ruthlessly piercing me like flashes of fiercely enraged electricity, his face had turned horrifyingly hostile, posture ready to throw into attack – he seemed so alarmingly close to getting an insanely harsh grip at my throat and letting go only when I was a corpse, that I instinctively stepped back and raised my hand defensively, holding my breath. Cardew was not just playing – he was creating an atmosphere – and in this case, it was such a menacing, fatally dangerous one, that I could almost hear the thunders of an oncoming disaster and perceive an inescapable hurricane rise somewhere too close behind my back...

             
Danger, all my senses were shouting at his stare.

             
Danger! Danger...

             
“I am their god!” Cardew’s voice whipped mightily above my head with such extremely berserk tone that I shivered on the inside with unfeigned fright and irrational, sinister excitement. “They must obey me! And I am your god, too!”

             
The power in his words was dramatically impressive enough to make the whole hall collapse around us into an explosion of small fractions of refined dust, and it was then when I realized how strong a person the goddess I was playing was, as she could rise decisively against the horrifying unrestricted authority her husband represented.