88. Possession

“So who exactly are you?” 

The question caught Lachlan off-guard and he lifted his head off of his chest to regard the other man between his swollen lids. “Me?” His laugh stuttered into a cough. “I'm a genie. I grant wishes. I thought you were going to beat me to death, not give me a questionnaire.”

The man’s hand connected with Lachlan’s cheek with a loud crack. He felt his left zygomatic bone splinter under the man’s hand, and a few of his vertebrae popped as his head snapped to the side. Lachlan dispelled a breath. His left eye no longer opened. “That’s better.” 

The man said something in a language that Lachlan didn’t understand. Oh he could have, technically, if his brain weren’t sloshing around the inside of his skull like a baby squid in a fish bowl. 

Heh. Squid. Fishbowl. I’m hilario—

A meaty fist crashed into the other side of his face, knocking his thoughts clean out of his head. Blood filled his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but mostly it dribbled passed his lips and onto his lap. 

That’s hygienic. 

“You gonna tell me why I found you in my baby sister’s room, or do I have to hit you again?” 

That was a loaded question. How did one tell his captor that he was in a little girl’s room to end her life? Somehow he doubted the straight forward approach was the best approach, but he couldn’t actually think of a lie that was any better. After all, the girl was thirteen while he…well he looked about thirty. Nothing that he said would merit any different treatment than what he was already being subjected to. Still, he might have thought of something to say if he could feel his tongue well enough to say it. Well, that’s problematic…

Lachlan  managed a gurgle. A blood bubble passed his lips and burst, splattering his already bloodied face. 

He dropped his head to his chest again and let out one long exhale. Then he held his breath. 

“Hey,” the man kicked the chair he was tied to, jarring him, but Lachlan didn’t let himself emit another sound. He needed a few seconds where he wasn’t being punched in the face. Just a few. 

“Did you hear me, fucker?”  The man added a sort of growl to his voice, but it didn’t quite manage to hide the sliver of fear that had carefully wedged itself between his words.

Uh oh. Someone’s not quite the cold-blooded killer he thought he was. Lachlan may have pitied the man if he weren’t focusing on healing the chunk of his tongue that he’d accidentally bitten. He tried not to wince as the muscle mended itself much too slowly for his liking, or shiver as the roots of his loose molars drew his teeth back into his gum line. Worst. Feeling. Ever. 

“Hey!” He was almost desperate now, desperate enough to grab the chair with both hands and shake it.  “Don’t you be dead, you bastard, I’m not through with you!” 

Spit flecked Lachlan’s face, mingling with his blood. All right, this is getting disgusting.

Lachlan lifted his head and locked gazes with the man who was mere inches from his face. It was hard to tell with one eye swollen completely shut and the other not too much better, but he’d say that a look of relief passed over the man’s face followed renewed anger. The man opened his mouth as if to speak, but Lachlan interjected: 

“Stop.” He gave the command in Death’s Voice. It didn’t matter that his own voice was weak, that the entire side of his face throbbed, that he could barely see. It wasn’t him, not really—well, no, it was him. That was the shame of it. It was his voice, abnormally strong,  it was he who left the broken body in the chair by throwing himself through its mouth and nose, and entered the body of the man. It was Lachlan who choked the man’s soul into silence while he used the man’s body to until his own from the chair. 

Carefully, Lachlan laid the body he’d been born with on the floor and eyed the damage. “That’s going to take a couple days to fix.” He rubbed the back of his head, only slightly put off by the fact that the hair under his hand was much shorter than that of the body he was born with.  

Well, that was an understatement, he thought, looking at the long braids of his people. 

He looked down at the body he inhabited now. Taller than his, stockier, but not overweight. Not entirely, anyway. He could see a couple of scars under the blood that was smeared across the man's knuckles. Well, that made sense. He was a blacksmith, after all. 

And a good man. The man's memories slowly seeped into Lachlan's mind: he had a wife, a little girl. They had been taken from him by sickness; he worked to keep his mind off of them, visited his mother and father and sister, whom their mother had too late in life. His parents died. Now his sister was the only family he had left. 

Well, that heartwarming. 

Lachlan pinched the bridge of his nose. He hated his job and this gods-damned not-life that he'd been stuck with. 

There you go, Lach, stew in it. Giving himself a slightly shake, he pulled the small dagger from the belt of the man he currently inhabited and then pulled the blade across his throat. 

The soul of the man beat against him in a frantic burst--bird's wings against a cage. 

Don't worry, Lachlan told the soul as its beating weakened along with the body's heart. No reincarnation awaits you this time. 

Strange that a man might seek solace from that, that the knowledge that he had lived a good enough life that his soul could rest eternally was a comfort for a dying man. For any other people, the promise of an another chance would have been comfort in and of itself, but for Lachlan, and for the man whose body was dying around him, a man of the Estrilands, another chance meant being separated from your loved ones for that much longer. And this man...this man wanted to be with his wife and little girl. 

Sister...

It was such a tiny thought, and it took Lachlan a moment to understand that it didn't come from him. 

One last worry. One last request. 

Lachlan forced the soul out of the body, not having the heart to answer. He'd almost forgotten about the girl. 

His own body was still not fit to return to. The right side of his face was still concaved in a strange fashion, and Lachlan didn't relish the idea of walking around with such ugly bruises before he had to. So instead of returning to his body, he leaked through the Blacksmith's house and under the door to the girl's room. 

She was sitting up in bed, looking out the window. Her hair was lank, dirty because she hadn't had the strength to get out of bed for weeks. Not since the incident in the woods. 

The dark spirit that she encountered there clung to her mind and squeezed it. Lachlan didn't know what kind of beast it was, but he knew that it was forcing the girl down into the darkest chambers of her own mind and that there was nothing she could do to stop it. There was nothing anyone could do, otherwise he wouldn't be here. 

She looked in his direction. Lachlan was certain that she could not see him, but he was equally certain that she knew he was there. 

I bet you're ready, aren't you? 

She looked ready. Lachlan's job meant that he saw a lot of people on the brink of suicide. Being the guy that sent their souls aloft before their bodies died, the look in the girl's eyes wasn't exactly uncommon, but so few looked quite as ready as she was. 

Lachlan took her soul gently before he entered her body. It took a great effort to stand with her weak legs, to move to the window. Her weakness would help her in the long run. 

At first, he wasn't sure she'd be able to climb out of the window, her frail little body trembled from exhaustion long before her bare feet even touched the deep snow. He didn't feel the cold, but the body did, and it responded accordingly. 

She wouldn't get far. Not as weak as she was-certainly not without a soul. 

Sure enough, her legs buckled when he left her, and when she fell, she did not move to push herself up. He hovered over her until he was sure her heart no longer beat, and then grudgingly, Lachlan let the wind carry him away.