Marduk’s Mark [4]
Marked
In a house a few blocks from the one where Thomas and the waitress were, a heated argument was taking place.
“Xandra calm down! Gerhalt, Reysha! Help me pin her down!”
A woman was screaming and protesting.
“Let me go!” she yelled.
“Calm down Xandra,” said Karlos as he restrained her by holding her arms back. Gerhalt, a strong-looking young man with yellow sclera on his eyes rather than white had just arrived and looked at the scene.
“What are you doing to my mother?”
“It’s the Mark,” he said, as he used all of his strength to hold the woman. Upon hearing the term ‘Mark,’ Gerhalt’s expression became grave. He noticed that his sister, a teen-aged-looking girl also stared at the scene, confused by what was going on.
“Reysha, come help us! We can’t let her out of our sight,” he said. Reysha, not knowing any better, joined the two men and hugged the woman tightly. She kept struggling like crazy while kicking and screaming. One of the kicks hit Reysha on her left shin, eliciting a painful howl from her, but she didn’t let go.
“The humans, they must be ended,” the woman said among screams. “Their kind only bring pain and calamity to ours!”
Gerhalt took a deep breath and tensed the muscles on his fibrous arms. He shoved Reysha out of the way and punched his mother in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of her. Her body went limp from the blow but she was still being held by Karlos so she didn’t fall. The two men carried her to the biggest room in the house, laying her on the bed.
“Reysha, help us look for some rope,” Karlos told her as they rummaged through the house. It didn’t take too long to round out some lengths of rope which they used to tie her wrists and ankles to the bedposts. They didn’t feel comfortable with the scene they were enacting in front of them, but they had no idea what to do to control the violent reaction in Xandra. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the woman’s forehead, recognizing the mark that had made an appearance in it during the violent outrage.
Gerhalt and Reysha noticed the concern in Karlos’ eyes. Reysha was the first to speak up.
“What is it about the Mark? Please tell us why she became so violent,” she pleaded to him. Karlos took a seat at the foot of the bed and breathed deeply. He looked at Gerhalt, whom he knew was much more familiar with the meaning of the mark in his mother’s forehead than Reysha was.
“This is it. This is what your mother has been warning you about. What she wants you to figure out and undo, somehow.” Reysha nodded. She had tight muscles, but still retained the size and build of a girl in her late teens. However, her eyes displayed much more wisdom than a girl of that age. They also gave off an impression of her having much more compassion as well.
Gerhalt interrupted the man. “I think it’s best if I explain it to her,” he said. He pointed towards Xandra’s forehead. “Look at that. That’s the Mark of Marduk,” he said. Reysha looked at her mother’s forehead, noticing an array of separate lines forming a half-circle. The first line on the left started at 0 degrees, perfectly parallel to her brow. The next line appeared at a 15th-degree increment and so forth until a half circle was formed with short lines in 15-degree increments. At the very center of those lines an abstract shape that resembled a flat eye that seemed to be peering at her.
“How did that — ”
“We don’t know how or why it happens,” Gerhalt said. “We just know that when it does, we become violent and overcome with a strong desire to kill humans,” he said. Reysha was visibly shaken by that remark.
“So she wants to kill me?”
Gerhalt frowned, then continued. “No, not you. I don’t think so; you’re not really human after all,” he said. She was visibly relieved. “That’s why our mother sought to give birth to you. You’re a hybrid; half of us and half of them. She thought that way she could give birth to someone that would be invulnerable to the Mark.” She stared at her brother and then at the man next to them, Karlos. The sclera on Karlos’ eyes was yellow like Gerhalt’s and Xandra’s.
Karlos looked at her and shook his head. “This sickness that controls us, it makes us do horrible things, and we can’t do anything to stop it,” he said. Just as he finished the sentence, Xandra woke up and the mark on her forehead started glowing crimson. The room was soon overtaken with the sickening smell of burning flesh. She was gasping as she struggled to set herself free.
“Quick, bring some water,” Karlos exclaimed. Gerhalt and Reysha dashed towards the kitchen and brought some tall jars with them. Karlos dropped a towel into the water in one of the jars and after it absorbed a fair amount of it, he placed it on her forehead, causing the sound of steam to be released as soon as the towel touched her forehead. Just after a minute or so, he removed the towel, dipped it in more water, and replaced it as she kept struggling and wincing in pain. Gerhalt grabbed his sister’s hand and left the room, dragging her along.
“We shouldn’t see this,” he told her. “Mother will soon calm down and won’t remember a thing. All that will be left will be a pain in her forehead and an unsightly scar.”
They walked through the small hall that linked the three rooms in their house together and went toward the smallest room. “Just rest Reysha,” he told her as he motioned towards her bed. “It will be morning soon, and you don’t want to be too tired when Karlos wakes us up for training.” Reysha looked at him and protested.
“But how can I rest when mother is suffering so?” Gerhalt shook his head.
“There’s nothing we can do right now. She will be fine in a few hours. Trust me.” Gerhalt hugged her and left her alone. Reysha looked at her brother as he left her room and slammed the door. She got up immediately and tried to open it, but the knob wouldn’t budge.
“Oh blast it!” She kicked the door, frustrated at her predicament. She went to try the window in her room, but it was locked as well. She usually kept a small pin that served for handling this kind of situation tucked in her hair, but couldn’t find it. Damn, she thought to herself. Gerhalt must have taken it when he hugged me, that prick, she thought to herself as she let herself fall on her bed.
She could still hear her mother’s screams. The Mark of Marduk, she was thinking to herself. She was aware her mother had said that she would be unaffected by the most horrible calamity their race tends to suffer, but she had never seen it firsthand. Not just firsthand; it was unbearably close to her! She gave the door one final kick. Silence soon filled the residence. She couldn’t hear her mother anymore and she didn’t know what to make of that silence.
The silence was broken by footsteps moving in her direction. Then she heard the door unlocking. It opened slowly, without making a sound. Karlos was holding it for her.
“She’s fallen asleep. I think you will rest better if you can see that she’s fine with your own eyes.” Reysha nodded at him and ran out towards her mother’s room. Karlos let out a deep breath and sat on the floor. “We’re running out of time until another calamity,” he said in a low tone, not intending for anyone to hear him.
Gerhalt was holding his mother’s hand as she slept. He looked at the door as he saw Reysha enter the room. She kneeled immediately at the other side of the bed to look at her mother. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh as soon as she realized that she was sound asleep.
“Don’t just stay there,” Gerhalt told her. “Grab a new towel and replace that one.” Reysha nodded and took another towel from a basket on a table by the bed. She took the old towel from Xandra’s forehead rather slowly, feeling some resistance as she did so.
“Do it carefully,” Gerhalt told her. “Her forehead is badly burned so there’s some skin sticking to the towel.”
Reysha nodded and lifted the towel with more care. Instead of replacing it immediately with the new towel, she opened a drawer next to her and grabbed a small bottle labeled ‘E’hal Oil.’ Gerhalt smiled warmly at her.
“Good thing one of us knew where to find that,” he said.
She poured some of the oil on her mother’s forehead and then placed the new towel on her forehead. A refreshing aroma filled the room from the E’hal oil. It didn’t take long for Reysha to fall asleep with her head on the mattress. Gerhalt decided to let her be and left the room.
