Grave Covenant, page 1
Grave Covenant
PROJECTIONISTS
BOOK ONE
TOBIAS YOUNGBLOOD
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Table of Contents
1. Windows
2. King’s Court Tabernacle
3. Stargazer
4. The Hoard
5. Drone Shot Comics
6. Murderous Murder
7. Iris
8. Gone
9. Master’s Visit
10. Work Party
11. Rusty’s Gym
12. Restless
13. Red Bermuda
14. The Fontaines
15. A Revolving Door
16. Greatest Depths
17. Apex Gym
18. The Stranded Marlin
19. Transgression
20. In the Dark
21. Zombie
22. Stormy Weather
23. Ghosts
24. Sid Radius
25. Empty Home
26. Cherry Tops
27. Crash
28. Vilskje
29. Into the Nest
30. The Burning Stones
31. The Great Tome
32. Shambles
33. Elixir
34. The Idol
35. Tap, Tap, Tap
36. Nectar of the Humans
37. Hitching a Ride
38. Club Vilkos
39. Swindler
40. Train Station
41. At Your Most Beautiful
42. Free Admission
43. Not So Fast
44. Is This Love?
45. Dragon’s Blood
46. Cursed
47. Injected With Fire
48. Blod’s Passage
49. Eternal Love
50. Osiris
51. The Fool’s Path
52. No Solicitors
53. Radiant Sun
54. Dragon-Kin
55. The Projectionists
56. Reborn
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2023 by Tobias Youngblood
The moral right of Tobias Youngblood to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988.
All events and characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
This novel was created by a genuine human. No A.I. was used in the drafting of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design and illustration by Jeff Brown Graphics.
Riposte Press
ISBN: 978-1-959649-02-1 (e-book)
Chapter 1
Windows
Ilyana watched through nocturnal eyes as the two humans made love. She’d approached under cover of night as a raccoon, one of her chosen animal shapes which the vilskje called their dyr forms. It wasn’t the first time she’d visited this house; she routinely spied here. Her timing was right; she didn’t have to wait long. Ilyana leaned closer, her whiskers brushing the windowsill, and carefully balanced her footing on a branch. Inside, a man and woman rolled around in bed. She imagined herself as the woman, trying to conjure the sensations the human must be feeling, but found it impossible. She had no physical reaction to their performance, aside from her usual intense curiosity and a troubling feeling of want.
This was love, and it was infinitely interesting. She didn’t understand it. The humans cared for each other by dealing this pleasure, and she knew from her own performances at Club Vilkos how much they craved it. How their mouths dropped open at her practiced human form and how their eyes sparkled. It was strange how they covered themselves only to get excited at their uncovering. This love of their species looked to her like a physical celebration, and yet they did the act in private.
Why do they hide it like a dreadful secret?
She had asked herself this question many times.
The sounds of their lust intensified. She clutched the sill with one claw and pressed her nose to the glass, her heart beating fast. At last, the pair disappeared beneath the covers.
She sighed, easing back from the sill, still cognizant of the pleasurable sounds coming from the other side of the glass.
It must feel glorious to be loved.
Fatigue and a sense of emptiness set in. She slid down from the shrubbery beneath the window, embracing the black of night. Feeling well-hidden, she nakken-shifted from her raccoon body to that of the vilskje. In her natural form, she could rest, restoring some of her strength for the trek back to the nest. She had to be careful, however. It was forbidden to appear as one of her kind outside their nest.
Ilyana gazed upon her thin, insectile form, feeling revulsion. Her thorax and abdomen had no hair, nor did the six appendages which sprung from her elongated body, like branches from a malnourished tree. She frowned at the inversion of her joints so different from the humans—a form she’d grown fond of emulating in recent weeks. The muscles in her face twitched, and she tried to remember a time when she didn’t feel disgust at the sight of her own flesh. There had been a time, she realized, when she didn’t feel this way.
So long ago.
She flicked her gaze to the moon and lost focus, at last closing her eyes. She pictured herself dancing, slowly revealing the shifted human skin beneath playfully falling garments. Her skin gleamed just like the real thing—even more so.
She smiled, and the empty feeling receded a bit. Dancing was her assigned occupation, yes, but secretly, she reveled in her performances. And that was dangerous.
If Yuryk knew of my infatuation with the humans… best not to think about it.
The master of their clan showed little tolerance for games. And if her growing curiosity wasn’t a game, what was it?
Ilyana’s eyes jerked open at a loud sound from the other side of the house.
A car door.
A few seconds later, the engine started.
Someone must be leaving. I should probably—
The window burst open, and a cheerful whistling carried outside. A woman’s head appeared directly above, one of the pair she’d been watching. The woman stared at her back garden, inhaling deeply, oblivious to the voyeur beneath her. In one swift motion, Ilyana twisted downward and dyr-shifted to her raccoon. But as soon as she turned away, the whistling ceased, and the woman shrieked. She jerked back, banging her head into the top of the window frame, before disappearing inside the house.
Panic gripped Ilyana.
She saw me!
Ilyana heard the woman’s scuffling feet inside the room and knew what she had to do. She scampered up the hedge and into the bedroom.
Inside, the naked woman flung open the bedroom door, slamming it into the wall. She held a cellphone in one shaky hand and tried to dial with her thumb, screaming all the while. She looked back and terror filled the woman’s eyes. They darted around frantically, as if searching for weapons.
A fresh panic surged through Ilyana at the sight of the phone. She blazed after the woman, nakken-shifting on the run. Striped fur gave way to pale flesh. Four appendages became six, and she scurried on her long insectile legs, her claws clickity-clacking on the hardwood floor. She closed in on the shrieking, panic-stricken woman in seconds. Ilyana clawed the backs of the woman’s knees, drawing blood, bending her backward, and crashing her to the floor.
Surprised, the woman choked on her screams as she fell.
Her victim’s head pivoted backward, and the unbridled terror in her eyes mesmerized Ilyana; the role of predator was a new one for her.
The distraction gave the woman just enough time to roll onto her stomach.
I need to end this. Now.
Ilyana’s spindly body hovered above the human, like a giant spider. The woman tried to get to her feet, but Ilyana found her balance on one pair of legs and pounded two fists into the woman’s kidneys and clawed at her shoulders with her upper limbs. The woman fell flat with a groan, where Ilyana kicked her hard in the flank. The victim flailed in agony, sending her cellphone sliding across the floor into the hallway.
Now’s my chance.
She leapt from the open bedroom door. Before the woman could react, Ilyana turned and stomped on the back of her neck, pinning her with her claws and forcing a muffled shriek.
This is rather uncomfortable.
Keeping a foot on the woman, she reached for the open door and could barely wrap the tips of her claws around the knob. She pulled hard, slamming the door into the side of the woman’s head with a sickening thump.
I much prefer the business of pleasure.
She repeated the assault, until her victim lay still, aside from the occasional twitch. Warm blood pooled on the floor around the woman’s head. She removed a sore foot from the woman’s neck. The human had taken the brunt of the damage, but the door had nicked Ilyana’s claw on the first swing.
She sighed, took a deep breath, and gazed upward with relief.
That was too close.
A moment later, she refocused on the dead woman. Ilyana beheld the cur ves of her waist, the flowing lines of her arms and legs.
This was a shame. I need to be more careful. She was beautiful. So different from us.
Beauty was a human word; it had no real meaning to the vilskje. No importance. But Ilyana admired the concept, nonetheless. One day, she might even understand it. Maybe she already did.
Such a mesmerizing body. Maybe I can honor her by taking her appearance for my next show.
Ilyana stood there, memorizing her victim’s appearance, until a noise from behind startled her. She spun around.
Yuryk stood at the center of the room, before the foot of the bed, peering at her through cold eyes.
Ilyana froze in disbelief as the master lumbered toward her in his massive grey wolf form.
Yuryk spoke, his voice flat. The master was one of several elder vilskje who could command speech in their dyr form. “Osiris told me of your transgression. Regrettably, it appears he spoke the truth.”
Osiris, also known as the Revenant, had become Yuryk’s key informant, gaining considerable power in the short time he’d returned to the clan.
How could Osiris have known about this?
“It happened so fast. A terrible mistake …” Ilyana bent low to the floor in trepidation. “Who would have expected her to open the win—”
“Enough!” Yuryk’s jaws opened wide, revealing fangs like knives. “Even now you break my trust with your appearance.”
Ilyana quickly shifted to her raccoon, feeling even more vulnerable before the wolf. She closed her eyes, half expecting him to kill her on the spot.
Yuryk paused, then padded across the hardwood floor to Ilyana. She felt his hot breath on the back of her neck. Yuryk spoke in a low growl. “We are the last surviving vilskje. Grossly outnumbered by them.” He pointed one paw at the dead woman, who was no longer twitching, pale as the bed sheets. “We face extinction. As much as I enjoy seeing one of them lying dead, we cannot afford open war.”
“Yes, Master Yuryk. I swear, it will not happen again.”
“No. It won’t. Look at me.”
Ilyana opened her eyes and met his gaze. She waited for him to ravage her with his jaws. But instead, he turned and padded away.
“Now, dispose of the body and return to the nest for punishment.”
Ilyana watched the wolf leap from the window into the night. When he was gone, she soaked up the blood with bedsheets, wrapped the body, dragged it into the nearby woods, and buried it far from the beaten path. Tiring as it was in her raccoon form, she would not nakken-shift again for fear of Yuryk.
On the walk back, through the woods leading to the vacant industrial park which hid their nest, Ilyana found herself somehow indifferent to her impending punishment. The trial should frighten her, but her mind revisited the images of the lovers in bed. She replayed the scene as she scampered through the woods on her raccoon feet.
It must feel glorious, to be loved.
Chapter 2
King’s Court Tabernacle
The pale grey sky stretched like cemetery stone over Outskirts Boulevard, mirroring the bleakness behind Ridley’s eyes. Dark scattered clouds threatened rain. Smoke billowed from factories in the distant sprawl, beyond the affluent provinces which cradled the city center. Ridley gripped the wheel, as if to choke the life from its polyurethane cover. He drove on autopilot, fixated on oncoming traffic one lane to his left, beyond solid double lines. Cars blurred past, one after another, mostly transients, no doubt, heading to the downtown hub of the Outskirts or the train station. In his mind’s eye, he crossed that fatal boundary, triggering the right combination of muscle movement to turn the wheel left in to oncoming traffic.
Vibrations shook his body, and the loud sound of his tires on rough terrain snapped him from his trance. Horns blared, and in a panic, Ridley swerved into his lane. His heart pounded, and his hands slid across the wheel cover. Tears welled in his eyes. In a panic, he moved one lane to the right and, slowing, took the next turn into an unfamiliar neighborhood.
The entrance was an abbreviated stretch aligned with tall trees. Ridley pulled to the side of the road. He lowered his head into his hands and gave way, exhaling in small gasps.
I must get myself together. For Ava, if no one else.
Tears mixed with sweat streaked down his wrists and forearms, until he pulled them back one by one to wipe on his shirt. He kept his foot hard on the brake pedal, as if banked on an icy slope. Eventually, he lifted his head. It was drizzling now, and the view was blurry through the windshield. He activated his wipers. Ahead he noticed a wooden archway over the road, like a crown, leading into the neighborhood.
Ridley took his foot off the brake pedal and eased onto the road. Closer now, he could decipher KING’S COURT scrawled upon the center in fancy lettering. He drove under the arch and neared a small roundabout, with a rook-shaped stone pedestal at the center. He wiped his eyes. Many suburban streets branched from Outskirts Boulevard, the central vein of the region, but he hadn’t seen any with structures like this one.
A stone wall bordered the outside of the roundabout, and ahead another road split to the right, where rows of houses boasted subtle medieval styling. Ridley continued around, until a tall structure at the end of the circle brought his gaze upward. He slowed to a creep, passed the street with the row of houses, and approached what he recognized now as a statue of a dragon—maybe twenty-five feet tall—and his eyes widened further. An arching neck rose from its shoulders, behind a protruding, scaled chest. Its massive jaws closed beneath watchful eyes, like those of a great cat. Five curved horns thrust from its skull toward the grey sky. Formidable talons clutched the square pedestals upon which it stood. Vast wings lay flat against its flank.
A spire from a Gothic tabernacle pierced the sky behind the dragon’s right shoulder. Ridley felt himself pulled inexplicably toward it. He followed the roundabout past the dragon and turned into the nearby empty lot. A moment later, he was shuffling toward the entrance. He hadn’t thought much of it before today, but he had seen this spire many times on his way from work.
He pulled open the wooden doors and slipped inside the dark and musty space, candlelit, with an altar of sorts at the end. Rows of animal-hide benches with wooden kneelers filled the room. A central aisle led to the altar. An old woman knelt in one of the rows with her fingers locked together in prayer. Ornate stained-glass windows overhead filtered the evening sun. Ridley walked down the aisle, surveying the decorative figures on the windows. He experienced a sense of awe, despite himself.
Why did I come here?
Ridley could count on one hand the number of times he’d been inside a place of worship—mostly for weddings or funerals—and none had been quite like this inspired one, guarded by a statue of a dragon.
“You look shaken, young man. Please allow yourself peace in God’s house.”
Ridley lowered his gaze to an old man, bald and wearing a black robe. Ridley’s thoughts cleared, and he wiped the remnants of tears from his eyes. “Are you a clergy of this place? A … um, holy man?”
The old man laughed. “Me? Oh, no. I’m just the greeter.” He pointed to a dark corner of the room near the altar. “But if you need help with finding that peace I spoke of, please talk to Friar Reginald in the sin box. He is a true patron of God. He will guide you to the light.”
Ridley had little interest in these sorts of things: sin, absolution, repentance. But what could it hurt at this point? He had nearly killed himself just minutes ago. Ridley thanked the man and shuffled toward the corner of the room. He paused to gaze at the sunlight mural atop the candlelit altar, then to the woman kneeling in the nearby pew. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she clutched her hands together, the knuckles dry and white. She amazed Ridley with her resounding faith despite whatever strife she faced. And by the look of her, it must be bad.
