Luminescence 9

“What is it?” Marcus said, his caramel voice resonating through the void.

            “I can’t be sure,” he faced Marcus, “you feel it too?”

            Marcus nodded after a beat but said nothing as the soft thrum that might have been crickets drummed on through his blood.

Eros rose, the jar firm in his grip, “Like calls to like,” he held it aloft as the color faded to a harsh white and melted to a sharp yellow. “You just killed the demons only oracle, they’ll come after us whether we’re Guardians or not.” Eros ran a hand through his silver hair, his eyes shining with the dawning sun. “Did that thing tell you anything of interest?” Eros lowered the jar placing it with care into his backpack, not before wrapping it up in a small piece of cloth. Unlike Marcus, Eros was dressed in black from head to toe, his tuft of silver hair reflecting like a cat’s eye, his backpack clung to his side, his weapons strapped to his torso and arms.

“No,” Marcus turned away into the shadow.

Eros matched his stride as he waded through the reeds, “You remember that when I agreed to come with you on this mission you swore to tell me everything.” Marcus did not respond to this. “If I had known we’d be trudging through the African plains dressed as half naked Tribesman”-

“You are dressed in black,” Marcus said smoothly.

“Out of interest,” Eros cocked his brow. “Naked from the waist up with only a loin cloth leads me to question where you kept that dagger,” Eros took in the spear at Marcus’s side, the dagger gripped in his other hand. “I didn’t see it in your hand earlier.”

Marcus Ambruge did not answer at first, “Aslow’s pocket.”

“The Council does not permit Guardians dark materials.”

“It does not.”