alfred

Eventually, that began to grow slowly less, and I looked up to see a hulking form in a dark cloak standing over me. It was ten or twelve feet tall, and built on the same scale as a massively muscled human, though I never really seemed to see much of the being beneath the cloak. It stared down at me, a pair of pinpoints of green, fiery light serving as eyes within the depths of its hood.
“WARDEN,” it said, its voice a deep rumble, “I HAVE SUPPRESSED THE PARASITE FOR NOW.”
“’Bout time, Alfred,” I muttered. I sat up and took stock of myself. I’d been lying there for a while. The sweat on my skin had dried. That was bad. The ancient spirit of the island had been keeping the thing in my skull from killing me for a year. Until a few weeks ago, when my head started hurting, all it had to do was show up, speak a word, and the pain would go away.
This time it had taken more than an hour.
Whatever was in my head, some kind of psychic or spiritual creature that was using me to grow, was getting ready to kill me.
“ALFRED,” the spirit said soberly. “IS THIS TO BE MY NEW NAME?”
“Let’s stick with Demonreach,” I said.
The enormous spirit considered that. “I AM THE ISLAND.”
“Well, yes,” I said, gathering myself to my feet. “Its spirit. Its genius loci.”
“AND I AM ALSO SEPARATE FROM THE ISLAND. A VESSEL.”
I eyed the spirit. “You know the name ‘Alfred’ is a joke, right?”
It stared at me. A wind that didn’t exist stirred the hem of its cloak.
I raised my hands in surrender and said, “All right. I guess you need a first name, too. Alfred Demonreach it is.”
Its eyes flickered brighter for a moment and it inclined its head to me within the hood. Then it said, “SHE IS HERE.”


Skin Game Chapter 1, Page 4