Brimstone Kiss: Phantom Queen Book 10 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries)

by Shayne Silvers

  “Well then, it sounds like ye all might need to do another census.” I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck, limbering up for the fight I suspected was coming. “Now, I’ll only say this once, so pay attention...get the hell out of me friend, Frankenfucker, or I swear I’m goin’ to finish what Max started.”

  44

  As I’d assumed he would, Frankenstein declined my invitation—vehemently. In fact, his retort came in the form of a physical assault that left half the neighborhood on fire and the other half blasted into the sky. Not that I mourned the loss of my ramshackle abode and its notable lack of flair; apparently my repressed self was both a reserved conversationalist and a minimalist. Which—especially if you were an advocate for nurture as opposed to nature—meant my role models had a lot to answer for.

  Because I was neither of those things.

  “Is that all you’ve got, ye bastard?” I yelled above the din of Frankenstein’s singing sword, batting away his strikes with an epic spear that also happened to be touted as one of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha De Danann.

  Case in point.

  “You must realize I will not fall here no matter what you do,” Frankenstein insisted, swinging the blade with more skill than I’d have given him credit for. Thus far, it appeared the doctor was eerily talented, remarkably fast, and considerably stronger than I was even with the power I’d stolen from my other half. Besides which, he had a tactical advantage I found difficult to overcome: he wore Ryan’s face.

  “If you damage this body,” the doctor continued, “I will repair it. And even if you somehow manage to destroy it, I will return with another. So you see? This ill-fated battle of yours is futile. Now that I know how to reach this place, time is the only thing I require.”

  “Too bad time isn’t on your side,” I said offhandedly as I probed for an opening, mimicking the defeatist tone Hemingway and Freya had hit me with when delivering the same quote—albeit under very different circumstances.

  “Oh, but he is.”

  I frowned at the response, wondering if he’d misheard me; his sword was crooning awfully loud, going on runs that could have put a gospel choir to shame. Before I could puzzle out what Frankenstein might have meant, however, the doctor raised his blade to deliver a chopping blow from overhead—continuing his strategy of bashing away at my defenses with his overwhelming strength. As battle tactics went, it was a good one; everyone tires eventually, but it’s usually the individual with the larger, more cumbersome weapon who suffers the most, especially the longer a battle drags on. In this case, that person should have been me.

  Areadbhar, though modeled after the lighter spears used by the Greeks and Romans long before suits of armor became so highly prized, stood two feet taller than I did from end to end and required constant motion to keep Frankenstein’s blade at bay. But I’d spent months, perhaps even years depending how one measured time in another world, learning how to fight with a spear against all manner of opponents wielding all sorts of weapons—and I’d done it without the paragon of all polearms, the protection of mythical armor, and the thrumming power of a god coursing through my veins. Basically, if Frankenstein thought he could outlast me, he was in for a rude awakening.

  Besides, he’d already screwed up.

  He simply didn’t know it yet.

  I planted Areadbhar’s buttspike into the ground as his sword came whistling—literally, whistling—towards my head, then executed a move I’d been taught by Lady Aife herself; I leapt to my right, tucking my body into the tightest ball possible as Frankenstein’s sword bit deep into the dirt where I’d stood only a moment before, creating a molten chasm that extended some ten feet and sent those few fools who’d decided to wait us out, running for their spiritual lives. Then, after reversing my momentum by using the spear shaft as a fulcrum, I launched myself feet first at the doctor—essentially dropkicking the bastard with all the kinetic force of a pole vaulter.

  My boots slammed into the bastard’s chest with an ear-popping thwack and sent him skipping towards the horizon like a well-chucked stone. Fortunately, debris exploded into the air with each bounce, which both allowed me to track his progress even as his body disappeared from view and reminded me of fireworks. I hefted my spear, letting her rest in the nook of my shoulder while I debated whether to find Frankenstein and beat his ass again, or wait for him to come back for more.

  Given that the bastard had hijacked Ryan’s body, it wasn’t a tough decision.

  I’d only made it perhaps twenty feet or so, however, when something out of the ordinary caught my attention. I hesitated, craning my ears to make sure I wasn’t crazy, but there they were again. Whispers—murmurs so soft and sibilant they could have been the wind if not for their haphazard, back-and-forth nature. Clearly a conversation, at first I figured the voices had to belong to a couple of unfortunate Atlantians hoping to weather the storm. But I quickly realized that wasn’t possible; there was nowhere for anyone to hide, not after all the damage we’d done to the residential area. So where could they be coming from?

  Before I could answer that question, however, the whispers ceased.

  And, almost as if on cue, Frankenstein came hurtling towards me from high overhead, poised to drive his yodeling sword into my chest with a two-handed grip. For a moment, I simply stood there watching him, my mouth agape at the realization that he’d managed to close that absurd distance between us with a single jump. Then—because I wasn't a freaking idiot—I got the hell out of the way.

  Which worked, sort of.

  Rather than impale me like I was sure Frankenstein intended, his sword sunk into the ground to the hilt, creating a massive fissure that spread across the entire landscape, widening incrementally at first, then with increasing momentum as the weight of the top layer caved in on itself. Of course, by then Frankenstein had already withdrawn his blade and danced to the far side of the chasm, leaving me to scramble to find safe footing on the other side.

  By the time the fissure finally stopped growing, Frankenstein and I were staring at each other from perhaps a hundred feet apart. From that distance, the blue bastard looked a lot like a pixie—not that I would ever have lumped him in with those reprobates...they didn’t deserve that sort of slander. Realizing he was delaying, I brandished my spear and waited for him to jump the gap, eager to continue the fight now that I’d established the ground rules.

  You see, Frankenstein had slipped up big time the second he admitted he’d repair any damage done to his host body—a theory I’d literally crash tested when I booted his ass halfway across the city. And, now that I knew he meant what he’d said, I had absolutely no reason to hold back. Besides, the way I saw it, I had only one option left that didn’t include letting myself be murdered by a psychopath: I had to incentivize Frankenstein to abandon Ryan’s body and seek out greener pastures elsewhere.

  And nothing makes a bully rethink their life choices more than when they get picked on by someone stronger than they are.

  “What’s wrong, Frankenbitch?” I called when the doctor didn’t immediately leap across the fissure to take me on, even going so far as to throw my arms out wide in invitation—letting him see how little he terrified me, how little I thought of his martial prowess.

  “It’s Frankenstein! Frankenstein, verdammt!”

  Despite the distance between us and the fact that he wore my friend’s face, the doctor’s agitation was painfully obvious. Indeed, Frankenstein seemed plagued by the same frantic madness which I’d encountered outside the walls of the Laestrygonian capitol. Gone was the facade of the posh, well-spoken scientist. Indeed, it had been supplanted by what I believed was his true face: the mad genius who’d gotten cocky and overplayed his hand.

  “Sorry, d’ye say ‘Frankenshit?’ I can’t hear ye from over here!”

  Frankenstein truly lost it, then; the doctor began tearing whole clumps of hair from his host’s head with the hand not blue-knuckling the sword, spouting what I assumed were German obscenities. Then, a
s though unable to resist the urge any longer, he launched himself at me, lunging across the divide as though the rules of gravity no longer applied to him. To his credit, the strike was so blazingly fast that—even though I’d baited him into it—the best I could manage was a parry and an amateurish counterattack; I swatted the blow wide and extended my leg, tripping the doctor so that he sprawled face first into the dirt. The maneuver may have won me style points, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. What I needed was to land the sort of blows Frankenstein would have no choice but to recover from, to drain every last bit of patience and reason from the demented monster until he essentially rage quit.

  Except it seemed Frankenstein had other plans.

  Rather than resume our fight, the doctor—in a fit of anger and impotence—climbed to his feet, screamed wordlessly until spittle flew from his mouth, and chucked his sword at me like a child having a tantrum.

  Unfortunately, of all the retaliations I’d anticipated, having a freaking sword thrown at me was not one of them; I thought to dodge, but the blade was coming at me too fast to deflect it, let alone dive out of the way. At this point, the question wasn’t whether the singing sword was going to hit me, but rather how much damage would it do when it did.

  Which is a shitty question to have to ask yourself, in case you’re wondering.

  Before I could answer that question, however, I felt Areadbhan jerk out of my hand and hurl herself into the path of the spinning blade with far greater speed and accuracy than I could have achieved had I tried to throw her. I’d hardly opened my mouth to tell her to come back when the two weapons collided, showering the sky with light and exploding in a burst of power that sent me soaring backwards.

  Towards the chasm.

  I skidded across the ground, clearing the edge of the crevice, my arm flung out like a prayer. Fortunately, it seemed someone was listening; I caught the lip of the chasm on the way down, able to stop myself from plummeting into the dark pit below. Sensing I had to hurry unless I wanted to play out a Looney Tunes skit with Frankenstein peeling away my fingers one at a time, I strained to get my second hand over the edge.

  And that’s when the whispers started up again—much louder this time. More insistent.

  Sadly, I didn’t have the time or mental wherewithal to decipher what they were saying. Instead, I took hold of the lip with both hands and swung, using my momentum to get a single leg and at least half my body over. From there, I could make out Frankenstein kneeling over the steaming remains of our two weapons; the doctor cradled his stomach, his expression horrifically pained. Which, frankly, was great news.

  Because if he thought he was hurting now, then he had another think coming.

  With a grunt, I swung my other half over and rolled away from the crevice to stare up at a improbable sky dominated by surging rivers which seemed somehow closer than they had before. I took a deep breath, embracing what it meant to be alive, and clambered to my feet only to realize the adrenaline rush of being blasted off a cliff had considerably masked the damage done to my body by the sudden backlash of power; it hurt to put weight on my left leg, I had trouble raising my right arm above my shoulder, and the rest of me simply ached. Worse still, I could tell immediately there was something wrong with Areadbhan because the spear lay still in the dirt, wisps of green smoke rising from her blade. Frankenstein’s sword, on the other hand, was a mangled mess from the hilt down—including, I noted with a glimmer of satisfaction—at least a half dozen azure shards which had once combined to form a devourer.

  “Looks like it’s the end of the line for ye, Frankendick,” I said as I approached, doing my utmost to betray as little pain as possible in the hopes that the doctor would finally see this as a lost cause and retreat. If not, things were going to get ugly, fast.

  When at last he took notice of me and looked up, however, I knew instantly that it wasn’t Frankenstein who held my gaze.

  It was Ryan.

  “Quinn,” he groaned, still clutching at his stomach. “Please, you have to kill me.”

  45

  I collapsed to my knees beside my smoldering spear and cradled Ryan’s face in my hands, suddenly overwhelmed by the memories he and I shared together in this strange place. Blue...that was what I’d called him. Not because of his skin tone, but because of the electric shade that rimmed his pupils. And he, in turn, had dubbed me Red for the color I turned whenever he teased me about going along with one of his schemes. Blue had been admittedly different than my Ryan—less self-conscious, more fun-loving. The sort of person I imagined he might have been if left solely to his own devices, allowed to make his own life choices.

  And now he wanted to die.

  “What the hell are ye talkin’ about, ye idget?”

  “He’s still...inside me,” Ryan replied through gritted teeth, a teardrop rolling down his cheek only to freeze before it could get past his chin.

  “Who? Ye mean Frankenstein? But how?”

  “The devourer...”

  Ryan gestured to the broken jewel by way of explanation, and I began to piece together what must have happened. Apparently, Frankenstein had swapped his spirit for Ryan’s back in my hut, forcing the Faeling’s soul into the devourer. Which meant—once it shattered—Ryan had returned to his body only to find it a hostile battleground. The question was, who had what it took to win the war?

  As if answering my question, a series of dueling expressions began rippling across Ryan’s face, each belonging to one of the two inhabitants. In Ryan’s case, all were variations on a theme which could only be described as intense suffering. In Frankenstein’s, however, I saw madness, and madness alone.

  “Quinn...you have to...do it,” Ryan urged. “Please, I can’t...hold him...for long.”

  Alarmed to discover Frankenstein could potentially resume control at any moment, I glanced down at my own damaged weapon, disturbed to find a sizable crack splintered across the surface of Thiazi’s heart, spewing light and obscuring the rune I’d inscribed. Indeed, from where I knelt, the jewel looked battered beyond repair—the damage clearly more than Areadbhar could sustain and still function. At this point, even picking her up was a risk, let alone using her to defend myself should Ryan fail.

  “Can ye not chase him out?” I asked, my mind whirling with fragmented possibilities. “Wait, I know, maybe we could threaten him into leavin’? I could stab ye a couple times, nowhere fatal obviously, and tell him to get out unless he wants to bleed out?”

  Ryan made a series of choked sounds in the back of his throat, shaking his head, and I realized he was laughing.

  At me.

  “What’s so funny?” I demanded, suddenly cross.

  “Same...old Quinn,” he croaked. “No...half measures.”

  “Look, I didn’t come all the way down here to see ye roll over for some psychotic, body-swappin’ boogeyman with a God complex, ye hear me?” I gripped both of his arms, marveling at how cold they felt despite the protection of my gloves even as I willed him to shake off the doctor’s spirit. “Ye have to get rid of him. Then we can go home, Ryan. Don’t ye want to go home?”

  “Can’t.”

  “Of course ye can,” I snapped, my skin flushed. “Listen, I know ye did t’ings ye regret. T’ings ye may even believe ye deserve to pay for. But this isn’t the way. Ye have to move on, and evolve, and ye can’t do that if ye dwell on the past.”

  But Ryan clearly didn’t agree; the Faeling was shaking his head so violently by the time I finished that his whole body rocked back and forth from the effort. He unfolded his arms and gripped my shoulders, forcing me to look into his eyes.

  “Can’t.” Ryan shook me as if willing me to understand, swallowed, and tried again. “Can’t...let him...go.”

  And that’s when it hit me.

  Ryan wasn’t asking me to kill him.

  He was asking me to kill them.

  “No way!” I shrugged off the Faeling’s hold and turned away, unable to hold his gaze. “I didn’t come here to kill th
at sick bastard, Ryan O’Rye. I came here to find ye, and to take ye home so ye can be surrounded by people who care and remember what that’s like.”

  “I...remember.” I felt Ryan’s palm brush my cheek, then pat it hard enough to sting. “Red.”

  “Oy, that hurt—”

  “You...remember,” Ryan interjected, grabbing my hand and pressing it against his chest, his whole body vibrating with tension. “Blue.”

  Who I really am, I could have sworn I heard him add, though of course I knew he hadn’t.

  But that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t enough. After everything I’d gone through to find him, after all this time, we deserved to make new memories—to fix everything we’d broken...including each other. Hell, our tenure in Atlantis had only made that more apparent; we belonged together. Not as lovers, or even as friends, but as soulmates destined to spend our final moments toasting the inevitable heat death of the universe. The evidence was irrefutable: free of our hangups and our poor decisions and our bitterness—in a realm full of other candidates—we had not only found each other, we’d been practically inseparable.

  Why? Because at his best, Ryan was supportive, caring, and decent. And because, without him, I’d never be at my best.

  He was my person.

  And, cruelest of all, I hadn’t realized that until now.

  “Dammit, Ryan, I need ye!” I pounded my fist weakly against his chest, fighting back the storm of sobs that threatened to break the moment I stopped to really think about what he was asking me to do. “I need ye. We have to find another way. There has to be another way.”

  But there wasn’t another way, and we both knew it. For Frankenstein to die—truly die—it was clear he had to go down with the proverbial ship. If he managed to jump overboard, even at the last moment, he’d do exactly what he said he would and return to Atlantis in someone else’s body to complete whatever task he’d assigned himself. But who was to say that was all he’d do? What was to stop him from terrorizing Ryan and me, or from hurting the people we cared about to get to us? Ryan was right: Frankenstein couldn’t be allowed to survive this.