Suddenly, in the air, I smelt the bitter bite of incense.
Kastabal was listening.
Shit.
Hell, I could suddenly hear weirdly melodic music that seemed to pitch itself up and down at random. But, if I listened close enough, I could almost sense a pattern.
Candace coughed again, vomiting up blood.
Purple blood.
I couldn’t leave another infected, Unclean just lying around. She could start an epidemic of monsters that would swamp Ashmouth.
“I’m powerful,” she gasped, unable to wipe the puke off of her mouth. “I can help.”
“You hate goblins,” I snapped at her. “Even with your oath, I can’t trust you.”
Candace squirmed in the webbing, then she said. “You’re right. I hate goblins. If I could kill every last filthy Hob on the planet, then I would.”
Swallowing hard, she shook. “But… I can feel our connection.”
“So what?” I growled. “That doesn’t mean that you will suddenly be my best, favorite fuck buddy.”
Candace looked down.
Then, she sighed.
“Do you know anything about my family?”
“No, and I don’t want to,” I said, feeling pissed off again.
“We are slaves to the Tawrets.”
That interested me. Brynn was a Tawret.
“For as long as anyone can remember, every member of my family has been promised to a Tawret at birth. Brynn was my Mistress. If she returned successfully from her Naming Challenge, then I was to be given to her.”
Kneeling, I said. “I saw you trying to force Brynn to marry you. Why bother if she was going to be yours, anyway?”
Candace looked up at me. “There is a difference between being the Master… and being the Slave. If I could force her to marry me, then I would inherit her riches, and she would be my…”
The woman swallowed hard and broke eye contact with me.
“Brynn would have become your slave instead…” I said, finishing her sentence.
She nodded.
“I would have become a Tawret instead of her.”
I could feel the desire in her voice. Candace would have given anything not to become Brynn’s slave.
And, now she might be mine.
“I don’t want any slaves, Candace,” I said.
Candace sneered, as her real feelings came spilling out.
“Bullshit,” she cursed. “That is total Bullshit. Brynn was your mind-slave. As was Mary, Hana, and Taesa. And now, Mockery is your willing slut as well.”
“How do you know about the others?” I asked.
Her sneer shifted into a grin.
“I am very good at researching my enemies,” she snapped. “And you are an easy mark.”
I could argue with her… that I had taken each of them under duress. But, the truth was… I did sort of like having complete control over them. I dithered back and forth, whether I really wanted them to have free will. But, a sad, hungry portion of my soul wanted them to lie at my feet and worship me like a fucking god.
“Nothing I can say will convince you,” I told her as I stood up. “Except me leaving. Enjoy your freedom. Maybe our connection will fade in time.”
Turning, I began to walk away from Candace. She knew where Brynn was, but staying bonded to her would not work for me.
“Dammit,” she hissed. “I need your help! Get back here, you stupid Hob!”
“I can’t break the spell that holds you,” I told her as I stopped several feet away. “I don’t know how to break Mockery’s curse. Just break it yourself already, I know that you can.”
“I’m not stronger than you,” she hissed. “My brother Charles is. I am just his cat’s paw.”
“You are such a liar,” I yelled. “I saw how many spells Mary harvested from your mind when she killed you. There were dozens of them.”
Tears began to fall from Candace’s eyes.
“They were all Charle’s spells,” she sobbed. “I can barely blow out a candle with my own magic.”
Sobbing, Candace said, “Please, don’t leave me here. I don’t want to die again. I swore that I would serve you. Please...”
Candace looked pitiful, lying on the stone slab with arcane webbing wrapped around her. Her face was smudged and dirty, and swaths of blonde hair covered part of her face.
Shit.
She said please.
Dammit.
- 11 -
Candace’s body was pressed against my shoulder as I carried her through the tunnels. I had my hands wrapped around her legs with the blonde’s ass next to my face.
The closeness of her butt to my mouth… filled my mind with horribly wicked ideas.
“How long until this spell dies?” she cursed.
“Fuck if I know,” I snapped back at her.
“I’m tired of being carried upside down,” she grumbled.
“And, I’m tired of carrying your fat ass,” I snapped before I really thought about my words.
Silence.
Pure. Peaceful. Silence.
Then the girl began to shake a little on my shoulder.
Fuck.
She was crying.
I kept walking, but her weeping was making me feel like an asshole.
“I’m sorry,” I grumbled, not really feeling very sorry at all. Candace was heavy.
“No… you’re not,” she lamented. “It’s true. I am fat.”
Sighing, I put her cocooned body down on the cement. I needed a break.
Shivering, I wondered how she would feel about me using a warmth cantrip on the silk that was wrapped around her.
The dirt on her face had streaked, making her look like a depressed clown. More tears followed the previous ones.
Looking closer at her, I realized how wrong she was.
“You’re not fat,” I said, really meaning it. “In fact, you’re pretty, or at least you would be if you could take a bath.”
Candace snorted and tried to look away from me, but the cocoon wouldn’t let her.
Suddenly, with a snap and a hiss of black smoke, the silk that had been binding the woman misted away.
Candace pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned down, hiding her face.
“I’m not as pretty as Brynn,” she sobbed again.
I was already tired of weepy women.
“No man would trudge through the sewers--naked--for me,” she wailed.
“Hush,” I said. “You will attract attention.”
Snuffling, she shut her mouth.
“You promised me clothing,” I pointed out, trying to get Candace to focus on something else.
Candace sat up and wiped her nose all across the back of her dirty left hand. Reaching up, she pointed a hand toward an alcove on the other side of the sewage flow.
“That’s our destination,” she said.
Then, the dirt-covered woman stood up and took a step. But, her legs gave out under her, and she fell on me.
Together, we crashed into the sewage water and went under.
Pushing my way to the surface, I hocked and spat, trying to get the taste of shit out of my mouth.
Candace wasn’t as quiet. She screamed and cursed as she splashed to the other side and climbed onto the ledge. Then, not waiting for me, she rushed into the alcove.
I heard a stone slide, and then the sewer lit up with light.
“Hurry up,” she snapped as I followed her into a large room.
The door slid shut behind me.
Without looking back, Candace stomped to the other side. Like Lady Shufen’s bolt hole, this room was filled with supplies.
Candace walked over to a portable shower and yanked her dress off, throwing the sodden, smelly mess on the floor with irritation.
All I could do was stare.
She wasn’t skinny, but in no way, shape, or form was she unpleasant to look at. In fact, she was plump in all the right…
The back of her skin ripped.
I stare
d at it in shock, as a wound began to tear open. It started in the center of Candace’s back and trailed up toward her neck and back down toward her ass at the same time. Dark black crud, not blood, but not shit either dripped out of the laceration.
Then… dammit… were those maggots?
Big bugs, the size of my thumb slithered out of the gap.
Candace shook. Her arms seemed to deflate like someone had pulled all the bones out of them. She bent over and a skinny, nobby arm that was all sharp angles and pale gray skin, slipped out of the wound. Dark black fingernails that were right on the edge of being called claws tipped the fingers that stretched, as the woman who I had infected groaned.
Her head deflated next, falling in upon itself like a rotting pumpkin. The woman turned and twisted, like someone that was trapped in a tight, straightjacket.
More black gunk poured out of her skin.
Then, a head popped out of her back. It was huge and attached to a tiny spindle of a neck. Thick black ears gaped up above a nearly hairless head. Dark gore coated the skin in places, dripping off of her like pus.
A second arm, and then the rest of her body followed, as Candace’s skin hit the floor like her dirty clothing.
Shit.
“Shole,” I whispered.
I had never seen one in the flesh. The gray goblins of my tribe hated and reviled them. The Shole were considered shit eaters and corpse defilers. My people hunted and executed them to extinction in Columbia.
And now, I could see why.
The spindly creature was covered in black gunk that reminded me of snot that had been trapped in a sinus cavity for months. I could count every rib and bone. Her waist was so small that I could have easily wrapped my hands around it and had room to spare.
She kicked Candace’s skin aside and stretched. Her spine snapped and cracked, as the Shole worked the kinks out. A tail that reminded me of a rat’s whipped back and forth, showering the ground with crap as it twitched.
“Ájakava, Mother of Scorpions, praise your name,” she spat, as the Shole lifted an arm and washed under her armpit. Dark black pus was running off of her body in a wave. She looked like a cadaver that had rotted and deflated, only to be brought back to life.
Fuck.
That was precisely what she was.
The hot water made her body mist like she was on fire. Her core temperature had to be dangerously low, for that much steam to rise off of her.
Turning, she grinned at me with eyes the color of milk. They bulged and popped out like a frog that was being squeezed too hard.
Candace licked her lips, exposing teeth that were ragged and twisted. A dark black tongue licked her lips.
Then, she pounded her chest and belched.
“Like what you see?” she purred. “You filthy, Hob.”
I hated that name.
Under the black gore, her lite gray skin covered breasts that were barely a bump on her chest. My eyes traveled downward.
Her womanhood glared at me, dark and hairless.
Candace chuckled.
“Come here… Darling... and give me a lick.”
- 12 -
“I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last female on Earth… Shole,” I spat back at her.
“I didn’t ask you to fuck me,” she growled. “I just want a little lick.”
The creature cocked her spindly hips, twisting them, so her pussy stared at me like a pus-filled puncture wound. Suddenly, both of her female nether lips shuddered and quaked.
I nearly gagged as a foul odor poured out of her. The stench of the death itself flowed over me.
Candace groaned as she farted from her womanhood again.
I stepped backward, wishing I had something to cover my face with.
The Shole laughed and chuckled as she turned away from me and began to rinse her body off with soap.
“Wash my back?” she asked.
“I’d rather eat dirt,” I snapped back at her, still trying to breathe.
Candace shrugged.
I could see large patches of skin that were dry and flaking off. It looked like new gray skin was growing underneath, and the old corpse skin was oozing off of her.
Then, I noticed puncture wounds in her back, along her shoulders.
Horribly fascinated, I moved forward to see better.
Shit.
They looked like little assholes.
Puckered pieces of flesh dotted her back.
Three.
Six.
Nine.
Shit. Nine fucking assholes. While I watched, one of them opened, and a new maggot slid out of it. The wiggly monstrosity hit the floor with a sicking splat.
I should kill her.
My father would.
“Killing me will hurt you too,” she whispered, not looking back. “I am your bitch. Or have you forgotten?”
She could hear my thoughts.
But I couldn’t hear hers.
“You aren’t trying hard enough,” she said, answering my unspoken question.
Chuckling, the beast turned off the shower and then walked deeper into the room, dripping water everywhere.
She turned a corner and then I heard a splash.
Intrigued, I followed her, making sure that I didn’t step on Candace’s shedded skin.
Shit.
Was she Candace or someone else?
The splashing continued. Turning the corner, I saw a long, deep black pool that ran off like a tortured snake. Lily pads floated in the water, and I could see a fountain that looked like a demon’s face on the far wall. The pool split like a Y around it, traveling into the distance.
“My name is Flealboilsa,” the creature crooned from the water. She was about fifteen feet away from me. The pool was deep enough that she had to tread water out there.
“But,” she murmured, “You may call Flea.”
Sniffing loudly, she said, “You smell like shit. Go shower and then join me.”
I stared at the creature, trying to decide if I would listen or not. Finally, I decided that a shower would feel good.
Sighing, I turned around and walked back to the shower. I had to adjust the nozzle so it would hit my taller body. Turning on the hot water, I let it blast away the stench that covered me. It felt like it had been a million years since I had last showered.
Looking down, I watched as Candace’s skin began to flake and then mist. The hot water was pouring all over it, now that I had adjusted the spray.
Licking my lips, I discovered that the water pouring down on me had a high salt content. Why would Flea do that if she knew that the saltwater would destroy Candace’s skin?
Mist poured off the shedded flesh faster, puffing up and billowing around my feet. Then… the fog cleared, and Candace was gone.
Fucking weird.
Grumbling, I washed off with the soap.
Why was every woman that I met some sort of psycho killer or a monster from hell?
Shutting my eyes, I leaned against the wall and let the water pour over me. In the back of my head, I could hear the girls in Columbia chanting and…
Dammit.
They were fucking.
I could hear them in the back of my mind. Their course moans… and the blood that had been spilt all around them. Magic flared and throbbed, as a gigantic spell cooked and bubbled.
Dammit.
What the hell were they up to?
Touching Hana’s connection, I tried to peer through her eyes.
But, instead of instant gratification… my mind hit a wall. Annoyed, I pushed harder, but only achieved the same result.
And it wasn’t just Hana.
Mary and Taesa’s connections were closed, as well.
“Fuck,” I hissed. Something was blocking me from connecting to them. And, I didn’t know how to astrally project on command.
It had to be the circle.
Oba Shufen’s magical circle was warded and sealed to keep the magic that they were raising contained. But, it was also
keeping me from finding out what was going on.
Tortured Silence Page 5
