by HP Mallory
“He did what?!” Alaire bellowed. The wine glass in his hand shattered, and the pieces were soaked red with the remnants of the claret and Alaire’s blood. The crimson shards fell to the floor and further shattered on the hard stone below.
“What happened?” I asked, facing him with bewilderment and shock.
Alaire’s attention left his invisible minion and all of his anger suddenly landed on me. “Did you know anything about this?”
My stomach dropped down to my toes. “About what?” I asked while shaking my head. I wanted it to be known that whatever happened had nothing to do with me. Of course, I doubted he believed me.
Alaire rose from his seat to grab the table, his arms and neck straining slightly as he braced himself against it. “The angel is gone,” he said with a chilling calm.
My eyes widened in actual shock. “What?”
“The angel is GONE!” he repeated at the top of his lungs. He flipped the table on its side with blistering speed, sending all the food, wine, dishes and silverware flying in all directions with a terrible clatter.
I screamed before jumping out of the way, and knocking my chair over in the process while barely dodging the errant missiles.
“How did this happen?!” he continued yelling at the invisible messenger, “Those beasts were loyal to me!”
“Wait, Bill had help?” I asked, disbelieving my own ears.
He once again fixed me with a suspicious glare. “Oh, yes. Apparently, one of the Furies helped that disgrace to Heaven’s ranks make his miraculous escape.”
“There must be some misunderstanding,” I said as I held my arms out in front of me in a sign of submission. The fear in my voice wasn’t hard to fake. Even though I knew I was immortal, I had no clue what Alaire might do in his angry rage, especially to Tallis. So the last thing I wanted him to think was that Bill’s escape had anything to do with me. Even though it probably did. I couldn’t figure out what could have inspired that feathered fiend to offer Bill a quick exit however.
“In this castle, there are no such things as misunderstandings,” Alaire railed at me as he strode forward, and his long, lanky body suddenly seemed twice as big. I was sure it was just a trick of my mind. At least, I hoped it was a trick of my mind.
“It had to be the Bladesmith!” Alaire said, stomping his feet over the carnage that was previously our dinner as he paced the room. “Who else would have had the time and opportunity to tame such a creature?”
On one hand, I was slightly relieved and glad he forgot about my close encounter with the Fury. On the other hand, blaming Tallis wasn’t much of an improvement.
“Tallis?” I asked as I shook my head. “It couldn’t be. He’s… he’s human now! And he’s been weak for days on end, trapped inside the dungeon since his arrival. It’s not like he could have interacted with any of the Furies.”
“He’s still a Druid,” Alaire replied, shaking his head insistently as his pace sped up. “Those devious tree-worshippers maintained their grip on Angle-Land for centuries by making pacts with wild creatures.”
I’d never heard the term “Angle-Land” but deduced it was probably just another name for Britain.
Alaire suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, as if he’d just made up his mind about a crucial question. “This is just the latest—and I might add, final—sign that I’ve delayed the inevitable long enough.” He started to walk past me towards the door.
“What do you mean, ‘delayed the inevitable’?” I asked, my brows knitting as I wondered what in the hell he was talking about. It didn’t sound good no matter what it meant.
“I believe it’s now time that I fulfilled Persephone’s other most persistent request,” Alaire said, flashing me an evil smile. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him.
“What was that?” I demanded, my tone rising, making it clear I had a pretty good idea of the answer.
“I’m going to make Tallis Black pay for his sins with his life.”
My heart plummeted straight into my gut. The wine and small amount of dinner I’d eaten boiled up into my throat. Somewhere from oblivion, I was certain that the ghost of Persephone was laughing at me “You can’t blame Tallis for this! You can’t place all the responsibility on him for it!”
“Perhaps I am not making myself clear enough to you. One, he orchestrated the angel’s escape, unlikely though it seems. Two, he’s been a pain in my backside for long enough. Which leads to three… he dies tonight.”
Alaire tried to walk past me again but I sidestepped my way right into his path.
“I won’t let you do anything to him without a fair trial,” I said defiantly. “None of this is legal! Afterlife Enterprises needs to have as much input in this as they did in the deaths of your minions!”
Alaire’s pupils looked like cold blast furnaces of unrestrained hate. “Get out of my way, woman.”
“I won’t,” I replied staunchly, my eyes and voice just as hardened as his. “You can’t touch a hair on Tallis’s head without AE’s involvement and that means he gets a fair trial! You know I’m right! Think about this logically, Alaire!”
When Alaire tried once again to move past me, I did the only thing to keep him at bay. It was something I never dreamed of doing. I put my hand on his crotch and kissed him. The kiss was long and deep, my tongue diving down into his mouth. I put my free hand behind his neck and held his head close to mine. My other hand rubbed his pants until I could feel the bulge between his legs growing larger and hotter. Honestly, I wanted to throw up right into his mouth but I resisted the urge. Tallis’s very life may have well depended on the successful suppression of my gag reflex.
Alaire grabbed my hands and pushed me away. “What… in the hell… are you doing?”
“I… Something just came over me and I couldn’t hold it back!” I wanted to cringe. My words were so poorly chosen, even a Harlequin romance novelist would have called them cheesy. But I needed to sell my lie to him. Putting on a sultry, if slightly drunken look, I pulled the skimpy dress off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
“We will play when I return,” he growled but I knew his interest in going after Tallis was fading, if only a little. I just had to keep talking in order to make him back off.
I pushed myself against him. “How do you know it was Tallis? You’re just searching for a scapegoat and he’s the easiest target.” I took a deep breath as I thought of another angle. “Maybe it was AE who orchestrated Bill’s release? I mean, he is one of their employees.”
“And why would AE strike a blow against me at this juncture?” Alaire demanded.
I shrugged as casually as I could manage. “Streethorn is just as much of a scheming bastard as you are, no offense…”
He shook his head and I sensed he cared less about manners and more about my reasoning. But he had paused in his trip out of the dining room and he was giving me the entirety of his attention which meant I was buying Tallis time.
“Streethorn doesn’t have the same strength as you do but a man in his position is no fool. He knows what it takes when it comes to handling his rivals. And it’s fairly obvious you’re trying to take his power away from him.” Actually, it wasn’t obvious at all. But there was something in the back of my mind that told me Alaire was trying to take over all of AE so he could build The Underground City into an empire.
Alaire pondered my words as I continued gyrating against him. “Why…” Alaire started to say before his eyes rolled back when my fingers burrowed their way into his pants. He shook his head and tried again. “Why would Streethorn… do that?”
It was pretty obvious that my unofficial porn star audition was giving him a hard time because he failed to comprehend the nonsensical logic I was throwing his way.
“Because he fears you,” I explained, begrudgingly gripping his hardening member. “He knows what you are, and what you can do. You are the true master of the afterlife. Not Jason, not AE, not Tallis, it’s you.” I squeezed him to emphasize what I was say
ing.
The doubt practically fell off Alaire’s face. I’d never seen him so flustered… or more compliant.
“Yes… I am,” he said, his eyes rolling back in his head. “They are no more than insects compared to me.”
Alaire wrapped his arms around my bare waist, his hand cupping my left ass cheek. He squeezed my waist a little too tight, pushing the air from my lungs.
“Alaire, I’m having trouble breathing,” I said softly.
He didn’t seem to hear me and kept talking. “As you said, Tallis could not have had any contact with the Furies.”
“That only leaves Streethorn.”
Alaire began to shake his head. “That does not follow, darling. I pegged Streethorn as a potential threat long ago and we have certainly had our run-ins, but something does not measure up. AE was not aware that I was holding the angel against his will. That leaves us with the million dollar question: how could they have released him when they were not even aware of his whereabouts in the first place?” He paused for a second or two. “What I am less than certain about at this moment, my dear, is you.”
“Thy fortune hath such honour in reserve…”
- Dante’s Inferno
NINETEEN
Lily
I shook my head, afraid Alaire would unravel the plot I took such pains to weave. “You saw what the Fury did to me, how she nearly killed me with her claws. That’s not exactly a show of loyalty.”
“It is not the show of loyalty I am concerned with,” Alaire stated as he eyed me narrowly. “It is more that Donnchadh is the only entity besides myself who possesses the strength of will to cow a Fury.”
The hand that was squeezing my butt shot up to my neck. Alaire’s fingers wound around my throat and clamped down hard. I tried to get a plea for mercy out but couldn’t breathe. My tongue was dead in my mouth as he continued to squeeze on my larnyx.
Panicking, I focused on Donnchadh and the runes that ran the length of my forearm. Of course, I wasn’t sure what would happen if I released the spirit. Alaire claimed to have control over him just like I did. But if it were a choice between that and strangulation…
Donnchadh, I free you to command my body and defend us from Alaire, I thought with the last remnants of my energy.
Strength surged into my limbs and my entire body thrummed with renewed power. Jerking backwards, my eyes eclipsed everything in a wash of black. Seconds later, I was being crowded in the furthest regions of my body as Donnchadh swelled inside me, his fury all-consuming.
Suddenly, I slammed my head into Alaire’s face. His nose splintered on impact, spraying my face with blood. The look of shock on his face was memorable.
Clutching his macerated nose, Alaire stared at me with more than a little concern as he tried to recover. “Your eyes!”
No doubt, Alaire was astonished at the two black orbs he saw filling my eye sockets in the jaundiced light of the room. There was no way he didn’t recognize who this was.
He laughed but the sound was without mirth. “You brought him forward,” he said as he shook his head, a hint of disbelief tracing his words.
Alaire took a fighting stance as I moved on him. Going low, I shouldered through his outstretched arms and pushed him against the wall. I yelled a war cry before his head smashed into a painting of three women enjoying the fruits of mutual masturbation. The impact of his head knocked the portrait off its hanger. Alaire recovered from the blow quickly, however, and the smirk on his face soon reappeared.
“You are so full of surprises, Lily, I must admit I am impressed,” he said while he stiff-armed me and spun around. His other hand cracked my head against the stone with a wet smack. My vision spun for a moment but Donnchadh didn’t seem to care. Launching my body suddenly forward in one superhuman move, my hands wrapped around Alaire’s neck. I squeezed hard and even though Alaire fought me, he couldn’t escape my grip. Taking us both to the ground, I pulled Alaire’s left arm towards me, bending it at the elbow until I heard a loud pop.
He pulled himself away from me, rolling toward the other end of the room. I threw my legs out, using my momentum to leap into a standing position. Alaire was on his feet again too, his ruined left arm now dangling at his side… useless. He lunged at me, and his dislocated arm flailed like a marionette.
“You have a fight within you yet, you precocious girl!” he yelled, reaching out with his good arm to grab a fistful of my hair. I screamed, clapping both my hands against his temples and squeezing hard. Alaire released my hair and stumbled backwards from the pain. I lifted a leg to kick him in the gut. He let out an “Oof!” as he fell backwards onto one of the lounge chairs he kept in the corner of the room. Before he could recover, I ran forward and planted a well-aimed kick straight into his crotch.
“Enough of this,” Alaire sighed, holding up his right hand to wave his white flag of surrender. “We are both immortal, thus all of this sparring is a waste of our time.” As he spoke, blood squirted from his nose, landing on my foot.
Inside, I battled against Donnchadh, using the runes of Tallis and Alaire’s magic to help me overcome the inordinately powerful spirit. The runes glowed green as I felt the heat of anger beginning to dissipate within me. Another few seconds and I was in control of myself again, albeit with one mean headache.
I took my foot off Alaire’s crotch, but not before pressing down hard enough for him to feel the extra pain. His submissive reaction and stifled cry told me he most certainly did.
“So are you still accusing me of something I didn’t do?” I asked.
Alaire was too wrecked to do anything but nod in agreement. Good. Maybe he’d learned his lesson.
As the pain in my head thundered between my temples, I felt my heartrate pick up. My breathing began to slow and I felt pushed to take long, deep breaths but the sound was raspy in my lungs. I didn’t know how or if Donnchadh would heal me. That was something I needed to learn from Tallis.
I sauntered over to the table, stepping around the mess Alaire made. Finding a plate that miraculously hadn’t been shattered in the melee, I began stacking all the food I could find to put on it. Meanwhile, I had to fight to catch my breath.
“What are you doing?” Alaire asked as he glanced at his ruined arm.
“If Tallis is going to heal me, he needs sustenance and I’m more than sure you haven’t been exactly generous with him.”
Spotting the look on Alaire’s face, I pointed a finger at him. “Don’t even think about trying to stop me this time… not unless you want Donnchadh to inflict more injuries for you to recover from.”
Alaire answered by grabbing his own arm and shoving it back into place with a weird, reverse-popping sound. I didn’t bother glancing back when I walked out of the room with my plate full of food. Hopefully, this little skirmish would deter Alaire from ever trying to mess with me again. Well, as long as I had Donnchadh inside me anyway.
“While you’re paying a visit to the Yeti,” he said after me, “I shall dispatch some agents to track down the angel. A Fury’s help or not, he cannot have traveled too far.”
***
The walk to Tallis’s cell was one of the most difficult I ever had to make. My skin was covered in goose bumps and my head was aching like an SOB. My bare feet smacked on the stone with slappy sounds as I walked. The trail of blood from my head wound dripped incessantly all the way down the length of me, leaving a bloody trail. My blood loss was certainly palpable as I staggered here and there, close to dropping the plate of food in my hands several times. My vision swam with images and more than once, I found myself completely out of breath as my heart pounded in my ears.
The hallucinations were the worst experience, though. Shadows played tricks on me, bringing a dark alcove to life as black, inky fingers wrapped themselves around whatever they could in my peripheral vision. I wondered if the hallucinations were due to the loss of blood or if Donnchadh was orchestrating them.
At last, I came to Tallis’s cell. The door was locked as I expect
ed, which was much better than an invisible magical barrier. I unlocked the door, balancing the plate in one hand before I used the key, which I kept hidden on my body at all times.
I stepped inside the cell and assumed Alaire would probably come after me. The confrontation we had would have surely left him feeling dissatisfied. I expected he would hunt me down to get the last strike. But I also knew that he had to heal himself first before he could try anything. Naturally, the thought also crossed my mind that if he could heal himself, maybe he could also heal me. However, I ignored it because I didn’t want him touching me anymore than he already had.
When I entered the cell, my thoughts zoomed in on Tallis immediately. He was out cold. If it weren’t for the slow, almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest, I would have presumed he was dead. With one last glance into the passageway just to ensure I wasn’t being followed, I closed the door and wobbled over to my Bladesmith.
“Tallis, wake up, handsome,” I muttered, lightly tapping his shoulder. As he opened his eyes, the room began to spin and the pain inside my head filled my vision with fog.
Tallis forced a frail smile as he accepted the plate of food I held out to him. “If only Ah could drink yer beauty, Ah’d never need food again.”
My heart fluttered in my chest and my smile stretched so wide, it hurt. “Tallis… you are…” I began before I passed out.
***
I was dreaming I was running down a hallway in the castle. But I was moving at a snail’s pace, going nowhere fast. Looking down, I noticed I was naked, round and much heavier. My legs were short and thick and my stomach billowed around me in plump rolls. I was my old self again. Before the accident, before Afterlife Enterprises, before Bill, even before Tallis….
I panted and heaved. I couldn’t see it but I knew something was right behind me, something great and terrible that intended to eat me if it ever caught me. I tried my best to keep moving, but I was slowing down. No matter how quickly I pumped my legs, it felt like I was trying to run through thick tar.
