by Wol-vriey
She reached the door and began fumbling with the key. Fucking open up, damn you, fucking open up! Why won’t you?
Behind her, she heard the dragon bounding after her. Still not cooking her, thank God. But still the damn fucking key wouldn’t unlock the door.
Then she realized that in her panic she was turning it the wrong way, anticlockwise instead of clockwise.
The dragon was right behind her now. She felt its breath hot on her back.
I don’t get it! she shrieked in her mind, What does it fucking want with me!?
Beth got the door unlocked. She yanked it open, then found she couldn’t open it fully. Panicking, she realized what the matter was.
The chain, the chain . . .
She shut the door again to unlatch the chain.
The dragon cuffed Beth on the side of the head.
Flying through the air as a result of the blow, Beth felt like the universe was exploding inside her mind. She crashed into the wall, stunned.
She watched the dragon approach her. Her amber eyes reflected its own. All she saw in their cold reptilian depths was her death.
The dragon picked Beth up and flung her across the room. She smashed into the opposite wall, crashing down beside the window.
A sharp pain greeted her landing. She looked down, dully registering that her right leg was broken. Six inches of white bone projected from her thigh. The pain was like she’d never experienced in her life.
In addition, her right breast had a huge cut in it from which blood was pouring.
The porcelain dragon stamped across to Beth. It hulked over her, exhaling hot air over her. Its claws clenched and unclenched like it would rip her to shreds with them.
Beth was utterly terrified.
And yet, most horrifying of all, she had the clear picture that this strange dragon wasn’t ready to eat her just yet. It was playing with her, like a cat did with its mouse dinner. It was out to cause her as much pain as it could before it finally terminated her existence.
She dragged herself up on her good leg. Her only recourse now was to throw herself out of the broken window—to crash into The Grid ceiling nine floors down. Fuck, it’s better to fucking kill myself than be mauled and eaten.
But suicide was denied her. The dragon sprayed a burst of fire over the window. Beth collapsed again, her left arm charred to burnt meat.
“Fucking kill me, you bastard!” she screamed at it, tears of agony and fear now streaming down her cheeks, “Why won’t you fucking kill me!? Why won’t you?”
In response, the dragon spat fire in her face.
Beth instinctively jerked her head aside. The flame melted the left side of her face. Her left eye cooked and burst, spilling boiling goo down her cheek. Blood and transparent serum bubbled through her charred flesh.
Beth screamed when she realized she’d been half-blinded. Then she screamed louder, horrified that she was still alive and there was more unpreventable suffering on her event horizon.
The dragon reared up to belch fire again.
Beth cringed in terror. “Pleeassseee!”
Then the unthinkable happened. The air to the dragon’s left shimmered and a figure appeared in the room, materialized out of bare air.
Squinting through her single remaining eye, her mind wracked by her body’s pain, Beth made out the figure clearly.
A tall Chinese girl. Grim-faced as death, with a sword slung at her waist. Her left hand dripped blood, her right hand was held clenched in a fist under her chin.
“Hey, dragon!” the Chinese girl yelled.
The porcelain dragon spun around to face her.
Without fear, the girl quickly raised the fist to her lips, straightened out her fingers, and blew the powder on her palm directly into the dragon’s face.
Inhaling to spray fire on her, the dragon snorted up the iridescent cloud floating around its head.
“That’s it for you, you stupid bitch,” the girl said as it began sputtering like it was choking.
The dragon crashed to the floor. Twitching and kicking its feet, it transformed back into a human woman.
In her world of pain and grotesque disfigurement, Beth leaned back against the wall in total incomprehension. She’d recognized that the woman on the floor was Posh.
CHAPTER 62
Jade
Once Posh was immobilized, Jade Cure walked over to Beth.
She stared at the other woman’s destroyed face and body in disbelief.
Her broken leg, charred arm, roasted face, the exposed bone of her burnt skull.
Damn, lady, Posh has totally fucked you up.
It hurt Jade to even look at her.
Beth sat stupefied. “P . . . Posh . . .?” she gibbered out of the remaining half of her mouth, jabbing a finger at Posh’s naked body. “P . . . Posh?”
“It’s her alright,” Jade replied. “Don’t worry—the shithead won’t be cooking anyone ever again.”
She rushed back over to Posh’s side.
Posh was on her back, groaning in pain, her eyes open in agony. Her stomach was swollen, like she was pregnant outside her womb. Her naked body sparkled with the dragonreich powder Jade had blown over the dragon to revert it back to human form.
“Her strength also her weakness,” Yang Yang had said. “Dragon sperm also cure monster it create.”
Jade already knew it wasn’t a workable solution. No way could Malone be expected to wait till Posh was a raging dragon each time before blowing reich over her.
Jade regarded Posh with disgust. You stupid cow. You dared eat my mother?
Posh gaped back at her. “Help me!” she whispered harshly, “My belly feels like it’s tearing apart.”
Jade smirked. “Oh, I’m fucking helping you all right.” She pulled a paper-lock from her pocket and waved it in Posh’s face. “Sorry, girlfriend, but you’re about providing Ma with her new body.”
The meaning of her words got through to Posh. Horror filled Posh’s eyes.
“Please. Don’t kill me.”
Jade smirked. “Please?” She pointed to Beth. “Tell me, you fucking junkie: Do you have a divine right to eat people?”
Posh’s expression turned from fear to utter rage. “Beth? She’s crap! She’s the—”
Posh froze into immobility as Jade wrapped the roll of paper around her neck. As frozen as the snake goddess was.
Jade pulled a knife from her belt. “Okay, now first, I need my Ma’s head back.”
She bent over Posh, prodding the protuberance with fingers, deciding where to cut.
Then, knife poised to begin, Jade froze herself.
She watched, confused, as the air in front of her shimmered, and an attractive elderly woman and two Forks materialized in the room.
***
“Not a second too soon,” Sara Fischer said to her metal companions. She wagged an elegant bony finger at Jade. “Forget about doing that, kid. That young woman there is currently the most important person on the fucked-up planet.”
“Yes,” Lady Yaz said, floating forward. “She is important to Malone, who we have a deal with. That makes her important to us, and we run this planet.”
Sara nodded at Jade. “They do, kid.”
Jade stood up.
She pointed over to where Beth sat gibbering incoherencies and twitching in agony. “Posh is dangerous. In addition to almost killing that woman, she’s eaten my mother’s head. I want it back.”
Sara looked over at Beth and grimaced. She looked down at Posh’s frozen form, her eyes full of questions.
Jade dropped her knife and jerked the Dead God’s Sword from its scabbard.
Sword raised in front of her, she stepped in front of Posh’s body and stared pointedly at Sara. “I don’t care if the Forks are God Almighty himself; Posh doesn’t leave here except I get my Ma’s head out of her.”
“Don’t be silly, girl,” Sara said. “You’re way outclassed here. There’s nothing you can do.”
Jade’s expression was
adamant. “Oh, we’ll see about that.”
Sara admired Jade’s pluckiness. If only Rachel had been this dedicated to me. Oh, what am I thinking?
“I mean it,” Jade repeated, her oblique eyes thinning to dangerous slits. “Ma’s head is in her, and I want it back.”
“Okay,” Lord Tav said, floating now alongside Lady Yaz. “Your mother’s head is of no value to us. You can have it back.”
On his words, Posh’s belly bulged outward even more.
Then Jade saw it wasn’t Posh’s belly that was expanding, but Ma’s head that was coming out through her skin, like a submerged swimmer breaking the water’s surface.
When Ma’s head was fully out, Jade picked it up. She examined it—it looked fine. Jade was relieved; the goddess had kept her word about time not being an issue.
“You okay now, kid?” Sara asked.
Jade nodded. She sheathed her sword, then looked down at Posh. Posh’s stomach looked as normal as ever.
Jade remembered Beth. She pointed to the ruined woman. Can you help her?”
***
Beth was in torment. Horror was draped over her like folds of linen, along with pain like a cloak of many colors in its varied shades.
I’m in hell, she thought dully. Dead and sucking Satan’s cock. And without chickens.
Sara Fischer and the Forks’ sudden appearance reinforced her conviction. Kitchen gods? In my apartment?
Then she saw the Forks were floating toward her.
Beth was tired of pleading for her life or death. She hurt too badly. “Stop toying with me,” she gasped. “Just fucking end this.”
The pain ended. Like honey was being poured over her, like she was fluttering in orgasm, wellness pulsed through her.
She gaped dully at her charred and useless left arm as flesh once again built up over it.
“Thank you,” she gasped as the same wellness dripped down the side of her face. Suddenly, she could see out of her left eye again.
Next her shattered leg was also fixed.
Now, Beth only felt so, so, so, so, so tired.
“She is okay now,” she heard a far-off voice say right next to her. “She just needs to rest a little.”
Then she fell asleep.
***
Jade warily regarded the forks. The ease with which they’d fixed Beth alarmed her.
She could now see that the loudly snoring woman on the ground by the wall was an attractive, tallish, muscular blonde.
Sara pointed to Posh. “Okay, let her up.”
“Okay.” Jade bent over Posh and unpeeled the paper coil from around her neck.
Posh sat up. She looked worriedly at the Forks. “It wasn’t me.”
Sara frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”
Posh pointed to Beth. “I didn’t do—”
Then her face colored. “Who the hell fixed that bitch up? Shiiiiit!”
Posh looked around angrily. “I said: Who the hell repaired Beth’s body?” Her anger at seeing her tormentor unharmed was so great that she lost all fear of the Forks.
She grabbed a jagged shard of glass from the shattered window off the floor and leapt to her feet. She ignored the glass cutting her own fingers.
Sara moved to restrain her. “Calm down, girl.”
Posh glared at Sara. She waved the glass knife at her menacingly. “Get the hell out of my way, old lady. That bitch is suffering like she made me do!”
Sara got out of her way. She turned to the Forks. “Do something!”
“Calm down,” Lady Yaz told Posh.
Slowed only by her caution not to cut her bare feet on the shattered glass, Posh continued advancing on Beth. “Not until I damage that slut in some way! She was chopping chickens on my back!”
“Let it go, Posh,” Jade said wearily. “You’re okay now.”
“You stay out of this.”
Jade rolled her eyes. She quickly stepped behind Posh and re-wrapped the paper-lock around her neck.
Posh’s eyes widened in surprise. She froze, then crashed to the floor and again lay motionless as a statue. She still gripped her makeshift glass knife.
Jade shrugged at Sara. “She tends to get carried away.”
Sara nodded. She was shaken by the intensity of the young woman’s rage.
She looked back at Beth. Posh’s accusation against her was even more shocking. Chickens? What the hell is wrong with you kids nowadays?
She turned her attention back to Jade, who now stood holding her mother’s wizened head. Sara noted that a paper coil similar to that restraining Posh was wrapped around its severed end.
“Look, I’ve got to go,” Jade said. “I’m late for a date with my boyfriend.”
Sara nodded, “Thanks.” She pointed to Posh’s prone body. I take it that to reanimate her we simply unwrap the paper from her neck?”
Jade nodded. “Burn it afterwards, though, or it’ll cause you major trouble later. It’s very powerful Song Dynasty sorcery.”
She turned to the Forks. “Can I ask you a favor?”
“We are thankful for your assistance,” Lord Tav replied. “What do you desire?”
Despite looking like an ancient warrior princess with her sword and knife, Jade Cure somehow still managed to look embarrassed to boot. “I’m supposed to be meeting my boyfriend in a short while to discuss some heavy relationship issues. I can’t go there direct from here, carrying Ma’s head like this, and if I go home first to drop it off, I’ll be late . . .”
Sara laughed. “You want them to teleport you back home? Is that it?”
Jade grinned. She nodded.
“No problem,” Lady Yaz said. “Where do you live?”
“Chinatown Park. Upstairs in the old temple pagoda down where the hookers congregate.”
“Done,” Lady Yaz said.
Jade instantly disappeared.
Immediately afterwards, the Forks levitated Posh off the floor, and they, she, and Sara Fischer vanished also.
The apartment was silent except for Beth’s snoring, a gentle nasal thunder that rumbled in waves from where she lay blissfully asleep.
CHAPTER 63
Malone
Malone and Glass Horse saw the approaching dust cloud and halted.
It rolled closer, splitting into smaller clouds that finally became pale-skinned women on motorbikes.
The biker women stopped a short distance from Malone and Glass Horse.
Malone immediately noted an oddity. The women all rode sidesaddle, like they only had one leg.
The leader climbed off her bike and hopped over to them.
Malone studied her as she drew near.
She was pretty, with a cute nose and glossy black hair that draped over her shoulders. Her skin was bone white; almost vampiric in its seeming bloodlessness. In contrast, her lips were roses of health.
She wore an army camo top and a long camo skirt, and carried a carbine.
Malone looked closer: the cut of her lower garment wasn’t a skirt’s cut—it looked more like a single-legged pair of pants.
Her footwear was a single foot-wide boot.
Malone glanced quickly at the other biker women. Each was as pallid-skinned as the next, with the same lustrous black hair, the same full lips. All were dressed similarly—the same one-legged pants, the same wide boot. All were armed with carbines.
He returned his attention to their leader, now noticing the ‘MOM’ embroidered patch on her left breast pocket.
She scowled at Malone. “Why are you two trespassing here?”
He smiled back. Her responding expression was dismissive, like she wouldn’t really have cared to know him outside of the present circumstances.
“I asked you a question,” she said. “What are you doing here on the peninsula?”
“I already told you they’re tit-robbers, Gala!” a lusty voice called from behind her. Or maybe he’s a pervert—come to rape us!”
“Is sex all you ever think about, Chloe?” another voice said. T
here was a burst of laughter from the other women.
Malone now saw that all the women had the MOM patches on their pockets.
Gala hopped closer to Malone. “So?”
“My name’s Malone.”
“And I am Glass Horse.
“Malone,” Gala said, rolling his name off her tongue like it was rotting fruit. Her teeth were pointy and staggered so they interlocked when she shut her mouth. “If you’ve no business here—”
“Give her the note, Malone.”
Malone turned to stare at Glass Horse in surprise. “What note?”
“The one in the Trangel Masher. Frank’s next instructions to you.”
Malone’s stare widened further. “It had a note in it? Oh shit. I was in such a hurry to leave Traven that I didn’t check.”
The transparent horse stared at him deadpan. “Then, Malone, we’re in trouble.”
Malone looked back at Gala. She was smiling coldly. “So you like licking tranny lollipop, eh? You enjoy sucking—”
“No, I do not,” he quickly interrupted.
“Stop lying, Malone, you handled the Trangel Masher, the tranny’s most honored weapon. Only men favored and loved by them are permitted—”
“That is true,” Glass Horse interrupted, “but Malone here is different. He is on a quest to—”
Gala silenced it with a ‘talk-to-the-hand’ gesture. She gazed steely-eyed at Malone. “I was saying: just your handling the Masher proves you’re a spy. You’re coming with us, we have special treatments for tranny lovers.”
Malone weighed his chances of disarming her. He considered the distance between them and the fact that she had only one leg and could apparently only hop.
Gala read his intentions. She laughed mockingly.
“Surely you’re not suicidal. Even if you take this weapon from me, it only has a clip of fifteen rounds. There are thirty of us, each armed with a carbine.” She laughed again, her tongue wobbling in her mouth like a portable snake. “Or maybe you’re bulletproof.”
Malone was still undecided. He sized her up, looked at the row of motorcycle riders, gauging the distance separating her and the nearest. If he took Gala hostage . . .
