by Eli Constant
His last sentence sends shivers to jolt my body like cresting waves in a brutal wide-ocean storm. I see a movement, something sliding upwards from within the silky pants he wore. It pushed against the buttoned waistline, trying to snake out of his clothing. He sees me looking and he reaches a hand down to pat the bulge. “You see,” he whispers, his voice still that hiss that made me cringe, but now there is a heat there. A heat that makes me shiver in a way that is as far from pleasure as the moon is from the sun. “I am ready for you, Victoria. He would not be so very angry with me if I were to take only a small taste of your body as recompense. You owe me that. A body.”
“I owe you nothing,” I feel fear and anger mingling inside my mouth as I speak. He won’t touch me. If I can help it. But can I… can I save myself? I find that I am changing, becoming less a person and more a ship not strong enough to withstand the assault of seawater. The salt falls from my fingers, sending granules spilling against the floor. “You. Need. To. Leave.” I close my eyes and go to that place inside myself, the place I keep my power, but where now also resides the added strength that has come to me in these past days. These days since Liam came into my life.
I feel the change coming on.
The burning in my hand, radiating like a spider web from the mark Liam placed on my hand. It moves across my body until I am Charlotte’s web, covered in the glowing writing of an ancient peoples. The words expand until they connect. They continue to merge until I am a shining thing, every inch of my skin radiating pale and lovely light.
“No.” Blackthorn’s voice breaks through my concentration, but the fire within does not fade. “You cannot be!” His hiss is disbelieving now. He is the one that feels fear whilst mine is slowly giving way to a singular purpose.
Survival.
I open my eyes. I find the fear in his face and the changeling beneath my skin that has altered my body takes joy in the sight. It is the first time in my life that I do wish to be feared for what I am.
Blackthorn begins to ripple and mutate, into the creature of teeth I’d witnessed at Jim’s bar. “I will not let this stand. You will not have the throne. You are no Blood Queen. The dark court will never bow to you. He would not have sent me here if he had known.” Confusion plays across the dark fairies face and then, he seems to understand something. “He sent me here to test you. He has used me.”
I still do not know who Blackthorn’s master is, but now is not the time for questions. I want him to know that I am powerful. I want him to know that, indeed, I am no normal necromancer.
I raise my hands into the air and I focus only on him. “I feel your death on you, Blackthorn. It lies there, just under the surface. The more you use this power, the power that should not be yours, the closer you come to the afterlife.”
“Lies.” He snarls, gliding around the table and stopping just a few feet from me. “Lies.”
“It’s the truth and I can see you know it. I see the fear on your face. You are living on borrowed time and borrowed power. Whoever you serve now will soon be your undoing.” What I’m saying does not come from my conscious brain. It is as if the power inside of me is doing the speaking. Something compels me to press the thumbnail of my right hand into my left wrist. I press and press until a thin line of blood begins to form and trickle. I lower my hands to the floor. I let the crimson wetness drip against the slick linoleum floor beneath me.
The sound is like a grandfather clock. It is loud, louder than it should be. It is the time, the sand in the hourglass running out for Blackthorn. I can see he hears it too, by the widening of his shadow-kissed eyes. “I’ve been marked with the ancient sign of the Blood Queen. I have been chosen. That will not change.. Not now. Not ever.” I feel the blood, the way it pools like a small lake against the floor. I compel it to move forward towards Blackthorn.
“You are no Blood Queen. You are filth. Half breed. Human. My master has betrayed me. I will betray him.” Blackthorn walks a step closer. And that only brings him closer to the river that is reaching from me to him. It touches his black polished boot and snakes upwards, beneath his pants. It finds its way to that long, hard member that is still trying to push out of his pants and find purchase in my body.
I leave a thought of decay there. I leave death to replace the life held within his sperm. And then I urge the river of red further upwards.
I clench my fist when the stream of crimson reaches its destination. My hand, nearly coated red now with blood, feels his heart. It is beating at a horse’s gallop. I can feel the blood entering through the inferior and superior vena cava. I can feel the oxygen-poor blood moving from one right atrium to right ventricle. I can feel the tricuspid valve closing and the right atrium opening. I move along the path, following the blood cells, until I am in the pulmonary artery.
“I can feel you, Blood Queen. Pretender to the great throne,” Blackthorn is a breath away from me, so close that I can smell him. He is a dying forest, decaying piles of debris rotting in shade. I had been so lost in the power that I had not felt him move nearer to me.
“And I can feel you.” I squeeze the heart I am holding. It moves like over-set gelatin in my grip. I focus on where I want to do the most damage.
I know the human body.
I know how to cause it pain.
And now, I do not need knives to do the damage for me.
I think of a stone, picture it in my mind until it is as real as the wall at my back. I form it within Blackthorn’s pulmonary artery. And I feel the blood begin to clot against the newly-made dam.
Blackthorn clutches at his chest. He can feel the stone. He claws with his lengthened fingernails until he has torn through his jacket and shirt. In a matter of moments, his exposed skin is a mass of ruined, ragged flesh. He excavated with cruel, desperate hands until I see his heart.
It is no longer beating like a thriving horse.
It is fluttering, the way I imagine a fairy’s wings to rise and fall in slow, gentle waves.
He is dying.
“I,” Blackthorn chokes on the words, blood spilling from his mouth like an underpowered fountain. It sprays against my face and clings to the silvery strands of my transformed hair, “do not die so easily, Blood Queen.” He raises one hand, flesh clinging to the fingernails, and he brings it down in a swift, yet listless motion. “William.” The name is a gasp as Blackthorn collapses, the last of his strength spent.
I am assaulted by the angry specter that has been hovering so unobtrusively during my exchange with Blackthorn that I have forgotten about it.
It pushes me against the ground like it has true form. It is heavy, like an elephant against me. I cannot breath. All of my power is nothing against it. As I fight for air, my vision begins to blur and darken. There are no stars when you are dying. I don’t know why people say that.
I try and send my power upwards. But this thing is beyond my control, whatever it is. It is no normal spirit, no normal wraith. There is no unfinished business for me to solution my way out of this. Even in a malevolent spirit, I can cling to the emotions and push for compassion, to make it understand that there is a way to be free, to move on.
I nearly wish that I was dealing with a zombie, a poor spirit that has been kept too long in its body- the light of the living long gone from its eyes. It would be a simplicity I understood. Zombies are empty. They are also controlled by emotion and need, but in the way an infant is controlled by bottles and diapers. They attack to fulfill a basic hunger. They roam to find something they have lost, but they do not know what. Yes, zombies are simpler.
Wraiths are infinitely more complicated. They never had the bodies to decay around them. They never had release. The anti-ether drew them in like a moth to a flame. I sometimes wonder how it does it—how it recognizes the rage in a person and magnifies it until all the goodness is overwhelmed, until there is nothing left for them in the ether.
But what this is, this thing that is not a wraith, that holds me to the ground with so much force that I coul
d never remove it of my own power, is something different.
“Yes, my William is something different” Blackthorn is standing over me. I can see the full length of him despite the giant on my body…because the giant is see-through.
“Sausage Fingers?” I say the nickname without thinking.
“His name is William,” Blackthorn screams it, his elongated mouth threatening to touch the floor.
“I killed him,” I cough around the words. I have little air left in my lungs with which to expel them.
Blackthorn laughs. There is no fear in his face now. No pain. The wounds across his body are knitting together. Knit one. Purl two. Knit one. Purl two.
He is healing and I am dying.
Necromancers have abnormally long lives. We are the people you see in the news celebrating their hundred and fifth birthdays when everyone else is lucky to make it to eighty. It is a fact we were able to hide from the world.
But now that does not matter. I will not be some grey-haired woman on the news blowing out candles on a cheaply-made cake. That future is gone now.
That is the way with supposed futures. They are only supposed, not promised.
“I killed him,” I say it again, a faint whisper now that even I strain to hear.
“William will never die. He is mine to keep. Mine. It will take time to form him a new body, which is a great inconvenience to me. And now… now that master has betrayed me…” Blackthorn’s voice trails off. “I must serve him until my William is once again whole.” He does not say the words to me, only to himself as if he is resigned to doing what he must.
“What is he?” I gasp out the words. My eyes are threatening to roll, hide away in the back of my head as I succumb to the darkness. I was recently flush with power and now I am dying.
Life is funny. Death more so.
“He is a golem, Blood Queen. He is the measure of a man, with little brain in his head, but with a loyalty that could rival any on this earth, put into a body of great, manufactured strength. He is mud, formed of clay by these two hands.” Blackthorn holds his hands out, twisting them this way and that so I may see the perfection of them. “He is my child.”
I cannot fight it any longer then. I let myself fall down the rabbit hole, into blackness, and I await my death there. Like a child in a closet hiding from the monster beneath its bed.
Chapter Thirty-One.
Coming back to life is like pushing through ice-cold water and beating my fists against a solid, frozen barrier until I finally break through and can breathe again.
And I haven’t even been properly dead. Only mostly dead.
“She’s waking up,” A small, timid voice whispers.
“Shhhh. She’s probably like them.”
“No way. They wouldn’t put her in here if she was like them.”
“You don’t know that.”
“But look at her hair. That’s not normal.”
“People dye their hair weird colors all the time.”
“Seriously, guys, shut up.”
I pick out four distinct voices, all young, all female. One’s speech is a little slurred, like she is speaking around a busted lip. I know the way it warps words, because I’ve nursed my own share of mouth injuries.
It’s important—the number of speakers and their gender—but I am too muddle-headed at the moment to discern why.
“Where am I?” I force the words out, even though my lips are still glued together and my mouth is so dry I fear it might crack from the utterance. I keep my eyes closed, knowing I’m not ready to use them yet.
“No idea,” it is the first voice that speaks, less timid this time. “We’ve been here for weeks. At least we think it’s been weeks. I was taken first, and that was on the 3rd. Then Ayla was taken and that was the 8th. Shanna was taken on the 20th and Emma on the 25th. Lilly… Lilly was the last one to get here, but,” a sniffle interrupts the words and I can almost hear the small speaker straightening her shoulders and pulling strength from her middle to survive the coming words, “she’s not here now.”
The 3rd. The 8th. The 20th. The 25th.
Those dates, printed out on paperwork, paperwork slipped into manila folders. Folders sat on Terrance’s desk these weeks as he’s desperately searched.
And Lilly. Lovely, lovely Lilly.
I bolt upright, eyes still tightly closed, and it is a huge mistake. My head swims and I have to turn away from where I think the girls are, think because I cannot open my eyes. My body wants to be sick, but I fight the sensation. I force down the nausea until I know I can keep myself from throwing up.
The girls chatter as I stay perfectly still with my eyes tightly shut, but they are just a dull hum.
“Is she okay?”
“I’m fine. I just thought I was going to be sick for a minute there.” I speak calmly, each word calculating whether or not I actually have control over my stomach. By the end of my sentence, I am convinced. Put a couple extra points for the necromancer up on the score board, gentlemen.
“Dude, seriously. Point in the other direction if you’re going to. I’m gross enough as it is.”
I open my eyes then and I move to sit on my ass with my legs not quite crisscross apple sauce. I open my eyes slowly, hoping I am okay enough to function. Because I must function. These girls need me. I couldn’t save Lilly, but I’ll save them.
“My name’s Victoria Cage.” My vision is still blurry, but I scan the dim surroundings and find their faces. They are so dirty that the bruises are barely visible beneath the filth. Their hair is matted and unruly. But I can see the beauty hidden. They are each unique and lovely.
There is something to be said for being of average looks, average height, a little more than average in girth. I wouldn’t be the kind of girl stolen in my youth for nefarious reasons.
Of course, I’ve now been kidnapped for being some mythical Blood Queen slash necromancer slash whatever the hell else I am.
The girls introduce themselves one by one. I know them though, without the formal introduction. I’ve seen their small photos stapled below their names. Up until now, they were 2D and I could make them less real. Now though, I was wearing 3D glasses, the reality of them in sharp focus.
“Are you here to save us?” The first speaker, Hannah, has hope in her voice, but not much. That eats at my heart more than the sight of them in such ill condition. They are all older than Lilly. Nearly preteen. I remembered this from the files, but now it makes me wonder why Lilly was even chosen, so much younger, so much more vulnerable.
“I am.” I don’t say ‘if I can’ but it would be closer to the truth. “Have they hurt you?”
They shake their heads in unison. Hannah speaks again; she seems to be the leader even though I know she is the youngest of the remaining girls. “They feed us enough and give us water. They don’t let us go to the bathroom anymore.” She glances at Ayla, “One of us got ballsy and made a run for it.”
“But they haven’t… touched you?” I don’t want to ask it. I know Lilly was assaulted.
“No, not us. Not yet. I heard them talk about… buyers. They didn’t want to spoil us.” Hannah’s voice is sad. I can see tears forming in all of their eyes now. “But Lilly was little. She wasn’t like us. She wouldn’t stop screaming for her mom.”
“It was the tall man that hurt her.” Ayla speaks now. “We tried to stop him, but it was like he couldn’t hear us. He just pulled her out of the cage and he kept kicking her, telling her she had to be quiet. He…” Ayla swallows and looks down. I see the teardrops that fall to wet her hands which are clasped together across her knees. “Did other things too. And then this other man, a scary man, he bent over her and he just watched her die. He didn’t do anything to save her.”
I assume the second man was Blackthorn and It feels like there is a vice grip keeping both of my lungs from filling with air. “I know.”
“You do?” Hannah again.
I nod. “Yes, I didn’t know about the second man letting her di
e, but I knew the rest and I’m so sorry you all had to see that. I’m so very sorry.”
“We’re not dead. You shouldn’t say sorry to us. We should have done something to stop it, to protect her. It was like watching my baby sister get hurt. And we just kept quiet. We all kept quiet because we were scared.” It’s Emma speaking now. She’s the eldest. The one with the little sister named Emily. Emma and Emily. And a little brother Edward.
“It’s not your fault, Emily. It’s not any of your faults.” I stand up, finally looking at the full scope of our situation and not just the dim area surrounding the girls’ scared faces.
“It doesn’t feel that way.” Shanna now, a whimper that dissolves into sobs. “What happened to her… it could have happened to any of us. It wasn’t fair for it to be her. She was the smallest.”
I’ll kill Blackthorn for what he’s done. I don’t care that he’s powerful. I don’t care that he has an evil spirit at his beck and call. These girls will survive and he won’t.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” Ayla inches towards me. “They’re, kind of strange.”
“And your hair?” Emma this time, also inching closer, her hand rises a fraction and then falls again, as if she’d been thinking about touching the silver-white strands that frame my face.
“Leave her alone.” Hannah puts a hand on both Ayla and Emma’s shoulders. “She’s in the same boat we are. She doesn’t need to play a million questions with us.”
“I don’t mind.” I force a smile. Despite my words, the girls fall silent. Which is probably good, so that I can give my full attention to how to escape.
The cage we are in is about the size of a shipping container. There is one entrance, padlocked with a chain as thick as my forearm. Outside the confines of the cage is what looks to be an abandoned warehouse’s main, expansive room. Moonlight is streaming in from a bank of windows along the roof, most are broken or cracked. There is the distinct smell of flesh clinging to the peeling paint that covers the walls.
