by J. C. Diem
“Hmm,” he mused, not completely convinced by my explanation. “I will be keeping my eye on you, Ms. Evora,” he warned me. “There may come a time when we can assist each other to reach our goals.”
“My only goal is to do my job,” I said.
“Yes, guarding the citizens of Nox is your duty,” he agreed. “But, as Nandon said, the Immortal Triumvirate are even more evil than my kind.” He smiled at that obvious lie. One of his lackeys who had witnessed our fight must have hurried ahead to tell him about our conversation. “What if they are the ones you need to protect the population of Nox from?” he queried.
“Then we have a problem, because they own me completely,” I informed him.
He stared at me hard, assessing the information I’d just given him. “You truly can’t betray them, can you?” he asked shrewdly.
“Nope. None of the Night Cursed can. We’re their creatures. We couldn’t even harm them if your kind possessed our bodies and tried to force us to attack them.”
“We’ve already tried that,” he said absently. “It failed miserably and the Night Cursed we used were slaughtered.” Their puppets would have regenerated the next night with no memory of what had occurred. My kind were the perfect assassins for the hell spawn to use against their foes. At least those of us with backstories who were able to be possessed were.
“What happens now?” I asked. I couldn’t help him plot against my overlords, which was why I suspected he’d brought me here.
“Will you remember this meeting even after your death?” he asked.
“Death isn’t always enough to wipe my mind clean,” I confirmed. “Especially when something eventful happens.” I’d say that meeting the ruler of the demonkind that resided in Nox was eventful.
“Then I suppose there is no point in me tearing you limb from limb just for the sheer pleasure of it,” he decided. “Yet vampires are watching the exits and they are no doubt working for Lord Kreaton. They will know if you leave our domain intact.”
I didn’t like where this was going one little bit. “If you aren’t going to kill me and I can’t leave unharmed without drawing suspicion from the Immortal Triumvirate, what choices are left?”
“Why, you’ll have to fight your way out, of course,” Raum said, then smiled charmingly.
Chapter Twenty-One
RAUM SAUNTERED PAST me and pulled the door open with one hand. Even in his human form, he was far stronger than a normal man. “It’s been a pleasure, but it’s time for you to leave,” he said and elegantly swept his hand at the passageway.
My heart began to pound as I left his private chambers. The two hulking gray guards glowered at me as I passed between them. When I was a safe distance away from their weapons, I cast a glance over my shoulder to see their leader transforming into his demonic form.
My mind couldn’t quite make sense of the demon who had been wearing a human guise. I saw flashes of midnight blue scales, long spikes running along a spine, vast wings that stretched out wide and a dragon-like head with cunning glowing blue eyes. He tilted his head back and let out a roar that reverberated throughout the catacombs.
Lesser demons roared in response and my blood ran cold. “Uh, oh,” I breathed in dread, then I took off running. It was impossible to retrace my route through the confusing labyrinth of passageways. The catacombs were even harder to negotiate than the streets in the Vampire District were.
Claws and talons reached out from side passages to rake at me as I sped through a narrow hallway that led upwards. Wrath blazed brightly with holy light, forcing the demons to cover their eyes. Steam rose from their singed flesh. None of them were strong enough to withstand his divine power.
I was bleeding from over a dozen wounds and I wouldn’t be able to sprint forever. Just like during my hunt for Nandon, I knew I was being herded somewhere. This time, I didn’t have an audience of millions watching me. It was just the demons and me in their mostly lightless domain.
The hell spawn herded me to a small chamber that only had one entrance. I whirled around when I realized I was trapped to see dozens of demons converging on me. Once they entered the cavern, they would surround me and I would be doomed. My only hope was to block the tunnel and try to hold them off with Wrath. Even though I knew I would return to life tomorrow night, it wasn’t in my nature to give up without a fight. I raced over to the passageway and thrust Wrath towards the approaching monsters.
Roars of pain and rage sounded, making my ears ring. The demons fell back and shielded their faces from the divine glow.
“You can’t hold out forever, Night Cursed,” one of my enemies said. Her voice was so guttural that I could barely understand her. “Once dawn comes, you’ll fall into a coma and then we’ll feast on your juicy flesh!” I’d heard that the magic that had created us wouldn’t send my kind home until just before nightfall whenever we died. They could strip my flesh completely and reduce my bones to splinters long before I would vanish from their domain.
Hungry laughter echoed along the passageway. If I’d had permission to use Wrath to kill them, I would have done my best to slaughter them all. But all I could do was stand there and wait for my eventual death. I didn’t need holy men and women to determine whether they’d broken the laws of Nox. Given their evil natures, every single one of them would have done something worthy of execution.
There were so many demons in the area that I didn’t sense one of them standing right behind me. A hoof scraped on the ground and I spun around. A small purple hell spawn with stubby wings and tiny horns jutting out from his forehead hissed at me. He shrieked when I brought Wrath around to drive him away. One of the demons behind me leaped forward and punched its talons into my back. Wrath retaliated by blazing as brightly as he could. Screams of agony and fear rang out as the creatures beat a hasty retreat. The purple creature scurried around me and fled as well.
Pain wracked me and my legs gave out. Blood poured from the puncture wounds and I knew I had internal injuries. At least I wouldn’t feel it when the demons feasted on my body. I would die from blood loss long before that happened.
On the verge of unconsciousness, I fell forward and caught myself with my hands. Wrath fell to the ground, still pulsing with light. I sensed a familiar presence coming and managed to turn my head to look upwards. A small hole where the stunted demon had entered was directly above me. Chesi poked her invisible head inside, made a noise of distress, then swept down to pick me up. It seemed the vamps weren’t aware of this exit, because I couldn’t sense any of them nearby. I passed out sometime during the journey to Travis’ hospital.
When I woke up, I had a needle in my arm and blood was being pumped into my vein again. Travis entered the room as if he’d sensed me waking up. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he joked. “People will start to talk.”
“They’d only talk if they could remember my visits,” I grumbled. Chesi lay next to me on the bed and I gently rubbed her soft belly. Her back leg kicked, tearing a hole in the sheet and mattress. Even in her sleep, she couldn’t stand to be tickled.
“How did you make it out of the catacombs?” Travis asked as he took a seat beside me. Both of my weapons were propped up against the wall again.
I couldn’t sense anyone close enough to listen, so I filled him in on my secret meeting with Raum. “I had to fight my way out,” I finished up. “Chesi saved my hide again.”
“We’re very lucky to have her on our side,” my main squeeze said. “Being eaten by demons would have been a horrible way to die.”
We both shuddered a little at that prospect. My wounds were rapidly healing, but he’d had to stitch me up again. I would have to visit the hospital tomorrow night to have my stitches removed. I wasn’t sure why they didn’t just vanish and suspected it had something to do with my mysterious backstory. Everyone else’s stitches disappeared by the time they woke up the following night after being attacked. It was just one more thing that made me different from the rest of my kin. “I think
the demons are plotting against the Triumvirate,” I said.
“You mentioned demons were responsible for the undead breaking out of their cemeteries,” Travis said. “They seem to be attempting to cause unrest in Nox.”
“It’s working,” I said wryly. “Nothing instills fear like a zombie apocalypse.” While the uncursed would be safe, the rest of us would be turned into dinner. The zombies, ghouls and armed skeletons were vast in number. If someone could forge them into an army, it would be utter chaos. It was fortunate that they couldn’t be possessed. They didn’t have a high enough brain function to make that possible.
“Even a small outbreak is enough to cause havoc,” Travis agreed. “It’s just as well the holy folk blessed the gates so they can’t be tampered with by demons now.”
“Yeah, but what if demons aren’t the only ones who have a grudge against our leaders?” I mused. “There are other factions out there who want to bring them down.”
“Let’s hope they don’t stoop to unleashing the undead on Nox,” he said uneasily. “The carnage would be devastating.”
“The Night Cursed are the ones who will pay the price if that happens,” I said morosely. “We’re going to be pawns who will be used in the battles against the Immortal Triumvirate.”
“I know,” Travis said with a heavy sigh and squeezed my hand comfortingly. “We’re soldiers who will rise again with no recollection of being used in a war we don’t even want to be a part of.”
We fell into a glum silence at the fate that we couldn’t seem to avoid.
Chapter Twenty-Two
FOR A COUPLE OF NIGHTS, the Night Cursed remembered my hunt for Nandon and cheered whenever they saw me. Then the memory faded and I stopped being a celebrity. As always, the uncursed gave me a wide berth. I was the only one of my kind who was allowed to hunt them down, which made them nervous. The evil monsters and bad guys behaved themselves for a short time before resorting to their usual bad antics.
I saw the five teenage boys that I’d had a run in with in the Shifter District a few times, but avoided them. The more interaction I had with them, the harder it would be to pretend I didn’t remember them. Sgt. Nick Malone and his people patrolled the area. They kept a diligent watch over the werewolf who had kidnapped the sexy nurse. Efrem Prager hadn’t made another attempt to snatch an unwilling victim yet, but it was only a matter of time before he would strike again. The uncursed thought they were above us and that they could get away with treating us like garbage.
My mood was dour as I walked the streets near the shifter woods. Howls sounded from deep within the forest. The shifters were on the hunt and their bloodlust ran high. While I wasn’t magically barred from entering the woods, to do so would be folly. Lord Graham and his people ruled their hunting grounds and visitors weren’t tolerated.
Spying movement out of the corner of my eye, I saw a trio of small ghosts floating along the sidewalk. Shapeless opaque blobs, their black eyeholes searched for something to break their endless boredom of being dead. Their black tattoos stood out starkly against their spectral bodies, marking them as Night Cursed. To my knowledge, there were no uncursed phantoms in Nox.
One of the ghosts paused when a door to a house opened. They seemed to confer, then they zoomed over towards the wererat. I recognized him immediately. He wore a dark brown t-shirt, black jeans and lime green sneakers. He had a long, hairless tail that was draped over his arm. He didn’t have a name and he was just one of the thousands of Night Cursed shifters who couldn’t change form at will. He didn’t remember it, but he was the guide who had led my besties and me to a cabin in their woods. We’d ended up dead after Quilla had given Lord Graham some bad news. I had no desire to help him out now. I watched with a nasty grin as the specters entered his house and began to wreak havoc.
“Help!” the wererat shouted in distress as the ghosts began to smash his belongings to pieces. “My house is infested with spirits!” he screamed.
I would have slunk off and left the apparitions to have their fun, but I was spotted by an uncursed shifter across the street. “Aren’t you Xiara Evora?” she called out. Her accent was American rather than European. She was a homegrown werebeast.
“Yep,” I said with an inaudible sigh.
“Shouldn’t you be helping that poor wererat?” she demanded. She looked young, but I sensed she was at least eighty. Shifters aged far more slowly than humans, so it was hard to tell exactly how old they were sometimes. As were a lot of werewolves, her eyes were amber. Her hair was a thick, rich brown. She planted her hands on her generous hips and looked pointedly at the anxious wererat.
“I’m going,” I mumbled sullenly, then hurried down the sidewalk. Her hearing was acute, so there was no need for me to shout back at her.
“Thank God you’re here,” the rat said when I reached him. He was wringing his hands and his tail was now wrapped around his waist. “You need to get rid of the ghosts before they ruin my house!” he pleaded. Any damage they did would be repaired the following night, but he couldn’t remember that Nox ran on magic.
“You’d better stay out here,” I said. Since I had permission to enter his house, I stepped through the door, then closed it. I could feel the spirits in a room at the back of the building. Glass shattered, but I didn’t hurry my steps. I glanced into the kitchen to see the phantoms had opened a cabinet. One of them was juggling glasses with shapeless hands. Both glasses crashed to the floor and they giggled shrilly. While they weren’t in full poltergeist mode, their spectral bodies had darkened from harnessing their power.
One of the specters spied me and all three of them went still. “Hey, guys,” I said as I strolled into the room. “Normally, I’d chase you out of here, but what the hell, let’s have some fun!”
They turned to look at each other in surprise, then turned back to me expectantly. One of them made an inquisitive gesture as if to ask me what I had in mind.
“You could break a few more glasses and maybe some plates, but let’s hit this wererat where it really hurts,” I suggested. “Let’s go target his mancave.” I’d noticed that the male Night Cursed shifters tended to have a room that was dedicated to their favorite forms of entertainment. The wererat was no different. The living room was large and he had a pool table rather than a dining table in the adjoining room. A pile of porno magazines sat next to his red leather recliner. A gigantic TV sat across from the recliner. It was clearly his pride and joy. “Do you think you can lift that TV?” I asked.
Soundlessly conferring together, the phantoms nodded, then drifted over to it. They usually only threw small objects around. It was taxing to use their power, but they were up to the challenge. They lifted the TV with Herculean effort, then waited for further instructions.
“Toss it out that window,” I suggested, pointing at the large picture window that overlooked the front yard.
Giggling spitefully, the specters floated over to the window, then threw the TV outside. I snorted out a laugh at the sight of the black power cord stretching out behind it as it was yanked out of the wall. Of course, it ran on magic rather than electricity, but they all had cords anyway. Glass shattered and metal clanged loudly when it hit the ground. The wererat was far from amused and let out a squeal of rage. “That’s my TV!” he shouted. I glanced out through the window to see him jumping up and down in a tantrum. The fence was so high that I could only see his ears when he jumped high enough.
“Nice work, guys,” I said in praise as the ghosts gathered around me. “Now, let’s rip those dirty magazines apart,” I suggested. I helped them shred the porno magazines and throw them out through the broken window. I was giggling just as hard as my spectral helpers were by the time we were done. They were moving sluggishly and had depleted their energy, but we were all happy with their efforts. “You’d better move on now,” I said. “You’ll need to rest and regain your power.” They waved, then floated through the wall and vanished.
Leaving the house through the front door, I had to fo
rce down a smirk when I reached the distraught wererat. “The ghosts are gone,” I informed him.
“They ruined my mancave!” he said, shaking a hairy fist at me as if it was my fault. Okay, so it was my fault, but he didn’t know that.
“Men and their ‘mancaves’,” a female Night Cursed shifter said, rolling her eyes. She was a wereleopard and had a spotted hide. A few other females snickered and the wererat glowered at them.
“Well, my work here is done, so I’ll be moving on now,” I said, leaving him to deal with the aftermath. The werewolf who had scolded me for not acting faster watched me suspiciously as I crossed to the curb. A carriage pulled up and I climbed inside. It took off and I managed to wait until I was out of earshot before bursting into laughter. “That’ll teach the little rodent,” I said, wiping my eyes with my sleeve and no doubt smearing eyeliner everywhere. It was almost a pity he would forget all about the ghostly invasion. I sure as hell wouldn’t. The memory was going to linger with me. So far, it was the highlight of my year.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A COUPLE OF NIGHTS later, I was passing through the entertainment zone in my District when I heard a shrill scream coming from a circus. There were a few circuses and each one had a different theme. Some had exotic animals and monsters in their lineup. I already dealt with enough werebeasts on a nightly basis, so I’d avoided the circuses until now. Another high-pitched scream sounded, which meant I had to investigate what was going on. It was hard to tell if the screams had been from terror, or surprise.
“Stop the carriage,” I said and the driver obediently halted. Its bony skull turned to give me a reproachful look for wasting its time. We’d been on the way to the Fae District, but I was going to have to postpone my patrol of that area for now.
