Zane steadied himself on his feet and stood the motorcycle up beside him, gripping one of the handlebars to keep it upright. “Sure, dick-cheese. A real pain in the balls,” he lunged forward then, dragging the motorcycle behind him. “But I’ve come to expect that from YOU!” he roared as he jumped into the air and used the momentum to swing the motorcycle—whipping about in his grip as though it were nothing more than a lawn chair—at Maledictus.
Maledictus finally looked exactly like what Zane would’ve imagined.
Before, when he was still nothing more than a curse that shifted Zane’s body whenever he took control, his appearance was nothing more than a warped shadow of whatever it truly was. Since the creature had never attracted much attention or left many alive long enough to pose, he’d never gotten the chance to actually see what he looked like when the curse took hold.
And, for that, he couldn’t be more thankful.
What stood before him now, however, was in every way a product of Maledictus’ vanity; a Halloween costume built of the recycled ykali skin they’d given him. And while Zane was certain that whoever or whatever Maledictus had been prior to that moment, it wasn’t nearly as horrible as what he was facing.
A massive, disgusting, horny creature…
Fitting.
It just made him want to kill the thing all the more, and the high-speed impact of over five-hundred pounds of American engineering straight to his skull seemed like a great way to get the job done.
Swinging the motorcycle for all he was worth, Zane aimed for the center of his bone-crowned head; spotting the gaping wound on the left side of his face.
Serena, he couldn’t help but smile at the sight as he came down on the monster, you magnificent psychopathic bitch. I love you!
Glaring up at him, Maledictus whipped around; a long, thick tail covered in a row of razor-like bone spurs coming into view as he it sliced through the body of the motorcycle. The rear half of the vehicle—spitting various fluids from the severed engine and lines—careened off into the distance, shrieking with a metallic exclamation as it crashed into one of the fixtures in the distance.
Zane landed on his feet and glared at the remains of his makeshift weapon before casting it aside. “Like I said: ‘a pain in my balls.’”
“You always were quite lippy about your genitals, boy!” Maledictus scoffed, “You seem quite attached to your balls, yes?”
“Not that you’d know anything about that now, lizard-dick!”
Maledictus hissed angrily, “Haven’t heard Serena complain yet!”
Zane’s blood went hot with rage. “FUCKING BASTARD!”
Eager to see his long-running nightmare finally dead, Zane jumped into overdrive and rocketed towards Maledictus. No matter what he’d done to his new body, the monster was still bound by the abilities of an ykali; he had their strength, their swiftness, and their agility, but there was no way that he could keep up or fight back against a sangsuiga at their speed—a speed that could only be seen and followed by another sangsuiga; a speed that rendered bullets in flight seemingly motionless in midair. There wasn’t a chance Maledictus would survive—
Unless he was somehow able to also jump into overdrive…
Unless he was to match Zane’s superhuman pace and begin leading him deeper into the lumber treatment yard…
Unless every expectation of his capabilities was suddenly proven wrong…
Exactly like he was doing now.
Oh, sweet, naïve, dumb-as-a-fucking brick Zaney-boy! Always acting on emotion and emotion alone! What a predictable dipshit you are! Maledictus’ voice echoed within Zane’s head as he chased after his target, proving that he also had retained at least some of his psychic abilities; and if he could move like a sang and manipulate minds like an auric he was even more dangerous than Zane could’ve imagined. Didn’t stop to think that me ROTTING in your guts for all those years might actually have offered me at least some benefits upon our parting, did you?
Zane didn’t respond. He didn’t have the time. He didn’t want to bother wasting time responding to him. However, he did offer a roar of rage as he charged after Maledictus.
Zane rocketed up a steel staircase to an overpass that bridged between three towering wood chippers that formed a triangle grid around a massive pile of woodchips partially covered in a series of tarps. The glimmer of sleeping blades beneath him created a foreboding illusion of a hellish creature’s hungry mouth waiting beneath the long, narrow bridge, and Zane quietly entertained the idea of hurling Maledictus over the railing and into the waiting—
Banking around a corner to intercept his target, he ran directly into Maledictus’ waiting elbow.
Zane pitched back, clutching at his broken nose and stumbling out of overdrive as blood poured down his face; the throbbing burn in his face blinding him. Beyond the rolling, hot waves of red, he caught a blurred glimmer of movement a split second before one of Maledictus’ giant fists plowed into his stomach with enough force to lift his feet off the steel platform. His breathing faltered through his broken nose. His eyes strained against the well of tears that had erupted in response to the assault on his sinuses. His guts folded and rippled within his stomach around the kinetic force still rolling through them. Sensing his body drifting in midair, he made a desperate grab for the railing before he was fed to the sleeping-yet-deadly teeth of the machines beneath them.
His grip faltered on the railing, dropping him another three feet until the fingers of his right hand found purchase on the platform.
Then one of Maledictus’ talons pierced through the back of his palm and through the grating beneath his hand.
“Oh no, no, no, Zaney-boy! You ain’t dying that easy!” Maledictus chided, reaching over the railing and dragging Zane up by his arm and planting him back on the platform. Zane teetered and strained to focus on Maledictus, succeeding in getting a clear view of the monster as both of his hands clapped around his head, boxing his ears and kicking up another round of ringing in his head. Staggering forward, Maledictus maintained his hold on Zane’s head, dragging his face down as he drove his bony knee into his face—sending another wave of agony rolling through his already broken nose—before tossing him back onto the platform. “There’s still so much I wanna show you, old friend; especially now that I’ve got a chance to show you first-hand what I’ve been making you do for years!” He laughed and started towards him, “Like what I’m going to do when I take that whiny cunt down there and our favorite blonde bitch all at once!”
Zane couldn’t bring himself to rage at that point. He could barely see, his vampire senses were warped by the scent and taste of his own blood, and he felt as though the slightest movement on his part would force not only every meal he still had within him but also most of his organs out one of his ends…
If not both.
“You don’t look too good there, little buddy,” Maledictus squatted down in front of him, resting his forearms across his knees and letting his long tail snake between his feet and inch closer to Zane’s face. “And I can’t help but feel like this isn’t at least partially your fault.” He stood, “Now I can’t give you all the credit—that wouldn’t be fair to me, after all—but it was you that underestimated me; if you’d have stopped and considered all the sweet, tender fucking years we’d had together as ‘roommates,’ you might have anticipated what I’d be capable of on my own. After all, you can’t just hand a lizard an evolutionary advantage like me and expect it to remain a simple lizard, can you?” He scoffed and shook his head as his tail began to gently brush Zane’s cheek, “I’m just as fast as you now, and I can—as I’m sure you’ve seen—even manipulate and change my body”—he made a note of framing his face between a square of paired clawed thumbs and pointer fingers—“courtesy of that crotch-sniffing mongrel buddy of yours.”
Zane groaned, fighting to get his bearings; to get back up; to fight. “So how do you explain the—”
“The mindreading?” Maledictus beamed, yanking his t
ail back and cutting the left side of Zane’s cheek on one of his barbs in the process. “Oh come now, Zaney-boy, I should be allowed at least a few fucking secrets, shouldn’t I? Like what I intend to do to you, for example. Sure, I’ve got all sorts of plans for that red-headed codpiece of yours down there, and all the squirming little dingleberries scurrying about the Vail Clan—oh, the things I’m gonna do to that blue-haired cunt; do you think the carpet matches the drapes with that one?—but you… oh you, Zaney-boy, are in for an outright amusement park of torture. And what makes my plans for you all the sweeter?” He leaned in, gripping either side of the railing in his hands and lowering his body—shoulders popping and unhinging as he brought his face so close to Zane’s he was certain the monster would try to kiss him—so that he could whisper, “I can bring you back from the dead to do it all over again.”
Zane’s eyes widened.
Back from the dead?
He looked up at the monster’s leering face, studying it for any sign of deceit. There was none.
The body at the cemetery… had that been—
Maledictus nodded in response to his thoughts, “It’s taken a little practice, I’ll admit. Whatever I was capable of has grown a tad rusty, but I assure you that I have the means to make the dead walk. And when I’m back to full strength, I wanna try a little trick.” He stood, his shoulders once again popping and grinding as they returned to their sockets, and he made a note of shrugging to show that no damage had been done in the process. “See, I’ve been having this dream—least I think it’s a dream; could be a memory, ‘cept the fucking thing is just so goddam… well, you get the point—and, in this dream-memory-thing, I am causing all sorts of sweet fucking mayhem; like, fucking world changing mayhem. And I like it! And it won’t be long ‘til I’m strong enough to do it here,” he smirked as his tail whipped excitedly back-and-forth, slamming against the railings with each pass. “I’m going to torture, rape, and murder every-fucking-one that has ever meant a damn thing to you, then I’m going to rip you apart piece-by-bitchy-bloody-piece and then I’m going to stitch you back together and bring you back. Again and again and a-fucking-gain, Zaney-boy! And I’m going to get stronger and stronger each time I do; your agonizing deaths and rebirths are going to charge whatever batteries I’ve got waiting inside me. Then I’m going to bring the entire world—vampire, mythos, human, ghost, angel, My Little fucking Ponies, God… all of it!—to their fucking knees!”
Zane groaned and shook his head, scoffing after he’d spit a wad of blood over the edge of the platform, “Obviously putting you in a lizard body was a mistake; same old insanity, half the brain capacity, eh, Mega-dick-face?” He sneered up at the leering monster, hoping that stealing one of Ben’s “accidental” interpretations of Maledictus’ name might spark him to keep talking. Anything to give him just a little more time. “Hell, you were better off sharing a mind with me!”
“YOU’RE A FUCKING FOOL!” Maledictus hissed and lurched forward before catching himself in mid-lunge. Zane smirked at that. He really didn’t want to spoil his plans by just killing him then and there. His enraged hiss drew on a moment longer as his talons clacked incessantly on the platform, “I’d have been better equipped sharing the body with a fucking earthworm!”
Zane grinned, fighting through the pain to look entertained by his opponent’s rage. Just like Serena had taught him. “Kinda says something about the dumb fuck you’ve gone and evolved yourself into, huh?” He made a note of mockingly framing Maledictus between a square of paired thumbs and pointer fingers, “My speed, Raith’s transformation, the auric abilities from the land of eerie-mysticism-and-bullshit… and a crippling retardation courtesy of a peanut-brain filled to the bursting point with raw, ludicrous insanity and the lingering rage that you still can’t find your dick in that hand-bag you call a body!”
Maledictus’ body shook with rage as he backhanded Zane, sending him skidding across the platform. “THE TWO OF YOU FESTERING FUCKWADS HAD BETTER LEARN TO SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP ABOUT MY DI—”
Zane, though hurting, laughed at that, “The two of us, huh?” He finally mustered the strength to drag himself to his feet—clinging to the railings as he forced his legs to accept the burden of his weight—and narrowed his gaze at Maledictus, “You deceitful cocksucker; all that talk of being with her—all your cocky, arrogant swagger—and you can’t even scare her into fucking you, can you?” He cackled, nearly toppling over under the force of his own laughter. “You… you pathetic little iguana! You’re nothing but a—”
He didn’t see Maledictus coming, but he felt the aftermath as the two of them careened over the railing and slammed into one of the stairwells before chaotically rolling down the narrow, steel column.
Zane groaned, looking up at the furious face of Maledictus when they’d finally come to a stop, “Oh my… did I find a tender spot, princess?” He nodded towards the wound on Maledictus’ face, “Are you still fuming that my girlfriend got to penetrate you but not the other way around?”
“Maybe I’ll kill you now, after all,” Maledictus growled, “So that I can carry on your torture without being forced to listen to your relentless fucking banter!”
Head still swimming, Zane’s eyes blinked in an effort to focus on his attacker once again. In the daze and confusion, he caught sight of something that brought a smile to his face, and he felt a flower of confidence bloom in the back of his mind.
“That sure does sound swell, asshole—it really does—but, before you go through with all that, y’know, killing and bringing ponies to their knees and whatnot, you might wanna work an extra step into your plan.”
Maledictus sneered and started towards him, clenching his fists. “Not that I particularly care what a dumb shit like you thinks, but what—pray tell—are you babbling about?”
Zane was already laughing at what he knew was coming.
“You might want to watch your back.”
Raith had never met Zane’s informant, Ben, nor was he particularly trusting of the call that the club-owner had made to the clan. Though he’d been curious how somebody would have access to their private line, the message took precedent over any other questions he might have had.
Tracking the signal on Zane’s phone, Raith had been able to follow his friend, who Ben had expressed a concern for after leaving his club in shambles to pursue a suspect. Raith knew that Zane was a heavy-handed warrior, but it wasn’t his style to terrorize huge groups if he could avoid it. Not that Zane was particularly kindhearted when it came to strangers, but, for him, taking the time and energy to break a few strangers’ faces was time and energy that could be better applied to breaking their target’s face. The only exception Raith, or any of the others who were privy to the call, could make was Maledictus.
To get to him, Zane would’ve bulldozed the entire city and never once batted an eyelash at the bloody mess he was leaving.
So if this Ben’s club was recovering from Zane rocketing out of the scene like a bat out of hell, it was a safe bet that the target he was pursuing was one that Raith was every bit as interested in seeing brought down.
And, as luck would have it, his deductive reasoning wasn’t wrong.
Unfortunately, Zane had obviously bitten off more than he could chew in trying to take on Maledictus in his new body on his own.
Raith was already in his therion form and putting more and more distance from the Dodge Viper he’d used to get to the lumber yard. Ahead of him, near a trio of wood chipping towers, he saw Zane—looking like he’d just called the late Joseph Stryker’s mother a “whore”—cowering in the shadow of…
Well, somebody’s been doing some reconstruction!
“—want to watch your back,” Zane, despite his appearance, was laughing at Maledictus.
Whatever he’d just said sparked some suspicion and the towering, tail-wielding, horned creature started to turn to face what was coming.
Raith, however, was faster.
Raith, moreover, was eager.
; Zane had only made half of the turn to face the incoming threat before it came down on him. It was no longer incoming, it was no longer waiting—no longer stalking or planning or sneaking—and, as the whirlwind of Raith—a flurry of teeth and claws slicing air and flesh alike to a chorus of ravenous snarls and grunts—collided with the monster Maledictus had become, the threat became relevant.
Raith’s powerful therion hands pinned Maledictus’ arms to the ground and he began snapping his jaws at his face. Before his teeth could sink into the monster’s sneering face, though, Maledictus’ tail wormed over his shoulder and twisted around his throat, holding him back.
“My my, aren’t you a big doggy,” Maledictus growled. As they continued their struggle, the monster’s only eye glistened and widened. “Wait! Are you…?” he cackled and kicked Raith off of him, shooting to his feet, “Yes! That is you! You’re the dog that lived inside Zaney-boy with me for all those years! I see Zane was polite enough to put you in fellow fleabag’s corpse. Isn’t that precious!” He frowned as he took in the sight of the now-heaving, snarling creature before him, “Too bad, though. I liked you better then; not nearly so fucking panty and growly.” He shifted his one-eyed gaze to Zane, smirking, “I’m afraid your doggy went rapid, boy; we had to put ‘im down!”
Zane’s body shook with rage, the act causing his tortured muscles to ache. He wanted to get up; wanted to help his friend and finally take down the monster that had plagued them for so long; wanted to, but he was too damn weakened from his injuries.
Looks like somebody could use a pick-me-up, Zoey’s psychic voice echoed in Zane’s mind, and a small flask dropped between his knees. Drink up, Prince Valiant, we need you at your best.
“Z-Zo—”
Nuh uh! Hiding myself from tall, dark, and truly heinous is tough enough with his new auric awareness without you advertising that Raith didn’t come alone. Now drink!
Scarlet Night: The Complete Trilogy Page 48
