Of course they would. Any Color Phase would be terrified of a monster and willing to submit to his demands.
Hope nodded almost to herself. “Yeah, for right now, I know I need to stay in the Cloudland.”
Kingu considered explaining that “for right now” stretched into the foreseeable centuries, but a pounding at his door interrupted him.
He sighed in annoyance. “Wait here.” He already knew who was coming to bother him and it wouldn’t take long. Kingu stalked down the hall again, down the stairs and into his foyer. The fountain in the center of the floor cascaded down in droplets of blood red poison.
Hope had called the jagged glass water feature “elegant.”
Kingu glanced over at his elegant waterfall of death and refused to be charmed by the description. Instead, threw open the door located in the portcullis and glowered at the idiots he already knew would be waiting.
Sure enough, Zakkery stood there a smile on his face. “Are those wedding bells I hear, big guy?”
Beside him, Galen was looking seriously pissed that Hope had survived the execution. “You had no right to steal that woman from the arena. She’d been judged guilty and sentenced to death.”
“The woman is mine.” Kingu said flatly. “Are you here to challenge my claim?”
Galen’s mouth thinned. “No, but she is clearly one of the Council’s human spies and doesn’t belong in my kingdom.”
“The girl is a Color Phase. Not a human.” Kingu stationed his body in the doorway, forcing Zakkery and Galen to remain standing on the drawbridge outside. No one came into his house. Especially, not when Hope was sitting on that bed upstairs, looking like a damn sugary confection. Kingu felt his hand tighten on the edge of the doorframe, blocking the other men’s path with his arm even as he kept his voice calm. “Despite her Elemental heritage, I find her… interesting.”
“Well, before you do whatever to her, and probably kill the girl in the process, I’d like to at least question her further.”
Kingu’s lip curled into a snarl. Her undefeated gladiatorial career aside, Hope was fragile. Easily broken. There was no way he’d hand her back over to the Banished Phases for an interrogation.
“And I’d like a nice, bright constellation named after me, like the other gods have, but sometimes the fates are unfair. No one comes near my woman. Not unless they’d like to spend a few moments gazing at their own kidneys before the die.”
Zakkery snorted as if that threat amused him.
Galen ground his teeth. “We need to discover how that human could best five trained warriors. It doesn’t seem possible without some kind of powers and the woman has no discernible energy.”
Kingu stared at him. “You’re not listening, boy. I already told you that my woman is off limits. I require all of her attention.”
The way he delivered the statement basically meant, “I’ve got her naked and I’m keeping her that way.” It was the easiest excuse he could think of for why he wanted the Phases to stay away.
Honestly, he agreed with Galen’s assessment of Hope’s death match triumph. That was the problem. It wasn’t possible for her to defeat five trained warriors. She’d basically just stood there while the other contestants slaughtered themselves.
No one had luck that good. Certainly, not a woman who claimed to be jinxed.
When Hope entered that arena, something had happened. Some kind of powers had kicked in to help her. Since it hadn’t been his doing, it had to have come from Hope herself. The more Kingu thought about, the more certain he became that it was the only explanation. Hope didn’t feel like she had any energy, but she possessed latent powers that Kingu didn’t understand. And since Kingu knew a shitload about supernatural talents that meant Hope’s gift was rare.
Hell if he was going to tell Galen that, though.
Kingu wasn’t about to share his treasure.
“Can we cut the chitchat here?” Zakkery put in. “Kingu, I got you what you wanted. Now, it’s your turn to honor the deal.”
He wanted the necklace.
Whatever.
Kingu reached into his suit pocket and pulled it out. He’d taken it off his mother’s comatose body earlier that day. About twenty minutes after he first saw Hope, he’d gone back to the Air Kingdom where Kay slept in undisturbed solitude… and he’d yanked the pendant right off her neck.
In retrospect, that should have worried him. Until today, Kingu had been content to let the necklace stay locked around his mother’s throat. Then he’d been pushed into acid by a chaotic, mismatched tornado and suddenly he’d wanted the necklace close at hand. In his pocket. Ready and waiting. Because, he’d already known that he was going to trade it for Hope.
Kingu could admit that, now. He’d known from the first that she was his one.
No price was too high to have her.
He spared the thin piece of silver and enamel a brief glance and then tossed it to Zakkery.
The man’s gray eyes gleamed as he caught it and held it up for inspection. The bar of metal twirled on the end of the chain. It didn’t look powerful, but that was part of its power. In the right hands, the necklace could do many incredible, impossible things. In the wrong ones, it could destroy whole worlds.
“I can’t believe you’d trade that for a woman.” Galen probably had no idea what the necklace even did, but he still shook his head like Kingu was the biggest fool in the universe. “You could have asked for anything and you pick that human female?”
Zakkery ignored that and glanced at Kingu. “I might have some questions on how the necklace works. My client wants the power channeled in a very specific way.”
For the first time, Kingu felt a moment’s doubt about handing the pendant over. It wasn’t like he cared what Zakkery and his unseen boss planned to do with Kay’s necklace, but bartering for Hope increased the sensation of being tainted.
He was buying Hope from the Phases.
They didn’t care what he did to her. Didn’t care that she was innocent and he had locked her inside a fortress. Galen apparently thought that Kingu was about to start raping the girl and he was okay with that. Hope could be chained to a wall and no one would give a shit.
Memories of being trapped inside his mother’s house came flooding back. Decade after decade of mindless servitude and unrelenting pain, knowing that no one would ever come to save him. The rage and isolation. And then, finally, a resignation so deep that he couldn’t even hate Kay anymore. Or maybe he just hated her so deeply that he became numb to it.
Kingu had been a shell, his entire being compressed into some tiny, hidden place in his mind. He’d only survived by clinging to the hopeless dreams of his unattainable woman and nursing his secret desires to see his mother’s plans fail.
Oh, how he’d wanted Kay to fail.
He’d nodded dutifully when she called for revenge against the universe and complained bitterly about the how the Air Phases were screwing up her brilliant schemes with their ineptitude. But, deep inside, Kingu had loved seeing her stymied at finding the Tablets of Fate.
Kingu suddenly felt the same way about these Elementals.
He didn’t want either of them to succeed in their plans.
Galen was a power hungry little twerp who maintained his status by imprisoning anyone strong enough to stand against him and oppressing the rest. And Zakkery couldn’t possibly have trusted Kingu to take care of Hope. Why would anyone trust Kingu, at all, let alone with something so delicate? He’d handed an innocent girl into the clutches of a primordial god without a flickering of remorse.
What if Kingu had been intent of harming Hope? Or what if some other man with a trinket Zakkery desired demanded her first and he’d taken her against her will? Who have would’ve helped her? Not these damn Phases, that much was clear. They’d sold her. To Kingu, of all beings.
He was enraged on her behalf.
Terrified over what might have happened if he’d been a different kind of monster.
Galen would ne
ver get near Hope and Zakkery was out of his smoke filled mind if he thought Kingu would conduct some kind of “how to” seminar on working Kay’s pendant for maximum evil destruction. They could both go to hell.
Kingu stepped back from the doorway. “You wanna learn how to use that necklace, try Google. I’m busy.”
“That woman could be planning to destroy all of us…”
Kingu slammed the door, cutting off Galen’s outraged protest.
Dickhead.
Kingu shook his head in disgust, annoyed that he’d been called away from Hope to deal with those idiots. He turned back towards the stairs.
Instantly, it occurred to him that he’d made a big mistake. He should have considered the fact that Hope would never do what she was told and stay in her room. He should have locked her in the damn bedchamber, because now everything was ruined.
Hope stood on top step, an appalled expression on her beautiful face. “What have you done?” She gasped like he really was a monster. “How could you possibly help the Banished Phases? What kind of man are you?”
Chapter Eight
And, alas, with dust.... No useful product could ever be made to come forth
from such chaotic elements.
Anthony Trollope- “The Claverings”
Lansing, of the Dust House had once believed.
He’d believed in the Reprisal. Believed that they could make a difference. Believed that they’d have vengeance for all the people who had perished in the Fall. Believed they would wipe out every fucking Air Phase who’d ever fouled the universe. Believed that Chason, of the Magnet House was the leader who would finally bring them justice.
Now, he knew he’d been wrong.
Chason wasn’t the same man who’d stood at Mara’s funeral and vowed to fight. That had been the commander who Lansing followed and trusted. Someone even their enemies admired for his ruthless commitment to his goals.
This Chason was an unstable lunatic. This Chason no longer cared about killing the Air Phases or accomplishing anything else that mattered. Once Parald died, he’d lost interest in ridding the world of the rest of their kind.
All Chason focused on now was finding his dead Match.
When the barriers between the kingdoms fell, someone had broken into the Magnetland and defiled Mara’s crypt. They stole her body from her coffin and carried it off to Gaia-knew-where.
Before the grave-robbery, Chason’s mental health had been shaky. Even Lansing had to admit that the guy tended towards explosive rages and unpredictable weirdness. Still, once Mara’s corpse vanished, Chason got five hundred times worse. He didn’t sleep, forgot to eat, couldn’t concentrate on anything but finding her.
It was all Mara, all the time.
Lansing admired Chason. Or he used to, anyway. But, there came a time when one man needed to fall for the good of the many. When the leader had to step aside so the mission could succeed. Lansing still believed in the mission. Since his family died, the only stability in his life came from killing Air Phases and other traitors to the cause.
No one would take that away.
Not even Chason.
Lansing’s hand fingered the hilt of his sword as he watched the Magnet King pour over ancient documents, for the thousandth time. The entire office was filled with clues and research that only Chason understood.
Chason had his back to Lansing, his body leaning forward over his desk as he worked. It would be so simple. And painless. One well-placed slice and Chason would be decapitated before he even felt the blade.
In a way, it was the most humane way to deal with the man, now. The loss of his Match caused irreversible damage that had been festering for years. Mara’s body being stolen was just the final straw on a sagging camel. Chason would be better off dead. He’d be reunited with his Match in the next world.
…And the Reprisal would be better off with a leader with focus and drive. Someone like Lansing. Chason’s death would have been the best solution for everyone, really. Except for one problem. One huge, bald, precognitive problem with a broadsword strapped to his back.
Raiden, of the Radiation House.
That crazy son-of-a-bitch would never go along with Lansing’s euthanasia plan. No way in hell. For a guy with a death sentence on his head, Raiden was pretty damn reluctant to color outside the lines. He had all kinds of bullshit rules that he not only followed… he expected other people to follow, too. And if they didn’t, he’d food-process them into piles of red mush with his swords.
The guy was serious sociopath. Even crazier than Chason.
And worse still, Raiden was psychic.
Lansing didn’t know what Raiden saw exactly, but the guy had some kind of ESP crap going on. That was one of the reasons the Radiation House tried to behead him during the Fall. The guy scored off the charts on Lansing’s creepy-meter, with his gamma-ray green eyes that stared right through you and his prophetic warnings that never made much sense until after you were already knee deep in shit.
As far as Lansing was concerned, Raiden could be put down, too. They’d all be better off. Unfortunately, killing a clairvoyant took work. Raiden had always been protective of Chason and now he rarely let the Magnet King out of his sight. As if he already knew that Lansing was planning a change in management.
Lansing’s eyes drifted over to where the Radiation Phase stood. As usual, Raiden stayed in the shadows, his gigantic body blending into the darkness. But, Lansing could still feel that neon gaze trained on him. Waiting.
Yeah, Raiden was going to be a problem.
Lansing eased his hand off the hilt of his sword and blew out an agitated breath.
Chason didn’t notice the byplay. “Whoever took her, they were also the ones who dropped the barriers. They had to have used incredible power to do that. No one has that much power on their own.”
“Job might.” Lansing felt compelled to point out. He’d grown to hate Job. The man held more energy than any Phase in the universe and he was a pussy.
“Job didn’t drop the barriers.” Raiden said in a definite, rasping tone. “And he sure didn’t touch Mara.” His voice always sounded hoarse. It was souvenir of his partial beheading. Not for the first time, Lansing thought it was a crying shame that the bastard’s execution hadn’t succeeded.
Lansing glowered over at him. “You said yourself that you can’t see who did it. How would you know if it was Job or not? Can you be sure?”
“Yes.” Raiden looked right at him. “Because, I’m not an idiot.”
“Did you just call me an idiot, you bastard?” Lansing took a menacing step towards him.
Raiden didn’t bother to move, except for a sort of slow-mo smirk.
Chason glanced up from his work long enough to scowl at them both. “Concentrate! Mara must be found. We don’t have time for bickering.”
Yeah, if we don’t hurry, she might get even deader. The words burned Lansing’s tongue in an effort to escape. He backed down with a resentful glare in Raiden’s direction.
Raiden arched one dark brow in response.
“The only thing that could have knocked those barriers down --and I mean the only thing-- is the Tablets of Fate.” Chason continued fiercely. “Somebody found the Liberty box and the used it to steal my Match.”
Until very, very recently the Tablets of Fate had been nothing but an Elemental Bigfoot sighting. Liberty, Health, Love, Happiness, Compassion, Justice, Valor, Peace, and Reason; the nine small boxes supposedly could control the fate of the world. Neither good nor bad, each one on its own had individual powers. But, put together, the Tablets were the greatest force in the universe.
Or so the legend went.
No rational person had believed that they really existed. Not until the dumbshit Air Phases started using them. Now the rest of the Elemental were scrambling to find them all. The Tablets were sealed into boxes and only the Quintessence could open them, but, even sealed, they could achieve all kinds of badness. Or, depending on your point of view, goodness. Th
e Tablets could change the world. Reshape things just how their masters willed it.
Lansing had been thinking about that quite a bit, recently.
So far three boxes were in Elemental hands: The Earth House had the Health Tablet, the Water House had the Love Tablet, and Chason had the Justice Tablet. Nobody else was going to be able to get them. Not with Job, Gion, and Chason protecting the damn things.
But, someone out there had the Liberty box and it was capable of changing all sorts of odds.
“The Justice Box has writing on it.” Chason was mainly talking to himself. Lansing could tell from the tone of his voice and the fact he was repeating the same gibberish he’d been spouting for days. “Archaic symbols. It has to mean something. If we could read it, maybe we could use it to find the Liberty box. Like the --What’s that human thing?-- Rosetta Stone.” He frowned, his eyes darting back and forth in some kind of manic thought. “Where did they come from? Where did…?” He trailed off, heading over to the dry erase board he had leaning haphazardly against the wall of his cluttered office. “Something so familiar about that writing.”
Before he lost his mind, Chason had been a neat-freak. Not a pencil out of place on his blotter, not a hair out of place on his head. Now, his desk looked like a library exploded all over it and his hair had grown so long that it touched the collar of his crookedly buttoned shirt.
It was a disgrace.
“Rosetta Stone.” Chason spoke the word out loud as he scrawled it on the board. His handwriting was still copybook perfect, despite his fractured mind. All over the whiteboard, he’d written words that only seemed to mean something to him, connecting them with arrows and circles and crossed out lines. He stepped back to squint at the red lettering. “Symbols. Symbols that are so beautiful, but you can’t understand… They won’t let you understand…” He trailed off again, his head tilting to one side. “Mara.”
Lansing pinched the bridge of his nose.
Jesus, why was he surrounded by lunatics?
Treasure of the Fire Kingdom (The Elemental Phases Book 4) Page 13
