John chuckled ruefully. “Far, far too late, and the fault is my own.”
Her eyes widened. “John, what happened? So many bodies… was Lilith here? Is that how you escaped your father?”
John slowly shook his head, gazing into her soft, worried eyes as he gently trailed a finger across her naked belly.
She gasped and arched at his touch.
“It’s okay. I now know all about the Lilith series, Sade. And I didn’t escape. Father and brother captured me. My friends, everyone I cared about.”
His gaze grew fierce. “They killed my friends. Even… my girlfriend. And they made me watch. Those bastards made me watch!”
Sade blinked, eyes wide with wonder. “Jeezus, John. How did you even manage to escape without getting killed yourself? What stopped those monsters from putting you in a pain vat, like every other time?”
“I didn’t escape,” John said, tasting her tremble as he kissed her once more. “And absolutely nothing stopped those bastards from putting my decapitated head in a pain vat. Just like every time before.”
“But John, I don’t understand! You’re here with me right now. You’re alive!” Her gaze turned questioning. “Aren’t you?”
John smiled. “I took on my true form, and showed them what being trapped in a nightmare really means.”
Her gaze grew solemn. “Show me?”
And he did.
And the look in her eyes was so intense, so hungry, that it was all John could do to maintain control sufficient to switch forms once more, gather her in his arms, and claim this beautiful girl who had haunted so many of his dreams.
Abomination or not, he no longer cared. She was fierce, beautiful, and strong enough to survive the horrors that had sent so many others like them to early graves, hundreds of times over. He no longer cared if she was good, evil, a killer, or wanted to see all the Dominion go down in flames like he did. All that mattered was that she was here, now, before him, and the hunger he felt for her was mutual, the passion they shared allowing him to forget, for just the tiniest sliver of time, the nightmare his life had become.
She gazed fondly into his eyes hours later, flashing a blissful smile when he ran his fingers along her spine, feeling the odd, inhuman ridges where she had begun to transform into something… inhuman. Just like him.
Before halting her transformation, maintaining a semblance of humanity, or at least being able to change her form, as could he.
“Thank you,” he said, cupping her cheek, not hiding the hot sting in his eyes. “I mean it. If things were different...”
Her face abruptly stretched, snapping out with fearsome jaws that turned instantly to soft lips kissing and savoring each of his fingers with her tongue, sending delightful shivers down his spine.
“I don’t really think I’m that good a person, John,” she confessed. “But I want you to know that I tried really hard. For you.”
John flashed a killer’s smile. “Every body you see here is my work.” He smirked at the corpse by their feet. “Save for the pastry chef. That one’s on you.”
He was entranced by her warm dimples when she trilled with laughter. “You’ve changed, John. That’s for damned sure.”
“That happens when the father and brother you thought loved you turn into psychopathic monsters, kill all your friends, and make you watch while they stick your head in a pain vat. And then confess the fact that they’ve done this to you dozens… no, hundreds of times before.”
John’s eyes flashed with sudden heat. “So many secrets did I pluck from my father's mind before pain-vatting him. The bottom line is that I meant nothing to them. I was an experiment they cooked up in a lab. A hybrid creation they had nothing but absolute contempt for. If anything, they enjoyed seeing me suffer."
John lowered his head, as if burdened by sudden shame. "And the spider kin I was sent to butcher had once been perfectly healthy, happy girls. Until those Highlord bastards captured and tormented them. Subjecting them to such agony, warping their minds and bodies so severely, that they all went completely insane. The ones that survived the transformation, anyway. And the most horrific thing of all? The Lilith series… they’re actually my sisters.”
His eyes flashed with sudden heat. “Those Highlord monsters in human form hunted down those girls, butchering their mothers before their eyes before subjecting them to nightmare torments without end. All in some mad quest to make super weapons, even if it meant violating those girls' bodies and minds! And when they found out they couldn't control their own creations, they had me hunting down and killing girls who were really no different than me. So many of them my own sisters! Thank god your series has no relation to my own. That twisted irony would have been too much even for me to bear.”
Sade’s eyes widened, tears leaking freely down her cheeks. “You understand. Oh my God… you actually understand.”
He held her tight as she shuddered and sobbed against him, and he could only imagine the horrors she herself had been subjected to. "This doesn't end with my father. It doesn't end with the assholes I butchered here. We're going to get the bastards who hurt you as well. You and all the other girls out there who were used by those monsters. Used, transformed into horrors, then hunted down and butchered. We're going to find every last Highlord involved in transforming those children into bioengineered weapons, and we're going to make them pay!"
His eyes lit up with a fierce savagery mirrored in her own gaze. "We're just getting started, Sade. The killing has just begun."
Sade’s breath quickened. She licked suddenly hungry lips, like an addict looking to score from her favorite dealer. John smiled at the odd analogy, knowing the rueful thought had been Sade’s own.
“What’s the plan?” was all she said.
John caressed her lips, gentle questing kisses turning hungry and savage. "We jump to the northern continent. We hunt down those bastard Highlords, and we feast upon their bodies and souls." He flashed a wicked smile as she shuddered with dark rapture at the thought. "No more holding back, no more pretending we're anything than what they made us. They want to twist and torment children into living weapons? Then every single one of those psychopathic monsters can savor the fruits of their own labor. Every adult Highlord we cut down is one less monster infesting our world, and one more territory under my belt.”
Sade’s breath quickened. “Are you serious, right now?”
“Serious as the grave.”
"John, are you a Contender now? Like the other player from Earth daring the throne?”
“Let’s not worry about him. Strange as it may sound, we might be pitching for the same team. I’m not really sure. But there are hundreds of psychopathic bastards in the North, where they destroyed every last trace of Faerie culture and blood, centuries ago. I don’t think anyone’s going to be shedding any tears if we claim their souls and dedicate their lands to Arcadia once more.”
She tilted her head. “Arcadia?”
“A place of serenity, beauty, and wonders both terrible and pristine. The land of the faeries. One of them, anyway.”
She blinked. “Those things are real?”
His eyes burned with a Fae light. “You just made love to one.”
She blushed and looked away, a small smile upon her lips. "I guess I did, at that."
She wrinkled her cute little nose. "You don't smell quite like one of us, anymore. You do smell absolutely divine, however. Good enough to eat.”
“Hungry for more, are we?”
She nodded, flashing the most adorable grin, before her hot lips locked upon his own. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to taste you in the flesh, to feel you inside me. So let me show you just how hungry I am,” she whispered in his mind. And John eagerly accepted, desperate to drown the screams in his soul with the immediacy of the moment, lost in rapture and Sade’s beautiful eyes, even as he dreamed of the vengeance that would soon be his.
“Yours and mine both, Johnathan Everwood. For your life is but one of many
turned to living nightmare, thanks to the Farreach clan.”
The day had long since fled to perpetual twilight before the pair had regained a semblance of themselves once more. And not a single soul had dared approach the manor in that time, John and Sade both agreeing it was the Fae eldritch light now giving everything an almost surreal glow. And the scores of brutally savaged bodies, dead glassy eyes staring at horrors unfathomable, had no doubt scared off whoever might have dared the odd tingle to the skin, the sense that the air was almost alive with wondrous possibilities.
Arcadia's Claimance upon these lands was now obvious to John as he felt reality itself subtly shift and stretch to accommodate the touch of wild magic now in the air.
Sade flashed an approving grin, breathing deep of the fresh night air redolent with the scents of pine, honeysuckle, and blood. And something else. A vibrant shivery golden taste, as if the night truly was alive with wonder.
John smiled, walking with a spring in his step to the vehicle-filled lot just beyond the manor, Sade by his side, and he sensed no trace of Dominion trooper or servant.
Save for the rustling leaves, it was as quiet as the grave.
Sade approached the nearest veli. “Want a ride?”
John, of course, had no idea how to drive a velimobile, nor what direction to take to reach his target, but ultimately it didn’t matter. He gazed at the silver and chrome velis thoughtfully before striding past them, heading for the rustling trees just beyond.
“Okay. No Veli, then. Are we walking?”
John shook his head, slipping into the trees, gazing back at Sade, his hand reaching for her own. “Ever hear the expression a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?”
Sade groaned. “Please don’t tell me we’re walking a thousand miles.”
John chuckled softly. "Nope, we're just walking through this grove. Take my hand. I think you’ll be surprised at just how far we can go.”
Sade furrowed her brow before eventually shrugging and taking his hand, eyes widening with awe and wonder before letting go some moments later, gazing upon a massive castle-like manor only feet away from the tiny cluster of ornamental trees they had just stepped away from, and they could both hear the chatter of guards busily patrolling reinforced walls some distance behind them.
Sade gazed up at her lover in awe.
They had crossed 300 miles and pierced the heart of their enemy's territory with their passage through the trees almost effortlessly. And this was just the tiniest fraction of what John was now capable of, having achieved Adept status with Woodland Step, with a range of 10,000 miles, which meant he could now teleport anywhere in the world. Though he was limited to groves he could see in his mind’s eye, thanks to Psionic synergism and his extremely thorough interrogation, he could now access every location near even the smallest collection of trees that had ever caught his father’s notice.
And that most certainly included the blossoming cherry trees adjoining a certain Inquisitor’s home.
John flashed a cold smile as he gazed upon the massive building before him, testing the edge of his tungsten carbide blade. No doubt Highlord Mordillin and his newest lackey would be drop-dead excited to see them. And perhaps he and Mitch would finally get that long awaited match in, after all.
He turned to a happily grinning Sade. “Are you ready?”
She gave a cheerful thumb’s up, boldly making her way to the massive manor door made out of reinforced hardwood, polished to a golden shimmer in the moonlight, knocking bold as brass as the peaceful night was rocked by sudden screams.
29
“He’s here. He’s found us!” Mitch hissed as the night was suddenly rocked by a far-off cry.
The inquisitor, whose mangled arm stump the half-cyborg doctor beside him had just finished fastening a portable regen vat to, wrapped up so that it looked very much like a Terran cast, glared at the pale-faced young Highlord.
“You forget yourself, boy. We are over 300 miles from the Farreach residence. A full platoon of men secure this territory and the abomination now inhabiting your brother’s form has no way of knowing where we are. You yourself told me that his only memories of Jordia are those programmed into his skull. So there is little enough cause for mindless fear.”
Mitch jerked a nod, eyes washing over all the exotic medical equipment in the laboratory before focusing on the crimson-eyed Highlord before him, doing his best to ignore the massive tank full of bobbing heads blinking in eternal torment just behind the man. “Of course, Lord Inquisitor.” He gave a nervous chuckle. “My apologies. I don’t normally play the startled fool. It has been a... trying night.”
The inquisitor flashed a cold smile. “And yet here you are, rising above its challenges, reforging yourself as a valued member of a clan that won’t dismember you upon the first sign of insubordination. It has indeed been a most interesting night for all of us.”
Mitch flinched under the inquisitor’s measuring gaze.
“The important thing is that you were able to free yourself from the chains of false obligation, and side yourself with the right—how does that Terran phrase go?—team. A clan devoted to the defense of our fine planet, and the well-being of the Dominion as a whole. A clan that always treats its valued members with the respect that they deserve.”
“But Symbiote 271 has effectively taken over my father’s laboratory.” Mitch licked anxious lips. “Our laboratory, Highlord Mordillin.”
Mordillin smiled. “It is good that you understand the shared nature of our enterprise. Rest assured, 271’s fate is already well in hand.” The inquisitor turned his gaze to the man whose face was so covered in cybernetic ports and modifications that he hardly looked human at all. “Are we done here?”
The doctor flowed into a bow. “Of course, my lord. My assistant has just prepped the data cubes you have seen fit to share with us. We can proceed at your leisure.”
Mordillin took a breath to speak before abruptly hissing, eyes growing wide, the entire manor ringing with the cries and shouts of battle. “No. He cannot be here, not now. It is too soon. Nothing is prepared!”
At that moment a pale-faced servant burst into the infirmary. “My lord, pray forgive my interruption, but I fear we have a most unexpected guest.”
Mitch’s eyes widened when a petite, ebony-haired girl with glittering obsidian irises sauntered into the room completely unarmed, wearing nothing but the sheerest of ivory dresses and a deadly smile.
The inquisitor hissed and lurched back, his stump of a hand reflexively going for a Psiblade he no longer owned. His face paled.
“You! You shouldn’t be here. How dare you come here! I had your kind purged!” He snarled, glaring at the doctor. “Guards. Call the guards at once!” Before shuddering at the sounds of high-pitched screams abruptly cut off by choking gurgles, the wet thumps of bodies collapsing clearly audible in the sudden deathly silence.
Sade chuckled softly. “Well, if it isn’t dear Inquisitor Mordillin! I’m sorry, I’m afraid your goons won’t be getting back to you any time soon. We thought it was important to start with them. I’m sure you understand.”
Mitch was gazing at Sade in stunned disbelief. “Sade… how? How are you even… Symbiote 269 already took care of you! He purged your bloodline completely free from Jordia!”
A panicked Mitch yanked free his dwarven blade from its sheath, the edge turning a brilliant blue as it began to vibrate at supersonic speeds. And it was a testament to the fear he felt that he lurched further back from the unarmed girl facing him with nothing more than a smile.
You have successfully used Dream Shift! Your foe has no idea what’s coming!
Sade frowned thoughtfully before flashing a brilliant smile. “Ah yes. Symbiote 269. I remember him! Worked so damn hard to kill us all. Got pretty good at it, too. Until I confronted him, bold as brass at one of my favorite coffee shops, with dozens of innocent professors and students caffeinating themselves before starting their day. He was still human enough that
risking all those innocent lives gave him pause. And when he saw that I wasn’t going to desperately lash out, that not one of the regular customers I chatted up on a daily basis had been transformed to a bloodthirsty zombie, he was intrigued enough to let me speak before killing me. Then I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. I actually let him scan my mind. I let him see for himself exactly what your twisted clan had been doing to us. To all of us. Including the 268 Johnathan clones that came before!"
Sade’s smile was almost sad. “And then he scoured the memories of Symbiote 7. Your biggest failure, according to your father. Symbiote 7 rejected the idea of transforming himself into a predator. He never bothered coming after us at all. In fact, he had the savvy to flee to Northern Jordia immediately. Where, strictly by chance, he found me.”
"And then he dared to consort with a horror! A monstrous nightmare!" Mitch spat. "That's the moment we knew the early Symbiotes were complete failures. We had to scrap our entire protocol!"
Sade’s eyes blazed with sudden heat. “He was the boy who captured my bitter heart before I turned all of Jordia into my personal fucking kill zone! He made me whole again. He gave me hope! And you had the damned Dauda kill him!”
Sade snarled. The entire room reverberated with her growl. “To think you fools actually thought the Dauda could best us. Oh, the things we did to that hapless idiot, after he took my Johnny away from me.”
She flashed a cold smile. "I had a long heart-to-heart with their local representative. We came to a mutually beneficial understanding. Why do you think all your northern agents disappeared? All we had to do was promise not to turn Newford into ground zero."
She gave a sad shake of her head. "As if I would turn my favorite baristas and patissiers into mounds of rotting flesh, dishonoring the memory of so many mornings Johnny and I had shared. Did you know I had even coaxed your brother to attend university with me? Your agent killed him right after we had celebrated him mastering his first chart." She swallowed. "He died, the very night he proposed to me."
Queen Killer Page 42
