by Godwin, Pam
I lifted my chin and shook my head.
My back hit the wall. The Drone’s nails curled into my neck as he held my face level with his. I gasped for air and stretched my toes, unable to feel the ground.
Cold lips stroked my face. “Just a flex of my fingers, Eveline, and I will squeeze your last breath from your lungs.”
Pain seared my throat. I kicked his legs until he pinned my lower body with his. My lungs labored for air. I opened my mouth. His fist trapped my voice. He bent his head and moved his grasp from my jugular to my nape. I gulped, filled my lungs, and whispered through the burn, “Okay—”
His teeth plunged into my neck.
Science has not yet taught us if madness is
or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
Edgar Allan Poe
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: SUBLIMITY
Fire lashed my throat and chased a chill down the length of my spine. The Drone’s arms and teeth restrained me against the wall.
The doctor’s face filled my vision, eyes dark and unreadable. “Let her go.” His voice lowered. “And don’t swallow. We don’t know the effects of her blood.”
The Drone’s growl reverberated against my throat. He released my neck, his smile brimmed with blood-tinged teeth, and puckered to spit crimson dollops at my feet.
I slapped a hand to my neck and palmed the hurt there. Had he bitten me out of madness or was he trying to imbibe something from my blood? And how would I keep them from using Roark as leverage? The unknowns lumped up in my gut. I tried to smooth them out with fantasies of the Drone’s head tilted at an unnatural angle, his spinal column protruding from the stiff collar of his shirt. His necrotic eyes yellowed and his tongue buoying in a mouth of vomit—
“You will cover yourself. If not, your priest will be covered in kind with blood.”
I stiffened. My nightmare was true to form, with his ringlets of black hair, sable cloak, even the purr of his accent.
It brought up the troubling question of how I was able to foresee him in visions. Even more troubling were the words he spoke in those dreams. Together we will populate the world with Allah’s chosen.
Queasiness mingled with my rising blood pressure and laced my rebuttal with acridity. Or stupidity. “Fine. I’ll conceal my body to prevent your dick from saluting your desire. It’ll make it hard to knock me up. And by hard, I don’t mean firm.” I pointed my gaze at the zipper of his black pants.
The room stilled, teetered on a deadly edge as if the air itself were afraid to move. The Imago’s cigar paused halfway to his mouth. Beside me, the doctor shifted his weight.
The Drone’s pupils saturated his eyes. His chest ballooned with an influx of air and his face turned to stone. “What do you know of my plans?”
No way would I reveal my foresight, whatever it was. So I shrugged. “A blind person couldn’t miss your narcissist Hitler wannabe act.”
The back of his hand slammed into my mouth. Ow, fuck. Real smart. I kept my arms at my sides, face blank, refused to reveal the pain rattling my teeth.
“You will heed the glorious words in Sura 33:59.” The black of his eyes, so dense and endless, gripped me in a gravitational pull. “‘Tell your wives, your daughters, and the wives of the believers that they should lengthen upon themselves their outer garments.’ You will obey.”
Not fucking likely. I blinked, broke the influence of his stare. Then I wadded up the oppressive garments and chucked them. Cloth billowed around the bars.
Ready that time, I assumed a battle bearing. Raised chin, shoulders back, planted feet, and a do-your-worst glare.
“Blood runs from multiple wounds and still you challenge me?”
I’d prepared for a punch. Not the purr in his voice and the curious glint in his eyes.
He pivoted toward his brother with unwavering equilibrium, as if his feet didn’t touch the floor. “When Father Molony arrives, bring him to the hall. Eveline will receive her first lesson in respect.”
The spike of my pulse sent me hurtling after him. I smacked into a brick body. Lifted my chin. Followed the peaks and dips of the doctor’s chest. Longed for my daggers. When I reached his black eyes, his head shook once.
Over the doctor’s shoulder, the Drone’s glare exuded a chill I felt in my bones. “I will not deign to your indignities. Remember this. The more you fight me, the sweeter your submission will be.” A pink tongue wormed over his teeth. “I can taste it already.”
The door closed, leaving me alone with the doctor. He gathered the swaths of cloth and shoved them to my chest. “Pick your battles, Nannakola.”
I shouldered away from him and those damned garments. “Why do you call me that?”
He spread them out on the bed. “I’ll tell you if you tell me about the scar.”
“Free the priest and I’ll tell you anything you want.”
“Get dressed. The Drone will be waiting.”
Crescents bloomed on my palms. My nails dug deeper. I forced images of Roark bloodied in chains to hold myself back from smiting the doctor with every dirty fighting technique I knew. A whirlwind of hate crashed through me and poured from my mouth. “I’ll pick my battle, you son of a bitch. And when I do, it’ll end with your blood on my hands.”
All I got was a twitch in his jaw. Then he turned on his heels and locked the cell behind him, keeping his back to me. I let my blood soaked gown drop to the floor and wished I felt as confident as I sounded.
Across the table, the Drone and the Imago stared at me over plates of chick peas, curry, potatoes and naan. I pushed into the back of the chair, seeking another millimeter of separation from their tainted airspace, and was certain the chair’s iron filigree would be stamped into my shoulder blades.
The hall’s arched doors yawned toward the blotted blues of the Mediterranean. A view I would’ve appreciated under other circumstances.
Salt and seaweed clung to the drafts left by the two human men, who served us with wide eyes and pinched lips. They hurried away as quick as they came, pitchers quivering in their fists. The tension was made worse by the huffing breaths and jerking torsos waving from the wall of aphid guards. The Imago’s dart gun couldn’t be the only thing preventing them from attacking. I was certain there was more to it.
The Drone tore a corner off the thin bread and dipped it in a bowl of soup thick with pulses of every color. Beside me, the doctor watched my finger move beans around my plate.
Sweat gathered under my head-to-toe scarves. The wound on my neck throbbed. Each minute dragged in anticipation of Roark’s arrival and the lesson that would follow.
I met the Drone’s glare with my own. “Why did you bite me?”
He tongued the corner of his mouth. “To taste your submission.” The wrinkle lines around his eyes didn’t move, but his pupils pulsed.
Fuck, he was sick, but he was hiding something. I sat a little taller. “Where are your wings?”
The Imago lost his grip on his glass, dumping its contents in his lap.
The Drone remained motionless, except for the slow climb of one brow over darkening eyes. “Wings?”
“To match your vampire fangs.” Pride swelled at the steadiness of my voice. Not a trace of fear despite the wild thumping in my chest. I tried to muster a smile to match but couldn’t get my mouth to work right.
He curled his lip, making a show of normal teeth, and reclined in his chair. “I am bored with these questions. Further utterances from that disrespectful mouth better offer a sapid discussion.”
How should I know what topics would interest a psychopath? “How did you find me?”
“Aphid messengers. They discovered you a year ago then tracked you in the U.K.”
He communicated with them? Sure, I had a kind of connection with aphids, but I didn’t speak their language. “How does it work? Do you hold biweekly staff meetings with coffee, crumpets and human hearts? Then you sit back and listen in on the pitch and tone of their vibrations?”
The Drone’s smil
e was oily, slicking its way across the table, thick and heavy and oxygen stealing. The doctor seemed to feel it too if the labored movement of his chest was anything to go by.
“What are your real names?”
The smile dissipated. “Her bold inquisitiveness and shamelessly lifted eyes rub my patience. Yet, I feel compelled to answer. It is…curious.” His fingers traced the flat edge of a paring knife that lay next to his plate. “My name was Dr. Aiman Jabara. And my brother was Siraj Jabara.”
Was? “Why the self-dubbed titles?”
“We renounced our birth names,” the Imago said, “when we accepted our new lives under Allah’s guidance. Our titles are appropriate to our stations.”
Did they realize how insane they sounded? More so when I remembered where I’d heard those designations. The entomology text stated a drone served one purpose: fertilizing the queen. And an imago was some kind of sexually developed insect. They chose those titles because they were appropriate? A shiver chilled the sweat on my spine.
The paring knife glinted under the Drone’s fingertips. I could slip free of the doctor’s invisible chain. Lunge across the table. Use that knife to flay the skin from the Drone’s face. With the slightest pressure, the razor edge would curl away his epidermis and relieve him of his vile attractiveness. But the doctor proved he was faster than me. Would I be stupid enough to try it?
“Let me see if I understand, Drone. You and Dr. Nealy donate your prestigious qualifications to the study of aphids so your brother can control them with blood darts?”
Agitation sharpened his laughter. “You have it partially correct, yet you neglect the crux of our roles. You see, it was Dr. Nealy and I who created the nymph virus and the Imago who delivered it to your country.”
His admission slammed into me, squeezed my lungs. I was dining with the murderers of my A’s.
Clanking and shuffling stiffened the hairs on my neck. The doctor glanced over my shoulder at whatever activity was entering the hall. I followed his gaze.
Roark hung from the wall at the far end. Shredded cassock. Blood soaked curls. Head bowed.
My heart thudded, ripped open, and propelled me over the table. Eyes on the paring knife. My chair skidded. The table creaked. A dish of stacked noodles clattered to the floor. My hands came up empty.
The Drone jumped to his feet and wagged the knife.
Steel bands gripped my legs and braced me upright. I raised my arms and dropped from the doctor’s hold. My knees hit the stone floor.
He bent, reaching, leaving his femoral nerve in perfect range. I rolled to my feet, raised the hem to my thighs, and put everything I had into a Thai round kick.
The line of power from my leg whooshed past him as he side-stepped in a fluid movement, swinging his and whacking me behind the knees. I stumbled and spun away.
Across the room, Roark bucked in his restraints.
I pumped my arms. My outstretched legs ripped through my skirt and closed the distance.
An arm caught me halfway. I pivoted, twined my fingers around the doctor’s nape and pulled down. His body followed. I delivered a knee to his solar plexus. It struck brick as I rammed his gut again and again.
Then I slipped free. It was too easy. In the next second, I knew why. Vibrations plagued my insides. The aphid dam cracked.
I skidded to a stop in front of Roark. Curls clung to the dripping red gash along his hairline. Blood caked his eyes and crusted his gag. Metal shackles circled his wrists and ankles and fastened to hooks in the wall. I yanked the chains. No give. Until I found the key, all I could do was shield him.
My fingers, numb like the rest of me, found the tie on the back of his head. His gag dropped.
He blinked through matted lashes. “You’re as beautiful and fierce as ever, love.”
His lilt was hoarse, pained, but his slow smile sent my pulse singing through my veins. I traced my thumbs over his lips.
Buzzing pitched over my shoulder. I put my back against him. The aphids stalked closer. Why, when they could blur next to me in a heartbeat?
Roark jerked against my back. “You’re gonna have to run. Run, now.”
My body trembled with their hunger. Their pangs scrambled my concentration. But something else was there as well. A strange hesitancy. Did they fear me? My field of vision extended to my captors. The Drone had returned to his seat at the table, the paring knife twirling between his fingers.
The Imago prowled beside him. The barrel of the dart gun rested on his shoulder.
I met his arrogant gaze. “Call them off.”
“Oh, I think it’s too late for that.” He reclaimed his chair next to the Drone, who was tapping the blade of his knife against the table.
Roark’s body would’ve been a comforting support against my back if his heart wasn’t thumping so wildly. “Evie, bloody listen to me.”
I rose on tiptoes. The doctor stood behind the approaching aphids, shoulders rolled back, expression vacant.
A crescent of aphids formed around us. Twenty or more orbs locked on the man at my back. I reached behind me. His cassock gaped at his abdomen, the buttons gone. I slipped my arms through the opening and traced the taut muscle around his waist.
“Bloody hell, Evie.” His body pulsated, clanking the chains. “I’m gonna ram Lucifer’s horns up your arse if ye den’ get it moving.”
My growl joined his, but I aimed it at the mutants. The warmth of his skin under my hands felt like a jolt, connecting us, strengthening me. He would live, goddammit, and I let that single thought energize every cell in my body.
The segmented feet froze midstride. A few aphids stepped back. Was I doing that? Holding them?
Their bodies shook with need. Their reverberations jumbled their want with mine.
Without turning, I ran my fingers over the shackles and the hooks within reach. “Who has the key?”
He bucked against me. “Evie, be off with ye.”
“A little busy. The key?”
A ragged sigh. “The wanker with the dart gun.”
No biggie. I felt intoxicated from the energy pouring from the aphids. Their arms stretched, jaws snapping, torsos heaving, but their feet remained glued to the floor.
The doctor walked a cautious circuit around them, studying them, his brows curled in question marks.
Holy hell, they were following my will. I could control them. To what extent? My head felt lighter even as my arms weighed down.
When the doctor stepped around the aphid wall and within kicking distance of me, I reinforced my backbone and my glare. “You said Roark wouldn’t be harmed.”
“I said he wouldn’t be harmed as long as you cooperate.” The doctor raised a pair of manacles. “Hold out your hands.”
I looked over my shoulder. A petition burned in Roark’s green depths. Fight back, it begged.
Without looking away, I spun my heel and punched with my other foot. A twist of my hip sent my leg down a straight line and met the doctor’s arm. The manacles clanked across the floor.
He lifted his eyebrows. I kicked again to sweep his leg. He rolled out of my reach, landed on his feet. The movement forced me to readjust. In that moment, he closed the distance. Through a soft flowing motion of his arms, he held me, locked me and released me. I felt like water in his hands, as if he took my energy, changed it into any form he chose then overpowered it. He was toying with me.
I made a winding strike toward his throat. He shifted his entire body out of range, yet I never saw him move. It wasn’t a discipline I knew. What was my defense if I didn’t know what I was up against? I clenched my jaw, spread my feet—weight distributed for a springing attack—and extended my jab hand just below my brow.
He flanked me. His arm came down. I lunged, but he was faster. His hand chopped my neck like a sword. A stitch burst through my head, dotted my vision. My palms slapped the floor.
Roark’s shouts swelled and ebbed. Cold metal squeezed my wrists. Then I was standing, supported by the doctor.
“To which martial art do I owe my humiliation?”
His arm around my waist tensed and he whispered at my ear, “An ancient one. But your attention is misplaced. How will you save your priest? For now Aiman and Siraj must follow through on their lesson.”
Aiman and Siraj. The Drone and the Imago. Vilely self-titled. Vainglorious, they were, slithering toward us, smirking and whispering.
The Drone raised a hand, fingers bending and unbending. The air stirred, condensed, and the aphids regained the movement of their legs.
Their hum pinched my gut. The doctor’s cold arms pinned mine and the Drone’s chin rose in victory.
I could really use Jesse’s protection right about then, but I’d found the architects of my fucked up genetics. They knew nothing of the abilities I’d gained with it. My revenge would be intimate.
The human being is flesh and consciousness, body and soul;
his heart is an abyss which can only be filled by that which is godly.
Olivier Messiaen
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE ABYSS GAZED BACK
Roughened stone scratched the backs of my hands. Metal rings protruded from the rock wall, holding my shackles in place.
The doctor’s eyes moved over mine as if he could read me. “You look entirely too smug”—he yanked the slack from the restraints—“for someone in your position.”
I tried to shrug. The chains rattled. He didn’t know the only thing keeping my shit together was the notion that I wouldn’t need my hands to turn the starving army against him.
Roark’s oaky musk emanated an arm’s length away. The sidelong view of his blood-drenched head, drooping under the burden of gravity, constricted my chest. But there was fight in the set of his jaw.
The doctor stepped out of my vision. The Imago moved in, leaned a shoulder on the wall and rooted a finger through my headscarf. When he found an opening on my nape, he drew imaginary circles over the skin, raising the hairs there.
