But where could she go ? She could not run to her mother. Her mother wouldn’t understand, and in any event, the Paladines would find her there in two minutes. Crystal sensed that she had to flee where no only would look for her. So that they would all be worried. So that they would realize how precious she was. To hurt them.
And suddenly, she had a flash of inspiration. She knew where to go. Without hesitating, Crystal dematerialized.
Seattle
She rematerialized in Seattle near the university campus, where, years before, she had started her studies. Luckily, it was nighttime. The streets were dark and empty. Nothing had changed here. Crystal started walking in the direction of Juliana’s house, one of her old college friends. Good lord, what would she tell her ? It was years since she had disappeared. Besides, she sincerely doubted that Juliana still lived in the same place, but she hoped that her parents, who owned the house, would still be there and that they could give her information.
Arriving at the familiar house, she was delighted to see she was correct. The right name was on the mailbox, and the curtains were the same ones she remembered. She heaved a sigh of relief. It would feel really good to get her old life back for a week or two.
She rang the doorbell and waited, but there was no response. It was late, after all. Bizarre that they weren’t there. After hesitating briefly, she made a decision and put her hand on the front door.
“Open.”
There was a click and the door creaked but opened without difficulty. Crystal entered the house. What she saw tore a cry of surprise from her. The house was just as she remembered it : exactly the same pieces of furniture, all in the same spot and everything perfectly in place. Only, the floor and the furniture were covered with dust and there were so many spider webs it was as though no one had done any cleaning in years, not since….
Crystal rushed to the kitchen to look at the calendar. It was there, where it ought to be, but stopped at the twenty-seventh of February, the exact date on which Glory and Cornelia had abducted her. It had been more than three years. She shivered. What had happened to Juliana and her family that night ?
The young woman raised one hand to her forehead and tried to think. She left the kitchen and went up the stairs, skipping most of them, to the top floor. She entered Juliana’s room, mechanically closing the door behind her. Her friend’s room was in the same state as the rest of the house. Crystal slowly walked around it in the dim light, becoming more and more horrified.
Photographs of her and Juliana celebrating her birthday were stuck on the wall, and political science textbooks dating from the year when she and Juliana were students lay on the dresser. The computer was in the same place and her friend’s coat hung on the closet door.
Juliana’s life and the life of her family seemed to have stopped the moment Crystal joined the cult of the Damned. How was that possible ? How did it relate to her ?
Suddenly, a noise on the stairs tore her out of her stupor. Who was climbing the stairs ? A ghost ? A mental patient ?
I’m one of the Damned, she tried to reason with herself in spite of the panic that was overwhelming her. She swept a look around the room, looking for any kind of weapon. Her eyes, used to the darkness now, spotted a pair of scissors. She quickly grabbed them.
The door knob slowly turned.
Crystal felt her heart speed up. In spite of everything she moved in front of the door, tightened her hold on the scissors and raised her arm, ready to drive the sharp point into the whatever opening the door. Whoever it was….
She held her breath while the door opened and let out a yell at finding herself face to face with Prince Dimitri.
He recoiled as he saw the scissors, then, instinctively, caught her wrists and pinned her savagely to the wall.
She felt the wood creak behind her back. A breath of air passed through the empty house. They looked each other straight in the eyes, muscles tense, both ready to fight.
Still pinning her down, Dimitri ran his tongue over his lips. He felt the panic in Crystal’s breasts against his chest. Her slender curves, rendered inert by the force of his grip.
“What are you doing here ?” she sighed, between fury and relief.
“And you ? What are you doing all alone in the dark ? And since when do you attack people with… a pair of children’s scissors with pink handles ?”
Disconcerted, she stupidly examined the scissors that she was holding in her hand. Nervously she let them fall to the floor and, her anxiety passing, slowly became aware of how close they were. She felt the Prince’s muscled body against her own, sensed his smell. Sulfur….
“You nearly scared me to death,” she scolded him. “And now, let me go, please.”
Reluctantly, Dimitri obeyed.
“Why are you afraid ?”
“Because it feels like a haunted house, idiot. Isn’t it obvious ? And you didn’t answer my question, what are you doing here ?” Crystal protested.
“I felt you dematerialize, so I followed you,” he responded calmly. “What are you up to here, in this house belonging to humans, and in the dark besides ?”
“A friend of mine lives here ; it’s as if life stopped here when I left the city. And it would surprise me if the light worked,” she said, still on the defensive.
The Prince entered the room and she wondered what extraordinary power he was going to reveal. He flipped the nearest switch. The bedroom light turned on, leaving Crystal open-mouthed. She truly was too stupid.
“And there was light,” he proclaimed, superb.
She looked at him from above before ducking past him to go downstairs. Dimitri followed her down the stairs, admiring her swaying walk, her slender waist and her golden hair. Would he ever touch her ?
As she arrived in the living room, Crystal took a turn lighting the lamp and wiped the dust from a sofa with her hand to sit down. The Prince imitated her.
“One of your friends lived here, huh, kitten ? And when you got yourself abducted to become Damned, your father and sweet Glory sent the cleaners to bump off your buddy and her family. Welcome to the good guys,” he scoffed.
A wave of nausea passed over Crystal. So that was it. Her father had made all traces of her past existence disappear. In the end, what difference was there between Dimitri and the people she loved ? After the humiliating scene that Dollface had inflicted on her, the young woman started to wonder if the Prince was as monstrous as all that. She lowered her head and pulled down the hem of her skirt to cover her knees. Her shoulder strap, too thin, slipped down her shoulder. She looked good enough to eat ; Dimitri smiled, watching her.
“How does it happen that your Paladines let you come back to a house where they had your friends executed ?”
“They didn’t let me. I sort of ran away,” Crystal confessed.
She was no longer afraid. Since the night spent in the park with the Prince, she sensed that he wouldn’t be aggressive with her anymore. But what she was afraid of was guessing why. And another fear, more confused, was awakening in her : the fear of seeing too much of the man and no longer enough of the monster.
“You could run away with me,” Dimitri ventured with a predatory smile. “The world isn’t safe for little girls alone.”
“Out of the question. And I am not a little girl. I am the future All Powerful, and one of these days, you never know, I might beat the shit out of you.”
“I can’t wait for that hand-to-hand match with you, my little lamb,” purred the Prince, not even trying to hide the beginnings of his erection.
Crystal turned her head away with an angry, stuck-up sniff. He adored that about her, this brat side of her. Kitty had some character. No other woman had ever dared act this way with him. Finally, some resistance. No terror, no adoration. For that alone she was worth the trouble that he was taking to get her to surrender. The Prince knew that she would dismiss him before dawn. He also knew that he would go, just because he wanted to play with her as long as possible. Just because he wa
nted to feel her live as long as possible.
9
Descent
New York, Central Park near Fifth Avenue
The man was running. He sped along the path in Central Park as fast as his blood-red tunic would allow. If those women caught him, he was dead. A single follower of the Dark Clan was useless against two Paladines.
The sole of the man’s shoe slipped in a puddle of water on the path and he felt the macchiato-skinned warrior dangerously close to him. Hesitating no longer, he bounded over the bushes and turned.
Behind thick vegetation, almost insubstantial in the depths of the night, Cornelia stopped. She growled like a wild animal, waiting for Helen.
With horror, the man from the Dark Clan saw the black Paladine join the macchiato-colored one. He hadn’t outdistanced either of them.
Without consulting each other, they leaped over a stand of trees, landing on the other side in perfect synchronization. Like cats.
The man stumbled back three paces. Her gaze afire with lethal heat, Cornelia pulled her daggers out of her boots and Helen stretched out her palm to cast a spell. In the hope of gaining some time, the Clan warrior spat on the earth. Hitting the ground, his saliva produced a slight explosion followed by a wall of flames. While the smoke rose up between him and the Paladines, he fled toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The macchiato-colored woman sprang over the fire and the Black one followed her. Supernatural. They continued their pursuit through the empty park.
They were right on the man’s heels. He felt the air beating at his temples, the sweat streaming down his skin. He ran past the back of the Museum. The night was cold, and the asphalt shook with the noise of their steps. He had two killers chasing him and he knew that every instant, every movement counted if he wanted to live. A few yards from one of the walls of the venerable old museum, the Clan warrior suddenly veered off to the right to return to Fifth Avenue. Then he saw her and he knew that it was over.
Under one of the trees stood the most formidable of the Paladines. In the shade, her blond hair shone with a white brilliance.
For just a second before he fell, the man thought how odd it was that Glory strangely resembled the new head of the Dark Clan.
Dollface snapped her fingers and the warrior was drawn toward her by an invisible string. The point of his shoes grazed the ground with a ridiculous hissing sound.
When he was just a few inches away, Glory slit his throat with the tip of her fingernails, not a single feature on her perfect face moving. He died at her feet.
Cornelia calmly put away her daggers as she neared the corpse. Helen followed, significantly more out of breath.
“Too easy. I was as bored as a dead rat,” Cornelia shouted while Glory took the ring that the Clan warrior wore on his little finger.
“Speak for yourself,” the historian said, “I wasn’t hired to run all over the place.”
Dollface stood up and turned the ring in her fingers.
“A moment of silence, please. This evening we penetrate the headquarters of the Dark Clan.”
Helen and Cornelia had protested, but Glory had her reasons. Personal reasons that she was not ready to reveal. I have to know, she had repeated to herself, leading her two friends at a jog toward a subway station a few streets away. The three Paladines had forced open the doors of an apartment building and used the ring to open the door to the apartment on the ground floor. Just as Glory had guessed, the jewel was a passkey enabling them to access one of the hideouts of the Dark Clan. It was not really an apartment, but rather a shabby room. Three men from the Clan stood guard. Cornelia killed them as she walked in.
Now the Paladines were alone in the dilapidated apartment and they were going round and round in a circle. Cornelia sat down at the table where the three men had started a hand of cards they were never going to finish. She reached for an open package of chips, dug around in it and ate noisily.
“So tell me, Glow… just saying here, but this really doesn’t seem like a headquarters.”
“This room is a relay office,” she answered. “It enables the followers of the Clan to get to their primary hiding place. I’m sure of that much and yet I don’t understand, I don’t know…,” Glory thought aloud, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “The armoire !” she exclaimed suddenly. “Helen, open that wardrobe !”
Grousing, the historian went to the antique piece of furniture and put her hand on it. The armoire door resisted. The Paladine had to concentrate more and recite a few magic spells.
The door eventually gave way and opened onto a narrow staircase. Dollface gloated.
“I knew it ! The wardrobe gives access to one of the secret meeting places of the Dark Clan.”
“I’m going to let Falada and Miranda know,” Cornelia said, pulling her little magic mirror out of her pocket. “A magic mirror : less expensive than a cell phone, plus you can see who you’re chatting with without paying for Internet access.”
Glory covered the surface of the glass with her hand.
“No. There’s no point in keeping them in the loop. I’d rather do this....”
She interrupted herself, and blanched terribly. A white feather lay on the threshold of the staircase.
“Glow… what’s the matter with you ?” Cornelia probed, putting a friendly hand on Glory’s shoulder.
“It’s a dove feather,” the blond Paladine croaked in a reedy voice. A voice her friends did not recognize coming from her. Then, making an effort to control herself :
“We’re going. I don’t want any questions. We have to enter the Clan’s headquarters. It’s necessary. That’s an order.”
Without daring to demand explanations, the historian and the warrior woman started down the pitch-black staircase after her. It appeared endless. A subterranean passage to the end of the world. Glory had taken a crystal ball out of her pocket, which lit up at her touch, projecting a dim light all around the Paladines. Cornelia ran one of her fingers along the walls. She pulled it back immediately and dried it on her pants without thinking about it.
“Yuck ! The walls are covered with blood. Oh crap… and now I’ve gotten Crystal’s pants dirty. Oh well, I’ll tell her it was Miranda with the ketchup.”
Behind her, Helen fidgeted.
“They aren’t the same size, you with the underdeveloped neurons, and where are we going, anyway ?”
“Into one of the unexplored parts of the old subways of New York,” Dollface informed her without batting an eye, before adding for Cornelia’s benefit, “Don’t worry about the blood. You can tell Crystal it was me. We aren’t talking anymore.”
The warrior was on the verge of replying, but Glory stopped her, putting an authoritarian hand to her lips. The crystal ball went out and the Paladines realized that they had arrived at a crossroads. A weak light came from the underground passage on the right. In the corner they heard voices ; a great many voices. The clamor increased as the Paladines moved forward. They found themselves at the entrance to an enormous underground gallery. Before their eyes, twenty of the Dark Clan’s warriors were gathered, seated haphazardly. Guards protecting one of the entrances to their headquarters.
“There are a lot of them and they’re probably all ignorant and barbaric,” Helen warned them.
“This is going to be a bloodbath,” Corn agreed.
The historian looked at her as if she had gone crazy. But Glory, resolute, advanced into the gallery. Suddenly, there was absolute silence. The warriors of the Dark Clan had all turned toward the Paladine as one. Cornelia followed her lead without hesitation. Irritated by their imprudence, Helen, in spite of herself, started muttering incantations to reduce the power of the warriors.
“By the power of the Ancient Gods, may the enemy fall back, may he writhe, may he moan, the power is immortal and….”
Cornelia and Dollface plunged into battle. For a moment, they seemed engulfed by the crowd of twenty men. Then a space formed around them. The macchiato-colored warrior, wh
o was bleeding, had just sliced off a head while Glory kept the other warriors at a distance to allow her warrior friend to eliminate them one by one.
The fight was raging when two of the Clan men noticed Helen. They left the herd and swept down on her. The historian Paladine, incapable of defending herself with her bare hands, cried out, covering the sounds of the battle.
“Glory !”
Glory turned, herself grappling with four adversaries. She took in her friend’s danger, pushed away her enemies and rushed to her aid. She brought down Helen’s first assailant by breaking his neck and spun around to target the second one when....
A sudden, violent pain pierced her stomach.
Her turquoise eyes widened and became bloodshot. She opened her mouth like a fish out of water trying to breathe.
The blade of a short sword had just pierced right through her and the point was sticking out of her stomach.
Behind her, she heard Cornelia running and shouting something. She saw Helen’s terrified face looking at her. Then the outlines blurred, the noise sounded far away. Glory staggered and felt herself sink into unconsciousness.
New York, Park Avenue apartment
Crystal hadn’t been able to fall asleep. Even though she was sulking about Glory, she hated knowing she wasn’t home, especially when Cornelia was also out. The Paladines had talked about a mission ; the young woman didn’t really know anything further about it. After all, it was their job – they often went out at night. But lately Crystal had been sleeping badly. Not just lately, actually. She had continued her lessons in combat and magic and the Paladines were making her work harder and harder. It wasn’t the bruises, the muscle cramps, the shoulders dislocated and reset three times, the ribs and the broken knee that Miranda had managed to patch up only thanks to her healing powers ; it was the magic. The state of tension the magic lessons created in her kept her awake for entire nights. The more she progressed – and her progress was considerable, even frightening, although she was far from achieving the level of the Paladines – the more she was a bundle of nerves. Not to mention the bloody noses and the migraines that were awful enough to make her want to bash her head against the wall.
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