“You are correct. I need not conceal something that does not exist and is a figment of your imagination. I don’t know where you two are getting this from, but I’m merely Sephy’s security guard,” he vouches, and for some reason, his response pains me.
I reach forward to a glass and gold goblet, which is encrusted with sapphires as a servant comes over, pouring red wine from the depths of an urn. I frown at the custom but move to take a sip.
It’s not whisky, but it’ll do.
Anubis watches us, moving to give an order to the woman who is approaching me with a steaming cauldron full of what looks to be soup. It’s a slimy green in colour, almost like someone has heated up pond scum.
Oh sweet Jesus.
“What is this?” I interrupt her as she opens her mouth to speak, before she slams it shut again, and Osiris picks up the conversation.
“Molokhia,” he replies, and I frown.
“Apologies for my ignorance, but what exactly is that?” I ask him, and Anubis interrupts her son again, clearly uncomfortable with being silent for too long.
“It is a soup, which can also be used as a dressing on certain meats, you may know it by the name the Jew’s Mallow?” she enquires, and I raise my eyebrows. That does sound familiar.
“Is it an Egyptian staple?” I try to sound interested, and she nods. “I see. Well, it smells, interesting…” I feel my nostrils quiver as she smiles at me. The sinner pushing the cart looks at me with a dead stare, moving toward my place setting and serving me before all the other guests, she takes an enormous gold ladle, pulling a bowl from the bottom shelf of the trolley and placing it atop my plate, a ceremony more than a meal if you ask me. She carefully ladles the green scum looking soup into the bowl before departing and moving to Osiris, then Anubis and then finally to Xion. Anubis watches me expectantly.
“Go on… try it, you’ll like it,” she encourages me, suddenly calmer than I’ve seen her since we met. She takes a sip of her own wine, as I pick up a heavy golden spoon, leaning forward and taking a descent sized scoop of the dish before me.
“You may leave us,” she orders the servants as she pauses before taking her own food into her mouth, watching me intently. Her scrutiny scorches me, causing me to feel annoyed and helpless all at once. It’d be rude not to finish what I’ve been given, an insult to their heritage or something equally as ridiculous, so I figure I might as well try and get this over with in as few mouthfuls as possible.
Lifting it to my lips, I take it into my mouth, letting the slimy texture coat my tongue. It’s gritty too, almost like someone forgot to filter out the sand.
“Is it meant to be gritty like this?” I ask, my mouth barely opening and closing as the stickiness attempts to wrangle me into a jawlock.
“Oh yes, that’s quite normal,” Osiris assures me, tucking into his own bowl with fervour. I watch as Xion looks equally as hesitant, placing his spoon into his mouth as the woman with the trolley walks away slowly. We eat in silence, my mouth working hard to avoid the vinegary, yet somehow bitter taste of the dish. I want to wince, to spit it out, but I’m also at the table of a Titan and her son, who are keeping me safe from demons who want to kill me, so I guess throwing up is probably a no-no.
I watch the pendulum swing behind Anubis’ chair, the torturously slow to-ing and fro-ing of the golden pendant causing my pupils to swing with it. I continue to chew and swallow fast, hearing only the sounds of clattering spoons and working mouths as conversation ceases.
The pendulum sweeping along its slow and precise path is the last thing I remember seeing, the effect of its motion hypnotic and calming to me. I hear the spoon fall from my hand, and feel my body go limp, but cannot utter a single plea.
Blackness shortly follows.
XION
Darkness has fallen over everything, I’m paralysed, and my demon self is stirring, struggling even, beneath the effects of something… something wrong, something chemical. I open my eyes, my hands sprawled out on the table before me are black, charred, popping with veins.
What happened? What did I do? I wonder momentarily, getting déjà vu from the many times I have come to after killing or something equally as deplorable.
I look to my left, Anubis and Osiris are being shaken awake by servants, their eyes bloodshot and their faces confused.
“What…” I begin to ask, looking down to the bowl of now cold green soup before me. Then I look to my right.
She’s gone.
I’m on my feet before I know it, looking around the room for any hint of her. My demon self becomes untameable beneath my charred flesh, the red mist coming across my field of vision as I feel the swirling tattoos burn my flesh with the heat of my temper. I throw my chair aside, gritting my teeth and feeling my heart breaking inside my chest.
I failed. She’s gone, maybe even dead.
Storming across the dining room, I grab one of the servants by the throat and slam him against the far wall, letting the pendulum which swings across it’s width smash into the side of his body without mercy.
“WHERE IS SHE!?” I yell, my fingers tightening around his oesophagus. I feel the blood pounding beneath my fingertips, hot and vital. His eyes widen as he struggles for breath, his dark skin and equally dark eyes becoming damp as I continue to assert pressure.
“I… I…”
“Xion! That’s ENOUGH!” Anubis screams, so I drop the man to the floor, turning and rounding on her instead.
“WHERE IS SHE?” I bellow in her face, my voice is deeper than thunder, causing her hair to ruffle.
“I don’t know! We’ve all been drugged! I have no idea where she could be! The only thing I can think is that she’s been kidnapped by the Demon Lords.” Her eyes are full of fear, causing me to relax; she’s clearly as confused and disoriented as I am. “Abdul, go and check on the rest of the guards, see if anyone found anything. Sergei, go and ready my chariot; we’re going to be needing it for our journey to the Exilia.” She speaks calmly, but her words are simply fuel to my temper, which explodes once more in a burst of heated conflict.
“The Exilia? WHAT ABOUT SEPHY? WHAT ABOUT THE FALLEN KINGDOM? We can’t just leave her! She’s going to be slaughtered, Anubis!” I exclaim, and she narrows her eyes.
“Look. I don’t know what to do. But I know that if we’re going to try and rescue Sephy at all, you, Osiris and I aren’t enough to take on Five Demon Lords and the hordes of Kindred they have at their disposal. Even the sinner forces I have here aren’t enough. We need a plan. We don’t even know if she’s still alive.” She’s speaking sense, which makes me want to hit her, makes me want to shake her so she realises the urgency of the situation.
“She’s alive,” I snarl, balling my fists at my side and feeling my rage refuse to quell within my veins.
“You don’t know that,” Osiris replies and I emit a growl.
“Oh, but I do. She’s a survivor. She’s alive. Now let’s go.” I storm from the room, making my way back to the outer layer of the pyramid. My hands are charred, I’m showing my true colours to the world, but I can’t calm myself, can’t maintain the façade of mortality I’m so used to.
As I hit the outside air, the ash falling around me in thick clouds, I look around, desperate. There’s no way anyone could see anything out here. My heart sinks even deeper, and I wonder how much further it can fall before shattering on impact. I know that the guards won’t have seen anything. So, she’s just gone, as though she never was. I stand, stiff in posture, breathing raggedly like a hungry and primal beast as I try not to think about Sephy being tortured, being hurt. Sephy being killed.
“Fuck this,” I spit, moving to turn, deciding that I may as well try to take on the entire demon army outside those gates. If there’s a chance I can get to her, even a slim one, I’ll take it. It’s my duty, and I’ve failed her, I’ll never forgive myself for that.
“Xion! Get in!”
As I’m about to take off into the greying fog, a glint of gold and the glowing
outlines of twelve skeletal jackals come into view. It nears me, the familiar chariot of Anubis, moving at great speed through the ash. She’s wearing a long golden cloak and a headpiece with a snake, her expression refusing to exude even a hint of compromise. She glares at me in warning as I too refuse to move. Staring at her and then back to the wall, back to where Sephy is probably now moving closer and closer to the final beat of her heart.
“Xion! Get in!! We need Haedes’ help! None of us can muster the flame, it’ll be a bloodbath…” she pleads with me, looking deeply into my eyes as ash continues to fall between us, her dark pupils scorching in their intensity.
“I can’t leave her…” I breathe, my voice getting lost on the wind.
“You’re not leaving her. We’re going to save her,” Anubis promises me, holding out a hand. I frown, wondering why she’s being so kind. She’s normally so stoic, but behind her dark irises there’s pity there, guilt even. Maybe she feels bad that she gave me such a hard time about protecting her before.
I take her hand, and she pulls me up into the golden chariot, which holds strong under our collective weight. Osiris looks to me, his expression emotionless as the ash continues to fall in heavy sheets.
Anubis snaps the whip against the hipbones of the closest jackal, emitting a loud whistle from between her plump lips.
The red sky begins to move in a blur as the phantasmal animals pull us, their bony heels barely touching the ground as we pull away from The Icon and begin moving away from the city.
With every mile we travel beneath the burn of the violet sun, away from the wall, I feel her fading, I feel her slipping. I should’ve been more vigilant. Should’ve done more…
I watch as the wall becomes but a speck in the distance, and my rage leaves me whilst I stand, body jerking with the motion of the chariot, and my human form returns to me. I stare down at my hands, at the pale flesh that has taken the place of the demon’s true form. I’ve never met anyone like Sephy, never met anyone who could physically banish the darkness that has raged within my soul at just the touch of a hand.
Perhaps she’ll be okay. Perhaps she’s just as strong as she always claims.
I hope she was right. I want to believe she was right. I want to believe in her.
After all, what else is there if I can’t believe in the one person who has made me feel truly human after all this time?
Chapter Twenty Four
Cry Little Sister
SEPHY
I awaken to the back of my head throbbing. It is resting against something unknown and hard. I sit up, my entire surroundings shrouded in shadow. Feeling my fear growing, clutching at my gut, I hold out a palm, trying to summon The Eternal Flame to shed some light on the situation. Nothing happens.
“There’s no use you trying that.” A chilling voice comes from the darkness. I sit up, wincing as my body aches. I’ve been moved here without my consent, and whoever it is who has done the moving hasn’t been gentle. I reach up to touch the place on the back of my skull, which is throbbing, feeling my hand come away sticky and wet as I flinch on contact with my own fingertips.
Shit.
“Who’s there?” I call out, going to stand before I realise that I’m only inches from the top bars of what appears to be a cage. I reach up, wrapping my hands around the rough metal and rattling them. They don’t move, not even an inch, and I begin to panic momentarily as I realise I can hear my blood pumping in my ears while I squint into the dark.
A single match is lit, a face illuminated. One that I recognise.
“You… but… you’re a servant,” I call out stupidly. The woman in an enormous and billowing black leather ballgown looks down at me, her lilac eyes intelligent. Her hair is loose now, no longer swept back from her face in a braid, and her hollow cheekbones and eye sockets make her look as though she exists in a permanent state of aggravated superiority.
“I was once… but not any longer it would seem. My name is Pandora.” She introduces herself in a tone laced with grandiose expectation, and I frown, crawling closer to the bars so I can get a good look at her.
“Pandora? As in that idiot who opened that stupid box and unleashed all of the world’s evils?” I size her up, and she stares at me deadpan as I feel my fear begin to fade.
“You can’t seriously be trying to anger your captor? Really, Sephy?” She looks at me incredulously, pacing upon the stones that are scattered across the floor. The match she’s lit finds a home with a single stubby white candle, placed in a bronze holder atop a wooden table. The room illuminates a little more as the flame grows slightly, and Pandora sits upon the wooden chair, looking down at me through the bars which silhouette across my field of vision on all sides.
“Why? What you gonna do to me? Kill me?” I ask her with a cocked eyebrow and she smirks.
“Perhaps. Does that bother you?” she asks me, and I shrug, realising that the best tact is to relinquish to the situation and stay logical.
“Not particularly. It’s been coming for a while now. Being hunted sort of takes the shock and awe out of it,” I retort, trying to rattle her, to make her see I’m unafraid.
“I see. Well, if it was my aim to simply kill you, you’d be dead already. As it is, I have something a little more specific in mind for you.” She crosses her legs beneath the folded leather pleats of her skirt, a killer heel exposed beneath.
“What did you do to me?” I question her, willing myself to convect, to produce a flicker of flame, anything.
“You’ve been weakened. Can’t have you messing with the Demon Lords and their Kindred. Your brand of magic… makes death so permanent after all,” she enlightens me, and I frown again. “Fear not though, you may be perfectly fine. Right as rain in fact. Provided your father hands back that which he and his family took from the Demon Lords, of course,” she threatens me, and I raise my eyebrows, chuckling as I shake my head from left to right yet again.
“Ha. If you think Haedes will trade Mortaria for me, you’re insane. We met all of two seconds ago. Besides, he thinks I’m an asshole, and I think he’s an asshole. It’s this whole thing we’ve got going on.” My mouth twists at the memory, and she narrows her eyes, trying to work out if I’m lying or not.
“Well, either way, I get something out of the deal; Mortaria, or causing your father great anguish. After all, the suffering of a god of his lineage cannot be overlooked as such a terrible consolation prize.” She strokes her chin with long, dark fingernails, which have been sharpened into stiletto points, sighing out and looking down on me. I lean up, wrapping my fingers around the bars of the cage I’m trapped in, feeling myself become slightly disgusted as I realise that the stones crunching underfoot aren’t stones at all but rather the remains of human bodies which have been devoured whole.
“Why do you want Mortaria anyway? Why do you care so much? It’s not like you’re a Demon Lord. You’re just one of those people who has more curiosity than good sense.” I insult her in the only way I can think of, and her eyes widen at my audacity.
“Well, seeing as how I can’t make you see the seriousness of your little situation, perhaps I’ll send in some real Demon Lords. Maybe you’ll respect them. Though I doubt it. The apple never falls far from the tree, and your whole family had little respect for anyone other than themselves,” she spits, and I fight the urge to stick out my tongue at her. I’m not afraid. I probably should be. But this seems like an inevitable ending to the road I’ve been travelling down since the day I signed those stupid contracts against my will.
If I die, at least I’ll be free of the pain of being mortal. At least the ache in my chest that my parents left behind will finally dull. Maybe, maybe I’ll even be happy.
All I know is that I’m numb. Numb to fear of the end. Numb to the pain of my broken identity. Just numb.
I sit in the cage, back against the bars, in a mood because I’m being kept waiting. If they’re going to kill me, they should have the fucking courtesy to do it quickly or at least give m
e a copy of Villains in Vogue while I wait.
I sigh out, looking at my feet and bobbing them to an invisible beat in my head. I debate having a little dance by myself to loosen up, but then wonder whether or not the Demon Lords would be more inclined to kill me if they saw my attempt at twerking. I mean, if I saw someone twerking, and I was evil, I’d probably get all kinds of stabby impulses too.
For some reason, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to take this whole being captured and murdered thing seriously. Is it because I’ve become desensitized? Or, is it really because I don’t give a crap?
I could spend more time pondering this, but instead of becoming one of those self-reflective assholes, I spend my time trying unsuccessfully to summon a flame in the palm of my hand.
I should’ve known some stupid moron would have pyromancer kryptonite. It seems just too unlikely that I’d have such a powerful skill without there being something to take it away from me.
“Persephone.” My name comes from the shadows, and a tall man with waist length, poker straight, white hair steps in through what I assume is a doorway. Either that, or he’s been watching me from back there for longer than I’ve noticed, which is creepy to say the least.
“Ugh. It’s Sephy,” I complain, and he laughs slightly.
“Pandora mentioned you were… un-phased. I’m here to see if that’s really true. If you really are… fearless.” It clicks with me at this inference that this man must be Barbas. His eyes are white, and his skin papery as it creases in the corners of his eyes and mouth. He is tall and skeletally thin beneath a long black overcoat and worn suit. He treads carefully, and with purpose, towards me.
“Well, before we get to that, might I ask you one thing?” I query him, and he cocks an eyebrow.
“I don’t see why not,” he replies, gaze momentarily curious.
“How the hell do you get your hair so lustrous? I mean, damn. Not a single split end. What conditioner are you using? Like… Garnier?” I compliment him with a cocky grin, and he looks alarmed by my candour.
The Opal Blade (The Ashen Touch Trilogy Book 1) Page 35
