by Jen Ponce
"Take a head to Tytan then. Fulfill your contract."
I held up my hands to protest but Arsinua said, There are tales of fleshcrawlers separating themselves from their bodies. As long as they aren't staked in direct sunlight, they won't die without their head.
"Tytan will put it in the sun once he has it," I protested, trying not to move my lips in order to keep the fleshcrawlers from thinking I was a lunatic. I think it was too late.
He can't. Once she severs the head, the fleshcrawler's wife can take his body back and regenerate him. Then his soul will return to complete his body.
Okay. That part of vampire legend I never knew. Wasn't removing the head one sure-fire way to make sure the damned things died?
Breathing shallowly, wanting nothing more than to leave, I said, "So it won't hurt you?"
The female asked me a question before her husband could answer me. "Why do you care? No one cares for us. No one should. We feed on the weak, like you."
Well, when you put it that way. "Listen, I'm not made that way. I don't want to kill. I don't want to step over that line. It's wrong."
That was true, but not the entire truth. The entire truth was assassin stories, movies, and horror fascinated me. I loved imagining myself as the death-eyed killer stalking her prey. And it made me wonder, if I did kill someone, would it trigger some inner switch in my reptilian brain? Make me relish killing the way serial killers did?
I couldn't stomach the thought, nor would I ever be able to face my children again if I gave in to those awful urges.
They waited, I waited. My inner companions waited.
Finally, the female nodded. I don't know if I'd won her respect—I had the feeling she would always consider me weak—but I had earned something. A truce, perhaps. My own life.
She touched a pale, long-fingered hand to her husband's forehead and to my everlasting disgust, sank her sharp-clawed nails into his flesh and ripped his head from his shoulders, spine and intestines trailing.
"Oh! Oh, lord. Oh gross." I spun away from the bloody mass, my empty stomach still convinced it could vomit up something.
The fleshcrawler female laughed. I shot her a dirty look and as I did, she tossed the head. I whirled and fumbled with what fell into my hands. The skin felt like the fleshy underbelly of a tick gorged on blood. Gagging, I held it far from my body. My shrieking brain obstinately insisted that holding this, touching this was bad, bad, bad.
"Thank you," I choked.
The female nodded, rather regally, before gathering up her fallen husband's body and disappearing into the gloom. Leaving me alone with his head.
"Now what?"
“Call him,” said the head.
I dropped it in a feathery clump of sickly grey fern. "Shit. Sorry." Why was I saying sorry? To a head? A nasty, gooey severed head? Honestly. I took a good five minutes convincing myself to pick it up.
But I did. I did it. I faced my fear.
"Sorry." I looked down at it and asked, "What did you say?"
Arctic black eyes stared at me. "Call him."
"Yeah, okay, I got that one. How?"
Disbelief flashed across its face. "You are his Archaeon?"
"Archaeon Tezrya, to put a fine point on it."
It laughed, the sound but a whisper of the female's throaty scratch. "He doesn't know what he's gotten himself into, does he?"
Pissed, I said, "Well, I must be worth something. I'm holding your head in my hands." I began walking, pleased with my comeback.
It didn't take him long to sling one back. I wracked my brain and imagination for insults, which caused me to forget for a moment exactly what I held in my hands.
Go right. I sense the hook. It pulls the heart.
Excellent. At least the stupid magical rock was useful. I trudged on until I found the spot where the world didn't sit right with the surrounding area. It wasn't as big as the hook at the fair but I could feel its power thrumming in me.
Step inside it. I will use my strength to keep you from sliding right through to Earth.
This meant, I supposed, I would be forced to endure another vomit-inducing trip through the Slip. I looked down at the head. "Keep insulting me, kay?"
For a moment, he stared, and then a wicked smile curved his lips. "You are a skinny bag-of-bones nothing. I doubt I could get an ounce of blood worth drinking out of you."
I nodded. Skinny was good. And the insults would focus me, center me. Besides, it was empowering if you think about it. Here I was, victorious female, holding a male's severed head in my hand.
Smiling, I stepped into the hook and fell into the space between worlds.
NINE
"I told you to kill him."
The words were precise, controlled. And angry. I imagined the hair on my arms sizzling from the heat coming off Tytan. I put one hand on my hip, the one not holding the severed head.
"And I told you I'm not going to kill. You asked for his head, here's his head."
The head said, "You are a puling weakling, with no sense of self-worth."
I glanced down at him. "Ix-nay the insults."
The head nodded, once. "That one was rather poorly conceived."
Tytan was staring. "What? You're friends now?"
I shrugged, heat flushing my cheeks. I didn't know the fleshcrawler's name. Worse, he was a hideous floating head. "He helped me make it here without dry heaving every foot. I kind of like him."
Tytan snorted, turning on his heel and disappearing into his study. "You were supposed to let the spider kill it."
"The spider has a name. Neutria. And she wanted to. I wouldn't let her." I waited for his answer but one never came. Frowning I leaned to the right to see if he planned to come back or if he wanted me to follow.
"He insults you. When I have regenerated, I shall suck his soul from that husk he dares call home."
I looked down at the head. "What's your name?"
"Nex."
"Next?" He repeated it. Oh. Nex. Didn't that mean death in Latin? I wasn't sure but it fit. "Well Nex, I'm Devany. The giant spider who wants to kill you is Neutria."
"I've never found chythrauls to be of any consequence."
Neutria bristled inside me, an internal display of threat similar to what she'd done physically before our fleshcrawler hunt. The rasp inside my skin of her anger gave me the creeps. "She doesn't appreciate your comments."
My arm floated up, the one holding his head. I let go with a high eep of sound. He had been allowing me to carry him. His flat black eyes stared into mine.
He ignored my distress. "She speaks to you now? Inside your head?"
I nodded, willing myself to stand still and not to look at the nasty bits hanging down from his neck hole.
"Extraordinary." He floated around me as if by circling my entire head he could discern something of the mystery of me.
"Discover anything new?"
"I can only divine a few inches."
Oh. Did he mean he was reading my mind? I didn't want him in my brain any more than I wanted Tytan delving into my thoughts. I didn't ask him what he meant, either because I didn't want to know. I wanted to be an ostrich with my head in the sand. Warm sand, on a beach far, far away.
"Can I go now?" I shouted.
No response still. Growling I stomped in after him, knowing deep down I'd probably regret it. Nex floated with me like a puppy dog on my heels—although I doubted he would appreciate the comparison.
"Can I go now?" I found Tytan sitting at a wooden desk, looking like an English lord totting up his accounts.
"You didn't fulfill the terms of our agreement."
I stared at the back of his head, thinking up a lot of ways to beat him to a bloody pulp. Without killing him. If he could be killed. "I won't kill for you. I told you."
"You should have let Neutria do it then. I don't compromise."
Nex barked a contemptuous laugh, equal to anything Tytan had ever uttered. "You stupid Skriven are all alike, are you not? Short-sighted, e
gotistical. Don't realize what you have in me, do you?"
Tytan cocked an elbow to rest on the back of his chair. "Do tell."
Nex floated forward, his black eyes liquid. As I watched, they flowed like the black ick Tytan had poured onto his scrying mirror. The words from Nex's mouth sounded fuller, as if he spoke with more than one voice at once. "Mallus plots against you. He pushes for your removal from the Slip and an excision.” Nex blinked, then his lips twitched into a facsimile of a smile. “No more access to the Source through your maker.”
Tytan hissed, his form shifting so quickly I only caught a glimpse. It wasn't nice, but it didn't horrify me as much as it would have a week ago. I guess I'd become somewhat inured to scary changes, frightening alternative forms. And truth be told, his wasn't as scary as Nex. I caught a glimpse of black flesh, muscles. A whole lot of teeth.
When he settled himself, he once again looked like the Tytan I knew and hated so much. Only his thinned lips spoke of his anger. "Mallus is currently our Maker's play toy and thus too busy being tortured to make any kind of plans."
Nex said nothing. I wasn't sure what the significance was.
Tytan had obviously figured it out. His gaze sharpened. "You speak the future?"
Oh. I looked at Nex, wondering if he could tell me my future. Would Tom die in a fiery crash? Be hideously maimed by a mugger? Castrated in a freak fishing accident?
"The one who claims my head may ask me to speak the future."
A slight smile curled Tytan's lips. "You might come in handy."
"She claimed my head."
The smile disappeared. "You belong to me."
"I belong to no one." Nex managed to look like a proud chieftain. Doing well for a dude with no body. "She spared my life."
"Oh for the Slip's sake, enough with the goody two-shoes shit." He was on me before I knew it, pinning me to the wall. I gasped—not from fright—but the intense pressure he placed on my chest. "I should kill you and rip the Slip-damned heart from your body!"
My hand scrambled for something to use as a weapon, but Nex halted me.
"She can find Cyres."
Tytan froze, his face halfway between man and monster. He pushed away from me. "What did you say?"
Nex floated in front of Tytan. "I think I need not repeat myself."
Tytan shook, a shudder that made him more human. He shed the monster form. "Cyres."
The way he said the name sang in the air, giving me a case of my own shivers. Goosebumps sprouted over my arms. Whoever Cyres was, Tytan loved her. Or him. Right now, I loved her too. Her name saved me. Nex saved me.
Tytan's brown eyes were thoughtful. "You can go. Go. Before I change my mind."
Nex bobbed in the air like a buoy in the water. "I go with her."
"Uh." There were many things I couldn't explain. A floating head would be in the top three.
"You would fade there, long before your body could regenerate." Tytan's voice held a trace of his old amusement. His set shoulders, however, told of his stress.
Nex tipped me a courtly bow. I boggled at how a floating head could appear mannerly. "In that case, I shall await you here. Thank you for sparing my life."
"You're welcome." I started to raise my hand to shake with him then remembered he didn't have anything to shake with. I lamely patted his cheek, whispered my own thank you, and snapped at Tytan. "Send me home."
Tytan's laugh was familiar. His touch made me jump—but only a fraction—and in an instant, I stumbled into my bedroom. Early morning light streamed in through the windows.
The dark angel stood in the same spot we'd left her in.
“You said it would be like I never left!”
Tytan shrugged. “If you had stayed in the Slip, yes. Your side trip to Midia cost you some time, however.”
My head pounded, I was so damned angry. Tight-lipped and trembling, I rounded on the woman. Her dark, sorrowful eyes met my gaze.
“No harm came to your children.”
I nodded, unable to talk. She gave me a slight bow then glanced over at Tytan. He flicked his hand and she vanished.
"Go away."
He didn't step closer, didn't touch me, but danger pulsed from him in waves. "Don't test me again."
"I didn't test you this time." My gaze focused hard on him. "I won't kill." My voice shook as I said it, but my eyes stayed steady.
His anger melted away and a slow smile curved his lips. He reached out a finger and I refused to flinch. Warmth spread over my skin at his touch. "You will. I'll help you develop a taste for it." He moved closer, until his breath warmed my cheek and the length of him stood but a deep breath away from me.
I feared he would kiss me but I couldn't move away because desire froze me in place. He was sending lust in waves over me as if he knew how to paralyze me.
I hated that he knew anything about me.
My eyes dipped to his mouth.
His laughter ghosted the air between us.
I rushed from my room, banging my hip on the dresser in my hurry. Both kids were sleeping, safe, and though I yearned to touch them, to gather them to me to be certain, I made myself go back to my room. I sat down heavily on the floor and stayed there, my body having decided to have its breakdown. The events of the night jumbled in my head, my brain picking out pieces in random order to analyze. Like a frenetic bee in a field full of luscious flowers, it flitted from subject to subject, unable to choose, unwilling to settle on any one thing. I finally curled up into a tiny ball and stared under my bed at the detritus of my life that had fallen into its shadows. A balled up sock. A shoe. A book.
I needed to tell someone, even though I knew I could never tell a soul. I didn't have anyone I could tell. The unreal sights and events fought with my rational mind for dominance. I could go insane if I thought too much about what had happened. Especially since I'd lost my anchor: my marriage and my husband. Nothing now to tether me to reality and keep me from being swept away by the demon and his grotesque world.
Worse, I could feel the seductive pull of what he offered me. Power. Danger. An escape from the pain in my life.
I shoved myself off the floor, horrified at myself and the direction my thoughts had taken. I paced the room twice over before I realized I was truly alone. I couldn't turn to anyone for help. I had to deal with this myself. For my kids' sakes. For my own sanity's sake, I had to deal with it, not shove it to the back of my mind to let it fester.
Alone.
I sat on the bed, staring at nothing, my eyes unfocused as I wrestled with the enormity of the situation. I didn't know how I could triumph.
But I had to try.
TEN
I woke with the bird song, my body ravenous, my head marvelously steady. I consumed enough food for eight people before beginning to feel satisfied. I would have to get groceries. Again. My job wouldn't support this amped up metabolism. I had to remember to ask Tytan what I could do about my ravening appetite.
Maybe Arsinua or Neutria would know. Neither was awake inside me and instead of feeling relieved, I felt cheated. I relied on them for answers and enjoyed the company—when Neutria wasn't urging me to eat people, that was. Which reminded me, I needed to make up for stealing Neutria's spotlight from her. Perhaps she wasn't angry. Perhaps she wanted to wrap me up in spider silk and dissolve my innards with her venom.
Hopefully she wouldn't be able to cause me any damage in there. Pondering what the spider might be able to do to my brain, I raided the fridge for eggs and milk, whipping up some pink pancakes—a family tradition. When breakfast was ready, I roused the kids. I considered letting them stay home for the day but decided the more normal their routine was the better.
Yeah, I'm a dreamer.
Liam stumbled hollow-eyed to the bathroom. Bethy woke instantly. "Dad home?"
I shook my head and her face fell.
"Is he moving out?"
"Probably. I don't know when."
She flopped back down on the bed, her face screwed tight to k
eep the tears at bay. "I thought so," she said, her words clipped. "When can I see him?"
"I'll call his cell," I offered, not sure if he would pick up the phone. Downstairs the front door opened and shut.
"Dad?" Before I could say anything, she dashed out of bed. I followed more slowly, subduing the rush of emotion that filled me. A few deep breaths kept me steady. I met Liam in the hall.
"What's she thundering around for?"
"Dad's home."
"Oh."
I gave him a quick hug, and then let him go before he could push me away. My steps were heavy as I dawdled on the stairs, unwilling to see Bethy and Tom together. I feared it would break my heart.
They were in the living room, Bethany sobbing into his chest and clinging to him as if she never wanted to let him go. His eyes met mine. "What did you say to them?"
"The truth." I didn't elaborate, wondering if he would assume I told them the details. His mouth tightened, and then he dropped his gaze from mine.
"I love you, Bethy," he said, his voice choked. "I'm sorry I hurt you. Your mom and I are going to work this out, honey. And no matter what, I will always love you."
I crossed my arms across my chest, wondering what he meant by working it out. I didn't want to work it out if that meant getting back together. There wasn't any together anymore. Not now.
"Liam up yet?" His voice was tight, on edge with me.
"Of course." Ass. Then said, "There's breakfast ready in the kitchen. Why don't you two go fix yourselves a plate?" I left them to it while I hunted Liam who had a tendency to go back to bed if left to his own devices. Sure enough, he'd buried himself under the covers and I had to threaten a thorough tickling before he would get up.
Back downstairs, Tom and Bethany were polishing off their eggs and pancakes. Tom avoided meeting my eyes, though I felt him glowering at me when I wasn't looking.
Liam ignored his dad and Bethany chattered non-stop about her friends, flitting from one subject to another without pausing for anyone else's input. Tom kept a big smile on his face as if he were a politician in the spotlight. Both kids rushed out the door ten minutes earlier than needed, the curb offering relief from the starkness of the kitchen. The moment the door closed on Liam, Tom's smile vanished.
