by Sunny
"Because she drank Halcyon's blood," I said. "Demon dead blood."
"Yes."
"Even demons can be killed." I stretched forth my hands, palms out. But still my weapons did not answer my call. Not for lack of power then. Simply too far away. My eyes fell to some nearby rocks and narrowed in thought. It wasn't just knives that could cut.
Smashing one heavy stone against another, I broke them open. One large piece of stone had fallen apart with a sharp glistening edge six inches long. Picking that up, I walked to where Mona Louisa lay. She rolled her eyes sideways to look up at me, and the movement of her eyeballs shifting in her sockets made a dry sucking sound. Dropping to my knees by her head, with her terrified eyes wide upon me, with that unceasing high, dry wailing buzzing in my ears like an irritating gnat, I raised the razor-sharp piece of stone up over my head with both hands. "Die," I muttered. "I want you to die."
The knife-sharp stone edge came down hard with my full shining power behind it. It sliced through skin, broke through bones.
I looked down upon my work. The dried-up hag was three-fourths decapitated.
"Oops, my aim was a little off. Once more, shall we." The rock blade came smashing down again and her severed head rolled off and came to rest a couple of yards away, rocking in the dry leaves on the base of her head, her long blond hair spilling around her like a yellow cape, part of it wrapped around her lower face and bloody, sticky neck stub. That high keening had stopped. Her mouth yawned ajar as if on silent hinges. No sound emerged. Her blue eyes were open and aware.
"What does it take to kill you, bitch?" I asked, breathing heavily, gazing down into those frightened knowing eyes. There were no handy Hell hounds here to feed her to.
"If I may?" Blaec asked, polite and distant.
I looked up at the High Lord of Hell, gazed at that dark, inscrutable, elegant face. He, of all people, would know how to kill that demon dead part of her.
"Go ahead." I stepped back and let Blaec come around to the front of Mona Louisa, the head part of her, that is.
He crouched down, his shirt torn, his pants ripped, with the smell of blood on him. But his skin beneath was whole, healed, even though his face was strained with fatigue. One bronze finger reached out and touched Mona Louisa as her eyes rolled toward him in terror, as her mouth moved open and shut in a mute parody of speech. The tip of his sharp fingernail came to rest lightly on Mona Lisa's forehead, between her eyes so that they crossed together inward as she tried to watch him. But all that lethal nail did was touch her. And I wondered if physical connection made it easier for the Demon Lord's power to flow.
A pulse of power so strong that I felt it shake the air reverberated through me, and Mona Louisa's rolling eyes closed.
I spoke softly. "What did you do?"
"Destroyed her mind. That psychic part of her."
He'd killed her mental power, that part of her that would have allowed Mona Louisa to become demon dead and exist in Hell for as long as that power continued. "What becomes of her now?"
"Now she will simply fade back into the darkness."
Another pulse of power and her head exploded into ashes, and her body puffed into dust.
Blaec stood as I moved next to him to stare down at the twin pile of ashes, her severed head and her body.
"You've killed Mona Louisa and all her guards," I said, my voice empty as I turned to look at him. "Will you kill me now, High Lord? I am the only one remaining who knows the value of a demon dead's blood. That drinking it can multiply a Monère's power, endowing them with demon dead strength."
"And if I wished to?" Blaec asked. He looked tired but still strong.
"I would not fight you" was my quiet reply, even though I still gleamed with my stolen light, my stolen power.
He smiled at me with a kindness that would have made me cry had I any feelings left. "There is no need, child. Your secret should be ransom enough to keep mine."
"What secret?"
Blaec gestured to my hands with a long nail. "Your Mortal Draining. An ability I had heard only in tales as a child. I had thought them merely that. Tales. I will keep your secret if you will keep mine."
"Why would I want to keep this ability secret?"
"Because nothing then will stop the other Queens from killing you or your brother."
It was the mention of my brother that made me flinch. "More than they want to kill me now?"
"Oh, yes. Now you are a mere inconvenience. If they knew that you were capable of Mortal Draining, of taking their power, their very life into yourself, then you would become the gravest danger to them. To them all."
I sighed. Secrets. So many of them to keep. They seemed senseless, with no meaning at the moment.
Blaec turned, put a comforting arm over my shoulder, and we started walking back. "Come, child. My task is complete. I am old and weary and eager to return home."
With Mona Louisa dead and gone, my focus was lost. She'd said that revenge was not sweet, that it was bloody. She was wrong. It was sweet. For one fleeting, glorious moment you felt incredible satisfaction. Then it was gone, empty, and you had to go on living. The power high that filled me with her light had faded, and all I tasted now were bitter ashes.
I drove Blaec in Mona Louisa's stolen van back to New Orleans as dawn beat back the darkness. At the white misty portal, I turned to the High Lord. "Let me come with you."
His tone was kind but final. "No."
"Is Gryphon down in Hell?"
"I do not know, child, but he felt strong. He should have made the transition."
I clutched the High Lord's arm. "I have to see him."
Gently, he disengaged my hand. "You cannot, for his sake. Think, child. Gryphon has just experienced a tragic loss, of life itself. Those newly dead have no desire to see the living when their loss is so keenly fresh. It takes time, sometimes a great deal of it for them to adjust to their new existence. Seeing those they once loved, who are still alive while they are not, would be painfully cruel."
My eyes clung to his. "I have to know if he made it."
"I will send you word," he promised.
I would have to be satisfied with that.
Gryphon's medallion chain slid out, clinking, as I pulled it from my pocket. It was the only thing I had retrieved from that house. I pressed it into Blaec's hand. "Give Gryphon this for me."
"I will." Taking the necklace from me, he walked into the mist. It swallowed him up and both winked out of existence.
I waited a few heartbeats, then went to where the portal had been. Felt for it, tried to sense it. But nothing was there. I felt along the walls, walked back and forth across the spot where it had been in that deserted alley. But it was gone, truly gone, and I could not call it forth.
Nothing left to do now but go home.
Chapter Nineteen
They say that time heals, but that's a lie. All it does is allow you to hurt. And I was so tired of hurting. The sun was shining brightly when I pulled up in front of Belle Vista. I shut the engine and sat there looking at it. The people I loved were all in there, sleeping. Except one of them was missing and would never come back. I wanted to return to the sanctuary of my chamber, but to reach it I'd have to pass Gryphon's room. Empty now, forever. I couldn't face it. Not yet. So I just sat there until Amber came out the front entrance, and flowed down the steps.
Concern flared in his eyes when he saw me—concern that I was alone in a strange car. "Mona Lisa, where's Gryphon?"
"He's dead," I said numbly. "Mona Louisa killed him, and I killed her. She sacrificed her men. They're all gone."
He opened the door, spoke gently. "Come inside." But I refused to get out. I felt so brittle. I was okay just sitting here, but if I had to go inside, pass Gryphon's empty room and smell his scent, it would break me. I didn't know how to tell Amber this, other than to say, "I can't."
Amber knelt, took my limp hands, engulfed them protectively in the largeness of his own.
"It hurts, Amber. It hur
ts so much. I don't want it to hurt anymore. I don't want to think or feel anymore. Come running with me."
In the knowledge of his eyes, I saw that he knew what I desired. "Wait for me. Let me tell one of the others."
I sat there in the car, unmoving, until he returned.
Amber led me to the edge of the woods. There he stopped and undressed, neatly folding his clothes, then removed mine. I stood passively and let him, concentrating fiercely on the birdsong, on the feel of the sun on my skin, on anything other than my feelings, my thoughts, my memories.
"Mona Lisa, when you are ready," Amber said quietly, bringing my attention back, and I realized that I was completely nude and unembarrassed. What did it matter now?
I dropped that shielding, that control, those mental chains that had bound my beast for so long that it felt a natural part of me. Nothing happened, and for one moment I felt despair. Was I too consumed? Was I too spent? And then I felt my beast roaring out of me, exploding from me, and caught its thoughts for one fleeting second… Unleashed. Finally unleashed… Before it took me over completely and I ceased to be. In my receding consciousness, I heard only the panting of my tiger. Felt it leap with its great paws touching the ground ever so lightly, racing toward the heart of the deep forest.
When I came back to awareness, it was dawn or dusk, I could not tell. I did not know how much time had elapsed, remembered nothing. I was in a bed of leaves in the shelter of a shallow cave, in Amber's arms, my head pillowed on his chest. I was covered in an acrid scent I did not recognize and the tang of old blood was a coppery taste in my mouth. My stomach churned and I scrambled on all four out of the cave. Only a few feet from the entrance, I could hold it back no longer, and heaved and wretched up bloody chunks of raw meat. And then heaved even more when I saw what was spewing out from me. Amber held back my hair, supporting me, crooning in wordless comfort.
In the days to come, we nestled in the forest. Amber roamed free as a cougar, and I as a Bengal tiger. My beast became my escape, my salvation now. And it reveled in its newfound freedom, unchained, unbound.
Every day I awoke to other unfamiliar scents on me, and the tang of old blood in my mouth became a familiar aftertaste. But I always woke with Amber's arms, large and secure around me, with his heart beating slow and strong beneath me. I no longer vomited, and there were memories now. Flashes of running through the forest, my head low to the ground, stretching out. Bits and pieces of the hunt. Different ones, so many different ones. The rush of bringing prey down, that final soaring spring, the tearing of flesh, that sweet hot spray of blood filling my mouth.
And then one day, I didn't just remember. I was aware. I saw my paws stretched out before me, felt the bare impact as I touched lightly upon the ground, and I came to a sudden stop, letting the deer I was chasing dart away, its bobbing white tail a teasing allure that I resisted though my beast still wanted it. I felt my beast's silent half-hearted snarl at me for stopping. But it was well-fed. The deer had simply come along while it had been resting and it had given chase because that was what it did. I turned, and through my tiger eyes saw the tawny mountain cat that had been my constant companion, saw it watching me with intelligent amber eyes.
Are you in there? he asked.
Yes.
I changed and it was an easy, natural thing to do, to resume my human form, to stand and watch as the cougar shimmered, as fur became skin, and Amber once more stood before me. "Welcome back."
"How long was I gone?" It felt odd to talk.
"Almost a fortnight." Several weeks.
"What day is it?" I asked.
"The second day of the new year."
I'd missed Christmas then.
Thoughts of the holiday made me think of the others and I found myself missing them, my family. "Let's go back home."
Amber smiled and extended his hand. I took it.
"Home," he said. "That sounds nice."
Epilogue
It seemed Christmas hadn't passed me by entirely. Warrior Lord Thorane, Speaker of the High Council, had called and left a cryptic message: Halcyon had given the necklace back to its rightful owner.
Gryphon was in Hell.
His scent still lingered in his room. Soon it would fade completely. I felt sadness at that fact, but not despair. I knew where to find him now. He hadn't left me completely. Just gone to another realm. In time, I would see him again.
The others had held my little Queendom for me while I'd been gone. Thaddeus and Aquila had overseen the various businesses, Chami had arbitrated the disputes. Dontaine and Thomas had gone to Mississippi, cleaned up the house, and even returned the stolen minivan. Its owner found it one morning innocently parked in front of his lawn. The registration had been in the glove compartment.
The adjoining Mississippi territory that had been sliced up and given to Mona Louisa became mine by default. To the victor the spoils. Horace, the nasty steward, came along with the new province. He was just as slimy but much more humble now, more eager to please. Slimy or not, Horace was efficient at his job. Amber and I ended up sharing the little steward.
At my insistence, under protest, Amber ruled the new Mississippi slice. He didn't want to leave me but I made him. Who else could rule it on my behalf? I had asked him. Since the answer had been, "No one else," he had gone.
I felt lonely and a little guilty for making him leave. I had refused to join the two territories back under the single rule they had once enjoyed. Everyone thought it was because Gryphon had died there, and that was a small part of it. But the greater reason was because Amber was a Warrior Lord. He should have ruled his own territory but had chosen to stay with me, in service to me. This way, we could still have both. Amber could rule as he was meant to rule, and still continue to serve me. But having both came with a price. I could no longer fall asleep in Amber's comforting arms and wake up with the reassuring beat of his heart beneath me.
Thaddeus began his final semester in the new high school, and Jamie and Tersa made plans to take the GED and enroll in college next fall. We never did get around to lessons with Healer Janelle. Mona Carlisse, her daughter, Casio, and Janelle had all returned to their homes. Perhaps we'd see each other again at the next Council Meeting. Finally get in a lesson one of these days.
My beast and I were one now. I ran with Amber in the woods once a week during the precious one day and night I got to be with him. But our lack of a healer, and my limited healing capacity was still a problem. Mona Louisa's healer had fled back to High Court after discovering the carnage in Mississippi. She still trembled at the mention of my name. Rosemary had come up with some creative ideas, ingenious bribes, really, to lure a healer into my service. We'd see how well they worked come next Trade Festival.
Until then, life went on. It really did. And some life goes on to become demon dead.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 85ae4eec-409f-43a3-865a-a15ad5adb37d
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Document creation date: 24 November 2009
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