The Red Queen

by Meg Xuemei X

  “I came from Tibet,” Finley said before she asked.

  What had Finley been doing in Tibet? Lucienne immediately narrowed her eyes. Had he gone to finish off Vladimir since the Czech prince was out of Sphinxes’ shelter?

  “I’ve sworn not to touch Blazek,” said Finley. He dropped his gaze before meeting her icy stare again. “When I heard of Chief’s capture, I came up with a plan of my own. I intended to exchange Blazek for the chief. I’m sorry, but Blazek would find a way out even if I traded him. Everyone knows the new elder girl has a thing for him.”

  Lucienne glared harder at Finley. “He fended you off, didn’t he?”

  “We didn’t get to see him,” Finley said. “The Lama sent his monk warriors to Lhasa when we landed. They knew I was coming. They knew my plan.” He pressed his palms together before his chest in a gesture of respect. “Saint Lama is an oracle. His disciples passed on his message. He said Prince Vladimir would be useless in this crisis, and he told me where to find the chief. He also said you would need urgent assistance.”

  “The Lama?” Lucienne pondered.

  “He said I’d find you here,” Finley said. “Everything happened exactly as he said. Now we must go toward the archaeological site—Hadrian's Library—to meet the chief.”

  “Lead the way,” Lucienne said.

  Sporadic discharge broke out in nearby streets. Finley led the group up an alley of endless stairs that had graffiti on the walls on each side.

  Three figures appeared at the top of the stairs.

  Lucienne raised her weapon, then immediately lowered it, as did her warriors.

  A bloodied Kian McQuillen led two teenage girls down flights of stairs. The girls were Bayrose and Violet.

  “Kian!” Joy bursting inside her chest, Lucienne raced up the stairs to him.

  Her protector’s hard eyes warmed and brightened at the sight of her, but the warmth was gone the next second, replaced by blinding rage. “Who brought the Siren out for a street fight?” Gritting his teeth, he scanned the area for threats. The next he screamed.

  He raised his gun, fired, and raced to reach Lucienne, but he was too late.

  Lucienne turned her head, hearing the sound of a bullet ripping through the air. Her power responded instantly. She flung her hand forward to deflect it, but a hard body had thrown her out of the path of the bullet. Finley dropped onto the stone stairs, a pool of blood under his head.

  “No!” Lucienne cried. Her power would have guaranteed her survival by warding off the bullet. But Finley hadn’t known. Neither had Kian or her men. Even if they had known, they’d still have taken the hit for her. They’d have left no chance. How could she blame them for their loyalty?

  A handgun was in Lucienne’s hand. She joined her warriors and angrily fired several blasts toward a balcony window, where the shot had come from. The window shattered, and the assassin went down.

  Lucienne crouched beside Finley. They keep dying for me, and I can’t stop it.

  Finley blinked vacantly. He was still alive. The kill shot hit the side of his head. “The Lama warned me—” he said.

  “Shush. Stay with me.” Lucienne shrugged off her jacket and pressed it against the bullet hole to stop any further bleeding. “We’ll get you out of here.” She wished her power could heal him, but it only knew how to kill. “You’ll live. You must, soldier!”

  “Get the Siren out of here!” Kian ordered the men while staring at Finley. His gaze soon returned to Lucienne to see if she was hurt. Relieved, yet still in grief, he barked at the men, “Now!”

  “He’s still alive!” Lucienne refused to leave Finley. “Take him to the nearest hospital. When he stabilizes, we transfer him to Sphinxes.”

  Adam and her wounded cousin half dragged and half carried her away from the fallen Finley. A marine medic took over and tended to him.

  Fierce gunfire rose again. The Sealers’ forces chased the Sphinxes’ chief down here, but then backed off. Five helicopters zoomed in, allowing SWAT on board to open fire at the enemy militias.

  Chameleon III, hovering above Plaka, sent rockets amid the remaining Sealers.

  Inside Valkyrie, a heavily bandaged Kian McQuillen leaned against the headboard of a make-shift bed in a relatively private section in the rear of the jet. He’d lost weight during his captivity. The enemy’s harsh treatment had added more hard lines to his face. Yet the formidable man remained ruggedly handsome.

  Lucienne lounged on a coach beside him.

  “I should court martial your men for risking you,” he said. “Time to set an example.”

  “Then you should court martial yourself for doing something so stupid.”

  “Stupid?” Kian narrowed his eyes. “Look who you’re talking to.”

  “And look who’s talking to you.”

  They glared at each other until Kian shook his head with a resigned look, his hard-edged face softening. But hers hadn’t. “Next time you decide to make a useless sacrifice, think twice. Think what kind of danger you put me in. Think what I’ll do to get you back.”

  “I’m sorry for what I put you through, kid,” he said.

  That was almost the first time he’d ever apologized, so she decided to cut him some slack. “I’m only glad I got you back,” she said, blinking back tears. She’d been on the brink of losing him forever. Her gaze fell on his bandaged hand. He had two broken fingers. The medic said that he also had a broken rib.

  The Sealers who had tortured Kian would pay for this, Lucienne vowed. Many of his tormentors had died when the Hornet fighters blasted their base to rubble. But Mirrikh Schwartz, the new elder, had survived and chased her chief to their safe house in Athens and gunned down many of her agents. She’d find him. And she’d break him until he could no longer scream.

  Kian’s rough palm wiped away tears from Lucienne’s cheeks. Then he pulled out a silk handkerchief from the inner pocket of his jacket. He’d kept it for her while being held captive. He’d hoped to return to her. That brought another curtain of tears to her eyes. She dabbed them with the handkerchief and sniffed.

  “Let’s go over again,” she said. He’d brought Bayrose, the Sealers’ new elder, back with him, and Violet, whom Vladimir had irresponsibly left behind with the Sealers.

  “I made a deal with Bayrose Thorn,” Kian said. “She was fed up with her life in the Sealers. She wants freedom.”

  “As the deal went, she helped you break out of a fortified military base.”

  “She stole a warplane, but it didn’t have enough fuel. We had to land in Athens.”

  “And Mirrikh Schwartz and his elite guards followed you all the way to the safe house. That was quite a chase. Yet you fought your way out in one piece, as injured as you were, while protecting two unarmed teenage girls.”

  “No injuries could stop me,” Kian gave her a look. “But we lost some good men.”

  Lucienne nodded grimly. Her tone softened. “I’m trying to piece everything together from a different angle.”

  “And to find a logical flaw,” Kian sighed. “You don’t trust the elder’s daughter. You think the whole breakout could be staged.”

  “You’re the one who made the pact with her.”

  “I made the best out of the situation,” he said. “Staged or not, I gave her my word that she’d be well taken care of. Will that be a problem for you?”

  Lucienne knew what he meant. One girl was her rival for Ashburn, the other for Vladimir. The irony was that she wasn’t really their competition. She couldn’t be with either boy completely. “I’m not that petty,” she said. “They’ll have all the comforts of Sphinxes, but they’ll live outside the castle with no access to the restricted areas. They’re our honored guests, but they aren’t our people.”

  “That’s exactly what Pyon decided,” Kian said. “He’s still interviewing them in Chameleon III.”

  “I’ll help them settle down.”

  He regarded her. “Bayrose explained to me that she didn’t know Nexus Tear was poisoned.”


  “But she did know that we killed her father in the war,” Lucienne said. And that I took back Vladimir. “If I were her, I’d be out for blood.”

  “But she’s not you,” Kian said.

  “So she’s an angel.”

  Kian shook his head with a smirk. “I thought when you grew older, you’d lose some edge.”

  “I lost baby fat, not edge.”

  Kian chuckled, then winced. His rib hadn’t mended yet. A surgeon in Sphinxes would do that when they got home.

  “No matter what her agenda is,” Lucienne said, “she returned you to me. And for that, she’s earned her keep in Sphinxes.” She made a mental note to do a mind sweep on Bayrose. After all, the girl was the Sealers’ speaker who carried the founder’s will. And Lucienne was still the most wanted on that man’s list.

  “I came back empty-handed,” Kian said in despair.

  “Kian McQuillen,” Lucienne said, “you brought my world back by returning alive.”

  “Not all hope is lost, kid.” Kian forced a hopeful smile. “Jekaterina escaped Abaddon 5 with the scroll. We’ll find her. Bayrose said she could help us track her down.”

  Her people refused to accept the hard truth that there was no cure. Her ancient enemy had no idea of the true power of Forbidden Glory, but they knew there was no antidote in heavens or on earth once Blood Tear mixed with aether.

  Although she wouldn’t go down without a fight, she probably should start making arrangements for her people to carry on when she couldn’t. “There’s always hope, of course,” she said with a smile. “I haven’t had a lapse for thirteen days. The poison might have run its course—”

  Then the red mist came. It was everywhere all at once and enveloped her. There was no exit. No back door. No place to run. She widened her eyes and opened her mouth. “Kian, I—”

  And the red mist invaded her.

  CHAPTER 15

  ASHBURN

  Retrieving Lucienne’s images through other people’s memories was like looking at her through a thick glass—it couldn’t alleviate Ashburn’s thirst for her.

  He watched insanity toy with her again and again, her every struggle a brutal bash on him. Until he couldn’t take it anymore.

  That was when he’d left. He hadn’t abandoned her as she believed. How could she think he had the strength to do that? He had to find a cure even though his database flashed with confirmation again and again that there was no antidote anywhere.

  Ashburn chose not to trust his incomplete databank and held onto an impossible hope. Lucienne was his destiny. If whatever cosmic force had a plan for them—no matter how terrible it was—it wouldn’t let her fade away like this. Weren’t they the pair that was supposed to come together to bring humankind to extinction?

  Ashburn had come to the one place where he could think clearly, with no sounds, images, or other people’s memories bombarding his mind. Only in this sanctuary could he have pure silence. But peace didn’t come, not like before. Not when Lucienne wasn’t well.

  She was asleep now, and not peacefully either. As Ashburn returned to the Rabbit Hole, she was still in his mind, accompanying him, not from others’ memories, but his own.

  He wandered in this alternate universe that was like outer space, but without stars and cosmic rays. In order to find a cure, he must understand Forbidden Glory and its five fundamental forces—fire, metal, water, aether, and earth. None of them were of this planet. They were stolen from the outer worlds, and humans were forbidden to have them.

  Forbidden Glory gave the Siren race superpower, but no Sirens could harness it, not until Lucienne came into the picture. She tamed it, but then aether became infected.

  The poison was made of ancient ingredients that weren’t from this world either. What was its origin? The Sealers’ family chronicles documented that a female angel gave the first Sealer Blood Tear. Did the record hold any truth? Was the giver a real angel with wings, or a visitor from a higher civilization? Did the visitor teach the earthlings to use fire and calculate the stars’ movements, as it was told in mythology? They interfered with the human race and sped up civilization, which was unlawful according to their moral code. Did they end up warring against each other in their world? Humans recorded wars in the heavens and called the rebels the fallen angels.

  If fallen angels were real, were there any still walking the earth?

  And were the fallen angels the same race as the Exiles? Seraphen had said that the formidable race would cost everyone to return to their original home, and that the element of time stopped them from coming back, meaning they had to erase time on earth first. Was that why the Eye of Time forced him to take in TimeDust to make him a second-hand vessel in order to remove time?

  Lucienne had laughed unkindly at his speculation. And she’d spat on Seraphen before his demise. “No one can erase time. You’re absolutely crazy!”

  But Seraphen had insisted that Ashburn and Lucienne’s union would change earth forever, and Ashburn hadn’t found Seraphen to be wrong in the past. Troubled, he broke into a run to blow off some steams. This infinite realm has no end and no illusion of an end.

  All the questions in his mind were like a snake biting its tail. They went in circles without offering answers, partly due to his insufficient database. Would he be able to find all the answers and the antidote for Lucienne once his TimeDust reached full power? He would have to merge with the Eye of Time. Ashburn shivered at the mere thought of being possessed by the ancient entity, but at the same time, he had to put great effort into repressing TimeDust’s desperate longing to link to its source.

  It had never stopped challenging Ashburn’s will, but as long as he had breath, he wouldn’t let it overpower him.

  As all sorts of dark thoughts flitted through his mind, even in his sanctuary, Ashburn turned to Lucienne’s images from his own memories to seek comfort. He loved to watch sunlight fall into her remarkable eyes. She was light to him, the only light amid the massive darkness and noise of the human collective consciousness. Her pink lips were delicious and enticing beyond words. Fantasizing about kissing her full lips, his mind wandered to the one time when he’d almost taken advantage of her.

  Even when she was lost to her insanity, he still couldn’t resist her.

  It wasn’t just the Lure, no matter how much he wanted to blame his lack of self-control on that seducing force. Over and over, he’d indulged his own need for her. It didn’t matter which Lucienne surfaced—the sane or the insane—she remained his weakness.

  Sadly, she laid bare her feelings for him only when touched by insanity. The mad Lucienne chose him. The uninhibited Lucienne was full of passion, drawn to him like a pin to a magnet, but the sane one stubbornly chose Blazek every time. When she returned to her normal self, she turned aloof toward Ashburn. The shift was instant. With her usual mask in place, she was the steely Siren queen, who had no idea how close Ashburn had come to ripping the mask off her face.

  Did he prefer the wicked-but-fun Lucienne? If she kept that side, she wouldn’t need to carry burdens, grief, and responsibilities. She could be free, and she could be his. Instantly, Ashburn felt sick with himself. How could he wish that for her? Without regaining her sound mind, she’d never be whole. The fear of losing her to Blazek had eventually turned him into someone he truly despised.

  Darkness had taken a root in him. The old Ashburn wasn’t a brooding, calculating, and selfish jerk. He couldn’t fully bring himself to blame the Lure for his lust for Lucienne.

  However convenient for him, he couldn’t let her stay unhinged. If he didn’t find a cure in time—and no one knew how long she had—she’d die. Her insanity was the transitional gray area that had bought her time, but time was running out. The idea that he’d continue on without her and have her only in memories chilled him to the bone.

  He shook off the unbearable picture of a bleak future and treaded back toward the invisible elevator. At the sight of a faint, floating glow in the distance amid the void, a sudd
en panic came over him. How long had he been in here? Time didn’t exist in the Rabbit Hole. This realm of infinity was cut off from the real world, from the world that afflicted Lucienne.

  He wanted to go back to her world to see her, hear her, feel her, but he also dreaded watching her suffer—and it was all Blazek’s fault.

  Hatred burned in Ashburn. He hadn’t hated anyone like this, not even the King of Nirvana or Prince Felix, who tortured him and made him and his family second-class citizens.

  He didn’t want this black hate to dwell in him. He knew how hard and how far a man could fall when driven by it. Nevertheless, he hated Lucienne’s ancient enemies for poisoning her, and he hated that stupid Czech even more. That despicable man caused Lucienne’s misery, yet still competed for her affection. His rival would never give up clinging to the girl Ashburn loved.

  How could she not see the truth of it? Ashburn thought in dismay. Ironically, she saw the truth only in her insanity. The mad Lucienne loathed the Czech prince, but that didn’t give Ashburn much satisfaction. He didn’t want intense affection from the insane Lucienne. He wanted her love when she was her complete, unbroken, and undivided self.

  Speaking of the devil, what was that no-good prince doing now? Was he scheming to have Lucienne all to himself and trap her deeper in his net of devotion and deception? Ashburn gritted his teeth. He was going to find out. His heart sank at the promise of seeing Lucienne and Blazek together.

  He stepped onto the invisible lift and commanded it to take him all the way up to the rooftop. As soon as he walked out of the domain of the Rabbit Hole, billions of collective memories screamed at him.

  Ashburn grabbed his head and stumbled back. He could never get used to this—the horrible sensation when his databank went online. He could feel his facial muscles distort from the onslaught. He immediately wanted to return to the Rabbit Hole, his safe haven, and never come out again. But he stood his ground. Torrents of memories bombarded his mind mercilessly, as bad as a hurricane battering a lone glass house. When the storm passed, Ashburn let go of his head and harshly executed commands, brushing aside memories of the living and the dead. He didn’t care about them, any of them. He wanted only Lucienne.