by Marie Hall
The land hummed to life with prickles of energy. Wind picked up and where before there’d been no sound, now it screamed to life. A roar ripped through the night and it was so shocking, for a moment Sable couldn’t move.
But the roar was real and getting louder.
“Slayde,” she whispered.
“I know.” He squeezed her fingers before dropping them. “It’s coming this way. Be ready, Sable.”
His words were an omen. The second he stopped talking chaos spread like wildfire. A black shadow loomed, gunfire erupted, and there was absolutely no need for stealth anymore.
Sable called her fire, transforming an instant before something large and incredibly powerful slammed into her.
“He told me about you,” the sibilant voice hissed as powerful hands yanked on her tail a second before she could lift off the air.
She cried out, the burning pain throbbed. Slayde threw himself at the black shadow. She twirled on clawed feet, and if she’d been human she would have gasped.
The Lord wasn’t shielded in shadow, he was shadow. Slayde rolled through the amorphous body with no resistance. The Lord vanished in a swirl.
Slayde was looking around with eyes glowing fully white and palms a heated red. “Where did it go?”
If she could have answered him she would have screamed to duck. To roll out of the way. The black stain coalesced behind his back. A black phantom with claws curled and ready to rip his neck off his body.
“Don’t engage,” Hunter roared, his voice growing louder as several pairs of feet ran towards their location. “Don’t engage!”
But the warning was too late, if she didn’t engage, Slayde was dead.
Alice had a gun and was shooting. “Wait for us,” she cried, “almost there.”
But they wouldn’t reach them in time.
Sable couldn’t warn Slayde, but she could do something else. She waited until the moment the Lord was semi corporeal and then she knocked Slayde to the ground. He landed in a heap.
“Sable? What the hell? Don’t you dare!”
She ignored him and tore her beak through the only spot on the Lord he’d materialized, his left wrist.
The tips of her left wing suddenly burned. She veered away from the tree branches poking at her like an angry swarm of red ants. The acrid taste of the Lord’s hot blood squirted onto her tongue.
She should have been disgusted. It should have tasted gross. She should have wanted to spit it out. But that’s not what happened. His blood tasted good. Really good. The phoenix wanted more. She shuddered and flapped her wings harder.
The Lord screamed, but now that she had a hold of him, he couldn’t disappear again. She beat her powerful wings, dragging the wiggling shadow with her.
She ought to have expected it. But she’d been obsessed with getting him away from Slayde. Claws sank deep into her shoulder. Her cry shook the tops of the ancient trees, instinct told her to hang on. So she clamped down harder. He started shredding her wing. Dragging his claws like shears through her feathers. Her vision blurred, and that darkness spread through her once again.
She had to hang on. But if she didn’t let go, he’d kill her.
The Lord dove his claws into her back and this time, she couldn’t hang on anymore.
The moment he fell, he vanished into a smoky eddy. The trail cut a muddled path through the air she could not follow. But there was no doubt where he was heading. Back to his cave. She tucked her wings into her body and turned in after him.
A brown dog shot into the opening.
The moment Sable’s claws touched ground she called her fire and shifted back to her alter form. “Alice,” she cried, adrenaline keeping the multiple aches and pains screaming through her body from overwhelming her.
It was dark here, the black so thick she could not see beyond it. She hadn’t felt this blind in forever and her freaking wrist was throbbing so bad she thought she might puke. She looked at it. It was hard to tell with any sort of accuracy, but she was pretty sure it was lacerated and bleeding heavily.
The bastard.
Blue light pulsed and then flared, ricocheting off the walls and forced Sable to shield her eyes from the glare. Then the light winked out.
“I’ve got him, Sable,” Alice called and then grunted. “Help me, hurry.”
She ran, but all she could see was black and dancing spots. The light had burned her retinas. She was useless. “I can’t see you, Alice.”
“Here,” said a voice to the right of her. “Follow my voice.”
There were grunts and groans. The slap of flesh against flesh. Sable turned and headed in that direction.
“Ye’ll bend to me, Enigma,” Alice hissed and started to hum and Sable knew she was placing a spell on him. The buzzing of a thousand bees echoed all around and made the fine hairs on her arms stand up.
His laugh was cold and harsh. “Doesn’t matter what you do to me. You won’t win. You’ll never win.”
Finally she found them. Alice had both her hands pressed against the center of his chest. He was a small man. Not at all Lord like. Was this even him? Did they maybe have the wrong guy?
“Alice, maybe he’s only a special. Maybe he’s not the Lord at all.”
“Oh,” she laughed, “it’s him all right.”
The shadow that oozed and breathed from every crack and crevice of the walls shuddered. The spell closed tighter around him, and the crawling shadow was sucked back like a vacuum into his body. It was once again the normal dark of a moonlit night.
His hair was gray, his eyes sunken in and lined with red veins. He hugged his left wrist to his body. It was shredded, blood oozing from it.
“This is not the Lord, it can’t be,” Sable said in disgust. It’d been too easy. Too simple. And where was that gut wrenching pain she’d felt earlier, the one that had made her feel like all life was being sucked out her body. She felt none of that around him.
Alice hiked her pant leg up while still holding on with one hand to his chest. She pulled the pistol out she’d been shooting with and then aimed it square at his temple.
“Enigma, I’m indicting you with twenty charges of crimes against humanity,” she said, not heeding Sable’s warning.
He spat in her face. She never flinched.
“For these your punishment is death, have you any last words?”
“Alice,” Sable said again.
But again, Alice ignored her.
He smiled, nothing but gums and one snaggle tooth in the front. Sable could not believe this man was the same one who’d plowed into her. Something wasn’t adding up here. It shouldn’t be this easy.
The shuffle of other feet entered the cave.
“Only this,” he slurred, “it ain’t over. He knows. He knows.” He did not say this to Alice, but looked Sable dead in the eyes.
Alice cocked the hammer.
This was too easy. Too easy. Heart racing, pulse pounding Sable glanced at Alice. Her left wrist started to throb worse. She glanced down at it, and time stood still. Horror choked her scream and then she found her voice. He had the same injury on his left wrist, an identical wound to her own.
“Alice, stop! He projects his injuries on others. Oh my God, Alice!”
But it was too late.
Alice pulled the trigger and then an unholy scream poured through the cavern.
A crimson bloom sprouted at the corner of his head and he slumped lifeless.
“Phoenix,” Alice’s voice cracked, her face was full of disbelief and her mouth rimmed in white. With one final, disbelieving blink, she slumped beside the fallen Lord. A crimson bloom spread across her own temple.
“Oh my god. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.” Sable dropped to her knees and grabbed Alice’s limp form. She shook her. “Alice please. Please.”
Tears squeezed out the corners of her eyes. A large hand gripped her shoulder.
“Nix,” Slayde whispered.
“She’s dead, Slayde,” Sable mumbled.
“I
know, jelly bean. I know.” Then his arms were around her and she couldn’t seem to stop rocking Alice and then Alice started to melt, reshape and reform into something altogether alien. Yet beautiful.
Her clothes were gone, exposing long lean limbs. Her face sharp, almost elvish in form. Soft rosebud lips turned up into an eternal smile. Golden brown hair sprouted down her wrist, arms, and legs in a downy wave. Her hair was the spun blonde of moon glow.
“Oh Alice,” Sable choked around her sobs, “you look like a fairy. Like a beautiful fairy.”
Chapter 13: The Black Demon (Arianna)
He was dead. She couldn’t believe it. They’d killed a Lord. Sable was crying. Wailing. Holding onto the still body of Alice. She hadn’t known the other shifter well.
“Heal her!” Sable snapped, hugging the still form to her now bloody chest.
Ari shook her head. “I can’t. She is dead. Beyond my reach.”
“Then what good are you?” The words came out a sibilant hiss full of hate, each word like a slap to her soul.
Arianna shrugged. What good was she?
“Sable!” Slayde shook his head and looked at her. “She didn’t mean that.”
Hunter tried to grab her arm. She shrugged him off. “No, she’s right,” Ari said, “I’m useless. I’ve been a problem for all of you.”
She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear the sight of him. Too see the pain in his eyes, it made no sense. She felt his sincerity in his touch. Knew that he suffered. Because of her. But she didn’t know him. She didn’t know any of them. She should never have come. This had been the biggest mistake of her life. She should have surrendered to the guerillas. She glanced over her shoulder at the silvery glows that trailed after her like willow in the wisps. They would haunt her, torment her into eternity. She would never be rid of them. She shuddered, helplessness and hopelessness all she knew now.
Drinking herself into a drunken stupor worked, but only so long as she was completely wasted. The moment she started to come out of the whiskey laced fog, they were there. Touching others worked, projecting her crystal into them, killing the demon that lurked behind their eyes. It worked. But then there’d be more souls tormenting her.
Sable was shuddering. Probably crying. She was still rocking the body that would never rise again. Ari hugged her arms to her chest, feeling so empty. A bottomless pit of nothing that echoed on into eternity could not feel any deeper or emptier than she did at that moment. There was nothing. No love. No hate. No nothing. A waste of a life. No one would miss her. Why would they? She was nothing.
Nothing.
Hunter returned to Sable’s side. He laid his hand on her shoulder. They were the perfect three to fight this war. She turned and knew they didn’t notice her step off the rocky plateau. She couldn’t see well. The night was so dark. Shadows thick and creeping. Creatures didn’t even stir. The evil of this place had seeped into the soil; the viscous residue of it tried to leach onto the exposed flesh of her arms as she walked on. Unmindful and uncaring of the branches that scratched her face and tore at her hair.
She might have cried. It seemed like the right thing to do here. But there was nothing left.
The last thing she heard was Slayde whispering to Sable that it would be all right. That she’d survive, that they’d kill them all.
Hunter rumbled something about finding and destroying the source.
She rolled her eyes. It was all so meaningless.
Why were they wandering around the whole of the Earth, trying to protect people they didn’t know, would never know? They couldn’t even protect those closest to them.
She wandered deeper and deeper within the forest. She was lost. Stumbling her way through. She smelled blood and looked at her hands. Moonlight cast them in an eerie glow, her hands were a purple blue and something thick and black leaked from cuts all over. They were bleeding. She frowned. What lived in these forests?
Wolves?
Bears?
Would they smell her blood?
In her country it was known never to go swimming with an open wound, it would attract every predator in the waters. She could not kill herself. It was forbidden.
She stared at her hand. So much blood for such small wounds.
She wiped it on the rough tree bark, wincing when she felt her skin split farther.
“Dangerous to do, little healer,” the ghost’s taunted with glee. Their eyes were glowing slits; their faces were contorted in grotesque masks of demonic glee.
Her breaths were heavy as she stared at the black smear. “Dangerous to do,” she agreed and then she started running and scraped harder and harder. Blood ran and she was free.
“Soon you’ll be just like us,” they laughed.
“Soon I’ll be free,” she cried. The air was so crisp. Cold. For the first time since they died, she breathed. Inhaled the rich scent of pine and resin. Soon she would be free.
Her skin tingled. Power. Great power rippled through the night like electric currents of energy. She stopped running and waited. Listening as the heavy footsteps advanced.
Her heart beat so fast, like a hummingbird’s wings at the pulse in her throat. She shivered. The world waited on bated breath.
Footsteps followed behind her. Whatever it was, was not attempting to hide itself. It shook the leaves, snapped twigs. It was obvious it wanted her to know it was there.
She licked lips that curled into a soft smile. Finally. Its footsteps pounded in rhythm to each beat of her heart. Leaves stirred. Trees shook and then it was there. Right behind her. Eyes drilling into the back of her skull. Moist breath fanning the hair at her neck.
As if in a dream, she turned. The nerves were gone.
It was the monster of nightmares come to life. A large predator made of steel and shadows. It was so black. The pitch of absolute darkness. It stood still, watching her watching it.
Her face was reflected in the silver mirror of its eyes. Saliva pooled thick and constant from the corners of wrinkled jowls. It dripped to the earth in a sizzling puddle. Steam curled up from its bear like paws. Claws the length and thickness of her middle finger scraped at the earthen floor.
It was a hound of hell.
It was her redemption.
She was not afraid. Not even when it stepped closer to her. Not when it’s hot, dank breath blasted her face with furnace level heat and singed the hairs from her brows.
“I will not fight you,” she whispered.
It never blinked. Not when she lifted her hand. Or when she touched its fur. And then she gasped, because somehow she could see into the creature’s soul.
She saw a face. A kind face with beautiful brown eyes. There was fear. It tore at her. She cried as she saw a child lying in a bed. He was so small. Little. Perfect. Riddled with cancer and dying.
Then he lived. But he was broken. Different. Evil.
The beast wasn’t an it, or even a he, but a she. And she’d loved the child. But the child had killed her. Turned her into a monster. Into living, breathing shadow full of hate.
Then the connection broke and the beast snorted. Ripped up the ground and stood on its hind legs. It towered her. Towered over some of the trees. It was over eight feet tall and its chest heaved like powerful bellows.
Synnergy saw the claws. Saw them come at her.
The ghosts were gone. Probably afraid. Like she should be. But she wasn’t. She laughed and spread her arms, welcoming death with every fiber of her soul.
Chapter 14: I am Chaos...
“Sable. Slayde,” Hunter said. The night was full of shadow and it all seemed to move. Seemed to breath. They’d killed the Lord, but it had been too easy. Even though they’d suffered a casualty, this didn’t fit Dragden’s modus operandi. There was more. He could sense it. Sense the evil slithering like a nest of serpents through the woods.
“We have to destroy the source. We must find it. I’m sorry.”
Sable looked at him. Tears shone brilliant in her eyes. There’d been a connecti
on he could not understand between her and the Chimera. He wished they had time to explore it, to heal from it.
“Sable, I wish...”
She pressed a kiss to Alice’s forehead and then laid her down gently. “I know, Hunter. We have to go.” There was pain in her voice, but resolution as well.
The moment the body touched ground Alice shattered into a million balls of golden light. They danced through the air like graceful lightening bugs, trailing higher and higher into the heavens and scattering like stars before slowly burning out.
Sable didn’t move until the last light vanished.
Slayde wrapped her in his arms, for once quiet and non-combative. “C’mon,” he said to her, “let’s finish this.”
Sable nodded and they walked back to the opening of the cave.
Hunter flicked his wrist, opening a portal. The blue glow filtered through the cavern like black light, everything took on the pallor of a horror flick.
The gold vein had to be here. The Lord had cast his shadow so deep, a preventative from being able to see for any distance within. But Alice’s last act had banished it. Hopefully, they shouldn’t have to walk too far.
He followed the lines of the cave. It was much deeper than he’d initially thought. They walked in silence for at least ten minutes, the constant drip of water from the ceiling and the echo of their footsteps the only sounds they heard.
“There,” Slayde said, pointing to their left. Hunter turned to look; the vein shimmered in waves of brilliance. The black rock face was damp and shining. The vein began from the floor and trailed up a good ten feet before it cut off right above their heads.
“Man, you sure we got to destroy this?” Slayde muttered.
Hunter nodded. “That’s got to be it.”
“What a waste.”
“How do we destroy it?” Sable asked.
“Well first we should make certain it is the source.”
She frowned. “And how do we figure that out?”
Hunter licked his lips and walked toward the wall. He placed his palm against the top of it and shuddered. Power rolled through him. It was wonderful. It filled him. Spread like a tidal wave and overtook him. He laughed. The power surge made him want to do something. Kill something. He was alive. Potent.
