by Laken Cane
“But she will not die, because she has been ordered by the witch not to.”
And Wicked Abby laughed and laughed.
Somewhere deep in the wet shadows, Cree Stark wept.
Rune realized Nikolai had pulled her to his lap when his erection pressed against her backside. “Are you fucking kidding me,” she hissed.
“It has been a very long time since I have held such power in my arms,” he said.
“Power,” she scoffed. “I have no power left, vampire. The witch has it all. Jerk off to images of her.”
Abby stopped laughing and turned her back to all of them, twirling her long, unkempt hair around her fingers.
“Princess,” Nikolai said, suddenly stern. “She has only what she could snatch. You are the princess, and the power of Skyll is inside you. No one can steal that. Heal, daughter of Skyll. Heal, and get us the fuck out of hell.”
Excited murmurs followed his plea, and Rune’s heart picked up speed.
Could it be?
Was there something left inside her?
She leaned back against Nikolai, no longer caring if his dick was hard.
In the grand scheme of things, a hard dick was the least of her problems.
So she closed her eyes and drifted down, deeper and deeper, into the recesses of her mind. Her soul.
Her spirit.
There was no monster.
But there was something else.
She felt it.
A spark, a brightness.
A power.
Hiding, maybe, from Damascus.
When she finally caught sight of it, she grabbed it with both hands, sank her teeth into it, and pulled that motherfucker to the surface.
She would heal, eventually.
She would study the power inside her.
And as soon as she figured out what it was and how to use it, she was going after the horror that was Damascus.
Once and for all.
And then she was going the fuck home.
If, of course, the echoes had not deserted her.
Chapter Forty-One
“I need your help,” she said. “If you want out, you have to fucking fight. Use your fear!”
Snow had begun to visit her in her dreams.
“I’m damaged, Snow.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. Close your eyes. Open your heart. Let me in.”
Yes, she was afraid. Even in her dreams she was afraid to give Snow the same access she’d given Damascus—but Snow was not the witch. She would steal nothing.
Every night, Snow came to her. And every night, she healed a little more.
The quickness of her healing shocked her, but she accepted it gratefully.
“Sisters help each other. The witch will take you eventually, as soon as she can get the power and the spell to do it. And she will. She will, if you let her.”
Rune felt the girl digging around inside her, searching for something.
But she healed, and she didn’t care.
There was nothing left to steal.
So slowly she healed, biding her time, waiting for the something big that was coming.
She watched as cruel guards beat her cellmates. She starved along with the rest of them—only Nikolai ate, dining on the blood of willing prisoners. They were happy to trade blood for the bite of the master. He could make them writhe in ecstasy as he sank his fangs into them and pulled blood from their veins.
Rune had eventually tossed her pride and stubbornness away. She’d slid her hands through the filthy water on the floor and sucked the moisture from her skin.
But one thing never reared its head in desperation.
She did not need to feed.
She did not want blood.
Her monster was truly gone.
Gone.
So much was gone.
She gave Lex up for dead.
There was no way the little Other was still alive.
She let her grief fuel her rage.
Finally, a quietly vicious woman named Ellen, one of the few guards who believed in the princess more than she feared the witch, beckoned Rune to her.
“You’re not without allies,” she whispered, glancing around as though Damascus might be lurking. “We’re getting you out of here. You can’t save the world if you’re locked away, now can you?”
“No,” Rune said. “I can’t. I’ll be taking the other prisoners with me.”
Ellen didn’t argue. “You’ll need all the help you can get.”
“Yeah. I can’t do this on my own. When?”
“Very soon. Be ready.” She hesitated. “Lives will be lost, but you’re not to stay and fight. You have to get away from here before the witch gets what she needs to keep you her prisoner forever.”
“What else do I need to know?”
“The crawlers are surrounding the castle. When you make it out, you’ll have to deal with them.”
Rune nodded.
It made sense that Damascus would station the terrifying crawlers around the castle. Not many could defeat the bastards.
Rune would. She would.
“You have to fight with me,” she told the prisoners, but her voice lacked any kind of hope that they would. They were simply too damaged. Too scared.
Those who stood with her—Nikolai, Cree, and Abby—were also afraid. Terrified.
That fear was good—much better than sluggish apathy. And along with their fear, they had talents. Power.
Except for Cree, but Rune wasn’t leaving her behind.
The crawlers were there.
Worse than anything else, the crawlers were there. Even if Rune fought her way through them, the likelihood of the others escaping them was very small.
She felt the crawlers like a slick, oily taste in the back of her throat. A rotten taste. At the thought of them, fear, sharp and metallic, coated her tongue.
Nikolai stood beside her, his eyes full of contempt in the dim gray light. “They would rather stay in their chains and remain the witch’s ragged playthings than fight.” He looked at Abby, then at Cree, and finally, at Rune. “We will fight with you, and we will win. In the end, you will scrape this destroyed world from the soles of your boots and a new world will be created. That is your destiny, and you will fulfill it.”
She wanted to believe him.
She almost did, because he believed.
He really did.
Abby stood beside them, and Cree…even the shattered Cree, her head down, face turned away, stood as well.
Rune didn’t understand how the bird could stand beside Abby after what the torturer had done to her, but once, and only once, she’d caught a glimpse of Cree’s eyes when she looked at Abby.
Then she understood.
Cree would kill the other woman if she was ever offered the chance.
She hadn’t lost her hatred. She’d just hidden it.
She was weak and damaged and God only knew what was in her shattered mind, but she would fight. She had vengeance in her heart. That would drive her. She might die, and she knew she might die, but her need for revenge would drive her.
Cree Stark was as unrecognizable as Fin had been, and even more pitiful.
Rune would not have known her if she hadn’t heard the bird speak.
Her scarred, oozing skin was nearly transparent over her prominent, protruding bones. Her skull, pink with healing scabs, showed through the few lank strands of hair that remained on her head.
Her body was filthy and bare but for a single, thin wire sinking into the flesh of her throat and a short, flimsy dress, the hem of which caressed the tops of her stick-thin legs. She’d been ripped to shreds. Someone had wrapped small, dirty pieces of once white cloth around the tips of her fingers where her fingernails had once been.
One of her eyes was partially covered with webs of scar tissue, and the other one protruded as though a mass of pressure sat behind it. One of her ears was gone. Her face was a roadmap of scars, crisscrossing each other, some red and rai
sed, some thin and white.
When Rune had first caught sight of her, she’d forced her horrified stare away, eager to kill Wicked Abby herself.
And maybe she would, when the cruel, striking woman had helped her with the battle ahead.
She’d calmed down, but the image of the pathetic creature who had once been the magnificent Cree Stark visited her nightmares every night afterward.
“I’ll fight to the death,” Abby said. Then she shrugged. “I’m dying anyway. My time is almost up. And I would like nothing more than to take the witch with me. Or,” she said, smiling, “as many of her people as possible.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Rune asked. “You look as healthy as a person can look down here.”
“My time is up,” was all Abby would say. But when she parted her lips in a smile, there was blood coating her teeth. “I would like to redeem myself before my end.” She glanced at Cree. “I would like to atone for the things I’ve done. Perhaps I will yet move on to a better place.”
But she laughed, unconvinced.
None of them were convinced.
“The guards are coming,” Abby murmured. “Get ready, boys and girls. It’s time to leave this place or die trying.”
“Not a whimper,” Nikolai warned. “Give the waiting crawlers nothing. That is the secret to surviving them.”
Rune nodded. “Starve the fuckers to death.”
Abby took her hand. “No fear.”
She took a deep breath. No fear.
Only rage. Rage, her familiar mask.
She kept images rolling through her mind like a shaky film reel. Damascus. Karin Love. COS. Lex. Z. Black-haired baby. Cree. Berserker.
Damascus.
Damascus.
Damascus.
And then the heavy cell doors were clanging against the walls, and dozens of the witch’s guards were urging the prisoners to hurry.
“We’ll surround you,” Ellen said, the first guard into the cells. “We’ll do as much as we can to get you free before we’re put down. You will survive, you will escape, and you will defeat the witch.”
“What makes you so sure I will?” Rune asked, rubbing her arms.
“Because you have to, Princess.”
But the crawlers didn’t wait to see if Rune and the others would escape the prison.
Someone let them in—sent them to attack the rebel guards and the desperate prisoners.
Then the crawlers were upon them.
When the crawlers swarmed over the wet floor and attacked the prisoners, Rune kept calm and forced everything from her mind but her newly discovered power.
And finally, she smiled.
That smile had been a long time coming.
Because at last, through the terror and pain and worry, Rune believed.
She was the redeemer. She was the princess.
She would save the world.
But most importantly, she would defeat the evil that grew like a malignant tumor. She would cut it out and stomp it into nothingness.
She would see the witch dead.
She would make things right.
The crawlers bit and clawed and squealed, and she almost, almost, let her fear peek out. But she didn’t.
“Burn,” she screamed. “Burn!”
And to her extreme shock, they did.
She realized something at that moment.
She’d allowed the witch inside and though probably neither of them had understood it at the time, part of Damascus had clung to Rune and lay dormant, waiting to be used.
A trade. Monster for fire.
There was also the strange, yet to be wielded power she’d found hiding inside her.
Fire, and…whatever that was.
Rune called the power she’d discovered, and she called the power the witch had unintentionally given her.
“Burn…”
The prisoners rolled on the wet floor to rid themselves of clinging, burning crawlers, and Rune’s three companions stared at her with awe.
And hope. Most of all, hope.
But Rune could feel the power weaken each time she used it. She didn’t share that with the others.
“Princess,” Abby murmured, but beneath the awe, the woman was terrified. Terrified of Rune.
Rune grabbed burning crawlers by the backs of their necks and shuddered with joy when the cold fire licked at her hands, her wrists, her arms.
The guards who remained loyal to the witch ran, and Rune launched burning crawlers at them like lethal missiles, taking them down before they could escape the dungeons.
“Follow me,” she ordered the prisoners, and no one attempted to disobey her. They huddled together and crept through the rooms after her, their dread and fear weighing down her soul.
She was burning. Her body was engulfed in a cold blue flame, but she ignored it. She didn’t find it peculiar. It was right, and she wore it like she’d wear a pair of favorite old blue jeans.
She automatically tried to shoot out her claws, and hesitated briefly when her fingers remained only…fingers.
Even some of the friendly guards ran from her, shooting wide-eyed looks back over their shoulders as they went. She couldn’t have caught them and didn’t try.
As she ran, she screamed Z’s name and glanced into every cell she passed. He didn’t answer.
“Princess,” Ellen shouted. “You must hurry.”
Rune grabbed her. “I can’t leave without my friend. Damascus had him in the cages. I need to go there first.”
“Don’t force us to risk our lives for nothing.”
“Z isn’t nothing. The cages. Take me there or I’ll find them on my own.”
“Fuck.” Ellen and the others fought off enemy guards who’d decided to take them on, and then she motioned to Rune. “This way.”
Rune grabbed a long blade from a fallen guard, noticing the other prisoners doing the same when they could.
The prisoners were armed. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
She had to find Z. Her stomach rolled with urgency. And Fear.
The castle burned, and burned fast, as though the horror was tinder and the fear was gasoline.
The guards surrounding her picked up their pace when the enemy guards thinned out and the crawlers burned, leading her toward the cages.
“This is a worthless and useless detour,” Ellen said. “Fucking worthless.”
“I just want Z,” Rune whispered.
But Z wasn’t in the cages.
Rune clenched her fists. “Where are you?” Then louder, screaming, furious, “Where are you?”
“The witch has four castles,” Ellen said. “Maybe he’s in one of them. Or maybe he’s dead—I’m going with that.”
“No,” Rune disagreed, tempted to slice the guard’s head from her shoulders. “She wouldn’t kill someone so valuable. She’ll keep him to use against me. To trade. He’s alive, and I have to fucking find him.”
“You won’t find him here,” Ellen said. “Let us take you out of here.”
“Rune,” Cree whispered. “Please.”
So she relented.
The only thing left to do was exit the burning castle, kill as many enemies as she could, and find Damascus.
But when they finally exited through the huge doors to the outside…
Legislators were waiting.
“No,” Cree murmured.
“This is the fucking end,” Abby said, her voice hard, but resigned.
“Not for us,” Rune said. “But it’s the beginning of the end for the witch.”
Even without her monster, she hadn’t felt more like herself for…she couldn’t remember how long.
She spread her arms and strode toward the line of waiting legislators. “Let’s play, bitches!”
The prisoners moaned, and a couple of the guards broke free from the group and ran.
“At least they have no magic and no power,” Rune said. “Everyone with a blade, fight. If you can’t fight, run. The bastards will be too bus
y to chase you.”
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Ellen said, and turned to her collaborators. “Don’t be afraid. You’re part of history. You’re the reason our princess will free our people and our world. You were meant for this. Now let’s go kill the enemy.” She looked at Rune. “You. Run. Just run.”
The land outside the lower dim exit was stark and empty—a huge area of earth that had been, sometime in the long distant past, burned until it was a blackened ashy pit.
“She’s right,” Nikolai said. “We will fight the legislators. You must escape. You must.”
Yes, she must.
She realized her blue flame was gone.
She had no idea how to get it back or even if she could.
“Run,” Ellen roared, and she and the others ran to meet the enemy.
Rune did not want to run. She wanted to do what she’d always done and stand and fight. But she was without her monster, her borrowed flame, and her crew.
So she did what she had to do, and she ran.
She ran for Z, and she ran for destiny.
She ran to find Damascus before she had a chance to figure out how to stop Rune for good.
But even then she had a terrible feeling that it was already too late.
She slipped through the opening the guards provided, but had gone only a few yards before she turned back.
She couldn’t leave fucking Cree Stark.
The bird would die.
“Cree,” she yelled. “Come with me.”
The girl broke through the fighters just as the legislators, prisoners, and guards clashed.
Her scarred face was so grateful Rune felt another twinge of pity for the broken girl. Everything she’d ever had or been had been taken from her in horrible ways, and it broke Rune’s heart.
“Stay close to me,” Rune told her. “I won’t leave you.”
Cree nodded.
She grabbed Rune’s hand and gripped it like the lifeline it was as they ran. Rune held her blade tightly with her free hand, ready for anything. One blade against a world of horror wasn’t a lot, but she was Shiv Crew.
She’d manage.
“I have to find the witch,” she told Cree. “I’ll find a safe place to hide you. I’ll be back for you. I swear.”
“Why?” Cree asked, quietly.
Rune shot her a quick glance. “Because that’s who I am.”
