by Grey, T. A.
An unusual feeling came over her. Her vision tunneled, blood pounded loudly in her ears until it was all she could hear.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Alrik’s face went in and out of focus like a camera zooming in and out. An intense pressure started filling her neck and eyes as if there was too much blood and it needed to escape.
He was going to kill her.
Abby used one last tactic. She swept her legs up until she could wrap them around his waist. Her gaze stayed as focused as she could on his face so she could watch for any signs of change in his eyes.
Something flickered in his gaze.
Hope sprung.
Her vision began darkening on the corners as a black fog crept in.
“I love you so much. Kiss me one...,”she gasped, “last...time...”
He blinked, his head tilting to the side. Then his grip loosened on her neck, not all the way but just enough for her to suck in a deep, ragged breath and for some of the fog to recede, and the pressure in her head to dissipate. His dark head leaned in and he pressed a chaste, soft kiss to her lips. Her breath caught.
Her eyes closed at the touch. Another part of her heart broke down. A sob escaped. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t save him.
When he lifted his head, his face swam before hers. In a blink, her tears fell and his face cleared. In his eyes, she saw someone who was alert, fierce, and barely holding on.
His hold on her neck loosened to a feathery touch and then he thrust his hands in her hair. “Port home. Get out of here now!”
Then he pressed a hard kiss to her mouth and spun around. He stood protectively in front of her.
The queen bared her teeth. “Kill her I said!” she demanded.
Alrik’s shoulders shook and he started to turn back around. She could see the battle in his body as he tried to fight the spell controlling.
Abby wanted to obey him, she really did. But, like hell she’d leave the love of her life to die down here alone.
Abby stepped around him, shot her hand out and then the fight really began.
Chapter Twenty-two
Pandemonium erupted.
Alrik fought the spell controlling him and lurched after the idummi. Horrible screams of death ripped through the air. The stale, bitter scent of blood filled Abby’s nostrils like copper.
Abby had her target—the queen—and didn’t let her out of her sight. Their gazes collided, ice versus fire.
Abby acted first.
Thrusting all of her power into it, she unleashed a fiery spell meant to burn and immobilize the queen simultaneously.
The queen swiped her hands in the air deflecting the spell. Abby tried again moving faster and pushing all of her power into it. The queen dodged it. She tried again and again only to have her spells deflected with ease.
The queen laughed as if this was all a game while sweat poured down Abby’s face.
The idummi were dropping like dead flies around them from Alrik and his bare hands. But, there were still too many of them. Too much happened all at once. She just needed it to slow down for a minute so she could think.
The queen whispered in demonic calling forth dark powers so evil they made Alrik’s icy magic look downright hot. Black smoke swirled out of the ground like tendrils of flame. Only this wasn’t smoke.
Abby stepped back but the tendrils came for her, snapping at her like hands then they snaked around her ankles and wound up her legs. The tendrils squeezed tight like lengths of heavy rope. They solidified before her very eyes into something with mass, something heavy and strong like a hose. It latched on and yanked her sprawling forward.
Abby pitched to the ground. The tendrils were trying to squirm their way up to her hips. They’d encase her whole body if she didn’t stop them.
Abby blasted the tendrils with a deteriorating spell and the tendrils withered away like dying flowers.
The queen glared at her, then looked around at her demons, most of which were dead, and raced back through the forest.
“Damn!” She really was a coward.
Abby ran after her with only one final glance at Alrik. He kept killing more and more idummi as they swarmed him. She trusted him to be well. She knew in her heart he’d overcome whatever they dished out. After all, she’d seen him fight against a band of rogue demons and those were trained fighters.
The queen raced back towards her swampy camp, her red gown a blur of bloody color in the green hued marsh.
Abby’s heart drummed a thumping beat in her ears. Her breathing sawed from her throat and her neck hurt like a SOB. Each time she swallowed, heck, even just breathed with her mouth open it created aching sensations in her neck like the worst-case scenario of strep throat.
Abby reached the top of the slope that lead down into the marshy swamp and paused.
The queen was screaming in hysterics.
Idummi were leaving by the scores. What had been probably hundreds of demons had dwindled down to less than one hundred, if that.
Abby slowly made her way down the slope. This would end one way or another. Just between her and the queen.
The queen screamed in frustration. “AAGH! You won’t leave me,” she said darkly.
Her arms thrust out from her body, hands curling into fists she turned them as if she was ripping someone’s heart out of their chest. The large crowd in front of her screeched in pain, their bodies jerking, and chests thrusting forward as if they were having their hearts torn from them. They collapsed to the ground shuddering. Dark green blood trickled from their mouths.
Abby could barely stand to watch.
The rest of the idummi stood watching the show with increased apprehension and fear. Several of them had curved knives at their waist and some even had swords at their hips or across their backs. Several started to step towards the queen’s back. Abby stilled to watch. She cheered in her head.
Yes! Kill her! KILL HER!
The demons on the ground finally stopped screaming. Their bodies shuddered in the aftermath of death before freezing in the last position they’d ever be in.
The queen sucked in ragged breaths. Her hair no longer held the immaculate design it’d been in. The colored threads had come loose. The braid, if one could still call it that, was frazzled and fuzzy around her shoulders as if she’d been rolling around the ground. Her dress had torn at the sleeves probably from running through the forest with those low hanging branches snagging her. Green blood had splattered over the very bottom of her dress, ruining the fur trim.
Abby waited. The rest of the demons around her paced agitated, snarling. She could see their visible indecision. She prayed quickly to whoever might listen to her.
Let them kill her. Please let them kill her!
The queen turned around in a slow whirl with her shoulders held so rigidly that the muscles in her neck flexed to reveal a stark collarbone. She bared her teeth in a snarl as if ready to bite. With her arms held out straight from her body, she looked as if one little thing might set her off...only Abby didn’t want to find out what she’d do once that happened.
“Kill him! Kill the girl! Kill them all!” ordered the queen.
Damn. Abby moved fast and ducked behind a boulder jutting out from the slope. Plastering her back against it, she waited straining to hear any footsteps. There was no time to waste. The idummi stormed back up the slope just a few paces behind the rock. Abby squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of the demon’s howling war cry. They were revving themselves up for battle. The thought made her shake. Flattened her back up against the rock, she ignored the sharp points of it jabbing into her spine and back and hoped like hell they didn’t spot her.
She had to act now. There were too many of them. Not even Alrik could take on that many demons.
She had no idea what she was doing. She shook down to her bones with a heavy cold as if she wore clothes that had been snowed on. Standing, she saw the demons had left and started for the queen.
The queen muttered to herself in s
oft Demonic whispers that Abby couldn’t understand. She hovered near the black cauldron that hung over the fire then snatched a leather satchel off the ground and tossed chucks of herbs into it.
Abby didn’t give her any sign that she crept up behind her. She just acted. Keeping her steps light she ran up on the queen.
Then with a hard jerk, Abby slammed her hands out in front of her using every fiery cell of magic inside her as if shoving someone. And she was in a way.
Abby’s magic propelled the queen headfirst in a horrifying scene. With a bloodcurdling scream, the queen flew into the mighty fire. Abby’s heart roared in her ears. The queen’s terrible screams pierced something inside her, shocking her so all she could do was stand there and watch.
The red gown went up in flames. Her body rolled and jerked in the white-hot logs as if she fought to get away but couldn’t. Flames licked at her hair and skin burning it away in sizzling, burning clumps.
Abby fell to her knees. She’d been shaking before but now she really shook. Her teeth chattered, arms trembled, and her stomach bobbed. It took everything in her not to keel over and vomit at that very moment.
Her stomach gave a vicious roll again, this one even harder as the smell of burning flesh filled her nose, and Abby couldn’t hold it any longer. She doubled over and wretched as her entire body convulsed. Burning acid coated her tongue and stung her throat. After three heaves, she simply knelt there gasping like a fish out of water.
She’d done it. She’d done something so appallingly immoral. She’d really killed another person. Her stomach lurched again, but she tightened her throat to keep any more bile from rising. The action might have kept her stomach slightly in control but it did nothing to ease the pain around her neck from where she’d been choked.
Slowly she caught her breath and sat back.
Several things seemed to happen all at once.
What she saw sent an all new wave of fear through her while in the distance she heard mighty roars. Not a roar she’d heard before, but a different one. She heard not just Alrik’s voice but also others.
Had Aidan and his men come? She could almost sigh with relief at the thought. They could help him fight back the horde of idummi. Yes, that had to be what she heard. Those were not the war cries of the idummi and certainly not of her Alrik. The rogues had come to help.
Then none of those sounds of war taking place atop and beyond the slope really registered in her mind. They were all thoughts rushed to the back of her mind.
She couldn’t think of it any more.
Because in that moment, the queen was climbing out of the fire pit on her stomach. Her body moved at a twitchy, irregular pace. Her skin was charred black, her clothes burnt to ashen tatters across her enflamed body. Her hair...had been burnt off leaving a bloodied and darkened scalp where the flames had destroyed it. Yet she moved placing one elbow into the grass and tugging her body along as her legs dragged behind her as if she couldn’t move them.
She alternated elbows until her entire body was out of the pit. Smoke clung to her body and drifted up from her like a smoking corpse. Yet she wasn’t a corpse.
“Siradu shika gh’daburem!”
The demonic words registered in her mind. Abby didn’t have time to try to understand the words because just then the demonic spell entered her body like a bomb and tore her insides to shreds.
“AAAH!” Her piercing screams tore through the night.
The spell...whatever it was...the queen had put something evil inside her. Agony engulfed her. She clenched her gut as she fell to the side curling into the fetal position. Right before she squeezed her eyes shut she saw the queen ever so slowly crawling towards her, one unsteady tug at a time.
The pain was the most intense feeling she’d ever felt. Like hot acid being poured inside of her. It kept filling her chest cavity and when that wasn’t enough, she felt the molten-hot sensation pour into one leg then another. She just knew that if she sliced open her thigh right now some awful black tar substance would pour out.
Something was happening to her. She couldn’t control herself anymore. Her body shook in violent seizures. No matter how many times she told herself to keep her eyes open and do something—she couldn’t. Pain overtook her. She couldn’t move, not even to save her life.
That rib-crushing, skin-squeezing pain covered her everywhere spreading like lava until it enveloped her in darkness.
She stopped being aware of much of anything then.
She could no longer hear the sounds of war taking place with Alrik. Was he dead? Were they all dead? Maybe that’s why she couldn’t hear anything.
No, that couldn’t be right because she couldn’t hear the crackling of the fire either or her own breathing. As she strained to hear, a soft high-pitched ringing started in her left ear. Her head twitched at the sound or at least she thought it did.
Were her eyes open? All she saw was black. Black nothingness.
Maybe this was death. Maybe she’d finally died.
No!
Her body jolted, this time she knew she’d actually jerked because she felt her heart jump too.
She needed to find Alrik. He needed her help. She had to finish this.
She struggled to become aware, to come back to consciousness. She felt her body swimming as if floating listlessly beneath the surface. She swam towards that surface, each swipe of her arm through the murky area around her like trying to move through molasses. Finally something gave. Like a bubble bursting. She broke through.
Then, her eyes opened.
A gnarled creature glared in her face.
No, not a creature. The queen. Or, what was left of her.
Her face, colored in black ash and rosy burns grinned like a wild beast above her. Only the whites of her eyes and teeth could be seen among the fleshy red welts of the burns. In some places along her skull where there’d once been glorious hair, skin had melted to reveal the hot red layers of fresh skin beneath.
The queen held Abby by her shirt.
Abby screamed at the sight. Then she reacted and sent her fist fly up. She caught the queen’s chin with a satisfying crunch of bone.
The queen fell off her and Abby moved. The spell the queen had casted on her hadn’t lingered any longer. The intense pain had faded but she still felt weak as a kitten and feeble. Each motion felt sloppy. Even her punch felt like she couldn’t have hurt a baby. Nevertheless, this was her last chance and Abby wouldn’t fail. Not for her Alrik.
She and the queen rolled. Abby landed another punch square across her jaw. The queen’s skin was still hot and the warm, gooey texture of her flesh made her skin crawl.
The queen’s hand, now nothing more than skeletal bones and raw tendons, climbed over Abby’s face. The warm sticky feeling nearly made her vomit but she held her gut in check.
Still the queen managed to grab a fistful of her hair and pull—hard. Abby grunted through the hair-tearing pain as she reached up to dislodge the hand.
She grabbed hold of the queen’s burned, gnarled hand and yanked her fingers backward, hard. The queen exhaled a garbled shout of pain.
Abby heard a sound so lovely then she could have wept tears of joy.
“Abbigail!”
Never would she have thought that hearing him yell her name could make her smile.
She looked to the side and saw such a beautiful sight she lost sight of what she was doing.
Alrik came rapidly down the slope, Aidan and the rogue demons following behind him. He looked battle worn, but so strong and stunning.
I love you, she thought.
She made a mistake. One she didn’t realize for all of the three seconds it’d taken her to turn her head and look up at him. That’s okay it was worth it.
A blade slid into her chest so near to her heart. Her eyes, still locked on Alrik’s face, flared in surprise. His dark eyes flashed then he roared and charged forward.
Abby looked down to see a knife sticking out from her chest. Blood oozed from the wo
und. Why was she so slow to act? She should be moving, acting now. Doing something. But what?
The queen’s distorted face smiled up at her. “I win,” she hissed.
Abby jerked at her words. Pain started numbing her like icy water filling her veins. “No you don’t.”
Abby pulled the blade from her own chest. It took her two tries for her strength was fading fast, and the skin of her chest caught the blade as if it didn’t want to let it go. Finally, it came free. She palmed it in two blood-covered hands and stared into the evil eyes of the person who’d started this all.
“He wins,” Abby said.
Then she slammed the blade into the queen’s neck. The amount of blood that spurted from the wound almost seemed fake like something you’d seen in a horror movie. But this wasn’t a movie and she’d really just shoved a dagger into another person’s neck. Well, she’d also nearly burned the demon bitch too, so. Whatever.
Abby fell off the queen. She hadn’t meant to but she had no control over her body. With each breath she took, more blood seemed to gurgle from her chest with a wet plopping sound.
Alrik’s face swam before her. She smiled and reached for him. He grabbed her bloodied hand and ran a calming hand over her hair. A sigh escaped her it felt so nice. Whatever spell the queen had made him drink was gone. He had returned to his normal self.
“What have you done?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
She started to speak but was surprised to find she had to swallow a few times first. Her tongue felt heavy and dry. She needed some water. “I beat her. I killed her. Right?” God, she’d better be dead. Abby didn’t know how many more times she could kill her.
Alrik leaned over her. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized how cold she was. A shiver passed over her. His cheek pressed against hers, and then he kissed her. Even his cheek felt burning hot. She tried to purse her lips to kiss him back but couldn’t.
“Yes, you killed her.” Why did he sound so funny?
“What’s...wrong?” She had to swallow again. Damn, her throat really hurt. After she felt better, she was going to really live in to him for choking her.
