“Nuala and Zamira,” she said simply.
That shut me up.
“Their inhuman physiology makes them immune to the effects of the disease, but I detected the same black magic residue on them. It was a match for what I found on the dead snowboarder and in Mrs. Davis’s blood. Somehow, you have come in contact with a carrier. Come back, Jason, before you hurt someone.”
Octurna’s words rang through my head. Movement in the room caught my attention, and I looked up to see Keira backing away.
As she buttoned up her shirt, she said, “Maybe you should go.”
Anger raged inside me, raw and savage and directed against Octurna. Why couldn’t she leave me alone? Why did she want to sabotage my private life? The answer was simple. She was jealous.
I moved in on Keira, my hands reaching for her. To hell with the sorceress.
“I hope you enjoy the show,” I growled at Octurna. Keira took a step back, her expression half worried and half afraid.
“The virus is already influencing your mental state,” Octurna began.
I ignored her babbling, moved in for another kiss. There was a trace of uncertainty on Keira’s face. Her hesitation only fueled my rage. I grabbed for the reporter, determined to have her.
And that’s when a rectangular doorway opened in a nearby wall, and a violent gust of wind tore through the office, sending stacks of papers flying and knocking pens and coffee mugs off their desks.
My blazing eyes locked onto Octurna’s, as she loomed in the portal like a dark angel. Only a few feet separated me from her. Hatred surged inside me, and my blood boiled with murderous rage. Anger defeating desire, I pulled myself away from Keira and ran toward the interdimensional doorway. Octurna wisely stepped aside and vanished from view.
You can run, but you can’t hide, I thought as I stormed through the doorway and… found myself on a deserted city street. Octurna had used the fortress’s magic to transport me to another part of the city. Sneaky witch!
For a disoriented beat, I had no idea where I was. A closer inspection of my surroundings suggested I was in downtown LA, miles from the newspaper office. I gritted my teeth. How dare the sorceress mess with me like that? Our partnership was over and done with, that much was certain. Good luck recruiting another chump for her harebrained mission against the dark side.
I made out the strains of music. Classic rock drifted down a nearby alley and made me curious where the sounds were coming from. I followed the melody to a nearby watering hole. Eyeing the bar crowd spilling through the open entrance into the street, I decided to join them. I needed to calm myself and figure out what my next move would be. A few drinks would surely help.
I stepped into the bar and felt myself smile. This rip-roaring throng of partiers was just what the doctor ordered. I received a few interested looks from the women at the bar. Sexual hunger burned inside me and needed an outlet. I had a feeling I would find it here tonight.
I had already forgotten Keira. A part of me wondered how I could move on so quickly, but then I stopped thinking about her entirely. I had bigger fish to fry.
I took a seat at the bar and ordered an IPA. The alcohol burned down my parched throat. I did my best to relax, but my thoughts kept turning back to the sorceress. Why had my partner betrayed me like that after everything we’d been through together? I had thought we were a team. So much for that idea.
I felt the anger return, and I ordered another beer. And another. But the alcohol did not heal the wounds in my heart. Even if Octurna was jealous of my relationship with Keira, it was no excuse for her lies. There was no way I had the monster bug. What a messed-up thing to say.
I drained my latest beer, already having lost count of how many drinks I had ordered since setting foot in the bar.
What I really needed was to blow off some steam. I scanned the bar. A trio of hotties circled a pool table, posing provocatively every time they leaned forward to sink a ball. I smiled and rose to my feet. I had found the perfect cure for my dark mood. These ladies were not Keira, but they would do.
I sauntered over to the pool table, where one girl pushed her lovely derriere into the air as she positioned her cue stick. I was about to chat her up when someone behind me cleared his throat. I hadn’t noticed the two massive bikers lurking in the corner earlier. Going by their baleful expressions, they believed I was intruding on their turf.
“Beat it, bud, this is a private game.”
I sized up the speaker. Three hundred pounds of meat and attitude challenged me.
“Are you deaf, dude? Get the fuck out of here.”
I turned to the second speaker. He was smaller than the first man but sported the same nasty attitude. This is what happens when you watch too much Sons of Anarchy and get delusions of grandeur. Or perhaps they were the real thing. Either way, I wasn’t impressed.
I flashed a wolfish grin at the two bozos. I wanted to get my hands bloody, and these assholes seemed kind enough to oblige.
The two meatheads rose from their barstools and stomped toward me, steel-studded boots kicking up the wood shavings and sawdust that carpeted the floor. Funny, the little details that you notice in the moments before a fight.
The first man zeroed in on me, a cue stick held menacingly in his hand. A flicker of uncertainty edged into his gaze. He was clearly used to people backing down from his size and menace. And maybe he was disturbed by what he found in my bloodthirsty gaze.
Good. I wanted him to be afraid.
I cracked my knuckles in anticipation as biker boy number one stopped in his tracks. And that’s when I noticed the change. For a surreal moment, it looked as though my fingers had grown scaly and my nails lengthened into talons.
Then someone started screaming.
I glanced up at the nearest mirror… and a nightmare beast glared back at me. My face had turned into a reptilian monster mask, adorned with horns and jagged teeth that dripped saliva.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed under his breath.
My shoulders erupted with a pain such as I had never experienced before. I hunched over and my back contorted as I bit back a scream that didn't sound human. I heard skin and flesh tearing as a pair of giant bat-like wings exploded from my shoulder blades and cast a grotesque shadow across the beer-stained floor.
The three floozies stared at me in horror.
For a brief moment, I shared their emotion, terrified at what was happening to me. And then the horror gave way to mad glee as I embraced my new form. The screams of the terrified bar patrons were music to my ears. I was a dragon, and they were nothing but meat.
And then I ripped into the bikers, a hellish nightmare given free rein. I basked in their cries for help, bathed in their blood.
I was a monster, and for the first time in my life, I felt liberated.
What followed next tumbled through my mind in a blur. A barrage of images drowned in screams and blood. I cut a destructive path through the bar, rending bodies whenever my razor-sharp claws raked the air and found soft, vulnerable flesh. My reality was reduced to simple impressions and impulses. The transformation had stripped me of all my humanity.
I lost all sense of time as the floor turned red.
My tongue tasted iron, a meaty smell filling my nostrils. And then the cries for mercy went silent, and I found myself the lone living creature in the bar. I inhaled sharply. My distended nostrils flared as a forked tongue licked the air. I surveyed my grisly handiwork. The watering hole had been transformed into a blood-soaked battlefield. The carnage should have filled me with disgust, but instead, a sense of immense power flooded my pumped-up chest. I unleashed an inhuman roar.
The monster hunter had become a monster. And I loved how it felt. The power. The freedom.
And then the moment of mad elation passed. The dead faces staring back at me ceased to belong to strangers. I was now staring back at the broken faces of the men and women who had been my closest friends. My slaughtered SWAT Team. Their black uniforms coated crimson, t
heir lips twisted into frozen screams.
It was impossible. What diabolical trick was the sorceress playing with my mind now? I sank to my haunches, suddenly drained and defeated.
“You must fight the beast inside you. Fight it. Remember who you are. Who you want to be.”
I barely registered Octurna’s words, preoccupied with the terrible sight of my dead friends.
“Hold on, Jason.” Sensing she was losing me, the world changed in a burst of brilliant light.
The wasteland of broken bodies evaporated. I now found myself in in Sanctuary’s battle arena where I usually sparred with the golems. It took a few seconds to realize what had happened. The whole dive bar had been an illusion. I had always been inside Octurna’s fortress. All signs of the bar fight were gone, except for the two dead bikers sprawled at my feet. And then the corpses stirred, bones cracking as the two dead men rose to unnatural life.
I backed away from the reanimated corpses. Their savage wounds dripped red, and I wondered how the mangled limbs could support their bulk. This question was still going through my mind when the bloodied features dissolved into the faceless masks of the golems.
Understanding slashed through me. It had all been a trick, a ruse to convince me I was sick. Octurna was still playing mind games, damn it.
The sorceress’s voice rang out through the arena. “I am sorry for this game of smoke and mirrors. I hate to trick you, Jason, but I needed to draw out the beast with no one getting hurt. I had to convince you I was telling the truth about the virus.”
I pivoted and came face to face with the sorceress. Only a few feet separated us. The monster inside me surfaced with a vengeance, and I launched myself at her with murderous intent.
My claws did not connect with flesh. Instead, I slammed into an invisible wall of energy that sent me flying. I soared through the arena and landed on the sandy ground in a cloud of dust.
I sprang to my feet with an inhuman grace. I took three steps before I collided with the magical barrier again. Sparks of crackling energy exploded around my head and singed my reptilian hide.
A monster roared, and a moment later I realized it was me.
Octurna looked on, her alabaster face filled with sorrow. Her magical dome kept me trapped within the arena. The monster that controlled me kept attacking the barrier, each new attempt meeting the same painful results. After the fifth attempt, I collapsed, completely spent. The golems watched in grave silence.
“Help me,” I croaked.
The sorceress offered me her hand even though I had tried to kill her only moments earlier. I raised my monstrous claw, and as I did, the scaled hide turned back into human skin.
“I believe in you, Jason. You can conquer the beast.”
I prayed Octurna was right.
10
The sorceress drew circles in the air with her hands, and two sigils joined the intricate pattern of fractal tattoos that lined my skin. There was no pain as the new symbols burned into my naked chest.
I tore my gaze from the glowing blue tattoos and looked up at Octurna. “What’s with the new ink?”
“I am attempting to control the monster,” the sorceress explained in a somber voice. “I cannot cure you of this terrible affliction, Jason, but these wards will slow down the transformation and help you remain in control of the beast the next time the change happens.”
My jaw tightened. The sorceress’ magic had tamed the dragon creature inside me, but I was a long way from being in the clear. I was relieved to be human again, but I sensed it wouldn’t take much to wake the monster from its dormant state. Octurna’s somber mood suggested that she shared my grim assessment of the situation.
“I guess I’m not getting laid for a while,” I said, attempting to make a joke out of a dire situation. Octurna didn’t crack a smile. “Any idea how long it will take to fix this?”
I was trying to stay hopeful and keep a positive attitude. To be honest, I didn't know if there was a way to fix this.
Octurna studied me for a beat, and I knew she saw right through me. “We must find the mage who created this virus. That is our only hope.”
“How do we do that? I don’t even know how I contracted the damn thing. Don’t you think I’d remember if I slept with someone besides Nuala and Zamira?”
“Something happened at the club in New York. Someone tampered with your memories.”
I frowned. “Wouldn’t my magic protect me from such a psychic attack?”
“Not if you came in contact with a powerful telepath.”
I considered this explanation. The idea made sense and would explain my strange, fog-like mental state since leaving Harem. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced Octurna was right. My gut churned as the truth sank in. Some entity had taken a joyride through my mind and erased a chunk of my life.
As the sorceress took a step toward me, her robe swirled around her incredible figure, offering tantalizing glimpses of flesh. Her magic could suppress my dragon beast, but it wasn’t helping with my libido, which was still running on overdrive. This virus wanted to be passed on. I shuddered at the thought of how many folks I would have doomed to a terrible fate if the sorceress hadn’t interfered.
Octurna nodded at the two golems, who were observing our exchange from afar. An instant later, the faceless servants vanished like spooks into the shadows of the magical arena. Octurna apparently required privacy for whatever she planned to do next.
My chest tightened with a flicker of panic. Her spellcasting could be… intense.
“Someone does not want you to remember what happened during your visit to the club,” the sorceress said as she paced toward me. “We must discover what they have hidden.”
“How do you plan to do that?” I asked.
“I have ways. Trust me, Jason.”
Only inches separated us now, and I could feel Octurna’s breath against my skin.
“Uh, you know this virus is making me kinda frisky?”
Octurna ignored my comment and laid her hands on my forehead. Instantly, an electric jolt jerked up my spine and shook me to the core. My breath lodged in my throat as the ancient combat arena spun around me. The stone walls and sand, where so much blood was spilled during my sweat-soaked sparring sessions with the golems, now turned into a different arena. The sandy ground transformed into an arid desert, and the walls of the arena gave way to a barren mountain landscape. I inhaled desert air and recognized that I was back in Kabul, Afghanistan. Crowds of shoppers filled a bustling market place.
Dread tore through my insides. I knew what would happen next. A terrorist was about to detonate an explosive vest.
I was reliving the past, and you can't change history. Or could you?
Fuck it, I had to try.
I shouted like a madman and waved my arms, hoping to alert the throng of oblivious shoppers to the approaching suicide bomber. The terrorist looked identical to everyone else in his loose-fitting pants, vest, and cap. They could not know that death was closing in.
I screamed my lungs out as the terrorist detonated the device and rained fire and shrapnel on an unsuspecting crowd of innocent souls. The shockwave sent me flying. I landed with a bone-jarring impact, which tore my helmet from my head.
For a beat, I lay there as a terrible heat seared the air. Screams filled the charred, smoking ruins of the market place. Fiery death assaulted my senses as the world burned and hot tears stung my eyes. I blinked them back. The smell of burning flesh and metal rushed into my nostrils.
These sensations—memories I’d desperately tried to suppress—tumbled through my throbbing head as the sorceress continued to probe my mind. Even though I understood that this was all happening in my head, it felt so real. Octurna stood in the flaming ruins near the Kabul police precinct like the grim reaper personified, oily smoke swirling around her alabaster skin in thick tendrils.
Octurna eyed me with empathy. “I am so sorry to make you go through this again, Jason. This is the only way
to find the specific memories we need.”
I nodded, bracing myself for more horrors from my past. War left scars. My motto had always been to learn from the past without dwelling on it, but only now did I realize how many bad memories I’d allowed to fester. I never talked about the things I’d seen. The things I’d done. Didn’t even think about them, if I could help it. Maybe that had been a mistake.
The world spun like a carousel, and I found myself looking through a sniper rifle at a tense hostage situation. Two armed robbers stepped out of a bank with a pair of terrified hostages in tow. My finger whitened on the trigger as the voice in my earpiece told me to take the shot.
I was reliving my first year on the SWAT team. I did as I was told. I fired and the first bank robber’s head erupted into red mist. A split second later, the second robber followed his buddy into the afterlife.
“The two suspects are down,” I heard myself say. “I repeat, the suspects…”
The words died on my lips as a third gunman emerged from the bank, brandishing an assault weapon. Before I was able to react, he unloaded his firearm into the two hostages.
For a moment I couldn’t breathe, overwhelmed by the power of the memory.
That day had served as a vital lesson but was also a stain on my soul. No one blamed me for what happened. There was no way I could have known about the third shooter hiding out in the bank—it had been a complete failure of intelligence gathering—but I had never forgiven myself.
Octurna popped up in my scope, once again acting as a silent observer to this horrific trip down memory lane. As I stared at her, the environment transformed again. I now was inside an apartment building, surrounded by the corpses of my slain SWAT team members. These weren’t merely coworkers—I considered these men and women my brothers and sisters in arms. My heart pounded, and blood roared. I couldn’t take more of this.
The succubus appeared among the bodies and zeroed in on me with lethal intent. This memory was raw in my mind. It had haunted my nightmares these past four months.
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