Medan blinked and inclined her head. “Your little Marked understands. What about you, Child? Do you hate him enough to kill him?”
Haley looked at Farley, then Medan. “No.” God of Man help her, she only felt pity for him. “I’m angry, yes. But kill him? No.”
The Queen rumbled and moved her head closer. Her golden eyes swirled and pulsed with an inner fire. “You have so much to learn, Child. So much to learn.” She turned back to John Tate.
His hands looked so small pushing against her massive claws, trying to move them. “Please ... Medan ... please ... Haley, help me.” His legs kicked but he was getting nowhere. His entire body rattled under the weight of the Queen’s RHage.
John choked, turned his head and vomited, retching so hard that bright red blood was swirled in the yellow bile. He coughed, snorted and vomited again. All the while, Medan watched with a kind of patience that Haley would have never dreamed she possessed.
“Please don’t kill me,” John whispered. “Please, I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t ... my daughter’s going to have her first baby in a week. My family, I want to see my family again...”
Medan purred. “This is not your Human society, chetrah. Here, there is only one way for enemies to pay their debt, and that is with their life. And your life, however pitiful it may be, will simply have to do.” Under her claw John prayed again.
“Medan...” Haley choked back a sob. “My Queen... When the D.A. sees the mark on him, they will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. He’ll go to prison. He’ll go to prison and they won’t ever let him out for what he did.”
“You do not want me to kill him.” It wasn’t a question. Medan applied a little pressure to her captive, pushing the air out of his lungs until he was gasping. Haley clenched her fists. “You feel pity for him. You cherish his life despite his hate of yours?”
“Yes.”
Medan dipped her head. “I see.” She flicked her gaze up at Haley. “It would please you if I gave him his life?”
She shut her eyes for a second and willed her words to form against the Fear Medan radiated. “Yes.”
“It would ... ease you.”
“Yes, your Majesty. Yes.”
Medan gave a snort. “Then I will not kill him.” Haley’s eyes snapped open. Medan lifted her foot. John Tate was still too occupied with catching his breath to run.
Haley started to tell her thank you, but the Queen caught her gaze and held it. Right then and there, she knew something terrible was coming. Something unstoppable.
“No, I will not kill him. I will just break him instead.” Medan tilted her massive head and a thin line of gold dripped from her temple, clung to her cheek, then splattered against John Tate’s face. He tried wiping it away from his mouth, but it was too late.
John Tate kicked and rolled, mouth working like a fish. His eyes glazed and he clawed at his neck, chest, and then groin.
“Ah ... yes. This will be much more fun.” Medan thrummed as she scraped the temporal fluid from the side of her face and held her razor sharp claw out to John. His hands latched onto her toe and his mouth on her talon. He sucked, he licked, slicing open his lips and tongue. Red blood mixed with the gold.
“Jesus...” Farley turned his head. Haley didn’t. Haley made herself watch. She’d brought this on the man.
When his chest was covered in scarlet and his lips so mutilated they hung from his jaw, Medan poured more on him. It slapped him in the face and rained down on his hands. John smeared it over his skin. The grin on his face was made more gruesome by the damage to his lips. He licked at his arms and bit his own hands until he was chewing mouthfuls of flesh, all the while making small mewling noises.
“Ore...” He held his hands up to the Queen and she gazed at him like he was something precious. “Ease, Ore...”
“Pray to me, John. Pray to me, and maybe I will give you what you want.”
“Medan, please, no--” Haley slapped her hand over her mouth too late. The Queen narrowed her eyes and steam rolled from between her lips.
With her eyes on Haley, Medan spoke to John. Commanding him. And because of the ties formed by the temporal fluid, he could not disobey. “Pray to me, John. Pray to the only God.”
“Hail edan, ull o grace...”
The Queen smiled. “Very good, John.”
John Tate worked his mouth and Medan fed him more. His head lolled to the side and his eyes rolled into his skull. John clawed at himself, digging one hand into the sack below his cock, while the other continued working until he climaxed.
“This is for you, Haley Night. How long do you think he can stand my pleasures before he begs me for death?”
Haley turned away. She couldn’t help it.
“You will watch, Haley! He lives! Just as you wish, he lives!”
John’s cries turned into piteous wailing. His eyes bulged from his head, and when the next wave hit him, he bit his tongue in half. And he still couldn’t stop, clawing, stroking, coming.
Medan laughed, reared upward, caught her chelae on the marble, and threw sparks. “They want our pleasures, I will give them our pleasures. They want our gifts, I will give them our gifts!” She snarled at John as he screamed for her mercy. “That’s right, John, pray to me. Fuck yourself and pray to me! Give yourself unto me, chetrah. Bear your soul unto me!” John threw back his head and smashed it into the marble. “More, John. More!” She kept laughing and John Tate kept screaming.
“STOP IT!” Haley started towards him, but Farley yanked her back. Medan’s jaws shot forward with a deafening snap. One more step and the Queen would have bitten Haley in half.
“Stop what, Haley? His life? Are you asking me to end his life?” The sound of her voice and the power of her Fear took Haley to her knees. Farley held her.
The sob burst out of Haley. Tears burned her eyes and cut rivers down her cheeks. She shook, she trembled, she couldn’t gather a rational thought. Farley held her so tight that the air wheezed out of her lungs. She stayed there, curled and unable to stand. The screaming from John Tate trickled away and was replaced by a rhythmic grunting sound and the pop and crunch of bone.
Haley didn’t want to look, but she had to. John Tate suffered because of her. Medan had stretched herself out on the marble floor. Red blood pooled at her feet.
This was what she meant by ruining the rugs. Medan had planned this just like everything else.
Medan dipped her head and ripped one of John Tate’s legs from its socket and chewed. As his arterial spray fanned across the floor, his strokes slowed until they stopped completely. His mouth opened once, twice, and he became still. Medan bit his torso, ripping him apart, stringing his insides across the floor. She was slow in her eating. Exaggerated.
When she was finished, she extended a bloody claw to Haley. “Come to me, Child. Let us become one. You are weak, where I am not. Come to me and I will protect you.”
Haley couldn’t do it. She couldn’t will herself to step forward. To go to her. To become like her.
“I can’t.” Haley slid back, struggled to her feet, stumbled, and Farley caught her. “This was a mistake.” She looked around, dazed. Which way was out? Which way took her away from this hell?
A small smile curled on Medan’s scaled lips. “This is what you need, Haley. This is the power and the vengeance you do not possess.”
“No.” Haley shook her head. “No, I will not. I can’t.” She couldn’t be cold and murderous to survive.
“So weak.” Medan hissed.
Against her ear, Farley said her name. “She can protect you.”
“No--no ... I--can’t.”
“If this is what it takes to survive--”
“No! Get me out of here, Farley. Please, get me out now!”
“This way.” Farley pulled Haley to her feet and they ran.
In the tunnel Haley fell.
“Get up! C’mon, Haley!”
She tried, but her body would only shake. The images of John Tat
e crushed her like a physical force, making her weak, making her helpless.
Farley scooped her up. “Fuck it.” The tunnel he took didn’t lead back into the club, but connected to a brick and mortar causeway and emptied out over a grassy bank. Runway lights from the airport glittered on the horizon. An airplane roared overhead, making Haley jump.
“Shhh…” Farley sat down and held her in his lap. It was getting cold out but they were shielded from the wind by the lip of the tunnel. “It’s okay.” His gentle hands stroked her back and arms.
“No, no, it’s not okay. It’s not okay. She killed him. I killed him.” Haley’s words were butchered by her shivering.
God of Man, if only she could get the images out of her mind. Medan had eaten John Tate, not just eaten him but broken him. It was a kind of brutality she couldn’t understand. But then, that was the way, wasn’t it? In the belly of the Hive it was survive or die. Why should it bother Medan to kill something that wasn’t even hers?
But it should have.
No matter how badly Haley wanted to survive, she couldn’t do it at that kind of price. Never in her life had she felt so weak, so lost, so out of control. All her time with Humans, she longed to belong to the Dens, and now she only wanted to blow-torch the memories from her head.
“Is that what it was like for you on the hatching grounds? Is that why it doesn’t bother you? Is that why you aren’t...” Falling apart. I’m falling apart. “Tell me.”
Farley touched her cheek. “Yes.”
“I never understood. Even with the white-scales, I never ... I never understood.”
“I’m sorry.” He stroked her head.
“I thought I knew. I thought...” A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “I thought I understood. I’ve read every book. I’ve studied every paper. But I don’t, do I? I don’t. I’m Kin, but I’m not. Look at me. I can’t stop ... stop ... sh-shaking.”
“You’re not used to it. I always envied you, you know. I never tried to tell you because I was afraid it would change you.”
“I’m cold.”
“It’s the shock.” He moved, and his hand pushed against the back of her head. “Feed. It will help.”
“I can’t. I feel too sick.”
They sat there for a while listening to the planes coming and going, their passengers free of the horrible knowledge of the Dens.
“I wish she’d just killed me.”
Farley shushed her and rocked. “No, you don’t. Live at all costs.”
“And yet she killed him ... no ... she tortured him, she broke him ... that’s not valuing life.”
“It’s surviving.”
She looked up at him and his face was serene. Haley couldn’t understand. And she didn’t want to. “How can you say that, Farley? You knew John. You talked with him, and you saw him in the halls--”
“He sold you out.” He pushed the lock of hair behind her ear. “I understand why she did it, even if I don’t agree with her methods.”
Haley studied him, trying to find some hesitation, some regret, but there wasn’t any. “You really meant it when you said you would have killed him?”
Farley dropped his eyes.
“Who am I?” Haley leaned against him. “What am I?”
“You’re Kin.”
“No, no. I’m not. I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be...” God of Man, she sounded like Deshi. “Ah, Christ.” New tears broke over her cheeks. “I don’t know what to do ... I don’t know...”
Farley held Haley while she fell apart all over again, keeping all her pieces from becoming lost in the grass. He shushed her, he rocked her, he kissed her tears, and when she was completely spent, he picked her up again and carried her once more.
Chapter 37
Well, if this didn’t beat all. Dobson checked his phone for the third time in five minutes. Obsessive compulsive just wasn’t him.
The Queen didn’t call. And she always called. Or at least her mouthpiece did. That could only mean one thing.
The shit had hit the fan in a very big way.
His men had taken care of that Clinic east of the Dens, but then his men had disappeared. Seven in all, including that cop, Tate. Dobson wasn’t sure what to make of that. The Queen hadn’t called, and now his team was missing. And from his personal experience variation in the norm was never a good sign.
And the kicker? The Buckhead and East Point labs hadn’t checked in.
Civilian operations were always like this. Full of pits and cracks to break an ankle in. In the field, things were better. There, if something got in your way, you shot it or blew it up. But the public has a tendency to get cranky about that sort of behavior, so Dobson was forced to keep his crayon marks inside the lines. Another couple of days though, and it wouldn’t matter. He’d be a goddamned hero.
Dobson flipped open the phone and called. One of them had better answer or there would be hell to pay. When the phone picked up he didn’t wait for a hello. “Richards, tell me something bad hasn’t happened?”
“We’re all good to go here, sir. Should I be concerned about anything?”
“Always be concerned, Richards. Never let your guard down.”
Richards cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”
“Have the Buckhead or East Point labs called you?”
“No, sir.”
“Me either.” Not good. Not good. “Send an Alchemist team over there. Have them check it out.” While both labs had the standard surveillance equipment, they were nowhere near as fortified as the ADF. But then, what was?
Voices floated up the hall and Dobson glanced out the door. This time of night the only thing crawling around the Center should be cockroaches. Two janitors appeared around the corner talking back and forth in Spanish.
Scratch that. Cockroaches and Spics.
“I’ll be leaving here in a few minutes, then heading home for a few hours of sleep. If so much as a rat’s asshole hair is out of place in my lab, you call me. Do I make myself clear?” Dobson didn’t wait for the lab lackey’s stupid answer, he just hung up.
He went back to the computer sitting on his bare bones desk. Dobson didn’t use this office much. Hell, he avoided the place as often as he could. Like the rest of the building it smelled like wyrm and pussy. Not a great combination.
Dobson opened his email and sent a message out to the Center for Draconian Research. He wanted them ready for the final phase. He checked his inbox. It was empty, None of the facilities had replied to him via email either. Fine. He stood and his phone rang. He checked the number. It was Dolby’s. Lead man for the Clinic Job.
“Where the fuck have you been, Dolby? I’ve been sitting on my ass here waiting for you to check in. Where is Tate? He didn’t report in either.” He waited for a reply and heard nothing. “Dolby? Dolby ... fuck. I can hear you breathing, Alchemist, so say something.”
It wasn’t Dolby who answered. Hell, it wasn’t even Human. The rich, deep, feminine voice could be nothing more than Kin, and the distortions made by an inhuman mouth meant it was a Kin in full form.
“Unfortunately, none of your team will be reporting back to you, Colonel Dobson.” There was a sound like something wet being torn in half. A whimper echoed in the background.
“Who is this?”
“Medan, the Queen of Atlanta.”
Dobson was quiet. The Queen never spoke to him directly.
“Where’s your Link? Why didn’t she call me?”
Something big moved. It came over the tiny speaker like a thunderstorm. When the Queen spoke again, her voice was louder, closer to the speaker. “Colonel Dobson, I do not have a Link, I have never had a Link, nor will I ever take one. Chetrah are not even worthy enough to scrape the scat of my hatchlings. There is but one place on this planet for your kind and that is as Food.”
Dobson felt dizzy. Part of him wanted to accuse the voice of lying, but he knew she wasn’t. He could feel she wasn’t.
“If you’re Medan, then who the fuck have I been talkin
g to?”
A thick rich chuckle shimmied the cheap speaker. “See, so easy to lead. Cattle, that’s all you are. Tell me, colonel, when I tear the flesh from your bones, will you pray to your God? Will you ask Him to save you? To protect you? I have found that all chetrah pray in the end. And yet you still die.” Voices in the background rose and fell. Dobson heard the distinct sound of someone sobbing like a goddamned infant.
“What do you want?” It wasn’t like he really cared. He was more or less trying to buy some time to organize his thoughts and figure out what to do next.
“I wanted you to hear the news from me.”
“What news?”
“Surely you know by now.”
What? That’d he’d been fucked? Yeah, that was becoming real clear, but the problem was, by whom and how. “Are you going to tell me who I need to kill, or are we going to keep doing this dance ‘til daylight?”
Her laughed was accompanied by the sound of whimpering. “You need not be concerned with killing anyone. You see, I’m very good at this game. I never flinch. I never hesitate. So, when I realized Nidia was pulling your strings, I pulled some of my own.”
“Nidia?”
“Yes, colonel. The Queen of North Carolina. Seems she enjoys playing pretend. And since you chetrah are so easily led...”
A scream came across the phone, desperate, pain filled, and Human. Dobson jerked the phone away from his ear.
“Oh God, oh God, please, nooo--.” The voice was cut short by a snap, followed by more sounds of something wet and thick being ripped and torn.
“My hatchlings thank you for your gift to them. They are so hungry. Always hungry. You were a fool to lay any faith in Nidia. She knows you plan on killing her, and she will strike first.”
“If you want me dead, why are you telling me this?”
“Because no one takes what is mine. And you, Colonel Dobson, are mine.”
Chapter 38
Stuffed in a way-too-small bathtub, Farley cradled Haley’s body with his own.
Steam curled and rolled from the water’s surface. It was hot enough to scald, yet it still wasn’t hot enough. He petted Haley in long languid strokes. Water slapped against his chin when she moved.
City of Dragons: Blood Bonds Page 31
