by SGD Singh
Asha, Lexi, and Nidhan followed and watched as they blended into the night, animals moving in fluid grace through the flame-glowing fog. Mia and Himat joined them on the bridge. “There are two main pipes,” said Lexi, pointing. “One there. And there. It's—”
A flare burst against the side of the building, and the bright turquoise lake lit up like a swimming pool a second later. Swirling within its depths, Asha saw—blood. It spread like smoke, tendrils reaching for the fort wall and darkening the water to an opaque crimson-purple that sent ice through Asha's veins.
“We're too late,” she whispered, blinking in disbelief. Asha clenched her fists in frustration, three emeralds flashing on her hand in the light of the burning forest. Worst. Seer. Ever!
Lexi hit Asha's shoulder with the back of her hand. “You're never beaten until you admit it, remember?” Taking her sword out with a twirl, Lexi sprinted along the stone bridge, Nidhan and Himat at her heels.
Asha ran into the discolored water, followed by Mia and Himat. They splashed their way toward the first pipe while Lexi and Nidhan stood watch on the bank.
The sounds of combat filled the night—hoarse shouted orders, bursts of blinding light, the boom of Shaan's weapon, and the inhuman shrieks of dying Underworlders.
The metal pipe was large enough for an adult to crawl into—about three feet across—and it had required a sickening number of babies to choke off the flow of holy water. Asha stared in horrified disbelief at what she saw. She hadn't truly accepted that her nightmares were real until that moment.
A passage from Underworlders, A Complete Study came unbidden into Asha's mind: Although they will eat any human child under the age of ten, the Goblin's diet of choice is babies, preferably younger than one year. Where Commanders of the distant past believed this would make the Goblin easier to find, they soon learned there is nothing that cannot be bought from civilians, given the right price. Even their own infants.
The pipe sat, plugged, halfway out of the water, overflowing with limbs so small Asha could almost make herself believe what she was seeing was only a mound of discarded dolls.
Until she touched cold, dead skin, felt the wet fuzz of hair, and looked into dead, unseeing eyes.
Lexi and Nidhan, after one horrified glance, stood with their gazes fixed on the burning forest.
Asha barely suppressed a gag as she began pulling the cold flesh from the pipe. The flesh was wedged so tightly, so compressed, that the tiny limbs broke loose from their torsos. She threw them to the shore with ragged sobs.
After blinking in disbelief for a long minute, Mia whispered a prayer in Spanish and plunged her hands into the gore, her face pale, her expression like stone as she started to pull the tiny bodies free.
They didn't stop, and Lexi and Nidhan didn't look, as Himat vomited onto the muddy, entrails-strewn bank.
After what seemed like an eternity, Asha had cleared half the pipe, screaming with every limb and torn piece of flesh that she broke free with numb hands, mechanically passing the cold remains back to Mia. Finally, clear liquid began to gush between the mangled bodies. The holy water propelled with such force, Asha stumbled back, slipping on the metal.
Himat jumped forward, his orange eyes flashing as the small figures floated, bobbing on the current toward him. Cradling them in his arms, he waded through the dark, slowly rising water to add them to the growing mound on the bank.
It took the three of them eight more trips to the shore before the pipe was clear. Asha averted her eyes from the scattered limbs as she sprinted to the other side of the lake, ignoring the shaking in her legs; the cold in her deepest core was from more than being soaked in the foggy night air.
Without hesitation, she went to the second pipe. Her team followed.
The flames in the forest burned closer, warming their saturated clothes as the five of them ran along the edge of the lake. Lexi took the rear, revolver out as she scanned the smoldering branches, while Nidhan towered at the front, weapons held ready to face whatever challenged them.
Coming to a halt with an upraised fist, Nidhan replaced his revolver for his talwar as twelve Vampires approached them through the glowing fog, their teeth glinting as they laughed.
“Twelve against five,” said a tall blonde, smiling at a Vampire that looked like an Egyptian model. “I'll take those odds.”
“Me, too.” Lexi stepped forward, shooting him in the heart with a stake. He stumbled toward her, and Nidhan lunged, severing his head with his sword. The Vampire combusted into flames.
Lexi grinned. “Who's next?”
The remaining Vampires rushed forward together, but Asha raised her arms, moving in a blur to block them from the others.
Falling to their knees, the Vampires glared up at Asha, shaking with rage.
“I can See it now,” Asha said, not knowing if the disgust she felt was more for herself or the Vampires. “Ranya gave you written instructions, which led you to yet more instructions. And finally, to crates—but with strict orders not to open them until after the fire was set. And so on… It must have been hard for you to throw away all that blood. Could you smell the fear in it? I bet you all took a taste, am I right? Just a little one.” Running a hand through her hair, Asha smiled at them and said, “I wonder if any of you have thought at all about where your five gorgeous, MIA companions disappeared to?”
That got their attention. A Vampire who looked alarmingly like Adam Levine demanded, “Where are they?”
Asha shrugged, meeting his eyes, “Ranya deserted them. After leading the Jodha to her little palace, she left them there to be slaughtered. The one called Katerina realized it before she died.”
“She's lying,” a Vampire with bright green eyes hissed, pointing. “Ranya would never do that!”
“No? I saw her happily skewer three Vampires with my own eyes.”
They exchanged startled looks, and Asha saw they knew just the three she was talking about. “First the two sent to capture me in town, then the three she skewered, then the five females, and, I don't know, ten more at the bank?”
“Eight,” Nidhan said.
Asha stopped draining the life from them, crossing her arms, and the Vampires immediately began to heal, struggling to rise. “Ranya's using you—all of you. You're expendable. She can do what I just did,” Asha wiggled her fingers at them, “only better. And she will kill each and every one of you after you've served your purpose. You know I'm right.”
Two Vampires took a step toward her, but Asha raised a hand, and they stopped. “She can't do it from a distance, though, so I suggest you leave. Now. While you can.”
Looking at Asha for a long moment and down at the charred ground, the Adam Levine look alike made a throat-cutting motion at Lexi with a sneer. Then, turning to Asha with a short bow, he and the rest of the Vampires vanished into the fog and were gone.
“Now you're letting Vampires go?” Lexi shouted, getting in Asha's face. “Or don't tell me! If we had fought them, which we didn't even need to—they were down, for fuck's sake—we would all be dead, right?”
Himat got between them, and Lexi spread her arms wide, backing up. Asha was already moving, sprinting along the edge of the lake, splashing through the water to the second pipe.
The light faded from the water as Asha waded back toward the shore, and Nidhan shot a flare at the fort wall, at the same time as someone among the flames. As both flares exploded across the stone, the lake lit up again.
Asha and Lexi smiled at each other. The water color was definitely improving.
Lexi squeezed Asha's shoulder. “Asha,” she whispered. The urgency in her voice made Asha turn to her. “I saw the flare, Asha. I saw the flare…”
Hysteria threatened Asha's shredded nerves, her whole body still humming with Vampire energy, and Asha burst into laughter as she turned to move away from the second mound of limbs. “Shit, Lexi! You were the only one who ever doubted it!”
Mia yelled through the fog, over the now-familiar shrieking o
f Revenants that filled the night. “Asha! The bridge!”
Asha broke into a run, burning the Vampire energy as she moved with inhuman speed.
The water had begun to purify, burning them, but still a black, oily mass of Revenants in their True Forms oozed along the far bank and into the water, twining up the stone and onto the bridge as Asha emerged through the smoke-filled fog to Headquarters' entrance.
Aquila! Revenants breaching the—
Already on it.
She watched as Aquila and Kelakha's birds shifted with vicious grace, their weapons flashing, onto the bridge before a growing crowd of Revenants. They fired blinding sun bullets, as deafening screams filled the night. And still the Underworlders slithered out of the filthy water, climbing the stone, their iridescent darkness flashing colorfully in the firelight.
“Where did all these Revenants even come from?” Lexi panted beside her, as Asha stared, momentarily frozen by the sheer number of them. “I thought we were, like, getting rid of them…”
The banyan tree burst into flames three stories high and Asha and Lexi spun, jumping back, shading their faces as the hanging roots turned to a waterfall of fire. The fog disappeared in the searing heat of it, and there, between the burnt skeletal remains of the smaller keekar trees, Asha saw—hundreds of civilians in prison uniforms marching toward them, weapons raised, black eyes staring emptily. Between them, moving like shadows in the firelight, were Ranya's Revenants and Wraiths.
No Witches, no Asura. ”… The Revenants can breed,” Asha mumbled, feeling dizzy with the realization.
And then the ground opened along the tree line right in front of them with a deafening boom.
Asha and Lexi stumbled back reflexively from the bottomless gorge, turning to smile up at the roof, as the army of Underworlders recoiled back from the illusion.
A tiger, a bear, and a wild boar ran past them, Turning seamlessly as they jumped over the “cliff” and wading into the crowd of possessed civilians, steel shining in the blazing fire as the sound of battle screams filled the night. Asha felt the air stir as an enormous snow leopard leapt past her head, its tail tapping her playfully.
“Now the party's starting!” Lexi yelled, and with a wild grin, she broke into a run, long legs leaping over the precipice. And even though Asha knew it was only an illusion, her heart lurched in her chest at the sight of Lexi, blonde hair and dark cloak streaming behind her as she threw herself over the abyss. Landing, Lexi sliced through three men in one seamless movement, spinning to open the neck of the next Revenant that closed in on her with the edge of her sword.
Behind her, Asha heard a familiar scream, and her blood ran cold.
She ran for the bridge, turning her back on the deaths of the possessed men. Men they would never have time to heal. Men who would die surrounded by flame and smoke, filled with uncontrollable despair that clung to their ever-sickening blood before it flowed out onto the charred ground. The sound of Revenants' shrieks would be the last sounds they would ever hear. Asha tried to tell herself they were criminals, but realized as her stomach gave a nauseated heave, that only made her feel worse.
Another scream from the bridge, and Asha shifted, soaring over the lightening water. Aquila, Kelakha, and Tanvir stood with their backs to each other, their skin bloody beneath torn clothes, firing sun bullets at Revenants that seeped around them like a rising tide.
Turning in mid-air, Asha fired sun bullets into the black, roiling mass. Landing in front of Aquila, she raised her hands, consuming the Revenants' life force, and the foul liquid abruptly stopped moving.
“That's okay, Asha,” said Tanvir breathlessly. “We got this, if you want to resume standing around doing fuck-all to help.”
Kelakha grinned, reloading his revolver. “Thanks, Asha.”
Are you okay? The pipes were—
I'm fine. Asha shot the rest of her sun bullets into the still Revenants, their energy gnawing at her like a craving, starving thirst. Hunger for misery. She gagged, and Aquila caught her.
“Are you injured?” Aquila held Asha's face in his bloody hands, running them along her neck, her shoulders. Panic flashed across his features, suppressed before Asha could really feel it.
“It's the Revenants' life force… it's revolting, like a corrosive… shit.” Asha straightened.
“If you two are done making out,” said Tanvir, “there's a bit of a conflict still going on across the water.”
Kelakha had already shifted to a terrifyingly ugly vulture, its wide breadth of wings silhouetted against the flames as it circled, spinning, and then shifted again, blades whirling as Kelakha joined the battle within the charred forest.
Tanvir followed. Aquila held Asha's hands, bringing them to his lips once before, with a jump, he swooped to join Ursala and Lexi, lost in the chaos of the fight.
Asha stood alone on the bridge, a vague sense of disgust throbbing in her throat as the Vampire and Revenants' life forces writhed within her blood.
Chapter 51
“Asha!”
The voice was full of agony, and Asha jerked her head in the direction of the pillars.
Himat.
Being dragged by two Vampires, his arm hung at an alarming angle, his orange eyes flashing with rage.
Asha shifted in an instant, flying to him above the confusion of the battle as Wraiths and still more possessed civilians poured down the hill, joining the fight.
A katar in each hand, Asha stalked toward the Vampires, who dropped Himat in surprise, moving to meet her. Without breaking stride, she plunged the thick knives up and into the Vampires' chins, squeezing the handles. And smiled into their beautiful faces as jagged blades sliced through their cheekbones, cold dark blood gushing over her hands.
Himat struggled to his feet, staking the Vampires with his undamaged arm as they screamed, holding their hemorrhaging, torn heads. Stakes protruding from their chests, the Vampires sat up, legs moving underneath them, clawing at the stakes.
With an animal roar, Asha lunged forward, arms crossed, both katars held at the first Vampire's throat. She uncrossed her arms, slicing its head off, kicking it in the chest as it burst into flames, turning to see Himat standing over the second Vampire.
“Is this what you wanted?” he screamed, holding his key ring up, pressing the stake further into the Vampire's chest with one foot. The Vampire gritted bloody fangs up at him, grabbing at his leg. Himat leaned over, slamming the ring into the Vampire's mouth. “You can choke on it you blood sucking piece of shit!”
And then Himat fainted.
Asha stood frozen for a second, blinking down at his unconscious figure, before the scraping of the Vampire's feet snapped her attention to him. The Vampire cringed, opening his shattered-fanged mouth to say something even as Asha severed his head with one scissored movement of her katar. The Vampire burned, lighting up the pillars.
Grateful for the Underworlder strength that still ran in her veins, Asha easily carried Himat to the edge of the now blue water.
A tiny hand protruded from underneath her leg, and she wrenched it free, throwing it into the smoking flames with a scream of rage.
A scream that was answered by howls.
Her heart leapt with hope.
Werewolves!
Asha felt a surge of relief even as more Underworlders joined the fight. Then, looking down at Himat's pale face, her relief vanished.
Holding his uninjured hand, Asha gave Himat what was left of her Underworlder energy, and his eyes fluttered open.
“Hi,” he murmured, and brought his hand to her wet and filthy hair, running the back of his fingers along her cheek.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Himat closed his eyes, smiling. Then his eyes opened wide, as if he were hit, and he scrambled to move his head off her lap. The movement made him hiss, cradling his destroyed arm.
“Hold still, would you?” Asha said. “Let me…”
Taking hold of his arm, Asha pulled the life from the closest Under
worlders, hesitating on the far side of the abyss. She twisted the dislocated arm back into place.
Himat screamed between gritted teeth, cursing, and collapsed back against her lap, panting and pale. Asha raised his broken hand, his twisted fingers shaking as Himat tried to catch his breath.
“Wait. Just wait a second,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “Asha…”
Asha suddenly felt icy dread dance up her spine.
No! No no no no!
“Don't you dare die on me, Pradhan, God damn it!”
“And if I live?” he laughed, a harsh sound that turned to a cough. “What then? I get to watch you marry Desai? Smile and congratulate you…”
A cold hand squeezed her heart. “Himat… I…”
“It's okay,” he smiled, turning away as his orange eyes filled with tears, warm as they soaked through her torn pants. “I'm dying anyway, so it doesn't matter…”
Asha placed a hand on his tear-stained cheek, and turned him toward her. Lowering her face to his, she kissed him.
His eyes widened in surprise, and he froze. Then Himat wrapped his arms around Asha, opening his mouth against hers, pulling her to him with trembling, crushing strength, holding her as if death weren't pulling on his soul.
Himat kissed her as if he could make time stand still.
And then, with a choked sob, he pushed Asha away.
Shaking his head, tears spilled from his orange eyes as he tried to laugh. “I appreciate the gesture… If anything could save me, that would have.” He touched her hair. “But I'm still dying.”
Asha sat, gazing dumbly at the fort wall. The warmth of Himat's lips, the crush of his arms faded.
Something! Anything! Think!
Himat was gazing at her, the fire in the forest reflected perfectly in his eyes.
“You can't heal me, Asha. And I'm already too handsome as it is, so you might as well save yourself the effort.” Himat smiled, and it was so beautiful. It reminded Asha of the first time she'd seen him, laughing with Ibha and Karan. She covered her mouth, choking back a cry.
