Crimson Sword Stalker

by Morgan Blayde

  And there’s still my missing car. Letting Anubis keep it in his grubby little paws irks my dragon’s soul.

  “So,” I asked, “whatever happened with that electricity? Found out you couldn’t do it, right? I can tell you how to build a generator. There are plenty of people here who can run on a treadmill.”

  The Royal Torturer caught my gaze. “Of course, I’d have to stop torturing you during that process. I see through your ploy. Besides, Anubis isn’t that patient.”

  “So, on with the torture. Give it hard push!” I said.

  He tried, failing again. And reached for a hammer. Even with his were-jackal strength, it took two full-strength blows; one to reach deep muscle, one to drive the point out my back. I’d been giving him a lot of “stick” by insulting his skill set. I growled raggedly in my throat and hissed from the pain. “Ahh, now you’re getting it right.”

  There. Some carrot. Happy?

  I swayed forward, as much as chains and manacles allowed, and slammed myself back into the wall, using it to hammer the point back inside my body, undoing half his work. I gave him a sympathetic look. “Nice try.”

  He smiled. “Too much to take? Needed relief, huh? I’ll give you a small break.”

  Hah! Trying to steal my victory.

  He got up off his own little stool and grabbed a couple of fresh skewers. The torturer went to the man hanging on the wall and stared at him. “You can’t fool me. I know you are awake, Kesi.” The torturer grazed the man’s chest with a couple of skewer tips to get his attention.

  Kesi opened his eyes. They were dull with defeat and despair. “We did skewers yesterday.”

  “True, on the left. But you want a set of matching holes on the right as well, correct?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I want. If that will please the mighty Anubis, do as you will.”

  “I admire your pious spirit. You were a fine actor before being sent here. They say your plays depicting Anubis were magnificent, that you were less than convincing only the one time he showed up to a street performance and threw you off stride.”

  “I never meant any disrespect,” Kesi said. “I just dropped a line at a point where it seemed I mocked what I believed.

  “Anubis knows all. Which explains why he did not kill you where you stood,” the torturer said.

  Kesi amplified his voice. “For which I can only praise the mighty Anubis, Lord of compassion and mercy.”

  The torturer laughed. “Hoping he’s listening? A good gambit, except you forget; the ultimate mercy is death. Do you want him to end your suffering with death?”

  “I wouldn’t ask for so big a favor,” Kesi said. “If he’d but release me, I could go and extol his nobility in the streets once more.”

  “Bargaining for you freedom? We’ll give Anubis a glassful of time. If he doesn’t come by then, we’ll proceed.” The torturer backed away, went to a tray with a scaled down hourglass on it, more like an egg timer. He flipped the little glass. Sand trickled from the upper chamber to the lower.

  We all waited.

  I considered how to have the Royal Torturer’s attention kept on Kesi. He might object, but this is survival. You do what you must.

  The last of the sand dropped into the lower chamber.

  I said, “No reprieve, except the two minutes of your time he just stole from you. If it were me, I’d give him a reason not to hope for mercy any time soon. Oops, sorry. Not my place to tell you your job. Forget I said anything.”

  People never forgot what you ask them to; perversity runs deep in us all.

  He ignored me, ramming a skewer into Kesi side as he’d done with me, but no hammer. Kesi wasn’t dragon-born or were-jackal tough. Hoping to convince the torturer he didn’t need to use another skewer, Kesi screamed like a tranny bitch.

  Another skewer went in.

  Kesi screamed even louder, then muttered a long string of meandering profanities.

  “That’s annoying,” I said. “Can’t you shut him up?”

  “The sounds bother you?” the torturer asked. “Are you imagining how the next skewer hammered into your side will feel?”

  “No, I’m thinking of your appalling lack of inventiveness. You could at least heat the ends of the skewers once they’re set.”

  The torturer paused to consider.

  Kesi looked at me with deep hate in his eyes. “You are so helpful.”

  Suck it up, bitch. Better you than me.

  Footfalls sounded. I glanced at the door. Anubis had returned. Several guards were with him, and Zahra as well. The Royal Torturer hurried to open the door but Anubis just magically waved it open and entered. Zahra followed Anubis. The guards remained in the hall.

  The jackal god stared at me, the skewer in my side, and the blood which I was sure his doggy side could scent. Anubis frowned. “I see injury, but I do not smell fear from this one.” His gaze slid to Kesi on the wall. That one reeks of it.”

  My own dragon senses told me as much.

  Anubis stared at the torturer. “Perhaps you are too distracted. Get rid of the actor and concentrate on the defiant one.”

  The torturer bowed respectfully. “By getting rid of, you mean…”

  “Release him. Suffering may have improved his oration. I can always kill him another time.”

  “At once, Lord Anubis, as you command.”

  The torturer unchained Kesi, who shot me a smile of triumph as he was dragged out and handed off to a guard.

  Anubis walked over to the brazier with the hot coals and irons. He grabbed the end of an iron without using a protective leather glove. He carried the iron to me and held the glowing tip a scant inch from my very flammable sackcloth tunic.

  I’ll admit it; I stopped smiling.

  He said, “You have aversion to piss. In that it is a perfectly natural biological function, that is not healthy. I want to help you with this problem.”

  “You’re the sick fuck here,” I said. “A god shouldn’t be so insecure of himself that he resorts to tyranny and violence to get his whims. That’s weak-assed shit.”

  The Royal Torturer paled, his mouth hanging open. Zahra stared as if I’d just given birth to kittens. The remaining guards in the hall white-knuckled their spears, surging toward the door of the cell like they’d run me through.

  Anubis stopped them with a wave of the hand. “He is my prey, not yours. He may not have the gift of death until I give it.” He thrust the iron against the sackcloth, no farther, but that was enough to set the scratchy material on fire.

  Anubis pulled back to watch me burn.

  I met his stare with my own, letting my eyes become portals to unfathomable emptiness. I gave him mystery instead of emotion: a fuck-you wrapped in silence, boxed in an enigma, spray-painted with oblivion, and left on the truck instead of getting delivered.

  My inner dragon bared teeth in a sinister smile they couldn’t see. That will come later.

  The sackcloth burned fast, its best virtue. Orange flames caressed my tough dragon skin, leaving no mark. The pain across my nerve endings I suppressed, giving it to my bottomless depths of my depravity, swallowing it so it wouldn’t show either.

  I think my unreadable stare freaked out Anubis. Abruptly, he spoke. “If you’d like, I will allow the girl to piss in a bowl and throw it on the fire. Just says please.”

  “No thank you. Dragons like fire.”

  “Perhaps you’d like some company in your misery as well?” Anubis turned toward the Torturer. I’m leaving the girl here. She is allowed to comfort the prisoner when his sessions are over for the day. Someone will need to carry his buckets of crap away and wipe his ass for him. And her responses to his treatment will tell us if she has a future as your apprentice.”

  “My apprentice?” The torturer made the word sound like an obscenity.

  He thinks she’s intended to replace him. Anubis might, if I don’t break. Perhaps he can’t fully trust Zahra because she started out dedicated to Bastet. This so-called promotion would act
ually keep her caged while she fulfilled her duty to him.

  Anubis smiled at his Royal Torturer. “I will have a bucket sent for their use, and bedding for the child.”

  I laughed at him. “You call yourself a god and don’t even have indoor plumbing? What have you been messing around with for the last few thousand years? And where the hell is my Mustang, you thieving dog?”

  He sidestepped to me and back-fisted me across the face. Gods are strong. He split my lip. I tasted blood as my head rocked sideways. The cell danced a moment.

  I spit blood at him. “One of these days you’ll have to try that when I’m not chained to a wall.”

  He lifted his hand to strike again.

  I gave him more of my fathomless stare.

  He lowered his hand and walked out, leaving Zahra standing there. At a loss for words, she stared at me.

  The Royal Torturer fell trembling to his knees. His hands caught the floor. He gave an interesting impersonation of one of his many trays, but there was nothing on his back but endless fear. I smelled it, a metallic tang in the air.

  I tilted my head toward the torturer. “There’s a chair there, if you’re tired, Zahra.”

  She looked at the torturer and paled even more.

  The torturer pulled himself together and straightened, hands on his thighs, his eyes sought me. “You are mad. No sane person invites the damage I must now inflict upon you.”

  “Speaking of which, have you got that generator figured out yet for the electricity?”

  He didn’t answer. He stood, walked out of the cell, and locked the door behind him. He took several steps down the hall, then stopped to speak to me. “Enjoy your rest tonight. Tomorrow, we begin in earnest. I will send you some bread and beer so you can recover strength. You will need it all, and more.” He continued, feet clomping off into the distance.

  Soon, servants brought two buckets, one to crap in, one with soapy water and a towel so Zahra could bathe. I guess, with his heightened sense of smell, Anubis preferred his people clean. The servants also brought Zahra a rolled-up straw mat for sleeping. An overseeing priestess with a doggy head carried a set of keys that let her people in and out. They had no words of comfort for Zahra. The girl was not a true-believer, I guessed. The servants did their work in silence, left a plate of food, and departed the cell. The Priestess pulled the cell door shut, locking it as Zahra stood on the inside, staring out hopelessly, mere inches away.

  Once the footfalls of the servants quieted out, Zahra pulled on the door. It wasn’t locked. I didn’t see anything that would have blocked the mechanism.

  Magic? Maybe Bastet hasn’t completely abandoned her child after all.

  I smiled. Finally, something’s going right for me.

  Zahra walked closer. “The goddess says we owe you a favor for what you did for the other me, rescuing me from the wilds and giving me to a Pride for proper care.”

  And here I’ve always believed no good deed ever goes unpunished.

  “Can you unlock the manacles?” I asked.

  She looked at them. Her eyes glowed a yellowy-green. The manacles opened and my arms fell to my side. They hurt. My butt hurt, too. The unpadded stools were the most effective torture device they had in here—if only they knew.

  I said, “Take one of the skewers and use its point to tear the covering off the mat. I’m going to need some kind of clothing so I won’t draw attention while getting us out of here.”

  “Us?” Her voice trembled.

  “This makes you my ally. If I leave you behind, Anubis will do terrible things to you. You can say I’m saving you twice. Hurry with that covering. We need to move decisively. I have a plan. A horribly wonderful plan that only an insane demon lord could contemplate.” I grinned at her back as she did what I asked. “Wait until you see it.

  I’d survived two days in Anubis’ world. That time had allowed my spine to heal. I doubted Anubis knew I could recover so fast. Reabsorbing my wing struts for calcium had helped, as well as keeping what little golden dragon magic I had locked onto the injury. Normally, dragons heal fast or die. My blood was royal. My dragon clan the Imperial Gold. That made a difference as well.

  Suppressed by the temple, I had an enormous disadvantage without my usual magical strength, but I’d fought demons before with only my wits and a stubborn streak of vindictive evil to sustain me.

  And lurking under my skin, looking like a bruise, I still had my dormant Reboot tatt.

  If I played things just right, I might just kill me a god. Of course, that meant getting out of the temple’s suppression field, and luring Anubis into the surrounding desert. The luring part wouldn’t be hard. I suspected that my winning personality had already convinced Anubis that having brought me to his world could only end badly in a serpent-in-Garden-of-Eden kind of way.

  My inner dragon wagged his tail gleefully, full of anticipation.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “A fashionista is not without honor

  …except on his own catwalk.”

  —Caine Deathwalker

  Zahra offered me the food. The beer to wash it down never arrived, and I didn’t ask for piss though there was a bowl present, the one with the round, polished marble stones. “I’d leave you some food,” I said, “but I’m healing, and need every calorie to deal with this situation.”

  “Kalory?”

  “Never mind. Unlike your other self, you don’t have a knowledge of modern English. We’ll fix that later. I finished the plate of leeks and fish, happy to get more than the bread that had been promised.

  Zahra brought me the mat cover. I did the only thing possible. I tore a strip from the shorter edge to use as a belt and cut a slit in the middle for my head to poke through to form a sort of poncho-tunic. From a distance, in the gloom, I thought it might pass as normal around here. If not, the dogs could all go bury a bone up their asses.

  Golden eyes stared at me from the back shadows of my mind. My inner dragon said: Just tell me we’re finally leaving.

  I’m working on the details now.

  Work faster. Selene and I have unfinished business.

  We all do.

  Hey, that’s Zahra. I thought she went off on a mission with Colt and Julia.

  This one is a temporal ghost from a dead timeline. An extra.

  Oh. Always good to have a spare. Why is my magic so low?

  You’ve been in a form of forced coma. I think Bastet is focused on Zahra right now, and its pushing back the suppressive energies of Anubis’ temple.

  So, like a mighty dick, we’ve penetrated his secret lair?

  You could say that.

  I picked up the bowl of stones and handed it to Zahra. “Here, you’ll have to carry my ammunition for me. I have no pockets.”

  “Ammun…ition?”

  That’s right, that first part sounds like the name of the Sun god, Ammon-rah.

  I clarified myself. “The rocks.”

  My inner dragon chanted softly: Sticks and stones can break your bones, and I’ll laugh as I kill ya!

  I snatched up several of the cloths intended for tourniquets. I’d played with a sling as a child until broken windows and a bunch of near dead demons had convinced the Old Man’s demon clan to let me live in peace. At the moment, I’d have rather had my PX4 Storm semi-automatics.

  Let me get out of the suppression field of the temple, and there’s a lot more I can do. Damn pyramid power is a pain in the ass!

  One end of a cloth I tied around my right wrist. I held the other end and placed a stone inside, letting the cloth hang by my side. “When I start whirling this thing around, duck. I wouldn’t hit you on purpose but I’m out of practice. Maybe it will all come back to me.”

  “You won’t need that,” she said.

  “It comforts me.”

  We left the cell, moving normal. Nothing is more suspicious than people creeping along, trying to be quiet. We followed the hallway to another one, then another, and came to a flight of stairs. Zahra pointed up them.
“We can get out that way.”

  “Wonderful.” I let her lead.

  We climbed and passed through a kitchen. Despite having just eaten, the smell of roasting oxen made my mouth water. People prepared trays to carry into the Royal Court. There were pitchers of wine, and carts on wheels designed to hold the meat spits from the great stone ovens. One slab of ox was resting. Preoccupied, no one paid us much attention. We fit in fairly well, and Zahra was known to these people.

  She pointed to an archway.

  I nodded and pushed a cart that way. Beside the roasted meat lay a carving knife. People can be so helpful. We got past everyone and entered the feasting area of the Great Hall. The fire pit with its green, snake-like flames painted everything a sick, bile color. The table was set but the guests had yet to arrive.

  Fine by me. I’m not in a sharing mood. Though I wouldn’t mind upgrading my knife to a sword.

  “We should leave the cart here,” Zahra said.

  “Not on your life. When I call my dragon out, he’s going to be hungry.” I smiled at her, teasing, “Though you look like you might do with some ketchup on you, soft and crunchy.”

  She frowned at me. “Fine. Keep the meat.”

  We went down to where my rug used to be. It had been taken away and probably burned.

  Damn thieves.

  I rolled my stolen cart out the great opening, into the courtyard. There were guards. Several of them eyed us.

  I told Zahra, “Tell them the kitchen made too many oxen, and the head chef wondered if they’d like some.”

  “They won’t believe it?” She whispered back in English.

  “Why not? The oxen is right here? Don’t underestimate people’s greed.”

  Zahra shrugged and lifted her voice so it carried. She spoke Egyptian. Since we were outside the temple, I no longer got the translation.

  Note to self: let Zahra do the talking.

  The guards hurried over and weren’t slow taking up the knife and sawing off choice bits.