by Meg Xuemei X
I had no memory of my past and I couldn’t form any new memories.
Every morning when I woke up, I forgot all the events and people and places all over again. Through my magic, I’d found a way to inscribe clues on my skin. A primary marking would appear unbidden at my waking, then at my summons, the rest of the markings would surface.
There was one imprint on the back of my hand that I hadn’t inked on myself. My nameless enemies had branded me “the Wickedest Witch in the universe.” They had wiped my memories clean before dumping me on Pandemonium, for reasons I had yet to find out.
I’d recorded the first event on my wrist with my magic: I’d woken up under a black tree in this jungle, not knowing who I was or where I came from. Before I could get my bearings, a two-headed hound and three winged Furies had set upon me.
I’d fought my way out; the red gown I had been clad in had been torn to shreds.
I’d named myself Fiammetta after I stumbled into the City of Nine, which swarmed with monsters, vampires, and an army of criminal militias.
I now lived for one purpose—to find who did this to me and have my revenge against them tenfold.
I’d been stuck on this planet for three years. Every day when I wasn’t battling other species or securing food, I returned to the forest to seek the portal.
Ice light radiated on my skin and my markings displayed a sketched map as I padded between the cannibal trees. I did not worry about them; my ice magic shielded me and kept them at bay. But when I lifted my gaze from the map, the forest had shifted. I was surrounded by thorny trees with black flowers. The smell was pungent. The sprawling vines of the cannibal plants were nowhere in sight.
Akem was toying with me.
The jungle quieted and dimmed. Darkness never bothered me much. I was the mistress of darkness. But I let ice light travel from my fingertips and illuminate the path ahead as a precaution.
My instincts told me I should head north.
Growls broke out and beasts sprinted in my direction. I couldn’t outrun them, so I bolted toward the nearest thorny tree and climbed up as fast as I could.
I reached the middle branch with a few scratches. Before I settled, a spotted female leopard with three horns charged into view. A huge male leopard with black, glossy fur caught up with her. The female leopard swept her tail over her mate’s horns. He sniffed the air, not only at her heat, but for the scent of any invaders.
Luckily, I’d disguised my scent with my ice magic.
My mortal enemies had purged my memories of people and places and events, but they had failed to rip out my inherent knowledge and magic. So, I knew the horned leopards could climb trees. As long as I didn’t disturb them and remained undetected, they would be occupied with each other.
I would wait them out.
The female rolled over onto her belly and swatted the male’s muzzle with her paws as he came upon her. His jaw opened, his mouth on her neck, demanding her surrender.
She didn’t resist as she positioned herself ready for the taking, and the male wasted no time mounting her from behind. Within minutes, he ended his short, rapid thrusts and broke away from her. I let out an inaudible breath of relief. Now they would go on their way and I could keep looking for my portal. I might get lucky today and end my long search.
But the animals started the next coupling and the next. Each time the female moved to a new spot, but always near the tree where I perched, and the male followed her around. Every mating was short, but they kept at it tirelessly.
Were they going to fuck forever?
Days were short on Pandemonium, and if the leopards didn’t end their incessant coupling soon, I would never make it back to my Witch Tower before the last daylight faded. All the beasts came out to play when night fell.
I gazed down at the ongoing mating below me and considered my options. If I killed them, I would upset Akem. I was forever careful about using my magic in his domain. I did not want him to learn too much about me.
Yet I couldn’t afford to let the lovers further inconvenience me. With a resigned sigh, I drew on my ice magic and showered them with hail.
They immediately separated, shook the small ice cubes from their fur, and bawled in fury.
If they discovered me, I would have to battle them, but I could argue my way out of Akem’s wrath by telling him I had been provoked and had to defend myself.
But the animals stopped mid-roar. They twitched their ears and snapped their heads to the right, sniffing the air.
A deafening whooshing sound rumbled through the ground. At the same time, Akem’s Furies shrieked above the thick canopies, signaling the arrival of a worse predator.
My skin tingled from fear, and a thrill pumped through my blood.
Fifty yards away, trees toppled, their branches breaking as they crashed into each other. A thunderous thud rocked the jungle.
The tree I was perching on trembled and I lost my footing, but I shot my hand overhead and managed to grab hold of a branch.
The leopards gave one last warning growl and fled.
Through the space between bushes, I made out a large, lizard-like machine falling from the sky, fire blazing from its tail end.
I swung to a lower branch and jumped, landing in a crouch on the forest floor.
“Defender,” I muttered, and an ice spear instantly appeared in my hand.
I sprang toward the crash site.
2
The Angel
My cabin tilted. I didn’t sway, but the buttermilk soap slipped from my hand.
I growled. Didn’t my crew realize their captain needed a warm shower after a strenuous war and a long journey in space? Were they so incompetent that they couldn’t keep ThunderSong steady for a little longer without me having to take care of everything?
They were a loyal crew, but this was getting tiresome. Every time I was in the middle of taking a shower, some emergency cropped up.
Just as I expected, the intercom in my bath chamber chimed.
I unfolded my wings under the strong spray of water. “Captain Gabriel here,” I hissed. “What now?”
My ship rocked again and I stormed out of the shower.
“I’m very sorry, Captain,” Racer, my first officer, murmured. “We just succeeded in pulling out of an unanticipated storm.”
“You should anticipate everything!”
“That’s true,” Racer said humbly. “But this time it’s different, Captain. It isn’t an ordinary storm, and I’ve found a new planet in this galaxy.”
“We find new planets all the time and you think it worth disrupting my shower?”
“I’m positive, Captain,” Racer said boldly. “It’s best you come to the bridge now. You need to see it for yourself.”
When I arrived at the bridge, fully dressed, the soap sticky on my wet hair and wings, I saw a gray planet through the view window.
“You got me out of the shower for that ugly thing?” I asked incredulously.
“It was cloaked until a few seconds ago,” Racer said excitedly, his white wings arched above his shoulders.
A tiny blue spot on his white uniform caught my attention and it irked me. Tidiness was as important as discipline in my book. As the first officer, Racer was supposed to set an example for the rest of the crew.
I was too lenient. Perhaps I needed to be more like High Prince Seth, so all would tremble in front of me.
“Zoom in,” I ordered.
The hologram showed nothing but gray clouds over the planet.
Could Atlas—the former evil Dark Lord of All Angels—be hiding on that planet? I’d been hunting him for the past three months, ever since we’d left Earth and crossed three galaxies.
I frowned. “You said you uncloaked it.”
“Those weren’t my exact words,” Racer said. “I said we discovered it, although the planet had been cloaked.”
“Yet you failed to show your captain a visual.”
“Not exactly failed, Captain,” Racer protes
ted. “Something powerful is blocking our probe. Do you understand the significance?”
Racer would never dare speak to the High Prince that way. Seth would cut his tongue out. I rapped my knuckles on his thick skull to remind him whom he was speaking to.
“Ouch, Captain. What’s that for?” Racer grimaced.
“I’m the captain,” I said. “I decide what’s significant!”
“Aye, Captain!” The crew snapped to attention.
That was more like it. They knew I was on edge. Seth was waiting for my updates on his father and I had nothing to report back to him.
If Dark Lord Atlas was hiding on this uncharted planet, my hunt would be over.
I rotated the image of the planet at fast speed until my eyes caught a blur above the planet.
A vortex.
My officers leaned closer and drew in sharp breaths. They had never seen anything like that.
“If I’m right,” I said, “we’ve just spotted a time portal.”
Time portals were mythical to many species. It required tremendous power to bring a time portal into existence. I’d seen it only once in the long march of my immortal life.
An eon ago, High Prince Seth had unleashed the Forbidden Glory and created a time portal to send a superior race through the vortex to a bleak dimension, saving our legion in an interstellar war.
But Seth was light years away, so there was no way he could have made this portal. Plus, tearing open the fabric of the universe had severe consequences, and the damage lasted for eons. Seth had vowed never to form another portal.
“Should we run, Captain?” Ekon, my cautious second officer, asked.
“Angels never run,” Racer said. “We didn’t run from the Dark Lord and his Reapers and Wraiths! Why would we run from this?”
“Maybe we should run,” I said, though a thrill raced through my blood. “However—”
Racer nodded. “We can’t give up this once-in-a-lifetime chance. What if the Dark Lord is hiding on that planet? Who else could have the power to cloak it and generate a portal?”
“The High Prince weakened his father and almost killed him,” another member of my crew said. “The Dark Lord can’t recover that fast, and he doesn’t have the Forbidden Glory. The High Prince has sole custody of it now.”
The vortex vanished from the hologram.
“Captain! Captain!” My crew turned their panicked expressions to me, awaiting instructions.
I raised a finger to stop them from dragging me from my profound thoughts. Three months might have been time enough for Atlas to resurrect and gather his strength.
“That is not good,” I murmured under my breath.
“This might be good, Captain,” Racer said. My insolent officer just had to defy me at every turn. I’d have to terminate his employment after this mission.
“Think about it, Captain,” he continued, his white wings unfolding. At my warning look, he tucked them in tightly. “First, we get to study this time portal. Then we’ll make it known to every Angel in the universe that we once flew through it under the command of the great Captain Gabriel.”
My hard expression softened.
“Second,” Racer said, waving his hands in the air to stress his point since he wouldn’t dare annoy me again by shuffling his wings, “if the Dark Lord is lurking on that planet, our hunt is over. We can all go home or head toward a new galaxy. And you, Captain, will be remembered as the superhero who caught the Dark Lord of All Angels. All we have to do is to go in stealthily, gather the intelligence, inform the High Prince, and wait for him to get his royal ass here and finish off his father.”
I had to admit, Racer was making sense.
“We’ll do more than just collect intel,” I said, clapping my hands to get everyone’s attention. “Listen up. We’re going to take a look at the gray planet. I’m flying Red Dragon. A-team, take Vixen and Wind-Beast. When I say pull back, you retreat at once. The time portal is not a light matter. If I get lost, don’t come looking for me. Report to the High Prince immediately. ThunderSong must stay out of orbit. Under no circumstance should my ship go near that vortex.” My voice filled with malice and I glared at my crew. “Understand?”
The crew snapped to attention and nodded in unison.
“Captain, let me pilot Red Dragon for you,” Racer said.
“You are to stay on ThunderSong and follow my orders to the letter,” I said. “Don’t ever get into the habit of questioning me again. After I return, I’ll adopt the High Prince’s methods and discipline the hell out of you!”
The crew traded nervous glances. “Aye, Captain,” they said as one, and the A-team hurried off to prepare for the planetary scout.
With a final glare at my remaining crew, I strode toward the shuttle bay.
~
Red Dragon, my personal space shuttle, pierced through space, heading toward the planet. Vixen and Wind-Beast flanked it.
We passed the coordinates where we had last spotted the vortex. ThunderSong kept a tight watch on it. The data would be extremely valuable. As Racer had said, we were lucky to bump into this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to encounter and study a time portal.
The planet turned flat as we approached its atmosphere. Suddenly, a purple light flashed. Static filled my visual screen. With my super sight, I spotted a belt of asteroids circling the planet ahead of me.
“Space mine ahead!” I warned the scouting shuttles, but there was no response from my away teams. I’d heard their joking and chattering on the ship’s radio half a minute ago.
“Vixen, Wind-Beast, come in!” I ordered as I navigated my way amid the asteroids, my energy beams blowing up the bigger asteroids on my path.
Radio silence. I glanced at the holographic radar map just in time to see the scout ships’ signals shutting off. I cursed and pressed the com device on the sleeve of my uniform.
“Racer! Get them back online!” I called as Red Dragon passed through the asteroids, debris from the asteroids hitting the sides of my shuttle. The shield held, and I was approaching the murky atmosphere of the planet.
“Captain,” Racer’s shaky voice buzzed through the intercom, “we’ve completely lost visual on the planet. Some powerful force is blocking our sight. And we just detected an unfamiliar burst of energy surging toward you—Captain!” The radio crackled, cutting off Racer’s voice.
The vortex reformed, twirling before me.
“Pull back,” I yelled into the comlink, though I realized it was mere reflex; no one could hear me.
I grabbed the manual gear, trying to veer off the path of destruction.
The vortex expanded, turning infinite, and sucked the shuttle in.
I hit maximum warp speed to break free of its pull. My shuttle spun like a bug inside a hurricane. Its force was so great and terrible, my muscles felt as if they were being torn from my bones and my eyeballs wanted to pop out of my skull.
The torment seemed to go on forever, and just when I was sure it would be the end of me, a dark current tossed my shuttle out at the other end. I was surprised to find myself in one piece, but my relief died a second later as I noticed my ship’s power was completely drained.
Helplessly, I watched my descent as I plunged toward the planet.
I manually released the door, but I’d missed the window to fly out to safety. A jungle rushed up to meet me. Red Dragon and I blasted through a thick canopy of trees and crashed to the ground.
3
The Witch
I stood in front of a shuttlecraft that looked like a steel lizard.
No flying machine had ever fallen in Akem’s jungle. They always crashed in the arena in the City of Nine. Afterwards, the nine clans would fight to the death for the rights to claim the ship.
The shuttle’s rear had been squashed and the cabin door was half open. No sound came from the inside. Its engine power had been drained before its fall, just like any other ship.
The silence extended. I believed whoever was inside was dead.
Just as I thought, the engine and lights were dead, as was the lone being sprawled out on the deck. Usually, I didn’t give the dead a second glance as I went straight for the necessities. My tower’s inventory was running low, and no ships had fallen from the sky for a while.
My eyes fell on the being.
He had massive, magnificent wings that hung limply. They were glossy, pure black. I strode toward them, and before I knew it, I squatted to caress them. They were soft, sensual to the touch. They would be the perfect decoration for the walls in my chamber, and would go well with my reputation as the Wickedest Witch.
I pondered how to efficiently sever the wings and take them out of the jungle.
I shifted my gaze toward the specimen’s face. His golden hair was still wet. Had he just stepped out of a shower before he plunged to his demise on this planet?
He was big and muscled, a warrior breed with the rare combined traits of wildness and aristocratic refinement. A black-inked, mystical tattoo twined up from his corded neck to his temples.
I could read the ancient symbols, but it took time to decipher them, and I didn’t have the luxury of time.
The male wore a space uniform, but it didn’t conceal his broad shoulders and hard chest. It was too bad he was dead; he’d have made a nice plaything.
I moved my fingers and traced his high cheekbones. He was still warm. Soon, he would be cold. Soon, his sun-kissed skin would go pale like mine.
My face was as pale as the bloodsuckers who occupied the other tower in the city. The lack of sunlight in this damned place didn’t help tan my skin. I had to paint red witch marks under the hollows of my eyes to be distinguished from the vampires.
I wondered if there was enough sun on my original planet, and if there was, if it had favored my light skin.
The creature’s eyelids fluttered. I jerked my hand away and jumped back. He stilled again. He was alive. How could one survive such a crash? Cautiously, I edged toward him and pressed two fingers on the column of his neck.
