by RS Black
Later that night, alone on the couch, body fully healed from the countless bites and slashing wounds I’d received, I stared at the popcorn ceiling, counting each rotating swish of the ceiling fan as it turned above my head. The streets were silent.
The shifters had done an efficient job of clearing the small town out. No doubt there’d be cops and Feds snooping around the place when people were reported missing in the morning.
The killings had been so sloppy. So brazen. It made me wonder just how confident the Triad was. At first I’d figured they’d sent out the Cavalry because of fear, because maybe we were getting close to solving the puzzle.
But what if Juan had been telling the truth? What if this wasn’t an attack based on fear but rather one based on glorying in the soon-to-come apocalypse?
It took hours to finally fall asleep and when I did it was to see a vision of Pandora dressed in red and bathed in blood.
~*~
I didn’t talk to Vyxen, nor did she talk to me as we entered the Zombie Queen’s lair the next morning.
The inside of the cave was similar to the other one Pandora and I had once stood in when we’d made our pact with the Queen.
The red rock and muted glow of cave mushrooms lent everything a surreal, almost Mars-like feel to the place.
Vyxen kept eyeing the half-dead sycophants with a healthy dose of wariness.
The air smelled sweet, like almonds. Not at all what rotted flesh should smell like. But then again, the Queen’s minions weren’t anything like the zombies of movies.
They lived and breathed and thought as any human would, only they were virtually indestructible and completely loyal to her every word, thought, and deed.
“How long is the hag gonna make us wait here?” Vyxen leaned in to whisper in my ear after yet another barefoot servant wearing a brightly colored dress of blazing red and orange tootled past carrying a stack of laundered sheets.
I tossed Vyxen a dirty look. We’d only been standing in the throne room for less than ten minutes, hardly enough time to start complaining.
“Why would I think you’d be capable of maturity? She is a Queen, Vyxen. I’m sure she has bigger concerns on her hands than making sure you’re happy.”
She glared at me. Jeweled eyes glowing in the darkened cave. “Don’t think I’m not still super pissed at you for taking all the hot water last night.”
“So that’s what this is. You’re throwing a tantrum. Grow up, Envy.”
Her lips thinned. “I had to break into the house next door. A nasty, stinking drug den full of roaches,” she hissed. “Though”—she rotated her wrist, showing off an expensive silver Rolex—“you like?”
“No doubt stolen.” I rolled my eyes to her second statement.
Huffing, she planted her hands on her hips. “At some point you have to admit we’re right about Pandora.”
I whirled on her, drilling her hard with my gaze. “That topic is off the table right now. You all voted, but that doesn’t mean I have to be okay with any of this. Let’s just leave it at that. Or would you like to get back to the topic of Cash? Because I will if you will.”
Intimidation had stopped working with Vyxen several months ago where I was concerned. Tapping a red-lacquered nail on her slim bicep, she pulled her top lip back to expose her fangs. “The sooner you realize it’s time to let go, the sooner we can move on, Ash.”
“There’ll be no moving on with you.”
“As if, freak.” Her nose curled.
“I’m sorry, but I seem to be interrupting something. Perhaps you’d like me to come back another time?” The dulcet strains of the Queen’s voice broke us apart, and not a moment too soon. My hands had been itching to throttle Envy.
Turning, I bowed toward her. Vyxen, for all her crassness, did as well, keeping her eyes locked on the floor for several heartbeats as a sign of respect. Maybe there was hope for her yet.
Smiling deeply, the Queen strode with purpose toward her throne.
She’d gone through a metamorphosis. I’d expected to see the youth from before, fresh-faced, with one green eye and one brown eye. But she couldn’t be further from youthful now, for a human anyway.
If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought the girl to be a mature woman of thirty. Her body was slender, her face long and oval. Her eyes blazed like jewels (cut emerald and amber). Her skin was firm and had a rich caramel tone.
She wore a gown of red that draped across the floor like a wave of fresh moving blood. Beside her stood the old woman. Pandora and I had learned that the woman was actually her grandmother and a previous Zombie Queen.
The woman hadn’t aged a day, but her scent had grown sweeter over time. She was clearly one of the walking dead, though the firm flesh of her body would never give away her true nature to a human. Only those in the know would recognize that the slight hitch in her step, or the way her eyes always followed the movements of the Queen, was a sign of enthrallment. As far as zombies went, the Queen made them very well.
Her grandmother’s hair was salt and pepper and hanging in a long braid down to the middle of her back. Her shoulders were slightly stooped, but she was much more sturdily built than your average eighty- or ninety-year-old. Zombies didn’t age. Instead they were locked into whatever age they’d died at.
Sitting, the Queen crossed her legs. Her smile was open and honest, a refreshing change from the cynicism and hostility of your average monster.
“Consort of the chosen one,” she directed at me, inclining her head just slightly, “how may I be of help?”
The Queen’s historical records had shown that Pandora would be one to whom they’d align themselves once the threads of time converged. I, however, was not Pandora. I could only hope that my association with her would be good enough.
Stepping forward, I cleared my throat. “Over a year ago you pledged yourself and your armies to the cause of ending the Triad’s war.”
“Indeed.” She sat absolutely still, every bit of body language indicating that she was completely engaged with me.
It was rather unnerving and I found myself getting oddly nervous. Everything hinged on the Queen’s aligning with us now, even though Pandora had seemingly defected to the other side.
Wiping my palms on my jeans, I resumed. “I hope that this year has served you well in regrouping your numbers.”
Lifting a hand, she gestured toward the hall she’d entered through, clearly indicating the active hustle and bustle of a healthy hive. “As you can see, my numbers have tripled since then. Yes, I’d say we’re in a very good place. I’ve also developed my skill; my zombies are much more sturdily built than before.” Her smile was small but full of pride.
“Yes, we’d noticed. Emily was very interesting.”
Snorting, she nodded. “Yes, her hand. She hasn’t stopped talking about it.”
“Will you replace it?”
“She enjoys her undead life and has requested I do so. So yes, I will. I am a benevolent Queen after all.”
For all that I admired the Queen, and also despite the fact that the zombies were a powerful ally to have on your side, they were still monsters. And should the Queen ever require they pillage and plunder a town, they’d do it in a nanosecond.
“I have no problem following through on our pledge. However”—she glanced at Vyxen—“my people have spoken of rumors that Pandora is no longer who she was. I see she is not here, so I have to wonder whether these rumors have merit.”
Giving Vyxen a side-eye glance that urged her to not speak out, I shook my head. Of the bunch, I was the only one who wasn’t ready to say Pandora’s fate was a foregone conclusion.
“What you heard was true, Queen. The Triad did capture Pandora, and in the process she’s been forced to make unfortunate choices, but I truly believe that she is not completely gone from us.”
Vyxen fidgeted.
“Hm.” The Queen nodded slowly. Her eyes still hadn’t swayed from Vyxen’s face. “And you, Nephilim? How do you feel? Do you share
your brother’s sentiments?”
It was like my stomach had suddenly turned into rock and sank to my knees when Vyxen shook her head.
“No, I don’t feel as he does. In fact, I feel just the opposite.”
“Tell me, then.”
To interrupt Vyxen would only weaken Pandora’s case, not strengthen it. But it was brutally hard to hear the words that came out of her mouth, it took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to argue the point.
“She has killed many in her path to attain the keys to a genesis, which we’ve since learned will transform her into the Scarlet Woman. More than that”—she shrugged—“we aren’t sure. But that’s bad enough.”
Snapping her fingers, the Queen spoke to a male servant dressed in livery who stepped through the door not a moment later. “Emmanuel, bring me the book about the Scarlet Woman.”
With a sharp salute, the man turned and marched back out.
She must have read the astonishment in my eyes because she nodded and said, “Yes, I know of all of it. The genesis. The Scarlet Woman. What she will ultimately become.”
“What is she becoming?” I asked quickly. It’d been a question that’d nagged at me for days.
“The souls of the keepers aren’t just souls. Not really. And acquiring their souls is only the first part of the equation. The souls are altering her. On a metaphysical level. Not just her consciousness, but tangibly as well. The Gates can only be opened by the Scarlet Woman. Which means once the final keeper has been harvested, your woman will die.”
Vyxen’s jaw hung open, but I felt the shock move through me like a tidal wave.
Emmanuel returned a moment later carrying a large leather-bound journal with a worn buckle sealing it shut and handed it to the Queen. She tapped its crinkled spine gently.
“If this is happening to Pandora, if she has already accepted the first soul, then she is lost, my friend. A Nephilim, even one as powerful as her, can only handle the possession of so many souls before the darkness takes them. And if such is the case, then the end of days is truly knocking on our door.”
I shook my head, unable to form into words the thoughts wreaking havoc through my mind. I’d seen the first soul take Pandora. Dean had helped. I’d sat back and let it happen.
Fire raged through me when the Queen spoke up.
“Take the book; study it. Perhaps it can be of some small service to you.”
Stepping forward, Vyxen took hold of the book, tucking it underneath her arm, then, casting me a quick but worried frown, she said, “I came tonight with the purpose to ask you to help us end our friend. I take no delight in the choice I’ve made to end her. But I understand, perhaps more than some—”
She didn’t have to look at me for me to know her words had been directed my way.
“—that the only way to save Pandora, and to ensure that the Gates never open, is to kill her. And so I ask, Queen, for you to keep that in mind when the war comes. If Pandora were of sound mind, I’m sure she’d agree.”
“I shall.” The Queen inclined her head. “Safe travels, friends. And be careful: the earth trembles with darkness.”
Unfurling my wings, I took to the air, escaping through the skylight in the cavern’s ceiling, shooting high into the clouds, trying to escape the truth hounding at my heels.
I’d touched her face. I’d held her hands. It’d been the same woman. Exhausted. Tired. And in so much pain, but it’d been her. There was a rod of steel encased in Pandora’s soul, one that made her stronger and more capable than any other being I’d ever known in my entire existence.
I’d not given up on her the first time she’d been abducted by the Triad. And I wanted to say I wouldn’t give up on her now. But when I landed on the clifftop of the first place I’d ever seen her, the spot deep in the Mexican mountains where I’d once seen her rock a dying baby to its eternal sleep, it felt a lot like I was saying goodbye.
Chapter 11
Pandora
I floated in a haze of dreaming, the demons inside me strangely quiet. Save for Sloth, who took this opportunity to drag me down deep, feeding on my souls like a man starved of food for the past century.
I could never actually see the demons. But I could feel them, and even at times have conversations with them, as I sometimes did with Lust.
I stood on a grassy knoll, surrounded by a field of blooming heather and jagged gray stones protruding up from the ground. The breeze stirred the knee-high grass. My toes dug into the cool soil.
I was dressed in a medieval-style green gown. The kind with the long bell sleeves trimmed in golden thread. My hair hung long and loose down to my waist, a hammered metal circlet on my crown keeping the flyaways back from my face.
The sky was an unusual shade of orange-yellow—the kind that you saw only in paintings and not in real life. Moving so that I could lean against a massive rock, I sat and inhaled.
This landscape was an exact replica of a particular day in the Highlands of Scotland.
Pablo Picasso had had his blue period—well, I’d had my black period. I’d run away from Luc, I’d been alone, he’d been tracking me. Seeking me out through every corner of the earth.
I rubbed the scar on my chest—the heart-shaped one that Luc had permanently etched into my chest—remembering the day with such vivid clarity that it was almost like déjà vu.
Birds had circled in the sky above me, no doubt drawn to the blood staining the front of my gown. I’d nearly killed a man on the road leading out of town. A highlander. A brawny, strappy male who’d stumbled upon me while I’d been drinking from a brook.
He’d shoved the tip of his dirk against my spine, whispered a heated “get up,” and dragged me deep into the woods.
And the only thing I could remember was the utter sense of loneliness that day. Lust was little more than a whore back then. I’d given her free rein to take anyone and anything she desired.
Married. Single. Old. Or young. It hadn’t mattered. I’d sampled them all. I’d lie in their beds, and let them rut with me. Not for coin. Or for food. But out of a desire to feel something.
Anything.
The dark-haired highlander with cobalt-blue eyes had gazed down at me with disgust burning in them, the fisted dirk now at my neck as he’d slipped himself between my thighs.
I hadn’t fought him.
I’d merely stared up at the sky wondering why.
Why had I ever been born?
What was the point of existence? Sadness? Pain? Hurt?
The man had smelled of horse shit and wood smoke. He’d grunted on top of me, releasing himself quickly and then giving me the strangest look afterward. Not contrition. Not exactly.
More like curiosity.
He’d taken me. But then he’d gotten off me and attempted to clean me up with a bit of animal pelt he’d had attached to his belt. I’d merely cocked my head, staring at him as he cleaned up the mess between my thighs.
I’d let him screw me in the hopes that I’d feel alive again. But I’d felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Lass,” he’d whispered in a broken voice when he’d finished.
One of his canines was missing and his left front tooth was blackened around the edges. There were moles all over his forehead. His nose was broad. His chin jowly. He was probably the ugliest male I’d ever seen.
I dragged my fingers along the scar as the memories continued to drag me under, deeper and deeper into the farthest recesses of my mind.
The highlander had dropped the dirk and animal skin then, his flaccid penis still hanging out of his trews as he’d turned his hands over, palms up.
I would have left him then. Would have walked away. But then I saw it.
Shame.
Glinting in the only pretty thing about him, his eyes.
And then I finally did feel something.
Rage.
With a scream I’d let Lust out. My skin had turned to scales, my fingers into claws, and in one fell swoop, I’d eviscerated him
. He’d gasped, grabbing onto his intestines through shaking fingers. But I hadn’t been done.
Grabbing hold of his cock, I’d ripped it off and tossed it away. Then I’d shoved his guts back into his stomach, smiling as he’d screamed, and, using a chunk of flint and tinder, started a fire. The plan had been to burn him alive. But as I reached for him, I paused, unable to finish him.
He was a bad man. He wasn’t light. Wasn’t good. He’d raped me. But then he’d shown me kindness and I couldn’t understand it. It was that curiosity that had stilled my hand. And instead of ending him, I’d saved him.
I’d taken a chunk of rock so hot that it glowed a deep red and cauterized his wounds. I’d stayed with the man for weeks afterwards, bringing him water, feeding him whatever he could manage to keep down.
He’d fevered, and at times I was sure death would come for him during the night, but against all odds he’d survived. After a month and a half he’d turned the corner. I hadn’t reattached his cock; he’d remained a eunuch until the day he died.
In the end I’d developed somewhat of an amity with Angus. I’d watched over him for the rest of his days. An act of violence and cruelty had changed me. And against all odds, for the better.
Angus had woken me up again. I never loved him, or even really respected him much, but in a sick, twisted way I’d been grateful to him that he’d stumbled upon me that day.
I snapped out of that memory and blinked. “Why did you show me that, Sloth?”
Sloth never answered; he just continued to sift through the corridors of my mind. And there in the dreaming, I relived my life.
~*~
“Wake up.”
I groaned at Dean, staring at him through bleary eyes, and rubbed at the pain throbbing through the base of my skull.
“Go away.”
“No can do, Rip Van Winkle.” He shrugged, “We gave you two days. But the key’s been cracked and it’s back to business as usual.”
“Two days?” I croaked and rubbed at a throat that still felt raw. “You let me sleep for two days?”
“Yeah, well, getting probed is hard on a body. Now get up.” He growled. “Dick’s waiting to give us the stats on our latest mission.” And so saying, he turned on his Gucci heels and sauntered off.
