by Sam Cheever
We’d talked about it as we ran toward Slayer. We’d decided the heavy presence of the left-behind souls in that room would give us the best chance of beating Morta.
We skulked along the passage, moving as quickly as possible and ducking into shallow niches cut into the walls where we could. We finally stopped a few cells up from Slayer’s. From where we hid I could just see Slayer standing before the bars, eyes closed as if he were meditating.
Four ghouls stood outside the cell, their backs to their prisoner as if they’d already dismissed him. Knowing Slayer as well as I did, that might just prove to be a fatal mistake. I reached carefully for the gifted energy and sent myself into a shift to the spot just behind Slayer.
In a blink I was there, his broad back shielding me from view of the guards.
He stiffened as soon as my feet touched ground, but didn’t turn. “You never cease to surprise me, Princess,” he murmured huskily.
An explosion lit up the passageway, illuminating the guard’s bony faces and dancing flames into their empty eyes. Quick as a wink all four ghouls had yanked their scythes from their sheaths and floated out of view, toward Astra’s diversion.
Slayer turned around and, before I could tell him what we had planned, dragged me into his arms and lowered his lips hungrily to mine.
Need, fierce and sharp, slammed into me. Without conscious thought my hands lifted and slipped through the soft silk of his hair, sliding it between my fingers. He groaned huskily as I parted my lips, allowing his hot tongue through to tease mine. He tasted like sex and heat and I quickly lost myself in his fire. Sensation upon sensation swamped me. His woodsy scent filled my nostrils, spreading lust in my belly in an explosion that made my knees weak. His hard hands found the curve of my buttocks, pulling me against the thick ridge of hard flesh beneath his battle leather. His lips conquered mine, ravaging them with an intensity that pulled breath from my lungs and made my sexual core clench with hunger.
I moaned softly, running my fingers through the short black silk of his hair and holding him in the kiss. His kiss was everything I’d known it would be. Possessive, hungry and giving no quarter, it commanded the rampant lust that fueled it.
I would happily have stayed in the hard band of his arms for hours, exploring the delicious heat we seemed always able to create together at the slightest touch. But another explosion tore me from the daze of lust and I forced myself to step away, though lust still pounded blood through my veins, making it hard to breathe. “We need to go.”
He grasped my wrist as I reached for him. “I can’t.”
Frowning, I let irritation sweep through me, pushing a small measure of the raging lust back just enough to allow me to grasp coherent thought. “We don’t have time for this, Slayer...”
He cupped my cheek in a big hand, his thumb rubbing gently against my swollen lips. “Go and let Morta heal you, Princess. I’m where I need to be.”
“That’s ridiculous. Astra and I have a way to defeat her. But I need to get you to safety first.”
His smile was sad. “I’m glad. But you need to let her heal you first.” The hand on my face slipped down, encircled my throat. His black-flecked golden gaze turned intense. “Promise me you will, Darma. If I know you’ll be okay I can go happily to my death.”
I tried to jerk away from him. “Don’t be stupid. You’re not dying in this damn ice-laden mountain.”
His gaze filled with sadness. Even as the urgency of our situation in that cell tugged at me, making my pulse pound painfully with the need to move, I suddenly realized with a jolt why he was willing, even eager, to sacrifice himself. “It’s not your fault that Queen P gave Morta her son to save you, whatever her reasoning.”
He shook his head, his square, stubbled jaw tightening. “Don’t, Darma. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know you. And I know how ruthlessly practical the dragon queens can be. I’m guessing she decided the queendom needed you and your protection more than she needed a son who could never claim the throne.”
I could tell by the fresh pain flashing through his gaze that my guess had hit the mark. “You can’t blame yourself for that, Slayer.”
“Don’t tell me how I should feel,” he said angrily, turning away. “Just go. Have your healing and walk away from this horrific place. If you can take down the necromancer all the better. But don’t look back, Darma. There’s nothing left for you here.”
Finally, anger got the best of me. I stepped around him and punched him in the shoulder. He stumbled backward, slamming against the bars. To my vast surprise he laughed. Rubbing his shoulder, Slayer straightened away from the bars and shook his head. “Like I said. You never fail to surprise me. Have a nice life, Princess.” He turned to the cell door and, before I could grab him and engage a shift, called out. “Guards! There’s a beautiful intruder in my cell.”
I sensed them coming before I saw them. The magic the Nightwhiffs had given me apparently allowed me to feel the auras of the death-dwelling creatures.
Slayer blocked the cell door with his big body, giving me a final, sad smile. “Take care of yourself, Darma.”
Tears slipped hotly down my cheeks. As the ghouls slammed the cell door open, I shook my head and engaged my shift, Slayer’s impossibly handsome face fixed forever in my memory as I left him behind. To face death alone and by his own choice.
Suicide by necromancer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Too Real to be Real
Dead...all dead,
Just me...left behind to mourn them.
I was despondent as I traveled back to the healing cavern. My bones hurt. I had no energy. All I wanted to do was curl up on the floor and brood. On some level I knew the depth of my emotional plunge wasn’t normal. I suspected something in Morta’s wards created fear and sadness even as it locked me into powerlessness by blocking my magic.
Despite that knowledge, I couldn’t seem to overcome the emotional lethargy. All I could think about was Slayer’s impending death.
When the world came back to me in all its dark and icy horribleness, I sagged against a nearby wall and worked to fight off tears. I was wallowing so hard in my pain that it took me a moment to notice the unnatural silence. The cavern was strangely quiet. Too quiet.
I lifted my head and jerked in surprise.
Morta stood several feet away, her tall form deathly still and her unusual face blank of expression. She stood with her hands clasped, seeming to study me with a smug smile. “Did you have a nice visit with your lover?”
I blinked at the word, realizing that the necromancer had been suffering under a misconception about Slayer and me. In that moment I realized it was why she’d taken him. She’d hoped to feed on my pain and fear even while she dined on Slayer’s bright soul.
I opened my lips to argue with her and stopped. It wouldn’t save Slayer. He was determined to die to save me. I couldn’t save him if he didn’t want to be saved. But I could keep her from savoring my pain.
Lifting my chin, I smiled. “I was glad of the chance to say goodbye. It’s not everyone who has someone who’s willing to die for them. I consider myself very lucky.”
The necromancer’s smile slid away. Though the nasty creature didn’t give away her thoughts by word or posture, her black aura swirled with anger.
I glanced quickly around the healing cavern, realizing with a start that it was full of ghouls. Despite the sheer numbers of them, I was guessing hundreds if not thousands, their silence was complete. It was disconcerting.
“Do you not wonder where your sister and her friends are?”
I blinked in surprise.
She laughed. “Do not think you can do anything in these environs without me knowing it. I am a puppet master and you are my puppets.” She swayed sideways, her long robes swinging slowly around her legs, and extended an arm to show me three bodies, face down on the floor.
I gasped, recognizing Astra and the two men. “What did you do to them?”
Something deadly flared inside me. Something oily and evil burst, spreading like ink through my system. The stench of death filled my nostrils and energy, like electricity sizzled against my skin. With an enraged shout I threw my arms up and, holding the power close for a single beat of my heart, I spread my fingers and flung every bit of it toward the evil creature.
The magic burst away from me in a wall of sizzling white energy, so thick I couldn’t see anything in the room beyond it. The force of the blast nearly took me off my feet, but I dug my heels in and held on, rage giving me the strength to lean into the magic and savor its burn against my skin. I closed my eyes, enjoying the way the power seared through me, and pictured Morta being melted into a nasty black puddle.
Moments later, I let the magic slide away and stood with my eyes closed, breathing as if I’d climbed a mountain. After a moment I opened my eyes and looked around. The cavern was empty. I was standing in the center of the horrible dank place. Completely alone. I tried to move my feet but couldn’t. Glancing down at the shimmering cords wrapped around my ankles, I tried to jerk a foot free. It wouldn’t move. Twisting frantically, I used everything I had to break free but my feet were fixed to the floor. Pain seared through my shoulders and I looked up. My arms were stretched above my head, the wrists bound by the same unbreakable magic holding my feet to the floor.
Soft footfalls approached and my head snapped toward the sound.
Morta stopped mere inches away, a wide smile on her horrible face. “I must say. I haven’t had such fun in a very long time.”
I frowned. “What’s going on? Where’s my sister? And Slayer?”
Morta stood so close her cool, grave-scented breath slithered over my skin. I shuddered with revulsion. Slipping around behind me, the necromancer wrapped an arm around my throat and pressed her body into mine, running a black fingernail over my cheek. “Your sister is a tricky one. She’s managed to evade my guards for now. But I’ll soon have her and I anticipate much sport with her and the yummy Dialle.”
My head pounded with confusion. My stomach roiled. “But you said they were dead.”
Morta’s laughter trailed ice down my spine. “That was lovely wasn’t it?” Her lips touched my skin and it was like being kissed by a corpse. “Such delicious sadness. Such immense rage...” The necromancer pressed more tightly against me and sighed with pleasure.
“It...” I swallowed as my mind finally made sense of it all. “It wasn’t real? None of it?”
“Real? Who’s to say what’s real? It felt real enough to you, didn’t it? You really believed you could best me. You believed your edible partner would die for you.” The horrid creature slipped around me and leaned in, her lips brushing my ear. “You believed your sister was dead.” Morta ran a hand over my arm, sliding it along my side. I arched away from the touch, panic making my pulse race. “Can I tell you a secret? My night visions can only use what is possible in their creation. The visions are based on what could be...given the right set of circumstances.” She nibbled the curve of my ear. “That is why they ring so painfully true.” Her chuckle sent her putrid breath wafting over me again.
“You bitch.” The rage I’d felt had been so vibrant. So absolute. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been real.
Morta kissed my cheek and ducked away, laughing like an evil schoolgirl. “Go ahead and be angry, lovely one. I consume anger too.” She turned to me at the door. “But I’m rather sated now. I think I’ll save the rest for the morning. Foul dreams, lovely. And save the best for me.”
Her laughter echoed off the high, bare walls of the cavern and then fell like pebbles against the floor. Two ghouls came through the door, scythes in hand, and extinguished the lamps hanging on the walls.
The cavern fell into total darkness. A darkness so absolute I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face. I strained to hear the guards’ footfalls, making sure they didn’t come near. And then, when I thought I was actually alone in the cavern, I allowed the tears to finally fall.
~SC~
Darma...
The voice in my head was nearly lost behind an avalanche of pain. The razors had returned to slice my brain into ribbons again, just as they had in Hell. Apparently the witch’s healing magic had finally faded away.
Where are...
It was so faint, so weak, but I recognized it even through the daze of pain. Astra? Where are you?
I...
I felt her hesitation, her confusion through our mental link. I couldn’t help asking, Are you all right?
I’m not sure. I thought you were dead. Dialle is... A single, gut-wrenching sob filtered across our mental channel. He’s gone, Darma. That bitch killed him.
Shoving aside a new wave of pain that would have brought me to my knees if I wasn’t strung up like a Christmas goose, I looked past my sister’s obvious anguish to the possibilities in her words. Astra, you have to listen to me. It’s not real. She’s playing with our minds. She has me strung up in the cavern and she’s been feeding me horrible images and sucking up my fear. She’s probably been doing the same to you. Have you tried to open mental communications with him?
Silence throbbed between us, long enough to make me think she was gone. Astra?
Nothing.
Astra, dammit! Focus!
Okay, okay, untwist your granny panties. I’m here.
Why did everyone insist on accusing me of wearing granny panties? Did you hear what I said?
Yeah.
And?
Hold onto your...
Don’t even say it or I’ll apply my knuckles to your head and rub until your hair stands straight up in the air!
Yeesh! Chillax. I’m awake. Looking around... Frunk me!
Where are you?
Something touched the back of my leg and I jumped, yelping in a less than manly way.
“Right behind you.”
I twisted as far as I could, my neck screaming as I wrenched my head around, and saw something white. I thought it might be Astra’s sweater. “Shit!”
She was hanging right behind me. “You’re okay, except for having your heart torn into pieces by that bitch?”
She sighed. “Yeah. Do you suppose Dialle and Torre are here too?”
I squinted but my gaze couldn’t penetrate the dark. “It’s too dark. I can’t see more than a foot from my face. How about you?”
Light flared behind and above me. I glanced up and saw energy dancing in Astra’s palms. “No. But there’s a rocky partition over there. They could be behind it.”
Cursing myself for stupidity, I pulled energy forward and created my own light source, adding power until it illuminated the half of the cavern I could see. “Nothing. She would have been stupid to put them in here with us.”
“Unless she believed she had us firmly under her control.”
“There is that.” I tugged at the bindings on my wrists. “Any idea how we break these things?”
She bumped me again and I realized she was twisting against her bindings. Energy sizzled and silvery light danced along the strand holding one of her wrists. “The restraints are made of black energy. Our light magics can’t break them.”
“Can you use the mark?” When Dialle and Astra became king and queen, he gave her a mating mark that allowed them to share energy like a single entity. Being a royal devil, Dialle’s energy was decidedly blacker than Astra’s.
“I haven’t been able to reach him.”
I could almost feel her frowning behind me. “That doesn’t mean anything, Astra. He could just be unconscious. You might st
ill be able to draw energy from him, though. It’s worth a try.”
“Yeah. It’s worth a try.”
She sounded so sad it made my chest hurt. I knew how powerful Morta’s night visions were. I’d experienced the debilitating pain firsthand.
Behind me, Astra stilled and I waited, shivering violently. The frigid air of the chamber had seeped into my bones and I thought I’d never get warm again. My toes were numb and the tips of my fingers throbbed with pain. They were no doubt already frozen.
A warm breeze slid past and I twisted in alarm. “Somebody’s coming.”
Astra didn’t respond. I stuck my butt out and jabbed her with it. “Astra!”
“Shut up! I’m working here.”
Another warm breeze slipped past and, despite my fear that it meant a door was open somewhere, I reveled in the heat.
My toes started to throb so painfully I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. I realized then that the air at our feet had warmed enough to thaw them. Whatever Astra was doing, it appeared to be working.
Light sizzled behind me, followed by a crisp snapping sound. Astra gave a delighted cry. “You were right. He’s alive.”
Energy snapped again and my arms dropped, slamming numbly against my sides. Then Astra was crouching next to me, feeding energy into the bindings around my ankles. Finally I was free. When I tried to take a step I stumbled, nearly falling on my ass. “Numb.”
Astra placed her hands over my feet and sent healing energy through the thick leather of my boots. The biting heat was a welcome relief as my frozen toes began to heal. “Ahhh. That feels so good.”
“We need to find Dialle and the others. I’m not sure if Gerch and his soldiers were taken too.”
“There’s a prison level...” I stopped. I had no way of knowing how much of what Morta had fed me was factual, despite what she’d told me. “At least there was in my night visions.”
Astra nodded. “Let’s start there. It makes sense she’d have a prison. If they aren’t there we’ll search level by level until we find them.”
