by Gary Jonas
The ghoul still standing at the doors addressed Amanda. “Witch! Drop the force field or we all go off.”
I maneuvered through the crowd, trying to get close enough to him to attack. The problem was that I couldn’t stop the other two ghouls from setting themselves off.
“Do it, or everyone in this room dies.” The bomber ghoul ran his tongue over his fangs and looked at me. “Bliss and Jessica die, too.”
I looked back at the stage. Jiggs stared helplessly at the bomber ghoul, then at Amanda, then at me. I nodded. If they wanted Jiggs, it was because Liz was on her way or they intended to take him to her. I pushed through the rest of the crowd until I stood in front of the lead bomber ghoul. I decided to leave him alive for now to keep from tipping off Liz. When she showed, I was positioned to attack the bitch. With any luck, Brand had healed enough to lend a hand. Or at least shoot a gun. I fought back the urge to look toward the curtain, which would give him away.
Amanda ended her spell. The protective shield disappeared. She dropped her arms, closed her eyes and swayed with exhaustion. She didn’t have the energy to put the three bomber ghouls inside three separate force fields. At this point, she probably couldn’t even handle one of them. She’d used too much magic.
“Now bring me the outcast, witch.”
“No.”
“It’s all right.” Jiggs smoothed his lapels and offered Amanda his arm. They descended the short flight of stairs she and I took earlier. The Kin made way for them.
“Save us,” one whispered, then another. Jiggs nodded to his people and did his best to smile reassuringly.
When Amanda and Jiggs stood in front of the bomber ghoul, Jiggs inclined his head. “Hello, Nick.”
“Jiggs.”
So the ghouls knew each other. They were Kin, after all.
“She got your kid too, huh?” Jiggs said. “That why you’re kitted out and ready to kill?”
Nick the bomber ghoul sneered. “I turned my son over to New Mother gratefully. He was starving, scrawny, that close to biting his own mother. But you should see him now.” Nick rocked on his heels.
“I’m sure he’s a strapping young man,” Jiggs said. “Don’t you want him to be free?”
“Why do you think I’m here? Why do you think any of us are here? We want to protect our children, and we’re willing to lay down our lives to do it.”
“That’s true of all of us,” Jiggs said. “But we don’t have to die to protect them.”
Nick shook his head. “Take the goddamned door wards down now, witch!” A vein pulsed in his forehead and I noticed a family resemblance. His son was Floor Licker.
Jiggs raised his hand, palm facing Nick. “Before Amanda does that, you will allow the rest of our Kin here to go free. Tell Liz to unlock her side of the shadows and we’ll unlock ours. No more bloodshed.”
“You will address her as New Mother or your daughter gets the taste.”
“Like your son?” I asked. Nick frowned and his eyes narrowed. “Otherwise, why would Amanda have installed a no-kill button under his chin?”
Nick’s eyes widened. “It was merely a precaution.” He looked beseechingly at Amanda, who shrugged.
“Some were precautionary. Some were more … after the fact.”
Nick looked at the door behind him, then back at us, clearly unable to decide what to do.
“Let Amanda remove the explosives,” Jiggs said. “Come back to us. We can help your son. We can help Hebb.” Jiggs turned back to the rest of the Kin. “We can help all our kids. We just need to stand together.”
The Kin spoke at once to Nick and the other two ghouls, pleading with them to listen to Jiggs.
Nick finally nodded, and tilted his head back. Amanda examined his chin.
“Can you do it?” Jiggs asked.
“I invented the spell. This is a bad copy, but I think I can undo it.”
Nick blubbered apologies. “I’m so sorry, Jiggs. New Mother’s got Bliss in a cage with Jessica, hoping she’ll take the taste. Bliss is a good kid. She’s resisting. But she’s hungry.”
Amanda’s hands passed back and forth under Nick’s chin. The bump shrank.
“Almost got it all. Oh, shit.”
The bump pulsed and Nick’s eyes rolled back in his head. I tackled Amanda, as Jiggs spun Nick so he faced the door. Nick bowed as if greeting royalty. When his head touched the wood, it exploded out, taking most of the door with it.
The explosion was smaller than the others, thanks to Amanda. Otherwise, we would have been killed instantly. Nick’s body turned to bloody shrapnel, some of which struck me as I tackled Amanda. Poor Jiggs caught most of it. He flew backward, hit the floor, and lay still.
Amanda and I sat up. She was bruised and cut, but my body had absorbed more of the blast than hers. My back burned and bled, but I tried not to show any pain on my face. Fortunately, most of the shrapnel had gone over us. Unfortunately, that meant there was collateral damage. The front row of Kin lay wounded or dead on the floor while the folks behind them tried to stop the bleeding.
Amanda shook her head. I did the same, trying to stop the ringing in my ears. I wanted to help the fallen, but through the blasted doorway, there was movement.
Even though the door was demolished, the ward stayed in place. Through a wavering field of magic covering the doorway, we watched Liz, the New Mother approach. Her hair was piled on her head in a series of complicated braids and curls. She wore a blue-gray dress with a scooped neckline and a tight-fitting waist, with a skirt that ended just past her knees. An ancient-looking pendant hung around her neck and was her only jewelry. A sword wouldn’t have looked entirely out of place at her hip. But the most striking thing was her size. She was close to seven feet tall now. Feeding on the living was better than Wheaties.
Liz stretched out her hand and touched the field. She looked in at us and smiled.
“Oh, good. You’re all here. That saves me a trip. But I’m tired of waiting. Lower the ward, Amanda. Now.”
Across the room, the other two bomber ghouls gasped as their eyes rolled back to show the whites. Screaming Kin backed away from them, but there was nowhere to go except the middle of the room, where they crowded together like a frightened herd.
“How can you do this to your people?” Amanda asked. “Look at them. They’re terrified. Is that what you want?”
“They’re terrified because they are the old Kin, used to cowering and scraping. Look at me. I’ll never bend to anyone again, and neither will my Sekutar children. They’re the new generation, the firebrands. Let me in, and everything changes for my people.”
“No. You’ll kill them.”
Liz shook her head. “We’re on the same side, Amanda. That hasn’t changed. I’m touched with how much you care for my Kin. It’s why we became friends.” She tilted her head and grinned. “You still like your boots, don’t you?”
“You’re insane. You know that, right?”
Liz laughed like she was watching a toddler melt down about not getting a candy bar. “What’s insane is that we’re fighting over nothing! We’re all friends here. Kelly, too. I owe her everything. Just let me in, and I’ll show you.”
“Do it, Amanda,” I said through clenched teeth.
The shrapnel in my back burned like fire and I felt every flame. Hot sweat trickled down my spine. I took a deep breath and pain like broken glass bloomed across my left side as a broken rib poked into my left lung. I hoped again that Brand had recovered by now, and was quietly watching behind the curtain, waiting for his chance to shoot Liz, or perhaps the other Sekutar would arrive. If Brand missed I still had my sword. With the door opened, at least the others had a chance to escape while I distracted Liz.
“Let the bitch in.” I said. “We’ve got this.”
Amanda glanced at me like I was as batshit crazy as Liz, but she unwound the ward. The magic fell away and Liz stepped through the broken doors.
I held my breath. Come on, Brand.
Liz walked unharm
ed into the room. Either Brand was still unconscious or biding his time.
Liz glanced down at Jiggs on the floor – unconscious or dead, I couldn’t tell. Then she looked at me. Now that I knew the truth, I could see the make-up caked onto her gray skin, giving it a pale pink hue. If an ancestor of hers had tried to pass herself off as human to marry a lord, he’d have to be pretty drunk all the time, or she made sure the candles were out whenever they were alone.
Or perhaps bathing in virgin’s blood gave a ghoul’s skin a healthy, rosy glow.
The only sound was my sweat pattering to the floor. Only it wasn’t sweat, it was blood. My back was covered in burns and shrapnel from the explosion and I bled from countless wounds of various depths. The pain was worse than before. My skin should have pushed out all the debris by now and sealed itself up. My lung was a balloon scraping against jagged bone with every breath. Obviously, Ravenwood was still looking into my kill-switch.
But there was still enough magic in my body to keep me alive through the trauma. Which meant there was enough for me to kill Liz.
With what felt like my last strength, I leaped to my feet and charged her.
Behind Liz, I watched Brand step out from the curtain, raise his gun and pull the trigger.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The bullet reached Liz first. It slammed into the back of her head and exited from her cheekbone inches away from my face. Thanks, Brand. I gutted her midsection. I wanted Liz to see my triumphant smile, but the bullet careened through her occipital lobe, so her eyes rolled uselessly in their sockets.
I guess you can’t have everything.
Liz slid backwards off my sword and crumpled to the floor. Kin popped out of sight as the shadows she’d locked opened up. The room emptied quickly. The two remaining bomber ghouls came back to their senses, more or less, and approached us.
Brand’s face was the color of oatmeal, his body still trying to regenerate blood to make up for the loss. He limped as he walked but he held up a shaky hand to high-five me, cocky smile firmly in place. “God, I could really go for a burger or ten right now,” he said.
Adrenaline raced through my body, making me feel lightheaded. I worried that when he got to me, I might fall into his arms and he’d get the wrong idea. Then again, that might not be so bad.
“I’ll pay,” I said. “Nice shot.”
Liz sat up. “Good thing I ate a couple of Sekutar this morning,” she said.
I swung my katana to take off her head, as the exit wound on her cheek closed up. Liz caught my blade with her left hand. The steel cut through flesh, but lodged in her bones. She pulled the sword from my grip. As she got to her feet, she spun it around and sliced into my stomach. All Lina’s fine work was undone in an instant.
I dropped to my knees, sure she’d deliver a death blow next.
Brand emptied his gun into Liz. She staggered forward a few steps then turned and slashed at him. He jumped back avoiding the attack. Brand tossed aside the gun, pulled his katana and launched himself at her. With Sekutar-quick reflexes, she caught Brand mid-air and slammed him to the floor on top of me.
The last I saw of the ballroom was the little flapper ghost passing through the curtain. She held up a hand with her fingers crossed. Then Liz pulled Brand and me into her shadow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The shadow spit us out into a room deep underground, a place that looked like a medieval dungeon mixed with all the comforts enjoyed by seventeenth century royalty. Cages lined the walls, each holding a young man or woman – mostly women – and most curled up in the fetal position. A meat hook or two hung above each cage holding thawing bodies that dripped pink water and other liquid gore onto the people below. Sekutar ghouls wandered back and forth in front of the cages, helping themselves to the frozen dinners while terrorizing the fresh meat. The place stank of sweat, bile, excrement, blood, decay – the mingled odor of rotten fear. No Good Work was happening in that hellhole.
In the center of the room were Persian carpets, gilded tables, carved chests and throne-like chairs where Sekutar ghouls lounged and snacked on horrible things. A cut crystal chandelier hung with a hundred candles above the scene. It was like a royal living room had been taken whole from a castle and set like a jewel in a pile of shit.
As soon as we appeared, half a dozen Sekutar ghouls rushed us. Two grabbed me and I fought to break free. My attempts were pathetic. Every breath was a new lesson in pain. My abdomen joined forces with my back and bled freely. But even at full strength and completely healed, I still might have struggled. The Sekutar ghouls’ physical strength was incredible, better than the Sekutar 2.0. Almost as good as mine had been. DGI had outdone themselves. Too bad they’d trusted a power hungry madwoman to supply their victims.
A ghoul grabbed for Brand, but Brand whipped his sword up, cutting through flesh. He whipped the blade around and sliced the ghoul’s head off. Before the head hit the ground, two more Sekutar ghouls attacked Brand. They broke both his arms and one leg for good measure. The sound of cracking bones reverberated through the chamber.
Brand just laughed. “That tickles!”
Liz stood up and took Brand’s katana from one of the Sekutar ghouls holding him. She already had mine. She tossed them both onto a divan.
The two bomber ghouls from the ballroom appeared next to us, dragging Jiggs and Amanda. The one with Jiggs dropped him on the rug in front of Liz. Jiggs cried out in pain and I could see the extent of the damage. His suit was covered in blood. The side of his face was little more than hamburger. He clutched at his chest.
“Be careful with poor Jiggs,” Liz said. “I need him alive.”
At the far end of the room was a double-sized cage. Two figures sat at opposite ends, facing each other. One sat casually with her legs crossed. The other, smaller figure had her knees drawn up and her arms around them. Jessica and Bliss. As soon as the bomber ghoul let him go, Jiggs started crawling toward the cage.
“Kelly?” Jessica looked awful. She was filthy and her eyes stared out of dark, sunken sockets. She’d been cut in several places – possibly as an incentive for Bliss to bite. Her skin looked sallow and dull. She stretched out her arm between the bars, the one with the Queen of Hearts tattooed on the inside.
Then Jessica smiled. All the grime, all the blood, all the fear, couldn’t dim that glorious smile.
“I knew you’d come for me. Bliss told me so.”
At the same time, Bliss had eyes only for her daddy. They hugged each other through the bars.
“I knew you’d come for me too, Daddy.” She smiled at me over his shoulder, her face as beaming as Jessica’s. “Jessica said so. We talked this whole time.”
They’d kept each other’s hopes up. Jessica turned out to be Bliss’s best bet for fighting off the taste, and it looked like they’d both won. Now it was up to me to get everyone out of here alive.
Liz watched the reunion, then turned her attention to Amanda. “I want you to understand that the nastiness upstairs never needed to happen. Your loyalties got muddled and look what happened. Here’s your last chance to make things right again, to help me like you’ve wanted to. And so that you don’t hurt anyone else.”
“Fuck you.” Amanda spat at Liz.
Liz’s expression never changed as she wiped the spit off her face. But her eyes glowed deepest orange through her contacts.
A barred divider kept Bliss and Jessica apart so if or when Bliss might decide Jessica would make a great snack it could be removed and Jessica was toast, literally. A padlock kept the divider in place and a Sekutar ghoul guard held the key.
It was Hebb the Floor Licker. He looked at the two bomber ghouls who’d brought Jiggs and Amanda and came up one short when he did the math. As he approached us, he stared at Liz.
“New Mother?” His voice could have been a ten-year-old’s in the middle of the night, seeking reassurance after a bad dream. “Where’s my dad?”
“Poor Hebb. I’m so sorry for your loss.” Liz reached
out and ran her hand over the blond stubble on the Sekutar ghoul’s head. “I’m sure it was an accident, but Amanda here – you know, the witch who humiliated you in the dojo – killed your father.”
Hebb looked at Amanda and bared his fangs, all four of them. His eyes flared orange and he snarled like a rabid wolf.
Amanda shook her head. “I was trying to save your dad, Hebb. This bitch was the one who set him off. He was just a tool to her, like you are.”
Hebb was way beyond listening. Spittle flew from his mouth as he shouted. “Give her to me, New Mother! I want her alive! I want her to hurt when I devour her!”
Liz continued to stroke Hebb’s head. “Before I feed you the witch, my sweet child, I need her to do a few things for me. Do you think you can wait?”
“I don’t want to. I want her now!” Hebb ran his arm across his snotty nose.
“The things I ask her to do will hurt her. You can watch in the meantime. Will that do?”
Hebb snuffled and nodded, never taking his eyes off Amanda.
“Good. Let’s get started, Amanda.”
“I said, fuck you.” Amanda struggled against the bomber ghoul who held her. She started chanting and Liz slapped her hard enough across the face to stun her out of the spell.
I wrapped a leg around one of my captor’s and boosted myself up. I swung my head backwards and broke his nose. He didn’t feel the pain. Instead, he turned me in his arms and snapped my upper arm.
Liz’s eyes grew rounder and a corner of her mouth turned up as she studied the situation.
“Do it to her now.”
I will always remember the look on Jessica’s face as she watched my other arm crack and my legs break. Her terrified eyes widened as the hope for survival drained from her face.
I bit back on the pain. My powers were fading fast, along with my life.
Brand yelled out, “No, stop!” He made another attempt to break free. They snapped his femur and he laughed, but this time it took on a panicky edge. They dislocated his jaw and that shut him up until it popped back into place. The Sekutar ghouls took turns breaking various bones and dislocating his shoulders and hips. And his jaw every time he laughed.
