by E. A. Copen
Stefan put a hand over his mouth and turned away. “Christ! What the hell is that thing?”
“A homunculus.” I lifted the creature away from his mother, exposing more of the umbilical cord. “An artificial human created through magic and born without a soul. The true union of God and mankind’s hubris.”
I placed the child on the bed, where he lay gurgling and squirming, turning his malformed head in search of a breast. Even dying, life tried to find a way. I returned with the scalpel and cut the umbilical. Blood splattered my face.
Stefan’s back hit the wall, his hand still over his mouth and nose.
Eosyn shifted. One more good push and the last of anything connecting her to the child was expelled. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief and turned her head away.
I held the homunculus child in my arms, remembering the day I’d held Maggie in much the same way—my arms away from my chest, afraid that if I dropped her, she would splat on the floor like jelly. I hadn’t known what to do with her either. Kill her? Let her live? The one thing I’d never felt for Maggie was a true bond. I knew she was mine. It was in the corner of her mouth, the curve of her ears. But I held nothing but contempt for the child in my arms, even as I promised to save and protect her.
No one tells you about that. The way humans talk about birth, it’s love at first sight. You’re not supposed to clench your fists when your child cries, or grind your teeth when her helpless little arms jerk. No one tells you you’ll lose your patience before you learn to love a child. The whole narrative about childbirth and parenthood was a lie. There was no such thing as love at first sight, although it could grow if nurtured.
The homunculus child would not survive long enough to love. Even then, just moments after birth, I felt his little lungs struggling for every wet breath. “Stefan, the morphine shot. Quickly.”
He pushed numbly away from the wall, big clumsy steps taking him to the desk where I’d laid everything out. Shaky hands lifted the syringe. He stared at it. “You don’t have to do this.”
I shook my head. “He’s dead already, Stefan. Such a thing was never meant to survive in the world. Killing him this way is a kindness.”
“But—”
The child coughed out a gurgling scream.
I lifted the bloody thing to my chest, smothering his cries. “I warned you, Stefan. I told you it was like this. If you can’t stomach it, you know where the door is. This is magic. This is power. This is who I am.”
He turned around. “It doesn’t have to be. You can make the choice to change.”
I stared at him. He didn’t get it, did he? Was there no way to get through to him? No easy way. I pulled the syringe from his fingers, tipped the child back, and jabbed the needle into the creature’s neck before pressing the plunger. “I chose this twenty years ago. I choose it now. I choose vengeance and violence. Not because I have to, because I want to.”
He blinked and turned away as he shed a tear in anger.
I turned my back and lowered the now-limp child to the bed before picking up the scalpel. The homunculus was still breathing as I pressed the blade into his distended stomach, cutting through the thin flesh and stringy muscle. He lived even as I dipped my gloved hand into his abdomen, searching. Stubborn bastard. I guess even a soulless creature can take after his father.
It was buried behind the liver, the thin sliver of something unnatural—a grayish cyst. I removed it with the scalpel and set it aside. Pus and fluid rushed out as I punctured the cyst, but puncturing it also exposed the corner of a narrow piece of parchment. I pulled the parchment out with tweezers and cleaned the sticky coating from it. Red lettering glittered on the strip, words written in one of the tongues of Hell.
The homunculus let out a raspy breath and whispered in my father’s voice, “Si vis pacem para bellum, filius.”
Steam rose from the body. The skin bubbled and melted along with organs and tissues into a gray sludge, leaving only twisted bones behind.
Stefan looked away. “What does it say? Does it say where Maggie is?”
I looked at Eosyn’s still body. She wasn’t breathing either, her glassy eyes were fixed on the wall, blood dripping from her mouth and nose. “It says Maggie’s waiting for me. In Hell.”
Chapter Eleven
Khaleda
I arrived in the Los Angeles airport just after ten local time and called Josiah to let him know I was in town. The call had gone to voicemail, so I left a message with the hotel where he was staying and counted myself lucky. He’d probably want to grill me as soon as he showed up. All I wanted to do was find a soft bed as far from men as possible and pass out for a week.
That was saying something. Los Angeles was one of my favorite cities. No other place in the world like it. The city had a pulse like a living, breathing thing. Unlike the cold demeanor of New York, Los Angeles was warm, sexy like sweat on a beautiful woman’s lower back, alive like neon lights.
I sighed and put my suitcase down on the sidewalk, waving car exhaust away from my nose as I tried to decide what to do next. Ubers and taxis clogged the pickup area, each filling up too fast to bother offering me a ride. No one approached me. At least that much was going right. The West Coast was friendlier than the East in my experience, but they did like to talk, especially to strangers.
“Do you need a ride, miss?”
I eyed the man in the suit, trying to decide if he was a driver or someone more interesting. He was attractive, too attractive to be driving other attractive people around in cars. “I’ve got one coming, but thank you.”
“Then would you mind if I waited with you?” He smiled, perfect white teeth behind his lips.
“Why?”
It wasn’t the question he was expecting. My asking it made the mask of confidence fall from his face, but only for a moment. “Does there need to be a reason beyond conversation?”
“Are you particularly good at conversation?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Not particularly.”
I laughed. “How about a game? I guess one fact about you, and if I’m right, you pay for my ride. If I’m wrong, I’ll cover yours to anywhere in the city.”
He smirked. “A gamble. I like it. All right, guess away.”
“You want to fuck me.”
He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. “Come on. Find a man on this platform who doesn’t. That one’s a given. It doesn’t count.”
I sighed and removed the sunglasses from my face, folding them and dropping them into my pocket. He had pale blue eyes, and just enough stubble to look ruggedly attractive without being overbearing. The suit he wore was designer and tailored, and his shoes were polished. The white undershirt was misbuttoned, with a tiny smear of red on the inside of the collar, barely noticeable.
I took a step closer and inhaled next to his ear, watching the tiny hairs on his neck stand on end. The unmistakable scent of sex hung around him like alcohol on a drunk, but it was mixed with another scent. “The woman you were with on the plane was wearing cheap perfume. You fucked her, but you were bored. Just fucking isn’t enough for you, so you’re wondering if something’s wrong with you. Maybe you can’t be satisfied. This city is your playground, beautiful women, your dolls. You keep them on a shelf, and your phone full of numbers. Whenever you want, you call whoever you think will meet you and go get off, but even that’s not doing it for you anymore. You need something else, something…more.”
He leaned back to look at me, concern on his face. A drop of sweat slid down the side of his forehead. “How did you…”
“That thing you feel like you’re missing? It isn’t a special position or some toy you need to add. It’s love. Go find someone who means something to you and stop having empty, meaningless sex with strangers. You don’t know how lucky you are that you can.” I smiled and waved down a cab. “So, how far off am I?”
He couldn’t pay for my fare and get away from me fast enough.
I tried to get in touch with Josiah all the way ac
ross town, but he wouldn’t answer his phone. It was just going straight to voicemail, so wherever he was, it was off. I didn’t worry until Stefan didn’t answer either. Maybe the two of them were going at it. Wouldn’t that be a nice surprise? To walk into the hotel room and find them in the nude? Better than finding either of them dead, anyway. I’d had my fill of death these last few days.
The hotel they’d selected was second-rate, but that was to be expected. Josiah wouldn’t stay in comfort, and Stefan wasn’t fond of squalor. The two-star establishment meant they’d met somewhere in the middle. Maybe there was hope for them after all.
At the desk, I charmed the attendant into giving me their room information by pretending to be a talent scout, worried about my talent who hadn’t checked in for a few days. Everyone in LA was either an actor or an aspiring actor. Young folks in the service industry, especially. Some stayed there because that was as close as they’d ever get to rubbing elbows with greatness, while others simply never made enough to leave. Promising the desk clerk he could email me his information got me farther than flashing skin would in that town, anyway. Skin was the only thing more common than movie stars.
He gave me a room key and I made my way to their room, only to find it empty.
I sighed and tossed the key down. “Goddammit, Josiah. Why aren’t you ever where you’re supposed to be?”
There was nothing to do but settle in and wait for them to come back since they weren’t answering their phones. Their luggage was still there, so they’d probably be back. There was always the possibility that something terrible had happened to them, I supposed, but if so, I didn’t have any way to find out what it was or where to begin looking. Not until something else happened. So I did what any sensible, exhausted woman in my situation would do.
I took a bath.
At least, I went to run the bath. After undressing, I discovered the bathroom was too much of a pigsty to relax. A used razor lay on the sink next to a smear of shaving cream, the toilet seat was up, and a pair of sweaty socks were behind the door. I picked it all up and covered the floor with one of the remaining towels before I could finally sink into the steaming hot water.
Hours of travel and rushing through the airport, plus the ride in the back of that disgusting taxi, melted away. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and let my thoughts drift to another time and place—the last time I’d been on my own for more than a few days.
Father had sent me on an assignment. I was to seduce and then assassinate a French socialist named Armand Ory. Ridiculous name, and an equally ridiculous man, with no bedroom appeal. His fiancée, however, was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. Calinthe Valinquette. How could she not be a beautiful creature with such a name? I stole her from her betrothed and took her to a remote village in Denmark whose name I could not pronounce. It was the season of wildflowers and laughter, perhaps the happiest days of my life. There were roses everywhere, the taste of cherry lip balm and strawberry daiquiris, sun hats and short skirts, afternoons spent on soft cotton sheets.
I thought Father would come for me, drag me back to finish my work, but Armand came first. He was irate when he found us together. He’d been drinking all day, but one of the locals—I never found out who—had tipped him off. He got on his private jet and flew up to… Well, I don’t know what he intended. Maybe to scare Callie into going back with him.
I’ll never forget the way he raved with that revolver in his hand, nor will I forget how Callie’s tears rolled down my shoulder while I held her tight against my chest, protecting her from his rage. The moment he turned his back, I sprang into motion, wrestled the gun away from him, and shot him point-blank in the head. There wasn’t enough of his face to tell it was him without looking at his DNA. I thought I would be her hero. Instead, she saw me for the monster I truly was. Callie threw herself from the balcony in a fit of madness and broke her neck. In the end, my father won, and he didn’t even have to lift a finger.
A floorboard creaked. My eyes snapped open. Maybe Josiah and Niko had come back.
I pulled myself out of the tub and wrapped myself in a towel, an uneasy sense of dread coiling in the pit of my stomach. The doorknob turned slowly.
I grabbed one of the razors from the garbage can and hid it behind my back. “Josiah?”
It wasn’t him. The door creaked open, revealing the hotel clerk from downstairs. He lifted his eyes from the floor, a wicked smile on his face. No, not the desk clerk. The skin and muscle might’ve belonged to the kid from the desk, but something darker writhed underneath. A demon.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
He smiled, lips stretching wider than a normal human should’ve been capable of. “You don’t remember me, do you, Princess?”
Something about the way he said “Princess” forced a buried memory to the surface, the image of me nailed to a flat rock by my palms and ankles, staring at the screaming sky deep in Hell while my father’s minions raped me again and again. My body had long since gone numb, but I was a prisoner of my own despair. Even if they had freed me from my restraints, I was too weak to fight back, too weak to use my power, thanks to the awful collar Father had fitted around my neck. Helpless. Alone. No chance of rescue.
I tightened my grip on the razor. “Who sent you?”
The bathroom shrank as he entered and closed the door behind him. I told myself I wouldn’t back away, that I would stand my ground. My body acted on its own, shrinking as far away from him as I could get.
“You going to run?” he asked. “Going to fight? You tried that before, and where’d it get you?”
My heel hit the edge of the tub. I had nowhere to go and no hole to crawl through. No escape. I should’ve struck out at him, cut his face, opened his neck from ear to ear and let the blood flow, yet I knew already it wouldn’t do any good. The monster stalking me wasn’t beholden to a beating heart. He could abuse me even if the body were dead.
His hand shot out to seize my chin. Metal jingled in his hand as he dropped the familiar collar and attached chain from his free arm’s sleeve. “Go ahead and fight me, Princess. I like it when they fight back.”
My jaw trembled in his hand. I stared at him, my heartbeat echoing in my ears like a drum. A war drum. His face crystallized in my vision, every freckle and pockmarked scar visible at once. The lines and shadows of his face, the pale tongue moving over thin lips. His arm was fully distended, but in a moment, he would lean in. His elbow would bend as his body weight shifted onto the balls of his feet. His shove would force me to trip over the tub, throwing me off balance enough that I could do nothing as he climbed in to straddle my body.
I had to act before he moved, or I might lose my window of opportunity.
The arm behind my back acted on automatic, striking out at the inside of his wrist to drag the razor over exposed skin. Blood flowed. His eyes widened, pupils dilating. He’d barely registered the first slice when I made the second across his neck. It was shallower, far from deadly, but enough. His borrowed human body reacted, and he let my chin go to grip the cut I’d made in his neck and stem the tide of blood.
It left him wide open for a strike to the floating rib. His weight shifted forward, and he swung at me with the metal collar. I caught his left arm at the wrist, then delivered another precise strike to the inside of his elbow and twisted up, forcing his upper body into a position parallel with the floor. I stepped in at the same time. A kick to his left shin forced his leg back, throwing off his center of balance and making it easier for me to take his other leg out from under him. He went down awkwardly. A bone somewhere snapped, and he yelped in pain.
I fell onto him, my knee resting in the hollow of his throat to cut off his air. I ripped the collar out of his hand. “Coming near me without an army was a stupid move. Now, tell me who sent you, and I’ll make this quick.” So that he could speak, I eased the pressure on his throat slightly.
“Remember when Xalith and me took turns? Bet you never had anything like t
hat since, eh?” He started to laugh.
I cut him off by slamming the metal collar against the side of his head. “Leviathan? Beelzebub? Tell me!”
He spat blood and flashed bloody teeth. “Fuck them. I serve the true master.” His hand tightened on the back of my thigh. “Give us one last taste. One more gasping scream of shameless pleasure.”
I pulled the collar back and slammed the hinge into his nose. Another hit to the center of the face and bone cracked. His hand fell away with the third strike, and his eyes rolled back at the fourth. By the sixth, I had smashed open his skull. The body beneath me gurgled and twitched through its death throes, and still, I beat him. Only when the collar hit the wet linoleum did I stop to let out a quivering breath. Tears slid down my face and splashed on the bloody mess.
Remiel knew. He knew my weakness, what had been done to me. My fist closed around the collar. I stood on shaky legs and turned it over in my hand to examine the inside. It should’ve been inscribed with ancient writings and charged with the blood of the behemoth. The collar should’ve emanated untold amounts of magic, but this one was dead. Nothing. A cheap imitation. It didn’t even have a proper clasp.
With a growl, I threw it aside. It struck the mirror and shattered it. Remiel, you bastard. Where’s the real collar?
I wiped a hand across my face and looked down at the twitching remains. The hotel would miss the front desk person soon. How long would it be before they tracked him to Josiah’s and Stefan’s room? How long before they discovered a naked, enraged woman covered in blood? I had to get clean.
There wasn’t much I could do about the body except scoop up what broken bits I could and flush them down the toilet. The rest of him, I leaned against the toilet so the blood would drip into the bowl. I found two more towels in the bedroom that I used to soak up as much blood as I could, then turned on the shower and rinsed myself as clean as possible. Then I hurriedly gathered Josiah’s and Stefan’s things and left the room to break into the one next door.
