Greed (The Damning Book 1)

by Katie May

chicks! Let me show you to your bedrooms!”

  That caught the kids’ attentions. Their eyes widened significantly and

  diminutive smiles formed on their faces as the thought of having a room to

  themselves. Joke’s on them.

  The “bedrooms” were nothing more than row after row of cots in a

  sweltering hot room. Each room fitted approximately fifteen cots.

  Yup. Living the good life.

  “I’m going to talk to B,” I told Mali.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” she asked hesitantly. As Head of

  this mission, it wasn’t necessary for me to bring her along for the debrief.

  However, I could use the moral support when B got on my ass about

  protocol.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said instead. I nodded towards the buffet line. “Go grab

  me a plate.”

  Smiling gratefully - Mali was as afraid of B as I was of Nightmares - she

  skipped in the direction of the heavenly smelling food. She, of course,

  wouldn’t eat any of it. She had her own supply of animals to drink from in

  the lower levels of the caves.

  Taking a calming breath, I headed in the direction that housed B’s office.

  The light in the cave got scarcer and more unreliable the further I ventured.

  The lights above me flickered intermittently.

  Fortunately, I knew my way through the tunnels by heart.

  I arrived in front of B’s office door, heart pounding, before raising my fist

  to knock. Before it could connect with the wood, the door was yanked open.

  B stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his bulky chest and his

  receding, gray hairline revealing his true age. This life had taken its toll on

  him; already, I could see an ancient despondency to his creased face that went

  centuries beyond his forty-years. His eyes were sharp though as they traced

  my features.

  “I heard that there was an incident on your assignment,” he said at last.

  “How did you...? Never mind.”

  I forget that B knew everything.

  “Normally, I would get on your ass about killing a Damned, but I’m

  rather grateful that you did.”

  I blinked. I had expected him to yell at me for risking both myself and the

  organization out of a stupid vendetta. This? Saying the word “grateful”?

  “It provides us with an opportunity,” he continued, moving to sit behind

  his stone desk. A single hanging bulb illuminated the bare walls, casting the

  room into shadows. Hesitantly, I walked further into the sparsely lit room. I

  wasn’t usually a timid individual. I was more of a stab-first-and-ask-

  questions-later type. With B, I turned into an entirely different person. What

  could I say? The man scared the shit out of me.

  “Opportunity?” I parroted. There was a single seat in front of his desk,

  but I knew better than to sit before he allowed me to. Instead, I rested my

  hands on the hardwood (not a sex joke, you pervs) and watched B’s face turn

  thoughtful.

  “You know about the crowned princes? Correct?”

  I nodded mutely. Who didn’t know them? A prince from each Nightmare,

  all the same age. There were numerous rumors concerning these men: that

  they were monsters. Murderers. Worse than their parents who created and

  enforced human slavery.

  And there was also the prophecy.

  I didn’t know the exact wording - no human did - but the message was

  clear: these princes had more power than any Nightmare that had ever

  existed. This excessive power could be used to either bring equality to all the

  races...or completely destroy the world. There was no inbetween.

  What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on those men, those monsters…

  “You have the invitation, I presume?” B said. I nodded and produced it

  from my pocket. B’s smile was positively radiant; he looked years younger

  than his actual age at that moment. “Did you know that the invitation is

  designed specifically for each person? The Council gives it to a killer, and the

  killer is obligated to join The Damning. It was created by a group of very

  powerful Mages.”

  “Okay?” I wondered where B was going with this. He had a tendency to

  speak in riddles, especially when he got overly excited.

  “People will kill others in order to receive an invitation,” he continued.

  Again, all I could do was blink at him like an imbecile.

  Look at me. A badass assassin confused by an old man’s ramblings.

  “This will be a perfect opportunity to take them out from within,” he

  finished gleefully.

  Again...the hell?

  Seeing my confusion, B let out a grunt of annoyance.

  “Read the invitation.”

  Frowning, I stared down at the piece of paper I was holding. The blood

  drained from my face as I read the words once. Twice. Three-times. The

  words were intricately written, as if someone had spent time creating each

  individual letter.

  Surely there was a mistake.

  Surely I had read it wrong.

  Surely…

  But the letters didn’t change, no matter how much I willed them to.

  Z - You have been chosen as the competitor of The Damning. Please

  report to the Capital in five days time.

  “When you killed Luka, the magic transferred itself from him to you.

  Congratulations Z. You’re now an official competitor of The Damning.”

  Oh fuck me.

  TWO

  Z

  Ileveled another punch at the black bag. It swung like a pendulum, the

  movement almost rhythmical and hypnotizing. I couldn’t help but wish

  that the punching bag would fight back. I wanted to feel the pain, the

  adrenaline, the excitement, of a fight. I wanted blood to cascade down my

  face. To feel something other than this numbness tightening my lungs.

  I was afraid.

  It was an emotion I hadn’t experienced since I was five and was forced to

  watch my parents die at the hands of Nightmares. I remembered the copper

  taste of blood in my mouth as my little hand grasped my mother’s

  desperately. I remembered hiding behind her clothes in the closet, waiting for

  the bad men to finally leave.

  I hadn’t only lost my mother and father that day. I lost a little piece of

  myself as well. My innocence. My humanity.

  The Nightmares had destroyed it all.

  I thought of S then as well, his shirt soaked with blood and his hand

  reaching for me. His eyes had been anguished when they met mine, but they

  still held more love than I deserved. Especially since I was the one who had

  gotten him killed.

  Just the thought made my blood boil. I rapidly punched at the bag until

  my knuckles were scraped and bleeding. The pain - I needed more of it.

  How did B possibly expect me to compete in The Damning, let alone

  assassinate the royal darlings? Even I, certifiably insane, knew it was a

  suicide mission. Either I would die in the competition just because I was a

  female human (a prime target for fucked-up Nightmares), or I would die by

  execution after I killed the royal family. My only option seemed to be death.

  Yup. Not a big fan.

  It wasn’t as if I was afraid of death, per se, but more so of the

  implications behind it. Where would a person like me go? Cert
ainly not

  heaven, and I wasn’t ready for a Hell worse than the one I was currently

  living.

  I stared at the rivulets of blood cascading down my fisted hand. I barely

  processed the pain as I thought about what I had to do.

  There were rumors of the royal family, though most of them were only

  that. It was the type of gossip you would hear in bars and clubs. I reckoned

  no one actually knew the families that were supposedly devil-sent to lead us.

  Each group of supernaturals were descended from one of the Seven

  Deadly Sins. It was a lesson that us human children were taught religiously:

  Don’t mess with the Nightmares. They’re descended from the devil himself.

  Shifters were the most volatile and dangerous of the species given that

  their sin was Wrath. If a Shifter became angry enough, frightened enough,

  passionate enough, they would shift. Fortunately, it wasn’t something they

  could do at will. When they transformed, it was immensely difficult to

  separate the man from the beast. The two became one and the same.

  The royal family of Shifters consisted of a king and a prince. The queen,

  the king’s soulmate, had died years ago at the hands of hunters (aka people

  like me). Apparently, the loss of his mate made him completely unhinged. He

  had always been cruel, but her death made him evil. He was one of the

  biggest proponents of human work camps. His son, twenty-three and with the

  dumbass name of Lupe, was one of the elite seven. The seven princes, all

  born within minutes of each other. All destined to either save the world...or

  destroy it.

  Our profile of Lupe consisted only of photographs, all of which showed

  the big man in the Capital’s library. So far, he hadn’t found his mate. I hated

  him more than the others, despite knowing next to nothing about the beast of

  a man. It was a Shifter who had killed S, and it was a Shifter I would enact

  my revenge upon. If that Shifter happened to take the form of a prince…

  well...I never said I wasn’t a greedy, vindictive bitch.

  The Mages were descended from the sin Sloth (read as: they were lazy

  sons of bitches). Their magic actually developed through evolution, for it was

  difficult to get them to do anything that involved moving. They required a

  simpler way to enjoy the pleasures of life, thus the creation of magic. Their

  prince was named Sebastian - or Bash, to his friends - and was the

  stereotypical party boy. I was willing to bet what little money I didn’t have

  that he had never worked a day in his life.

  Most people had to work for what they wanted, but not him. Not any

  Mage. They snapped their stupid fingers, and the world fell at their feet.

  There was only one Mage I had ever met that actually worked for what he

  wanted. He was my other half, my best friend. An asshole, yes, but still ten-

  times better than any other person in this fucked-up world, Nightmare and

  human combined. Diego may have had his flaws, but he was one of my best

  friends.

  The Vampires were the offspring of Gluttony. According to Mali, it felt

  as if you were constantly thirsty. As if you were wandering a desert for days

  on end, unable to reach that lake of water in front of you. No matter how

  much you drank, how much you consumed, you always wanted more. She

  described it as a painful burn in the back of her throat that only diminished

  when she fed. The relief would last for an hour before the pain began once

  again in earnest.

  Out of all the Nightmares, Vampires were my favorite. That could’ve

  been because I was partially biased towards that species. After all, I really

  couldn’t hate the species of my best friend. What type of racist bigot would

  that make me?

  Their prince, next in line for the throne, was Jax. From what little intel we

  had gathered, he was engaged to marry the Shifter princess, Atta. She wasn’t

  his mate, but that didn’t seem to matter in the supernatural political world.

  After all, the chances of him actually finding his mate were slim to none. It

  was quite literally like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  Genies were the race most likely to interact with humans. They needed us

  to live. Needed our greed. As descendants of Greed, Genies thrived on human

  fantasies and dreams. They picked apart every desire, every wistful thought

  you ever had, and kept it as their own.

  I had once called upon a Genie - Lin the Asshole - to help me avenge my

  parents’ death. Stupidass Genie. I had also made the idiotic mistake of falling

  in love with said Genie.

  Not one of my finest moments.

  Seriously, if I had a time machine, I would use it to slap the stupid out of

  younger, hormonal me.

  The prince of the Genies was Devlin. Not much was known about this

  prince since he constantly traveled the world to grant wishes. Like all Genies,

  he was considered selfish and smug. He created contracts with so many

  loopholes it was impossible to catch them all until it was too late. I had heard

  more than one horror story of people getting cheated by Dev the Genie.

  Incubi were the love-child of Lust, as you could have probably guessed.

  They fed off the sexual energy of others. They needed sex, like Vampires

  needed blood and Genies needed greed, to survive.

  Their prince was some tool named Killian. As you would expect with any

  Incubi, he had a different lover every night. Apparently, a string of hookups

  were required for an Incubi to survive until they found their mate.

  I sometimes wondered if I was half-Incubi. Mad respect for them. Using

  their species as justification for lots of sex? Yes please.

  The Mermaids were another interesting creature that I yearned to study.

  Their sin was Envy. They were forced to spend twelve hours in the water and

  twelve hours on land, never fully a part of either world. They would become

  jealous of the creatures in the water, the natural way they were able to adapt,

  and they would envy those on land. The relationships, the technology, the life

  they would never be allowed to have. I might’ve pitied them if their royal

  family members weren’t raging dicks.

  Their envy towards humans caused them to back the Shifters’ proposal

  for human work camps. If they couldn’t be happy, no one could.

  Dair was their prince. Again, not much was known of him. When he was

  human, he hid away from the world. Rumor had it that he appeared more fish

  than human, that his life was tied more to the water than to the land. Others

  believed he was so beautiful, with the siren allure common in most

  Mermaids, that he had to hide his face away to keep women from falling head

  over heels for him.

  Pretty damn vain if you asked me.

  Finally, we had the Shadows. This was the most mysterious group of

  Nightmares. They were direct relatives of Pride.

  This pride kept them hidden away from the rest of the word. They didn’t

  believe us peasants should have the pleasure of knowing their names or

  seeing their faces. I heard rumors that the Shadow prince had a name that

  started with a R. Ryan? Ryland? Rachelle?

  The world may never know.

  They had never, not e
ver, talked to a human. We were so beneath them

  that we didn’t even register on their stupid “importance scale”. We were the

  scum beneath their feet, the disgusting virus they vaccinated themselves

  against.

  The seven royal families. The seven princes. And it was my job to kill

  them.

  No pressure.

  I found myself on the dusty ground, my back against an old treadmill as I

  stared at the makeshift gym. It was empty at this time of night, though I knew

  the morning would bring in dozens of people. Everybody wanted to train. To

  fight.

  To kill.

  I didn’t know how long I sat, wallowing in my own self-pity, before T

  came looking for me. Without a word, he sat beside me, his knee touching

  mine. His auburn hair hung in his face, in desperate need of a cut. Almost

  absently, he brushed a strand behind his ear.

  I always startled at the resemblance between T and his brother, S. If I

  were to squint my eyes, I could almost believe that S was sitting beside me

  once again, laughing at one of my poorly-timed jokes or attempting to make

  me smile.

  T’s own smile turned sympathetic, as if he knew the direction my

  thoughts had headed. Knowing him, he probably did. I would like to say that

  I trusted T based on his merit alone, but that would be a lie. If he hadn’t

  looked like the man I loved and lost, I wouldn’t trust him as much as I did.

  He would never own my heart, but he would always hold a piece of it in a

  way that only close friends forged from a shared trauma could.

  “Are you going to say anything?” I asked after the silence became

  unbearable.

  “Are you?” he retorted.

  “I don’t know what to say.” My finger traced patterns across the stone

  flooring. It was something I had always done, a way I had found to escape.

  Draw. If only it was possible for me to draw my pain away. “I don’t know if I

  can do this, T. I don’t know if I’m ready to die.”

  T was silent for a moment, his eyes intensely trained on my finger

  moving across the floor. It was the first time I admitted my own thoughts

  aloud.

  “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he finally said. He

  leaned forward to rest his long arms on his knees. His head tilted to the side,

  expression thoughtful. “That’s what makes us different from them. Free-