My Lady of Bones

by Michael Clement

  I couldn’t use what I didn’t know.

  But, even he had learned the basics.

  Too bad this wasn’t basic.

  I felt Moli breathe in deeply. Then she began shaking uncontrollably. Something was trying to awaken her vampiric nature, so it could find us.

  Shuddering, her small fangs slipped out and peeked over her bottom lip.

  Harkin freaked.

  She dropped both of our hands and squealed, “Vampire!”

  I sighed as my ward collapsed.

  “Moli won’t hurt you,” I insisted.

  Before we could discuss anything, I felt the darkness settle on the room again.

  I could feel her brothers watching us.

  The inn door downstairs slammed open, shaking the building.

  Then, the people began screaming.

  “Vampires,” Moli wheezed.

  I could hear her fighting her instincts. I had changed a great deal about her, but at her core, she was still a vampire. My modifications were still new. Like fresh cement, they hadn’t hardened yet and become permanent.

  Our bedroom door slammed open. In the hallway were dozens of vampires.

  I was fucking tired of being attacked. My anger roared through me. In a second, the human, planning, thinking me disappeared.

  In its place was my draconic heritage.

  Without any effort, I breathed in deeply and ignited the flames inside of me.

  Then, I vomited fire all over the monsters.

  My liquid flames whooshed out into the hallway, igniting wood, carpet, and of course, the undead.

  The building went up like dried kindling.

  Moli shrieked, as she dragged both Harkin and me out to the balcony.

  We were three stories up.

  Sighing, I grabbed them both and jumped off the side.

  Harkin screamed.

  But, Maxwell had learned a spell that allowed us to float down to the ground easily. For that, I was thankful.

  Harkin pulled us both into the street, away from the building, while Moli berated me.

  “You can’t burn everything in your path,” she hissed at me.

  “It’s worked so far,” I bitched back at her.

  I was cold, tired, and hungry. I was pissed at life and everyone around me in general. I just wanted to climb onto the airship and fly away from this fucking city.

  Harkin’s two brothers stalked out of the darkness.

  “You must be the bitch that killed, Bran,” the man on the left said.

  The brother, on the right, smiled and cracked his knuckles. “I am going to enjoy fucking you,” he added.

  Fuck it.

  I was done.

  Pissed off, I changed shape, flowing from my human to my dragon form in just a second.

  Both men turned and ran, as I roared in irritation.

  Lunging forward, I scooped up the first man… And bit him in half.

  Refusing to swallow, I spit him out.

  Turning, I looked for his brother.

  But, instead, I felt the undead.

  The taste of bones filled my mouth. Then, they began to rain down onto me.

  Children.

  They were children zombies. Most of them were only a few feet tall.

  I screamed in terror, as thousands of them erupted from the windows and the roofs of the buildings around me. I felt like a beetle overwhelmed with ants.

  How could there be so many?

  Thrashing and shaking like a cat, I rolled and tried to throw them off of me, smashing and crushing the monsters.

  But, there was always two more to replace the one that I removed.

  I began to panic.

  The infestation ripped at my ear sockets, yanked on my eyelids and tried to crawl into my mouth and nose. Their teeth tore at my fragile skin wherever it was exposed.

  Screaming in terror, I twisted in a circle, burning everything around me, forgetting about the poor and the innocent. The building erupted into flames, and the ground itself began to burn.

  But, I couldn’t dislodge them all.

  And, like ants, numbers mattered. My left leg had so many of the zombies on it that I could barely move. In a sheer panic, I rolled through my own flames, trying to burn them away. The gel began to coat my scales, making me look like a marshmallow that had been in the fire too long.

  But… my ploy worked.

  Finally.

  I dislodged enough to launch myself into the air.

  There were still dozens if not hundreds of the child zombies clamped onto me. They locked their limbs together and made my left-wing seize up. I couldn’t...

  Twisting, I crashed into a building, plowing through it like a bulldozer. My body smashed through the far wall and collapsed onto the ground outside.

  The horde flowed around the buildings and above them, coming at me from dozens of different directions at the same time.

  Then, they swarmed over my skin and scales again. All I could hear was the snapping noise of thousands of children snapping their teeth together and grinding.

  “Stop!” I shrieked, beyond terrified.

  Pressing down, thousands of undead pushed me into the mud, working together so that I couldn’t move. Behind them, another of the Mudtown buildings erupted into flames, as my bonfire spread.

  But I couldn’t breathe.

  My gasps of terror reverberated through the mass, as hysteria overtook me. Little zombies poured into my nose and blocked the airways, while other ones climbed into my ears and began shrieking.

  Still more held my eyelids down...

  I couldn’t think. My instincts took over, and I lost my reason again.

  But, no matter how much I squirmed, there were just too many.

  My last thought was complete hysteria, as they smothered me into unconsciousness.

  - 39 -

  Sounds filled my unconscious mind first. Incoherent screams. Whimpers. Moans of agony.

  Then pain filled my soul. My body was being pulled apart. I opened my eyes, thrashing my once again human limbs.

  My legs and arms were shackled, and my frame was stretched out on a huge metal wheel. I could feel wards of control burning into my skin from the surface, curtailing my ability to shift or use my magic.

  “You burned father,” a man’s voice murmured. “That was unfortunate.”

  Turning my head, I shifted, trying to relieve the pressure on my arms, legs, and my back. Everything hurt... which was the point. It was harder to fight the wheels magic when I couldn’t think.

  “My name is Hael,” Harkin’s remaining brother admitted. “Welcome to my playground.”

  Moving closer to me, Hael pointed at the wall.

  Moli was squeezed into a cage lined with silver. Horrible burns covered her hands and face, where she had touched the metal by accident.

  “Your little pet is uncomfortable,” Hael said with a giggle.

  I looked closer at Harkin’s brother. He had dark black hair, like her father, instead of red like his sister. The man was built like a chubby bulldog. His lower jaw was too big, and his eyes were too close together.

  Madness bubbled in those beady eyes. Hael liked hurting people, especially women. I could tell from the erection that was tenting his pants.

  Hael pointed to my left.

  Harkin was tied to a metal chair. A strap was wrapped around her throat, to hold her head in place.

  “My little sister has been made comfortable,” he told me. “As long as she sits still, the chair won’t harm her.”

  Laughing, he added. “I don’t want to kill the goose who lays such wonderful eggs of power.”

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Marcellina Torant,” I answered. I didn’t see any reason to lie.

  My last name affected him like a slap.

  “Impossible,” he snapped. “There is no Marcellina.”

  I tried to shrug but failed.

  Twisting, I attempted to divert the pain to a different muscle and failed again.r />
  A moan slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. Dammit. This was starting to do more than hurt.

  Hael placed his hand on a crank wheel.

  “What is your name?” he murmured as he cranked it.

  I screamed, as the weights on my legs yanked down. At the same time, the chains around my wrists pulled upwards. The muscles in my body shrieked in agony as I felt my bones begin to be wrenched apart.

  “Stop!” I screamed.

  Hael didn’t stop, he increased the pressure, cranking the wheel again.

  “Your name,” he demanded.

  I just wanted to escape my flesh, to withdraw from the misery that was being inflicted on my body.

  Searching for any avenue, my mind tripped on Moli’s bond, like a tooth finding an empty socket in my mouth.

  It was still active.

  My consciousness fled my body, following the only way out, and away from the pain.

  Suddenly, I could see through her eyes and feel her emotions.

  Moli was in agony, as well.

  Her flesh was on fire. The burns ached in a nauseating way. No matter what she touched, her skin blistered and bubbled. There was no escape, no withdrawal… only pain.

  But, her mind was free.

  “Harkin,” she murmured, drawing Hael’s sister’s attention. She looked at Moli with fear dripping out of her soul. Instantly, Moli ensnared her gaze with her vampiric powers.

  “Focus on me,” Moli whispered, making it impossible for Harkin to look away.

  Before anything else screwed up my plan, I used Moli’s connection to Harkin to launch my soul into Maxwell’s youngest wife.

  She welcomed me like a long-lost lover.

  Harkin was terrified. Her brother had done something horrifying. The chair had a spike sticking up out of its seat.

  A spike that was now buried deep inside of Harkin’s womanhood.

  …A spike covered in razor blades.

  Hael had greased it the spike, and then the bastard had made her sit down on top of it, impaling the nasty piece of wood inside of her. She was manacled to the chair so that she couldn’t escape the insidious torture.

  Hael had stolen some of her magic… just like father and brothers had done for years.

  I could feel the missing pieces of her soul screaming for her.

  The Necromancy was all Harkins. She was the source and font of her family’s power. The poor could die… and it didn’t matter... because the work would still go on forever. In fact, it was better when they died.

  Zombies didn’t need to eat.

  They didn’t need to sleep, or fuck, anything.

  “Mājhē,” I whispered to her, begging her to be mine, as Hael cranked on the wheel further.

  I heard a snapping pop, as my joints broke and snapped. But, my soul wasn’t in my body. It was safe from the pain and agony that the fucker was inflicting.

  Hael giggled again.

  “Yes,” Harkin snarled, as a particularly vicious itching began within her. She was starting to sweat, and the salt was digging into her wounds.

  “Mājhē vhā,” I crooned to her, begging Harkin again to be mine.

  My friend, my lover…

  Moli moaned in agony, but, somehow, she added, “Ours. Be ours.”

  “Yes!” Harkin shrieked in our minds, as she bit down on her lips. Blood dribbled out of the side of her mouth.

  “Amacē vhā,” Moli and I groaned together.

  Our Lady of Bones was determined not to let her brother know what was happening. Reaching out to us both, she whispered… “Take me.”

  I felt a tenuous bond snap into place between us.

  It would have to be enough.

  I returned to my flesh.

  A nightmare of pain met my mind. It was so intense that I could barely breathe. Nothing but unending agony wracked my soul.

  I almost blacked out.

  My joints were snapping.

  I could feel my arms ripping out of their sockets. Bones were disconnecting and muscles cracked and popped.

  Blood filled my mouth as I coughed and choked.

  I was dying.

  And, there just wasn’t enough magic to do what we needed. The wheel was stealing all of my strength, draining me with every twist.

  Grim, satisfied laughter rippled through my mind, shocking me.

  “Not yet,” I heard a familiar voice murmur.

  And then, my soul was torn from my body.

  - 40 -

  I opened my eyes in confusion. I was back in the whorehouse in my bed. Moonlight was pouring into the room…

  And, Mother was standing in it. She wasn’t in my old body. Instead, she looked old and tired, in her own body.

  “Wake up,” she hissed. “Dammit, Maxwell. We don’t have much time.”

  I sat up and realized that I was naked under the sheets.

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  In the distance, I could feel my body screaming in pain. She wouldn’t be able to hold me here long.

  “That little snot, Maximilian is inside of your body… with me,” she groaned. “He will wake up soon. We have to talk now, while he can’t interfere!”

  Sighing, she added, “You should have destroyed him years ago. He is nothing but a psychic tumor.”

  “What do you want?”

  She stomped forward. “Maximilian is eating me, just like you ate Devonika. But, he is only chewing off pieces at a time.”

  Shrieking, Mother screamed, as she held herself tight, “It hurts worse than giving birth, or breastfeeding.”

  “Help me,” she said, as she grabbed the comforter in a death grip.

  “I am not, Maxwell,” I told her.

  Mother sighed.

  Then, she looked closer, peering at me for the first time since I had been reborn.

  “Fuck.”

  Mother visibly deflated.

  “I felt you take a new dragon,” she sighed as her hands began to shake and tremble. “And, I saw that stupid name that you wrote in the book… but I didn’t know. I thought you were just stubborn.”

  “My soul was supposed to be destroyed,” I hissed. “When you forced him into my body.”

  Mother nodded.

  “He was so strong,” Mother mused.

  Then, she added, “But, only part of his soul mixed with yours, instead of all of it. It left most of you… intact.”

  “I survived, and now you want my help.”

  Mother looked away in frustration.

  “You are nothing but a street whore,” she hissed, looking back at me. “You won’t be any…”

  She stopped in mid-sentence and then moaned.

  Her form twisted and shook, and then… Maximilian appeared in her place.

  “Mother’s been tattling, I see,” he said with glee in his gone. “Hello, whore.”

  “I’m getting tired of people calling me a whore,” I snapped.

  Ignoring me, Maximilian decreed, “You will return to the bordello, in Nagon Proper, at once.”

  “No.”

  He looked at me in surprise.

  Then, he said, “You are nothing but a street whore, filled with my foolish brother’s essence. Return to your slut-house.”

  “You were never his brother,” Mother said with a groan, as she reappeared next to him. “You are only a cancer that took root and flourished.”

  Maximilian smiled, then he reached out and tweaked her breast.

  Mother looked shocked. Then, she fell to her knees, and her shaped dimmed.

  Maximilian drew in a deep breathe. “Eating her soul, one nibble at a time… is better than sex.”