Then, he turned back to me.
“I am as real… as you are,” Maximilian hissed. “Maxwell was a fool. He fucked… Orcs, and saw other races as his equal.”
He puffed up his chest and spat out, “No one is my Equal. I am the Emperor that Maxwell was always meant to be.”
Leaning towards me, he sneered, “And, you… you were only meant to be my plaything.”
With a laugh, he added, “Maxwell’s middle name was Nicolaus. Did I ever mention… that my middle name is Albinus?”
It felt like he had punched me in the gut.
Albinus was the formal name of Aubin.
The sick fucker had been my lover.
My stomach flopped and twisted.
He had cut out the pieces of himself that made him Maxwell… and then he had…
“You’re sick,” I gasped.
Maximilian shrugged. “It was good for me.”
Snapping his fingers… Alexis appeared at his feet.
She looked scared.
Moli had lied, or been confused. It hadn’t been weeks. I had been gone longer than Moli had let on, or understood. She wasn’t a newly born vampire.
It had been years since Moli had been turned.
Lexi looked to be somewhere around twenty. The last time that Maxwell had seen here, she was only fifteen, and he had caught her with her first lover.
It had driven him crazy.
Lexi was wearing a long white flowing dress that clung tightly to her curves and accented the fact that she was no longer a little girl. She didn’t have a teenager’s blue hair anymore, either.
Someone had beaten her.
Lexi’s upper lip was puffy and bleed profusely. I could see cuts and bruises trailing up and down her bare arms. Maxwell’s daughter was only wearing a white lace nightgown.
Turning to look at me fully, I saw that her eye was puffed shut.
Maximilian placed his hand on her shoulder.
And, Lexi flinched.
- 41 -
“Kill him,” I hissed at Lexi.
I could smell that he had violated her. I shouldn’t have been able to tell, but… somehow I could.
Lexi didn’t say anything, she just looked up at me in misery.
“Alexis was bad,” Maximilian mused, as he reached down and grabbed Lexi by her hair.
In his other hand, the madman gripped a dagger.
“Alexis refused to submit to my… tender advances… without complaint,” he brooded.
Looking at me, with madness in his eyes, Maximilian said, “She just doesn’t understand the concept of purity in a royal line. The most fitting woman to carry my offspring… are my brother’s offspring.”
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” I roared.
Maximilian chuckled.
“I agree,” he hissed.
Then.... he stabbed Lexi in the side of the throat. The blade entered on one side of her throat and exited the other. Her eyes shot open, and my daughter choked as blood gushed out of her mouth.
“Transform!” I screamed at her, remembering Lexi changing into a white serpent before Maxwell had run away.
“Oh,” he gushed. “She can’t do that anymore… I made sure of that.”
Then, he ripped the blade forward, ripping open her throat completely. Blood poured down her front, as her eyes chocked and gagged.
Blood frothed in her mouth as she struggled to say… something.
“I love you!” I wailed to her, as the light left my daughter’s eyes.
Tears poured down my face as I screamed and wailed.
Maximilian let go of her corpse, allowing Lexi’s body to collapse to the ground. Her body hit with a dull, sick thud that wracked my mind with agony.
“Why?” I finally asked as I looked down at her unmoving corpse.
“She wouldn’t submit,” he replied again, looking at me like I was a feeble-minded idiot. “Girls that don’t obey their fathers… are punished.”
Then, he smiled at me.
“You are the last flesh of my flesh… darling.”
--M--
I returned to my flesh, screaming in pain and misery. My body was being ripped apart, but all that existed… all that mattered… was gone.
Lexi was gone.
“Fuck!” I shrieked.
“Tell me your name,” Hael prompted with his hand on the wheel. Blood was pouring down my body, dripping everywhere.
“Fuck you,” I hissed.
The wheel turned.
My arms snapped free of their sockets.
Everything went black.
I screamed for hours before the pain was… manageable.
Hael was talking, but I ignored him.
Mother was floating in front of me.
“I can’t stop him,” she groaned. “He is inside of me.”
Her trembling hands reached up and touched my face.
“Kill him.”
Energy poured into me.
And, Mother… just stopped existing.
She didn’t die.
Nor did she return to heaven.
Like Devonika, she was erased from existence.
But, before that happened, she shared a piece of her soul with me.
It was a memory.
Of Maxwell’s birth.
She had felt so happy and content. For the first time in years, her feelings had returned. And, for one brief second, she was delighted.
Then, Grandmother’s spell smothered her emotions again.
And, she became a cold, unfeeling monster.
But, she remembered loving him.
Mother gave me what she had left. So I could kill what remained of him.
Maximilian.
Screaming, I used what she had given me, pouring power into my bond with Moli. Just like she had done with Maxwell, Moli magnified what I gave her.
Then, she shared it with Harkin.
Who fed it back to me.
A circle of energy. More came back to me than left.
I completed the circuit again. And, again, as Hael continued to crank the wheel. The power kept the agony at bay, as my leg bones snapped out of my hip socket.
Instead of dying, I used that pain and magnified our strength.
Power began to throb and radiate inside of my mind.
I bit my lip hard, stifling another scream.
“My. Name. Is. Marcellina,” I hissed at Hael.
- 42 -
Hael began to laugh at me.
Until I took control of Harkin.
The dark power of necromancy was hers, not his.
And I called it home.
Dark ghosts erupted from Hael’s skin, as he collapsed to one knee. The specter of death itself, the grim reaper of legend flowed up and out of his back, looming over the doomed man.
Pain.
I fed all of my pain into the link, pummeling Hael with it.
Harkin’s skin began to glow as her power returned to her.
“No!” Hael screamed as he tried to hold on to his sister’s magic.
No, didn’t work for me.
I forced Harkin to recall every last piece of power. My lover could have called it back… at any time.
But, She detested it.
Harkin was a born Necromancer. A prodigal.
Harkin could raise any type of undead. And, she could walk between cemeteries that she had attuned herself too, and between bones harvested from her children.
Or, herself.
I remembered her missing fingers.
And, in the distance, I could feel where her Father had placed them.
I lost my connection with Harkin, for a second, as my stomach spasmed.
Her Father had cut away her fingers so that he could use them as spell anchors. The sick bastard had slaughtered her children so that he could walk from city to city, just like Maxwell had done with his keys.
I wasn’t going to lose it. Not right now. I could be horrified later.
I made Harkin recall the last of her magic
.
Then, I made her use it.
On Moli.
Moli was still a vampire. Even though I had blunted her abilities.
And… vampires could become mist.
“Mājhē,” Harkin purred, mimicking my words, as she looked at the burning vampire. The silver had scarred and disfigured my lover. But, that didn’t matter to Harkin.
Harkin was my Lady of Bones, and nothing concerning the undead was impossible for her.
Moli screamed in pain as her flesh dissipated. A black cloud of essence flowed out of the cage and then coalesced onto the floor. It swirled and crackled with power.
A very naked, angry vampire slipped into existence.
Her skin was the pale white of the undead. Harkin’s power had removed my controls. The hungry beast within Moli had been set free again.
Her long black claws reappeared, as did her long, black fangs.
Moli shuddered and then crouched like an animal. A low growl slipped out of her lips.
Hael panicked without Harkin’s magic, he was only a leech unable to defend himself.
Shrieking, he yanked on the wheel, totally dislodging my arms and legs.
Blackness pulled at my vision. Shades of people that Maxwell had murdered danced in the darkness, waiting for me to join them.
I shrieked and fought to stay conscious.
Darkness edged my vision.
I could barely think.
Moli moved faster than thought. She grabbed the power leech and dragged him down to the floor.
I blacked out for a second.
Then, several seconds more.
Moli was feeding.
I could hear the suck… suck… suck. It was a slurpy swallow, followed by another. But, it wasn’t the sound that a human baby made.
It sounded more like a creature that couldn’t get quite enough to satisfy it.
- 43 -
My lover wasn’t on the floor.
The vampire was instead.
I couldn’t move.
Fuck. I shouldn’t have even been conscious.
I felt something cold.
It was a nose, snuffling my foot.
Reaching out mentally, I shifted my gaze through Harkin’s eyes.
The vampire was crouched by my foot, sniffing it.
She didn’t look anything like my lover. Her back was hunched. All of her vertebrae inching up through her skin, increasing her arched back.
Moli’s ribs stuck out, and her skin was pulled tight against them. Black stains accented her ribs and spine. It wasn’t a beautiful marble white anymore. Instead, her flesh was a pasty gray.
Darkness shifted in an out of her eyes, as the Nosferatu studied my foot.
I could sense a beast, waiting to strike.
Her hunger was palatable.
Harkin was devastated and… elated.
Hael was dead. Bran and Morgan were dead.
And, her father was dead, the king of the bastards was dead.
But… God Dammit…
Moli licked my foot again.
Then… she sank her teeth into the vein in my leg.
It wasn’t a love bite.
I wasn’t filled with endorphins so I could ignore the pain.
And, she had dozens of sharp teeth now, not just two.
A terrible whimpering scream slipped out of my lips.
Watching it was worse than feeling it. Blood poured down my leg, drenching the floor.
Moli was feeding again. I could hear the slurp-slurp.
Her head made a ripping sound, pulling off a mouthful of flesh.
I was going to die, I realized.
Moli had closed down our link. I couldn’t reach her.
The Nosferatu was feeding. I could feel the wrongness in her bite. Disease filled her mouth as she fed on me. It flowed into my skin, poisoning the flesh that she hadn’t eaten yet.
My blood was in Moli now.
Without a link, that would have to do.
“Mājhē,” I hissed at the vampire, attempting to control it through my blood.
Not enough. I felt her long, scaly tongue lick the blood that was leaking down my body.
So, I reached out to Harkin and drew deeply on her power.
I sent the taste of blood to Moli. And, not just any blood.
The blood of a Necromancer.
The Nosferatu stopped, and her wrinkled, whorly ears popped up.
Sitting on her haunches, she snuffled, with the nose of a bat.
Harkin freaked.
But, I clamped down on her panic.
Control. I insisted.
“Apaṇa āmacē āhāta,” Harkin’s tongue whispered with my words.
You are ours.
The Nosferatu hissed.
Behind her, I could see blood dripping out of my bloody wound onto the floor. And, I felt my heart growing tired. I had lost too much blood.
I put out the scent of marrow.
Harkin’s.
The Lady of Bones.
“Delicious,” Moli snarled.
Harkin opened her mouth to scream.
I clamped down on Harkin’s thoughts and emotions. Fear was death.
“Come to me,” I moaned with Harkin’s lips, as I forced the peace of the grave to leak from her skin.
Harkin began to actively fight me.
I stomped on her soul, making her wail in pain.
We could fight later. Right now. I was in charge.
Moli shifted forward as I fed the scent of Harkin’s bleeding wound to her.
The wound between her legs.
I made Harkin shiver and tremble.
Fresh blood dripped out of her womanhood, as the sharp stake dug into her skin.
I almost lost control, as Harkin began to scream in her mind.
Moli moved closer, close enough to touch.
Harkin’s fingers grazed Moli’s arms.
“Release me,” Harkin’s lips ordered, using my words.
Dark black claws sliced through the binding on Harkin’s arm.
Wearing Harkin’s flesh, like a meat puppet, I thought in disgust, I slipped my fingers into Moli’s hair and scratched her ears.
The Nosferatu shivered in pleasure, feeling its Mistress’s touch.
“The other arm as well,” I crooned, as I did something horrible.
I dipped my finger in the blood, gushing out of Harkin.
Moli focused on the bloody nectar, as she sliced Harkin’s other hand free.
Then, the Nosferatu carefully sucked on Harkin’s finger.
“Do not bleed me,” I hissed at her, entirely in control of Harkin’s body. My friend fought me from within, but this was the only way.
I slowly stood up.
The razors burned all the way out.
Blood gushed down Harkin’s leg, and she nearly passed out.
If that happened, we would all die.
I fed Moli another fingerful, as I stumbled over to the crank that held my bones apart.
Releasing that pressure was almost as bad as incurring it.
My flesh screamed and quivered in pain.
Moli preened, lapping up the agony like a cat drinks cream.
Harkin screamed at me as I held her flesh in thrall. Moving as quickly as I could, I unlatched the manacles that held my broken flesh to the wheel.
Slowly, I lowered… me… to the ground.
“Heal,” I ordered my injured flesh.
My Lady of Bones Page 15
