The Darkest Touch

by Gena Showalter

  "I usually prefer Torin, Hotness or The Awesome." Nicknames to help smile through the pain. Should probably have gone with Proctalgia Fugax--meaning a literal pain in the ass.

  "Why has Mari gone silent, Torin?" Keeley asked as if they were discussing nothing more important than tomorrow's dinner menu. (Rat casserole.)

  She knew Mari was dead, didn't she? Making him admit it was some sort of punishment.

  "Before you reply," she added, "you should know I would rather save the enemy who tells me the truth than the friend who tells me lies."

  Not a bad motto. Lie and die happened to be his.

  And, really, if the situation were reversed, he would have wanted the same thing: answers. But again, if the situation were reversed and she had led to the demise of one of his friends, he would have moved heaven and earth to administer justice. But trapped as they were in these cells created for the strongest of immortals, there was nothing she could do but stew in her rage, helpless as the emotion grew darker and darker, perhaps even driving her mad. It was a cruel fate.

  It was also an excuse.

  Time to put on my big-boy panties. "Mari is... Dead. She's dead."

  Silence.

  Such oppressive silence and, with it, darkness, as if they'd somehow fallen into a sensory-deprivation tank.

  He spoke in a desperate bid to dull his mounting sorrow, explaining, "Since you know about Cronus's deal with Mari, you must know I'm a Lord of the Underworld. One of the fourteen warriors responsible for stealing and opening Pandora's box, unleashing the demons from within. As punishment, we were each cursed to house one of those demons inside our own bodies. I was given Disease, the world's worst SSTD. Skin-to-skin-transmitted disease. I make people sick. That's what I do, and there's no stopping it. She touched me, like I said. We touched each other. But that's all it took. She died. She's dead," he repeated hollowly.

  Again silence.

  He locked his jaw to prevent himself from admitting the other Lords hosted baddies like Violence, Death and Pain. That thousands of innocents had died at their hands, and thousands more had lamented the vileness of their deeds. That, despite everything, none of his friends were as wretched as Disease. They chose their victims. Torin did not.

  What a freaking prize I am.

  Who would ever want him? Single immortal male looking for someone to love--and murder.

  He couldn't even comfort himself with memories of past lovers. When he'd lived in the skies, he'd concerned himself with his war duties and very little else, women nothing more than an afterthought...until his body demanded attention. But every time he'd chosen a lover, his warrior instincts to dominate and subdue had overtaken him, and his unintentional roughness had made the females cry before their clothes had ever come off. Which meant their clothes had never come off.

  Perhaps he could have coaxed the females to continue, but his disgust with himself had been too great. He excelled on the battlefield but couldn't master the mechanics of sex?

  Humiliating.

  Now he would trade what little remained of his integrity for skin-to-skin anything, desperate to have what he'd once disdained, unable to fight his enemies in the down-and-dirty way he'd once--still--loved.

  "Torin," Keeley said, and despite the strain he heard, he still reacted with the same raw hunger as before. "You realize you killed an innocent girl, yes?"

  He settled in the hole he'd dug, pulled on his gloves and rested his head against his upraised palms. "Yes." His gaze flicked to Mari. She might have known about his condition, but some part of her must have trusted him to keep her safe.

  Now look at her.

  "Torin," Keeley said again. "Have you also realized I will punish you for your crime?"

  "You can't hurt me any more than I'm hurting right now."

  "Not true. I have heard of you and your friends, you know."

  What did that have to do with anything? "Explain where you're going with this, and I might decide to invest in the rest of the conversation." Otherwise, it was time to find his way free.

  "You may have the world's worst SSTD," she said, "but I throw the world's worst temper tantrum."

  Interesting, but not applicable. "Are you chastising me or applying to be my sidekick?"

  "Silence!"

  Disease recoiled like the coward he was.

  "I'm sure you've heard of Atlantis," she continued easily. "What you probably do not know is that I ensured the island was swallowed by the sea simply because I was a wee bit annoyed with its ruler."

  Truth? Or exaggeration?

  Either way...it excited him with the same fervency as her voice. At last. The opponent of my dreams.

  "You have garnered more than my annoyance, warrior. I had one friend here. Only one. She is--was--my family." A pause as Keeley sniffled. "Not by blood, but something far greater. I was once a creature of hate, but she taught me to love. And you took her away from me."

  Her pain sliced at him.

  "Torin," she said, and he knew instinctively this was the final calm before a great and terrible storm.

  "Yes, Keeley." If she asked for his heart--a life for a life--he would give it to her.

  The storm broke, revealing the temper she'd lauded.

  "I'm going to kill you," she screamed. "Kill you so dead." The bars of her cage rattled with increasing fervor. "You'll experience agony in ways you've never dreamed possible, for I will do to you what I've done to so many others. I will skin you with a cheese grater and stuff your organs into a blender to make a smoothie. I will donkey punch your skull so hard your brain will ooze out of your eye sockets."

  "I...don't know how to respond to that."

  "Don't worry. Soon I'll cut out your tongue and use it as a cleaning rag--you'll never have to respond to anyone ever again!" A rock skidded into his cell...the first of an avalanche, rage and grief giving her the strength that centuries of imprisonment had surely stolen.

  I'm wrecked. He'd robbed this woman of her best and only friend, leaving her with nothing but pain and misery.

  Story of my life.

  He wished his next deed would kill him but knew it would only make him wish he'd died. Any wound he received damaged his resistance to the demon and thereby his own immunity, allowing Disease to rise up and infect him. At least for a little while. Still. Torin did as he'd imagined. He clawed his way into his chest, scooped out his heart...and rolled it into Keeley's cell.

  CHAPTER TWO

  KEELEY WASN'T SURE how many days or weeks had passed since the warrior had offered his still-beating heart as a macabre gift the darkest parts of her had actually appreciated. All she knew was that he'd spent the next however long moaning in agony and, if she had to guess, coughing up pieces of his lungs.

  Sickened by his own demon? Deserved.

  And while his suffering had dulled the sharpest edges of her rage, she still planned to kill him. I won't forget. I won't, I won't, I won't.

  "It's the right thing to do. Don't you agree, Wilson?" she asked the rock that liked to watch her every move.

  He remained silent, always silent. Cold-shoulder treatment was his specialty.

  She wasn't upset by his attitude. They'd never really gotten along.

  "I had plans to free Mari, you know. I only needed time. Just another few weeks, in fact." Or months. Maybe years. Time had ceased to exist. But Mari hadn't cared about herself--she'd cared only about Keeley.

  The girl had known what Keeley was doing to herself day after day. Well, maybe known wasn't the right word. She'd suspected. And she had hated the thought of Keeley in any kind of pain. So Mari, sweet Mari, had decided to act, to take Cronus up on his suicidal offer and procure Keeley's release the only way she could. Despite Keeley's protests.

  "Cronus didn't even keep up his end of the bargain," she explained to Wilson. Mari had died upholding hers, and yet Keeley had not been freed.

  Hatred burrowed deep inside her, taking root in the darkness of her soul and feeding on the rich soil of her bitterness
. So much to do. First she would take care of Torin. Then she would do to the king of the Titans what she'd once done to Prometheus, who wasn't the good guy everyone thought. He hadn't blessed the world with fire. How laughable. But he had tried to engulf every inch of it in flames.

  "But I punished him, didn't I?" She laughed with maniacal glee. "I cut out his liver every time it regenerated and fed it to a flock of birds." Day after day...year after year.

  Zeus, of course, had taken credit for the deed. But not this time.

  I am the Red Queen. The entire world will learn of me at long last--and fear.

  "Soon," she said.

  Wilson might have snorted.

  "You'll see." Keeley huddled in the corner of her cell, stabbing the lower part of her arm with the rock she'd sharpened into a shiv. Blood poured from the throbbing wound, and spiderwebs of black drifted through her vision. Still she pressed on, cutting harder, going deeper.

  Experienced far worse than this.

  Like losing Mari...the only ray of sunshine in a life as black as pitch.

  "Mari always offered comfort rather than censure. Not once did she say a cruel word to me." Keeley pointed the bloody shiv at Wilson, adding, "But you...oh, you. Don't even think about denying the fact that the only thing you've ever given me is grief."

  The bastard smirked at her.

  "You have always mocked me, but she constantly fed me. I can't count the number of rodents she tossed to me." How many people shared so selflessly, giving away the only meal they were likely to find, knowing they would eventually starve? None!

  Was it any wonder a literal bond had formed between them, tying them together?

  But then, such bonds were the lifeblood of Keeley's people, the Curators. Or, as other races liked to call them, the Parasites. The bonds were imperceptible to the naked eye and, like mystical tentacles, latched on to others with or without approval to syphon strength...and whatever else the person on the other end had to offer.

  The more bonds Keeley procured, the more power she wielded and the more control she had over that power. But she had to be careful. Bonds worked both ways. She took, but she also gave.

  It was never fun to have her own strength used against her.

  "But the bond failed to help Mari, didn't it." And now it couldn't.

  Keeley's rage returned and redoubled. She screeched, dropping the shiv. Captivity had long since whittled away her humanity, and she suspected that had never been more apparent as she stood and ripped hunks of rock from the walls, until nothing remained of her fingernails. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks.

  Royalty doesn't cry.

  Royalty. Doesn't. Cry.

  That's right. Tears were a weakness she could not afford. She wiped at her eyes, her arms shaking. Her newest wound protested, bleeding more profusely. Inhale...exhale.

  Currently Keeley had only one remaining bond. To the land around her. It would have to be enough for everything she had planned.

  She sank next to Wilson, saying, "I'll strengthen. I'll succeed."

  Will you? he seemed to ask.

  She raised her chin. "No one steals from me and lives to tell the tale."

  She'd had so few things worth treasuring. A kingdom--eventually everyone in it had rejected her. A gorgeous fiance--until he lied to her and betrayed her. And then Mari, who'd never hurt her...

  Now gone. Forever.

  A sob burst free.

  Royalty doesn't cry. Royalty endures.

  "I'm just a girl." The words razed her throat, making her feel like she'd swallowed acid. "A girl without her friend."

  Torin gave an agonized groan. "Sorry. So sorry."

  Healed already? Too soon! "Your apologies will never be good enough." She swiped out her hand, sending more debris into his cell. Wilson, too, rolled out of her cage.

  Screaming, "Wilson!" she frantically chased after him. He made it into the hallway--where he stayed put, once again staring at her, forever out of reach.

  "Fine," she told him, her chin quivering. "Be that way. You're nothing without me. I never really liked you anyway."

  "Keeley?" Torin asked.

  Rejected by a rock. "Stay out of this, warrior. It's between Wilson and me." Too agitated to sit, she paced in the center of her cell. Out of sight, out of mind.

  At least in theory. I'm alone. Again.

  "Been here centuries," she muttered to herself. "Wilson stayed with me through it all. Even when I was shackled to the wall." With no weapon, she'd had to gnaw through her wrists to free her arms, and then, after her hands had grown back, she'd had to sharpen rocks and bone into blades and hack off her feet to free her legs. "And he abandons me now? He's as much a bastard as Cronus."

  Well, he would miss the big finale. She would finish the painstaking process of cutting the brimstone scars out of her skin...and everything would go boom.

  The scars had a name...a name...wards! Yes. That's what her people called them.

  The wards! Though it took several tries, her fingers nearly too swollen to close around the shiv's handle, she managed to pick up the weapon.

  "Stupid wards and stupid brimstone," she grumbled. Somehow they were the Kryptonite of her entire race. Basically, Keeley's worst nightmare.

  Running the sulfuric rocks over spirit or flesh would scar even an immortal, but on her, those scars were accompanied by weakness. If she had enough of them, they would totally negate her power. Even as immense as it was.

  Brought so low by so little.

  She couldn't punish Torin and Cronus properly until every single one of her wards had been removed. And they had to be punished.

  Considering her flesh sometimes wove back together--with the scars still intact--it was meticulous, frustrating work. Everything always depended on the condition of her body. Well-fed, she could create brand-new cells. Starved, she merely regenerated the old ones.

  Exactly why I saved every bug to pass through my cell these past few weeks. Dead beetles crawling. Had a big breakfast just this morning.

  Once, the wards had covered every inch of her. To remove them from her back, she'd had to treat the walls like scratch pads from hell and rub, rub, rub. Her face, torso and legs had been easier, though no less excruciating. All she had left were a few tiny scars on her arm...and one that had regenerated again and again.

  Not this time.

  "I truly am sorry," Torin said.

  She would have found the throaty, masculine tenor of his voice thrilling if she hadn't hated him so much. Was his remorse even genuine?

  "At least you still have Wilson," he added. "Whoever he is."

  "My pet rock. We recently parted ways."

  "Oh. I'm...uh, sorry about that, too."

  "Don't be. It was a mutual decision."

  A pause. Then, "I'm still sorry."

  "Just...save your breath, as it will soon be your last." Her hand tightened on the shiv. What was done was done and could never be undone. Never, never, never. "I made the mistake of pardoning someone who wronged me once before." The man she'd loved and had planned to marry. "I've had to live with the consequences ever since."

  Although...she should probably be grateful to Hades. Before she'd met him, she'd had very little control of her abilities. With a single burst of power, she'd slaughtered more than half of her people--in less than a second.

  The rest of her people had sought revenge.

  Hades swooped to the rescue, carrying her to the underworld, his home. He'd taught her everything she needed to know to not only survive but thrive. He'd even praised her when she'd leveled his palace and he'd had to build a new one. That's my good, fearsome girl.

  Keeley rammed the shiv so deep she hit bone.

  "I know you crave vengeance," Torin said, his voice a life raft of calm in the sea of her mounting anger, "but even if we get out of here, you won't be able to claim it. You can't touch me or you will sicken."

  He sounded remorseful about that, too.

  A lie, surely.

  "Killing
you isn't the only way to achieve vengeance, warrior."

  A pause crackling with tension. "What are you saying?"

  "I told you I had heard of you, yes?" Galen, the keeper of Jealousy and False Hope, was one of the greatest enemies of the Lords of the Underworld...and he was a prisoner here. Had been for months. They'd spent the first few weeks of their association exchanging information and would have continued to do so if he hadn't deteriorated from illness and hunger and gone radio silent.

  Which was unfortunate. Knowledge was more precious than gold, and she always craved more. The very reason I once set up a network of spies stretching from one corner of the world to another. She knew things even the Titans and Greeks didn't know. She just had to remember them.

  "You love your friends," she said. "Provide for them. Protect them."

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  As a former royal soldier for the Greeks, who made Roman gladiators look like marshmallows, he had to know where she was going with this. "Stop me if you've heard this one, but...I can kill them."

  The bars of his cage rattled.

  Direct hit.

  "You won't go near them," he bellowed. Either he'd returned to full strength, or his mounting rage now drove him. "They've done nothing to you."

  "Like Mari had done nothing to you?"

  "You weren't there. You don't know how things went down. You're blaming me for an accident."

  "We both know you blame yourself. Why shouldn't I?"

  A moment passed, and when next he spoke, he was cool and collected once more, his tone actually languid. "Don't you go getting all psychoanalytical on me, princess. I blame myself, yes. You can blame me, too. But take it out on me, not anyone else."

  Though he couldn't see her, she raised her chin. "I am a queen. Call me 'princess' again and I will castrate you before I kill you." For many years, castration had been her preferred method of punishment. The secret was in the turn of the wrist.

  He muttered, "You should be grateful princess is all I'm calling you."

  "And you should know I will do whatever I deem fitting to whomever I deem deserving."

  "Your attitude makes me think you're still unclear about the huge mistake you're making." He'd moved from calm to charm, but not even that dulled the sharp-edged steel accompanying his every word. "You may or may not be the Red Queen immortals fear, but I am a warrior with whom one does not screw. On the field of battle, I enjoy the feel of a blade slicing through my opponent. I like the scent of blood. It invigorates me. I even think screams of pain make a beautiful soundtrack while I'm working out."