“It might,” Raim agreed, his brain not really engaging in the conversation. Right now, he was more concerned about the things they needed to do when they reached one of the settlements Gremory was talking about. “We shall get some horses in the next village.”
Although Incubi didn’t need regular sleep the way humans did, traveling on horseback burned far less energy than walking. It would help them move ahead faster, with fewer stops needed for feeding.
“Steal or buy them?” Gremory glanced his way. Like Raim’s, Gremory’s eyes were blue. But unlike Raim’s pale colour of ice, his partner’s were that of the midnight sky, almost indigo. “We have the money, we could just buy the horses.”
Raim’s skin prickled with both the anticipation and unease he often felt at the prospect of contact with humans. Given the choice, he’d rather move the Base to an area entirely uninhabited by them.
As the Divine would have it, though, the Incubi depended on human energy to keep them awake and alert. Although immortal, when deprived of the energy of humans’ emotions for too long, demons would fall into a state of painful torture, innocuously called Deep Sleep.
“I’m starving,” Gremory sighed.
It had been days since either of them fed. They both needed some nourishment, which meant getting even closer to humans than Raim felt comfortable with.
“We’ll wait until nightfall, then sneak in, feed, and escape before anyone wakes up. We’ll make sure to grab some horses on our way out. Stealing them would be simpler.”
Their last visit to a human village had not gone all that smoothly. Someone spotted them as they slipped into a house through the locked door, with the intention to enter the dreams of those inside and feed on their emotions. The woman who saw them roused the whole village before they managed to even skim a thing. Raim rolled a shoulder back, still sore from the blow of a broom handle.
Gremory’s wound from that encounter was more severe. Raim glanced at his partner’s sleeve, dark with dried blood. All because Gremory didn’t wring the man’s neck, leaving him alive instead, only to be attacked by the very same man again a minute later. The man was wielding a knife that time. The blade had sliced through the back of Gremory’s arm, before Raim managed to murder the human.
Conniving, back-stabbing, primitive creatures.
Yet Incubi depended on them as energy sources.
What a cruel joke.
Even worse than the need to feed, was the Incubi’s instinct. Inexplicable sympathy towards humans caused most of the demons Raim knew to be lenient when they should be fierce.
Gremory’s arm was injured only because he hesitated to kill his attacker on the spot, sparing his life. One had to be ruthless with the vile mortals, Raim had learned.
The reason why the Council sent demons in pairs, Raim believed, was to watch each other’s backs. Raim had failed to keep Gremory safe. The faint coppery smell of his partner’s blood drifted his way, as if to remind him of that.
“We’ll get in at night,” he reiterated, firmly. “You’ll stay with me at all times. And when you need to kill, promise me you will not hesitate.”
Gremory didn’t reply right away. Snapping a branch of a tree, he stroked the fuzzy buds, visibly lost in thought.
“Promise,” Raim insisted. Gremory had saved Raim from being maimed or mutilated many times. He was the only Incubus Raim trusted without reservation, and he had no doubts he could count on his partner to watch his back. Right now, though, he needed to hear Gremory’s promise to put his own safety first, whatever the cost. “We may be immortal but they could still torture us,” he gritted through his teeth. “Not to mention that any grave injury would delay our return.”
“Let’s just be more careful next time,” Gremory suggested, promising nothing. “Murder is not always necessary.”
The Incubus was obviously in agreement with the strategies of the current Council, which called for demons to stay away from humans as much as possible, instead of gaining an upper hand over them as Raim would have done, if he were in charge.
The next Council election was in the fall, just months away. Hopefully, whoever got to be the Grand Master this time would impose more control and show determination when dealing with humans.
“Fine.” Raim snatched the fuzzy tree branch from Gremory’s hand and tossed it into the river. “Just keep close to me and stay safe.” He marched ahead. “Leave the murder to me.”
Chapter 4
THE SHOCK OF THE HEAVY, crudely-made mace smashing into Raim’s face shuddered through his entire body. Losing his balance, he crashed to the ground.
“Nechisty!” His assailant spat the word at him, hurriedly following his first blow with another before Raim had a chance to get up.
Nechisty—Dirty, impure.
The word referred to an evil spirit.
Raim and Gremory had managed to feed by skimming in the village that night. However, they had been spotted walking through a barn wall while trying to steal the horses.
Now, they had been pursued and attacked as both thieves and evil spirits.
Raim rolled on the ground, crushing the new spring grass, in an attempt to escape another blow from the mace fitted with iron spikes, but the blow never came. Through the red fog clouding his vision, Raim saw the tip of Gremory’s sword emerge through the chest of the human who brandished the mace.
Relief and gratitude spread warm inside him as the human collapsed into the first-in-the-year blue flowers, next to Raim.
Unlike the Incubus, the man was dead.
At least four more pounced on Gremory, though, wielding whatever weapons they got their hands on, from maces, to axes, to pitchforks. Loud shouting from across the field announced the arrival of reinforcements from the village.
Too many for Gremory to deal with on his own, Raim realized with dread.
Rolling to his belly, he propped his hands and knees into the ground, trying to heave himself up to come to his partner’s aid.
His consciousness floated into a red, throbbing fog. His arms shook, giving in shortly and sending him rolling to the ground again. The sound of clashing weapons grew distant.
Then the world went dark.
IT COULDN’T HAVE BEEN much later when Raim’s vision returned, although the sky was already bright and blue, the sun having fully risen over the horizon. He and Gremory had been attacked right before dawn, and it was full morning now.
The thought of the fight jolted him with alarm. If the humans found him in this state, it wouldn’t take them long to incapacitate him again, possibly for a very long and painful time. There was no way of knowing what they’d do while he was unconscious. He had been buried alive before, and he had heard accounts from others about being burnt, decapitated, and dismembered.
No matter what was done to their physical bodies, Incubi always healed completely, returning to their original form. No scars, no missing limbs, no deformities. The process of healing, however, took time and was no less painful than that of humans.
Gathering his arms and legs under him, Raim struggled to his feet. The bones in his limbs had not been broken, he noted with relief. It meant he could walk away from here and hide.
Picking up his sword off the ground, he stumbled towards the tree line of the forest in the distance. He had to find a safe spot to hide and wait to see if Gremory came back in search of him.
WAITING IN THE FOREST for the rest of the day, Raim caught no sign of either the villagers or Gremory.
His head throbbed with agonizing pain. The injuries he sustained had swollen as the healing process began. While he couldn’t visually inspect the wound to his head, when he tried to touch his face, his hand encountered a mangled mess of crushed bone, tissue, and blood.
He must have lost his left eye, for whatever vision he had only came from the right one, now. Although, that one had been slowly swelling shut, too.
Healing took energy he didn’t have. He needed to feed.
Ironically, feeding meant searc
hing out the humans he wished to avoid. Stumbling to his feet, he headed south, deciding against returning to the village where the attackers had come from.
He trudged in that direction for a while. At nightfall, the faint smell of chimney smoke finally reached his nostrils—another human settlement, a food source for him. Following the smell of the smoke, he reached the first log house on the outskirts of the village sometime close to midnight.
Angry since the human attack last night, hurting from his wounds, and starving, Raim didn’t pause at the tall wooden fence, brazenly walking right through it. At the sight of him, the dog, chained in the yard, whimpered and retreated under the stairs, tail tucked between its legs.
Without breaking his stride, Raim walked through the logs of the house wall and into the large, dark kitchen, which appeared to also serve as the bedroom and the common room.
The fire in the stove had gone out, with only a few embers still glowing orange. Loud snoring brought his attention to the low bed covered with furs next to the stove, where it was the warmest. A couple slept under the covers. The man lay on his back, snoring like a family of wild boars. The woman turned in what must have been a fitful sleep, tossing aside the bear hide they used for a cover.
Pressing his back to the wall, Raim slid to her side of the bed, then sat down on the floor and hurriedly entered her dreams, uninvited.
The warm smell of cattle and fresh hay immediately wrapped around his mind. In the semi-darkness, he spotted the woman’s white linen nightshirt as she lay in the pile of hay in the barn of her dream.
It was pretty here. Raim noticed some bright fresh flowers that wouldn’t be found in hay in real life. A few tendrils of milky-white fog floated through the air, filling it with a freshness the woman’s small house lacked in reality.
She seemed content, even if a bit restless, as she rolled to her back, bending her legs at the knees. Her long shirt slid up to her hips.
Her eyes were closed, but Raim knew that here she wasn’t sleeping. Quietly, he snuck closer, willing her not to open her eyes, lest she see his disfigured face and have her dream turn into a nightmare.
Kneeling into the hay at her side, he slid the tips of his fingers up the inside of her arm gently, like a caress that could be easily mistaken for the tickle of grass.
Her chest rose with an inhale, pleasure coming in a swell that Raim quickly skimmed. Gliding his hand down her arm, he touched the inside of her thigh next, watching her skin ripple with goosebumps as a wave of delicious arousal reached him with her moan.
Her response encouraged him to go further, his hunger urging him to do more.
Propping himself on his elbow at her side, he ran his fingers up her body and cupped her breast through the linen shirt. Pushing against the rough fabric, her nipple was already pebble-hard when he brushed his thumb over it.
Muttering something under her breath, she rolled closer to him, hooking her leg over his hip.
Her desire flushed him like a tidal wave, soothing his pain and filling him with the energy he so badly needed.
“I want your cock in me, Milan,” the woman murmured, thrusting her hips into him.
Raim shifted away a little. Whoever Milan was, Raim had no intention of filling in for the man. All he wanted was to feed, to ease his pain and hunger.
He tentatively slid his hand between his body and hers. She squirmed impatiently, reaching for him as if for a kiss.
Her eyes opened.
Her blissful expression melted away quickly, replaced by a grimace of horror—at seeing his mangled face, no doubt.
She screamed.
The sound, like a blow to his chest, kicked him out of her dream. Finding himself back on the floor, it took Raim a moment to orientate himself in reality.
The woman’s screams had followed him here, slicing through his aching head like a knife blade.
“What by chyort is going on?” A gruff male voice cursed. The husband’s snoring had stopped abruptly. He was now sitting on the bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Vazlav, look! He is here!” The woman shrieked, scurrying off the bed. “The chyort!—Demon!” She frantically gestured at Raim as he rose to his feet.
Clearly, it was time for him to leave. Without sparing a glance at either of them, Raim headed for the wall through which he had come.
There was no fear in him, not even a concern about the possibility of another attack. The rage left from the last one doused it all, and he hurried to get out before the hurt and anger boiling inside him could explode, claiming the innocents.
“Argh!”
The sound made him pivot back the same moment as the woman’s husband, Vazlav, hacked an axe into Raim’s shoulder. “Sgin’, nechisty!—Disappear, evil!”
Wincing from the pain that shot down from his shoulder through his chest, Raim grabbed the man by his throat.
The faint spice of aggression filtered from the human to him. It blended with the fury inside Raim, setting it off. As if the man sensed it, the rotten stench of fear emanated from him in foul waves.
Clenching his teeth, Raim reached deeper, searching for the clear light of Vazlav’s life force. Finding it, he took it all in one gulp.
“Look what you’ve done,” he said calmly to the wailing woman, even as a storm raged inside him, threatening to consume him. “You got your man killed.” He dropped the lifeless body to the floor.
“Vaslav!” With an ear-splitting scream, the woman scurried to her dead husband.
“Maybe Milan’s cock would be of some consolation,” Raim threw over his shoulder on his way out, clenching his trembling hands into fists, “now that you are a widow.”
Chapter 5
RAIM STOMPED BACK TO the woods.
The swelling of his injured face had all but closed his one good eye by now, leaving him to find his way in the dark mostly by touch and instincts. His head throbbed violently, almost making him wish his attacker had cut it off completely. And the fresh wound on his shoulder ached, making it difficult to lift his arm, not to mention to use his sword.
The long journey back to the Base wouldn’t be easy in this state. With him rapidly running out of whatever morsels of energy he had managed to skim from the woman in her sleep chances were, he’d collapse in a few days if he didn’t find more nourishment soon.
It would be wise to search for a safe place to hide and heal. Only, he needed to have humans nearby for feeding. Otherwise, falling into Deep Sleep in the middle of nowhere carried a risk of staying in that state for an unknown amount of time.
Afraid of not being able to get up if he stopped, Raim kept walking.
Soon the night ended, replaced by a pale early-spring morning that eventually rolled into another day. The pain continued to wrack Raim’s body. Everything hurt with the same intensity. He was no longer able to tell which agony came from the injuries and which was the pain of hunger.
Even in the daylight, he could hardly see anything around him. His right eye had swollen shut, and it took him a painful effort to open it enough to be able to peek through a narrow slit.
Late in the afternoon, the trees had parted, leading him into a clearing with a narrow creek in the middle.
Raim knelt by the water, cupping some with his hands. He never felt thirsty, but the sensation of the cool water rushing down his throat as he drank it was refreshing. The weight of it settling in his stomach fooled his hunger for a few moments, too.
Rinsing his hands, he splashed some water on his face, careful not to touch his injuries so as not to aggravate the pain. The agony of hunger, though, was now the one that tortured him the most.
With a groan, he leaned back into the grass on the bank of the creek, letting his swollen eyelids shut completely. The warmth of sunshine seeped pleasantly through his armour and tunic.
‘Just for a few minutes,’ he told himself, though he knew that taking a break was dangerous. Every second that passed drained more energy out of his body.
He felt worn a
nd exhausted. The unpleasant feeling at the memory of his last feeding scratched inside him with guilt that he did not want to acknowledge. Killing the man did not sit well with him, though admitting it appeared to be a weakness at this point.
It was because of humans that he was in pain right now, separated from Gremory and disfigured. He should hate and despise them, not let the guilt gnaw at him.
Anger flickered inside him, and he let it build, feeding it with more hatred.
Humans were weak creatures. Aggression and reckless courage often were the only positive emotions in many he had encountered.
Why should he feel any guilt when they kept murdering each other constantly? Most had even less reasons for killing than he had. And few suffered from any guilt at all.
Raim shouldn’t be the one running away and hiding from them. Incubi were stronger and immortal. When organized properly, the few hundred of them could bring into submission thousands of humans.
He wanted to see demons come out of hiding.
Humans, weak and pathetic as they were, needed to be contained at the Base as food sources. Having nourishment available at all times would be a sure way to end the hunger that had tortured demons from the moment they first appeared in this world.
If the Council members were too blind or too weak to realize the Incubi’s true purpose in this world—domination—then Raim would have to force them to see that.
Plans churned in his head, giving birth to ambition. With only months left until the next election, there was still enough time to contest the position of Grand Master for himself.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t hear the footsteps or the rustle of the reeds from someone approaching. A slight tug at the sword in his hand snapped him back to reality. Somebody was obviously trying to pry his prized weapon out of his hold.
Jolted into a sitting position, he couldn’t open his eyes. Fresh blood had seeped from the wound on his face, caking solid over his one good eye while he had lain there in the sun. He blindly raised the sword in front of him.
The Last Unforgiven: Cursed Page 2
