by P. N. Elrod
Sebastian became fully solid before she could gasp. Pure gold rippled across his fur, as shimmering and alive as the Templar bullion that had animated him after long captivity. One word said it all: magnificent.
With a ravenous sound, her lion tossed back his head, the mane of vibrant fur standing on end; his eyes were no longer the smoky blue of his human self, but rarest green, filled with shifting hues and accents.
Why didn’t Claude ask me to paint Sebastian just like this? some stupid part of her terrified mind wondered.
That was before she noticed the collar, barbed about Sebastian’s leonine throat, studded into his fur with sharply faceted diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Claude tightened the rein with a snap, inciting a harsh snarl, one that seemed to come from the heart of the beast.
“Yes, there you go,” Claude murmured to the cat in his hypnotic, smooth voice. “You were made for this, Sebastian. To kill. To hunt. I know how you’ve missed it.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed on her, his jaws snapping as he rumbled a voracious roar.
“There now. There,” Claude whispered, walking toward her, leash in hand. “I am here to oblige your basest instincts, knight. Here she is. Your first kill of many.”
“No. He’s not like that,” Anna said, backing up against her worktable. “He isn’t what you’re saying.”
Sebastian snapped his jaws in denial, leaping toward her, but Claude snapped hard on his leash. “Not yet,” he murmured. “It’s all in the timing. Midnight, Fray. Midnight.”
The solstice. What dark magic did Claude plan to work at the stroke of that hour?
Claude dropped to his knees, raking his hands across Sebastian’s mane and fur. “Calm for now, old friend. Patience. Ah, but that never has come easily for you.”
“Sebastian, you can still control your own destiny,” she told him in a slow, soothing tone. “He only controls you if you allow it.”
Claude spun to face her, shadowy, gorgeous features transforming into something terrifying. Scales formed along the sides of his jaws and neck; horrible jaws elongated. “Did he tell you that he sold himself to me? To do my bidding?” he asked, still morphing into something hideous and terrible that was caught between man and dragon.
“He is not your prisoner,” she insisted, shaking so hard that the words came out in half gasps. “He has free will.”
“This knight, this once brave Templar, sold his freedom for the very gold you used to bring him back to life. Greed overtook him. Ah, and then it was so easy to wield him by my own hand. To make him mine again, as he always should have been.”
“You made him a killer.”
“I turned him to his true nature. Darkness. Made him like me.”
“You’re a devil.” She jutted out her chin, determined to appear strong. “He told me, earlier. Described exactly what you are.”
Claude only laughed in reaction, scales changing hue across his features, humanity nearly vanishing. “I merely gave him what he wanted. As I did for you, Anna. You sought to free him, and now he is unleashed. Well”—he gave the long yoke around Sebastian’s neck a jerk—“at least as far as we can trust him until midnight.”
Anna stared at the clock over her desk. Only two more minutes until the summer solstice, but she was out of ideas, short on strategy. Yet something kept whispering through her mind, a hidden clue that Sebastian had murmured to her in his last desperate bid to hold on to freedom.
Gold. Something to do with the gold.
Melt me. That’s what he’d said, and it hadn’t made sense, still didn’t.
Now, in the rush of the moment, she swore she heard his voice in the hidden reaches of her mind.
Return me to my metal state!
“Sebastian,” Claude commanded, his voice that of true ownership, “kill her. Now. I sense the hunger in you. Hundreds of years and you’ve not tasted life. How you must have missed the feeding.”
“He won’t touch me,” she countered, almost believing what she said. Cautiously she glanced away from the lion, using her peripheral vision to search for the puzzle pieces. They lay scattered on the floor, the gleam of gold sparkling.
The slap of that long leash bit into the lion’s fur, red forming where the barbs struck his golden hair. “Sebastian. Sebastian Fray. Heed my commandment.”
The cat’s nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed. The clicking of his claws punctuated the silence between them all, and Claude allowed the leash some slack. The lion padded closer toward her, bloodlust evident in his eyes.
To own a man’s name was to own his will. He’d said something like that to her in that final dream, she suddenly recalled. That’s why Claude kept using it, over and over. He owned Sebastian’s freedom because he owned the man’s name.
“Sebastian,” she said with forced calm, “you won’t hurt me. Don’t, Sebastian.”
“He has no care for you now,” Claude told her with a hollow laugh. “Don’t bother trying to appeal to him.”
The lion halted midstride, blinking at her and then turning his massive head toward Claude as if awaiting an order. An explanation as to whom he should heed.
“Take her,” Claude murmured, sounding almost like a lover. “We will be powerful again, the two of us as one. You once let me hand you the world. Kill again and it shall be true forever.”
The lion turned ravenous eyes upon her, pouncing before she could take a breath. She fell beneath his massive body, going down onto the floor with a hard crack of her skull. Blackness engulfed her, the sinewy threat atop her body wavering with that darkness.
Burn me . . . melt . . . Anna. You are the one to save me. . . .
With a shove, she thrust at the massive beast, but he was dead weight; she might as well have sought to push a felled oak tree off her. But then, seemingly remembering his better nature, Sebastian reared away with a guttural cry.
She seized that moment and began sweeping her palm along the hardwood, scrabbling for even one piece of painted Templar gold. As she scooped up a handful of shimmering pieces, she kicked the table that held the burner, and it went crashing to the floor.
Events happened with that drawn-out pulse of only one or two heartbeats that lasted a lifetime. Claude was dragging on the leash; Sebastian was snapping his jaws at her, overtaken with the need to kill.
And she was hurling the few golden pieces she could grab right into the flame.
I sold my soul for that gold once. Destroy it . . . me. Free me.
Claude rushed forward, seizing hold of both her wrists. “He is mine!” he snarled, but he moved too late. The gold began bubbling and hissing against the wooden floorboards.
The clock struck midnight then, ringing its antique chimes. Claude shoved her aside, taking hold of the leash once again.
But Sebastian vanished from the space between them. Gone, dissolved as effortlessly as he’d seemingly emerged from the puzzle. Claude rounded on her, eyes beady red and scales massing across his enlarging form. Leathery appendages fanned out from his back, scaled like wings but covered in barbs.
A devil. Truly.
And now he would kill her, she thought numbly, but she would never let him own her, not the way he’d owned Sebastian.
“Do you know how many years I’ve sought him?” His words bubbled like the melting Templar gold. The sound was dry and chafing, and she pictured a parched brook filled with dry stones. . . . The voice of hell itself.
But another voice murmured in her ear. I am free, and for that, I thank you humbly. But your knight’s duty is not finished.
Sebastian was alive somehow, still. Was he in the remaining bits of her puzzle?
I am free. But you must vanquish this evil.
“I . . . I . . .” I’m not a knight!
This is your destiny; ours together. Look to the gold that bought my soul.
The dragon beast that she might have called Claude—if she were being generous—advanced upon her with a menacing curl of lips over distending fangs.
It to
ok every bit of strength inside her soul, but she searched around her for Sebastian’s gold. And there it was, slithering. Snakelike. Enlarging so boldly that she shrieked. The gold that previously had purred beneath her touch began morphing into something as voracious as the beast who stalked toward her. Was the precious metal merely an extension of Claude’s will? Was it not obedient to Sebastian, after all?
Except the metal wasn’t finished with its fiery transformation. It rose off the floor, as alive as she was; forming into a gleaming sword, it flew into her hand.
She didn’t bother thinking or hesitating; she grasped its heavy weight and rose upward, plunging the weapon into the center of the beast’s chest. It swiped deathly claws at her, and she ducked backward, shoving the sword deeper into its body. The sword made a vibrating hum, the same pleasured sound the gold had made in her palm, and seemed to assume the task on her behalf.
She dropped to her knees heavily, watching as the sword forced its own way deeper into the creature’s chest. Until the monster fell, blood gurgling from between its thin, monstrous lips.
Until, like Sebastian, the devil vanished entirely, protruding golden sword along with it.
She spent the next week praying for a dream or a sign—any instruction at all as to what she, a strange latter-day female knight, was supposed to do. Surely Sebastian wanted her to mop up the proverbial mess. The studio remained as it had after that last battle moment: a bloodstain on her floor, a scorched mark nearby, the burner overturned. The puzzle pieces sat on her work desk, heaped in an incomplete mound, missing several bits of canvas—and all of the gold she’d applied.
After the seventh dreamless night, she sat at the table, switched on the light, and began working the pieces back together.
“Okay, nothing to be scared of,” she reassured herself. Truth be told, she was terrified to assimilate the scene again, unsure of what image the puzzle might now reveal.
So she worked very slowly, methodically, fitting each swirled line back together. It became apparent early on that the picture was indeed altered, but she forged ahead, refusing to flinch or doubt. When she finished, three pieces were missing—the ones she’d tossed into the flame—but that wasn’t all that had vanished.
A knight stood in the field, brandishing a sword in his grasp, but the lion was no more. She stared down, wishing she could see Sebastian’s face, praying that he was truly free.
That was the last time the heavy blanket of sleep overcame her. Laying her head atop the assembled puzzle, she closed her eyes, vaguely aware that the clock on her wall chimed three.
She felt his touch before she saw him or even heard his voice. A warm, strong hand took hold of her shoulder, turning her toward him. Sebastian’s eyes were golden for the first time, his gaze lighter than it had ever been in any dream or painting.
He smiled, reaching a hand to her cheek. “You wield a sword with the strength I knew you possessed,” he said admiringly.
She flung herself against his chest, crying for the first time since the odyssey had begun. “Sebastian,” she murmured, relieved simply to speak his name. “You’re free now?”
“From Claude’s control, yes.” He slid an arm around her back, holding her close.
“I don’t understand. You’re not . . . what? Not truly free?”
“So long as he could summon me, I was a killer,” he said, pressing a kiss against her temple. “You’ve saved me, Anna. My very soul.”
“Then come out of the puzzle!” She pulled back slightly, beseeching him with her eyes. “We can be together now, finally. I have so many questions, so much to tell you.”
He stroked rough fingertips along her cheek, caressing her, his expression melancholy. “Ah, and so many kisses I would have for you, Anna,” he murmured. “So many. But, alas, it shall never be.”
She pressed her cheek against his chest, felt the strong, steady beat of his heart. He was real, human. “But you said I freed you.” She wrapped both arms about him. “I feel how alive you are.”
He tilted her chin upward, forcing her to look into his eyes again. “Anna, you completed your knight’s task with true bravery. But your work is not quite done.”
She shook her head. “I did everything you asked.”
He lowered his mouth and kissed her, his lips soft and warm. Then he murmured his final instruction. “Burn the other pieces.”
Shaking her head, she cried, “But you can’t emerge if I do.”
He smiled wistfully. “To remain in exile is my freedom, Anna. A freedom you’ve given me.”
“I’ll paint you again. I’ll find another way—”
“You won’t remember. When you burn the last piece, you will dream all of this away. Including this kiss.”
He captured her mouth much more roughly than before, deepening the kiss for long moments. The kiss seemed to span as a bridge between eternity and their two hearts; it lasted that long, became that powerful.
Finally he pulled back, stroking her cheek. “I’d rather you remembered that.”
“I will remember, because I’m going to find a way to let you live in the real world. Freely.”
“Claude turned me into a killer; my soul for that gold, those were our terms. Living here, in the in-between, is the only way to keep my murdering lust at bay. You must burn the pieces to set me free eternally. If you care for me truly, you will complete this one last task.”
She opened her mouth, ready to fight and scream and claw for his everlasting salvation, but the dream was yanked away.
Lifting her head, she stared down at the worked pieces, and her tears began to flow in earnest. Because he asked, she would oblige—as she had from the very first time he’d appeared in her dreams. But the pain knifing inside her gut was almost more than she could bear, to know that she was going to make him a captive for eternity, rob him of his one whisper of freedom. In the end, he’d wanted not to be released from captivity, she understood now, but rather to perform one last heroic task: rid the world of Claude and his evil.
She turned the piece in her palm, staring at Sebastian’s blond hair, the metallic weight of his armor; she could practically feel his arms closing about her again. Holding her, steadying her.
He’d performed his final act of bravery, she resolved, and so could she.
Standing wearily, she swiped the tears from her cheeks. She moved to light the burner, several jigsaw bits already in her hand.
Staring down, feeding those pieces into the fire, she suddenly wondered what they even were. And why her soft cheek felt chafed, as if by a man’s beard, her lips swollen as if kissed.
She turned one last puzzle piece in her grasp, catching the dull hue of a knight’s armor. Odd, she thought, it seemed to be missing a color, a vibrant hue. What was it? she thought, staring down—and realized it was absent something golden.
With a shrug, she tossed that final fragment into the flames and thought she heard the most absurd, irrational sound as she did so. A lion’s roar.
Deidre Knight began her writing career at age nine and has been writing in one form or another ever since. After nearly a decade of working with Knight Agency clients, she made her own literary debut with Parallel Attraction. Her Gods of Midnight series opened with Red Fire, followed by Red Kiss, with more titles on the way! Check out all her works at www.deidreknight.com.
SHIFTING STAR
by VICKI PETTERSSON
Skamar left her so-called Mediterranean-style apartment as she always did: after first sniffing the air to make sure there were no mortals about. She knew who her neighbors were, had watched them coming and going through the small peephole of the front door, and had even observed the older, professional woman upstairs leave a coffee cake on her doorstep. Perplexed, Skamar had mentioned the strange deed to her creator, Zoe, and was told it was a way to welcome her to the neighborhood. So Skamar had eaten the cake in one sitting—God knew her brand-new physical body needed the nourishment—and returned the cake plate to the woman’s doorstep be
fore sneaking away.
The only person Skamar hadn’t been able to avoid was the man in 117B. He wasn’t always there, but he was annoying enough—and, she knew, interested enough—that it seemed that way.
“Morning, sunshine,” the man said again today, pointedly regarding her copper red hair. His ubiquitous coffee cup steamed fragrantly, his feet were propped on the patio railing, and his otherwise handsome face was marred by a shit-eating grin.
She’d have snarled that Skamar was Tibetan for star, not sun, but she never furnished her proper name to anyone. That was like giving permission to use her personal power, and she’d worked too hard to allow that.
“Vaughn,” she said stiffly, because he’d given his name freely, insisting she use his first. Vaughn Rhett. His obvious attraction crept over her amplified senses and was a heady combination attached to that slim build and open face. It made her skin crawl.
“Join me for a cup of coffee?” he asked, as always.
“No.” She only acknowledged him at all because she wanted to keep a low profile. It was the same reason she walked from the complex rather than soared. A redheaded woman circling like an eagle overhead would certainly attract attention. And the Tulpa, she thought, glancing at the crucifixion wounds in her wrists, would easily pinpoint her then.
“Just one?” Vaughn gave her that killer smile again, and his warm, dry scent pulsed over her to pool in her gut. “It’s French pressed.”
Skamar clenched her teeth and sped up. What the hell were you supposed to feel when someone so clearly wanted to stick his tongue down your throat? It would be so much better, she thought, if the man merely meant to stick a knife in her gut. She’d know exactly what to feel, and do, about that.
“You’re going to join me for coffee one day, sunshine,” he called after her, voice filled with such teasing laughter that it actually did remind her of the sun. “I promise you that.”
But by the time she exited the parking lot and hit the wide stretch of Flamingo Road, thoughts of Vaughn, the scent of his coffee and interest, and his meaningless promises dropped away. She stood taller, awareness expanding. Her body temperature was already marrying with the biting December air, a skill not unlike a chameleon’s ability to change color . . . and one specific to tulpas. As she walked, Skamar turned her mind to Zoe Archer and why her creator would summon Skamar in daylight hours, and to such a public place.
