Brimstone Kiss: Phantom Queen Book 10 - A Temple Verse Series (The Phantom Queen Diaries)

by Shayne Silvers

  Frankenstein reached over me as though our conversation were at an end whether I liked it or not, taking the knife from Mabel’s trembling fingers. I began to shake, chills running up my spine as I caught sight of the raw fascination lurking behind the doctor’s wire-rimmed glasses. This, I realized, was what a brilliant man without scruples could become given immortality and an unhealthy dose of curiosity.

  “Now, I usually prefer my subjects be dead when I perform this procedure,” Frankenstein said, leaning over me so that his face was obscured by shadow, the light overhead forming a halo around his head. “But, as I have no desire to kill you for some time, that will not be possible in your case. So, I would ask that you not thrash about, or this may become a messy affair. Feel free to scream, of course, if you think it will help you keep still.”

  “No, I—”

  Mabel clamped a hand over my mouth.

  “Scream into my hand,” she said, sweetly.

  The full horror of what Frankenstein was about to do registered a moment before he pressed the tip of his knife to the base of my sternum. Then, with a suddenness that stole my breath away, he began. A line of fire lanced along the length of my body as I convulsed, gasping for air, my flesh pressed so tight against my restraints that I slammed the back of my head on the table when I came back down. A jagged line of pure, searing pain ran from my crotch to my chest—so much of it, in fact, that I could hardly breathe, let alone cry out. The rest of me tingled, my limbs rigid and spasming.

  “Well, that could have gone better,” Frankenstein said, sounding put out as he studied the wound he’d created. “I did warn you to stay still. Now I’ll have to sew you up, myself. Provided you do not heal on your own, of course.”

  “But Master,” Mabel whined, “you promised I would get to do the next one.”

  “Once you have had more practice, Mabel.” The doctor reached out to pat his assistant’s head, staining her blonde hair with the blood coating his gloves.

  My blood.

  Dear God, it really was my blood.

  “Go...fuck...yourselves,” I ground out, every syllable sending new waves of pain which flowed down my body until I began hyperventilating, my mind abruptly overwhelmed with panic and fear. This wasn’t a game, or some ploy to get me to talk; they were actually going to dissect and then kill me. And then I’d be dead, for real, and stuck in this city of lost souls, assuming Frankenstein didn’t turn me into some sort of monster.

  No, I wouldn’t let that happen.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Ah, she is going into shock,” Frankenstein said as he stepped back from the table, his blade gleaming red. “I had hoped she would be able to heal some of the damage. I believe we can safely assume she has lost the power she once had. Very well, let us start with her heart while we still have her. Pass me the—”

  The rest of what Frankenstein said was lost, drowned out by a series of ferocious barks, each yawp splitting the air like a thunderclap. Distantly, I realized I’d heard them before. Garmr—it had to be. Was it Fenrir out there, antagonizing him some more, or was there someone else at the gates trying to gain entrance? I realized it didn’t matter; I was already losing consciousness and could feel the blood seeping from my wound, bathing my torso and the table beneath.

  “That mongrel,” Frankenstein muttered between barks as he stripped off his gloves. “I have always hated pets that refuse to behave. Mabel! Apply pressure to the wound and keep our patient awake while I deal with whatever is going on out there.”

  “Gladly.”

  “And remember, we cannot allow her to die!” the doctor called over one shoulder. “Once she becomes a wandering soul in truth, she will lose all sense of self and our opportunity to uncover her secrets will be lost. Do not forget, an education is a terrible thing to waste!”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  I watched Frankenstein’s silhouette disappear mere seconds before Mabel pressed her hands against either side of my open wound and proceeded to push the edges together—her version of applying pressure, I gathered. I screamed for real, then. Screamed until my throat was raw and my vision began to tunnel.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Mabel whispered in my ear, her voice so sickly sweet it made me want to vomit. “Not before I see you suffer the way I have. In fact, I think it’s time I pay you back, for real.” The elf stood to her full height, pinched my nose, and made a honking sound. “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back. And I’ll be bringing company, so be on your best behavior.”

  34

  I lay there, the pain stretching time until it felt like I’d spent my whole life on this table. Existence became a miserable thing—a waking nightmare I could not escape simply by opening my eyes. The light overhead was a searing sun, baking me alive. The stone at my back was a solid patch of ice, eating away at my skin. Part of me, the part that shut all the doors and hid from the pain, thought it ironic that it’d taken me this long to experience true hell, given my itinerary. The rest of me, of course, could only scream.

  “Still awake?” Mabel called, her footsteps drawing nearer from somewhere to my right. Except it wasn’t only hers; a heavier tread slapped against the floor, and a moment later I saw both the elf and the hulking silhouette of a man looming over me. “Oh, darn. I was hoping I might have to wake you. That can be very pleasant.”

  I tried to speak, to say something hurtful if only to strike back at the bitch the only way I still could, but all that came out was a pathetic whimper. I closed my eyes, felt tears of pain roll down my cheeks, and pretended I had managed to land a witty zinger, that even now Mabel’s expression was one of bitterness and rage. I fixed that image in my mind, willing it to be true. Except when at last I opened them again, what I saw was not the face of a psychotic elf, but that of the man; Mabel held his face inches from mine, her hand wound in the thickness of his remarkably dark hair, forcing him to look down at me with eyes that seemed to stare at nothing.

  Still, they were eyes I recognized.

  “Max…”

  I whispered his name like a prayer, my eyes tracing the lines of his familiar face. He looked not so much as he had on the hospital bed in Circe’s pool but as he had when we first met; with an iron jawline and knee-weakening bone structure, Maximiliano Velez was the sort of man whose masculinity bordered on cruel, saved only by his easy manners and confident swagger. In repose, his was the sort of face which belonged on the statue of an avenging angel or a conquering king. In the flesh, however, the brujo was more scamp than statesman.

  Except there was no personality playing across that face, no smile tugging at his full lips, no dimples breaking the smoothness of his cheeks—nothing of him at all, in fact. He looked drugged, anesthetized. Perhaps even lobotomized. I squirmed, trying to see past the brujo, to lock gazes with Mabel and demand that she reveal what they’d done to him, but she stayed hidden behind the much larger man.

  “Before you ask,” she said, her voice materializing as if from thin air, “we found him like this. And no, the doctor has no interest in carving him up.”

  Mabel drew Max back by his hair, adjusting the line of their bodies with a violent flick of her wrist until they stood front to front. Now that Max’s face wasn’t dominating my vision, I saw the brujo wore a pair of ill-fitting trousers slung low across his narrow hips, his upper body completely nude. Unfortunately, seeing his body made me acutely aware of my own in a way I hadn’t been before; I felt defenseless and vulnerable, the unrelenting pain momentarily overshadowed by the shame of exposure.

  Mabel must have mistaken my response for jealousy because she watched me eagerly as she ran her hands over the swell of Max’s chest, tracing a nail along the scar that remained from his time with the witches of Ipswich. When I didn’t immediately react, she bent down and leaned in, pressing her cheek against the brujo’s taut stomach so that she was looking me directly in the eye while she slid her hands down the line of his body.

  “The doctor is incredible, isn’t he
? Especially for a Manling. It took me a while to realize how important it is to do as he asks, but now he treats me better than Ryan ever did. He even gave me this one to play with, can you believe that? You two were an item once, weren’t you?”

  So, that was her game.

  Apparently, Mabel meant to make me pay through Max, somehow. To punish me for what I’d done to Ryan, for how her life had ended up. I wished I could have convinced her none of this was my fault, but crazy is as crazy does; no matter how pointy her ears were, logic would fall deaf on them. Unfortunately, she was right about Max and me: we’d had a connection, once. A powerful connection—perhaps too powerful; I’d avoided the brujo for fear of its potency.

  “Apparently, he and the doctor go way back,” Mabel purred as she played with the hem of Max’s trousers, running her finger along the edge. “But then you knew that already, I bet.”

  Memories of my time with Max and his sister surfaced, including the tale of their escape from Frankenstein’s clutches. I felt a stab of pity for them both—a degree of kinship now that I’d experienced firsthand what the mad scientist was capable of when he held someone in his sway. Of course, if I recalled correctly, they had spent years working for him. The idea alone was enough to make my skin crawl.

  “It’s a shame he’s like this,” Mabel continued, pouting, lifting one of Max’s arms only to watch it fall and land with a thunk on my table. “Feels like playing with a doll. But at least he won’t complain about the things I intend to do to him, the way I’ll use his body…”

  As if to demonstrate, the elf rose, grazing her lips along the brujo’s skin as she went. Once upright, she planted her mouth over his nipple, glanced my way to make sure I was watching, and bit down with all the savageness of a dog with a bone. Blood quickly trickled down her chin and began streaming down Max’s body in crimson rivulets. I winced, disturbed both by the sight itself and the fact that Max’s expression never changed once during the abuse, though his body did twitch of its own accord. I felt but could not see his fingers as they accidentally brushed against mine…and they burned.

  Something in the air changed.

  Mabel’s eyes widened perceptively as a large, calloused hand grabbed a fistful of her hair and pried her away from his chest. She looked up, her bloodstained mouth gaping wide to find a pair of smoldering brown orbs glaring down at her. But the heat was not restricted to Max’s gaze; his skin shone with flickering light as if an inferno blazed just below the surface, and the hand currently gripping mine was feverishly hot.

  Of course, from the moment we’d touched, so was I.

  My flesh ached with power, surging from me into Max and back again until we glowed with it. The tunneling of my vision was abruptly replaced by a rim of white hot flames—the same, strange manifestation I’d seen when I’d snapped at Persephone and shrugged off Freya’s will. On a whim, I reached out with my senses only to find Max’s power waiting for me; his unique signature rode the air, smelling bitterly of roasting ozone but feeling absurdly plush—like the fur of a mohair teddy bear. Neither sensation was as overwhelming as the gods’ had been, but there was nothing minor about his power, either.

  And it seemed Mabel knew it.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, breathlessly, as she caught sight of our linked hands. She traced the line of my wound with her eyes, her expression frantic. “What are you two doing? How are you healing so fast? And why are your eyes like that?”

  I craned my neck and realized I was healing; the pain was receding swiftly beneath our combined heat. My eyes I couldn’t explain. Without a mirror, I had no idea what the elf was talking about. What I did know, on the other hand, was that I had been wrong to dismiss the possibility of a white knight, even if he had shown up half-naked without a white horse. I squeezed Max’s hand, basking in the glow of his effervescent skin, only to release it immediately as an alien thought slammed into my mind.

  Dónde estoy?

  I glanced up at Max’s face, saw his sudden confusion, and watched him release Mabel as though he’d found himself holding a snake. The elf, taking full advantage of her sudden liberation, scrambled backwards and fled the room screaming Frankenstein’s name. Max twitched at the mere mention of the doctor, his posture suddenly defensive, eyes scanning the room. When they settled upon me, however, they widened with surprise.

  “Quinn? Dios Mío, is that you? What happened to you?” Max asked, his accented voice less resonant aloud than it had been in my head. The glow of his skin began to flicker and dim. Though unsure what instinct prompted the action, I snatched up the brujo’s hand once more, twining our fingers before he could pull away.

  “Can ye hear me?” I asked, speaking in my own head.

  Si. I can hear you.

  The glow intensified, fed by our touch, and I sensed Max’s immediate acceptance of our circumstances—his tentative grasp of the situation, coupled with my sorry state, left him eager to do whatever I asked of him. Admittedly, the brujo’s abrupt pliancy made me exceptionally uncomfortable. But I couldn’t afford to question it.

  No, we couldn’t afford to question it, I amended.

  “Hurry and get these straps off me,” I urged.

  Max moved to my legs, took the leather in his hands, and tore it in two as though it were no thicker than a paper sack. The chest strap quickly followed. Finally free, I reached down, pressed my fingers to my midsection, and found it sticky with my blood. But there was no wound to be felt—not even a scar. I sat up, marveling at my unprecedented recovery rate. Of course, my relief didn’t last long; despite the distance between us, I felt Max’s attention like a physical weight, acutely aware of his desire to stare at my naked body, though he at least made an effort to avert his eyes. It seemed our link—whatever it was—remained.

  I slid off the table and began searching for my armor. “Frankenstein will be back soon,” I insisted. “Watch the hallway.”

  Max nodded without turning.

  I found my clothes nearby in a discarded pile. It seemed I’d been wrong about Mabel’s reconnaissance—she must simply have gotten lucky with her strike, before. Fortunately, the illusion I’d applied had held up even after the armor was removed, which explained why Frankenstein hadn’t been more interested in it. Additionally, it meant I’d have to be careful not to misplace my hard earned threads in the future; I wasn’t sure they were machine washable and I had a bad habit of losing socks.

  Even better, I discovered, was the fact that I could put Nevermore on in its altered state without doing up all the straps and such—another detail which seemed to have slipped Freya’s mind.

  The goddess and I were going to have a long chat one of these days, I decided.

  One she wouldn’t enjoy.

  Mercifully, I’d already thrown on my jeans and hooked my bra when I heard Frankenstein’s loafers padding towards us, which gave me the few seconds I needed to finish dressing. Mabel was sobbing, insisting she hadn’t done anything wrong, that her pet Manling had come to life all on his own. I heard a wet smack and something heavy hitting the floor.

  Mabel’s crying ceased.

  Max’s power flared, smothering me with its plush softness, the air sharp with the odor of chlorine. Hate swelled in my breast, but I knew it wasn’t my emotion I was experiencing; Max held his arms wide in challenge and this time the flame raged above his skin, not below. I pressed myself to the wall, hunkered down out of sight, and peered down the hallway past the human bonfire.

  “Maximiliano, is that you?” Frankenstein called. “It seems you have woken up! How fascinating.” The doctor began rolling up the sleeves of his shirt as he stepped over Mabel’s limp body, revealing thin, pasty forearms. “I suppose I have more work to do today than I thought. A shame I will lack the attentive audience I have become accustomed to. But you know what they say...needs must when the devil drives.”

  Max growled something under his breath, but his response to the doctor’s taunts was a booming voice resounding in my head.

/>   Can I kill him?

  “It’s may I kill him,” I corrected in a hushed whisper as I crouched even further down, wary of the doctor’s attention; the sight of the bastard alone made my guts churn, unreasonable panic clutching at my throat. I flexed trembling hands, still aware of that unusual power connecting Max and me, sensing I had more to offer than my augmented strength if things turned ugly. They’d caught me by surprise before, I reminded myself.

  I was no one’s victim.

  I took a deep, calming breath. “Ye better, because if ye don’t, I will.”

  Deal.

  35

  In my experience, very few fights escalate to levels most people would consider life-threatening. They often start small—a shove or a little yank—and build slowly. Curses are routinely exchanged, then more shoving, maybe a fist thrown, or even a kick to the groin. But generally that’s as far as most fights go before someone intervenes—usually a friend, but occasionally someone with a black t-shirt or a badge. That’s typically all it takes to save face, to show you mean business and aren’t to be messed with. But then there are the other kinds of fights, the sort that thugs and professionals get into—the sort which begin with a single twitch, or even the not-so-casual glance. Fights that don’t end with someone nursing their bruises and tossing back drinks with friends, but with crowded hospital waiting rooms and cramped prison cells.

  This was one of those fights.

  The instant Frankenstein stepped within reach, Max took hold of the doctor’s shirt collar, pivoted, and threw him across the throne room with all the speed and velocity of a major league relief pitcher. Frankenstein hit the table next to mine, clipped his shoulder, and pinwheeled into the air, his tools exploding in a spray of sharp metal objects. Less than a second later, the doctor crashed into the ceiling with a sickening crunch, then collapsed to the floor in a crumpled pile of twisted limbs. I rose from my crouch, gaping at the man who’d chucked him, marveling at Max’s savage efficiency; as opening salvos went, the attack should have been more than enough to kill anyone—especially a twiggy, elderly bastard.