Fallow Heart

by K. C. Finn

“Oh dear,” he said, shaking his head. “And I thought you were clever. Not clever enough, clearly.”

  “Spanish,” Lori said, her mind flashing again. “Gella Ruiz… The hybrid in Barcelona.”

  Kasabian clapped his hands together with an echoing slap.

  “We got there in the end,” he said, lips sneering. They cast a deep shadow over his chin. “The girl with a story just like yours. All her friends and family dying. Sleepwalking. She thought it was her fault though. She wanted to testify to free her father from prison. She wanted to confess to all the crimes.” Kasabian looked at his nails, brushing them off against his bare chest. He glanced up, teeth bared in a grin. “But that would have been no good. I needed her, you see.”

  Lori’s body was frozen, every scrap of energy had raced into her mind to turn the wheels there. She saw the image of Gella in her head, the scar of the Sown on her chest. She remembered the grisly report of the girl’s death.

  “She was found with her heart missing and her blood drained,” Lori stammered. “You… you…”

  “Quiero vivir,” he said again, shrugging. Kasabian held his palms up. “It was her or me.”

  Lori’s stomach flipped.

  “You’re sick.”

  Kasabian’s grin fell away. He came charging towards her in the dark, his hands digging deep into her biceps. There was nothing but the crimson glow in his eyes, his spit showering her face as he shouted. His voice barked, hurting her ears with every cry.

  “Do you think I wanted to be this way? Do you think I wanted the death sentence any more than you do? I want to live!” He squeezed her hard, nails digging in. Lori gave a yelp. “I was dying! Wasting away whilst the demon got to live in my body! So I found a way to survive… to do what the Cervinae had done to me.”

  Lori’s eyes widened. She saw her own pale face reflected in Kasabian’s red gaze.

  “You pierced my heart,” she breathed. “You chose me for this.”

  He let go, throwing her to the ground. Lori struggled onto her back, but a hard boot came down on her chest a moment later. She heaved, but she was too winded to move. Kasabian’s shape was cast into shadow by the faint light behind. He spoke so casually, not an ounce of cruelty in his tone.

  “Romancing a fat girl?” he said, shrugging. “It’s even easier than romancing the average ones. You’re all insecure, you know. Waiting for someone to love you, to promise to protect you. It’s not hard to be a white knight in a black world.”

  Lori raged against his foot, and Kasabian kicked her hard over her heart. She spluttered, sinking back against the damp earth. Her body ached, but there was an ember sparking in her nerves. She closed her eyes, lying still, and gritted her teeth.

  “Tell me,” she said. “If you’re going to eat my heart so you can live, I deserve to know how it all works. You set me up, right? Whilst I was sleepwalking? You… you killed all those people I know.”

  Kasabian gave a bark of a laugh. Lori flinched, clenching her fists.

  “I tried to make the times coincide, yeah. I followed you a few places, figured out how to pick targets you’d blame yourself for. To drive you closer to me. So I could keep you around and fatten you up for my own little harvest.”

  “You think I’m an idiot,” Lori replied. The grimace made her face ache, but her chest was filling with a sudden rush.

  “Clearly you are,” Kasabian said, “or we wouldn’t be here.”

  He kicked her again, and this time Lori heard something crack in her ribcage. She yowled with pain, but in the same moment her body began the transformation. Kasabian was still talking, at least a few moments more, until Lori’s body burst back to standing with a wild flash of energy. The world lit up, as it had in Marax’s cavern. The ache in her rib was there, but dull and distant. Lori looked around, eyes darting for the cave exit. It must have been behind her. All she could see ahead was rock, and the water she’d heard earlier. Part of the river was flowing underground, a stream a few feet deep. It glittered in her brand-new vision.

  There was a sudden snarl. In the few seconds she’d glanced around the room, Kasabian had transformed too. He was larger than her, antlers and claws to match, but his stance wasn’t square. His body drooped a little, hanging back, and in the new light Lori could see why. The damage from the Holy Water was visible in this form. It had burned entire patches of his glossy black skin, turning them raw and red. His Cervinae form was bleeding, snarling and snapping. Lori cracked her spine, arms wide. She started to slide backwards on her powerful haunches, hoping to dash for the exit.

  “No way,” he growled, the words garbled around his teeth. “I didn’t get you this far for me to starve now.”

  He kicked hard and took a leap into the space above her. Lori darted forward with her arms above her head, clashing with her antlers. She waited for the sound of him landing, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping it wouldn’t be on top of her. But no crash came. Instead, the beat of air hit the cavern, echoing impossibly loud. Lori turned, looking up into the rocks above the water. Kasabian hung there, jaws wide, lilting up and down a little. And either side of him…

  Wings.

  He could fly. Lori saw the exit ahead of her, right under where Kasabian was hovering. She trudged for it, smashing her powerful legs into the damp rocks of the cavern. Kasabian swooped overhead, an icy breeze over her back. Claws cut into her shoulders. One stuck and dragged her away from the exit, rolling her onto her back. Kasabian’s huge wings beat a storm down on her, pinning her as he dropped down to land. She felt the weight of the beast upon her, his snarling jaws stinking of that rotten, dead smell.

  I’m going to be eaten alive.

  It was happening all over again. The terrible moment that had changed her life. Ruined it. And it was all the fault of the disgusting thing on top of her. Lori struggled against him, her chest burning with every swat and swipe, but her claws were too small to cause damage. Kasabian laughed through his growling, his jaws getting closer and closer to her barrelled chest. Lori could only hope that the demon flesh was harder to rip through than her own. She pushed harder, rocking side to side, and suddenly Kasabian came loose.

  They spiralled together down the little slope to the left, and a second later Lori took the icy plunge into the underground river. The flow of the water coursed like medicine into her veins. She sighed with relief, but a moment later she heard the same sound from Kasabian. It was strengthening him too. Scrabbling up the bank, Lori dug her claws into the mud and slipped her way up. She heard the wingbeats behind her again – six or seven before they vanished into the air. When she spun to look at the glittering surface of the water, Kasabian was gone. The cavern was higher here, and he’d taken himself up to the furthest reaches.

  Lori held her chest, her heart fit to burst. She felt a little smaller, and a lump of lead hit her head. Her eyes grew wide, the pain coming back from her broken rib. No. Please no. Humanity was slowly taking her over, her demon energy spent. She heard a wild growl from the ceiling. Any moment, Kasabian would hurtle down to the place where she was stuck, half in the water, half on the bank. He could smash right through her back and take her heart. Her skin was already fading back to soft, fleshy fat. Water sloshed onto her body, and Lori wanted to sink down into it, anything to escape.

  Kasabian swooped with a rush of air. And Lori had an idea.

  She scrambled up the bank, tuning her body sideways to get it almost out of the water. She pushed with all her might into the slosh, thinking every frozen thought she could muster. If Kasabian knew the ice trick, he’d already be swerving. But perhaps not everything had been a lie. If he had run away before Matilda or anyone else could teach him the ways of the Cervinae, then this was a trick that only Lori knew.

  Kasabian hit her back, a sudden stab through her flesh making Lori cry out. She rolled with him back towards the water, but neither of them sank in. Lori pulled hard, a sharp pain where he’d hit her, and scrabbled again up the bank. It was harder now. Flecked with ice. She glanced
back, hardly able to make out the demon with her human eyes. Kasabian gave a wail and floundered in the ice. Lori grinned without happiness, catching her breath. Both wings were trapped by the ice layer she’d made. All she had to do was run before it melted.

  Lori raced up the bank, looking between the light shaft and the wall where she knew the tunnel entrance must be. It was no use fumbling in the dark. With one hand to her heat, Lori pelted for the light, using it to find the old phone Kasabian had knocked from her hands. She was crouching on the ground, fingering the phone to find the light, when there was a screech behind her.

  “Bitch!”

  Kasabian’s human voice echoed off the wall. Lori looked up, watching him stagger up the bank. Her legs quaked, begging her to rise, and Lori pushed against the mud. Her heavy, wet body had squelched in, and she scrambled madly in the sticky mud to get to her feet.

  “I’ll kill you!” Kasabian screamed. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

  He charged, dragging his body and flailing limbs wildly. Lori had only managed one foot out of the mud, stuck on her knees with a maniac racing for her. Her heart thumped in her head, tears streaming as an icy hand gripped her heart. But deep inside her mind, there was a voice. A clever voice, she realised. One that was entirely hers.

  The antlers.

  As Kasabian reached her, Lori grabbed for him, head down against his legs. She threw him hard over her head, sending him flying backward to the wall behind. The force of the throw sent her rolling after him, feet popping free of the mud. Lori hit the ground hard near the shaft of light, panting and tearful. She held her broken body tightly, scrabbling to her feet. When she looked up, she let a scream loose without thinking. Her whole body shook at the sight before her, mouth open and salty tears streaming straight into it.

  Kasabian hung from the antler wall, upside-down. Three of the largest shafts had pierced his middle, glowing scarlet with blood. Another two smaller ones had gone straight through his right leg, whilst both arms were trapped by jagged shards of broken bone. Another piece had narrowly missed his neck, slashing across it and the side of his face. The face Lori had thought was so handsome and mysterious before. Blood poured down his tattooed chest, covering the markings of the Sown and the full-moon scar that proved he was a beast. A survivor.

  Not any more.

  Lori stepped closer, her whole body shaking. His eyes were still open, though they were rolling in their sockets, almost all white. His lips shifted, whispering something. Lori took another small step, hissing at her own pain. Her gut was empty, shaking like a paper bag in an updraft. He was dying. No hope. She had killed him, and these were his last words:

  “Seven devils,” Kasabian whispered. “Seven devils to find… The wish… The cure…”

  “Seven devils?” Lori said.

  She didn’t have time to ask him what he meant. Kasabian was out of it. Lori saw the last aching breath leave his lungs, his hanging body limp and lifeless.

  Light, and how it feels to be so

  Lori woke in a place where the sky was silver. A blue glow surrounded her, and she lay on a cool surface that felt like rock. Hands were reaching out to take hold of her body on either side, but all she could do was look at the impossible sky. It made everything dark, but shiny at the same time. She blinked, and the sky was fading, turning from silver to black. Lori struggled against the hands, trying to ask for more of the sky, but her teeth didn’t feel like her own. Her body was different, she realised. Demonicus.

  There was a flash, and the strange silver night became a regular human one. There was wet grass against her skin, and slowly Lori’s body rearranged itself. She reached out, poking at the fat around her belly, and gave a sigh. She licked her lips, running her tongue over teeth that she recognised. A shape above her stood with hands on hips, shining silver like the sky she’d seen. He gave her an ugly smile.

  “We’re going to have to give you elocution lessons,” Marax said, shaking his head. “It was bad enough teaching Addy English. Now I have to teach you to use your teeth without cutting your own tongue open.”

  Lori hauled herself up. Allardyce and Addy were also standing over her. It was night and she was in a little clearing that she knew well. She glanced to her left, looking at the façade around the blue door behind the locked gate.

  “The Door to Nowhere,” she said, finding herself short of breath. She rubbed her chest.

  “Kasabian tried to take your heart out through your back,” Allardyce said, kneeling down beside her. “A little human medicine and the right… atmosphere… for healing. It’s a nasty flesh wound, but you’re on your way to recovery.”

  Lori nodded. Her head filled with buzzing. Flashes of Kasabian’s body on the antler rack came to her. She turned and lurched, vomiting right beside Allardyce. He leaped up suddenly, scrambling away.

  “She’s determined to ruin all my suits,” he said.

  Marax laughed. Lori felt a pair of hands gathering her hair, holding it back away from the pool of sick. She turned to the pale face now beside her. Addy smiled, but Lori frowned. Her insides were still shaking.

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  “Back to the plan,” said Addy, still smiling. “It’s like Marax said. We’re here for you now.”

  “But I can’t go back to the D.C.,” Lori said. She turned, a sudden jolt of pain making her yelp. She met Marax’s eyes through a haze of her own tears. “Matilda saw me helping Kasabian. They’ll never trust me now.”

  Marax pointed a finger to the night sky.

  “You’re worth much more to me than a spy now, Lorelai,” he said. “Don’t you see?” His ugly smile widened, glossy eyes glittering. “You’re a hybrid of a hybrid. Sown of Sown. The only one of your kind. How can I pass up an alliance like this?”

  Lori reached out, and Addy held her arms as she got to her feet. She latched onto him, legs wobbling, and got a shock at the powerful ache in her back that Allardyce had spoken of. The world spun for a moment, and Lori felt as though she’d spun with it, yet she seemed to be standing in the same spot. Words rushed past her. Harvest. Saturation. Seven devils.

  “But what does it mean, Sown of Sown?” she asked, wide-eyed. She looked at each of the three men in turn. “Do I live or do I die?”

  “One, and then the other,” Marax said. He pointed again, and grinned. “It’s what happens between then and now that counts.”

  End of Book One

  Lori, Addy, Marax and the rest will return in LEAVEN SCYTHE

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  About the Author

  K.C. Finn has been writing since 2011, at a time when extreme illness saw her trapped in the house with nothing but her imagination. Since then she’s amassed a collection of stories, poems and novels spanning many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, gothic fiction, horror, paranormal and historical works. Her unique and diverse voice has won many awards, and she is both an Amazon and USA Today best-selling writer.

  In her free time, K.C. is an eternal student, forever studying and learning more about the world. She travels whenever possible to explore new cultures and climates, and when she’s at home she enjoys coaching writers of all ages with a story to tell. She also exercises her flair for the dramatic by directing, writing and occasionally acting in darkly humorous theatre productions in her hometown of Chester.

  Check her out at KCFinn.com

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