by Enid Titan
“It’s just a stupid house,” Poseidon grumbled.
“Shh,” Poppy whispered, “It’s not a house.”
Castor sensed her heightened worry. He came up behind Penelope and rested his hand on her shoulder. She flinched.
«What do you see, Penelope?»
«We aren’t in a house and I don’t know what we fought but I don’t think they were worms. I’ve seen this before — on Fengar.»
“Penelope, my child. You made it.”
Poppy froze. She heard that voice in her dreams. She would know that voice even if she sunk into blackness and blindness. Penelope’s throat tightened.
“You…”
«What do you see, jazad?»
Penelope staggered backward.
“Why are you doing this?” Poppy whispered.
She wanted to answer Jason but the sickening feeling in her stomach intensified.
«Penelope, answer us,» Castor said sharply.
“It’s Sibyl. It’s the Queen of the Fengari.”
45
Sibyl’s Test
“You have done well,” Sibyl said, “Now there is a final tessssst.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
The boys matched the direction of her gaze, even if they couldn’t see who she was talking to.
"The Fengari created The Order as you know it. They existed, surely but after last year and the incident with Daphne, they were failing. They needed help.”
"You bolstered a terrorist organization on another planet? Why?"
"Moral and ethical challenges are key to building your abilities. A child of our homeworld deserves the best opportunities to test her strength."
"How does this test my strength? People died!"
"Yes. And more people will die," Sibyl hissed.
She yanked at the telepathic connections between the boys. Ajax, Castor, Jason, and Poseidon screamed and fell to their knees. Penelope could feel their pain and she did everything in her power not to collapse as well. Her anger kept her standing and she faced Sibyl with rage contorting her face into a twisted reddened scowl.
"This is not a game for me. These are people I care about. People I love!"
"You are a silly, sentimental little girl. However, you must not give in to that anger. You will get all your boys alive but you must defeat The Order that we have created."
"You mean I must defeat you?"
"No. We gave The Order assistance. We gave them the strength that they would not have had. However, their actions were their own. Daphne remains their captive and it is up to you to rescue her."
"Why don't you just free her? You have all this power."
"It is not in my interest to free her. It is in my interest to strengthen the lost child of my people."
"I'm not one of your people!"
"Yes, you are. We have been watching them. We have been observing. And this test, whether you will save the enemy at great risk to yourself, is the greatest test that you will have. So you can kill me and ensure the death of your boys, but live in safety, or you can do as I say and rescue Daphne."
"You'll kill them anyway. You have no soul. You were the reason Lyric died! And Eros!”
"The clock ticks dear Penelope. You will have to kill three beasts before you find her. Once you have killed them and once you have the girl, you may have your voice. Your test begins now. You have one hour."
The boys were supposed to protect her. It wasn't that Poppy needed them to fight, but she wanted them. They were her mates and although they were strong as individuals, they were even stronger together. A pack of four as different as they come, and strong because of it. The four found themselves intertwined and they would not have voluntarily separated. Sibyl knew that. She knew more than she let on. Her misdirection, her tricks, her seedy spidery eyes should have all betrayed her guilt.
Poppy hoisted her blade, anger blazing through her.
“Why shouldn’t I run you through with my sword right now?”
“The four boys are linked to me. If you kill me before I let them go, you’ll die.”
Sibyl continued, “Run along. I’ll keep your pets safe.”
“I don’t want to play games with you, Sibyl.”
Sibyl laughed.
“Time is running out, child. I’d hurry if I were you.”
Sibyl clenched her hands into a fist and the boys screamed in agony. Penelope ran. The house was a black labyrinth, as dark and damp as the tunnels beneath Fengar. She cursed herself for not recognizing the perception illusion. Penelope gripped the handle of her blade, grateful for her training.
She followed the maze for fifteen minutes. She didn’t stop running. Running here was easier than running through the snow or walking through the tundra for days. The Order stood guard in front of a door — two women in fitted scarlet uniforms with a three-headed vamphare on a leash.
It’s not real, Poppy told herself.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered under her breath, loud enough to get their attention.
They released the creature from its leash. The white demon-rabbit-creature hastened toward Penelope in a flash. She wouldn’t waste fancy blade work on the creature. She grabbed its leash and dragged it past her. The creature hissed and leaped on her. Poppy’s blade clattered to the ground as the surprisingly strong three-headed monster landed on top of her chest, weighing her down.
Fuck. No blade. She’d been stupid enough to think she could toss or kick the little beast again and now its teeth were coming right toward her neck. Poppy slipped into the creature’s mind and heard its thoughts.
Blood blood blood feast feast feast tasty dripping feast bones crunchy blood blood blood feast tasty dripping blood feast bones blood blood blood
Each head magnified the creature’s horrifying thoughts and Penelope slipped past its thoughts into the place where it kept its life force. Killing. That was all Sibyl wanted from her, to know if she could kill, to force her to kill. She’d hold the boys hostage and threaten to take Penelope’s love away all for an experiment.
Blood blood blood feast feast feast tasty dripping feast bones crunchy blood blood blood feast tasty dripping blood feast bones blood blood blood
Penelope wrapped her telepathic energy around the creature’s heart. It was a dastardly little thing with surprising strength and grotesque instincts but she would have only killed it if it were a danger to her.
“I’m sorry,” Poppy whispered, then she squeezed and the three-headed vamphare went limp on her chest. The Devorans in The Order stared down at her, white hair restrained by the red hoods on their uniform so all Poppy saw from the ground was blue skin and red fabric.
“We’ll have to kill her ourselves then,” one of them said. Poppy grabbed her blade and jumped to her feet.
She swung her blade with all the force she could muster.
46
She Took No Pleasure In Killing
Penelope’s sword came down on the red-robed Devoran hard and effectively. The second one swung her weapon up over her shoulder and fired. A searing pain surged through Penelope’s flesh. Her arm. The blast hit her arm. Ignoring the pain, she swung her blade again and the other soldier fell. Her body trembled and her mind blackened. Sibyl wanted her to become a killer. Sibyl would create war, and destruction, and fire, to fulfill her selfish ends.
Penelope pushed the door open, an unsettling realization coming over her.
At the end of it all, she might have to kill Sibyl. The Fengari queen had caused all of this chaos and discontent. She would toy with Penelope's life until Penelope put an end to it. Everything about this hurt. Poppy cursed herself for not expecting this betrayal. Her mother warned her. She'd tried to through her insane ramblings. Somehow, she'd known. Penelope wheezed for breath as she entered the heavy door. Her arm hurt and she could smell blood and burning flesh, a very unpleasant combination.
The next guards she had to fight would not be as easy. She knew that. Three beasts, three challenges, and Devoran guards interspersed
along the way. Sibyl intended this challenge to kill her if she did not win. She couldn't have a neutral outcome.
At first, Penelope could not find the next guards within the labyrinth. Then she heard a growl behind her, deep low and terrifying. She gripped the handle of her sword tighter and used her telepathic sense to figure out what direction the creature's growling was coming from. She pressed her back up against the labyrinth walls and waited for the beast to approach. It must have been rather big. Perhaps as big as a dog. Penelope closed her eyes and tried to see through the wall. She could smell the creature, and it stank like boiled eggs.
Once it rounded the corner she lunged forward and thrust her blade upward before catching a proper glimpse at what she was stabbing. The loud growl turned into a pained roar. Penelope's arms trembled and her heart broke as she was forced to kill the creature. She yanked her blade out and the poor thing shuddered and collapsed to the ground. She had hit it effectively, but killing it felt like pulling out her teeth.
Penelope knew she couldn't linger for long, but she dropped to her knees and touched the creature's fur, recoiling at how prickly and matted it was. She took no pleasure in killing things. Judging from the beast's teeth, she would not have had a choice. Why would Sibyl choose such cruel tests? And while the tests were difficult, why had they been so easy so far?
Footsteps from approaching Devorans quickly dismissed Penelope's ideas that this would be easy. She jumped to her feet and gripped her blade, blood trickling down her arm. What she would have given to have Jason, Castor, or Ajax by her side. Even Poseidon with his perpetual snide remarks would have been helpful. He was at least larger than her, and that mattered. Her chest tightened. Sibyl had them all in her grasp and she would kill them if Penelope didn't succeed. She might kill them anyway. The three Devoran soldiers that came around the corner saw her and ran toward her.
Penelope knew she couldn't run, but she had to do something. She swung, but one of The Order's soldiers slammed his forearm into hers and her sword fell to the ground. Without her sword, getting away from them would be much more difficult. Two of them pinned her down against the wall and the third wrapped his hand around her throat.
"Look who we have here. How did you break into our prison?"
The Fengari perception filter must have been showing them whatever they wanted to see. They were in Sibyl's labyrinth, not an elite prison. She'd told another lie. She'd created them, and manipulated them. Perhaps she'd been there from the very beginning, choosing the path of Penelope's life.
Even the power of Devoran telepathy didn't stand a chance against the Fengari. The Fengari were dangerous. They were untrustworthy. Penelope felt like she should have known it from the start. She looked into the Devoran eyes and wanted to tell them that this was all a lie, a hallucination, and they would be better off letting her go and running for the hills. The man squeezed. She tried to wriggle away and thrashed her legs out to kick him.
Not long now. She would die if she didn't do anything. His thumb pressed down against her trachea and Penelope reached out of her mind and into his.
Perhaps at first, she could convince him.
«Let me go,» she whispered.
He squeezed tighter. It was getting harder to move her legs. Her brain lost oxygen and if she didn't do something soon, she would be the one lying here, dead on the floor of the labyrinth. She pushed up against his mind and she could see the blood pumping to his brain, his two hearts beating just out of sync with each other to keep constant blood flow running through his veins. She reached her hand around one heart and squeezed.
«Let me go,» she commanded again.
The man's alien co-conspirators realize what she was doing. They attempted to use a psychic attack similar to the one Daphne had used on her. She was too strong now. Blood trickled from Penelope's nose and she gave the man one final command. His grip around her neck loosened as her grip on his heart tightened.
«Let me go or you will all die.»
The man with his hand around her neck couldn't hold onto her anymore. She slunk to the ground coughing and gasping for breath, letting go of her grip on him for just one moment. The other two who had not felt her power rushed pin her arms against the wall.
"I will run her through with my blade," one whispered. She reached for a holstered dagger and Penelope stopped her, freezing her limbs in space, seizing the muscles with all of her strength.
"I don't think you will. And I'm very very sorry for what I'm about to do."
47
Three Beasts
She lost track of how many she’d killed. She only came to Devor for the telepathic academy, because they’d seen something special and mysterious in the spacey human girl — not this. Not conflict. Not death. Not murder. Killing the people hurt as much as killing the beasts. There was one more beast left for her, one more sick test. Sibyl interfered with Devoran politics, with her school life, with every aspect of her existence to prepare her for some unknown future, some fucked up future that Poppy didn’t give a shit about anymore.
What kind of future could she have when she could barely sleep at night without the howling tundra haunting her dreams, or when she feared losing Ajax in battle. Or Castor or Jason. Or even her friends — Hecate and Poseidon.
Penelope thought she must have been wandering around the labyrinth for hours. She got lost then she doubled back then she started to mark her path which made things a bit easier. When she came to the final door, she had no idea what to expect. When she opened it, she realized the cruelty of Sybil's trick. It was a perception illusion. She knew that because she could hear the growls and smell the beast. But standing before her or the three boys that she loved more than anything. Castor. Ajax. Jason. She turned her attention away from them for just a moment, she could miss out on the dull roar of the beasts that Sybil disguised as her mates.
"It's not real," Penelope whispered out loud herself. She had to whisper it out loud. If she allowed herself to believe for a moment that those were her boys, she would hesitate and if she hesitated, she would be killed.
Her arm hurt so badly that she saw stars whenever she raised it. Too bad. She had to use that arm. She had to do something to get rid of them otherwise, she would be screwed.
"I know this isn't real. And I'm going to kill you if you lunge at me. I don't know what you look like, but I imagine killing works the same way. Stick your pointy end into the soft bits."
The low growl and got louder. Ajax bared his teeth. Penelope stepped forward and then she heard Castor's voice.
"Please, don't kill me!"
"This is fucking cruel,” she hissed, lunging for Ajax again. The beast dodged her slashing blade and a sword appeared in its hand. Was she fighting a beast or a Fengari? Penelope’s vision blurred. She cried out and lunged again, pricking Ajax who emitted a soft yelp. His face contorted in pain. The face she loved. The face she caressed. The face she would never do anything to hurt.
"I can't," she whispered, "I can't kill them."
She dropped her sword and prepared herself to be devoured by the three beasts.
A voice entered her head as she readied herself to sit.
«Don’t do it, Penelope. Don’t give in.»
The voice was faint and impossible. Sibyl had the boys trapped in her telepathic yoke and she wouldn’t let them breathe even for a moment. If Castor got a message through, he’d be straining himself and pushing himself very near the point of death.
Poppy couldn’t reach out to them without risking their lives. The boys. They were the ones she fought for. As Jason’s avatar lunged for her, a throat growl erupting into a bellow, she reached for all three of their hearts and stopped them dead. She couldn’t move. Penelope emitted a loud scream. Dead. Knowing it wasn’t real and feeling it was different. She’d killed them. Her boys. The ones she loved.
They’re beasts, they’re only beasts, she muttered in her own head, but the shaking in her hand didn’t stop and the blood caked along the length of her a
rm only made her feel more brutal and broken. She rose and as she stepped through the final door, she appeared in front of Sibyl to find her standing over all three boys, a glowing orb of light dangling between her fingers and their hearts.
“You have completed your tasssssk,” she said, calmly.
“Yes.”
Poppy gripped the handle of her blade. Sibyl could see her if she wasn’t careful. She could predict the future. Her every movement if she wasn’t careful.
“Let them go,” Penelope whispered.
“Oh dear, do you think I will allow you and your mates to go? These mates are holding you back, keeping you from your true power and potential. They do not belong in a Fengari woman’s life.”
“You promised,” Penelope said, “You said you’d free them if I killed those people, those beasts. I didn’t even find Daphne.”
Sibyl snapped her fingers and two illusory Fengari entered the room, dragging a thin, bald Daphne along by her underarms. Daphne slumped over onto the ground and the soldiers disappeared.
“So she’s safe?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, dear. Remember, if you hurt me, your boys die too.”
“I know,” Poppy said, then she ran Sibyl through with her blade, piercing the grey lunar alien’s heart. Sibyl didn’t scream. Her lips curled in a smile. A gurgling choke erupted from her throat as she collapsed.
Poppy pulled the blade out. She did it. Sibyl’s mistake had been making her kill the boys once. She wouldn’t have had the strength to risk it otherwise. To know what it felt like. She tilted her neck and pressed the sword to her throat, ready to draw the blade upon herself.
Castor, Jason, Ajax, Poseidon — she’d killed them. Poppy closed her eyes, her hands trembling, tears streaming down her face. This should have been easier to do. Just draw the blade and in a few minutes, it will be over. With eyes squeezed shut, she began to count down.