Up until now, nothing else existed. But having Sienna here only adds to this all-consuming ache.
The pixie wriggles her hips in reaction. “Oh, now that’s kinky.” She looks at Sienna. “He really likes you, sweetie.”
Sienna’s face flushes, but she holds my gaze. I can’t keep my eyes off her. My entire being reaches out to her. For a second the world falls away, and it’s her hips grinding against me. Something flows between us, heavy with emotion, vibrating with sexual energy. She shudders, letting out a strangled cry of surprise. She feels it too.
“Should we make her watch?” the pixie asks. Leaning down, she blocks my view of Sienna and lays another kiss on me.
I resist, but my body’s in the driver’s seat, responding without my consent. The pixie unbuttons my jeans. I want her to stop and I want her to keep going, all at the same time.
Just as her fingers slide to my zipper, the lights go off and a hush falls over us as the calliope music winds to a stop. Somebody pulled the plug on the electricity. The building goes pitch black. I hear a punch and the pixie on top of me’s thrown off to one side. More punching, scrambling and tussling sounds follow. The pixies holding me down by my arms and legs let go. A knee or an elbow drives hard into my ribs, clearing some of the sexual fog.
Grabbing my side, I sit up in a daze. “What the hell just happened?”
“You’ve been pinked,” Knox says as he storms in, his hands blazing with flames.
Knox’s fire lights up a blur of pixies, darting and zipping in all directions. Nyx steps out of a dark corner with her daggers, catching her victims by surprise. Hurley’s got a Pink Lady by the throat. He’s pulling her thin, tattooed arms off her body. Pandora’s ghosting through the melee, whispering in the ears of any pixie unlucky enough to hear her deadly voice. They melt like fast burning candles into a pile of wet mush.
The violent scene works better than a bucket of ice dumped in my lap, clearing the pixie drugs from my system with a strong dose of revulsion. With my brain back on duty, I look for Sienna. I don’t see her. Figuring she must be hiding on the carousel, I jump to my feet and move in that direction.
A new swarm of pixies sweep in to help their sisters. Before they can enter the building, Knox lets loose with a solid wall of fire. Their wings burn first, curling into ash as they fall to the ground, screaming in agony.
The intense blaze lights up the area outside the building. That’s when I catch sight of Sienna. She’s being lifted several feet off the ground. My body goes limp with terror. The pixie who pinked me has her arm hooked around Sienna’s neck. Sienna’s kicking and clawing at the pixie’s forearm. But that chick’s way too tough to let a few scratches keep her from strangling Sienna. If anything, she looks like she’s enjoying the pain of being clawed.
I can’t let Sienna end up like Constantine. “Knox! Over here!” I yell as I rush across the pavement toward them.
Two other Pink Ladies crouch below Sienna’s flailing feet. They’re staring at me with sly expressions.
“Tell your crew to lay off my ladies, or breezy here stops breathing,” the pixie says, her wings buzzing furiously.
“No can do,” Knox says. “Your ‘ladies’ killed one of ours. We’re not lettin’ that slide.”
“That’s not your call!” I snap at him.
“That’s more like it, Djinn boy,” the pixie says as her gaze travels over me and lingers on my unbuttoned jeans. “Too bad we didn’t get to do the wild thang. I was ready to shake your tree good before I handed you over to the warlocks.”
“Let me cook her,” Knox growls.
“No,” I say, fumbling to button my jeans. “Drop the girl first, and then I’ll tell my troops to stand down.”
She squeezes Sienna’s throat, making her struggle more violently. “That doesn’t work for me,” she says. “Call your dogs off! Now!”
Knox bashes his flaming fists together. “Go ahead, kill the gullie! We don’t bargain with gnats.”
The pixie glares at Knox, then turns her furious gaze back at me. “Have it your way,” she says, letting go of Sienna.
She darts straight up into the sky and vanishes into the night. The other two pixies zip off in opposite directions, disappearing just as quickly.
“They’ve got Constantine!” Hurley yells as I move toward Sienna.
I turn around in time to see all the other pixies pour out of the carousel building. Swarming skyward like a cloud of locusts, they carry Constantine’s limp body out of sight, the first of us to be delivered to the to the warlocks for a reward.
My breath stalls in my lungs, my stomach clenching as sweat stings my eyes. I failed him. Just like I failed Justice, Booker and Fletcher. I should’ve been smarter, faster.
My body goes heavy as the awful truth sinks in. I’m not fit to lead. I never have been. Maddox only made me second to keep me close. So he could control me. It kills me to think it, but the gang’s better off without me. It’s time I went my own way.
21
Spider Bite
TURNING MY BACK TO THE SWARM of pixies clearing out of the park, I glance down where they dropped Sienna. She’s gone. “Where’s Sienna?” I say, glancing in every direction.
“They dropped her down there,” Knox says, pointing at an open manhole.
“What the…?” I drop to my hands and knees. So that’s why the other pixies were looking so smug. They were hiding the opening. I call down into the dark hole.
Nothing.
“Light it up,” I tell him, “I can’t see a damn thing.”
Shaking his head, Knox kneels with one fiery hand held out over the manhole. I don’t see her anywhere near the bottom of the ladder. My pulse skips chaotically. I have to get down there.
“Whoa, what’re you doing?” Knox says as I start climbing down the rusty rungs.
I stop long enough to glare at him. “I’m going down after her. She’s probably hurt. Maybe lost in the tunnel or something.”
“Leave her. She’s just a freakin’ gullie, man,” he says as I continue down the ladder.
That stops me. Yesterday, I wouldn’t have understood being all twisted up over some gullie. But that was then, this is now. “You’re really not gonna help?” I say, my frustration building.
“No way, man. She’s not worth it,” Knox says as Hurley, Nyx and Pandora crowd around the hole and look down at me.
“What’re you doing down there?” Hurley shouts.
“The Pinks dropped his ball and chain in the hole,” Knox grumbles.
“Edge, we gotta bounce. Now!” Nyx yells.
“Just give me a minute!” I yell back.
“Why do you think they threw her down there?” she presses. “They wanna hold us up so they can lead the Bad Hats straight back here to us.”
Ignoring her, I clamber the rest of the way down the ladder. Darkness closes in as I near the bottom. When my boot hits solid ground, I dig in my pocket for my Zippo and gun the flint wheel. Its flame throws enough light to show me she’s not down here.
Where the hell is she?
“Do you see her?” Hurley shouts from above.
“No!” I yell back. Turning toward the tunnel, I shout her name several times.
“Maybe she’s pissed off about you grindin’ with that pixie and took a hike through the sewers,” Knox says.
He’s probably right. I have to go after her, which means there’s no better time to make a break with the others. I just wish it wasn’t so damn hard to do. The gang’s been my only priority for years. But I have to do it. They’re better off without me.
Guilt wrenches in my gut, raw and ugly. I might not be directly responsible for what happened to Booker and Justice, but Constantine’s death is all on me. He’d still be alive if I hadn’t trusted Anguish and stopped here. Only problem is, if I hadn’t, the pixies would’ve killed Sienna. Maybe that would’ve been better for me. It’s not like I’d have known what happened to her. Except that’s not how it played out. I can’t ignore sh
e’s in trouble. Leaving her behind would pound the guilt in that much deeper. I couldn’t live with that. She’s innocent in all this. If I hadn’t involved her, the pixies wouldn’t have used her as bait.
Closing my eyes against this feeling of being ripped in half, I take in a shaky, deep breath and look up at the others. “I want you guys to leave me here and hit the road. Go get Zulu what he needs.”
“Damn it, Edge!” Nyx shouts, her voice sharp and laced with panic. “We need you! Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Pandora kneels over the hole, her forefingers and thumbs forming a diamond shape before making the whipping sign.
“I’m not pussy whipped, Pan.”
“Yeah, man, you are,” Hurley chimes in. “What about us? Who’s gonna get us to the Ghost Market?”
I look at Nyx. “Get in touch with India again. Have her do a locater spell. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that earlier.” Further proof I’m not the one to lead.
Frowning, Nyx shakes her head at me.
“You’ll be better off without me,” I tell her, hoping she understands my meaning. She knows how clueless I am about my new power.
Before they can argue, I duck away from the opening and rush into the storm drain.
“It’s best this way,” I say, needing to hear the words out loud. But even as they echo off the walls, they feel wrong.
Holding my Zippo out in front of me, I catch myself reading the Haitian proverb engraved on the lighter: ‘Smoke never rises without fire.’ Maddox had it engraved for me when I first joined the gang. Something he did for every new member. I was never all that impressed with the message since it seemed more logical than meaningful. I always wanted something cool like the one he gave Hurley: ‘I shall fear no evil, for I am the evilest son of a bitch around.’
Of course, his message is blatantly obvious now. His way of telling me he had his finger on the on and off button to my Djinn fire.
Bastard!
A furious scream rips from my lungs, burning my throat as I chuck the lighter he gave me. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna carry around a constant reminder of his betrayal.
Plunged into sudden darkness, my scream echoes back at me, shouting my absolute stupidity. Why did I do that? I go berserk, kicking and punching the curved wall of the storm drain, growling like an animal but unable to stop.
I could rage forever if pounding the concrete wall wasn’t hurting my injured arm like a mother. Spent, I drop my fists and stare into the black, listening to my ragged breathing.
“Remember why you’re here,” I mutter. Steadying my breathing, I boot Maddox from my thoughts and focus on finding Sienna.
Without the lighter, I’m absolutely blind down here. Forced to slide my hand along the wall to find my way. After what seems like a long time of trudging through the pitch black, I call out to Sienna. The further I go without hearing anything, the more I doubt she’s down here. What if the Pinks fooled us into thinking they dropped her? What if they still have her? What if my gang’s getting snuffed by the Bad Hats, while I’m groping around down here like a tool?
I stop in my tracks. Have the warlocks been steering our course all night? Leading us into a trap we have no hope of escaping? My pulse pounds, filling my ears. With Maddox on their side, and knowing all our strengths and weaknesses, he could easily predict our moves. Maybe everything that’s happened tonight is some perfectly calculated game of his. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s been watching us get picked off one by one from a safe distance, waiting patiently until I’m the only one left.
What was it he said to me? There’s a reason I named us the Forsaken. That’s all we ever were to him. A bunch of throwaways he could easily rub out when the time was right. He’s probably out there right now, hovering like a hawk, waiting for me to poke my head up out of this hole. What if I never come out? A smile comes to my lips when I think about how much that would infuriate him. I think I can live with dying down here if that’s my revenge.
Spurred on by this twisted sense of purpose, I move deeper into the tunnel. Something tickles my face. Startled, I swipe the air like a mad man before recognizing I walked into some cobwebs. Shaking it off, I go a little further, but the webs get thicker, clinging to my face and arms more and more with each step.
The air’s getting more humid and there’s a stench in it. I know that smell. It’s the stink of rotting meat. Did some large animal die down here? Because that’s what it would have to be to cause this kind of nauseating stink. Or is it something else?
Alarm bells go off in my head. There’s only one thing storm drains thick with spider’s webs and the smell of death and decay add up to.
Black Widows.
I’ve never actually seen them but I’ve heard the stories. Black Widows are a different breed of vampire. Unlike their crazed, bloodsucking cousins who attack anything with a pulse, the Widows use their heads to get what they want. They lure their victims in with the promise of sex. Posing as hookers, the Widows lead their johns to the nearest manhole and shove him down into it. No one knows for sure what happens after that since nobody’s lived to tell the story. Best guess is, those poor, horny dudes get wrapped in a cocoon of webs and injected with enough venom to liquefy their insides.
Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn. Backing up slowly, I hold my breath, hoping I haven’t been noticed.
Then I hear a small muffled cry for help. It’s Sienna.
The frightened sound drops me to my knees. How am I going to get her out of this? Unless I can get this crystal fired up and defang these vamps, I’ve got nothing to fight with. Frustration claws at my insides. What the hell was I thinking?
I wasn’t. That’s the problem. Apparently, I’m brainless when it comes to Sienna. And that’s going to get us both killed.
Another faint whimper propels me forward. The least I can do is let her know she’s not alone down here. Rubble and sticks dig into my knees and palms as I crawl in the direction of the sound. Everything’s covered in slime. The stink of dead things is choking. I’d puke if I had anything left in my stomach.
My hand slips over a large, slick rock. I catch myself before doing a face plant in the sludge. Every muscle coils tight as my fingers dip into two large holes and skim across two even rows of teeth. It’s a human skull.
“Edge?” I hear Sienna whisper.
A hand clamps over my mouth before I can answer.
Panic fires through me. Grabbing the hand, I jam my arm back, driving the point of my elbow into my attacker’s gut. Hearing a feminine grunt, I figure I nailed one of the Widows good. Springing to my feet, I punch the darkness, hoping to bash heads. Instead of cracking my knuckles into flesh and bone, a fist bursts through the pitch black in a blur of silvery light, clocking me in the nose. Sparks flash before my eyes as I rear back in pain and confusion.
Then I see Nyx push through the darkness, her face a gleaming smudge of pale-gray as she envelops me in her shadow cloak. Relief rushes in as the protective shroud falls in around us.
“It’s a trap, you moron,” she says, her voice quietly angry. “Look around you.”
Gulping, I squint through the dense cloaking at the scary number of wavering shapes filling the storm drain. To either side of me, clinging to the curved ceiling over my head, are the Widows who shifted into their true form. Elongated, spider-like arms and legs extend from distorted torsos, which taper into black, bulbous stingers. The only thing remotely human about them is their heads, but even the faces are twisted into something evil and ravenous.
I break out in a violent chill. I can’t stop shaking. Those spidery freaks were closing in on me and I didn’t sense them. I knew I wasn’t worth much without my Djinn powers, but I didn’t realize I was completely helpless.
At least they can’t see me anymore. I can tell by the way their heads are pivoting in all directions that I’ve vanished out from under them. Grabbing Nyx by the waist, I pull her to me, my nerves calming enough to stop the shaking. If she
hadn’t come along when she did, I’d be spider food.
“Where’s Sienna?” I whisper.
Nyx shoves me back. “Forget her. You’re too late.”
“No, I heard her. She’s still alive.” I search the inky gloom for her. Behind the glimmering smudges of spidery Widows crawling along the round walls, is a group still in human form, huddled around a body. My heart implodes. “Is that her?”
Without a word, Nyx slides us toward them, gliding over piles of bones and fleshy body parts, blackened with rot and coated with sticky webs. As we get closer, I see the Black Widow insignias on the backs of their jackets glowing an eerie white.
Nyx brings us up and around, so I can see Sienna. Her arms are spread out to either side, covered with webs to keep her anchored to the wall. She’s staring straight ahead and her face is emotionless, a shimmering pale mask of unspoiled beauty. For a heart-stopping second I think she’s dead, until she blinks–sleepily–like she’s drugged.
And then I see why. The Widows are draining her. Some of them are drinking from her thighs, others are at her belly and some are at her breasts and neck, lapping at her puncture wounds like feral cats.
Something inside me breaks. I’ve seen my share of horrible things, but watching Sienna laid bare like this slays me. A darkness I didn’t know existed roars up from the depths, shooting straight to my chest. The crystal’s fired up again, but not like before.
Liquid heat throbs at my core as the power surges from the pulsing crystal. Red, lethal strobes of lightning arc along my palms, shooting out my fingertips. The massive output of electricity shocks Nyx. Crying out, she lets go of my arm and her shadow cloak disintegrates.
Blood-red light chases back the darkness. The spiders crawling over the walls cower from it. The vamps feeding on Sienna hiss at me, backing away as I press forward. But that’s not good enough. I want to skin these black-eyed bitches alive for what they did to Sienna and every other poor bastard whose parts are scattered in this filthy boneyard.
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