“Yes, yes. Back to the matter at hand.” Astrid throws something into the fire, a tiny ball of what looks like dark wax. Even half stoned, we jump back instantly, ready for whatever shit’s about to hit the fan.
The flames immediately flare high, blues and purple, but nothing leaps forward to attack. I shade my eyes and take a cautious step forward, eyes rapt on the flames. Figures writhe inside the amber and purple tongues. Just as quickly as they appeared, they’re gone, and the fire dies slowly, banking. The smoke grows thicker and my mind swims, and suddenly the battle to keep my thoughts clear gets a lot harder.
Annabelle leans back, still watching me. “We can help you out of this place. But we require something from you, first.”
By the look in her eyes, I think I know what she wants. “Not interested,” I say against a torrent of desire that I can barely fight. “We… We can find our way through without your help.”
Annabelle’s cheeks flush in anger. “Not what I meant. But if you want to insult me…”
“Hush,” Astrid says with a consoling gesture. “You’ve just met. There’s time.”
“Not on your life,” Mika mutters.
“No, we need something far more mundane.” Astrid waves her long fingers, gesturing to one of the bookcases in the back. The smoke from the flame follows her command, flowing across the room and wreathing the dark wood. In moments, solid matter evaporates, and the bookcase is gone.
Leaving…
“The gate,” Syl says, straightening.
She’s right, though I almost don’t recognize it. It’s broken and shattered with pieces missing. The plate meant for our hands is split down the center and one half is gone. In two other places, large pieces of the door have been cut free, leaving dark holes like an abyss. “What happened to it?” Mika asks.
“Shattered. By whoever decided to challenge you, I suppose. Maybe the silver one,” Agetha cackles. “She’s tricky. I wouldn’t trust her, if I were you.”
“What do we have to do?” I ask, wiping sweat from my forehead. It’s so hot in here, so hard to think. Every time I breathe, I inhale more of the smoke, and everywhere I look one of them sits, watching. Endless expanses of soft flesh, curves I can see clearly now through clothes that… Wait, are they dressed, now? Annabelle arches her back, and the soft mounds of her tits with hard pink nipples strain upward. Nothing covers them. They beg for my mouth and my tongue. She watches me, bottom lip between her teeth. Hungry.
What was I asking them?
I glance to Mika, desperate, but her eyes are on Agetha. Her breath comes in little pants, and the anger has drained from her cheeks.
Maybe we should stay awhile. Maybe this is part of the challenge, the trial , my mind whispers.
No. This is wrong. I need to get outside, need help… But it’s so hard to fight. My cock pulses like a second heartbeat, eager. Ready.
Syl. Where is she? The smoke… It wasn’t affecting her, right? Why isn’t she stopping this? I search for her, glance down.
She lays at my feet, eyes closed, out cold. What? When did…?
“Stop,” I growl. “Fucking stop. ”
“Stop what?” Annabelle whispers? She’s in front of me. When did she get up? I didn’t see her move. She’s completely naked; unending, innocent flesh undulates before me. Ready. Waiting.
This is wrong. I know we’re about to die here. Know if we succumb, we’ll never leave this place alive.
I raise my hand. Her lips part in anticipation, and a low moan spills from her lips as my fingers caress the soft flesh of her neck.
Every fiber of my being screams to take her, to bend her over and fuck her right here, to fill her with my body and soul. Her innocence and sexuality are as intoxicating as the smoke, wrong but so right. God, I want her.
Annabelle sees it in my eyes. Her eyes close, and her lips curve upward, confident. She’s ready for whatever I’m about to do to her.
She’s wrong.
I push her back. It feels like I’m ripping a piece of myself away, but I do it.
The spell is broken instantly. Mika gasps, grip on my arm tightening like a vice. Syl’s eyes snap open, and she writhes upward furiously with claws bared. My thoughts sharpen like daggers, lust replaced with anger. At what the Sisters tried to do. And fear, at how close they came to succeeding.
I’m about to pull the women outside, or maybe raise my rifle and fire. I don’t know. Anything to end this. Whatever the case, I’m sure this is the enemy, and we need to go. That we need to defend ourselves before they attack.
Instead, there’s clapping.
The witches are back in their seats, clothed once again. Their poses are identical to before… whatever they just did. As if it hadn’t happened. They examine us like we’re animals in a zoo, fascinated by our strange behavior. All but Annabelle, who watches me with something like hurt across her delicate features. The only proof that the last minute was real.
Astrid brings her hands together one last time. “Well done, hero. Not many make it this far, and fewer resist our influence.” She leans forward with a fearsome grin. “Hold to that. You’ll need it.”
That sounds ominous as fuck. I glance to my wrist, sure we’re out of time. It feels like we’ve been here for hours.
00:46:57
Less than ten minutes. Impossible.
I lower my rifle. Inferno comes down, bright flame darkening. Syl doesn’t retract her claws, but she crouches, ready to dart forward like a lightning bolt. Ready for whatever’s coming next.
“Tell us what you want so we can end this.” I want to leave right now, walk out the door. But we have no leads and our time’s already been halved.
“Believe it or not, we want the same thing you do.” Agetha rolls a metal ball between her fingers nimbly, making it hop and roll across the back of her hand. “Freedom.”
“Wait,” Mika says. “From what? This place? Are you prisoners here?”
“Very good, my dear,” Astrid says. “We are much prisoners as you. Surrounded by death, put here as part of some… Test.” She bares perfect teeth. “We deserve better. ”
Based on how much they’ve told us, how they’re aware of the trials and Astra, this makes sense. “And you want out?”
“What being, when shackled, does not crave freedom? We are no different.” Astrid waves her hand, and again the smoke rises. I steel myself, ready to leap outside, but this time it doesn’t assault us. Instead, it flows across the floor of the cottage, forming into misty peaks and low valleys. A carpet, forming…
“The city,” Syl says.
“Yes.” Astrid circles her finger, and three points turn bright pink. “Find the missing pieces of the door. Bring them here, and we will repair it.”
“And then?” Mika glances to me, skeptical. Thinking the same thing I am. They won’t be joining our party after this.
Annabelle purses her lips as if hurt. “Don’t flatter yourselves. If you think we have any interest in remaining in the company of Aspirants…” She laughs. “We go our way, you go yours.” She glances to me. “Mmm. Perhaps we’ll take one of you with us.”
“Okay,” I say, ignoring that. I glance between the points. “Sounds simple, aside from the army of possessed townspeople and flaming skeleton thing leading them.”
“Oh, worry not, hero. The Jötunn is ours to command. As are the people. They are our jailors, but also our thralls.” Astrid shrugs. “It’s complicated. At any rate, they won’t be bothering you anymore.”
“One more thing,” Agetha says before I can respond. “There are three pieces, and limited time.”
My heart sinks. I know what she’s getting at. “You want us to split up.”
Mika shakes her head. “That’s always the part where people start dying in horror movies.”
“What we want or do not want is of no consequence. It is what is necessary.” Astrid spins the metal ball on her fingertip. Agetha’s hands are empty. They watch, waiting for our decision, and a moment later, An
nabelle balances the ball on the back of her palm, idly rolling it.
Something about that, the fact that they don’t pass it, seems important. But we have other shit to worry about, especially with forty-five minutes to find all three pieces and return.
I turn to Mika and Syl. I don’t have to see their faces to know they’re as unhappy with this as I am. “Can we have a moment?”
The witches don’t answer. I stand with my back to them for a few moments before turning. “I mean, we can go outside if you don’t–”
They’re gone.
“What the…”
Mika shakes her head. “They pulled a Batman on us.”
I laugh. It feels good. This place is fucking oppressive, and the fact that Mika can still joke in the face of it all has to be a good thing. “Okay. Do we trust them?”
“Hah. No.” Mika turns a slow circle, trying not to disturb the shapes of the building surrounding her feet. “But if this map is to scale, and the pieces are the only way to get out of here…” She sighs. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
Syl is quiet, watching. Her tongue dances in and out almost constantly, agitated. “Syl?”
“I do not…” She hesitates. “Whatever you two decide is right, we will do.”
I don’t know if she’s so far out of her element that she’s undecided, or if it’s something else. “Okay. I’ll take this point,” I say, pointing to the furthest building indicated. A townhouse near the cathedral, by the looks of it. “Mika, you take that one.” I point to what looks like a warehouse a few blocks away. “Syl, last one’s yours.” The second story of a different townhouse in the opposite direction Mika and I will head.
“Good,” she nods. “Meet back here with you have the pieces.”
“Astrid said that the Jötunn and the people won’t bother us, but it can’t be as easy as just grabbing the door shards and running,” I say, holding their hands. I wonder if this is the last time I’ll ever see them, wish I could think of a better plan. Another way. But the Citadel has always been pretty straightforward in its goals, and as much as I don’t trust the Wayward Sisters, I think this is the right course. “Be ready. Whatever’s at each of these destinations, it has to be something we can handle alone. Right?”
“It makes sense.” Mika bites her lip. “Still, I hate this.”
“Me too,” I say, squeezing her hand.
We leave the cottage. There are three paths now. I’m sure there was one before. But that’s not the tenth weirdest thing I’ve seen in this trial, so I don’t question it. “I think these are for us.”
“Yes,” Syl says. She turns to me, something in her eyes I can’t detect. For a moment I think she’s about to grab me and kiss me, there’s something so desperately hungry in her eyes. Instead, she turns away. “Be careful. Survive.”
Mika hugs her tight, an embrace Syl returns immediately. “We will.”
“See you both back here. Go fast. Be careful.” There’s so much more I want to say, but the Shepherd is like a black shadow, hanging over my thoughts. “Hurry.”
They both nod and jog off, decisive.
And for the first time since I died, I’m alone.
19
Chamber 5
Aspirant #2239
Room Timer: 00:40:12
This is a mistake.
Mika’s sure of it. The thought runs through her head, over and over.
Every step into this dead city is another step from Sam and Syl. From the only normalcy in this insane place. The only thing she trusts since she woke up naked in a hallway after dying are her friends, her partners. Separating, leaving them behind… It feels like…
A mistake.
Inferno’s heft is a comfort. Especially now that she knows she can fire a cone of molten flame from its tip. That’s new, and feels pretty damned awesome, she has to admit. It’s hard to believe that a few days ago she laid on her cousin’s couch as the rough cacophony of New York leaked through the ill-fitting window. That in a scant few hours she’d be a fire mage. It’s kind of a dream come true, for a nerdy girl who grew up playing video games.
Mika can’t help but wish the circumstances were just a little bit different.
She trusts herself, trusts her weapon, trusts the new body this place has given her. Mika’s never been athletic, never been much of an outdoor girl, and so it feels odd to be so fast, so strong. Her reflexes are like nothing she’s ever known. She feels like one of the Kung Fu masters from old cheesy movies that can catch a fly from the air with chopsticks. Along with a weapon that feels stronger every single trial she passes, for the first time in her life Mika feels… Capable? In command?
In control of her own destiny. Not under the heel of her parents or anyone else.
It feels fucking amazing.
Which makes her hate this all the more. Sam and Syl treat her like an equal. They count on her to have their backs. Being away from them…
How many times has Sam saved her? How many times has she saved him?
Memory intrudes, one that’s played over and over in her mind. Standing over him, the stumps of his arms spurting blood, sure he was dead but not willing to leave him as she smashed a massive onyx statue to a pulp with Inferno. As the other raised a blade meant to split her in half. Raising Inferno high, not sure if it would stop the blade, if she’d survive the next few seconds.
Not caring.
Was it courage? She doesn’t think so, not exactly. She was kind of blown away that she hadn’t pissed her pants. It was something else.
Fighting. For someone she loved. Choosing to stand and take the hit rather than leave him.
They need each other, the three of them.
Which is why every step is an accusation. Why every moment she’s not with them feels wrong.
Mika turns a slow circle, Inferno blazing and held high, wracked with indecision. Go back? They have less than forty minutes to open a door broken and shattered. But is it?
Mika doesn’t trust the witches as far as she can throw them. They’re almost comically over the top, stereotypes you’d see in a movie or book. Beautiful, seductive, with mysterious motives obfuscated behind sexuality. Mika would laugh if she wasn’t terrified. Despite all that, here they were, separated, forced apart because she couldn’t think of another option. A different path.
But there has to be. This can’t be right.
The city around her is silent, completely empty. Townhouses rise above her like demons, their black window eyes watching her mockingly. The streets are empty and clean, which is almost scarier than before when they swarmed with townspeople. The knowledge that they hunch in buildings and around corners, waiting and watching; it raises gooseflesh across her body.
Mika shivers, and not for the first time wishes she’s thought of something a bit more practical as her “armor.” Lara Croft. That’s all she’d been able to think of? Armor that shows off more skin than it covers?
But in the end, she doesn’t actually regret it. She feels… Badass. Powerful. Sexy in a way she never has before, not even when she ran away and got roped into the club by Aikari. She chose something like this for a reason.
Empowerment.
The way Sam looks at her when he thinks she’s not looking doesn’t hurt, either.
Sam. Please be safe. God, she misses him already. Nothing she’d ever read or watched prepared her for him, his body, his cock filling her as his mouth ravaged her body. And to have him not only desire her, but care for her? It’s beyond anything she’d ever imagined, living with her parents.
And Syl. That’s a wrinkle. How much Mika’s already grown to care for her, to respect her. To want her. Is that wrong? That she wants to explore the alien’s body as much as Sam’s?
Mika doesn’t know. Doesn’t care, anymore. Not in this place. Right now, she wants them all to survive long enough that they have the chance to figure all that out.
The turn Mika needs to take arrives all too fast. Its nondescript, like every other four way in
the town, but Mika’s knows it’s right. She’s been counting blocks, distracted as she is. She was always good with numbers. Stereotypical Asian, right? She huffs a low laugh.
Whatever. Sam doesn't make her feel shitty for being smart, not like her parents did.
With them, she was always the wrong kind of smart.
Mika stands in the center of the intersection, can’t make herself take another step. Turning from the long road leading back to the cottage feels like the final nail in the coffin of how dumb this all is.
Maybe she should find Sam. Find another way. Go to the cathedral they saw before.
Or maybe not. Maybe that’s suicide.
God dammit.
“Mika.”
The word comes from the darkness, startles Mika so badly that she tries to raise Inferno to fire and almost drops it at the same time. Recognition stops her at the last second and she pulls her shot, chest heaving.
“Syl, dammit, I thought we talked about this last trial.”
The alien flows into the square like liquid, and like every time Mika watches her, she has to fight a wave of jealousy tinged with hot desire. Syl’s so capable, so beautiful, muscled and thin, but somehow still with curve. And the way she moves, the way light moves over her scales like water. She’s like a living piece of art. It’s unfair.
“Mika. I am sorry. I observed you for a moment and could not think of a way to approach without startling you.”
Mika smiles, hugs the alien. It’s hard not to be weirdly charmed by her seriousness, her formal speech. “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re here. Though… The door?”
Syl shrugs, rippling muscle barely concealed by her scaling. It’s a frustrated motion, one Mika’s seen before when the alien seemed like had something to say she couldn’t put into words. Or, didn’t want to. “Let us find Sam. Do you know the way?”
“Yeah. And believe me, Syl, finding Sam sounds fucking amazing. And I’m guessing I’m feeling the same thing you are. The same thing that led you to say “screw that” to slutty witches’ plans and find me instead. But how do we know that’s right?”
Syl’s as serious as Mika’s ever seen her, which is saying a lot. “Trust me. This is wrong.”
Aspirant: A Sci-Fi Harem Adventure Page 25