by Viki Storm
“Ennest,” I call out, “throw it into the mineshaft.”
Ennest looks like he just flew supra-light for the first time, pale skin, glassy eyes and slack jaw. I’m not sure if he’s shell-shocked or if the archaeologist was able to penetrate his mind.
Hot needles explode into my side. I flinch for just a second, but a second is all my foe needs to coil his legs and push me off of him. I tumble, clutching my side. My fingers are sticky wet and I’ve been stabbed enough times to know that he was able to get a dagger in me. I’ve got a field derma-seal in my waist-pouch, but I’m a little too occupied at the moment to use it. I just have to hope I don’t bleed out before I can subdue the evil prick.
“It’s futile,” he says, getting to his feet. I try to roll over, but there’s spreading, paralyzing pain gripping my torso. “The blade was dipped in sildiona, the potent neurotoxin found in the salivary glands of a tiny salamander. Fortunately for you, I’ve diluted the compound somewhat so you’ll only feel a hallucinogenic effect. But it should be enough to disable you and keep you in my thrall.”
As he talks, the effects of the toxin spread into my body. His face is melting, flesh dripping off in wet gobs. A little part of my brain is still sentient and tries to remind me that it’s a hallucination, not to panic. But that little guy is being overwhelmed, drowning as the tide of fear comes in and pulls him out to sea.
The panic takes over as I watch the archaeologist shed his skin, shed his disguise, and his true form emerges. He’s one of the Seven, a cybernetic demon in service to the Imperator—and even a Virixian warrior is no match. He hovers over me, that little dagger poised. The dagger shifts, morphs into a flaming sword. Is this a hallucination or his dark power?
“Then again, I don’t need someone like you. You might be more of a liability. It was exhausting being inside your mind. You’ll serve better as a sacrifice. Your blood offering will please the Master of the Void and sanctify the artifact. The girl would have been better, but you’ll serve.”
The girl. My mate. Vela. At least my last sane act was to get her to safety. I can die alone and in terror—after all, as a Virixian warrior, there’s always been a high likelihood of something like this happening to me. Just as long as she’s safe.
“Auvok!”
Vela. Damn the Void, this vexing, disobedient female.
“Perfect,” the archaeologist-demon coos. “The blood of a virgin makes the best offering, but I bet you’ve let this dirty alien defile you, haven’t—”
Fire explodes from his head. His eyeballs bulge. Is this real or is this the effect of the toxin?
Vela, she’s got a clutch of good-sized rocks in her arm and she’s throwing them at the demon. The rocks leave a colorful, prismatic contrail as she hurls them. They hit the demon in the chest, the leg, the stomach, the head.
“Is he a monster or something?” Vela screams at me.
“I’ve shed my human skin,” Vasser says. “I was human once, but that was long ago. Now I’m so much more. And now that I’m wielding the Supreme Power, I’ll be unstoppable.”
“Like hell you are,” Vela says, chucking another rock. It hits him in the face. The blood dripping down is black. Black as the void. Black as the mineshaft. Black as his cybernetic soul.
She grunts as she throws, each time sounding more feral than the last. It’s strangely arousing, watching my mate exert herself while taking down the enemy. She’s a fighter. The sexiest warrior I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Ennest,” she calls over her shoulder. “A little help. Auvok’s all stoned or something.”
“I’m not,” I say. The effects are already starting to wane. I sit up and my head reels. I’m no longer seeing things, but there’s no way I’ll be able to aim Fear Shard or land a punch right now.
“He used me,” Ennest says, to himself more than anyone else. The emotional betrayal is hitting him hard, but I try not to judge him too harshly, as he is a scholar not a warrior. Still, he needs to balance the scales of justice if he ever hopes to look at himself proudly in the mirror again.
“Take pride in yourself as a male,” I say. “Avenge yourself against your betrayer!”
Ennest comes out of his fog. He looks around and locks eyes with Vasser. Vasser is struggling to his feet. Vela’s out of rocks. “You will not get away with this,” Ennest growls.
“I will live to bury all of you,” Vasser says.
“No,” Ennest says. He charges the archaeologist, arms outstretched. Ennest is not a large male, but neither is he a waif. He scoops up the injured archaeologist in his arms and rushes towards the mineshaft. When he’s in range, he pitches the other man over the side.
There’s a long pause while we wait. Nothing.
“He didn’t scream,” Vela says. “That’s fucking weird.”
“He’s possessed,” I say. “Not human. He traded his humanity to Imperator Ingoull when he gave away his soul in exchange for power. Get the jewel and pitch it over. Let’s be done with it.”
There’s still a little toxin in my system and I see it happen slowly.
As the words leave my lips, Vela steps to the mineshaft. I can see everything in excruciating detail. Vela’s spacesuit has a tiny rip near her knee. A broken piece of chain link rusts by her foot. A rodent peeks a pointy snout from behind a rock, doesn’t like what he sees, and retreats.
Then, last, a gnarled hand reaches up out of the mineshaft and closes around Vela’s ankle. It pulls her down.
Vela, she screams.
She screams all the way down.
In the blink of an eye, my mate is gone.
But she doesn’t have to be. I can’t let her.
Not after what we’ve been through, pulled together by the Universe. Letting her go would be to spit in the eye of all Creation.
The Rod of Supreme Power is idly rocking near the ledge of the mine shaft.
I pick it up. Power surges through my arm like a charge of adrenaline. Like a bolt of lightning. I can do anything. I can make anyone else do anything.
I understand it now, everything Vasser was saying.
This power, immeasurable and sublime—it’s all mine.
Chapter 18
Vela
Rich, engulfing blackness. That will be my fate if I let go. I can barely see the mineshaft opening, where I fell. Where I was pulled in.
My fingers in agony clutching to the sheer rockface of the mineshaft. It’s a miracle I can even hold my own weight—and it’s not going to last long. There’s no way I can climb up. I must have fallen at least twenty feet.
You can too, you whiner, something inside me screams. It’s the only way back to Auvok, so you figure out a way.
I try to reach up to a higher handhold, but even with my feet bracing my weight, the second I loosen my grip, my body starts to wobble.
Even if they threw a rope down here, I couldn’t grab it, I think. My thoughts are black, rich black, engulfing me.
Right when I’m about to lose it, I feel a spark come alive inside me, glowing inside my chest like a lone lantern in a storm.
Since when is the word ‘can’t’ in my vocabulary?
I’ve defied death so many times in my life, I’ve lost count.
Every month I cheat death, drinking the antiviral premix powder that will keep my infection at bay.
I’m from Mutza’s World, the planet that humans shouldn’t have been able to inhabit. But they did, all thanks to that damned cat.
I’m not even supposed to be alive, strictly speaking.
But here I am. Alive and clinging to the side of an endless mineshaft. The skin on my fingertips is scraping off. Blood trickles down my wrist. It tickles a little. The tendons in my wrists are going to snap any second, like an over-tight guitar string.
Have I cheated death all these years, only to die now? Have I randomly (or not so randomly) come across my mate, only to die now?
No.
And just like that, there’s hope. No—certainty. Certainty that I’m goi
ng to get out of here and see Auvok again. I’ll be safe in his arms in just a few—
“You bitch!” It’s Vasser—or whatever was underneath the Vasser false-face. He’s got my leg. I reflexively kick, trying to shake him off. He’s strong, fingers digging into my flesh.
“You picked the wrong bitch to fuck with,” I say. “A bitch who’s mated to the baddest-ass warrior in the universe. I feel sorry for you. You had no idea what you were getting into.” With that, I use my other leg to kick him in the face.
I shake him free.
But at a terrible price. My fingers, my wrists, my arms… they give up. I could barely hold on before, but after his added weight and the violent kicking of my legs?
I’m falling. Fast. How fast does an object fall? There’s a formula I learned once, I think it has a V in it? Maybe an x-squared?
Funny the things you think about when you’re plummeting to your death.
Then all of a sudden, it feels like my entire body is pins-and-needles asleep. The rolling, painful waves of paresthesia make me want to scream—but I’m already screaming. Every inch of my body, pins-and-needles. My motherfucking eyeballs are tingling. My tongue, the inside of my nostrils, everywhere. I have the pins-and-needles sensation in my brain.
But then I start to move.
My arms flail and my hands smack against rock. My fingers find handholds. My feet find toeholds. Dear Void, the tingling. My arms move, gingerly testing different protuberances until a suitable one is chosen. I pull up. My feet follow. Hand over hand, foot over foot, like I’m climbing a ladder.
If my brain hadn’t been attacked by the pins-and-needles sensation I would have figured it out sooner. As it is, I’m almost to the top of the mineshaft, fingers bloody, muscles cramped, nerves frayed, when I realize what’s going on.
The Rod of Supreme Power.
Someone used it on me.
I can see the top, my ragged hands take one last desperate grab and then I pull up and over, heaving my exhausted body onto the dusty ground. Once I’m there, the pins-and-needles sensation stops. I’d rejoice, except I’m too tired and too sore.
“Auvok,” I say. “You saved me. I got Vasser. He’s gone.”
Auvok is standing in front of me. Just standing. I want him, want his arms around me, but he’s just standing there. I’d go to him, but I’m so fatigued that just talking takes up all my energy.
“Are you okay?” I ask him. Maybe he’s in some mental fugue state from wielding the Rod of Supreme Power.
“I’m better than okay,” Auvok says. It hurts, but I crane my neck all the way up so I can look straight at his face.
But it’s not his face. Not the Auvok that saved me from the wreckage of my burning ship. Not the Auvok that protected me from the crazed cultists. Not the Auvok who spread my legs and claimed my virginity with his thick, studded cock.
This is the face of a monster.
His eyes blaze with madness. His teeth are longer, sharper than before. His back is stooped—not the proud warrior posture he’s always maintained. His hands are curled around the staff in two knobby clumps of skin and bone.
“Can you hear me?” I ask him.
“The power!” he whispers. Then he screams so loud I have to cover my ears. It sounds like he’s being ripped in two—and I think in a way, he is.
He wielded the Rod to save me, to control my body so that it could scale the sheer face of the mineshaft.
But it’s cost him dearly.
I fear it’s cost him his immortal soul.
Chapter 19
Auvok
The Rod of Supreme Power pulls at my soul, peeling away my goodness and decency so it can infect me with all its promises. Power. Wealth. Prestige.
Home.
With this Rod I could get back home, to Virix. I could appeal my exile—and the exile of my brothers—and force the bastards on the council to rescind their decree.
I would be back where I belong, the planet I was trained to serve. The only place I’ve ever known. The future I’d imagined for myself: I can have it all back.
Images invade my brain—not conjured but implanted. The Virixian sun setting behind the grey mountains. The city skyline of the capital. My parents’ ancestral home in the countryside, nestled in the sweet-smelling eiri trees.
Nice try, Rod. Not today.
I wrench the jewel free from the top of the Rod and hurl them both into the mineshaft.
My home, my future—she’s right in front of me.
“Vela,” I say. I bend down and pick her up. She’s weak. Her fingertips are raw.
“You saved me,” she says. “Again.”
“You saved me,” I counter. “And I think you saved the Universe.”
I cradle her in my arms and cover her face with kisses. My lips against her skin, it’s not enough. There is no gesture that comes close to expressing the joy and relief and love I feel.
Vela starts to say something, but the ground jolts. I take an unsteady step and brace for more tremors.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say. “The earth is rejecting the jewel.”
As if agreeing with me, the ground lurches again, jerkily trembling beneath our feet.
“I don’t think I can walk,” Vela whispers. “I’m so tired. My body hurts everywhere.”
“You don’t need to walk,” I say. I carry her up the steps. “Where’s Ennest?” I ask.
“He probably ran away like a sane person,” Vela says.
“Quit cracking wise,” I tell her. “Rest.”
“It’s hard to rest when the planet is literally crumbling around us.” But she closes her eyes and relaxes into me.
The quake is getting stronger and it’s difficult to run. But I follow the beacon and soon the promise of light shines through the darkness.
“Are we out?” Vela asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Almost.” The mine’s entrance is getting closer and I pick up the pace, striding at full speed until we burst out, the sun warming our skin.
“We actually did it,” Vela says.
“We,” I repeat. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“We make a good team,” she says. “I understand everything you were trying to tell me, about fate, about being mated, about—”
I cover her mouth with a kiss. “Not now,” I say. “Let’s get off this planet before it implodes. I love you, Vela, and I’ve loved you since before I was born, before my grand-sires walked planet Virix.”
“I love you too,” she says. “I’m glad you found me.”
Just then, the ground shakes violently, a huge fissure opening up right before us. I sense the shift in the ground and jump back in time to avoid tumbling down.
We’re standing on a rocky outcropping, watching as the Vulp gets swallowed by the earth.
After the initial shock wears off, I realize that I don’t care as much as I thought I would.
“Holy hell, your ship!” Vela says.
Humming, louder and louder. I set Vela down and draw my weapon. She puts a hand on my shoulder and points. “Ennest,” she says. “Look.”
Sure enough, it’s Ennest flying towards us in a small transport ship. “Get in,” he yells. The hatch pops and we climb inside.
Vela pauses then pulls at the leather satchel around her neck. It pops off and she lets it fall to the dusty ground.
“This was supposed to protect me,” she says, smiling at me so bright I think my heart might burst in my chest. “But I don’t need it anymore. I’ve got you.”
Later, after I tend to Vela’s injuries, we lie down together in one of the ship’s narrow bunks. Ennest set the autopilot for Viltra and we all retired to the cabins.
“I’m sorry about the Vulp,” she says. Her head is resting on my shoulder, her body fit snug against mine.
“I am too,” I say. “But I’m not as upset as I thought I’d be. It’s just a ship. As long as I made it out of there with you, that’s all I need.”
She tilts her head up
at me, her big eyes so beautiful I could lose myself. Actually, I think I already have.
“There’s no way it’s anything but fate,” she says. “What are the odds of any of this happening on accident? The most perfect male in the Universe just happened to rescue me from my burning ship? Out of the endless expanse of Universe, was right there at that exact moment from a coincidence?”
“The Virixian language,” I explain, “we don’t have a word for coincidence. That was a concept I didn’t even understand until after I went off-planet for my Proving.”
“There’s only one thing,” she says. She tenses just a little, but my warrior senses detect the change at once. Something’s been weighing on her mind, but she has not had the courage to say what it is.
“What is it?” I ask. “Anything that troubles you, it’s my problem now. We are mated together, and I will help you with whatever woes you face.”
“All those smuggling jobs,” she starts. “Especially the ones to Mutza’s World. The antivirals. There’s a reason why I take those jobs.” I guessed the reason, but I say nothing. This is her story to tell, her demon to exorcise. “I’m from Mutza’s World,” she says. “I left when I was eighteen. After my parents died. There wasn’t enough money for the antivirals, but they didn’t tell me. They gave me my doses and pretended to take theirs. But they weren’t taking theirs. And they both got sick. I killed them.”
She starts to cry and I stroke her hair while she lets it out. “You didn’t kill them,” I say when she calms down. “Parents will do anything for their offspring. You’ll understand that firsthand when we have our own.”
“I’m not talking about them sacrificing their portion of antivirals for me,” she says. “I killed them… and everyone else who’s died of the virus on Mutza’s World. Twenty years ago, it was me who brought my cat. Mutza. My parents told me to leave him at home, but I snuck him on board. And yeah, Mutza the cat is what made the planet habitable… but he also doomed us to a lifetime of latent disease just waiting to strike. I doomed everyone.”