Mask of Poison (Fall of Under Book 1)

by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

  He coughed. “Help me up, like a dear, for starters, will you? My legs aren’t quite what they used t’be, y’know?”

  Carefully, she helped the man to his feet. He leaned on her heavily, and she had to wrap an arm around his waist to keep him from falling over. He felt far too light for someone of his frame. “Now what?”

  “To the altar. If I’m going to bleed all over the carpet, I want to do it somewhere more impressive than the middle of the stupid floor.” He wheezed.

  As she started to walk, he pulled back. “Wait! Wait-wait-wait. Wine—” He waggled a finger at the bottle on the pew. “Wine-wine-wine.”

  With a small laugh, she stretched out to grasp the bottle and handed it to him. He held it as she helped him toward the altar. She didn’t care if he got blood on her. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Once they reached the stairs of the altar, he pulled away from her to sit down carefully on the steps. He stretched out and groaned. “Oh, my recently-revived spine.” He arched, and she heard a vicious pop. She winced sympathetically.

  The man pulled the mask from his face and put it aside before taking a swig from the bottle. She glanced away again.

  “Oh, stop that. I don’t give a fuck if you see my face. I don’t even think I have all of it to show off, anyway.” He sighed. “Stupid goddamn masks. An idiot’s tradition. I always hated them. They don’t do a damn bit of good when it comes down to it. Do you know how hard it is to take someone’s marks off their face? It isn’t. We’re just all being fucking polite.”

  Curiosity got the better of her. The light was a little brighter at the altar, and she could take in more of him. He was covered in more of those stained, bloody, crisscrossing bandages. But they weren’t doing a very good job of slowing the blood that oozed from gaping, open wounds. She swore she could see bone in some places. She knelt next to him.

  He looked at her.

  She couldn’t make out much detail on his face…only that it was, in fact, mostly missing. The skin of his cheek was gone. She could see the muscle and tendon beneath. Part of his lip was nothing but a raw, bleeding gash.

  Claw marks ran down his left cheek. Three in total, as if a bear truly had mauled him. Pale yellow eyes watched her.

  Tears stung her own eyes, and she didn’t stop them from rolling down her cheeks. She reached out to him but hesitated. She didn’t know where to even begin. “By the gods…who did this to you?”

  “They did.” He jerked his head toward the altar.

  “What can I do to help you?”

  “Um…” He looked down at himself and snickered. “Get a stapler?” At her confused noise, he laughed. “Sorry. Sorry. Oh! I know. Go behind the altar. There are some extra linens there. Would you mind fetching them for me? I think it hurts a little less when I have bandages on…”

  “Of course.” She got up. Sure enough, at the back of the altar were a few small shelves, upon which sat some folded white cotton linen. She picked up the stack and sat back down next to the bleeding man. “I’m sure they won’t mind.”

  “Don’t care if they do.”

  She began to cut it into strips with her knife, before moving closer to him. She started at his wrist and began to bandage up his arm.

  “I didn’t mean you needed to do it. But…thank you.”

  “I’m a medic. Let me help.” She began working on his chest, where most of the open wounds were. “As little as I can. I’m sorry I can’t do more.”

  “The wine, the bandages, and the company are more than I could ask for.” He hissed as she pressed a strip of cloth into the wrong spot. “Ow.”

  “Sorry—sorry.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Only most of this blood is mine, anyway.”

  “What?” She pulled back from him.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I told you I wanted revenge. Didn’t I?” He looked off for a second. “I swore I did. Maybe I didn’t. Most of my mind is missing, so anything’s possible, I guess.”

  “I—”

  “And I said I wasn’t going to hurt you. That part I remember.” A flash of white teeth in the darkness revealed that he was the owner of sharp, pointed fangs.

  She moved to stand, and suddenly that trembling, seemingly weak hand of his snapped around her wrist. Now, it felt like iron. He pulled her down to him, and she squeaked as she lost her balance. She fell to the stairs, and before she could react, he was on top of her. He straddled her legs, and with one hand pressed to the stairs beside her head, and the other still grabbing her wrist, he loomed over her in the darkness.

  “Ah—ah. No. You stay. I’m enjoying our conversation.”

  She couldn’t see his face anymore. Just the shadowy outline with the barest glint of bloodstained, blond hair that fell around his face in thick tendrils. “I—I’m sorry—I don’t—”

  “Sssh. Oh. I can hear your heart pounding, Ember. It’s going off like a drum. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. Like a little bird.” He hummed. “You could be my little dove, Ember…would you like that?”

  She reached for the knife in her belt. Before he could react, she slammed it through his stomach.

  “Ow.” He sat up and looked down at the knife. When she tried to push him off her, he twisted a hand in her hair and pressed it to the stairs. “No. No. Stay. We’ll work this out.” He grabbed the handle of the blade with his other hand and slid it back out of his stomach with a low growl. “That stings, though. Please don’t do that again.” Liquid, dark as pitch, oozed from the blade like molasses. It was far too thick to be normal. He hurled the knife into the darkness of the cathedral, and it clattered against the stone somewhere in the distance.

  “Please—don’t—”

  “Ssh.” He leaned back down over her, settling his weight against her body. She struggled, but she was trapped. “No, little dove. It’s all right. I won’t kill you. I won’t hurt you.” He caught her chin in his free hand and tilted her head to the side, exposing her throat. “I just want to taste you.”

  “Don’t—”

  Hot breath washed over her skin as he leaned in close. He smelled bitter, like blood. When his tongue ran up the side of her neck, she shivered. “That’s it,” he purred. “It’ll be good for you…don’t worry. My bite was always known to bring such otherworldly pleasure to those who experienced it. I wonder if that’s still true.”

  Even if it was futile, she couldn’t help but shove against his chest. She could feel bits of flesh under her nails as she tried to claw at him to get him away from her.

  He licked her throat again slowly and moaned in nearly explicit pleasure. “You taste so good, little dove. I can’t wait to drink you. Only a little, I promise. We’re going to be good friends, you and I.”

  She felt the scrape of sharp teeth against her skin.

  “Get away from her!”

  11

  Oh, thank the gods. “Lyon!” She tried once more to shove the man off her.

  “Get away from her.” Lyon repeated his warning.

  “No, I don’t wanna.” The man managed to snarl and whine at the same time. She wasn’t even sure how it was possible. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

  “I believe it is clear the lady does not want your attention.” Lyon snapped his fingers, and the room was suddenly illuminated in the light of hundreds of flickering candles.

  At the sudden blast of light, the man snarled and sat up. Grabbing his mask, he placed it back on his face. Now that she could see it, her eyes went wide. He wore a full mask.

  A king?

  But…which one?

  What should have been white porcelain was cracked and yellowed. Entire sections of the surface were missing. Part of the mouth had shattered away up to the cheek, giving it the impression of a lopsided, deranged smile. And like all those with masks, she couldn’t see anything through the eyes or the holes. Just darkness.

  He pointed a bloody finger down at her. “Stay.”

  She swallowed, not sure what to do.

  The man was dang
erous. Violent. And a king. He could shred her without trying. So she did what she was trained to do. Live for every second. She nodded and stopped struggling.

  “Good.” He poked the end of her nose with a pointed fingernail. “I wanna chat some more.” He climbed off her and faced Lyon. For the first time, she could see him clearly.

  And see through him clearly. In the darkness, she hadn’t noticed the hole that went through his midsection, just to the right of where she had stabbed him.

  But he wasn’t the only one covered in blood.

  The whole room was splattered with it. Arcs of crimson coated the columns. Trails and smears on the floor led to piles of bodies against the walls. Their shapes contorted and broken, like shattered dolls thrown away by a petulant and bored child, their use having been fulfilled.

  There were at least a dozen dead bodies that she could see. She was certain more were in the wings or tucked between pews. In the darkness, she hadn’t seen the splatters against the walls, having mistaken them for shadows.

  “By the gods,” she whispered.

  And she knew who was responsible for the massacre.

  He warned her that only most of the blood was his.

  Lyon’s reaction was just as horrified as hers. He took a step back, and with a grimace, the golden armor appeared on his arms, turning his hands to long-taloned claws. “Who are you?”

  The murderous stranger laughed. The sound of it sent a chill down her spine and set her teeth on edge. It was sharp. It was cruel.

  And it reeked of madness.

  The man wavered on his feet, lowering his head. She could see now that his hair should be a bright platinum blond. Instead, it looked long neglected, matted and stained with fresh crimson blood and rusty brown. Bandages covered his body from head to toe, stained crimson and black. Crimson liquid pooled by his feet and dripped from his fingers.

  Wounds covered him. He might have been more injuries than whole. He coughed, his body twisting in pain as he pressed his hand to his chest.

  But still, he laughed.

  Lyon stepped forward cautiously. “Step away from her. She has done nothing to you, whoever you are.”

  The man just laughed again, harder, and it turned into a mocking cackle. He fisted his hair in both bloody hands. Finally, after their laughter calmed, she heard him whisper, the faint sound carrying in the echoey open hall. “Don’t you remember me, old friend? It’s so good to see you. Oh!”

  He whipped around to face her. She shrank against the steps of the altar, looking up at the nightmarish figure with wide eyes.

  “I remember now!” He sounded excited. “I remember my name. I lost it there for a second, but it came back. Do you want to know it? I’ll trade it to you for a kiss.” He reached down for her, and she scrambled away from him as fast as she could, trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

  “Aw…that’s a no?” He sighed. “Are you sure? I mean…I’m bet I’m a really good kisser. Well, if I have lips.” He scratched his head. “Maybe a rain check? You don’t seem in the mood anyway. What was I doing?” He dropped his hand. “Oh. Right.” He tilted his head back and to the side, looking at Lyon over his shoulder almost upside-down. “I was chatting with my dear friend. Hello, Lyon. So good to see you.”

  Lyon was staring at the man with a look of pure fear, as if he had just seen a ghost. The name he muttered was filled with dread.

  “Rxa…”

  Lyon froze. It felt as though someone had thrown him into a frozen lake. Everything in him went rigid in fear. None of this was possible. None of it.

  No, it can’t be… “You’re dead,” was all he could manage.

  The man cackled again. He walked down the steps toward him one at a time. At least he seemed to have forgotten Ember for the moment.

  It was then that Lyon realized the man was…missing pieces. Large chunks of his body were gone. Areas of his arms, his legs, parts of his hands. It looked as though the bandages were attached to nothing more than a skeleton, shallow and sunken.

  A mask that had once been white porcelain covered his face. It was cracked and stained, weathered yellowish with time. Bits of it were missing, but the gaps revealed nothing underneath but darkness. One crack ran up his cheek from the corner of his mouth, reshaping one half of the stoic expression into a broken, jagged grin.

  Lyon took a step back. Even shattered and corrupted as it was, he knew that mask. It wasn’t possible—it wasn’t possible!

  “I’m dead?” The man looked down at himself and, taking a single boney finger, shoved it inside the bandages and…deep into his ribcage. “Heart’s beating. Which it didn’t used to do. So that’s nice. Small perk. I don’t think I’m dead. I mean…I was dead. Real dead, not fake dead like you. I was very dead. But then, so were you, if I’m not mistaken!” He yanked his finger out of his ribcage, and it dripped with black blood. The ichor shone yellow in the candlelight. “So, here we are, two dead men, saying hello to each other. Fancy that. Hello!”

  “Rxa…”

  “That’s my name.” He tilted his head back slowly, the half-grin of his mask mocking him. “I’m so proud of myself for remembering it. But I remember you. And I remember taking those marks off your cheeks when I skewered you on my chains. But here you are…alive. Alive, alive, alive. And…if I’m not mistaken…a king.”

  Lyon didn’t move. He stood still, not wanting to provoke a thing that was clearly insane. “Yes.”

  “King of the House of Blood!” Rxa laughed and then coughed with a groan of pain. His shoulders caved in as if he was in agony. “You’ve taken my throne, old friend.”

  “Not by my choice.”

  “Whose, then?”

  “The Ancients.”

  “Of course.” Rxa snickered. “Of course, who else? Who else would they make king except you—just to taunt me. Noble, caring, gentle Lyon. They’d pick even you over me.” He straightened his back, and Lyon heard a sickening crunching sound. “Ah. That’s better. Oh. Oh. No, it’s not. Hold on.” He twisted sharply, and Lyon cringed that time at the wet snap that followed. “There it is.” Rxa paused. “Why are you looking at me like that? Aren’t you happy to see me? You should be. We’re friends, aren’t we? Although I haven’t felt quite myself since Aon ripped my marks off my face!”

  “I’ll remind you he only did that because you sent Lydia to the bottom of the Pool of the Ancients in chains,” Lyon replied, forcing his voice to remain calm, even if he was nothing of the sort.

  But madness did not care much for any dedication to reason. Rxa snarled and turned before grabbing one of the wooden pews and hurling it against the columns. It shattered with a resounding crash, wood and splinters falling to the ground in a heap. “I was doing what should have been done from the start! She was an abomination! She needed to die. But I could not kill her, could I? It would doom our precious world that had so recently been restored. What other choice did I have? I do not regret sending her there to rot at the bottom of that lake for all eternity. May she stay there for the rest of time!”

  “Your efforts were for naught. She is freed and stands as the rightful Queen of Dreams.”

  Rxa paused for a long moment, and Lyon readied himself for a fight. Instead, the suffering corpse broke into hysterical laughter once more. It ended with a wistful sigh. “Oh, that’s perfect…my death was all for nothing.” He threw his hands up. “I thought the Ancients’ betrayal of me couldn’t be more complete, and you’ve gone and proven me wrong. My old elder sits upon my throne, my enemy was victorious, and the very gods to which I dedicated my entire soul abandoned me. And if that were not even more wonderful…here I stand now, like this. And for what? Why?”

  “I do not know. We have only theories. That is why I am here, now,” Lyon said quietly, not wanting to provoke a man who was clearly teetering on the edge of—if not thrown clear over—the cliff of sanity. “I had hoped to pray to them. I did not expect to find such carnage. I did not expect to find…you.”

 
Rxa straightened his shoulders, before pain clearly forced him to hunch once more. “Well, I wish you all the best of luck in the world. I’m going to find somewhere quiet to go…stitch myself back together.” He sniffed dismissively. “Sorry for the mess. I’m so very hungry.”

  Rxa hacked, coughed, and, turning his head to the side, pulled his mask off and spat a giant glob of flesh onto the carpet. It landed there with a wet plop. He replaced his mask. “I think Otoi isn’t settling with me quite right. Oh. Yes. I ate Otoi. Hope you don’t mind.” He coughed. “Greasy food has never been kind to me. Do you remember when Edu invented fried food? Oh, I was queasy for days.” He laughed with the joyful memory, sounding just a little like the angel that Lyon remembered.

  “Why? Why did you do this?” Lyon glanced to the corpses, mourning once more the loss of those who served in his house. “It’s one thing to eat them—but you took their marks.”

  “Mine were taken, weren’t they? Seemed only fair. The Ancients took everything from me. I used to be the pretty one…now, now I’m…a glorified carcass, aren’t I?” Rxa wavered on his feet and staggered into a pew briefly. He grunted in pain but pressed himself back to standing.

  “You are a king still, it seems.” Lyon could sense it. All the kings and queens could simply feel the presence of the others, even from long distances. They were all bound together by the Ancients who lived not as separate creatures but as seven—or perhaps now eight—with a single mind.

  And Rxa was still a king.

  But of what?

  “Isn’t that lovely.” Rxa walked on wavering feet toward him before pausing a few feet away. He turned that grotesque mask up to look at Lyon. “Were you always this tall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah. Huh. Weird. You look taller. My adopted baby boy’s all grown up.” He rubbed his palm over his chest, smearing blood across the stained fabric. “Please get out of my way. I think I would like to leave now. Oh, little dove! Come along, dear. We’re going to go find more hospitable arrangements.” He turned his head to glance over his shoulder. “Dove?”