by Rhyll Biest
Missy shrugged. ‘Just start yelling “it’s me, it’s me, it’s fookin’ meeeeeeeeeee!”’
Fira scowled. ‘For the love of belching arse-badgers, Missy, how do we know “me” isn’t from the other team?’
‘Oh. Ha-ha.’
Arvalis shook her head. ‘We need a set of prearranged terms that the other team won’t know. Like, when I scream “there’s a pineapple in my arse” in Slamzilla’s ear she knows to get the fuck out of my way.’
A squat demoness with severe bangs grinned. ‘What if I forget the code and just think you’re really enjoying that pineapple in your arse?’
Arvalis fixed her with a look. ‘Then my only other option is to give Slamzilla the booty bump of destruction into a rock wall, thus throwing my own blocker off of the line, track and, potentially, the demon gene pool. It’s also an option but probably not Slamzilla’s preferred choice.’
Slamzilla nodded, still grinning. ‘True that.’
‘So for now the code phrase is “there’s a pineapple in my arse”. The other thing: when your jammer has lead, why are you letting the pack get faster? Take control of the pack and slooooooooow it down so that the bitch with the underpants on her head can pass merrily by and score your cankerous arses some points.’
Several heads nodded.
‘And remember, every time you’re out there, have faith in your pack and know that they have a similar faith in you and are relying on you to skate hard and kick arse. And that Lilith wants to see your glory on eight wheels. All right, let’s warm up.’
Skates clattered and there was much friendly cussing as the Club Thump she-demons took to the track. Arvalis nodded to Valeda and held a clay cup out to her. ‘Chava?’
‘Thanks.’ Surprise tinged her voice as she took it. It wasn’t quite tea, but it was better than ale.
Arvalis nodded, her gaze shifting to the track.
A she-demon fell, appearing to land fanny-first on her skate.
‘Ouch.’ Valeda winced.
‘Don’t worry. Derby she-demons have snatches of steel, she’ll be fine.’ Arvalis sounded like a proud mother.
Valeda hid her horror with a smile. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘Gotta go.’ Arvalis skated to the centre of the track.
As Valeda watched her go, a sharp pain knifed the front of her head. She rubbed at her temple but the pain was inside her skull, her brain caught in a vice that clenched and crushed the soft grey tissue. Desperate to escape the pain, she curled her hand into a fist and punched at her thigh, trying to confuse her neural pathways. For a second it seemed to work, before a vivid hallucination gripped her and had her almost convinced that she stood on a giant icefloe, surrounded on all sides by jigsaw puzzle pieces of sea, black ocean peering at her through gaps in the ice.
The sheet of frozen white beneath her feet groaned.
She put out a hand as the sound, smell and sight of breaking ice confirmed what her feet felt, that the ice was shifting, splitting in two, and would dump her into the black, frozen sea to drown. There was no-one to see her slip under the water. Not even Adriel.
And he should be there to see it, since opening up to him and expressing her feelings, allowing him to get close, was like walking on cracking ice, the black ocean of her emotions waiting below to swallow her.
It was so cold; she’d never felt a cold like it before.
A thud against her ankles yanked her free from the illusion and she blinked. Two she-demons came into focus where they fought on the ground, rolling and grappling at her feet. Her flower girls. Fira grabbed Missy by the hair and tugged.
‘Ow!’ Missy tried to slap her hands away.
‘Are you trying to fucking kill me?’ Fira wrenched Missy’s head back and tried to slam it against the ground.
Missy braced at the last moment before twisting free. ‘What?’
Fira scowled. ‘There was a three-demoness wall in front of me when you decided to give me a tush push. I nearly rocketed straight into Orthodontic Disaster’s dimpled trunk full o’ junk.’
‘All right, I’m sorry. Jeez.’ Missy pouted. She looked up at Valeda. ‘Hey, I heard you don’t know how to skate. You want me to show you how?’
Valeda hesitated. She wanted to learn to skate but she didn’t want to learn from Missy, who was clearly insane.
Missy rolled her eyes. ‘Fine, no need to give me that look. I thought you seemed bored and lonely, but you’re like a jammer who ignores a whip from her teammate.’ Fira helped Missy stand and the she-demon eyed Valeda as she brushed the dirt from her outfit. ‘Arvalis gives starter lessons every second moon if you want to wait until then to learn to skate.’ She skated off without a backwards glance, rejoining the others on the track.
Watching the she-demon’s broad backside recede, Valeda had to question whether Missy had a point. She was failing. She had failed to escape, had failed to find Lore, and had so far failed to make any difference to the war. In hindsight, her fixation on independence had held her back.
It was time for a new strategy.
She had to involve her sisters more, even if it caused them to ask questions about their brother she found difficult to answer. The usual pain erupted in her head, the same rasp of rusty barbed wire dragging through the pulpy, raw mass of her synapse. When would she be free of that tiresome symphony?
Still nursing her chava, she wandered away from the track so she could be alone with her thoughts, Moloss trotting at her heels. She found a flat-topped boulder and perched upon it.
Several metres away a bush rustled and a quiver ran through her guard dog’s body. She smiled. Perhaps the captain’s hound was not as disciplined as he thought. ‘What’s that Moloss? Rock rabbits? Get ’em!’
Body unwinding like a spring, Moloss shot off, disappearing into the scrub. Huh. Not half the guard dog the captain imagined. How did she best put that piece of knowledge to use?
As she sipped her hot drink, a troupe of tiny round birds alighted in the branches of the withered bush beside her. They dropped to the earth—rotund commandos—to hop in pursuit of small insects. Their drab feathers matched the colour of the rocks as they hunted their prey like a team of chirping terrorists in full feather camo.
Focused on the small birds, she only noticed the presence of the other demon when the birds flitted away in alarm. He sat by her, stout and dressed head to toe in grey chitin armour, a faint blue aura indicating a very modest amount of elemental power at his disposal.
Good for him.
His helmet emphasised his flattened nose as he eyed her expectantly while she looked him up and down. ‘Beat it.’ No point being diplomatic, legion soldiers didn’t understand diplomacy. ‘Disappear.’
He remained seated by her. ‘You don’t remember me?’
Remember? Caution stirred as she stared into the orange headlights of his gaze, and something scrabbled at the wall in her mind.
When he drew a long dagger from his belt, the chava in her mouth turned to mud.
Under the bloated moon, the steel blade gleamed as cruel as the demon’s yellow-fanged smile. ‘It’s Abigor, you weak, double-twatted Ninth Realm whore.’
Abigor. A whip heavy with hooked metal lashed her synapses as the memory of scorching betrayal itched just below the surface of her consciousness, rank and festering, a flyblown wound.
Do not think of your brother.
Lore’s command slammed shut a heavy door in her mind.
Abigor raised his blade and she sprayed a mouthful of chava in his eyes.
‘Fuck.’
She dived from the boulder as he wiped his eyes, and by the time he’d finished she’d backed away a good distance. He stood, drawing his broadsword in one economic movement and unsheathing a dagger with another. A weapon in each hand, he smiled. ‘Your brother wants you captured but I’m going to gut you like a mud snake instead.’
She backed away, howls of memory tearing at her.
‘Die, you stupid bitch.’ He raised his dagge
r, preparing to hurl it at her like a throwing knife. She feinted to her left and lunged to her right as he threw it, and a strand of her hair was caught and lifted by the blade as it flew by her head. The dagger bounced off a tree and she scooped it up. ‘Thanks for the weapon. Who’s the stupid bitch now?’
‘Tricky whore.’ The air filled with the stench of accelerant as he nursed a fireball in his free hand, growing it from a tiny spark to a thick glowing mass. ‘Let’s see you dodge this.’ He hurled it at her.
She dropped into a crouch so low it made her knees pop and she felt heat singe her hair as the fire flew overhead.
That was close, too close. She wasn’t designed to fight without her elemental powers.
She gasped as Abigor raised a spear. Where in shit had that come from?
He grinned. ‘Surprise.’
Her powers paralysed by her collar, she darted behind a rock to hide. Curse Moloss, where was he now that someone was actually trying to kill her?
Heavy steps neared her hiding spot. ‘What’ll it be, in the throat or the guts, princess?’
‘Neither?’ As he rounded the corner, she launched into a dive roll, keeping low as he hurled more fire at her, and took cover behind a large tree.
As he neared she stepped out and hurled the dagger at his eyes. But he proved unexpectedly agile, sidestepping the dagger and quickly regaining his balance to hurl his spear. It slammed into her chest, carving through bone, muscle and flesh. In its wake she staggered, reeling from the impact.
She stared at the shaft protruding from her chest as she dropped to her knees. Judging by the pain in the left of her back it had exited that side.
Abigor advanced, sword raised, and there was nothing she could do. Pain hugged her so tightly that her torso muscles had locked up and she couldn’t move; she could only stare up at Abigor as he looked down at her. ‘So much for the mighty Ronove name. You should know that I’m going to do your sisters just like this too. It’s a shame—’
He was cut off by a dagger slicing through the air right by his helmet. It buried itself in the tree beside him with a thud.
Beyond Abigor stood her brother, his ashen aura flared like wings, his murderous gaze fixed upon his general. ‘I will cut out your heart and eat it for this.’
Something old, dry and knowing rustled inside her at the words.
Abigor frowned. ‘You cannot trust her, she—’
‘She is my heart, and you have drawn her blood.’ Paimon unsheathed his sword. ‘Better you had stabbed me through the heart.’
Abigor gripped his sword tighter but Valeda didn’t like his chances—her brother was skilled with both sword and dagger and always coated each blade with some toxic horror. Then there was his gift with poison, similar to Semya’s but with a greater focus on triggering internal decay.
Abigor reconsidered, then slowly backed away before turning to flee. He ducked into the thick scrub at a run, his boots pounding on the hard earth.
Instead of pursuing him, Paimon crouched by her, the oceanic swell of his gaze cool and soothing in contrast to the fire where the spear punctured her flesh. He laid a cool hand on her brow. ‘Stay with me.’
She studied him. He was still as handsome as ever, his angular face stern and his deep grey eyes intense, as intense as the hot brand the very thought of him stamped on her soul. But even as the illusionary smell of seared flesh choked her—Lore’s wall hard at work—his eyes trapped her. Why escape? There was nothing more fascinating in all of Hell than the way his gaze turned black beneath the shelter of his brows, or washed out to a fine, pale net of grey when he looked directly at the moon. He was an ocean she could just slip under. Why fight it?
She closed her eyes to shut out his gaze, that austere but alluring grey sea. If she withdrew deep enough inside herself, she might find safety from the water.
It wouldn’t do to wade in; his love was a trap she could never escape.
‘Valeda. Valeda, wake up.’
She almost laughed. He didn’t know her as well as he thought if he believed the spear had passed through her heart and she was dying. His presence hurt her more than the spear. She allowed her lids to flutter. Would he fall for it if she pretended to die? Could she escape her situation, Hell itself, by feigning death?
He stroked her hair. ‘Don’t leave me. Who’ll correct my grammar and straighten the dog-ears in my books if you leave me?’
Against her will a smile tugged at her lips. How many times had she slipped bookmarks into his poor abused tomes and smoothed out the dog-eared corners? She gasped at the pressure on her ribs as he felt around the entry point of the spear shaft. It pressed against her skin, sealed tight as lovers’ lips to her flesh. When he pulled at the shaft her eyes flew open. Pain bared its fangs at her, blowing its hot, heavy, rancid breath in her face.
‘Don’t,’ she gasped and pushed his hand away.
‘I have to,’ he stroked her face. ‘I have to take you somewhere safe.’
There was no safe place in Hell for her, not in his presence. ‘What if I bleed out? I can’t heal myself.’ Her hand went to the collar at her throat, the iron cold under her fingertips.
He glanced at it. ‘I’ll find someone or something to remove it.’ He took her hand. ‘Could you bear the pain if I carried you?’
Where? To his territory? Where he’d keep her prisoner? Never. She’d pull the spear from herself and ram it through him before she’d let him take her anywhere. She shook her head. ‘No, don’t.’
‘I can’t leave you.’
Before he could speak again, Moloss appeared. He skidded to a stop and sniffed the air before catching sight of Paimon and erupting in a frenzy of barking.
Paimon stared at the pint-sized hellhound, his hand tightening around the pommel of his sword. ‘Where did that little rat come from?’
Moloss wisely backed up.
‘He’s one of Adriel’s hellhounds. Adriel won’t be far behind.’
Paimon stood, eyes narrowing. ‘Then he will die along with his hound.’
‘No.’ She grasped for Paimon’s boot and gasped as pain racked her. ‘Don’t. He’s a skilled healer. He can heal me.’
Oh, the terrible indecision that swamped her brother’s eyes; their oceanic depths turned black with a slick of regret—or was it loss? Loss of the chance to steal her away and the chance to slay his rival and enemy.
He crouched by her once more, kissed her crown, and spoke with his lips pressed against her temple. ‘I will return for you.’
Not if I can help it.
He sprung to his feet and fled in the same direction Abigor had, leaving her to stare up at the stars as her blood pooled around her and small birds rustled the bushes, impatient to feed again but wary of Moloss.
The hellhound lay by her side and butted her hand with his nose, but she didn’t have the energy to pat him. The cold seeping into her had stolen it away. Moloss licked her fingers but she lacked the energy to reassure him, which meant she’d bled too much already, had to shut down, slow the loss of blood, preserve herself. Become frozen.
She drifted in a sea of ice, the black ocean welcoming her.
The clank of armour jolted her awake.
‘Don’t move.’
Adriel. She took in his worried face, his cheek split open, black blood trickling down his bronze skin. He looked like he’d ported straight from the battlefield to help her. But how had he known she’d needed help? Or where she was?
His presence charged her with new-found energy. She groped the spot where the spear protruded from her chest. She could only imagine what it looked like where the business end of the spear exited at her back, the bloody point coated in her blood.
Adriel stared at her, silver eyes wide. ‘Stay very, very still. I think it’s gone right through your heart.’
It was nice that he cared so much. Really quite sweet. ‘Well, about that. Have you got a dagger?’
He handed her his, and she took a firm grip on the wood shaft protruding from
her chest and began to saw at it, biting her lip at the pain that wrung sweat from her.
‘No!’ He grabbed her by the wrist. ‘Leave it.’
She shook his hand off to saw at the wood shaft some more. It hurt like a bitch but she’d developed an extremely high pain tolerance since having her heart removed, plus it hurt slightly less than the slezak quills. She gave a soft grunt as the shaft broke in two, then she took a moment to catch her breath. ‘Grab the back end and pull it out.’
He shook his head, face pale. ‘I can’t, it’ll kill you.’
She struggled to her knees. ‘No it won’t, just give it a good hard pull. Come on, captain. Please?’
‘No, just wait, we’ll—’
Hakan appeared in the clearing and clanked his way over, armour smeared with blood and mud, dripping sword in hand. He did a double take. ‘Fuck, that’s some shit.’
She turned her back to Adriel. ‘Pull it out for me?’
‘No, wait!’
But Hakan had already taken hold of the spear shaft with his telekenetic power and was yanking at it. Her body jerked as the shaft pulled free.
She sucked in a deep breath at the hot brand piercing her flesh, but it still felt better than before. Until the adrenalin receded from her body and pain hit her like a fist. She leaned forward, resting her hands on the ground, and kept her head lowered until the dizziness passed.
Hakan raised an eyebrow. ‘No heart, huh? Just like your mum. Thought so.’ He flung the piece of spear shaft far away with a wave of his hand before leaving.
‘What the fizzy fuck are you talking about?’ The captain yelled after him. Receiving no answer, he locked eyes with her. ‘No heart? What the fuck?’
She breathed out her pain. ‘It’s true, our mother was born without one. Semya probably told your brother. She likes to show off about stuff like that.’
A wave of dizziness swelled around her and then receded. The captain helped her to her feet and steadied her with a hand under her arm, but his gaze was hard. ‘Tell me, princess, how does a flesh-and-blood creature get around with no effing heart? What pumps the blood around?’
She scowled. He was angry, but it was really none of his business. ‘Unlike my mother, I was born with a heart, it just operates … remotely.’