Jerlo dodged the spittoon. “Who are you?”
“Your worst nightmare made manifest.” The shadow bowed.
“Don’t listen to that thing. It’s more demon than person now.”
“And thirsty for a certain type of blood, but I didn’t come here to discuss that.”
“Why are you here?” Jerlo held the vial up, but its light slid off the approaching creature without revealing anything more than a silhouette of a horned thing. It towered over him like everyone else he’d ever met.
“We’re both after the same thing—knowledge about a certain ritual.”
“You’ll get nothing from me hell spawn, worm-eater.”
“Oh, I think you’ll beg to tell me what I want to know before I’m done. But first, how do you know about it?”
Jerlo willed his feet to move as a claw tapered to a needle point and pierced the bridge of his nose. Move your goddamned feet. But they remained fixed in place. A vile presence swooped down on him and wrapped hot hands around his brain. The fire consumed his mind. Its black flames licked his memories, charring their edges before moving onto the next, searching for something.
Jerlo would have screamed, but he had no breath for it. The dank air of the oubliette oppressed him. Its chill permeated his clothes and froze his bones.
“A child set apart, a man caught between,” said the Queen of All Trees as her light bloomed inside him. She extended a shining branch, but his distrust of magical creatures stayed Jerlo’s hand. He could not accept her help, not in this. The cross hanging around his neck heated up reminding him whose vassal he was. Her crown nodded in acceptance as she faded out.
Relentless cold hammered Jerlo until he shattered into a thousand glistening pieces. Each one reflected a separate guilt. Clawed hands gathered up the fragments then he was whole again and facing a demon wearing a woman’s body.
The creature’s face morphed onto Vanya’s as she tipped her head back and laughed. Horns faded into shoulder-length tresses completing her demonic transformation back to womanhood. “It was so easy to lure you here. A suggestion here, a whisper there and you decided to come all on your own. I love free will. It’s so malleable.” She shuddered, her eyes half-closing in ecstasy.
“Go back to hell demon!” Jerlo flipped the crucifix in his hand then stabbed with the sharp end of its shaft.
The demoness backed off holding both hands up. “Put that thing away. I just want to talk.”
“Don’t listen to it.” Hadrovel shook the bars of his cage. “Everything it says is a lie.”
“And you would know because you once courted me, but I wouldn’t have you.” Vanya blew Hadrovel a kiss.
“How do I get rid of it?”
“There’s only one person who can. Call him. He should join us for this chat.” Vanya’s face rippled as her features rearranged into Sarn’s likeness, and he laughed displaying serrated teeth.
“You show your hand at last. But you can’t have him. I made sure of that.” Spittle flew as Hadrovel shouted.
“Oh, I don’t want him,” Sarn cocked a hip, then pointed at Jerlo. “I want the man who can order him about. Think of what we could do with all that power!”
“Don’t listen. It can’t possess you. All it can do is suggest and tempt. It can’t make you do anything. Demons have no power on this plane except what we give them. So don’t give that thing any. Don’t even acknowledge it.”
“What are you saying?”
“Belief is power. Use that against it.”
“But—” Jerlo started to say then a forest of candles overtook his sight. A dark blur fell upon a white sacrifice, taking it over. He blinked away the stolen memory.
“Think of what we could do together.” The demon approached still wearing Sarn’s face, but his eyes were matte black pits filled with avarice.
“No.” Jerlo brandished the sharp end of the cross.
“Then so be it.” Vanya’s features returned.
Behind her, a cloaked man stumbled through the open door. Water followed him in. It rolled into the oubliette soaking his feet while he wavered like a sleepwalker trapped in a nightmare. The cold surf sparkled in the reflected glow of his eyes as he curled in on himself, clutching his upper arms. Horror transformed his handsome young face.
What the hell was Sarn doing here? Vanya knocked the cross from a stunned Jerlo’s hands before he could react. It bounced toward Sarn, who stared at the man who’d nearly killed him five years ago.
“Hello boy. Thought I was dead, did you? Sorry to disappoint.”
Sarn backed away, cringing in fear. The rising tide had reached his ankles and was creeping up the incline toward Jerlo and the fiend’s cell.
“What are you doing here?” Jerlo shoved Vanya aside, and the demon-possessed woman tripped over her sandals and went down on one knee, laughing softly.
Chilly water soaked Jerlo’s boots, numbing his toes as he seized Sarn’s arm. “I don’t care why you’re here. Just go—”
Where? Into that freezing snake-infested moat? The causeway must be submerged by now. Jerlo stared past Hadrovel’s enclosure, but his eyes couldn’t pierce the stygian gloom curling around a sharp bend.
“But he wants to be here,” said another woman right before she clawed Jerlo’s face.
He let go and fell backward pressing a hand to his bleeding cheek. Sarn faded out, but his stricken face lingered in Jerlo’s mind’s eye. It was burned into his psyche. Please let that have been another hallucination, Jerlo begged of his silent God.
The unknown woman licked her claws clean then laughed as she doffed her hood displaying human features covered in tiny gray scales. She had a cobra’s hood and fangs, and she bared them at him, delighting in the effect of her reptilian assets.
Jerlo drew back in horror. “What are you?”
“Part snake, part woman, and all trouble,” she lifted a bare shoulder, and let it fall, “but not evil, I assure you, just misunderstood.” Snake Woman blew him a kiss then sashayed over to Vanya. Her cloak slid off her shapely arms revealing the unholy truth of her statement.
Vanya gave Snake Woman an appreciative look then accepted the clawed hand extended to her with a smile. “I like what I see, but this is my party, and you’re interfering. Why don’t we talk after I’ve gotten what I want?”
Snake Woman rocked forward on her heels and plucked something out of the air. Holding up her find, she twirled the wooden stake she’d caught then handed it to an unfazed Vanya. “A gift from a friend?”
Jerlo backed toward where the projectile had come from. With luck, the thrower had more, and he had two free hands. Something whizzed past Jerlo’s ear.
Snake woman laughed as she plucked two more stakes out of the air. “More! Send me more! Oh, don’t stop now. If you throw enough of them, one’s bound to get through. Here, I’ll even help you.”
When Snake Woman reached for the next stake hurtling toward them, Vanya’s hand flashed out and caught it instead. She slammed her fist backward, but Snake Woman danced out of the way, splashing cold water on the demoness in her haste. She mirrored Vanya’s impudent smile.
“I don’t take sides. I’m no one’s minion. But you can take my side.”
Vanya rolled her eyes until the whites showed. “Forget it. My side is the only side worth taking and,” she paused to rake Snake Woman with a sneer. “I don’t have any vacancies right now.”
“Since your side and mine are the same right now, I’ll ignore that.” Snake Woman bared her fangs. She used the stakes in her hands to bat the next bunch aside then dropped them when her hands began to smoke. One of the stakes ricocheted off the wall near Jerlo, and he trapped it under his foot. The tide rolled up the incline and over his foot adding to his subterfuge.
“What no more?” Snake woman pouted, and her fangs curved over her full lips. “I was having such fun. Show yourselves.”
“You want to see minions, do you?” Vanya opened her mouth unleashing an ear-splitting screech.
Jerlo covered his ears as her banshee wail drove him to his knees. The rising surf soaked his pants sending a chill up his spine. Beside him, the wall shifted, raining dust on his head. He scrambled out of the way and swayed. Blood crawled down the side of his face. Damn it. His ear drum must have been damaged.
Cinderblock arms thrust through the wall as a woman made of mortar and stone shook her rocky head. Pivoting on her cement legs, she grasped the bars of Hadrovel’s cell and ripped them out. The psycho ducked past her brandishing a bench. He swung it, hitting the creature in its stomach, splintering the board. It smiled displaying a mouth of moldy pebbles as Hadrovel backpedaled and slipped on the wet ground. He threw a shoulder into the barred door of the cell across from his to regain his balance, and a meaty hand shoved Jerlo forward.
“What are you waiting for? Stab her with your pointy thing.”
Jerlo slid deeper into the ankle-deep water as he brought his crucifix-topped rod up. Before he could strike, Cinderblock backed away.
“Get them!” Vanya howled.
A watery fist punched Jerlo in the chest sending him flying. His back struck Hadrovel, and they went down in a sprawl. Their wet clothes slicked the stones further up the incline making rising difficult.
Vanya smiled. She gestured to the water, which had reached her knees, and it jetted toward them like a self-propelled mallet. This time he and Hadrovel ducked and the water smashed through a wall, soaking them.
A cinder block arm swung at Jerlo and missed when he bowed low. Her melon-sized fist crashed into the wall behind him collapsing it. Jerlo dodged head-sized chunks of stone to avoid broken bones. Soaked and shivering, he kept backing away from the loud banging of Cinder’s passage. Her momentum had carried her into another cell and through its back wall into another compartment.
Vanya’s grin twisted into a grimace. Her lips were pale and turning bluish, or maybe that was the effect of the witch-light bobbing on her outstretched hand. Its blue flame guttered then flared as she fed it power. The remnants of her purple skirt floated around her submerged legs like discarded petals in the waist-deep water. Gooseflesh pebbled her exposed breasts hardening her nipples until they strained at the fabric of her dress.
“We should take this somewhere drier,” Vanya said through teeth that had begun to chatter.
“With an audience,” Snake Woman added. If the cold or the water bothered her, she didn’t show it. “Such destruction deserves an audience, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do. Shall we? My boat’s waiting.” Vanya held out her arm to Snake Woman who with a shrug, accepted it. “Cinder—be a good minion and bring down the prison, eh? Make them really work for their escape.” Vanya blew a kiss to the cinder block horror emerging from the remains of a cell then plucked her thigh bone torch from the water. She transferred the witch-light to it, and the wet cloth sputtered and smoked until it lit. A moment later, Vanya and Snake Woman turned a bend, plunging them into darkness.
“We have to go now,” said a man who wasn’t Hadrovel.
Jerlo fumbled for the pouch with the star globe, but he hadn’t hooked it to his belt. Something floated past his leg, shocking it. When he bent to rub his knee, a leather pouch butted against his hand. He seized it and withdrew the star glass. White light lit a face coalescing from a collection of insects. They writhed into the broad planes of a man’s features. Instead of legs, he was riding the tide on a raft of water striders.
Behind him, a silver-eyed woman in a rat-skin cloak gestured to Jerlo with gloved hands. He noted her singed fingertips when she shaded her eyes. Unlike her companion, she did possess a set of fine-looking legs, goose-pimpling as the cold water crept up her thighs and soaked the hem of her tunic. They both wore crude belts with wooden stakes dangling from the loops. So they were his mysterious benefactors.
“I know another way out,” the silver-eyed woman said.
Jerlo nodded for her to lead the way. Before she could, a wall toppled revealing Cinder. The stone golem grinned as she crouched low then exploded upward, headbutting the ceiling.
“Run!” the silver-eyed woman grabbed Jerlo’s arm and pulled him out of the way.
“Yes run,” Cinder said in a grating voice. “Die running like rats!” She cackled as she yanked on sections of whatever was above the oubliette, collapsing it. Man-sized granite blocks tumbled into the water kicking up waves that crashed over them.
Another loud bang sent a wall of water over Jerlo’s head. He struggled until a hand seized the back of his tunic. Hadrovel dragged him coughing and sputtering out of the water as another section collapsed. The fiend let go as soon as a shocked Jerlo regained his footing.
“Can’t let my one shot at an early release drown, now can I?” Hadrovel winked then shoved Jerlo to get him moving.
Shaken by the unexpected save, Jerlo slogged on without comment. One good deed didn’t cancel out the wagonload of bad that fiend had meted out. But it was disturbing.
Insect Man reshaped himself into a hovering, man-shaped cloud. He lifted a bedraggled, silver-eyed woman until her head cleared the water, and her feet found purchase.
Cracks spread as they pushed on, soon outpacing them. Debris showered them until the tunnel forked. Jerlo followed the woman in a soaked rat-skin cloak around a left turn and up a steep incline leaving the frigid water behind, but not the cool damp of this subterranean hellhole. Hadrovel and Insect Man pulled up the rear.
The tunnel stayed narrow for at least a half mile. Then it belled out suddenly dumping them into a large chamber. Rope bridges crisscrossed the open space between columns whose capitals had been carved into animal heads. A fountain burbled from the center of the fane. On the ceiling, a mural depicting the old gods—the Illuminator of the Future with her lamp, Prince Death and so many others ringed a central figure with a flowing white beard. He was all men and none of them. His hand was painted in such realistic detail, he seemed to reach out of the mural.
“What is this place?” Jerlo stepped onto uncomfortably warm tiles and crouched to pull his soaked boots back on.
“It’s holy ground consecrated to the old gods,” Rat Woman said from behind him. She hadn’t entered the chamber, neither had anyone else.
“Pagan gods you mean,” Jerlo grunted as he tied a knot then straightened. The tiles warmed his now shod feet, pushing back the cold numbness.
“Who are you?”
“Friends of a friend—all you need to know is that we’re here to help.” She nodded to Insect Man, whose back boiled until a set of transparent wings shot out. A buzzing broke the stillness as he rose.
“What should I call you?”
Her doughy face turned thoughtful as she exchanged a glance with her companion.
“Rat Woman and Insect Man has a nice ring to it,” the hovering green-faced man said, gesturing to the silver-eyed woman, who nodded.
“Yes, those will do for now.”
A loud bang made them jump. Rat Woman and her friend spun, claws extended. Insect Man floated up and released a rope ladder.
“Did the demon touch you?” Rat Woman asked.
“Which one—the Snake Girl or the demon in the purple dress?”
“Snake Woman isn’t a demon,” Insect Man hissed.
“Then what is she?” Jerlo’s eyes widened as the answer dawned on him. “She’s like Cinder and so are you.” He backed further onto ground consecrated to a fallen pantheon.
“Yes and no. Yes, she’s a minion like us, but we three,” Rat Woman gestured between herself and the hovering Insect man, “were made by another demon. Don’t worry. Our maker is gone. We’re free to choose our own destiny now.”
“We don’t have time for explanations. Did the other woman touch you?” Insect Man dropped down but kept his feet well clear of the floor. His compound eyes studied Jerlo. “She did touch you. I can see her mark.”
“What are you talking about?” Jerlo felt for his cross then recalled that Vanya had knocked it out of his hand. He stared at them in horror.
Cinder chose that moment to knock down a wall. Her cinder block chest heaved and oh my God, were those real breasts protruding over quartz studded abs? They were gray and pitted like breasts molded from concrete with moss covering her erect nipples. Her black and white stippled torso belled out into twin ball-jointed hips. Her kneecaps seemed to glide over her rock-pile legs allowing them to bend at unnatural angles as she charged.
“Climb.” Rat Woman shoved the rope into his hands. “Hurry.”
Before Jerlo could do anything, a giant hand seized the rope. Hadrovel shouldered him aside and started climbing.
“Nothing personal, but I’ve waited years for this.”
“You always were a bastard.” Jerlo removed his grappling hook, snapped up its prongs and unwound his rope. With one good toss, he hooked a rope bridge halfway across the chamber and swung over the fountain. Behind him, Cinder tore through the fane, clotheslining everything in her path.
“The chair—land on the chair. It’s not part of the original shrine, so it’s not consecrated. Don’t touch the altar.” Rat Woman pointed then Cinder body slammed a column crushing the chair.
Insect Man grasped Rat Woman’s outstretched arm and swung her at the minion pummeling the rubble into dust. Rat Woman struck Cinder’s bowed back, and Cinder face-planted on the tiles, screaming as smoke poured off her exposed skin. Steam curled up from Rat Woman’s boots as she leaped onto the lip of a fountain then caught the rope Jerlo was climbing.
He reached the rope ladder and steadied himself on the swaying pots and pans strung together to create this platform. “Give me your hand!”
Rat Woman did, and he hauled her up.
“Which way?” Hadrovel asked from a parallel rope bridge.
“Follow me,” said Insect Man as he buzzed past into a connecting chamber.
“Don’t touch the floor until we can rid you of the demon’s mark.”
Nodding, Jerlo held to the shaking guide ropes as Cinder rammed another column, cracking the ceiling. Large chunks of a mosaicked face glanced off the bridge.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 55