by Leyton, Bisi
“How does it work?” she asked.
He put the necklace in his pocket. “Allow me renew you and I will tell you. Make love to me and I will give it to you.”
“What will you do if I spit in your face?”
“For a Dy’obeth, that is flirting.” He jeered and tugged on her arm to make her leave the room. “We need to go.”
Forcing herself not to move, he spun around and knocked her to the ground.
“You cannot fight me. You do that and you will get hurt,” he yelled.
“Then release me.” She scrambled up.
“I will never let you go and if you are determined to act like a child and hurt yourself, I will tie you up.” He pushed her down again.
She immediately scrambled up, but Felip knelt over her and pinned her back to the ground.
“Get away.” She kicked him, but he didn’t move. “Felip get the hell away from me.”
“I warned you.” He dragged her body toward him.
She cried out as her skin scraped against the stone floor. “Okay, I’m going to stop fighting. I’ll do whatever you say.” Her voice wavered. “Felip, you swore you’d never hurt me.”
His dark eyes, lustily met hers. “And I swear,” he whispered as he ran a hand under her dress and up her inner thigh. “This is not going to hurt.”
“Go to hell!” She spat in his face.
Letting go, he grimaced and pushed her down again as his eyes turned yellow. “I told you that for a Dy’obeth that is actually a turn on.”
They stared at each other in silence.
What was wrong with him? She’d never been so terrified, even after everything the empirics did to her. Closing her eyes, she tried not to cry in front of Felip.
“This is not what we are going to do now.” Rising, he pulled her up. “I am—I got carried away.”
Standing up, she adjusted her dress.
“You okay?” He inspected her.
She didn’t move.
“Wisteria?”
There seemed to be no point in talking to him. He wasn’t like Bach—Felip actually wanted to hurt her.
“Am I going to have to tie you up or are you going to behave?” He placed his finger on her top lip.
“Bach is going to kill you.”
“No, he is not a killer. Even as a Dy’obeth, he is weak,” Felip scoffed. “This way.” He gestured down the hall.
Obediently, she went in the direction he ordered and they marched on without a word. She soon realized they weren’t returning back to Alba and the others. They were heading to the main entrance and entered the corridor that led to the outer garden “Where are we going?”
“Home. Alba has everything under control,” he said.
The main door didn’t open
“Alba, open the door,” he commanded.
“Alba don’t let him out,” muttered Wisteria.
“Why do you think she would ever listen to you?”
The door opened a few inches, stopped, opened again and closed.
“Alba, seriously?” He hissed. “Get this bloody thing open, or I will come down there and break you.”
The door opened and closed.
Alba’s avatar materialized in the corridor. “Felip, something is wrong with me.”
“Open the damn door,” he yelled. “Qwaynide, is it that hard?”
“Beloved, I am losing control of the avatars.” Alba’s avatar looked at her stone hands. “Sentries are coming to stop you from leaving Felip.”
“Why are you doing this?” Felip marched up to the avatar. “Stop them.”
“I cannot.” Alba’s voice echoed through the hall.
Felip turned to look at Wisteria. “What did you do?”
“When the archive realized Alba was renewing Robinia? The Hall of Ages defended itself by making Alba the interface and processing center of the Hall of Ages,” Wisteria recalled what she’d read on the glass walls. “The Hall of Ages ran scenarios and decided it was best to take control of Alba.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, Robinia didn’t control the Hall of Ages, the Hall of Ages controlled her. She wasn’t even the brain, but simply an interface or the heart.”
“You are wrong. This is a glitch. Alba will evolve.”
“She won’t. That was why I held Garfield back. I read the glass screens.” She smiled. “They told me what was going on.”
Felip ran his hands through his hair.
“Wait, you couldn’t read that language.” Wisteria realized aloud. “You can’t read the First Pillar’s language. Basically, in time she’ll do whatever I say and protect me and then the sentries are going to find us right here.”
“D’cara.” Storming at her, he paused. “You have not won. Alba is still fighting for control, so we’ve got some time. Alba, if I say in here, I will die. You have got to open the doors now. If you love me, you will do this,” Felip shouted.
The doors slid to the side, but not very wide.
He shoved Wisteria through the doorway and followed. Quickly, he produced a shard of dark glass.
“Mistress, should I activate the exterior sentries?” Alba’s avatar appeared on the grounds.
“Yes, Alba,” Wisteria ordered. “Felip can’t leave.”
“Of course Mistress and please my name is Nevena,” the avatar replied in a sweet tone.
In a flash, Felip placed the dark glass on the door they’d just left.
The ground around them started to shake as stone sentries emerged.
The dark glass grew, creating a threshold.
Focusing on the glass exterior, she tried to recreate her own threshold. She intended to send Felip somewhere he could never leave. Closing her eyes, she concentrated and the glass shattered, but she grew too tired from the fighting to do anything.
“We are not going there today Peeka.” Felip flung her into his threshold.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They murdered my Mosroc
Storming into the dingy bridewells below Mirrin Castle, Bach made his way to the cell he’d set aside for his special prisoner. At the stone doors leading to the cells, he met two of his Drones who stood guard. “Where is he?”
“Eminent.” The first Drone, Mina, bowed and pulled the door open. “He is waiting for you.”
Bach smirked at her. He’d turned her into a Drone personally because she’d worked with Didan to kill Wisteria.
“What has he told you?” Bach asked as he entered.
“Nothing at all Eminent.” Mina walked beside him. “He is very stubborn.”
Entering the room, he saw Drones, also ex-empirics, dressed in light grey overcoats violently interrogating a man who hung upside down. His long dark hair mixed with blood dripped on the ground.
The prisoner had quarter ton weights tied to his hands and he groaned as he refused to answer any of the Drones’ questions.
“Leave us, everyone get out,” Bach ordered.
The Drones scurried away.
Walking up to the prisoner, Bach crouched in front of him until they were face to face. “Enric, what are you planning?”
Enric hung unmoving. His face so badly beaten, Bach could barely recognize him.
“Answer me!” Bach pulsed him.
Enric shrieked. “What are you talking about? You are paranoid”
“You, Lluc and Wisteria, what were you planning?” Bach grabbed Enric’s face. “Do that and I might make you a Dy’obeth.”
Enric shook his head slowly. “I never wanted to be one of you. Wisteria was supposed to free your mind from whatever Coia did to you.”
“You tricked me into taking her back, so she would destroy me. You failed.” Bach punched Enric in the face repeatedly.
“If I wanted to destroy you, I would tell the Dy’obeths about Wisteria. I am trying to help you.”
“If you want to leave alive, you will tell me what you are planning next?”
Enric coughed, spraying blood on Bach’s chest. “I have
nothing to say.”
“I would pummel your face in the ground, but I would much rather listen to your screams as the empirics work on you until she shows up to rescue you.”
“I made her believe I betrayed her, so she does not trust me. No matter what you do to me it will not make her come—you have no leverage.” He choked out a laugh.
The animal taunts us. Bach rose. “Then I will bring her family from Terra and send them in bits to the gates of the Hall of Ages.”
“Send Dy’obeths to the Isle of Smythe? Sen Beraz and High Father will be glad to cleanse the little island and bring back Wisteria’s family as long as you can explain that you need them alive as bait for your Terran girlfriend.”
“Terran girlfriend?” Beraz stood at the entrance of the cell as he dropped Mina’s limp body.
“Beraz, you were ordered to stay on Sable Mountain, so there would not be another revolt.” Bach marched up to Beraz preventing him from entering the cell. “You have no business here.”
“Coia’s my sister and this is her castle, so I can go wherever I like. Now, I want your prisoner to tell me what he meant about this Terran you care for so much.”
“What I do with my prisoner is none of your concern.”
“You are my concern.” Taking out a danor, Beraz jabbed Bach with it.” Especially, if you are debasing yourself for Rats.”
“Maybe if your breath did not stink of the ass of a skrell, I might consider what you asked. Now, get out of my face.” Seizing the knife, Bach flung it out of the room.
“Or what? I am the Sen of the Third Pillar. You are a little boy who hides behind his mother’s skirt.” Beraz clutched Bach’s neck. He was significantly stronger than he’d been days before. “You have nothing on me, but you have been hiding far too much.”
Bach couldn’t pry the Dy’obeth’s fingers from his neck as easily as he done once before.
“I would kill you, but I am curious to learn from your friend who this Terran you love so much is,” Beraz he let go.
“Beraz, I told you to leave this place.” Bach forced him against the wall. “What goes on in here is my business.”
“If you have communed with the Rats, then that is my business.” He paused as the gravity of the news set in. “Which explains why you never wanted someone as beautiful as Maniko. Do you wash in acid after she has touched you or do you fully regenerate to purge yourself of her filth?”
Kill him now. Let this be the first blood. We cannot wait any longer, the darkness whispered. Bach massaged his temples remembering Wisteria’s touch. “I have always wanted to ask you the same question about Maniko.”
“After I disposed of Didan, I reflected on what he said and remembered once, your mother got caught up with a Terran Rat. More mouse than man.”
“The one you killed.”
“Naturally.” Beraz shoved Bach back.
“I am sorry,” Bach said quietly.
“Sorry?” Beraz scoffed. “Your milk-hearted words won’t change anything. It makes it more pathetic that you result to begging, like a Terran jaga.”
“I am sorry because you will never reach High Father.” Bach ran up to him, ramming Beraz through the walls of the torture chamber. “You will die here.”
“Boy, you can’t harm me.” Beraz grunted when they landed in the adjacent room. He threw Bach back.
Careening across the empty cell, Bach stopped himself by digging his hands into the ground ripping up the stone floor in the process. He launched forward at Beraz. Picking up a stone block, Bach flung it at him.
Beraz dodged the first projectile, but wasn’t fast enough to miss the second and third from Bach. The blocks shattered into tiny pieces when they hit Beraz, and succeeded in knocking him to the ground.
Speeding up, Bach threw more bricks at Beraz as he neared him, before finally beating him with a series of rapid blows to the man’s head and chest.
Beraz struck back with equal speed and determination. “It is over for you. High Father will destroy you.”
“But you will not be here to see it.” Grabbing Beraz’s hair, he flipped him onto his front and then repeatedly drove his face into the hard ground. “I am going to make sure this is your last day alive.” He was about to stomp on the back of Beraz’s head, when his mother came in.
“Coia, help me.” Beraz moaned.
“Bach, stop,” she ordered.
“I am almost done.” Bach panted.
“No, you are done now.” She pulled Bach away. “This is not how it is supposed to happen.”
“He has learned about my bond with Wisteria. If he lives, he will go to High Father and everything we have planned will fail.” Bach kicked Beraz repeatedly.
She scowled at Beraz and then said to Bach, “When Wisteria took your brother I had to move up my timetable. You will get your chance to settle up with Beraz very soon, but I want him to be a witness before he dies.”
“Coia what is this? You were aware of his treachery?” Beraz rasped.
“No, he dies now,” Bach’s darkness drew out Beraz’s sword. Bach stabbed him in the heart.
“Bach, what have you done?” His mother gasped. “I said—”
“You said our mate would be here. She is not,” Bach’s darkness replied. “I have no interest in games. I am going to get her, kill Felip and then come back to watch Aleix die.”
“You kill Felip and everything is over. High Father will win and your beloved will die as uselessly as mine have,” his mother warned.
“Why is Felip so important to you?” Bach screamed as he threw the knife down beside Beraz’s twitching body.
“He is bringing an artifact from the Hall of Ages. Galahad’s talisman, it will enable you to finally possess your mate and anyone else you desire. Even the Mosroc will not stop you from renewing her under the light from Galahad’s talisman.”
Images of what the darkness wanted to do to Wisteria or rather what he’d have her do to him flashed in his mind. The pictures became more violent as the darkness took over. “We will be able to renew her?”
“You can do whatever you want to her and she will thank you for it.”
“I do not want to hurt her,” Bach admitted. “But I feel nothing will make me happier.”
“You are a Dy’obeth, the fantasies of killing her are natural and beautiful, so embrace it. To us death is the purest form of love and hate.” She grimaced down at Beraz. “Something you took away from me.”
“You both are going to rot when High Father—” Beraz managed to shout before his mother covered his mouth.
“Save your strength,” she said softly. “There will be plenty of time for talking.”
Bach folded his arms and watched his mother almost tenderly whisper something to Beraz. “Mother, if you need him alive regenerate him, but I will end his life again.”
“Beloved, you will not have to wait long.” She sent a small burst of healing light though Beraz. “This ends tonight.”
*****
“I promise, this is temporary,” Felip assured Wisteria as he dumped her in a concrete cell. “Once everything is settled, you will be free to go.”
She’d no clue in which realm she was. Since she didn’t sense any Ninth Metal, she wasn’t in Jarthan.
“And by free?” She stood as far away from him as she could. “You don’t mean I can return to Smythe. Am I going to be free to be your Thayn or slave?”
“Wisteria—” he paused as he stood in the cell with his hands in his pockets. “Please do not talk like that. You make it sound as if I get some thrill in leaving you down here,” he spoke with a level of sincerity and innocence that almost seemed believable.
“If you didn’t…I wouldn’t be here.”
“You are here, so you will be safe. I cannot do what I need to do and worry about what is happening to you. You might not understand, but we will have the rest of our lives to make sense of this.”
“Are you completely insane? We’ll never have a life together—ever!”
/>
“What? You think Bach’s going to stop me? Peeka, After tonight, he will not be our problem.”
“You’re going to kill him?”
“Let us not use such ugly words.” He stroked her shoulder. “He is almost consumed by his darkness. Soon, all he will be is a homicidal mess.”
“But you have the same darkness in you. Your eyes turn yellow like his.”
“Well,” he leered. “I understand my darkness and it understands me. Your boy is far too childish to appreciate his inner dark, so he fights it. The more he fights it, the greater the dark becomes.”
“You gave into yours?”
“Decades ago, I am my dark self and he is me, but this is not supposed to be a lesson on my heritage.” He tilted her head up. “All your questions about me will be answered and hopefully a few of mine about you.” He kissed her lips.
She did feel extremely tired, but his words gave her the strength to force herself away.
“You bit me?” He let go.
“The First Pillar is more powerful than the Family and the Dy’obeths. I’m going to stop you.”
“You are not the First Pillar. You are a girl who had a very powerful father and your father is gone. Perhaps you can shout really loudly and the First Pillar will miraculously come and help you.”
“Maybe I should.” Was there a way for her to contact her own people?
Looking a bit unsettled, he said nothing more.
“Scared they might show up?” She quipped.
“No.” He reverted back to his cocky self. “Even if they wanted to, they will not come because of the Palm Sunday Treaty.”
“How many more of the First Pillar is there?”
“I am tired of talking about this. I am going to be late to a meeting upstairs, but I will be back when I am done.” Leaving, he pulled the heavy metal door shut.
*****
Bach and Malcolm made their way through the Trogia Palace to the main hall.
The magnificent Palace had once been the political nerve center of the Family but was now the seat of High Father’s council of Seven Elders. The only Famila present were brain-dead Drones.