by Sunny
“Yes, that’s the portal that will take you home.” Perhaps.
With a touch of my power, I brought the portal forth. It shimmered into visibility, a white wall of mist the size of a doorway.
Jonnie gasped.
I threw a cone of silence about us and turned to Nico. “You have a choice,” I said. “You do not have to come with Talon and I.”
“The choice that you speak of will only allow me to die here.” Nico shook his head. “I have a chance of surviving this. Slim, but still a chance. Correct?”
I inclined my head. “Yes, you have a chance, and not as slim as you believe. I told you before that no Monère has ever survived the trip down to Hell. What I did not say was that a Mixed Blood Queen recently did. She survived the trip, not just once, but twice.”
“A Mixed Blood,” Jonnie with surprise.
“Yes, but she was three-quarters Monère. Only a fourth of her was human. I would not advise that you ever risk the trip, Jonnie.”
The young man’s lips kicked up into a crooked smile, just like Stefan’s. Not genetics but the natural emulation of the man he admired and patterned himself after. “Don’t worry, Princess. I’m happy where I am.”
I turned once more to Nico. “It’s the heat, I believe, that kills the Monère. They cannot withstand it. Mona Lisa, the Mixed Blood Queen, was able to, though. And I believe you may be able to, also.”
“Because of our bond,” Nico said.
“Yes, because of our bond. Your skin is warmer, no longer cool. You were comfortable in the heat Talon and I generated beneath the blankets.”
“Didn’t even break a sweat,” Nico said with a little smile. It was odd hearing such a human phrase coming out of his mouth, especially with that Continental accent, but no odder than the other strange things the poor warrior was experiencing because he’d tried to save me. He’d succeeded, and I hoped I could do the same for him.
“Hold on to me,” I said, “both you and Talon. Do not let go until we emerge from the portal.”
“Because?” Nico queried.
“Do you really want to know?”
He smiled mockingly. “Unfortunately, yes.”
And so I explained. “Portals come in various strengths, and require a matching strength in those who would use them to traverse the realms. The older portals require the most power. The newer portals, those only a few centuries old, need less power to travel them, thus are more frequently used.”
“And this portal?” Nico asked.
“Is one of the most ancient. To my knowledge, only Halcyon and I, the High Lord, and one or two rulers before him, have ever used this portal.”
Stefan finally asked the question the others were wondering by now. “What happens to those who don’t have enough power to safely traverse a portal?”
“We never see them again.”
Nico blew out a breath. “Ah, hell,” he muttered, then grinned.
“Which is where we are trying to go. Is it safe for you to use this portal, Princess?”
“I’ve used it several times before,” I said, skirting a direct answer, because I could not answer his question with certainty anymore. I did not know if our bond had changed things for me. And I didn’t have the luxury of time to seek out another, safer portal.
Nico didn’t notice my slight evasion, but Stefan did. His eyes focused on me. I feared he would say something, but he only gripped my shoulders lightly, bent down and brushed his lips against mine in a kiss so fleeting and soft, we barely touched. “Promise me,” he said. “Promise me you’ll try to come back.”
“I promise,” I said, looking up into his eyes.
“Safe journey, Princess,” he said, releasing me. “Safe journey to you all.”
I held out my hands to the other two. Talon and Nico stepped to my side and folded their palms around mine. If their grips were uncomfortably tight—and mine was painfully so around theirs—no one said a word as we walked into that misty wall.
With unhurried deliberation, we stepped into that powerful field of energy, and I prayed as I had not prayed in a long time. Mother of Darkness, Mother of Light. Please help us.
The mist enveloped us and swept us away.
Twenty-nine
I gasped. Not with fear but with surprise because it hurt. Blood of a cursed troll, it hurt! A prickling pain like a swarm of bees buzzing over your skin, stinging you.
“Holy night, that’s uncomfortable,” Nico muttered, beside me. “Is it always like this?”
“No.”
Anxiety filled his eyes. “In this case, it might have been better if you had lied.”
“Oh!” I gasped again at the stinging discomfort, and looked to the other in our triad. “How are you doing, Talon?”
“It hurts,” he said quietly. Only his eyes betrayed the pain he was experiencing.
“Your body’s relaxed,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“It doesn’t help if you tense up. Only makes the pain worse.”
What had Talon gone through to have learned something like that? Derek, you bastard. You have a lot to account for. And Mona SiGuri. Her, too, most definitely.
We arrived, less smoothly than I would have liked, but we made it, tumbling out of the portal onto hard ground, a tangle of bodies and one loud pounding heartbeat.
I rolled us free of the portal, and slapped a sound barrier around us, praying that nothing nearby had heard that one thumping beat of life that had so loudly disturbed the stillness of Hell’s hot air for a trembling moment.
I glanced anxiously at Nico. Found him staring back at me. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Hot, a little hard to breathe, as if the air is heavier here, more dense. But I seem to be fine.”
I relaxed. Prematurely.
Talon began to shake, faint tremors that quickly grew in force, as if each one that followed didn’t just double in intensity but magnified ten times. He shook like a glass of water jarred by the footfalls of a large and heavy creature. Just a ripple at first, then growing successively stronger and more violent until it was like waves slapping against the shore, pounding it. I swiftly untangled us and laid Talon flat. Tried to straighten his limbs as best as I could. But I had to fight the stiffness, the almost harsh rigor that gripped him and shook him mercilessly.
“Talon, what’s happening?” I asked. But if he knew, he was unable to tell me.
“What’s wrong?” Nico asked, laying his hands over mine, connecting us all. But the open ties between us did not help Talon. He continued to shake. And not just shake, but spasm.
Then the sound began: the crackling of bone. That wet and familiar sucking sound of flesh slowly changing, distorting, bones reshaping. The sound a new demon made when he shifted slowly into his demon beast form for the very first time. Talon, though, was not a demon. Yet he was shifting. Or doing something similar.
His black skin rippled, and the snapping and crackling of bone beneath our hands was as sickening to feel as it was to hear. His body shuddered and spasmed with such force that he almost shook us off. I would have called it convulsions in a human, but Talon was awake, alert. Poor bastard. It would have been kinder had he not been.
Talon’s mouth jerked open, and I slapped my hand over it. Told him in a rush, “Don’t scream. You can’t scream. Not with the sound barrier around us. It’ll reverberate back on us, and maybe kill us or, even worse, knock us out, and break the cone of silence, letting Nico’s living heartbeat call everything to us like a dinner bell.”
I didn’t know what to do if Talon screamed. Keep the cone of silence intact or release it? He didn’t make me choose. Eyes brimming with agony, he held back that awful echolating screech he was capable of generating, and let sound escape from him in a high keening wail instead. A sound that raised the hair on the back of my neck.
It was the noise that a creature being beaten horribly would make; something tied with nowhere to run, only able to quiver and bear the blows that pummeled it. A high, hopeless wa
iling of something could only take the pain and try to endure it.
“Sweet merciful Mother,” Nico muttered.
But whatever held Talon was far from merciful. In great shuddering jerks, as if invisible hands gripped him at both ends, he slowly, agonizingly stretched out. His bones cracked, lengthened and widened, and that dark form grew longer in powerful wrenching spurts. His shoulders widened and his length increased until with one last painful snap and crackle of bone, one last high keening shriek ripped from his throat, it stopped and silence reigned.
He didn’t move, he didn’t breathe. Then he stirred and turned toward me, and what I saw stunned me. It was like looking into the face of another person.
His skin was still like darkest night, his eyes the same jet black. But all else had changed. That unfinished look, the look of youth not fully grown was gone, and in its place was the final product as nature had intended it. Maturity marked his face now … a broader, wider face. The nose was taller, the mouth wider, fuller, the cheekbones more prominent, beautifully sculptured. All in perfect proportion to a body that was longer now, without that stunted shortness.
“Can you sit up, Talon?” I asked.
“I think so.” His voice, too, had changed. It had the same belllike melody, but was an octave lower in register, a deep baritone instead of a high tenor. His eyes rounded at the sound of his new voice, and he sat up cautiously, looked down at his body with surprise.
“My hands are bigger.” He spread his fingers wide then measured them against mine. His fingers overlapped mine completely, almost obscuring the tips of my inch-long nails.
“My feet. They’re bigger too,” he said.
With Nico’s bracing support, he stood. To everyone’s surprise, he was taller than the Monère warrior. Just an inch taller, but it was a shocking reversal when just a moment ago, he had stood a whole head shorter than the other man.
“I’m taller than both of you,” Talon said, looking down at me with astonishment. Hearing himself again speak in that new, deeper voice, he started to laugh almost hysterically. Then sank to his knees as if they no longer supported him, and began to cry.
I took him into my arms, held him against me. “Shhh. It’s all right.”
“What happened to me?” Talon asked, bewildered.
I wondered the same thing myself. “I think your body changed once you entered this realm. Became what it should have been, what it was meant to be. You were stunted, unfinished before.”
“I know.” He pulled back, wiped the wetness from his face. “What does the finished me look like?”
“Like a man,” said Nico.
“A beautiful man,” I said.
No longer did his head seem overlarge atop a smallish body. The delicate features and build that marked all of his kind were still there, but now with everything in proportion, it was striking rather than frail looking. He was true Floradëur. A graceful stem of a flower.
Talon gave that half sob, half laugh again. Scrubbing his hands once more over his eyes, removing the last trace of tears, he gazed about him with awe and curiosity.
Hell was shadowed in dim twilight darkness, and the heat was oppressive. Overhead, an egg-yolk colored moon hung in the black velvet sky like a giant elliptical pupil, casting not silver rays but a yellowish light.
“Is that your moon?” Talon asked.
“Yes. Kantera, our second moon. It marks our midday.”
“You have more than one moon?”
“We have three. Sumera, a gray color closest to your Earth’s moon, rises in the beginning of the day. Rubera, our third moon, shines at night, red like the light Nico glowed with.”
“Where are we?” Nico asked.
“Not far from where we need to go. Can you walk, Talon?”
He nodded. “Oddly enough, I feel almost energized.”
“Stay close to me,” I told Talon, and held out my hand to Nico, ensuring that he remained within the cone of silence. His warm skin felt almost cool against the heat of my skin, which had risen several degrees higher upon arrival.
“Don’t worry, Princess,” Nico said with that mocking smile of his. “I plan to remain glued to your side.”
I led them across a tract of grassland onto an old, narrow path almost completely overgrown now, and tried to view the surroundings as Talon and Nico would see it. There was a hushed quality to the air as we traveled across the land, but signs of existence stirred every once in a while. A roco-rat scurried away when we stepped too near its hiding nest. A green serpent, soaking up the heat atop a rock, hissed at us with a red forked tongue when we disturbed its slumber. It flew off, carried by large iridescent wings like that of a giant dragonfly. A small furry animal hopped across our path, then stopped and eyed us curiously with big brown eyes, its long fluffy ears upraised, and stubby nose twitching.
“You have bunny rabbits down in Hell?” Nico asked, smiling.
“Hell hares. Not quite the same thing as their earthly cousins.”
Nico crouched down, extending a hand out to the fearless little animal. “Oh? In what way?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I warned.
He turned back to look at me. “Why not?”
“Because they …”
The Hell hare moved, striking so fast it was just a blur. Its long razor-sharp teeth snapped closed an inch away from Nico’s fingers, missing him only because I yanked him back, sprawling him onto the ground.
“What the hell?” Nico sputtered, eyeing the creature’s sudden transformation, from innocent bunny to scary predator, with shocked startlement.
“Exactly.” I flicked a mental warning at the hungry hare, and it darted away to seek easier prey. “That cute looking ball of fluff eats other little things down here like that serpent that just flew away.” I pulled Nico to his feet. “If you want to keep your fingers, I’d suggest that you don’t offer them up as an easy meal.”
Nico looked a bit pale. But then he would, compared to Talon and I. We continued down the path without further word or mishap until a black edifice loomed up before us, its twin towers reaching mournfully for the sky like dark stretching hands.
“What is this place?” Talon asked, his voice a hushed whisper even though, had he shouted, no one would have heard us, shielded as we were by the sound barrier.
“The High Lord’s private residence.” I halted and gazed up at the black stone structure. Memories both good and bad were associated with that towering construct. Much like my feelings for the man who lived there.
“Your father?” Talon asked.
“That is a matter debated by many.” I took a step forward and was brought up short. Nico stood on the grassy path, unmoving.
“Come on,” I said, urging him forward.
“Lucinda.” Nico’s eyes were fastened on the rising black monolith before us. “You just said that this is the High Lord’s private residence.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Nico swallowed. “Could we not go see your brother instead?”
“I would have preferred that myself. But this is closer, and we have arrived here safely. I need to tell someone about everything that has occurred.”
“All right,” Nico replied. But still he did not move.
I felt exposed standing like this, out in the open, flanked by a black Floradëur and a pale, living, breathing, heart-pounding Monère. Both were rare, never seen before by many. Wanted by all who saw them. We’d been lucky that no one had come upon us yet. But then, few demons dared trespass on the High Lord’s private lands, another reason I had chosen that portal.
With great reluctance, Nico allowed me to lead him to the front door made of a blue black metal alloy. I knocked. The door opened immediately.
A demon dead male of imposing height and freakishly lean build loomed over us like a physical echo of the mournful edifice he cared for, wearing his usual attire: starched white shirt, waistcoat, and duck-tailed jacket.
“Hello, Winston,” I said. He was close enough so
that he was within the sound barrier and could hear us.
The tall demon took in everything in one quick glance: my presence and that of my strange companions, my sound shield. His eyes widened only a tiny fraction.
He swung the door open and gestured us hastily inside without a word.
“Who’s Winston?” Nico whispered as we stepped inside.
“The butler of Darkling Hall.”
The interior was immaculately clean, furnished in heavy wood tones, accented with dark forest green and gold trim, unchanged from the four centuries since I had last set foot here. We watched as the gawkishly tall butler closed the heavy door. He pressed something, and the walls trembled and ground quaked … soundlessly. Winston’s mouth moved.
“What did he do? What is he saying?” Talon asked fearfully, his tall body pressed up against mine. It was a little disorienting to have to look up to him.
“He set the wards. Now nothing can enter or leave here until they are released. As for what he’s saying …” I dropped my shielding. “I think he was just telling me we can speak freely now, that no one can hear us.”
“Correct.” Winston bowed, stiff and formal. “Princess Lucinda, you and your guests are welcome here.”
“Thank you, Winston. Is the High Lord up?”
“Yes, I no longer sleep away the days,” a voice said from the grand staircase. As he slowly walked down, it was as if a deity descended from heaven. An odd thought to have for the ruler of Hell. But then Blaec had always seemed bigger than life—or death—to me. Others might see a simple man of average height and lean build, dark of hair except for the solid silver wings flaring at his temples. It was in his eyes, however, where the true weight of his years rested. Eyes dark brown like Halcyon, like myself, but with a chilly remoteness, an impartiality, a blankness. Disengaged eyes that had slowly withdrawn from me and the rest of the realm, coldness filling in the space where emotion had once been. A seeping chill that had begun with my mother’s death, her final one, and become icier as the years passed, and I had lost what I had once loved most, a warm and happy man, the loving father that he had been, both in life and in death.