“He will destroy you, if you do not have the strength to destroy him first.” The Human looked sad for a moment, but the expression changed to something hard. “You know what you must do.”
What I should have done before. What I have had the chance to do twice now. Twice. She’d broken the geis twice. Had this woman seen that, too, while she’d healed her?
“Let me go,” Ayla whispered, and this time the woman did not argue with her. The air around them shimmered, the illusion of the sky and the field evaporating like steam, revealing a room as gray and dank as the rest of the Underground. The woman went to the door, a heavy, steel thing that scraped the concrete as it opened, and motioned for Ayla to exit first. The antechamber was just as she had remembered it, lit weirdly blue with glowing sigils painted on the walls and a number of creatures huddled on mismatched chairs around the perimeter. They looked at her impatiently as she walked toward the door to the Strip.
She turned. She’d almost forgotten about payment. The Guild would frown on her choice of healers—they would grumble that she should have returned to the Lightworld to be healed by a member of the Healing Guild—but they would cover the cost. “I will send someone with money for you,” Ayla said, standing straight and proud in front the pathetic creatures assembled there.
The woman nodded serenely. “You know what you must do.”
Ayla did know. And she would see it done sooner, rather than later.
Mabb’s rages, when they came—which was often—never lasted long. Garret was able to keep calm while she stormed about her bedchamber, dashing her rare and expensive luxuries to a pile of glass and precious scented oils on the ground. She would receive more, in a day or two, from the fawning pilgrims who awaited her long-withheld council.
She would never see them. The workings of the Lightworld would grind to a halt until she finished pitying herself.
“Sister, you are overreacting,” Garret soothed, his heart only half in it. The other half enjoyed seeing this loss of control over something he’d caused. “You knew what I planned.”
“But I did not expect she would have you!” Mabb sank to her knees, tears gliding theatrically down her white face. “I did not think it would be so soon.”
He went to her, wanting to break her neck, embracing her instead. “My sweet sister. Nothing has changed. You will always be first in my heart.” And I will be second to you in yours.
Childlike and sad, she lifted her face to his. “I have failed the realm.”
“You have not.” He stroked her hair, barely restraining himself from tangling his fist in it to jerk her head back. It would be so easy. Patience. Patience.
“I have. For a hundred years I’ve ruled here, a hundred more on our former plane. I do not grow old, but I do not grow young.” She sniffled pathetically. “I want a child. I want an heir.”
“You don’t need an heir. You’ll live forever.” And keep the throne to yourself, and make no move to recover the Upworld for us, until we both go mad from living down here like Dwarves in a mine. Immortality on the Astral plane was an endless feast of delights for the senses. Immortality in this mortal world was akin to living in a tomb. Surrounded by death, their ageless bodies didn’t have the sense to shrivel and die.
Mabb pushed him hard, toppling him into the pile of broken glass bottles. Cloying, sweet oil soaked into the sleeves of his robe as he caught himself on his elbows; he’d smell of the stuff for months.
“You’re trying to replace me!” she shrieked. “You think that you will be able to win the love of the Court with this…this half-breed! That they will tolerate her as their Queene!”
Be calm. You cannot reason with her when she is this way. “I think that you read too much into this. You know that I cannot be King unless you die…and I would not live without you. You are my only blood kin.”
“You cannot be King, because no King can rule! You want this Assassin to be Queene, so that you can use her like a puppet in my stead.” She stalked away from him, her hair lashing behind her like a pale wraith caught in a violent breeze. “Why else would you take a mate?”
“For companionship?” He tried to keep his voice even as he stood. Blood rolled down his arm beneath his long sleeves, and he shook his arm to flick it away. “I cannot find it quite as easily as you do.” He nodded toward the tapestry concealing the secret entrance to Mabb’s chamber.
She moved so quickly he had no chance to defend himself. It was easy to forget that, in days long past, she’d been a warrior first, a Queene second. Her long fingers slashed across his cheek, leaving three stinging trails of torn skin in their wake.
“How dare you!” She struck him again, her venomous claws raking his throat. “I am your Queene, not some common whore!”
“My dear sister.” He laughed softly and pressed two fingers to his cheek to check for blood there. “You are anything but common.”
“Guards!” she shouted, and his back stiffened. They entered the room immediately, four of them surrounding him. Their spears were held neutral, but their faces were hard.
Mabb stood between the two in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him to his knees. “Have your half-breed. But know that she will never claim the throne. They will never accept her! They will never love her enough to denounce me! You will never be anything but my slave. Any ambition you have will be subject to my whim, until the end of time!”
Or your life, Garret seethed. But it was not the time. Later, when his union with Ayla was complete, when his throne was secured. And then, dear sister, you will see what a powerful force ambition can be.
The Darkling had to be killed before she could return to the Lightworld. She had no illusions what would happen when she returned. Garret, no matter what he might promise, would not let her go on another assignment. And perhaps that was not the horror that it had first seemed. If she was no longer an Assassin, she could forget the shame of her broken vow and never find herself in the same position.
But before she could do that, she had to find the Darkling and kill him.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. The Darkworld went on forever, chaotic, unorganized, unmarked, and she did not know where the Death Angels hid themselves. This Darkling was wearing clothes since the last time she’d seen him, so he must have found a place to nest. And the best place to begin searching for him was where she’d last seen him.
The bodies of the demons she’d slain still lay on the floor of the tunnel, though one of them had been partially eaten by something. Ayla turned her face from the oozing corpses and pressed her hand to the tunnel wall, trying to absorb some energy from it, some hint of how to find the Darkling.
Something diseased and foul flashed through her, and she jerked her hand away. It could not have been residue from the Darkling. He was harmless. Mortal. And she’d touched him before. The energy in him had been nothing like this. It had been…
The memory scorched her, pulled blood to her skin, made her ripe to bursting. She pulled the dagger from her belt to give her fist something to clench around. There was no need to worry now about her response to the Darkling’s energy. He would be dead. As soon as she could find him.
He’d been intent on killing her, which meant he would not have given up following her. He had not known, of course, that she’d waited for him to pass before doubling back. So, she would go in that direction, the way she’d seen him running. She might find an energy trail that was not tainted by whatever had recently lurked here. And if she did not find him within an hour, well…he could not very well destroy her if she never returned to the Darkworld.
Tell Garret, a panicked voice in her urged. Tell Garret. He is your mate now; it is his duty to find this Darkling and kill him.
Ayla growled at herself, felt her antennae stir in agitation at her forehead. Garret was not her mate. He would be, when she accepted his proposal and went to his bed. But would he take a mate who’d broken the geis? It was difficult to know if Garret’s feelings for he
r ran true, or if he was merely seeking another pretty bauble to add to his collection.
She looked down at herself in dismay. She was no pretty bauble. Garret stood to impress no one by owning her. Still, his declarations of affection were not enough to risk confessing that she had broken her vow to the Faery Court.
It wasn’t her fear of losing the security Garret offered. She enjoyed being an Assassin. It would have been more enjoyable, though, if she’d been given any real hope of advancement. Perhaps, mated to Garret, she would be allowed a position as a mentor. But she did not need Garret to rescue her from her life. If he found out that she’d broken the geis, though, he could tell Cedric, the Guild Master, and she could lose her place in the Palace, even, perhaps, be banished from the Lightworld.
She shuddered at the thought. She’d lived on the Strip before. It would never happen again, so long as she had a sound mind.
If you had a sound mind, you would have killed the Darkling in the first place! she scolded herself. That mistake would soon be corrected.
She’d gone farther than she’d intended to when she reached a fork in the tunnel. The filthy energy she’d felt lingering near the bodies of the dead Demons made the air heavy, charged with a foreboding that crackled down her limbs. If the Darkling had come this way, he was most likely dead now.
Something squeezed inside her at that thought, and her heart beat out of rhythm. She used the Other Sight to examine the tree of her life force. All was well, vibrant green limbs arching within her, roots stretching to anchor her to the Earth. Outside of her body, though, was a horror beyond imagining. Oily, blue-black energy swam like water serpents in midair, menacing arcs and coils writhing all around the juncture of the tunnels. Ayla had seen this before, many times. Succubi and Incubi, the shape-shifting Demons that preyed on the lust and sexual energy of their victims, polluted everything they touched, even the air, with their foulness. They were a common nuisance to an Assassin in the Darkworld; the Guild would thank her for killing it.
She scanned the area, unease growing in her chest. There was something else here, something familiar and uncomfortable. The dark energy emanated strongly from a spot on one of the tunnel walls, twined with a faint scarlet.
In her shock, Ayla flew out of the Other Sight. She couldn’t make out the creature. She conjured a sphere of light and threw it into the direction of the monster, and gasped at what she saw.
The Death Angel was there, his mortal skin gray, his face a twisted mask of agony. The Succubus clung to him, her greedy mouth inches from his, pulling a thin stream of crimson light from his lips. The creature’s naked legs wrapped around the Darkling’s hips, her scaly body split upon his flesh.
Ayla had disturbed the creature’s feeding. It turned, hissed, a move meant to intimidate the intruder so that it would flee and the monster could continue sating itself. Ayla flipped a dagger from her belt and leaped, screaming at the Succubus as the sphere of light faded above their heads. The thing matched the darkness, moved faster than Ayla expected. A flash of yellow eyes to her right. She turned, lashed out with the dagger. A spray of glowing yellow blood flashed through the dark. It was enough. The wounded creature screamed and fell to all fours, scrambling for escape. Ayla planted a boot on the creature’s back, pushing it flat. As the Succubus strained up, Ayla slid the knife under its arched neck and pulled. The thing screeched while it could, hissed as the blade pulled through its throat, and then the head flipped back. With a grunt of satisfaction, Ayla pulled until the clean white bone of the neck slid from the head with a sound of catching gears and sawed the last of the skin and sinew away. She lobbed the head as far as she could make it go, kicked the body from her feet.
The Darkling remained where he’d stood, supported only by the tunnel wall, his eyes squeezed closed, breath harsh as it scraped from his chest. He would not fight.
You could leave him, and he would die on his own. He will not recover from this attack. She shook her head, trying to force the traitorous thought from her mind. She had thought to leave him to die before, but he had survived. To leave him now would be to break the geis a third time.
She wiped her dagger on her leather-clad thighs. It was an insult, somehow, to kill him with the blood of his attacker still on her blades. The Darkling groaned. His head fell forward and his body slumped as if he would fall.
Ayla caught him, careful not to stick him with her dagger and then feeling foolish that she’d taken such care when she would only ultimately kill him.
The moment she touched his skin, she knew her mistake. Even without the Other Sight, she knew the green sparks of her energy rushed to her skin to meet him, and the shock jolted through her. It took great effort to push herself away, and she felt the scorching pull as if something tried to ensnare her.
The Darkling fell to the ground, panting shallow breaths. His eyes opened to slits, then widened at the sight of her. “Enough of your tricks, beast. Kill me!”
The words sent a shiver of cold through her. Beast? Was that how she appeared to him? Then another icy chill gripped her, one of understanding. He thought she was the Succubus. Which meant…
“Hey!” A Human voice echoed off the walls of the tunnel, and Ayla dropped into a crouch, sliding slowly back. The Human wore a strange contraption on his head to illuminate the darkness. When the beam fell on Ayla he stopped. She saw his skinny neck move as he swallowed. He was afraid.
He should be. “You, stand where you are!” she called to him in his tongue, and it took him a moment to respond, as if he couldn’t understand her.
“What the hell are you?” He stepped closer, squinting.
Ayla clenched her fists. The Human’s curiosity overcame his fear, and that troubled her. “It does not matter what I am. Stand where you are!”
“Hey, I’m just looking for my friend, okay?” He turned his head and the light followed to fall on the Darkling. “I leave him alone for five minutes and this happens.”
“I did not harm him,” Ayla said quickly, before she knew why it was important to tell him. “It was a Succubus.”
The Human reached down to lift the Darkling by one arm. He was strong, stronger than Ayla would have expected from a Human. “Well, way to get yourself some, Malachi.”
Malachi? Ayla covered her mouth and shaped the name against her fingertips. What an ugly sound. Malachi.
“Hey, you. Help me get him to a healer.” The man paused in his struggle to get the Darkling to his feet. “You, winged thing. Bat girl? Let’s get moving.”
“I cannot.” Kill them! Kill them both now! she screamed frantically at herself. But the moment had passed. The chance was gone, and she’d broken the geis again. Still, she could not be seen helping two Darkworlders reach a healer, no matter how many times she ignored her vow.
The Human rolled his eyes and dropped the Darkling to the ground. “I’ll pay you. What do you want? Cigarettes? Food?” He looked her up and down, the light on his hat bouncing as he did, and Ayla had to shield her eyes. “A shirt?”
“I do not want any payment from you. I cannot help you.” She stood, started to walk away. The man put his dirty hand on her as she passed.
It took only a second for him to fall to the floor, beside the Darkling. The lighted hat knocked to the ground, the yellow beam rocking back and forth over the ceiling of the tunnel as it settled. His eyes were wide with fear above the blade pressed to his throat.
Faced with imminent death, the Human still bargained on behalf of the Darkling. “If you don’t help me get him out of here, he’s going to die. And when I got here, you didn’t look like you wanted him to die.” His gaze cast around, to the limp black hand of the headless Succubus only inches from his face. “Did you do that?”
Ayla nodded sharply. “I will kill…Malachi…next.”
“No, you won’t.” The Human swallowed carefully. “If you were going to kill him, you would have done it by now.”
Ayla pulled the blade away, narrowing her eyes. “What does it mat
ter to you if one Darkling is killed?”
“He’s my friend.” The Human extended his hand. “Like we’re gonna be friends, at least, until you can help me get him moved. My name is Keller.”
“Ayla,” she said in her language, her name the combined sound of a drip of water from a leaf after a rainstorm and the gentle rustle of wheat in a field. Or, so Garret had told her. He knew the meaning behind so many things, she never questioned him.
Keller twisted something on his imperfect Human face to make himself appear suddenly incredulous. It was a funny trick, one that explained how Humans could tell what they were feeling without use of antennae. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to pronounce that. You’re a Faery, aren’t you?”
She nodded, perplexed by this strange man.
“Then that, Faery, is what I’m going to call you.” He sat up and motioned to the Darkling. “Now, get your skinny ass in gear and help me.”
Eleven
T hey took the Darkling to the Human’s workshop. Ayla stood firm that she would not be seen on the Strip helping a denizen of the Darkworld. The Human did not understand. She did not expect that he could.
“Put him on the table,” Keller—another ugly name—told her, and she helped lift the Darkling onto the cold steel surface.
“He will not be comfortable there,” she observed, finding an overturned crate to use as a seat.
Keller frowned at her for no reason she could understand. “He’s dying. I don’t think it matters.”
“He should be comfortable while he dies.” The horrible twisting feeling returned, and she pressed a palm to her chest to ease it.
It will be over soon. Soon, he will be dead and you will be free. You will never have to tell anyone that you broke the geis.
But he did not die quickly. They waited for hours, the Human pacing, deliberating whether he could pay a healer to come into the Darkworld, Ayla watching the Darkling’s chest rise and fall with jerking motions that grew weaker and weaker, then renewed again as he fought to save himself. The Human finally adopted her pose, his eyelids drooping as he watched the Death Angel’s final struggles.
Queene of Light Page 8