He couldn't save Michelle. There wasn't enough time.
`Mason?' Renee glanced back at him. The world had almost stopped. Bemeon's ball of energy slid slowly through the air. Missiles hissed as they inched forward. `You doing that?'
`No,' Tashia stood beside him. Blood ran freely from her eyes as she pulled Eleanor off him. `Hurry, save her. I cannot do this for much longer.'
Mason didn't ask how she was doing it. Tashia began to grow older as he watched. The energy she was expending must have been immense.
`Michelle first. Then deal with Bemeon. It is important she lives, Mason.'
He took a step but Renee pulled him to a halt.
`You're not considering this? You have no idea what she has done over the centuries. Michelle nearly killed Ruth.'
He pulled free. `She'd done nothing I haven't already done.'
`What?'
`Ruth left me last year. In London. We'd argued. She'd had enough of the butchery. Ruth ran away with Wilson. I, Butcher followed them to the airport. I caught her.'
`But you're not a monster like Michelle. You chose not—'
`I didn't choose. Max shot me.' Renee had to understand why he would save Michelle. She deserved a second chance, like he'd had.
Michelle ran.
Away from the dark god, away from the darkness. The same darkness that had torn into her mind when Mari had cast her away. Cold fingers of dark energy had begun to unravel her, fingers that had prised open every part of her mind and begun to shred her very existence, fingers that had unlocked a part of her buried deep by centuries of the Bloodells' way.
Her true self had been freed. The false life she had been forced into burnt away.
She remembered her father and mother. The sister she had loved and the day the Bloodells had torn her family apart.
Her life had been a lie. The truth of who she was had burnt the lie from her mind.
Michelle Darkells found her true energy gift and would make him pay. The one who had destroyed her family and now wanted her daughter.
Bemeon.
CHAPTER 40
Ruth pulled her hand off the blast-proof glass of the ATV. A bitter cold had settled outside.
`How it this possible?' Sally asked beside her, pistol gripped tightly in her hand. `Mrs D?'
`No idea,' she said, touching her stomach. Mason still moved freely but the rest of the world seemed to have stopped. `But I can see some sort of missiles up there. Means we're staying in here for the moment.'
`What about,' Sally pressed closer to the window, eyes darting until she found Wilson, `everyone else? Won't they all die?'
`You have to trust them, Sal,' Ruth said trying to convince herself. Everyone she cared about stood outside, too.
Mason pulled away from Renee, launching himself at Michelle. His wings enveloped the priestess and the cold furrowed deeper into her; why would he do that?
`Mason isn't going to kill her, is he?' Sally asked.
`No.' Ruth didn't understand why he wouldn't finish Michelle, but his stance wasn't that of the killer she knew. What was he doing?
`Those things are starting to move,' Sally said, flicking the safety switch off.
The click cut though the quiet of the cabin, comforting Ruth. She looked at Sally, noticing her tight face and approving her steady hand. She'd rested the pistol on the dash of the ATV. `Did Wilson give them to you?'
`What? No.' She shook her head, eyes still on Wilson. `Max did. Wil nearly had kittens when I told him you'd trained me.'
`You think you're ready to use them?'
Sally moved until her body pressed against Ruth's side. `More than I expected. If Wilson hadn't made me come in here with you, I'd be out there with him.'
`He didn't make you do anything, girl.' Ruth looked through the glass as motion crept back into the world. `That voice in your head was me. Damned if I am going to see you try to prove how much you love him by getting yourself killed.' She touched her stomach again, feeling her daughter move. A low whine began to build outside.
`Thank you.' Sally touched her hand. `But if one of those Twisted things gets close to Wilson I'm out of here.'
Ruth smiled, absorbing the passion radiating from Sally as the frozen chaos began to move outside. `You and me both.'
Mason held Michelle in his arms, wings wrapping them in a snug cocoon. Time was short. Yet he paused, studying her — so much like her older sister Eleanor, but for so long tainted with a different energy.
`Taste me.' Michelle moved in his arms. `Tashia cannot hold the world back for much longer, then Bemeon's fire will find me whatever I do.' She looked up at him. `His fire will consume me and you have no defence to match it. That is his hidden gift, a fire that none other can repel except Bemeon himself.'
`I don't—' Mason screamed as Bemeon's fire slammed into him. Chaos resumed. Four missiles tore into Bemeon, the noise deafening, but failing to cover Mason's own wounded scream.
`Taste me!' Michelle writhed. She slipped her hand up between them and used her nails to slash her throat. Thick arterial blood splashed him. `His fire will kill us both. Unless you taste me and live.'
Mason buckled. His wings crumbled and white hot pain coursed through him. His scales were useless as armour against Bemeon's fire.
`For the sake of the goddess, grow some balls and accept what you are!' Michelle yelled, pulling his mouth nearer to her throat. She stretched up to meet him. `Take me, Hunter. Satisfy your revenge. I accept my fate. Accept yours.'
He tasted rich, hot blood. Incisors responded, growing. Jaws clamped down on her flesh and his arms tightened, squeezing. Blood flowed, then gushed. He would have her.
Nothing else mattered. The pain, noise and chaos vanished. The kill was everything. Bones snapped. Organs split. He felt and heard all. She thrashed in his arms. This one who had come into his home, had hurt Ruth. She would pay. Her blood was his.
She stopped moving, but Hunter didn't notice, tearing at her neck, taking it all. Hard flesh softened, her skin became loose. A rush of noise rose in his mind as he consumed Michelle's flesh and blood. Over it, a single sound echoed.
Bagpipes.
His head came up.
Cold air bit at his lips replacing the heat of her blood.
He looked down into eyes belonging to an old woman. She stared back, skin sagging and ancient. She lay broken in his arms.
`Now you are a true creature of the darkness,' she whispered.
Hunter held her gently, a frail withered woman. His hands seemed huge, too black against thin leathery arms. Pain nibbled at him.
`My memories are yours now. Use them.' Michelle whispered. `Kill that sick fuck.'
Hunter dropped her on the sand, the pain growing. Why was he here? He felt an urgency.
`Nooo!' The scream was thin and distant. But familiar.
Hunter turned towards it and his vision blurred in a splash of bright light. The air rippled around him. He couldn't see. Frustrated, he brushed the white light away and immediately his vision cleared. Faces stared down at him. He stood on a beach. He looked back at the faces and recognised terror.
They feared him. The thought gave a moment's satisfaction, but unease dashed it away. The white, tight faces were familiar. They made him feel a different pain.
`Mason!'
Mason? He froze. Memories flooded him. White fire clung to his arms, eating at his scaled armour. Bemeon's fire. Another memory flashed. The taste of Bemeon's blood when he'd fought the god.
`So!' Mason yelled, holding his arms out to Renee and Eleanor — two names he remembered. He turned towards the god, making his voice louder still. `This is Bemeon's fire.' Pain fled. Flesh healed. Bemeon's blood had been absorbed into his. He continued to process Michelle's memories as his wings re-formed.
`And all this is about you wanting to fuck your sister!' he thundered.
Bemeon stopped, body healing. His eyes narrowed, looking down as Mason stalked across the sand towards him.
`All this, to
make babies with Darla.' The information flooded through him. `What it comes down to you're a sexually frustrated little godling who wants to dick his sister.'
`Fool!' Bemeon shrank to match Mason's size. `This is the way of gods. With Darla as my concubine, our energies will combine. Our children will have the power to reshape this universe to suit me. And my love. We will rule as pure gods, unhindered by boundaries or rules.'
Mason continued towards Bemeon's shrinking figure. More hung in the balance than he, or Michelle, had ever understood.
`Still boils down to you having a hard on for Darla.' Mason stopped, measuring the distance between the human-sized god and the darkness of the portal writhing behind him. `Not that I disagree,' he goaded. `I wanted to fuck her the first time she kissed me.'
Bemeon lashed out with a tentacle thick as a tree. Mason ducked and slashed at it with his killing spine. Black blood exploded and the tentacle flopped on the sand before being reabsorbed in the god.
`Michelle gave up all your dirty little secrets, little god.' Mason moved closer. `If she lives, I might fuck her as well, now that I know her so well. At least I could show her what it is like to be with a real breeder. My seed doesn't fail, not like yours did.'
Mason tensed, waiting for the god's reaction, but nothing happened. He simply snarled, though shapes surged out from his human form. Knowledge is power, Mason thought.
`Better if I fuck Darla though. She wants it. She wants my offspring. That's why she made me, so I could be her protector and her lover. Once I have squashed you, her sick, twisted little brother — who she stuck in that shithole so she didn't have to look at you. Once I've dealt with you, I will have her. You just aren't up to standard as a lover.'
`Powerful words laced with arrogance,' Bemeon said. `But have you wondered why my children attacked you? How the darkness within you, that enables you to stand here as a Hunter of the true darkness, came to be? If none of those events had happened, there would be no Hunter to greet me. I did that. I made you. I brought you here.'
Mason calculated scenarios, predicting how chains of events could have been changed.
`Darla and Gaia reacted to your attack,' he said. `Without your attack, they wouldn't have had to do anything.'
`That's true,' Bemeon drawled. `If I had done nothing, I would be here alone on the beach.'
Mason shifted on the sand. Bemeon's words rang with a deep peal of truth. `Why act, then?'
`So now the great Hunter asks the little god for advice.'
Quiet settled on the beach; the sounds of fighting and death silenced as they faced each other. `You intended to take my place. Lead the wolves against the humans.'
`A plan fraught with risk.' Bemeon crossed his arms, eyes bright. `Rash and basic, considering the millennia I've had to plan this.'
`A distraction?' Mason muttered, considering what the god could have intended. Fighting seemed pointless if it wasn't going to lead somewhere. Bemeon was telling the truth, he felt. There was more at play.
`Why destroy the most valuable weapon? Better to control it — a gain that far outweighs the benefits of destroying it. You're strong, gifted and a breeder with a seed the Darkells' whores are white hot for. Everything to this point has made you the ultimate weapon.'
`You have no advantage here.' Mason tensed, calling his entire gift forward. `You have no control over me.'
`Ha!' Bemeon grinned at him. `I have already won, Hunter. All this,' Bemeon swept his arms out towards the carnage and gore on the beach, `was simply fun, and it works in my favour for I am not your only enemy. And listen,' he cocked his head. `Here they come.'
Sirens wailed in the distance. Fearful and shocked voices echoed over the silence of the amassed armies.
Humans. His other enemy.
Mason clenched his hands. Bemeon was right.
`You understand, then. Humans never accept difference. Especially difference of our kind, Hunter. You know it, so don't waste your breath denying it. And if you have to choose between your kin and the humans hunting you, I know who you will choose.'
`We have changed,' Mason said trying to sound believable, though his heart knew otherwise. `All races can coexist.'
`A false belief.' Bemeon relaxed his arms. `I have seen you in battle. And the little god knows what you are. The first humans who come for your family will die the same way my creatures did. What's more, you won't feel remorse for any of their deaths.'
He smiled and moved closer. `I know for a fact that you will not stop with those who threaten your kin directly. You will treat them as you treated my children. Mason Douglas gives no quarter when he protects his family. The blood-stained streets of London prove it.' Bemeon smiled. `You're human. Or you were once. So you know humans give no quarter either. Think about that, Mason Douglas. A Hunter of the true darkness, versus the human race. Oh, that'd be a fight worth seeing. And one you might not win.'
`You're stalling,' Mason growled, uncomfortable with the truths Bemeon had touched on.
`No, this is a negotiation.' Bemeon stood, nonthreatening, as the sounds of humankind grew closer. `Locked away I may have been but I do understand humans and how they think. Everything, all the blood and gore and pain, will soon be spread around the planet. Their appetite for information will feed the frenzy that follows. Leaders will buckle to the masses. You, Mason, are the universal enemy. A monster who has lived in their world amassing power and wealth. How long before they act against your precious Fund? How long before they seek your death? The death of your children and those you love? Then you will hunt them as they hunt you.'
`No.' Mason pushed the poisonous words out of his mind. `It's a lie. You're trying to stall the inevitable.'
`It is the truth. Accept that this world will either destroy you or be ruled by us.'
`Us?' Mason shook his head. He had come ready to kill Bemeon. The plan had been simple. Simple was good. But he hadn't factored in this. A negotiation.
Bemeon moved closer, looking less alien and more human. `Darla and Gaia chose you because they know you're not the usual mindless human. Now, the energy of three powerful gods fills your body and mind, yet this world has not fallen at your feet. Here, right now, is the point where all our paths intersect. The future of all involved will be shaped according to what we do here.'
`Logic? From the mad god?' Mason stepped forward, matching Bemeon's gaze. `The final ploy to prevent your destruction.'
`Perhaps.' Bemeon said. `Remember that whatever you know about me has come from Darla and Gaia, and they both fear me and what I represent. Yet they seem to trust you, a creature capable of wreaking the very same destruction. They use sex and the promise of children to sway you. They know these are what you crave beyond riches. I offer you more, the power to protect and to rule. To live as a family without fear of being hunted and to establish a true peace for our kind.'
Uncertainty touched Mason. His faith had never wavered.
Even as Butcher his actions had been driven by his need to protect. Even the mindless slaughter towards the end had, he felt, been justified. He was protecting Ruth and Wilson. Unnaturals had always been his enemy. What if they weren't?
`I speak the truth,' Bemeon said, calmly. `Our power threatens humans. I offer you a world that accepts us. You can have this island and all those on it as your own, if you wish. The rest will be mine to have, each to rule their lands as they wish.'
`Half.' Mason crossed his arms suddenly. Bemeon flinched, off guard. `You're crap at negotiating, little god. Half each.'
`You're kidding?' Renee yelled. Mason closed her out.
`Half?' Bemeon wavered.
He looked shocked at being offered another percentage.
`Half.' Mason hardened his voice. `And all the Darkells mine to keep. Without exception. Same goes for the Wolves. And any who want to come here can.'
`Are you fucking insane?' Renee hollered aloud from the seawall.
Bemeon looked at her. `Huntress will be a problem for you.'
`She
will follow my lead,' Mason said drawing Bemeon's attention back to him. `If she wants to have the children she so desires then my Huntress will have to obey.'
Bemeon smiled. `So, you do see how they manipulate your desires.'
`Of course,' Mason said, keeping his voice neutral, his emotions pinned down. `They think by fucking me I will follow orders.'
`Ah!' Bemeon seemed to become more human as he smiled. `You're not as clouded as I expected.'
`No, but there is one more thing I want before we make a treaty,' Mason said, lowering his voice so that Bemeon had to lean in. Eager.
`What?'
`I want first go with Darla. I don't care if you watch but I want to hurt her for fucking with my life.'
He waited as Bemeon fluxed between anger and another emotion Mason thought looked very much like excitement.
`You, Bemeon pointed a finger, struggling to stay composed, `you ask too much. She is mine.'
Mason let a small grin creep out. `Oh come on. You can't tell me watching Darla be broken for you doesn't make you hard?' Blood obeyed his will, and surged to his groin.
Bemeon studied him, struggling to maintain his human form. `They have no idea what you're capable of,' Bemeon muttered. `You will have to kneel before me to make this happen. Show everyone here you accept me.'
`Kneel?' Mason let his tone slip and saw Bemeon tense.
`Yes. Kneel to me and Darla has lost. She must come.'
`Darla. Here? Now?' Mason made sure his face displayed delight while his groin throbbed. Bemeon relaxed, licking his lips.
`Yes, once the Hunter has accepted me she has to come. To be our prize.' Bemeon went from foot to foot, excited.
`Kneeling isn't easy for me.' Mason knew he could never do it willingly. Subservience didn't exist in his genes.
`That I understand.' Bemeon held out a closed hand. `I never expected you to kneel but it must happen. Something we gods insist upon.'
`How about I take all?' Mason clenched his hands, pushing the killing spines out. `Then you can kneel before me.'
`Aha!' Bemeon opened his hand to reveal two small white balls of energy glowing in his palm. `I expected to use these to stop you trying to kill me, not to negotiate kneeling rights.'
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