"And I shall bring twenty witnesses who will testify that the only man they have seen me with since you broke up with Ninsianna is you." Shahla leaned into his face and shook her finger, her brown eyes flashing with anger. "And they will believe me. Because you have made so many enemies these past few months that people are eager to think the worst of you!"
The villagers around them laughed, the crowd growing thicker as people poured out of houses and called to their friends to come listen to the most scandalous argument to happen in this village in a very long time. Whispers that agreed with her, that he had made many enemies by daring to challenge the winged demon, made his blood boil in his veins.
"And I will bring Dubuque and Sididdinum as witnesses to testify that, just last November, when you claim you were broken-hearted over me when I announced my betrothal to Ninsianna, that you took the both of them into the reeds beside the river and lay down with the both of them … at the same time! Let's see how your conniving father likes that black mark on his reputation as a trader!"
Shahla blanched. There were many forms of promiscuity the Ubaid tolerated, but laying down with two men at once would so besmirch her parent's reputation that they would be the laughing stock of the entire Ubaid territory, dealers of prostitutes instead of traders of cloth. From the anger he had seen earlier in her mother's eyes, he knew they would turn her out into the desert.
Shahla had never been one to back down from a fight. At least not a fight which was verbal. She leaned forward, her black eyes filled with hatred, and hissed in his face like a striking cobra.
"And I shall tell the tribunal how you asked me to find out where Pareesa liked to hunt," Shahla delivered the deadly venom she had carried on her tongue all these months. "And then that night there were men lying in wait for her. Halifian men. The men it is known you cavort with. To lure Mikhail out of this village and kill him!"
He was upon her before the last word could tumble from her venomous lips, his fingers around her throat, this woman who had blackmailed him into feigning affection when all he wanted to do was throttle her.
"And … I … will … kill you!" he smashed his fist into her face, determined to tear that viperous tongue out once and for all.
Shahla screamed, but no villager came to her rescue. Free from its leash, that black rage that had begun the day Ninsianna had broken her vow and abandoned him, that loss and sorrow that had festered into something hideous, tasted blood, and it wanted more blood, her blood, for blackmailing him about something which had been a mistake.
She fell to the ground, but that dark rage shoved him forward, whispering to him, taunting him. Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. He kicked her in the stomach. The accursed bastard that was not his! He kicked her again, and again, and again, until the whole world went red with rage and the blood pounding in his ears was the only sound he could hear as his own screams drowned out hers until nothing came out of her mouth but a pathetic whimper, and still his anger was not satiated.
Hands lay upon him. Mismatched eyes. A lesser hunter come to challenge the king of the beasts? This was his kill and he would not share it! Without even turning, he delivered a back fist to the challengers face and turned back to finish off his prey. Kill. Kill. Kill. The sight of her blood only fueled his rage. The urge to see those venomous lips go silent had become a hunger and he the beast who would eat her alive.
“You!” an elderly couple shouted, the first bystanders to finally move into action. “Leave her alone! We are calling your father!”
They threw things at him, but they were old and he did not fear them. His rage developed a life of its own, as though he were sitting above his body and watching it do things to her body, but it was not him. Some other Jamin beat Shahla. Not him. He just wanted to shut her up so she would not tell everyone he had made a mistake.
A shadow fell across the well. The rustle of feathers. A hand grabbed his fist and yanked it back before he hit her again, yanking him off her of her as though he were no more than a little yippy dog. He spun around to smite his adversary and looked up into cold, blue eyes.
Cold glowing blue eyes…
It was back. The demon! His real enemy!
"You will not hit a woman," Mikhail said as soft and cold as the winter wind.
Jamin pulled his knife and plunged straight for Mikhail's heart, the place he knew the bones were broken to slip a knife into that cold, black heart, determined to rid his village of this plague. He would smite this demon and fulfill his promise to Aturdokht to deliver up its heart! He expected Mikhail to push aside his hand as he had done before when he had struck at him in the heat of the hunt for the goat, but this time, Mikhail meant to hurt him. As rapid as a striking cobra, Mikhail caught his wrist mid-lunge and gave it a twist. The cracking sound reached Jamin's ears before the pain.
"Aieeeeee!!!" Jamin screamed as pain went screaming through his body. The knife fell from his hands.
"You will not hit a woman."
His arm was twisted behind him, up his back until the broken wrist nearly reached the base of his neck. He tried to break free, but a boot slammed into the back of his knee and knocked him into a kneeling position, his arm twisted up behind him so he could not move. Pain. It was agony which shrieked out of his mouth, not anger, but the winged demon did not care.
Villagers seethed around him like jackals swarming a carcass abandoned by a lion. Some women tended the unconscious Shahla, others shouted for someone to run and get the Chief. Still that huge mountain of a demon gripped him tight, his broken wrist, and twisted arm to force his face all the way down into the ground so that he was incapacitated.
One person kneeled in front of him, her shawl tied high around her waist just like a man. Black eyes stared into his, as empty as death.
"Jamin … what have you done?"
"She came to the well to cavort with three men," Jamin hissed at Gita. "As if she hasn't shamed me already enough!"
"She came to meet me," Gita said. "I told her I would fetch Mikhail to speak to her. I was late because my father was drunk again!"
Shahla began to regain consciousness. She gripped at her belly and cried out in pain.
"What happened?" the Chief's voice cut through the crowd. The throng of curiosity seekers parted like the waters embracing an eagle diving for a fish.
"See what your son has done," Mikhail said, as cold and empty as though he had no feelings about it either way.
A second set of hands grabbed his arm and twisted it, and then a third. He struggled against them, to break their hold, but that strange rage which had strengthened him only moments before fled, leaving him too weak to fight. He looked into the eyes of whoever held him captive and found not a friend, but someone who viewed him with disgust.
"Siamek?"
Bile rose in his throat at Siamek's betrayal, the bitter emotion leaving him with the urge to choke. His former best friend would not make eye contact. Nor would Firouz or Tirdard, his former warriors, now clearly Mikhail's men. Dadbeh lay unconscious, his nose broken, the small, thin man who had dared jump to Shahla's rescue instead of jumping to his, still clutching that crude image woven of straw.
Shahla gripped her belly and screamed, a deep, howling cry that cut even through his rage. Blood seeped from between her legs, a dark red stain against the whiteness of her dress. Some part of him, the part that had existed before the rage, asked 'what have I done?' But that other part of him, the part which had been pushed too far until there was nothing left but anger, thought 'good … problem solved.'
"Throw him in the pit," the Chief growled. His face was hard, no understanding in his father's eyes as he surveyed the scene and adjudicated Jamin the aggressor.
The pit?
"No! Father! She provoked me!" Jamin struggled to break free.
Mikhail kneeled in front of her, this woman who had besmirched his name and claimed it was his child, not Jamin's or some other man's, in front of his wife. Just for a moment Jamin hoped maybe in this they might ha
ve some interest in common? A man had a point at which his anger could be pushed no further, the point at which he snapped and the anger took over, a hungry dark animal ravenous to be fed. This woman had claimed the child was Mikhail's child to his wife. If there was one thing Jamin had always understood about Ninsianna, it was that she would tolerate no others. Ever. Not even the insinuation of others.
"Are you okay, Shahla?" Mikhail asked. That icy blue glow faded from his eyes, leaving only the eyes of a mortal man.
"My baby!"
Shahla writhed upon the ground like a sheep whose throat had just been cut and shuddered in its death throes, clutching her belly as the blood poured out from between her legs, a bright red stain that soaked into the parched earth, eager to be fed.
The winged demon slipped his arms under her legs and armpits and picked her up, whispering comfort to her as she cried out in pain. He gave Jamin a cold stare, cradling Shahla to his chest as though she were an injured child.
"I will take you to Needa." Mikhail tucked her head under his chin. "Needa will take care of you." He looked at Jamin with an unreadable expression. "And your baby."
Shahla threw back her head and screamed. Jamin watched all of this transpire with detached interest, the screams not real, the sound of the people who raised their voices against him not real, the blood which flowed out of her not real. The only thing that was real was the recrimination that stared out of those icy blue eyes, still tinged with the glow of whatever demon took hold of him and turned him into something more than a human man. Those cold blue eyes passed judgment down upon him.
Guilty.
A sharp cry pierced through the cacophony of the thronging villagers, answered by its mate. Jamin looked up. The two eagles which perpetually circled their village swooped so close to the rooftops he thought for a moment they might dive for him and claw out his eyes. Sacred raptors, the goddess's eyes, had seen his act of rage and shrieked his guilt to She-who-is.
A cloud blew across the sun, casting its dark shadow upon only him. The wind picked up. It felt not like a caress, but a slap as a gust blew back his hair as though someone had just spat right into his face.
You are no longer favored…
The winged demon spread those wings, so much like the eagles, and stretched into the wind which had just condemned him. Shahla whimpered like a wounded animal. With a murmur of reassurance, those wings pounded against the earth and carried her into the sky, as though the goddess herself had swooped in save her. The last thing Jamin saw was the condemnation in those cold, blue eyes.
Siamek and Marsha hauled him to his feet. His father stared at him, his face a cold mask of anger.
"Get him out of here."
"Father!" Jamin cried out as they dragged him away. "She asked for it! She taunted me!"
"Get him out of my sight," the Chief said, his face every bit as unreadable as the winged demon's.
He struggled the entire way to the pit, where they threw him in and covered him with the big flat rock, the closest thing Assur had to a jail. There was only enough room to lean against the sides with your knees up at your chest, with food and water thrown down twice per day so you would not die of starvation. He seethed at the unfairness of it until his blood finally cooled and that part of him which had once been a good man finally made its reappearance.
A cold chill spread through his body as he stared up at the slim beacon of light which crept through the rock above and cast a single ray into the darkness to touch his cheek.
"What have I done?"
He put his face down in his hands and wept. In fighting the demon, he had just become one…
Chapter 43
Galactic Standard Date: 152,324.01 AE
Haven-3
Special Agent Eligor
Eligor
"Prime Minister's office, hello. *click* Prime Minister's office, how may I help you? *click* Prime Minis… Oh! Drat!"
Eligor stared at the pretty young Leonid, her whiskers twitching as she answered first one call, then another, and then another, her sheathed claws too thick to properly hit the buttons on the switchboard and cutting off every few calls. General Abaddon insisted Lucifer keep a cadet at the front desk as a deterrent against any whack-job who might make it through the first fifty layers of security at the Halls of Parliament. It was a pity Zepar never kept any of the cadets around long enough to actually become competent enough to answer the damned phone!
"The Prime Minister is … no he isn't … no … he um … hey!" An ominous growl filled the room, the sound a Leonid made right before it attacked. "Would you care to come in here and say that to me in person, sir?"
Lerajie shot Eligor a grin. This was the first time Zepar had rustled up a cadet who wasn't an Angelic. It was rather amusing, watching pissed-off constituents storm into Lucifer's office to give him a piece of their mind and encounter that sitting at the front desk instead of some dainty Angelic female. It added spice to an otherwise boring babysitting duty.
"Prime Minister's office, how may I help you? *click* Prime Min…Oh! Not again!"
The Leonid resumed her switchboard duty, bred and trained from birth to kill, not to perform the futile duty of keeping the unwashed masses of the Alliance happy.
"What do you think ever happened to Pravuil?" Lerajie asked. "Now she was competent." Pravuil had been the dirt-plain Angelic Lucifer now claimed he could not remember.
"It's none of our business!" Eligor said. He pressed his wings against the doorjamb and began picking at his fingernails, not meeting his idealistic sidekick's eyes.
"Shouldn't we make inquiries?"
"Thinking too much in this line of work will get you transferred someplace less desirable," Eligor said. "Like the Tokoloshe front."
"Ugh! Cannibals!" Lerajie shuddered. "I can't believe he sold out the colonies in the Trifid Nebula to King Barabas."
Eligor glanced up at the pretty young Leonid, who had just cut off another call and was beginning to become agitated. Her golden fur stood up at the nape of her neck as whoever's call she had just dropped called back and reamed her out.
"He had his reasons."
"They were Alliance citizens!"
"Not anymore."
"How can you just not be an Alliance citizen anymore?"
"We aren't Alliance citizens," Eligor reminded him. "Remember? We're not naturally evolved."
Lerajie was silent, the both of them watching the lioness's fat fingers, engineered for tearing enemies apart, not playing switchboard operator, hit multiple buttons at the same time. The poor cadet had only been here a few weeks and already twice Lucifer's angry constituents had driven her to such frustration she'd burst into tears. A Leonid!
"I never got that whole planet-swap with the Tokoloshe Kingdom," Lerajie said. "I mean, I know those were Centauri patrolled worlds and the Centauri are now almost extinct, but why sell them out."
"There's nobody to replace them," Eligor stared at the Leonid. "The Mantoids can fly well enough to take up some of the slack for us, the Delphiniums are amphibians so they can replace the Mer-Levi on swamp worlds, and the Spiderids are even scarier looking than the Leonids, but nobody's stepped up to replace our cavalry, so he had to let those worlds go."
"Why are you defending him?" Lerajie asked.
Eligor picked at his fingernails again. "I'm not. I just pay attention to what's going on around me. That's all."
Pay attention? Like to what Lucifer was discussing right now with the delegate from what had once been an Alliance protectorate, but was now part of the Tokoloshe Kingdom? Eligor had been surprised when Lucifer let those worlds go to the cannibals. They were, after all, planets which had been terraformed by none other than Shemijaza, Lucifer's own biological father, the last remnants of the conquered Third Empire, but he did not dare tell Lerajie he had spent time on one of those worlds. It was all part of a past he'd best forget. He glanced up at Lerajie, who had sidled as close to the door as he could get to eavesdrop without being obvious about it.
"Knock it off," Eligor said.
"Did you hear that?" Lerajie whispered. "He said the Tokoloshe enslaved them all the minute they seized control of the planet."
"They were told they had 90 days to get the Hades out of there," Eligor said. "Did they think Lucifer was kidding?"
The voices grew louder, arguing.
"Those people lived on that planet for six generations and terraformed it from an uninhabitable rock into the beginnings of an atmosphere," Lerajie said. "Did he really think they would just give up their homes?"
"Yup. Get out. Or get eaten."
Lerajie glared at him.
The arguing grew louder. The sound of glass breaking compelled them to act. Eligor yanked open the door.
"Your father would have never sold us out like this!!!"
Eligor rushed for the Mekurabe which had Lucifer by the throat, its many eyes popping out of a bumpy head that looked like nothing so much as a collection of skulls. The creature's tentacles were wrapped around the Prime Minister's neck. Lucifer's white wings helplessly flailed, unable to even call for help as the squid-like creature squeezed his trachea.
"Get … its …" Eligor shouted and was cut off as a second tentacle smacked into the side of his head. Lerajie dove for the limb wrapped around Lucifer's neck. Lucifer's face turned an interesting shade of purple as his blood vessels expended the available oxygen and began to turn his flesh blue.
"Graahhhhh!!!"
A golden-furred blur leaped through the air.
Eligor leaped out of the way just in time to avoid becoming collateral damage as the Leonid cadet clawed at the man who had Lucifer by the throat and pinned him to the ground, his multi-eyed skull a helpless orb in her powerful jaws. The man's tentacles flailed, but he let go before she clamped shut her jaws and drove her sharp fangs through the man's eyes. The lioness crouched, growling, as she waited for her orders.
Lucifer gasped for breath and clutched his throat, a crumpled pile of white feathers. Lerajie rushed to help him up.
"Are you alright, Sir?"
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 47