by J. D. Brown
We lost a lot of people, but it could have been so much worse. I had to stay positive. The alternative meant a swift and depressing spiral into La-La Land. I couldn’t do that. I’d come too far to lose my sanity now. We had all come too far.
I focused on Jesu’s heartbeat, on the even tempo of his breath. I let my guilt and hang-ups melt into him. Jesu was the storm, the whirlwind that sucked all my worries away and spun them round, and round, until I couldn’t recognize them anymore. And just like that, I was calm again. Nature had a way of washing out the bad, cleansing the soil every season. Like nature, just being in Jesu’s arms was cleansing to my soul. I could stay forever in his embrace, the heart of his hurricane.
A soldier yelled something urgent in German and I opened my eyes.
Tancred glared at the man as he ran out from behind the platform. “What do you mean there are hostages?”
The soldier said a few more words.
“Locals?” Tancred asked.
The soldier shook his head. “Es ist Bridget de Lupe, sir.”
I pushed away from Jesu and faced him. “Bridget?”
Jesu frowned. “Don’t look at me like that. I have not spoken to her in over a week, same as you.”
“Fine, let’s go get her.” The two of us climbed onto the platform.
“There are humans, too,” said Tancred while ascending the stage with us. “Three of them.”
We ran to the back of the stage. I initially thought the platform ended against the wall, but it actually stopped several feet before, leaving a gap wide enough to hide several large cages with people inside them. The cages were similar to the ones in the holding center in Germany. Two layers of Plexiglas lined all six sides, with a wire mesh fence running between the panels. An electric current crackled through the metal wires.
My heart stopped at the sight of the four people huddled together in the cages. Two women and two men. One of the women was Bridget. She looked like shit, her hair and clothes tattered and dirty, dried blood caked in odd places about her limbs. Yet Bridget wasn’t the one that made my chest constrict in new-found terror. She was fine, standing on her own two feet and shouting at the soldiers in French.
No, what scared me was the other woman. The very human woman. And the young human man standing in the next cage over. I recognized both of them. My hands trembled as I wet my lips and drew a shaky breath.
“Mom? Anthony?”
The two of them squinted in my direction, unsure. They were in bad condition; their clothes practically turned to rags, their faces sunken and hollowed, as though they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Mom’s salt and pepper hair fell in greasy strands over her frail shoulders. Her bones protruded from her leathery tanned skin in alarmingly sharp angles. Dark circles rimmed Anthony’s hazel eyes and the bridge of his nose was swollen and bruised.
“No freakin’ way.” Anthony shook his head. “It can’t be.” He narrowed his gaze and studied me. That’s when I remembered the compound was really dark. Moonlight wasn’t enough for human eyes, and the entire back portion of the stage hid in deep shadow. “Ema?” Anthony said finally. “Is it really you?”
“Do you know these people?” Tancred asked, scowling.
I nodded.
“Oh, Ema, dear.” Mom came to the front of the cage. Tears ran down her dirty cheeks. A knot welled in my throat as joy expanded in my lungs. “Oh, honey,” her voice cracked. “I thought I would never see you again.”
“Me too,” I said, pressing my hand against the outer panel. “I’ve missed you so much, Mama.”
The tears dripped from her chin as they flowed more freely. She wiped at her glossy black eyes and then smiled. “Oh honey, you’ve got to get more sun. You look pale.”
I laughed. Only Mom would worry about something so shallow at a time like this. I didn’t care, though. I had my mother back. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay? I promise.”
“Thank God,” said Anthony. “I hope you brought the police with you. This place sucks. Wait, are you the marines?” He was speaking to Tancred. The vampyre rolled his eyes and then gave orders to his men in German.
A hand lighted on my shoulder and I turned to face Jesu. He lifted his brow, a silent question lingering in his gaze.
My gosh, what a time to meet the parents! “Um, Jesu, this is my mom. Mom, this is Jesu.” I turned my back to the cage and grimaced while whispering in a tone too quiet for human ears. “Is there any chance I’m hallucinating all this?”
Jesu rolled his eyes and then turned a charming close-lipped smile to my mother. “Mrs. Marx. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, though I feel horrible about the circumstances. Can you tell us what happened? How did you get here?”
The other man in the cage with Anthony, the only one in the group I didn’t recognize, spoke before my mother could. “It’s my fault.” He paused and looked at me. Really looked at me. “She is beautiful, Helena.”
I pursed my lips. Something about the way he said my mother’s name seemed… familiar. But I was sure I never met this man. I scanned him, taking in his copper skin tone, long gray-black hair, and Native American features. He wore his age in the creases around his eyes and mouth, and I estimated him to be about Mom’s age, maybe a few years older.
He looked at Jesu and smiled. “Thank you so much for looking after our daughter.”
Jesu swallowed nervously and then offered a curt nod.
“Oh my God,” I gasped as the realization finally hit. “Dad?”
The man nodded. “Hi, kiddo. Long time, right?”
My head spun. I turned slightly to the side and spoke over my shoulder. “Jesu?”
Jesu scrubbed the back of his neck before answering. “Yeah?”
“Catch me.”
“Huh?”
“Catch me,” I said. And then I fainted.
My lashes slowly peeled apart. I blinked several times, and then squinted against the bright glow of a votive candle. A pale yellow ceiling and lime green walls loomed above. Groaning, I pushed away from the light, onto my side, and then sat upright. Thin hospital blankets fell away from my chest, revealing a pale nightgown. Then I remembered the armor, the philosopher’s stone, the battle, and my parents. It all came crashing back.
I lifted my right arm. The rose bracelet circled my wrist with the ruby still nestled safely in the silver charm. I sighed in relief.
My gaze trailed further along the length of my arm, to the underside of my elbow. An I.V. needle protruded from the flesh. A steady stream of blood ebbed from a tube attached to a medical bag that hung from a metal stand, feeding my vein. I snorted. Why didn’t I think of that before? I could just leave the needle in for the whole pregnancy and avoid the morning sickness.
Oh my gosh. The baby.
I glanced around the tiny hospice room in search of a clipboard or file. Finding none, I threw the blankets off my legs. There was evidence of an ultrasound performed recently, but no blood or anything else to cause alarm. Then again, who knows how long I was out? The nurse or doctor could have cleaned it off by now… but what might have happened to my baby?
Footsteps approached the room. They paused just long enough to turn the knob and push the door open. Maria smiled as she entered. My nerves relaxed, taking her happy expression as a good sign.
“You’re awake,” she said.
Jesu followed, closing the door behind him. His lips were set in a thin tight line, and his gaze looked a bit hard. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure what to think. A lump welled in my throat and I prepared myself for the worst.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You fainted,” said Maria. She came to my bedside and stroked my hair. “We rushed you to the nearest hospital.”
I struggled to swallow. “Is… is everything okay?”
She nodded and her smile grew wider. “Perfectly fine, dear. You were a little low in protein, but nothing a bag of blood won’t cure.”
“Oh… okay.” I figured if anything had happened to the fetus,
she would have told me, so I let it go. “And my parents?”
“Just fine, darling. They’re in the room next door, having a meal. They were a little dehydrated, but everyone will make a full recovery.”
I nodded. “Everyone except King Nikolas.”
Maria glanced at Jesu, then back at me. “You did a very brave thing today. I don’t know how you managed it, but we are all very grateful.”
Jesu rolled his eyes and grumbled quietly. “Tell her about the baby.”
My nerves spiked. “What’s wrong with the baby?”
Maria glared at Jesu from the corner of her vision. “I was getting to it.”
I raised my voice, frantic. “What happened to it?”
“Nothing, dear.” She smiled and covered my hands with hers. “They’re perfectly healthy.”
“Oh.” I sighed in relief, and then blinked. “Wait a minute… they?”
Maria nodded and her smile stretched from ear to ear.
I looked at Jesu, confused. “What does she mean, ‘they’?”
Jesu’s own small grin lifted and his cheek dimpled. “You are having twins.”
I scrunched my nose and looked at him sideways. I must have heard wrong. “Twins? You mean two of them?”
Jesu furrowed his brow and glanced at Maria. “That is what twins means, right?”
“But how?” I exclaimed. “Doctor Gordon didn’t say anything about twins.”
Maria laughed. “Oh honey, it’s common to miss the second heartbeat during these early stages, but we sure heard it this time.”
Jesu came to the bedside. He reached into his back pocket and then handed me a glossy photograph. It was a sonogram, timed exactly one hour earlier. The grainy black and white picture showed two raspberry-shaped clumps of cells. Maria pointed to two silver lines that stood out among the bubbles.
“See? Two little hearts.”
“Two babies,” I said. My chest swelled as tears prickled the back of my eyes. It was hard enough to believe I was pregnant at all, let alone with twins. I lifted a hand to my stomach, as though I could feel them through the cotton gown, but of course I could not. They weren’t any bigger than peas in a pod.
A soft red glow caught my attention. I let my arm fall to the side and bent forward in search of the source, but the glow stopped and there was nothing there. Huh. Maybe I imagined it.
I relaxed against the pillow and smoothed my palm over my belly again. The red glow brightened against the nightgown. I lifted my hand and looked at my stomach, but the glowing disappeared. Was I losing my mind, or—?
“Ema,” Jesu whispered. “Do you see that?”
“Yeah, what the heck is it?”
Maria snatched my forearm. “Watch the charm,” she said while lowering my wrist to my stomach. The instant the ruby touched the nightgown, a soft red glow lit from the within the philosopher’s stone. I jerked my hand away and the glowing stopped.
Son of a bitch.
I grabbed the hem of the thin gown and lifted it to just below my chest, exposing the pale skin of my stomach. Maria gasped at the scar above my navel, but I ignored her. I raised my arm over my lower abdomen and then lowered it until the charm touched my skin. A flash of bright red light lit the entire room. I squinted to the side, keeping the gem on my flesh.
Jesu reached forward and smacked my hand away. I gasped in surprise at his anger. The light stopped as soon as the ruby left my midriff.
“What the hell does that mean?” Jesu growled.
Maria hesitated, her gaze wide. “I… I don’t know.”
But I knew. My stomach twisted in angry horrified knots and my heart tore in two as Jalmari’s warning played in my mind.
“You have to kill all of him, Ema.”
Epilogue:
Jalmari
The damp dungeon chill bit into the sides of my face, where my nerves were still a bit raw from the burns. A shiver racked my body and I swore. “Peska.” I hated that I could be so vulnerable to the elements, like a fucking human.
I pulled against the chains cuffed to my wrists, using them to stand. I needed to stretch my legs. Sitting alone in the dark made me antsy, but I was on a short leash and could only pace a few steps in either direction before the chains ran out of slack and the prongs under the cuffs pinched into my flesh.
How long would they keep me here? I would rather be in the holding center, locked inside one of those electronic Plexiglas boxes. At least then I could scratch my balls if I wanted. Better yet, I could take my life and end all this. Unfortunately, I wasn’t suicidal. I’d lived through much worse. I liked having the option, though. Bad options were better than no options.
I should not have helped the succubus.
Ema wasn’t going to kill the spawn or my father. She was too stupid and too weak. Father would live on, regardless of what happened in the jungle. At least he would be weak and vulnerable, half in the stone and half in the babe. Much easier for someone else to kill.
Someone like me.
Always doing everyone else’s dirty work, right?
That was the bane of my existence. It came with the title. Everyone expected the leader to shoulder all the screw-ups, to fix all their childish errors and kiss their boo-boos. But when they didn’t like how their leader chose to fix things, they turned sharp teeth against you. So I was used to doing the dirty work and walking on eggshells afterwards. I was used to planning and patience and politics. I wasn’t used to being in a cage, where I could do nothing. That part threw me off my game, grating on my nerves, making me agree to alliances I wouldn’t normally agree to.
Just wait until I get my vision back, Rat.
For now, I stood in the pitch black, shivering my ass off. I could have asked Princess Sara for a blanket, but my ego got in the way. That was all right. The cold fueled my anger, and anger kept me going, kept me focused. My sight was improving, and that was all that mattered.
As if to prove it, a light brightened and two sets of footsteps pattered against the wooden stairs, coming closer. Their silhouettes soon came into view. I tried to focus my vision, but to no avail. The pair looked like a bad watercolor painting, or a blurry photograph. I scented the air to confirm what I already suspected, and then grinned at my guests.
“How did it go?”
“She had the gall to use the stone against me,” croaked the succubus in an icy tone.
Her anger made me grin. “I did warn you.”
“Well, yer father’s trapped, that’s the good news.”
My smile fell. “What’s the bad news?”
“She took the ring,” said the incubus.
I scoffed. “Is that all?”
“Valafar,” Lilith growled. “Go watch the door.”
The incubus huffed and then moved out of my limited line of sight. The ancient succubus turned her attention to me, taking a calculated step closer to the bars of my cage. Before she could say anything, I curled my lip.
“Take it from her. It’s that easy.”
“Mmm, yes, I think I will.” The blob of pale blurry colors that was her face nodded.
“Great. Now, how about my reward?” I held up my arms, rattling the chains.
“Ya know what I can’t stop thinkin’ about?” she said, a little too coyly for comfort. “How on earth did Ema know my real name?”
I gnashed my jaw, not liking the direction this was going, and spoke through my fangs. “How should I know? We had a deal.”
“Ya, we did. Until ya turned on me.”
“I did no such thing. I followed through with my end of the bargain. Maybe if Ema hadn’t seen you there with my father, she wouldn’t have figured out you were the enemy.”
Lilith tossed her head back and cackled. “But, darling, I am the enemy. Did ya forget that so soon? Maybe some more time in here will help ya remember.” She turned away.
“No, wait!”
“Don’t ya worry, dearie. I’ll still take care of Ema for you.” She laughed as the light went out and the door sl
ammed shut.
“Fuck!” I turned and punched the stone wall. Rock crumbled under my knuckles and fell around my feet. I knew not to trust a succubus.
The light brightened again and I froze. My caretaker’s sweet perfume overpowered the dank air and I released a haggard breath, letting my shoulders roll forward as I rested my forehead against the broken wall.
Sara’s gentle voice floated like a feather. “Prince Jalmari?” Her footsteps were light and hesitant as she inched closer to my cell. “Are you unwell?”
I scoffed. Unwell was putting it mildly. I was livid. But I wouldn’t throw my anger at the princess. She’d been nothing but kind.
Sara sucked in a breath and then spoke with a bit more cheer to her tone. “You can’t bust through the wall like that, you know? You’ll only break your fist.”
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it meant freedom. In fact, I might have tried it for real, if I wasn’t still partially blind.
“Were you… were you speaking to someone just now?”
An idea popped into my head. A really desperate, stupid idea. I faced the cell bars and saw her—or at least her petite form. Sara reminded me of a mouse. Not the filthy Romani scum, but a cute little pet mouse. The youngest of fifteen children, I would have pegged Sara for a spoiled brat, except that I’d known her for a long time. We weren’t exactly friends, but we’ve shared enough words in the past for me to know that her politeness wasn’t a front. I liked that about her, that she was genuine. And that, of course, made me hate myself for using her.
“I need a favor, but you can’t tell anyone about it.”
She tilted her head to the side. “What kind of favor?”