by Jen Ponce
As it was, I could feel Yarnell's body amping up his adrenaline in response to the unknown danger I represented. He wanted to spin and I stopped him. And then I figured out a way to get the souls without killing anyone myself. Technically.
I opened Yarnell's mouth and said, "You are pathetic wastes. The Skriven and I have plans to kill you all.”
Their expressions ranged from astonishment to amusement. I raised Yarnell's hands and conjured up some of his magic, sending it into the chest of the nearest person. It wasn't enough to kill the woman but her clothes caught on fire and faces quickly contorted to hate. Yarnell struggled to take back control of his body. It was embarrassing how easily I kept him from doing so. Then to him, I said, 'Remember me?'
Awash with horror, he managed a strangled, “I’m being possessed,” that I cut off, making him sound like he was about to throw up. I raised his hands for another volley when his terror-stricken mind dredged up pictures of his family.
What the hell kind of bad guy had a family?
But I saw them and worse, felt his love for them as he jabbered in horror. His wife, seven months pregnant with her health failing because she wasn’t getting enough magic to protect the baby. His other son, two years old and also sick. I saw where they lived, how they lived: on the fringes of society, fighting for their food, their homes, their right to life.
Sickened, I let control of him go but it was too late. The woman he’d hit was screaming. Bright blue orbs of energy dripping sparks flashed through the air at him. He threw himself to one side as someone landed a shot, sending a searing bolt of pain through his leg.
I pulled back through the tunnel. In my mind, I opened a door in a corner of the room while flashes of magic cracked the walls and knocked out windows. Arsinua roused herself to help me construct a shield as I crouched behind a thick wooden chest. I covered my mouth with both hands as I watched the battle I’d started.
Yarnell screamed, “It wasn’t me! It was the cow. She somehow—” but he never finished his sentence. Adamante swirled his arms, a sickly green energy flashing between his hands. He flung them forward, stomping his foot to the ground as he blasted Yarnell. It sizzled across his skin, flashing and popping. Wherever it touched, the skin burned away, the stink of burning flesh rising.
Adamante didn’t get to crow about his victory; a screaming woman ran forward and took his feet from under him with a super-charged walking stick decorated with human fingers.
The ring on my finger pulsed. It glowed a malevolent purple and urged me onto the battlefield. It wanted to drink. My stomach lurched. I wanted to go home. Arsinua was right. This was evil and I’d instigated the whole thing.
But I didn’t have a choice, did I? If I wanted my kids to be safe, if I wanted to see them again, I had to collect the souls.
The air was thick with smoke and screams. No one paid me any attention. Creeping behind the shield Arsinua helped me make, I crouched-ran to Yarnell’s body. His mouth was still open, glaring even as he died. I laid my hand on his chest. Felt a rush of energy that hurt like a live-wire. Then the ring dulled. Pulsed again. I saw another body and ran to it. I repeated the procedure and then a sizzle of magic slammed into my side. Not one blast but a steady stream. I tripped over the body and the magic pushed me into the wall as effectively as water from a fireman's hose.
Gasping, I pushed back, trying to get out from under the cloying wetness of it. I drew on the magic of the heart, sent it out in a pulse at my attacker. The stream stopped. I dared look and saw a hole in the wall. A crowd of people ran through it, shoving at each other to get away. I saw a head full of purple dreadlocks vanish. Only one living person remained.
Me.
The ring glowed again. It wanted more. Tough, I told it. I needed two souls and that's what I had. I'd also effectively torn a hole in the Theleoni leadership. Hopefully the group would disband without their rabid boss. I straightened, looked around once more and saw my new boss. Talk about rabid.
She appeared this time in rather unremarkable form for her. No smoke, no shadows. Of course, she was naked, but she looked like a normal naked female. I leaned forward, squinting. Hell, she even had cellulite on her thighs.
"Ah, Devany. My sweet child. So efficient. Tricky, tricky. I said souls, you collected souls. But you didn't kill anything." She sounded disappointed.
I pulled off the ring and tossed it to her. "All yours."
She slipped it onto her finger. A look of ecstasy overcame her face. I averted my gaze. Ick. I wasn't a prude and if it had been a plain old orgasm I might have been less grossed out. But of course, it wasn't. She was coming over death, over eating souls.
"Take it." Her hand blurred, sending the ring spinning at me.
It hit my collar bone hard, making me wince. "I don't want it." A touch on my shoulder made me jump. In a blink, she appeared before me, her mad eyes burning.
"What are you?"
Pressing my fingers against my temples, I said, "A human mother of two who desperately wants to see her children. So, if you don't mind ..."
"I mind." Madness made her features contort, reminding me of my first look at the Slip. "You took a Skriven as a servant."
"I've been doing what I need to in order to get home. So if it gets me there faster, I'm sorry."
"No need to apologize. It's delicious. Amara was apoplectic." She touched me again, her finger trailing a molten path along my jaw.
It hurt so badly I imagined blisters were rising in her finger's wake. I kept from yanking myself away. "You weren't going to take from me anymore."
She slowly withdrew her finger. "Not taking. Wondering. You excite me, Devany, mother of two." She bared her teeth. They didn't look human. They looked sharp. "I want to eat you."
What did you do in a situation like this, faced with an insane demon god who wanted to consume you? Flee? Didn't seem a good choice. Fight? Nope. I'd seen what she'd done to Tytan. And if I couldn't beat Tytan, I certainly couldn't hope to win against her. What could I do?
I reached out and traced a figure on her forehead.
Oh yeah, I did it.
Nope. She didn't like it one bit.
For once, though, she didn't have a ready response. She didn't do anything, even while the green magic flashed between us. I gasped. My head felt like it was going to blow apart at the energy suddenly at my disposal. It beat, beat, beat against the shores of my head like an endless ocean.
I was dead. I was. I couldn't even move. My heart fluttered but evened out, my knees wobbled but held. I waited. I let my lids sweep shut.
Still nothing.
Cautiously I opened one eye. Nothing. I opened the other and looked around. Dead bodies. Check. Crazy demon god. Gone. I sat down, which happened to be on a body. I apologized as I moved, even though he was dead and had no use for sorries anymore. Then I hugged my knees to my chest.
Arsinua was shrieking. Even Neutria seemed subdued. Great. I'd freaked out a spider. That had to be a first. I balled up my fists and pressed them against my temples. "Shut. Up."
They did. For once in a long while, I heard nothing. Mouth dry, I pushed myself off the ground, slipping once in a spill of blood. I apologized again, rubbing my palm on my pants to wipe off the liquid. I started to make a hook when I remembered the Bazaar and the people there. Could I save them?
I spun, searching until I found the corridor that led to the horror that was the marketplace. This time I ran, not wanting to be in the room any longer. I would lead the captives out and then I'd let the Abilene police department sort out how they appeared in the warehouse.
My feet slowed when I saw the curtain—it hung in tatters. “No.” Bile burned my throat. “No!” I yanked the curtains aside, screaming as I took in the room. No tents. No victims. No bloodthirsty crowd. Empty. Quiet.
I focused the same way I'd materialized Yarnell's hideout before but no matter how hard I tried the scene before me stayed empty. Tears threatened but I choked them back, forcing them down to the burning p
it in my stomach that wouldn't stop aching.
Before I could tip into insanity, I called up a door and focused on my house, on the backyard specifically. I didn't know if it was day or night back home. I didn't know how my kids were, what Tom was doing, what Lucy was doing.
I hoped she hadn't made up with Tom.
I stepped through the hook, chastising myself for not concentrating on what was important. Liam and Bethany. Bethany and Liam. I stepped out into the yard. Morning, it appeared. I stared at the house, but couldn't make my feet move.
I needed to get Lucy's attention. Glean from her what had happened in my absence. My hands shook so I stuffed them in my pockets. Looked up at the house and concentrated on Lucy. I was afraid to use the heart for fear of whose attention I would attract.
What in the hell had possessed me to bind her to me? As if I wasn't in enough trouble. A click of the lock made me scramble backward. I didn't have anywhere to hide, so I held my breath, as if that would somehow help explain my presence to anyone but Lucy.
I/Lucy stepped out of the house, my/her brow wrinkled. Wrinkled. Huh. I didn't realize I had that many wrinkles when I frowned. "Lucy, thank goodness. I was hoping it would be you."
"I'm sorry?" My voice sounded puzzled. Her voice. Whatever.
"Thank you so much for being here. How are my kids?" I tried pushing past her but she blocked me.
"I don't know who you are, but you can't come barging in my house."
I frowned. "Excuse me? It's me. The real Devany. Let me in." I tried again to go around her and again she blocked my path, this time with a firm shove.
"I don't know what you're talking about. My name is Devany and you have seconds to get off my property before I call the cops." Her voice—my voice—had risen to a shout. Anytime now, Tom or the kids would hear her and come out to see what was going on.
"Lucy, damn it." I paused, taking a breath. "Sorry. Please, it's been awful but I don't have a right to take that out on you. Thank you for caring for my family." I didn't see any give in her expression. Desperate I said, "Please. I want to see my kids."
Fear blossomed over her features. She looked exactly how I would look if a crazy person had shown up on my doorstep wanting to see my kids. "Tom!"
"No," I moaned. This wasn't supposed to happen. But why was I surprised? Since I'd wandered into the hook way back at the beginning of time, my life had gone down the crapper.
'Tytan. I need you here now.'
To Lucy, I said, "I'm Devany Miller. You are Lucy. You have been filling in for me. You volunteered.” Sorta. “You work for Tytan. The Slip. Remember?"
She shook her head, backing into the house. She swung the door but I shoved my arm through the gap, wincing at the pain. She pushed, wrenching another yelp from me. She shouted at me to go away.
My patience was rapidly deteriorating. "Let me in, Lucy. Give me back my family. Do you hear me?" The heart inside me throbbed as if it wanted me to use it.
Then Tom was there, his face full of concern. "What's going on Dev?"
I shoved at the door, knocking Lucy back a few steps. "Tom, how are Liam and Bethany?"
He frowned at me and his next words floored me, as did the perplexed expression on his face. "Who the hell are you?"
TWENTY-NINE
"What do you mean, who am I? Who do I look like?" I put a hand in both Lucy and Tom's guts and shoved, using a bit of the heart to lend strength to my actions. They moved. Tom sprawled backward onto the floor, Lucy banged into the door. Inside, I called out, "Liam? Bethany?"
"Call the cops, Devany," Tom scrambled to rise but a glance at him assured me he wasn't planning to try anything heroic.
"I am Devany," I snapped at him. "Liam! Bethany! Come down here now." The heat in my cheeks rose from the terror that they weren't here after all, that Ravana had lied and my kids were gone.
"Mom?"
Liam's voice made me sag against the banister that rose to the second floor. "Are you okay?"
He frowned. And looked at Lucy. "Mom?"
Pain throbbed in my chest. He didn't know me. What had Ravana done to his mind? "It's me, baby. I'm your mom."
Lucy trembled in the doorway before moving to block off the stairs. "I don't know who you are but this isn't funny. You need to leave."
Tempted to slap her, I hid my hands behind my back. I didn't want to commit any acts of violence in front of my kids. I saw Bethany, peering from around the corner. "Bethany?" My voice shook. I wanted to beg her to acknowledge me, but I bit down on the impulse.
"I'm calling the cops," Tom said, his face flushed and a phone already pressed to his ear.
"These are my kids. How can you do this? Don't you recognize me or is this some game you're playing?" Not a single spark of recognition passed her face. Nothing to indicate that she knew she was only pretending to be me. She actually thought she was me.
"Please, leave us alone."
Okay, she didn't sound like me. I wouldn't have been pleading; I would have been proactive, doing some shoving myself. "These are my kids."
A loud bang on the door startled us all. Tom pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it for a comic moment. Then he put it back to his ear as he strode around me, giving me wide berth. He swung the door open. "Officer, I," He stumbled back into the house again. I wondered if he was getting tired of being pushed around yet.
"Let's go."
"Tytan." Relief, anger, shock at his battered face all warred for primacy in my head. "Lucy doesn't remember me. My kids, Tom."
"Not now. We'll talk about it later." I saw his beautiful eyes narrow as he stared at me. He held out his hand. "Please."
The please did it. I didn't want to leave my kids but I didn't know what to do that wouldn't upset them. Glaring at Tom, I put my hand in Tytan's and let him lead me out the door. Tom slammed it hard behind us.
"What's going on? Why didn't they recognize me? My own kids, Tytan." He was pulling, practically dragging me down the street. I realized he was trying to get us out of the area in a hurry. That hurry sped up my heart. "Why aren't we disappearing? Take me to the Slip, I don't care. I want to know what's going on and I want my family back."
"I can't go to the Slip. You can't either. Ravana wants you dead. Vasili too, though I don't know how you came to know him." He didn't pause. We walked for blocks before we heard the first sirens. He pulled me behind a blooming lilac. I peered through the leaves until the cop car disappeared down the street. Behind me a thump. I turned to see Tytan on the ground.
"What is wrong with you?" I squatted beside him. Touched a bruise on his cheek with what I thought was a light touch but he flinched as if I'd hit him. "How'd you get away?” A deathly pallor yellowed his bronze skin.
He snorted. "She let me go. Whatever you did to her made her forget about wanting to hurt me."
Another police car drove by, sirens wailing. "We need to get out of here. I'll take us both ... somewhere. Where? Where's safe?"
'Arsinua, Neutria, feel free to chime in here.'
Let him die.
Swamp.
I didn't feel safe there. And as for Arsinua, I was getting tired of her passionate hatred of all things Skriven. "I'm not letting him die."
Tytan glanced up at this, and then let his head hang as if it were too much trouble to hold up. "Witch doesn't like me."
"No shit." The meeting hall, Yarnell's hideout. "I have an idea." I hauled him to his feet. He cursed at my touch—whether because it hurt or because I was being peremptory I don't know. I enjoyed being the stronger of the two of us. I didn't delude myself that it would last, though. I made a hook and stepped through, pulling him with me.
We stepped through into the swamp. No visible sign of the building but I knew it was there and looked for it with the magic. Soon enough it coalesced around me but I was shocked at how it looked. The ceiling had caved in on the far south side. The wall had fallen in a heap of stone and rock dust. Thick cobwebs already gathered in the corners that were still uprigh
t and a few large, pale bugs were caught in the webs. One looked like a giant albino mosquito.
"Nice atmosphere. Decorate it yourself?" Tytan fell to the floor, lying amid the dust and ruin.
"What is wrong with you?"
He grunted, his eyes shut. Maybe I was one sick puppy because he looked sexier, more masculine with the battered face. Then again, it might've been because he looked vulnerable and therefore more human.
I knelt beside him when he didn't answer. Touched his neck to feel for a pulse then wondered if he even had a heart to give life to a pulse. I felt a faint throb. Good? Bad? I had no clue. "Ty. I need help. I want my kids back. Please."
One of his eyes opened. "Those pieces of soul she stole from you as payment."
I nodded.
"When you did whatever it was you did to her, she flew into a rage. Gave those pieces to Lucy."
I sat down in the dust beside him. Shit. "So, what?" I could guess, but I wanted to hear it aloud.
"So she's now your vessel. That's what formless ones are to the Skriven. They hold our souls." His strong fingers encircled my wrist. "You figure out how to work that heart yet without killing yourself?"
His touch made me forget things, made the hormones run amuck and chase the brain cells away. I tried to concentrate. "Funny thing. That's why ole Medusa head wants me dead." His thumb was rubbing the tender underside of my wrist. Back and forth. I sucked in a breath. "Stop that."
He didn't. "It helps ignore the pain."
I snorted this time. "Anyway, I hooked to the Slip since I couldn't get hold of you." I checked to see if he looked guilty. Nope.
"Ravana likes to bite."
Oh. My stomach swooped. I couldn't see any obvious bite marks, but his shirt stuck to wet bloody spots on his chest. "Sorry."
He nodded. "Hooked to the Slip, and?"
"And woke up with Nex licking my cheek. He told me there was a Skriven who could help me use the heart. I figured he meant the guy could teach me."
His eyes were still shut but his lips quirked. "Not without owing him."