Through the dimness, he’d seen her face, a mirror image from the last time they’d met; only this time, she was alive and well, if not a bit terrified. He’d so hoped that when he returned from his banishment, he would find her this way, as her sister had hoped to make her. He was glad that the High Priestess’s power had proven itself in the end. He was not, however, glad to see Shireen, alive but unconscious, as she took part in stealing his love away yet again.
Her face reminded him of his last day walking the mortal plane before his unfortunate banishment at the hands of Shireen.
***
He’d been hidden beneath the sand, waiting for his last spiteful blow to Ziba’s life to sink in. After this, she would have to finally realize that a life with him was her most prudent option. Before he knew of her intentions to be rid of him, he’d been foolish enough to think that it was her only option. When Bomani’s life had slipped through his vicious claws, Mainyu had never felt so fulfilled. By the end of three days time, when he felt her mournful period should come to a close, he would come to her in the night, assert the full extent of his feelings for her, again, and bring the young priestess back to his home in the netherworld, where they would live as man and wife. It never occurred to him that the mortals in that temple would take fate into their own hands. That his plans would never come to fruition.
He could feel it like a stab to his own heart when he sensed the life leave his mortal love. He’d greatly underestimated Shireen, and he’d learned since then that it was something he would never do again.
As he left to intercept her soul en route to his dwelling, he’d laughed, relishing in the stupidity of the humans. If they’d thought her worldly death would keep her from him, they’d been entirely wrong, but, again, he’d misinterpreted their intentions. The High Priestess, Shireen, had cast a spell from the Book of Eternity, a collection of writings that shouldn’t have ever been seen by a human. He’d played a part in its making, as well as the other Gods, and so the Book should have only been used by them. That Shireen had spoken a word from it was the blackest of blasphemy.
A mournful, inhuman snarl escaped him as he clutched at the chest of the earthly man he’d possessed. Pain was foreign to him, but he found that its elevating degrees were anything but friendly these past weeks. The physical agony he’d dealt with while his self-imposed abrasions healed was nothing in comparison to the absolute anguish that poisoned him, tearing through his veins like fire. His screams grew louder and louder, shaking the ground like the wrath of nature itself. He didn’t concern himself with a worry that if he screamed loud enough he would split the Earth in half, too selfish to look past his own suffering.
He spun once on the spot and erupted suddenly into a cloud of thick, black smoke. Blowing like hurricane winds, he shot toward the Temple of Tehran.
Shireen stood beside the stone altar still, staring down at her sister with tears flowing freely down her face. Her fingers clutched the knife that took Ziba’s life, but her free hand reached forward to push her sister’s eyelids over her flat, blue irises. Color was fast leaving Ziba’s cheeks, but her face was still the most beautiful in all of Persia. The more Shireen stared down at the face she’d grown up with, the more difficult it was becoming to tell herself that Ziba wasn’t sleeping.
One of the priests shrieked, pointing to the door as it dissolved under the black vapor closing in around them. “Shireen!”
Shireen tore her gaze away from the body on the slab to prepare for the attack she’d been anticipating. “Get away from the door!” she ordered, pulling the Book of Eternity into her arms and backing away from the altar.
The priests obeyed, collecting in a line before Shireen so they faced the impending threat.
“Take the hands of those beside you. If we die, we died saving one most dear to us,” Shireen announced, whimpering toward the end as her gaze unintentionally fell, once more, on the faithful departed.
The cloud that had once been Mainyu ate through the door before it materialized into a man they’d all become familiar with over the last few days. He stepped slowly toward them, muscles flexing under the weight of his rage. He wore a single, tattered, black robe, loosely tied over his human body but his bare feet crashed against the ground, dissolving the flooring in footprint-shaped burns. His once-crimson irises were black now, swallowing up the entirety of his eyes. The full force of their startlingly powerful gaze was set on Shireen.
“High Priestess,” he sneered, bowing deeply, mockingly.
As Mainyu straightened up, he outstretched his arm and darkness blocked out the sunrise behind the temple. A cold wind swept through the temple, all at once blowing out the torches that had illuminated the temple. Plunged into near complete the darkness, the humans gathered in the corner could see only by the grayish glow emanating from Mainyu’s skin.
“Do you realize what you have done?!” he snarled, shoving through the line assembled around Shireen.
“I have saved my sister from you!” she retorted, flipping through the pages in her arms until she found the page labeled with a bold, swirling Banishment. Mainyu’s hand struck her throat, lifting her from the ground as easily as if she weighed nothing at all. In her shock, Shireen dropped the book, but her fingers remained pinched on the corner of the page she’d been holding, tearing it noisily from the rest with a ghostly wail.
She choked on the air trying to force itself into her lungs. Had the situation not been so dire, Mainyu would have laughed. As it was, however, he only smiled viciously. “You have taken away from me the only creature I have ever loved…”
“You cannot love,” Shireen gasped.
The grip around her throat tightened and Shireen grimaced, letting the page in her hand fall weightlessly to the floor below. “Hosrael,” she coughed, gesturing vaguely toward the fallen sheet as she kicked uselessly at Mainyu’s torso. His hand on her flesh was beginning to burn as it dissolved like everything else he touched. Unlike everything else, however, blood began to seep through the space between his fingers, down his arm, and to the floor. Helplessly, the noises coming from Shireen’s throat turned to gurgles as she drowned.
The man behind her dropped to the floor to retrieve the paper and fell back into step beside the other priests. “Angra Mainyu, you have no power here, no power over us, and no power over her. You have no power here,” he read.
As the other priests picked up the chanting, Shireen fell to the floor. Mainyu’s eyes fell on his hand as it became translucent. He swiped at Hosrael, in vain, causing the young man to jump and drop the paper, though he continued to lead them in the chant. Shireen clawed at her throat. Her efforts were futile as the burning didn’t subside and neither did the bleeding.
“I will kill you all!” Mainyu roared as he realized that he couldn’t physically threaten them. The temple shook on its foundation, sending bits of the ceiling falling around them.
With the last bit of strength left in her body, Shireen crawled to the paper lying just out of reach. A beam from the ceiling fell to the ground with a hollow roar, just across the backs of Shireen’s knees, pinning her to the floor.
Blood spewed from the once-glorious High Priestess’s mouth as she shrieked in pain, fisting the broken page from the book in her hand. The ceiling came down harder and faster as Mainyu screamed, “I will make you suffer for this, Shireen!”
Filled with a newfound determination, she unfolded the paper and coughed out the obstruction in her throat. Her eyes were growing dim, but she was just able to make out the words on the page before she murmured, over the rhythmic chanting of the priests, “Mainyu, I banish you from this world.”
With another snarl, Mainyu vanished into thin air as the temple collapsed around the priests standing in the temple.
***
Mainyu wasn’t about to let Ziba slip through his fingers again, he swore as the mortal beside him led him toward the exit, where he’d seen the girl in question escape with Shireen. This time, though, he knew he wouldn’t fa
il. He was the one with all the power now, which had been proven by the unconsciousness of the High Priestess when he came into being. He wouldn’t allow the witch to corrupt his plans, no matter what force had brought her into this world with Ziba.
“Mortal!” he roared, halting her as they stepped into the light.
Natalia stopped, knowing already that she and this meathead weren’t going to get along well. She cooperated, knowing nothing of the damage he was capable of and not wanting to find out. “Yes, sir?” she asked. Her head had whipped fully to the side before she felt the pain against her cheek. Her body crumpled to the floor.
“Damn it!” she yelled, looking around for what could have hit her.
Mainyu retracted the hand he’d struck her with. “You, vermin, will address me as My Lord. Understood?”
Natalia stared up at him for a long time, wishing she could show him who the vermin was here. She held her tongue, cautiously pulling herself to her feet. “Yes, My Lord,” she spat through clenched teeth.
“Good. Now, bring me to her, mortal, I wish to see my love,” he ordered, starting back into the light.
“My Lord!” she called, catching his arm and pulling him back in. Another strike to her face resounded through the tunnel.
“You are not permitted to touch,” he hissed as Natalia picked herself up off the floor. Her lip burned, swelling around where he’d hit her. She pressed her fingertips to her face, finding blood on her lower lip. She saw red, jumping up to throttle the man before her.
His hand reached, grabbing her neck with a crushing strength.
She kicked to no avail, trying to find the ground with her feet.
“I will not say it again, human, take me to her.”
Natalia fell to the floor in a heap. “But,” she coughed, “My Lord, you are still weak. We must perform the sacrifice before you walk out in the open.”
Mainyu chuckled to himself. “Leave the witch to me. I know exactly how to dispose of her.”
Helplessly, Natalia obliged, and began directing him to where she knew the group would have taken Claire. Mainyu smiled to himself, thinking of all the things he would do once he had his power back. Before anything else, he resolved, he would tear Shireen apart with his bare hands.
Oh, yes, he’d underestimated Shireen before. It wasn’t something he planned on doing again.
Chapter Ten
Location Unknown; June 29th, 2012
“Favorite color?”
“Purple.”
“Favorite food?”
“KFC.”
“Oh, me too. Favorite movie?”
“I have a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Umm…anything Jane Austen, and anything with zombies in it.”
“I can see the connection.”
Janie laughed at his sarcasm, feeling her entire being lift with her smile. Of course, rotting away in a prison cell wasn’t something to smile about, but Taran’s company had made this nightmare livable for the first time in six months.
During his three day stay in the cellar, she hadn’t found out anything of great importance, like why he was there, but he’d entertained her with trivial anecdotes about his life for hours. She knew that his favorite color was green, he was allergic to bee stings, and he’d broken his left elbow three times in his life. He loved the Die Hard movies, but West Side Story was his guilty pleasure.
“What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?” he inquired.
“Umm,” she thought it over quickly. “Oh! When I was seventeen, I got a tattoo and didn’t tell my parents.”
“Really?” he chuckled. “A tattoo?”
“Ya, on my hip. Why? Think I couldn’t handle it?”
“No! I just…I wouldn’t peg you for the type. Besides, you’ve proven well enough that you can tolerate pain since you’ve been here for so long.”
Janie’s smile abruptly fell. When she was talking to Taran, it was so easy to forget where they were and what she was waiting for: another visit from Natalia. Sometimes, though, he would say something that forced her to remember that she hadn’t left hell. She’d only postponed it for a while.
“I don’t have a high pain tolerance,” she mumbled. “I cried the whole time.”
Taran snorted. “You’re hopeless.”
“Well, what about you, ya jerk?” she giggled. “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”
He didn’t get the chance to answer, though, because the sound of metal on metal screeched through the room. Light filtered in as the door opened.
Janie’s arms instinctively wrapped around her companion’s waist, wishing it could make the difference between staying and leaving. Janie’s eyes squeezed shut, dreading the image in her head of Natalia’s face as she dragged her back to the tub.
“The warden’s here for Ms. Campbell,” an unfamiliar voice sneered as he stomped into the room.
A hand grabbed the front of Janie’s shirt, easily separating her from Taran when it hauled her to her feet. Screaming in protest, she collapsed to the hard ground when her legs couldn’t support her. Her knees crashed to the cold floor first, sending pain pulsing through her broken shin. Moisture welled up in her eyes as she screamed, reaching for her leg as the bindings Taran created came undone. While she was curled up on the ground, a warm body gently fell over her, hiding her from the man who’d put her there.
“Leave!” Taran snarled above her, the owner of the body covering her. “She’s not—”
A hard oomph interrupted Taran.
Janie assumed it was him since he instantly fell away from her, hit by a force she could only imagine as the intruder’s foot. At the man’s mercy once again, Janie tried to push herself away with her good leg, succeeding only in moving an inch before she was hauled back up and thrown over his shoulder.
“You’ll die in your own time, pretty boy. But, you know what they say! Ladies first.”
Taran scrambled to his feet, still catching his breath from the steel-toed boot he’d taken to his ribs. He threw himself at the door as it closed with a bang.
“No!” he screamed, slamming his fists against the cold steel, to no avail. He didn’t want to think about what life would feel like, trapped in there alone. He didn’t want to think about what they were doing to his new friend when he couldn’t help her. He didn’t want to think about what he was going to do if she didn’t come back. He sunk, dejectedly, back to the floor.
Janie swung against her captors’ back with each step he took, robbing her of breath. She tried to think of anything, anything, but what lay ahead of her in that room, but her only thought was of the tub. The familiar door opened silently and light flooded the room before it slammed shut behind them. It was the first time in months she’d seen such a bright concentration of light and her eyes screamed for a reprieve. Janie’s head twisted to find her captor’s face, but she only caught a glimpse of short, black hair before she was thrown into a wooden chair. The unstable seat swayed back on its legs before, finally, settling haphazardly on all four.
She met the face of a giant man with shaved hair and beady, golden eyes while he duct taped her wrists to the arms of the chair. He gave her an unsettling smile and she averted her eyes, finding the concrete trough of water that haunted her dreams, now empty, under the harsh light of a naked bulb.
Her mind screamed her fears like a mantra don’t put me back in the tub, don’t put me back in the tub, don’t….
Her reverie was broken by his cruel laugh as he followed her gaze.
“We won’t be using the tub if you behave,” he promised, patting her on the head as he strode toward the trough. He stepped over a hose lying on the floor, wrapped hastily around the concrete steps leading up to the tub. The faucet it attached to was set into the wall behind her chair, preventing her from seeing it. She could hear it, though, when he allowed the water to rush through the rubber tube. “My friend couldn’t be here today for this, but she sends her regrets, Ms. Campbell.”
&nb
sp; Janie twitched away when water spurted from the hose’s end and pooled on the floor, inching toward her holey sneakers.
“She also told me that you have so far remained disagreeable to her questions. But I know that we won’t be having the same problems, will we?” he demanded.
Janie remained silent.
He leaned down to her level, close enough that she could feel his breath fan across her face. His expression twisted with distaste, his body jerking away to match it. “Ugh,” he groaned. “You stink.”
Despite where she was and who she was in the presence of, Janie couldn’t help but feel self-conscious. Taran had sat beside her, sometimes keeping his arm slung over her shoulder while they told stories to pass the time, for three days. He’d never once complained about the smell. Now that this guy had said it, she wondered why Taran had kept such a close eye on her since his arrival.
“You’re filthy,” he continued, bending to pick up the hose on the floor. Closing his thumb over most of its end, he pointed the tube at her, letting water spray in every direction.
The arctic water melted the dirt from her face, dripping from her chin in dark droplets. She turned her head away from the spray, feeling the water drown her as she sat there, and coughed when he moved the spew down the rest of her body. He stepped closer her, clutching her chin in his free hand so she was forced to make eye contact while he poured the hose directly into her face. Janie spluttered, jerking her neck every which way to escape him. After a long moment, he released her, tossing the hose in the trough.
“A little better,” Vilmore noted, closing the distance between them once again.
Janie scowled up at him, shivering without constraint as the room’s frigid temperature passed easily through her wet clothes.
“Now, I’m gonna ask you a few questions, and you’re gonna answer them, ‘kay? If you don’t…” he trailed off, pulling a glinting, silver pocket knife from the back pocket of his jeans. “Get it?”
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