Really…could a woman feel any less beautiful after a cold examination like that?
Elder Zeller snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Ms. Jules?” One eyebrow quirked.
“What?” I waited, not caring if I hadn’t been listening once they deigned to speak to me. “Wait. Let me guess. My tits are so small they won’t be a hindrance during a battle, which is something you can both work with, but shit,” I held my leg out, pointing, “my feet are too narrow, and might create a balance issue during a fight, so we’ll have to work on foot work.”
Elder Zeller inched his nose, not glancing to the areas I had mentioned. “Ms. Jules, our assessment may seem callous, but we’re both very good at what we do. Once we’re done with you, you’ll be able to handle yourself much better than the,” his nose crinkled, “in-your-face approach you seem to favor.” A flicked finger to my chest, even as he held my gaze evenly. “Besides, you’re built more like a Com, so therefore, your chest is average, not small by those standards. And your feet are small, but not narrow, and we already know your balance is fine from previous encounters you’ve had. You’re very well proportioned for your smaller stature.”
I started to place my hands on my hips, sighing heavily at his patient answer to my churlish one, but I remembered their assessment of my “motherly” hips, so I quickly re-crossed my arms again, not wanting to draw attention to them. “Thanks. I guess.”
“Don’t thank us yet,” Elder Merrick murmured, tone gravelly, still staring down at the thin screen and typing. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before you do that.”
“Right,” I muttered, glaring. “I understand.” And I fucking hate you.
Chapter Fourteen
“I fucking hate you,” I muttered breathlessly, not able to contain it any longer, staring up at Elder Merrick from where I lay flat on my back on the mat, chest heaving, sweat drenching my body, all while he and Elder Zeller appeared completely unfazed, not even being gracious enough to appear a bit tired while they took turns teaching—beating the shit out of me—and the other took notes on the computer pad I wanted to bash over both their heads. “You’re cheating. I know you are.”
Elder Merrick bent from his standing position, his tone still void, the chill he had been gifting me for the last forty-five minutes as frigid as the artic. “No. I’m not. You just react first with your fists, instead of your brain. You may be tiny and think the only way you can win is to get the first punch in, but your brain will always be your best asset.” He rose, and moved to Elder Zeller, not even bothering to help me from the floor.
Even with the fury boiling my insides, keeping me nice and toasty warm, my damn chin trembled the barest bit. His fury was a force all unto itself. His pompous nature irritated the shit out of me. His cruel, merciless side I hated with a vengeance, but would probably have respected if it hadn’t been aimed at me, hurt me. But this…nothing…he was giving me struck a different chord altogether. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew I didn’t fucking like it, the elusive emotion churning in my gut.
I rolled slowly, hiding my face, and cleared my throat quietly as I stood on exhausted legs, chancing a glance to the clock, praying I was close to being done here, needing the small reprieve of breakfast to pull myself together.
And that was when I felt it.
Through everything inside me, my Core thumped.
My breath caught.
It thumped again, and I quickly rubbed against my breastbone.
Buh-bum. Buh-bum. Buh-bum.
Harder…and harder it started to pound with magic, until it felt like another heartbeat inside my chest. My feet were moving instantly toward the pull. I felt as if I was in a daze of magical drunkenness, moving toward my destiny. “I have to go.” My voice was a mere toneless whisper, eyes on my destination, the door. “Have to go.” Elder Zeller was instantly in front of me, bringing a breeze, and I pivoted automatically, moving around him. “Gotta…go.”
“Kitten?” Leric asked inside my mind. “Are you on your way?”
“I’m coming,” I murmured aloud and through the bond, instantly ducking under Elder Zeller’s arm as he blurred in front of me again, his mouth moving, but I heard none of it, only Leric’s voice and the constant buh-bum, buh-bum filling my ears. “Is it time?”
“It is.”
I knew I should feel fear, but all I felt was the…pull…inside me to get outside. I blinked when Elder Merrick was instantly in front of me, walking backward; navy blue eyes scanning my face, his face still expressionless, but his lips were moving. I stared at them as I moved out the door, he beginning to walk up the stairs backward while I quickened my pace, my heart rate accelerating the faster my Core thumped. I shook my head at Elder Merrick, feeling dizzy, in a daze, pointing at my ear, stating loudly, “I can’t hear you.” I was starting to sprint up the stairs. “I have to go. Have to go. Have to go. Have to go. Have to go.”
He was managing to keep up with me, jogging backward, eyes trained on my face, and I shook my head. “It’s time.” I nodded, reaching around him for the door handle, thrusting the door open to the main floor, rubbing at my throbbing Core. “Grimm Reaper. I’m a fucking Grimm Reaper. Time to reap. Reap the fuck away. Reap…reap, reap.” And in essence, that was exactly what I was as the Chosen. “I’m not scared right now.” I was running through the halls, Elder Merrick keeping pace beside me, his face stone solid, attention avid on me, but his lips were no longer moving. “Not now. I just gotta…go. Gotta go. Gotta…go.” I laughed on a breathless chuckle, crazed, my mind chaotic as screams of the Damned, the trapped, began to fill my mind as I threw open the back door. “Insane. I’m going to be fucking insane. Another spirit…lost.”
Leric was there on the lawn already, face tilted down toward the ground, white rolls dangling about his face, glowing, his hands rotating, stars flying from them, not hiding his work this time—going to the Temple as I had suspected he had been doing previously for this—as spirit Guardians stood behind him, come from the Temple, a massive black, iron door beginning to form into the ground from his work. “Hurry, kitten.”
“Coming.”
Elder Merrick stopped abruptly when hands grabbed him from behind, and I kept moving, chest heaving, my mid-sized daggers materializing in my hands, already glowing, not sure when that had begun. I raced to stand beside him, staring down at the door. It beat in time to my Core…the Damned, those stuck between living and death, the truly evil which didn’t want to give in when it was their time, inside wanting free. I swayed back and forth to the beat, and my eyes drifted up.
There was a crowd on the lawn, everyone, plus house staff having followed me outside. All staring between Leric, myself, the Guardians, and the door, which even they stared at warily. Elder Farrar was knocking anyone back who started to take a step forward with a blast of his magic, or just flat out shoving them. But somehow, Elder Merrick snuck around the edges. I watched as he crept into the scooped tree line, but lost sight of him as he melded into the shadows.
“Grab the handle,” Leric ordered quickly, the door solidifying further from his working star-fueled hands. “You need to do this the first time now that we’re connected.”
I nodded instantly, no arguments, only the need to get inside. Tucking a dagger in the back of my shorts, I squatted and lifted the enormous wrought iron handle. “Open it?”
“Almost…” Leric’s stars power flew across me like a breeze onto the door, not hitting me, only its destination. “Yes, open it, and prepare yourself.”
My muscles strained and I grunted, shouting with the effort to open it, seeing my own power filter down into the door, the black ugliness of it slowly spreading to white from where I touched it, until the door glowed like the moon, and it flung open, hitting the grass on the ground with a juddering quake. Furious, enraged screams lit the air. Goosebumps instantly covered my flesh as the sounds of the soulful wretchedness in the world pounded.
“Let’s go,” Leric ordered in my mind, no other s
ound could be heard but the chorus of the Damned beginning to etch their way to the surface, their evil permeating the air, past the darkness. All appeared as they were on their deathbeds in the real world. One armless, another’s throat slit, another trying to squeeze through sporting multiple gunshot wounds in her chest, while another appeared perfectly normal, if only sick, not just Mysticals, but Commoners too. I inhaled heavily as Leric brushed his thumb over my cheek while a dagger, much like my own, appeared in his other hand. “You can do this.” He stepped off into the blackness taking two with him, the Guardians glowing spears pointed toward the door for any Damned that dared to exit or that got past us.
I inhaled again, still feeling no fear, knowing I needed to do this. Compelled to do this. Another inhale, my head tilting back. I sucked oxygen for a moment, opening my eyes to the brilliant morning sky, and saw glowing navy blue eyes staring down at me from high on a tree limb. I blinked up at Elder Merrick as he watched, face completely expressionless, getting a bird’s eye view of what awaited me. And I jumped, grabbing the other two around their necks, taking them down with me…falling…falling…into the encompassing darkness, their screams all I could hear in my head as my powers flared, and I felt their lives rush through my mind as I began dematerializing them, snuffing out their light, their evil, sending their souls back to their dying bodies for their end, my own screams heard as my feet eventually landed next to Leric’s, only bones landing with me, the two gone, then even their bones disappearing back to whence they came.
I was standing on a barren field of red dust, a cloudy permanent day overhead, the sun forever shadowed, red hills on nothing in the distance here in the space of the Barren. And the Damned surrounded us in hordes, limitless masses from what I could see, their thoughts pushing and pressing down on me, their completely deprived thoughts and murderous agendas and merciless deeds. Still shaking from the two I had killed, a rapist and a drug dealer, their heartless acts still churning in my mind, I managed to focus when Leric’s lips pressed against my forehead, fear and anxiety and torment now plaguing my thoughts as the pull diminished since I was here, and he whispered in my mind, “If it becomes too much, just stay near me and I’ll take care of them until you can acclimatize yourself.”
I nodded hastily, rubbing my wet eyes with the back of a glowing hand. “Let’s get this done.”
We moved out from under the cave we had descended down from into the desolate land.
I fought.
I killed.
Each one I took out, their depraved memories flooded through my mind.
I accumulated multiple injuries, their forms here just as corporal as in the real world, only any powers were dead here to them—not us, but they fought. They fought to be freed. They fought to get back to their lives and continue their own brand of evil on the world.
And I fought.
“Who is that?” I asked, my tone dead, our fight done, pointing a bloody blade toward the mountains. Now I knew why the dust was red, or rather, brown. All of the dried blood from previous battles. “That person?”
There was a lone individual standing like a shadow on top of one of the mountains, not coming to fight, but his presence was still evil…malevolent…of the deadliest sort.
“He waits,” Leric answered, his tone also void, breathless as mine was. “When he decides to try to escape, we’ll end him just like the rest.” Per the rules, we only killed those trying to escape. The rest would eventually die with time, the Barren a middle ground for all evil souls between the living to death.
We began traveling over the bloody field back to the cave’s entrance, both of us moving slowly, but I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder at the individual. “You’re positive it’s a he?”
“He approached once when I was younger, and then fled back to the mountains.” Leric paused, thoughtful. “He’s…silver.”
“Silver?”
“Yes.”
“How long has he been here?”
“Ever since I can remember.”
“He’s biding his time.”
“Yes.”
We went silent then, trekking through the bloody grounds.
I didn’t want to speak. Leric didn’t appear to, either.
My mind churning at the pure evilness there had been in the world, now gone. On this one day. Something which happened sometimes twice a week. Or more, Leric had stated. The depth of…darkness…that had existed within those now dead…earth shattering.
No, I couldn’t speak anymore. All I wanted was quiet. Peace and love and fucking sunshine quiet. Climbing the walls of the cave side-by-side with Leric, I concentrated on my task, the black rock slippery under my hands as it dug into them, slicing them…but it only helped fuel me on, the bite of pain a reminder I was still alive, any of my previous injuries healing rapidly on the battlefield, my use of powers making me heal quickly as the powerful being I was should.
Eventually, Leric shouted, “It’s us. Back away.”
I hadn’t even realized we were near the top, the area still pitch black except for our glowing eyes, our bodies glow dimmed by the blood we wore like gruesome paint. I lifted a hand from the darkness, and instantly felt grass under my palm as my wrist curled over the edge of the doorway, my fingers gripping down into the earth. When my head dipped out of the darkness, I squinted into the late afternoon light, realizing we had been gone for a very long time. Some of the Guardians had blood on them, the few we hadn’t taken down with us as we had fallen through the gateway between here and the Barren having tried and failed to get past them.
“Caro?” King Collins shouted from my right. “Caro?” I heard a shuffling sound as Leric and I continued dragging our tired bodies from the pits of what I would forever consider my own hell. “Let me through, dammit, or I will fucking hurt you!”
“I’m fine, King Collins,” I called loudly, but I knew it was a lie, my tone and voice, still dead.
“That’s a whopper if I ever heard one,” Queen Ruckler muttered lightly, also, off to my right, but her tone was like ice. “Jack, let’s give her a second.”
“She’s injured, goddammit!” King Collins growled. “No one bleeds that much and isn’t.”
“The majority of that isn’t her blood,” King Zeller stated, his voice cool and calm. “Just give her a moment.”
“They’ve been down there a long time, Jack.” Queen Cooper’s British accent didn’t grate on me as bad as it normally did as she continued. “Anyone would need a moment to recuperate after that long of a fight.”
“Thank you,” I muttered breathlessly, meaning it wholeheartedly, lifting and slamming the door shut, it turning back to black, instantly disappearing.
Leric and I flopped onto our backs onto the soft grass, breathing heavily of clean air, our exhausted bodies coated in dried blood, reeking of evil deaths.
He cursed quietly, staring up into the sky as I was, then muttered in my mind, “I’m going to pretend for now I don’t see him.” And, he shut his eyes. “I’ve had enough killing for one day.”
I stared up where Elder Merrick was sitting in the tree, but on a different limb now, one over—one that probably had a better view past the guards, eating a damn sandwich and sipping from a Coke calmly, gazing down on us mutely, face expressionless. I met his navy blue gaze with my own dead, cold one. Most would have flinched by what they saw in my gaze, turned and fled, or possibly just fainted. But, no. Not him. Instead, he only held my gaze evenly while taking a bored bite of his—what looked like—bologna sandwich. I blinked slowly, then started chuckling quietly, a completely inappropriate response for what I was going through right now, but it just seemed so damn serene watching him eat and drink casually while he held my death filled, tormented gaze.
“Hush.” Leric bumped my side with his slack hand, eyes still closed. “There’s birds singing in the distance.”
I huffed one more chuckle, watching how Elder Merrick lifted the can of Coke, taking a decent swig to wash down his large b
ite, and then I closed my eyes…and listened with Leric to the birds sing.
Eating dinner that night, I could tell others were trying overly hard to keep the conversations light. Airy. Free of any troubles. But all I really heard were their tones to give me this indication as I stared out a darkened window across from me, imagining it was sunny and I could see the picturesque landscape. My thoughts, and mind, were still in turmoil. Leric had recovered much faster than me, but I felt no shame for my longer recovery time. He had been doing this for a very long time.
I had not.
He continued to try to push his own tranquility down our bond, but I only barked at him through our personal line of communication to stop. This was something I needed to feel. It was something I needed to get used to. I needed to learn how to fucking deal with it without help, or else, I was screwed if he died before me, since this was a lifetime gig.
I didn’t even fear dying down there when I was ancient and decrepit because we had our powers, but I could seriously see myself going insane if I couldn’t get a grip on this, so many dark memories playing throughout my mind.
I breathed shallow, my hands beginning to tremble the barest bit, and I quickly placed them under the table on my lap where Isolde sat, curled up, damn near catatonic. “Fine,” I whispered in my mind, “Give me a hint.” Two…was better than one…sometimes, he had insisted. “How did you get through your first time?”
He took a long moment to reply where he sat next to Roselle, where I stared between them out the window. “Chess.” I saw him eat a bit of his roll from the corner of my eye. “I like playing chess. And I played it for two days straight worrying my mother to no end. But it kept my mind off it.”
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