by Laken Cane
Her grip tightened on the jug of coffee. Suddenly she didn’t want Z and his friends inside the Flesh Shimmer.
It wasn’t safe for them.
She followed Joy into the dim.
And straight into hell.
Chapter Nineteen
There were rooms—cells—lining the long halls down which Joy took her. Nothing else that she could see. No office, or kitchen, or rec room.
No nurse’s stations or areas for visitation.
Just doors.
The doors had small frames near the tops, which she imagined would slide open to allow for trays of food to be passed through. They would also allow a guard to slide back the closed panels so that he might peer in at the prisoner.
The building was stuffy and hot and smelled of mold, rot, and sickness. Its bare walls were grimy from decades of blood spatters, vomit, waste, and…
“Do I feel obsidian?” Something was weakening her.
Joy tossed a quick, nervous glance around and nodded. “Skyllians are sensitive to it. Lining the walls of the cells keeps the inmates sedated. Obedient.”
She could taste the thick desolation.
Moans and cries and an occasional scream were the only sounds.
“This…” she cleared her throat, trying to speak through the horror clogging her throat. “This is the asylum? What is being done to help these people?”
“These people did not just commit crimes. They have lost their minds and are quite dangerous. Our shimmer lord decided there is no help for them.”
“Why doesn’t he kill them?” She wasn’t being cold—she really wanted to know. Death was surely preferable to being shut away in that hellhole, devoid of sunshine or company or touch.
“He does.” Her smile was not nice. Not even a little bit. “But he does it slowly. He must be respected, or he must be feared. He is our shimmer lord.” She shrugged. “It is not easy. He does what he must for the sake of all his people.”
“That’s some recital,” Rune said. “You sound like a tour guide.” She walked across the hall and slid open a panel. That room was empty. “Why didn’t Dray put guards on me?”
Joy raised an eyebrow. “He is not afraid, Princess. You are in his world and no matter what you do here, in the end you will kill the witch. And that is all he wants.”
Rune approached Joy and waited until she had the deputy’s full attention. “What do you need me to see?”
Joy didn’t look away, but her face darkened and her swallow was audible. “I don’t know what you mean. You requested admittance into the dim. I can only obey you.”
Rune stared for a moment longer, then let Joy off the hook. “Okay, baby. Let’s do this. Lead the way.”
“We mustn’t interfere,” Joy said, as they walked down the grimy hallways. “Those of us who serve the shimmer lord.”
“I got it,” Rune told her. “Tell me about the prisoners.”
Joy pointed at the cell three doors down. “The man inside that cell collected eyes. He felt he had to take them while his victim was still alive, so he could see into the next world. Maybe even use them as a portal. He took fifty-eight eyeballs before he was caught.
“The cell across from him holds a woman who cut the penises off sixteen young men. She rolled the severed organs in biscuit dough and offered them to guests as appetizers. Shall I go on?”
“The ruler of Flesh Shimmer,” Rune replied, “is a man who captures and tortures dozens of men and women before killing them…slowly.” She curled her lip. “He is the same as the worst criminals in this dim.”
Joy pursed her lips. “Are you saying you would not—that you have not—tortured for revenge or to get information or simply because you wanted to? Is that what you are saying?”
Rune stopped walking. “I’m getting some mixed signals from you, Deputy Joy. What exactly do you want from me?”
Joy continued walking. “Our world is our own. Our rules work. If we do not trust our shimmer lords, our lives…” She shook her head. “We must trust our lords.”
“But?”
Joy licked her lips. “I owe him,” she whispered.
“You owe the shimmer lord?”
“No.” Her voice was stronger. “Please. We must hurry before we’re discovered.”
The place was like a creepy, filthy hotel from a black and white horror movie. There was no color. There were no moments when she spotted something and thought, “Oh, that’s nice.” Not even a little bit.
Joy took her to wide stairs that led down to the prison level.
She discovered quickly that it wasn’t really a prison any more than the asylum was an asylum. The entire lower level appeared to be where physical torture took place.
The first room they reached was at least twenty feet long and nearly as wide. Iron manacles, rusty and heavy, were attached to the slimy, moldy rock walls as well as the wet floors.
Joy watched her carefully.
“No,” Rune said, her horrified stare glued to the row of men and women shackled to the walls. They were standing, the fronts of their bare bodies against the bloody wall, their ankles and wrists spread and cuffed so the prisoners looked like human x’s.
They’d been whipped, beaten, tortured unmercifully. Their heads had been shaved, and every inch of their backs, buttocks, and legs looked like bloody, raw hamburger.
“No,” she repeated. “I would never do this.” She looked at Joy. “And I won’t allow your lord to do this.”
“This is not why you’re here, Princess. Come this way.”
“I’m setting them free,” she muttered, barely able to speak past the horrified lump in her throat.
She shot out her claws, shot them out so hard she cried out in pain as they exploded from her fingertips.
“Princess,” Joy begged, holding up her hands. “Nearly all of these are the witch’s people. They belong to Damascus, and they have done things you can only imagine.” She reached out to touch Rune, thought better of it, and wiped her palms on her pants instead. “Think, Princess. Think.”
Rune shuddered, realizing only when they cut into her lip that she’d dropped her fangs. “I don’t care who they belong to. I don’t care what they’ve done. Put them in a prison cell or kill them.” She lowered her voice and stared Joy down, willing her to hear the truth in her words. “There will be no more of this.”
As she spoke, other people crept into the room. People in hoods and robes. Executioners. Torturers.
Joy groaned.
“Brasque Dray is supposed to be the good guy,” Rune whispered.
Joy looked puzzled. “He is? Why?”
Why, indeed?
Then she remembered why.
“Because he fights Damascus.”
Joy only tilted her head, watching Rune as though she were an unhinged child.
And maybe she was.
She couldn’t breathe in the stuffy, smelly confines of the prison. Couldn’t breathe, or think, or figure out just what the fuck she was supposed to do.
Dizziness hit her hard.
Damn claustrophobia.
“Princess,” Joy murmured. “I may die for this. At least make it worth it.” She grabbed Rune’s upper arm, hard. “Please.”
“As soon as we leave this room, I’m going to make sure fucking Brasque Dray changes this shit. Count on it.”
Joy nodded as she pulled Rune from the room. “Yes, yes. Speak to him of the atrocities.”
The next room was as bad—worse, even—than the first one. Torture devices she didn’t recognize were strung along the walls, over the floor, and, she was sure, into the next horror of a room.
In most of the devices were dead or dying men.
And when she spotted one particular man, she understood why she was inside the dim. She understood who Joy owed and who she was risking her life to save.
“My God,” Rune whispered, her voice so hoarse it hurt her throat. “My God.”
She ran with all the speed she’d ever possessed toward
him, her heart beating too fast, too hard.
“You and I aren’t finished, Rune. No matter what happens, just remember that. We’re not finished.”
She ran to save the man the berserker had killed in Wormwood.
Owen Five.
Chapter Twenty
She couldn’t have spoken right then if her life had depended upon it. She ground her teeth and hacked through the ropes that held him to a metal wheel, trying to ignore the fact that his bones had been broken, his face was a scarred, bloody mess, and he had burns and punctures over his entire body.
A metal circle of spikes had been placed around his head, and blood leaked down his skin as the spikes dug into his skull.
His eyes were gone.
His eyes were gone.
She moaned, horrified, and knew she’d have to give him a merciful death. He was…beyond pain.
“Owen,” she said. “Owen.”
Before she lowered him gently to the floor, she loosened the screw that kept the metal band digging into his skull. She lifted it carefully from his head, then flung the device against the wall.
She looked wildly around, uncertain. “Joy?”
But the lord’s deputy had repaid her debt to Owen Five, whatever debt that had been, and she fled.
Rune couldn’t blame her for trying to protect herself. Brasque Dray and his dim were horrors beyond imagining.
Owen didn’t make a sound. She doubted he ever would again.
It broke her heart.
Some of the executioners had gathered in the wide doorway and were watching her. One of them held a weapon she’d never seen before—it was shaped like a scythe, and so large and heavy it dragged on the floor when he moved.
How he lifted it, she couldn’t have said, and didn’t care.
They’d tortured Owen. And he was one of hers.
She rose to her feet in one quick, liquid movement, death in her heart. Vengeance in her heart. She’d kill them all.
Brasque rushed into the room, dozens of guards at his back with their shotguns up and ready.
She smiled.
She’d kill them all.
Brasque held up his hand. “Wait, Princess.”
She tilted her head, feeling more animal than human. “You’re going to die, shimmer lord. I’ll save you for last, because I want to take my time with you. I won’t lie. It’s going to hurt.”
They would have only seen a blur as she ran toward them. She killed two of the torturers before they even realized she’d sent her claws through their throats.
“Shimmer lord,” one of the guards yelled. “The order?”
But he didn’t give the order.
He shot out claws as long as hers—longer, maybe—and held them to her throat.
Her shock had made her slow to react.
“Wait,” he repeated.
She narrowed her eyes. I can take him.
But he spoke again, and she hesitated. “Before you move, my claws will exit your back. While you’re on the floor, trying to heal yourself, my guards will finish the young man you seek to rescue.”
He pushed his claws, just the tips of two of them, into her chest. Just a tiny prod, but enough for her to feel something hateful in his claws.
It was his turn to smile. “They are made of obsidian, my child.” He slid them a little deeper. “Will you listen to what I have to say or shall I pierce your heart and force you to listen?”
She snarled at him, her rage flying like particles of metal inside her, screaming for release. “Talk. But you will die, motherfucker.”
He nodded. “The man you released was once the witch’s messenger. He was her slave. He killed for her, tortured for her…” He shook his head and pulled his claws from her flesh. He didn’t put them away, but they were no longer digging into her skin. “He is not innocent, and he is not your friend.” He waited.
The remaining executioners shifted from foot to foot, restless, but the guards didn’t move at all. Brasque Dray simply waited, quietly, but she could see fury in his eyes.
“Maybe,” she said, her voice strong, “he once belonged to the witch. But now he belongs to me.” She dropped her fangs. “And I mean to have him.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“He’s mine. That’s all I need to know.”
For a second, a spark of something close to pride appeared in his deep eyes. His smile, instead of cruelty, held a hint of admiration. “There are better people for you to save in this world, Princess.”
“And I’ll get to them.”
He retracted his claws. “My executioners tortured the truth from him. Would you like to know it?”
She darted her tongue out to wet her lips, cutting it on the sharpness of her fangs. Would she like to know it? “Yes.”
“I am not the wicked one in all this, my dear. Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you the story of Owen Five. You can assess the Flesh army later. You don’t have to trust me, but I beg you to look into my eyes and see the truth. I mean you no harm. Without you, we are all dead.”
She walked to Owen, then threw a look back over her shoulder. “Bring a stretcher. He’s coming with me.”
He sighed, then shrugged. “Prolong his agony if you must. He’s dead anyway.” And he turned to send two of his guards for a gurney to carry what was hers out of hell.
She watched them carefully, growling if they seemed to touch him a little too roughly, or if they jostled him as they walked toward the castle.
“Have your doctors help him,” she ordered Brasque, but he shook his head before she’d even finished speaking.
“They will touch nothing that once belonged to the witch, and even I cannot force them to.”
She couldn’t allow herself to really see his injuries. Couldn’t allow herself to think too much about the shape he was in, or the fact that lying there destroyed and helpless was Owen Five.
No. Could not.
But she could allow all that pain and heartache turn to hatred. Hatred for the Flesh Shimmer lord. Hatred for Skyll.
She wanted to go home, and she wanted to take Owen with her. Back to her world, where he might have a chance at being okay.
But Z. She couldn’t leave him.
She could not be once again without Z. Because she wouldn’t have a chance at being okay without her Z.
As the hours had struggled onward, that feeling became stronger. She could not lose Z again. There’d be no coming back from that.
There just wouldn’t.
She shook her head hard, hoping to tame her thoughts into something she could manage.
It wasn’t possible.
“My friends,” she said. “Any word?”
“I’m afraid not,” Brasque answered.
But it would be easy enough for him to lie. For all she knew, he’d either had them killed or was holding them somewhere just waiting for the opportunity to torture the “truth” from them.
“I’m leaving Flesh as soon as Owen is well enough to travel. Send your army directly to Magic. I’ll meet them there.”
“If you leave without an escort of soldiers, you won’t make it to Magic Shimmer.”
“I’m going after my crew. If your army wants to follow me, they’re more than welcome. But I’m not heading to Magic until my friends are at my side.”
She already knew she would have to feed Owen. It might help, it might not, but it was all she could do.
She had to try.
“Where’s Joy?” she asked.
“She’s dead,” the shimmer lord answered, and there was no real satisfaction in his voice. Only pain.
“Fuck you,” she said. “Fuck you.”
“Joy knew the law.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “She knew what she was doing.”
Gunnar had warned her. “There are no laws except the ones created by those in power to suit themselves and torture the lowers…”
Owen began thrashing wildly, his screams guttural and agonized, and she forgot abou
t Joy and Gunnar and fucking secrets.
There was only Owen.
And he needed her more than she’d ever been needed in her life.
She halted the guards carrying him and dropped to her knees beside his ravaged body.
“Owen.” She tried to be calm and soothing, but was sure he could hear the horrified, hard thumping of her heart.
He screamed again, and she knew if feeding him was unsuccessful, she’d have to kill him.
And she would, even though it would rip her heart out.
Traitor or not, it just didn’t matter.
He was hers.
She’d put him out of his misery, just as she had Z.
It was the right thing to do.
Chapter Twenty-One
She opened a vein in her wrist. Cradling his head against her chest, she forced her blood into his mouth.
Uncaring that those who watched may have judged her as weak, she closed her eyes and willed Owen Five to live.
Though he might damn her for it, she willed him to live.
“I’m here,” she whispered, over and over.
And finally, her blood pulled him a little closer to the surface of life.
He stilled, his lips feverish against her wound, his skin dry and hot.
“Owen,” she murmured. “You are always getting your ass kicked.”
Her blood helped him to rest and would, she thought, keep him alive. She could feel his awareness and only hoped the blood would ease his pain.
“Burning,” he croaked. “Burning and blind.” Then, “Where’s my hat?”
“Oh,” she said, sobbing. “Fucking Owen.”
She peered up at Brasque and the others, her bloody tears obscuring her vision. “Get someone to dress his wounds,” she screamed. “Do it fucking now.”
His broken bones needed set, his eyes—or lack thereof—needed tending, and he was covered with infected, filthy wounds.
His entire back had been ripped apart by the vicious strokes of a whip. He’d been tortured beyond endurance by the twisted freaks who served Brasque Dray.
And he wanted his fucking hat.
He drifted once again into oblivion, but it was a gentler unconsciousness, eased by her blood. And perhaps by the proximity of someone who cared.