by Rena Marks
Holly was dazed, staring straight ahead.
“Her eyes are the color of Ace’s,” Keara said to Talya. “What happened?”
“She took his soul.”
“Oh, God. Holly? Holly, listen to me. Come on, honey.” Keara shook her shoulders slightly. “Holly? I need you to hold your screams. You can’t kill a demon that outranks you. Remember the eye for an eye? If you kill Enishka, even accidentally with your screaming, you’ll have to pay with your own life.”
“The threeee bitchessss invade my territory… Again. Was my kingdom not enough for you? You had to come follow me here? Leave, Keara. I didn’t send for you.”
“You had no business sending for Tally.”
“She entered a portal on her own.”
“You tricked me, bastard.” Natalya snapped. “You sent me a vision of my pet going into harm.”
“Prove it, Huntress bitch. Maybe your skills have gone lax since good ole Ace has become greater than you. After all, he found the little human Holly I’ve been looking for. Thank him for that, will ya?”
“You’re gonna be in big trouble when the Council finds out about Holly.”
“Bullsssshit. I’ve already been banished for the stolen eggs. What are they gonna do, banish me twice?”
Enishka laughed heartily then stopped. He kicked wearily at the scuttle demons until they laughed along with him, a fake constant chitter.
Natalya continued. “Not to mention…Ace. You took his wife. You think he’s not going to be a little upset?”
Enishka rolled over in the dirt, a fat sausage of a man. “Doesn’t matter. I own him. I could summon him here. Watch this.”
“Heed my call, Demon’s Own. Grant my request and return my possession.”
Enishka waited impatiently. His beady eyes began to shift. “Where is he? Is he defying me?”
Keara looked bored. “Do you think that perhaps you have a quota of demons on the moon?”
“What? What quota? What are you talking about?”
“It’s why the moons are used as prisons. Each one can’t hold more than four adult-sized demons at a time…and how many do we have here now?”
“Son of a bitch. So what do we do?” he whined, as if they would really help him.
“Send Holly back down there.”
“Holly? Why Holly?”
Because she’s hurt. But the words were left unsaid, because apparently he hadn’t yet noticed.
Enishka looked thoughtful. “No, Holly can’t go. That little bitch murdered my sons! She’s gonna breed the next batch since Natalya’s now worthless.”
“Natalya and I will combine our power against you unless you let the three of us go. You know how that panned out the last time.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“What do you think?”
Enishka looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he brightened. “Ace up my sleeve! I do, I do! I own Ace…and I have an ace up my sleeve.”
The demon bitches looked confused. Didn’t they understand what he was saying? How stupid were the creatures? It was so unfair that they could merge enough power to rearrange his face.
He whispered. “Know why I change shape?”
Keara answered. “Vanity. To show everyone how much power you have. No other shape-changing demon can make the shapes for the periods of time that you do.”
“No one’s ever seen my true form.”
The tone was ominous. A bead of sweat trickled down Keara’s temple. The temperature was rising quickly. The tiny lizard demons began to scuttle around frantically.
“From day one I changed shapes. I mimicked the creatures around me, combining shapes of demons I saw. It was safer than my own true form.”
Holly babbled. “No! Don’t ask…don’t ask him his true form. Don’t ask.”
Natalya stared at her. Was Enishka’s insanity transferring? He was becoming more lucid, even as Holly was becoming strange.
“I was born of three parents,” Enishka said, his voice deepening to a level they’d never heard. “The one standing between the thighs of my mother at my birth died from the shock.”
“Born, not hatched…” Holly sputtered.
“Hatched, but early. That parent incubated her own eggs within the warmth of her womb. I hatched and pulled it out enclosed in my tiny fist. We have that in common, Holly Dolly,” he said congenially. “The other two parents…they went insane. You see, I can trigger or control insanity, though I didn’t know it as an infant. But I need all my power for that. So the public profile has to go.”
His torso grew.
Blood and pus erupted from the splits in his skin, arms and legs emerging from places they never should have been, like abnormal vestiges of his three combined parents. His hair fell off in patches of bloody scalp.
If hideous in some of his forms, he was horrifying au naturel. Some of his skin was scaled. His eyes, yellow and crazed, cut right through objects. But even in his natural state, his eyes were still on the sides of his head.
Holly stared in horror. “I know you,” she whispered. “From my dreams.”
“Yesssss.” His tongue forked out and wrapped around her neck like an enormous snake.
Keara and Natalya couldn’t look directly at him, the visual was so horrendous. Yet Holly stared. Natalya tried to get Holly to look away, but she didn’t seem to be connected with her brain.
A hideous smell erupted from him, sulfur and decay, like a walking corpse. That was why the eggs had smelled so horrible. A gene passed along from their father.
Suddenly the evil being hissed, “Holly… Dove… Would you like to watch the excruciating punishment your husband went through in order to relinquish his soul? Such bravery, such torture. Really gruesome, especially when the rich blue blood flows from his mouth and nose. You know I can make you go crazy enough to kill him, right?”
Holly stared numbly, unresponsive in Natalya’s arms.
“Holly Dolly, did you say yes? Why, I think you did.”
* * * * *
“I have an idea,” Ace said to Caleb and Jere.
Both men looked at him.
“If Keara jumped through this portal and popped out over there, chances are it’s going to be difficult for the three of them to get back to the same portal. Correct? Maybe Enishka has guarded it or had his legion of scuttles move to guard it. So what if we move this portal over? Force another to pop open in a different spot? Hope that it’s close to the girls or that they notice it before Enishka does and can jump through.”
“How would we move a portal?” Jere asked.
“The Three are still creating it. It’s active. So if we drain the water into a different spot, it may just shift into another portal when the energy runs out of the first.”
Caleb nodded. “It makes sense. It’s worth a try.”
“Well, let’s dig a trench and drain out this pond downhill. Ten or fifteen feet should be a good distance and won’t take too long.”
* * * * *
On the magnitude of his power alone, he created a waterfall from the well of water, effectively destroying the original portal.
Little did Enishka realize he merely helped the plan Ace had thought up just a few minutes earlier.
But shimmering in the waterfall was the image he’d wanted for the crazy Holly. The visual of Ace twisted in agony, his body contorted in muscular cramps. As if he were ready to scream.
But his teeth were clenched. In the image behind him, Enishka was in the reddish form of a lobster, laughing hysterically. “Scream for me and I’ll change my mind. Scream for me and I’ll take your sister instead,” he chanted hysterically.
Ace suffered silently. Watching the projection was Holly, a silent, green-tinged teardrop trailing down one cheek.
“Ignore it, Holly. It’s not real, it’s not happening now. It happened long ago, what’s done is done,” Natalya whispered.
“Oooh, the pain!” Enishka taunted. “Watch what’s next, Holly Dolly. Watch me when I slice him open and tear it
from him.”
“Don’t watch, Holly. He just wants you to scream so you can do enough damage for your own punishment. He’ll use your pain to taunt Ace.”
But when Ace was slit open across the solar plexus, a demonic claw plunged in, twisting and turning, wrenching past organs, the skin of his abdomen torn raggedly and streaming bloody guts.
The pain was too much. Ace’s eyes rolled back into his head, and finally he bowed to the demon lord’s wishes.
He screamed.
The sound ripped through Holly. The love for Ace triggered a memory in his soul, the one buried alongside her own.
Her eyes rolled back also as she screamed for both of them.
Chapter Fourteen
Healing the Sands of Time
Keara saw the portal open at the same time Natalya did. As if by unspoken agreement, they grabbed Holly’s upper arms and dragged her toward the new pool of water that somehow suddenly appeared next to them. The three women sank into the water, immediately silencing the heart-wrenching scream before the demons on the moon could drop with the damage.
The three appeared on the other side of the pool to see the familiar faces of their husbands.
But it was apparent not all was well. For one thing, both Keara and Natalya rose from the water dry. Between them they dragged an unconscious Holly, who was as soaked as a drowned rat.
Ace took the limp body from the arms of the demon queens. “Holly, love, talk to me,” he begged. She was so fragile, his little half human. He didn’t know how she’d survive this.
From everywhere, demons were running to their aid, alerted to the weather changes of portal openings.
“Call an ambulance,” Natalya snapped to one of the bystanders.
“Talya,” Keara whispered. “Her feet.”
Holly’s feet hung uselessly, burned black in spots. Huge blisters covered the bottoms, swollen thick with poisoned pus. Slices criss-crossed into them, some as high as her ankles. Shards of glasslike eggshells still protruded.
“What the hell happened to her feet?” Ace growled. “And why won’t she awaken?”
“She fulfilled her prophecy,” Natalya said. “She slaughtered the children.”
“What children?”
“Mine…and Enishka’s.”
The chatter of demons stopped all around them. Ace felt fear clench his midsection. Armageddon was what would happen should Enishka ever breed.
Natalya continued. “And she can’t ever wake up, because she absorbed your soul.”
Lightheadedness swam around Ace and he was barely aware of his horns distending as he roared his pain.
* * * * *
Natalya and Keara watched Ace hover over the still form on the hospital bed, even as the doctor spoke to him.
“Caleb,” Keara said. “We have to do something for him.”
“There’s nothing we can do, sweetheart,” Caleb said. He hugged his wife to him, aware of how lucky he was that she survived the confrontation with Enishka. But Keara squirmed away to study Ace.
Caleb kissed her cheek. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered, slipping into the hallway.
Keara turned her attention back to the bounty hunter. Ace looked like death, his head in his hands as he worried over the lifeless Holly in the hospital bed.
Natalya had sent for the best doctor in the dimension. The man’s personality left a lot to be desired. He was egotistical and power driven. But those defects would serve well to bring Holly back to normal, the challenge alone would be worth it. The doctor couldn’t face such a failure of this magnitude.
On the other hand, Dr. Venishkitzhy had a history with Acel. Ace had refused to allow examination when Enishka had removed his soul. He’d refused to allow the doctor study of his wings when they’d appeared after the soul stealing. As far as the doctor was concerned, he was owed and it would be satisfactory to score on Acel.
Now the pompous man, the best in all of the dimensions, stood over Holly, making notes in the notebook he carried.
“Her acid-bound feet will be scarred for life, crippling her. The soles of her feet were sliced by the razor-sharp eggshells, some spots clear up through the tendons, in which the poison absorbed. Not that the destroyed tendons matter—she’s paralyzed to the waist from the acid of the poison. There’s nothing we can do. Nothing else matters at this point…”
Because her diagnosis could get much worse. She’d absorbed Ace’s soul. While in essence she saved it from Enishka, there was a price to pay. She would never awaken. She was doomed to a comatose existence, sacrificing herself so he could live freely from the demon lord.
“Acel,” the head of the unit said, “it’s your decision. We can keep her on feeding tubes for the rest of her life. But she’ll never be responsive.”
In a few days, the doctor would mention “testing” to see what else could be done with the comatose demoness. Perhaps a strategically placed mention of a miracle would encourage the experimentation.
If it was possible, Ace’s head sank even farther into his hands. He was unable to make the necessary decision. It was exactly where the doctor wanted him.
“Doctor,” Natalya said. “Leave it be.”
Holly lay completely still against the white sheets of the hospital bed.
“The imprint is becoming heavier,” Keara said as she and Natalya moved closer to the bed.
Around Holly’s neck wrapped the mark of Enishka. She had faced the demon lord, taken a possession of something of his…and still lived. The only person in the world who had done such a thing.
Yet she would never be aware of the benefits of the mark of bravery. For she would never again awaken. But the tattoo twisted anyway, like a series of forked tails, winding around her neck and trailing down one side like an exotic chain. No demon had ever worn the mark of Enishka before. Consequently, no one had ever seen what his mark was. For as ugly as the demon lord was, his mark was absolutely gorgeous.
Keara traced the raised, blackened scar. Holly’s skin was surprisingly smooth beneath her finger, soft and supple.
“She’s done so much bravery for such a little human. Saved your soul. Stopped Enishka. Fulfilled the prophecy. Destroyed the poisonous infants from growing into an army to trigger Armageddon. She saved both worlds.”
Immediately the hospital room flashed with a glow of bright, white light. Magically the room began to elongate slowly, stretching into a cavernous creation of spaciousness. In the new space, an oval conference table appeared with a dozen golden chairs spaced evenly around it.
Each seat was filled with a man, all dressed in white robes with golden ropes tied about their waists. Likewise, each face was completely expressionless, staring straight ahead.
One man sat at the head of the table, the only one of the white-robed who made any eye contact.
“The Council,” Keara whispered. She glanced around for Caleb. He had mentioned earlier that he would be back and this would be a good time to face his distant relations.
But Caleb was slowly materializing with the men of the Council, specifically sitting next to his uncle, Cupid—also known as Eros.
The head of the table stood.
“Thus begins the trial of Holly Dewan.”
“Trial?” Ace snapped, venom in his voice. His horns extended instantly. “What is she on trial for? How can she be punished any further?”
“Silence, demon. We will request information from you if needed.”
With a wave, Ace was magically struck silent, left staring in a helpless paralysis at Jere.
With one hand the head of the Council reached in the vicinity of the window. An image of the full moon swung into the room, swelling until it took nearly one wall. The shadows of the craters moved together, swirling and fading until the image of Enishka appeared like remote-access television.
Enishka had taken the form of a human male, even though he obviously hadn’t seen one in a while. His head was as proportionate to his body as possible, but it was still smaller tha
n the rest of him. His thin lips didn’t know how to smile, and his attempts at it looked disgustingly like a smirk instead.
The small amount of graying hair on his egg-shaped head was cut short as if to lessen the effects of male pattern baldness, some areas sticking up in patches as short as a quarter of an inch.
His body was puffed, showing his excessive weight, the size of his jowls blending with the width of his neck.
His eye peered beadily as he turned to the side to view the proceedings.
“Thank you! Thank you so much for seeing me and listening to my complaints of mistreatment! She murdered my sons, rare demons, and she stole my most precious possession…a soul given freely to me.”
Though Natalya couldn’t help rolling her eyes at the disgust that came over her, the Council never blinked at his obvious lies. She had to admire their self-control.
The head of the council spoke. “Official charges from Enishka against the accused include the murder of a demon. Demons are rare in breeding and to destroy a successful fertilization is against the laws of the Council.”
Jere stood, signaling his wish to speak.
“Go ahead,” the head of the table said.
“Enishka has broken the law by breeding with my wife, Natalya. She is not a possession of his in any way and he has no rights to her. In fact, many of you may remember you allowed the punishment of his face rearrangement to stand because of his illegal act of burning out her eggs. We found out today that her eggs were not burned out, but were stolen and transplanted to his moon instead.”
“That is a viable charge,” the head of the council said. He looked around the table. One by one each person lowered their head, signaling the acceptance of the charge. “However, the other parent known as Enishka, the demon lord, presses for hundreds of murder charges. Natalya Herschkle, what say you as the mother? Do you press for murder charges also?”
“No. The children were not innocents, but monstrosities. Holly did not commit murder. I hold nothing against her.”
The head of the council again looked around the table. Not one other person nodded.
“While you do not blame Holly for the murders, it is canceled out by the accusation of the other parent who claims it to indeed be numerous murders. Therefore, the charge stands.”