Fair point. Unexplainable things were becoming an inevitable occurrence, but he would be damned if he ever just accepted anything at face value.
Just like, in his own time, the distance between them was in all practicality too far, but for Rain Maidens and whatever the fuck he was, it was a stone’s throw away.
Of course, whatever Sentinels lurked in the shadows were gaining in strength and ability as well. Just because he had been missing out on the party didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed the increase in volume and ferocity.
Once more, he felt the cold slide of steel on the back of his neck, wondering what conflict was wracking his dutiful friend now.
“What the hell are you?” she seethed.
He didn’t dare turn, only shifted his eyes to wonder what crawled up her ass until he felt something brushing against his own.
“You have a strange concept of foreplay.”
He knew it wasn’t her and had a pretty good idea of what it was.
The borogs won’t bother you anymore, Fajja had said.
No shit, because he was becoming one.
He hadn’t known much about them, but he had already gained some idea that their lust for ‘marked ones’ was akin to eating their young.
He swished around the tail, at least glad to see it was still the healthy flesh tone of the rest of him and far too long and lethal to be mistaken for the obscene presence of a penis. Of course, a penis would be much easier to hide than a tail, but the cloak would suffice if he could resist the urge to wag it.
“Explain yourself,” she demanded again, letting the sword draw a line of blood.
“You should know by now I have no intent to start doing that. It’s the price of being marked and that should tell you enough,” he conceded anyway. Partial asshole, not full asshole.
Somehow that was sufficient and she tucked the sword away.
“There is always a price for power. I was a fool to trust the Triumvirate.”
It surprised him to hear her admit this, her face crestfallen in her own downward spiral.
“You were also a fool to oppose them, but I’m damn glad you did.”
Comforting her only made him think of Brat, avoiding the horrible connotations his dream had tormented him with of leaving the kid behind in that Vault. In his own mind, he had frozen them where he had left and time had stopped, waiting for him to return. It was the only thing that kept his precarious grip on sanity.
Amber looked at him with the eyes of her namesake simmering gold in the light of midday.
“The helix is close.”
The Nouveau Quarter’s bazaar was a place outside of time, looking no different in his time from street level. There was music today, an exotic medley from the eastern islands, complete with fire dancers in the square.
The synchronized oohs and aahs filtered through the crowd as they weaved their way through, but their suspense was hinged on the growing twists of light.
The crowd grew sparse and the music faded, but a humming in his head took its place.
“You’re sure she’s one of you,” he asked Amber and she nodded, grim though her expression was.
“If anyone else possessed the Key, the beacon would be black,” she assured him.
The apprehension only grew between them as the helix led them away from the crowds. On the edge of the bazaar, just around the corner, they would know soon enough.
A pretty girl with long black hair was attached to one thread of the helix, holding out a bundle of paper-wrapped flowers as money changed hands. The same girl joined her to complete it.
Not time travel… Twins.
What should have been a breath of fresh air made him cast a sidelong look to Amber.
“So much for keeping the Maidens separate.”
Amber shrugged. The powers that be were hardly in her hands and it wouldn’t have been a choice she would have made either.
“This could be a trap… The Guards should have found them by now,” Amber said, her hand unconsciously curling over the hilt of her sword.
“I need to buy flowers,” he said, winking at Amber.
Panic flashed across her features and she reached to stop him, but halted, dropping her hand and holding her ground.
He folded his hands behind him under the cloak and approached the cheerful girls. They were sticking flowers behind the ears of some old woman’s grandchildren, not even aware of him yet. With his hands behind him, he gripped his tail, finding an odd comfort in that gesture.
He was easily a head taller than them, but he bowed when they caught notice. It was easy enough to tell they were Rain Maidens just by the way they didn’t instantly shy away from his face. The children around them, however, had dispersed in a scatter of high-pitched screams.
“Fair day to you, sir. I’m Hyacinth and this is Aster. Flowers for your lady?” Hyacinth chirped, her eyes shifting over to Amber.
Of course; he’d already thought of them as Flowers. And clever girls to notice Amber and I already approaching.
“Only the best. Primula veris, if you have any,” he said, watching the girl’s face darken at the meaning.
You know.
He had seen them change in unison, glad to be in the Realm Between. Amber closed the gap between them, her Key already drawn, her Maiden form full blown.
He grinned at Amber.
Partial asshole, not full asshole. It works.
“You are not the King’s Guards,” the Flower called Aster hissed, still bristling with wariness.
“Then you already know they are after you. Saves me the trouble. That guy, however, he’s gonna be a handful,” he added, nudging his head behind them.
He never thought to see the giant fuckwit again, but that ‘I can kill you and you’ll die happy’ smile little up the simple face, noticing for the first time the clever eyes set in it.
Mostly because the head to toe black was swirling shadow here, only the eyes and those perfect rows of teeth seeming to have a stationary form.
“You’re a Sentinel,” he announced without question, letting his cloak drop away and swinging his tail.
The colossal menace gave a jolly laugh, hollow now with a sinister sound.
“I’m a lot of things.”
He might have been annoyed if he weren’t as careful himself.
The complete lack of any other shadows at the side-by-side Gates of the Flowers already confirmed it, but if they had passed through, it did not bode well.
“Your sweet little cherry was a little careless with her gates,” the Sentinel hinted, if you could call anything that thick a hint.
Arkhades…
“Hope you enjoyed the show,” he shot back, feeling the thrall sizzle some weapon into his hands, the nails of his hands fully blackened by the trail of fire.
Again, the Sentinel laughed, a raspier sound this time.
“Quite a bang, rolling out the red carpet like that,” Arkhades purred, enjoying the innuendo far too much for his taste.
“You’re out past curfew.”
“Relax,” Arkhades commanded, an order that actually halted the muscles that had started to spring at his charge. “There’s no need to kill you. The only thing I require is the opening of the Gates.”
Not gonna happen. It would be easy to believe it was so simple, but a handful of immortal mages that didn’t bat an eye at genocide were quite the opposite.
This time he was the one that laughed.
“Your words are as worthless as your cooking.”
“Ah, well, borog doesn’t age well.”
He might have been sick at that revelation, but it certainly explained the acceleration of his change and his promotion to less edible status.
It also came as no surprise that another hulking shadow appeared, flanking the other side of the Gates. This one was more feminine in form with the same piercing eyes and flash of teeth. He made a sweeping mock of a bow to welcome her.
“Marteia, I presume,” a claim that was confirmed by a tin
kling laugh.
It only made sense that a breached Maiden might herald yet another open Gate.
This one had been opened maybe six years past and Cherry would know the story well.
Kylrith City was having its tricentennial celebration. The watery streets were dotted with the glow of paper lanterns, a cacophony of music and laughter in every direction as the sun fell that day.
The sky had been cloudless all day and the makeshift stalls sold candy and tacky plastic jewelry, uniting the town in the thrill of festivities. Even the bulk of the city guards had cut out early to celebrate peace and prosperity that day.
No one had known then what had gone terribly wrong, but one young woman had been seduced by a city guard. They had made sloppy drunken love on the northern banks of the main river and had fallen asleep before the Shadow Army had come.
The woman had barely escaped, but her young lover had not been so lucky. He had fled to gather what city guards could still stand and he along with hundreds of men had been wiped out that night, as if by magic it was said.
They weren’t wrong, but it had been no army at all; only Marteia.
Orendon, fearing it would be the next to be attacked, had sent every able body along, Cherry’s brothers included. At the time, he had been skulking around Uther, but he never would have gone to battle anyway. No amount of discarded coin would have made that appealing.
He wasn’t a superstitious man but the sudden appearance of a Shadow Army had prickled some primal warning he wouldn’t be foolish enough to test.
The Shadow Army had been declared defeated, but the tension of the men who remained seemed to imply they never quite believed it ended there. Something had made Marteia withdraw and he had a pretty good guess it was nothing less than an angry God or three. She wouldn’t be a match against them.
He guessed that Marteia had never known what ‘luck’ had seen her release or she might have resorted to matchmaking or rape to persuade the others to ‘open their gates…’
Reina would be devastated.
It’s not every day you learn your three sticky brats had started a war.
Marteia and Arkhades painted a perfect picture as Sentinels, but they did not guard the Gates. If they tried to open the Flowers’ Gates, it would only release the ones that waited behind it.
Cherry and Reina were not together in the Realms of Men, but for this alone he saw the advantage.
He slammed back into the Realms of Men, an act that even the Sentinels were startled by.
It was the first time he saw Fajja in the Realms of Men, out of place without his walls of flames. Fajja laughed, unperturbed, tearing a flaming hole in the fabric of reality.
Without missing a beat, Fajja grabbed hold of the Flowers and shoved them into the tear before it sealed closed.
“Time for the grand tour,” he shouted at Amber, shoving her into another before leaping onto a nearby rooftop.
As he had suspected they would, the Sentinels kept up with him as he leapt over the rooftops, heading for the central district where Reina and Sunday waited.
Reina had seen him coming, even at such an inhuman speed, but didn’t stop him from drawing the Ember, plunging them all into her Gate.
Wide open and swirling black and he cursed himself for the oversight of not having gone there before. Maybe then, they would have known…
Maybe then her three daughters and mother wouldn’t be standing in front of it, dead.
An otherworldly keen split his ears as Reina’s grieving wail tore through him, more grotesque for the way her family simply smiled with acceptance. Somehow, in that sound, the cocky laughter of the Sentinels carried through.
He clamped his hand over her mouth to silence the dreadful noise she made, shaking her to make her eyes meet his.
“Reina, there’s only one way to stop this. You have to send them through with Marteia,” he shouted, knowing only the full asshole would get through to her now.
Even his own lacking heart tore with the pain and hatred in her eyes.
Blame me all you want, but do this one thing…
“She won’t. You would know her pain if you ever had kids yourself,” Marteia purred with the sickening siren sound of her voice.
He thought of Brat, the kid he had left to die in another time. He knew the pain all too well and her words only amplified his hatred. He turned his eyes to Reina, pleading with her to see what was right, but she was insane with grief.
He backed away from her, Marteia sliding close to Reina.
“You cannot close what has already been opened,” Marteia’s saccharine words promised.
Psh. Even whores could close their legs.
Sobs jolted through Reina, but he could do nothing to help her. He didn’t know if the Gate could be closed, if that was even what he was there for.
“Mommy,” one sticky little girl with a familiar nick on her throat, chimed in. “Will you come play with me now?”
Marteia pulled Reina’s hair back gently, rubbing her back.
“You don’t have to leave them,” Marteia said and Reina nodded, stepping towards her children.
“Miss Marteia is a mommy herself. She’ll come instead.”
Marteia wasn’t expecting it and Reina spun to stab her with the Key, a geyser of bright red blood interrupting the monochrome of the Realm Between. Reina shoved Marteia towards her family and they embraced the mage with inhuman strength, pulling her in as the Gate shut behind them.
With the Gate closed, they returned to the Realm of Men. His skin had not completely discarded the blue-grey cast this time around.
Arkhades bristled with rage, the tendrils of shadow now agitated like black flames.
“Always a softie, that one. I won’t be so easy to cast aside.”
He had been so stupid as to think it was that simple.
“I don’t advise you stick around to find out,” came Fajja’s dark warning, one which Arkhades heeded with a disturbingly confident smile as he puffed away.
A shuffling thud announced Reina’s loss of consciousness, but he held his ground to look at Fajja.
“I missed the memo about plucking the forbidden fruit,” he accused Fajja.
Fajja shrugged inconsequentially.
“A necessary evil, I’m afraid. Make a note that he’s still in play and all will be well,” Fajja said with too much ease for his comfort.
He caught Fajja by the throat, but the Flame God didn’t even look mildly uncomfortable. Meanwhile, his hand burned painfully.
“She lost her family,” he said, not realizing he was crying until the Flame God’s finger evaporated them with his fingers, a puff of steam banishing them.
“Did you think there would be any way to close a Gate that was never meant to be opened?”
“A rather huge fucking flaw making a human woman’s vagina seal an ancient evil!” he scoffed, releasing the Flame God once the skin had melted away to the bone.
He watched his hand repair itself, regenerating and knitting muscle, nerves and tissues, leaving no scars behind.
“Vessels break and times change. When the Rain God stopped answering prayers, the temples were desecrated and the Maidens were not so careful of their virtue.”
As if it were really that fucking simple. ‘Maidens will be whores.’ More like ‘Gods are lazy assholes.’
“So much for foresight… Don’t suppose you’ll let me in on your plans so I can at least tell you how fundamentally flawed they probably are…” he countered.
That was the hell of it. If the Rain God had been desperate enough to seal the Sentinels away by being torn into pieces alive, then why were they being gathered together? One Gate couldn’t hold them before; what benefit could it possibly be now?
An errant thought plucked in his brain.
“I’ve heard you called Fajja before. What was the Rain God called?” he wondered.
Fajja only smiled.
“Would you remember if I told you?”
Fajja had faded b
efore he had finished, but the voice trailed to completion. Smart ass.
He looked back at Reina’s prone form and stooped down to pick her up, cradling her.
Spinning around, he almost smacked into Cherry. Her face was drawn with worry.
“We need to talk.”
Dreaded words, but no less true.
“Tell me you didn’t all come here to tell me that,” he chided, but her momentary cringe told him they had.
He bit back a sigh. There was no way that zipping around in the Realms hadn’t caught the King’s eye. It wasn’t like he could feign innocence there, or anywhere for that matter.
From the Central District, they had traveled west once more, on foot and as far out of the town as possible. They had at least had the sense not to cluster in suspicious packs, if they managed to say anything at all.
He was now on the shit list of Amber and the Flowers, whom Fajja had deposited back with no great gentleness, but maybe less so if only because he dared to carry the unconscious Reina without complaint. To all who were passing, it just looked like he was carrying a sleeping loved one.
The sky was clear that evening, the sort where stars became thousands of bullet points for introspection. He looked at the women he traveled with and for once realized he knew them better than he thought.
Dolly and Brute, whatever was between them, had become close. Dolly’s timidity had become less pronounced and they murmured to each other in what seemed like a secret language.
Sunday, always so prim and proper, had taken to playing mediator and cook. She had always seemed neutral with him, always gauging what to say, a diplomat if ever he knew one.
Reina was unconscious and hated him, or would hate him if she were conscious. Possibly she was having hate dreams, but otherwise the two weren’t exclusive. That was something. Maybe he could upgrade to being strongly disliked.
Amber, the dutiful guilt-ridden knight… In any other circumstances, his way would have led to them laying each other out in blood. Couldn’t fault Brute for changing the tides. Not that he was willing to admit he couldn’t handle everything himself.
The Flowers were new though. He had silently watched their exchanges, one that also had its own language. They looked like sweet girls, but there was a cleverness behind those naïve smiles. They strutted about like they were ripe for adventure, but sensed there was more behind it.
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