by Dave Ferraro
Chapter Thirty-Two
Shanna felt a hundred butterflies flitting around her stomach as Damien escorted her arm-in-arm along the dark sidewalks. The infrequent streetlamps gave her some comfort, but for the most part, it felt like she was swimming through a horror movie, just waiting to be taken to Freddy Krueger or some other terrifying nightmare, the foreboding was so thick.
She glanced uneasily at Damien, who stared ahead, jaw clenched, eyes unfocused like he were a thousand miles away. Taking a deep breath, Shanna pulled his arm closer to her side and tried to focus on the sound of their footfalls on the pavement, anything to keep her mind from racing with images of monsters.
“You’re being really brave, you know,” Damien said, breaking the silence.
Shanna looked up at him and caught his eye, suddenly feeling a little more confident again with his presence. “I’m trying.”
“You’re doing wonderfully. Don’t be afraid. I promise that I’m not leaving your side for a second.”
“I appreciate it.”
They fell into silence again as they rounded a corner past some skeletal trees and suddenly began walking up a gravel footpath. Shanna’s throat felt dry as they passed a wrought-iron gate that slowly swung shut behind them, and was grateful for the reassuring squeeze that Damien gave her hand.
“Ah, here we are,” a figure stepped out of the darkness. “I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show.”
Shanna recognized Samantha Cummings, the head of La Faer Noir’s New York branch. She usually looked human, but currently, she looked like a gothic queen, a black strapless dress swept the ground as she moved over the gravel, dragging dead leaves along with her. The bat-like wings that protruded from her shoulders spread out to either side, as if stretching, then folded behind her, where they framed her beautiful face, which was currently flush with excitement.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Dear,” Samantha said with a smile. “Has Damien been taking good care of you?”
Shanna glanced over at Damien nervously, then licked her lips and nodded. “Yes, Ms. Cummings.”
“Samantha will do just fine. Do you remember Tessa?”
Shanna looked beyond Samantha, where the blonde woman stood silently, watching the exchange. “I do. Hello, Tessa.”
Tessa nodded politely as Samantha ushered them along the path.
“Are you ready to meet La Faer Noir?” Samantha asked in a whisper, her smile as wide as it could get.
Shanna frowned. “What do you mean by that exactly?” She sent Damien a panicked look as Samantha grabbed her by the hand and pulled her ahead to walk beside her, leaving Damien to follow at their heels as hedges began to corral them in a narrow walkway.
“Oh, didn’t Damien tell you? The head of La Faer Noir is here to meet you. The inner circle. The top of the top.”
“That sounds intimidating.”
“Oh, don’t worry your pretty little head about it, now. But you should feel honored. The inner circle only meets once a year, and this time it’s all for your benefit.”
“Great,” Shanna forced a smile, meanwhile feeling a little sick to her stomach.
“I’m so thrilled that New York gets to host,” Samantha prattled on, leading them through another gate. “We haven’t had them here for half a century, you know. They seem to always meet in exotic countries, never the same place, of course. But you were apparently something that they wanted to see for themselves and couldn’t let the opportunity pass by.”
Shanna didn’t say anything to this as they approached a marble doorway, glowing white in the light of the moon. On either side of the door was a mummy standing guard, broadswords at the ready. They smelled of moldy books and stale air, and Shanna held her breath as she passed them. Their yellowed bandages covered them from head to toe, with a small opening near the eyes, where Shanna could only see darkness, as if nothing were there at all. The sight sent a chill down her body, and heightened the sense of foreboding she felt.
Inside was a small room sparsely furnished with a few leather chairs and a table weighed down with a variety of weapons. Here, Shanna deposited her cross-dagger, which Samantha assured her she would get back after the meeting. Then it was only a short dark hallway to a room lit by torchlight. Just inside this room stood a tall woman with black hair and a green dress that left little to the imagination. She had one green eye and one eye that was made of stone. For some reason, the stone eye seemed to hold Shanna’s eye, like she couldn’t look away if she wanted to.
“Do you enter this chamber of your own free will?” the woman asked in a voice deeper than Shanna expected.
“Yes,” Shanna replied, before her companions had to answer the same question.
Then Samantha led her up an incline. At the top, Shanna suddenly found herself surrounded by rows of seats, and monsters watching her closely from all sides.
The room was a perfect square, with white walls that the tall fiery torches in the corners made look yellow and as if it were ever-shifting. It almost gave the room a sinister quality, but Shanna knew that the feeling of desolation she suddenly felt came from those in attendance, not the room itself.
In the middle of the room was a broad dead bush, its spindly fingers reaching out in every direction, perhaps the source of the shadows that seemed to move along the walls. There were four chairs positioned against each wall, with inclines like the one she’d just come up from, in each corner. The chairs were set up on short balconies so that they all rose above the low floor at the middle of the room, towering over them. Just below the balcony to the north were a row of chairs at ground level before a long wooden table, and this was where Samantha led them.
Shanna was surprised to see Lupe seated at the table, looking nervous as Shanna and her group approached. She nodded at each of them as they took seats, Shanna seating herself between Samantha and Damien in the middle, with Tessa on Damien’s other side.
As Shanna looked around, she felt like she were on trial, with the monsters in the chairs around them looking down at them with judgment in their eyes, considering these creatures who sat before them. It was intimidating, and Shanna couldn’t help but shrink under their gazes.
There was a low murmur in the room, and Shanna saw that a few of the chairs on the west side remained vacant.
“You doing okay?” Damien whispered.
Shanna nodded. “I’m fine.”
“There’s nothing to fear,” Samantha assured her. “No one can harm anyone in this room.”
“Who…are they?” Shanna wondered aloud as she glanced around at the monsters.
Samantha smiled thinly. “The leaders of La Faer Noir. Do you notice the emblems with each group of chairs?”
Shanna frowned as she took in the black plaques above each balcony. The one to the east had three swirling lines, south had a tidal wave, west had a rock and north had a flame. “The four elements?”
“Correct,” Samantha nodded with approval. “And each element has four representatives from the monster community.” She nodded behind them and Shanna turned to look at the four creatures that sat there. “Fire consists of four different demons. From left to right: Aynaet, the naga Lamia, Abaddon the destroyer, and Raum.”
Shanna looked at them all in turn. Aynaet didn’t look too scary. She was a black woman with short curly hair who held her head high. As Shanna watched, a crease in the woman’s forehead opened and a large black eye stared around the room for a moment, before closing again.
Shanna had dealt with a naga before, at Styx, so she knew what to expect there. Lamia had pale green skin, darker green hair, and the lower half of her body was a snake, its tail coiling around the legs of her chair.
Abaddon was more of the traditional demon that Shanna expected to see here. He was broad shouldered and probably stood at an intimidating eight feet when he stood up straight. He had midnight blue skin, a rather flat face, and a broad forehead. His eyes were pi
npricks of red and when he opened his mouth to speak, she could see something like fire deep in the back of his throat. He wore a red cape and had two long horns on his head that curved forward and quickly up to a point.
Raum was the most intimidating of the bunch. Just looking in his direction made Shanna feel something horrible, like the best feeling in the world would be to pick up a pair of scissors and ram it into the chest of someone she loved. It made her feel sick, the twisted instincts that her body itched to carry out with but a look in his direction. He made Diana look like a saint, and Shanna would not be forgetting her atrocities anytime soon. He looked like a tall man with oily brown hair, but his face was all wrong. It seemed like he wore the skin of a human’s face over his own face, and it was loose and ill-fitting. His black eyes looked dead as they took in the room, and something seemed to be moving under the skin of his face. Or several somethings really, like cockroaches were crawling around beneath the flesh.
“To the east, we have air,” Samantha continued. “Skree is a harpy, Mary is a ghost, Iyln is of the Fae, and Medusa, well, I doubt that she’s the Medusa from Greek mythology, but her powers are apparently the same.”
Skree was an old woman with a hairy body that Shanna was embarrassed to see was unclothed. The harpy didn’t seem to be bothered however, her boobs sagging and skin bunching up at her waist. She was very ugly, with a large hooked nose boasting a large wart. She had no ears, but large holes in their place, and had thin black hair at the top of her head that was swept back carelessly, allowing the scalp to be seen easily. Instead of arms, she had wings with black feathers, and thick yellow bird legs where her legs should have been, each equipped with very large talons.
Mary was less intimidating. She sat quietly in a modest dress, her coloring washed out, but like she was still tinted with color, as if she were underwater or being seen through a filter. She was also see-through, which furthered the look of an optical illusion. Her small knowing smile was somehow unsettling.
Iyln sat straight in her chair, and stared down at Shanna with cold black eyes. She was beautiful, with long flowing black hair and pale skin that was almost the color of ivory. She had pointed ears and a crown set with precious gems in her hair. Her dress was a light blue that looked beautiful against her flesh.
Just as Shanna would imagine, Medusa had small green snakes in place of her hair, each hissing and tasting the air or snapping at each other in irritation. She wore a muddy brown cloak that covered them for the most part, and served to keep most of her face in shadow, although Shanna had no trouble seeing that her complexion was just as pale as Iyln’s.
“I want to eat them,” Raum suddenly stood up in his seat behind them. He pointed at Shanna. “I want to eat her.”
“Sit, you fool,” Lamia the naga ordered, slapping him with her tail. “She is a guest of honor. You should have eaten before you arrived if you wanted to eat something.”
“Disgraceful,” Iyln said in a clear voice that sounded like crystal. “And barbaric. How the likes of you was ever able to secure a seat here, I will never understand.”
Raum growled and raked a claw in her direction. “I’ll eat an elf too. I’m not picky.”
“And I’m not an elf,” Iyln retorted with a sneer.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please,” Mary the ghost said, shimmering as she stood and put her hands to her hips. “Now is not the time for discord. Now is a time for talk and debate. We celebrate in the great hall after this meeting is adjourned and you can let your lusts guide you then.”
This seemed to appease Raum, who sat down again, arms crossed over his chest.
Shanna felt shaken following Raum’s outburst, but was still surprised at the sympathetic smile that Samantha sent her.
“Don’t worry, Dear,” Samantha said in a low voice. “No one will eat you today.”
“I appreciate it,” Shanna murmured and looked to the south, hoping a distraction would help settle her nerves. “And the water group?” she asked expectantly.
Samantha glanced in that direction. “There we have Bast, Randall the werewolf, Thestle the merman, and a selkie. His name is…all squeals. Hard to pronounce. But Bast, that would be the same Bast that they worshipped in Ancient Egypt as a god.”
Shanna nodded as her eyes jumped from Randall, a good-looking brunette with a five-o’clock shadow and deep dimples, to Thestle, who looked like he’d walked off the set of Creature From the Black Lagoon, his gills straining at the sides of his neck with each breath he took.
Bast was a woman with a sense of royalty about her, tall and proud, and draped in fine silk and chiffon. She had the body of a woman, but her head was a large black cat head. It was surreal to take in, especially as she licked her hand just like a housecat would.
The selkie was stunning. He had a swimmer’s build with only something like a Speedo covering himself, and a gray fur coat draped over the back of his chair. He had blonde hair and classically handsome features. Shanna would have believed that he was a movie star if Samantha had told her so. She couldn’t help but drink him in. “What’s a selkie exactly?” she wondered aloud.
“He turns into a seal when he puts his pelt on,” Damien muttered, unimpressed, a hint of jealousy invading his voice as the selkie winked in Shanna’s direction.
Only two people were seated to the west still, but Samantha nodded in their direction. “There we have Tork the ogre and a necromancer we only know as The Shadow Eater. A powerful witch and vampire will be joining them shortly, and then the meeting will commence.”
Shanna glanced over at the ogre, its big slimy lips drooling saliva onto his chest. His fat, pig-like face looked angry, his grubby fat four-fingered hands clenching his arm rests like he was holding on for dear life.
Beside him sat the necromancer, a mysterious figure hidden in a crimson robe and hood, its color rich and vibrant. Shanna could see nothing beyond darkness beneath the hood, but she got a sense of terror from even laying her eyes on her. A coarse rope belt tied a red velvet pouch to her side.
Then the final two creatures arrived. The witch wore a golden robe, the hood pulled back to reveal black tattoos spilling out over her neck and face like oil, reaching across the surface of her flesh. An air of power surrounded her. The vampire was a tall brunette man, cleanly shaven, with sunglasses on despite it being the dead of night, and a sharp suit. He looked not a day over thirty, but of course Shanna knew he would be much older than that.
As they took their seats, Samantha stood and bowed her head in each direction in turn. “We are pleased to invite you to our branch, Elders.”
“We are pleased to be here,” Bast said, tilting her head in a slight bow.
“Can we skip the dull pleasantries this time?” Skree the harpy screeched, followed by two bursts of squawks as she ruffled her wings, sending a few small feathers into the air.
Samantha stiffened, then nodded. “As you wish.”
“We are here to examine this young woman, Shanna Hunt,” Bast said, looking over at Shanna curiously. “This is she?”
“It is, Lady Bast.”
Shanna felt the room’s eyes on her and suppressed a shudder, doing her best to keep her head held high and look unaffected, but she was afraid she would begin shaking at any moment. She wanted more than anything to run from the room screaming, hide in a corner. But she wouldn’t get very far here, and she had to see this trial through.
“She does look identical to Diana,” Ayneat the demon, proclaimed.
Glancing back at her, Shanna was startled to see the eye on her forehead wide open, and she quickly looked away from the demon.
“The resemblance is uncanny,” Bast agreed. She smiled at Shanna. “You come from a very important bloodline, you see. We’d lost track of Diana’s older sister’s lineage through the years, but it seems that we’ve found it again. In you.”
“Diana’s…” Shanna whispered, frowning. “You expected this to happen? T
o find Diana again?”
“It has happened before, and it should happen again, providing the bloodline does not die out.”
Shanna swallowed hard, and felt Damien squeeze her leg under the table reassuringly. “I don’t understand.”
Bast watched her for a moment. “Most everyone knows of Diana. She’s a legend, having united the underworld in La Faer Noir long ago. But the woman whose face you bear is not just known as Diana. Diana was the reincarnation of another important figure from our past, also known as Diana.” She looked up at the vampire on the Earth side of the room before returning her gaze to Shanna. “Some say that the founder of La Faer Noir was the same person, she acted so alike to the first Diana. I was myself good friends with the original, and found many similarities between the two, but in the end, I believe they were different people, if anything, because they grew from different human lives before they were changed, and that has a way of shaping a person, even centuries later when most of that brief period is all but forgotten.”
“Changed?” Shanna said. “You mean the original Diana was a vampire as well?”
Bast chuckled lightly, then smiled down at her like an adult would an ignorant child. “Diana was the first vampire.”