by RS Black
I was losing her.
I was losing my little demon, and I wasn’t sure I would survive this.
~*~
The next night it was just Vyxen and I driving down a long, dusty road somewhere in the middle of the Arizona desert. We’d switched from flight to an old, beat-up Ford—one of many vehicles the Neph kept hidden around the country for cases such as this.
Saguaro cactuses towered like shadowy soldiers in the otherwise barren landscape. The bumpy road, setting sun, and mild heat flowing in from the cracked windows took me back to a different time. A time when there’d still been hope.
I scratched my jaw, eyeing Vyxen’s sock feet sitting on the dash.
“What?” she snapped, curling her toes and giving me an I-dare-you-to-say-something look.
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, well, excuse me if I don’t buy that.” She snapped into a meat stick before waving it around with a flourish. “After five hours of silence I’m beginning to suspect it might actually be me.”
I rolled my eyes. “What do you want me to say, Envy?”
“For starters, how about you be honest here and tell me that you’re still pissed about what we voted on last night.”
Her green eyes glowed in the darkness.
Tapping my fingers on the wheel, I shrugged. But I was pissed. I was beyond furious. We’d been searching for the past day, seeking out the Queen’s whereabouts. Retracing my steps from where Pandora and I had seen her last.
I was sweaty, dusty, and in a foul mood. Every step that got us closer to the zombies made me feel farther and farther away from Pandora.
“Whatever,” she huffed, adjusting her position on the seat. “Gah, these fucking seats hurt like a mother. I don’t know why I can’t just keep tracing to the Queen anyway.”
“Because we need help from the humans. If they just see us appearing and disappearing at random it could send them into a state of—”
“What? Huh?” She twirled on me, her fangs on full display. The pink strands of her hair had been pulled back into a tight bun, but a spray of it had been left dangling out and right now it was bobbing around her head like a lady’s fan. “We hide. Hide. That’s all we do. We always fucking hide. Well, I’m damn sick of it.”
She waved her hand.
“Vyxen, get yourself together and stop throwing a tantrum. You know how these things go.”
“Yeah, I know how they go.” She tossed her half-eaten meat stick out the window. “There’s the very real possibility of Armageddon breathing down not just my neck, or your neck, but theirs too!” Her hand encompassed the whole of the ramshackle one-light town we were just about to roll through. “But let’s not freak out the mortals, even though their lives last no longer than a vapor rolling over water in the grand scheme of life, ’cause yeah, it would be super bad if they ever figured out monsters really did exist.”
Her breathing was heavy and her demon clawing to the surface. I gripped the wheel tighter. Centuries of battling Nephilim wasn’t an easy affliction to overcome. My insides raged with my desire to end her as the blight I’d once been trained to believe she was.
But I knew part of my emotional state had everything to do with Pandora being gone rather than the fact that I had a furious Envy demon sitting beside me.
“You think you’re the only one hurting this way, Asher? Well, you’re wrong, okay?” she hissed and curled her claws into fists, squeezing her eyes shut as she visibly trembled beside me.
Studying her from the corner of my eye, a part of my own anger lessened to see her struggling so hard to rein herself in.
I’d not gotten any sleep last night; my thoughts had prevented me from doing so. Moving my jaw from side to side, I debated whether to open up and be one hundred percent honest with her.
I’d been able to do it with Pandora because I’d trusted her. To some degree, I trusted Vyxen too.
“Look, I’m fine with going to find the Queen. To ask for the hive’s help. I’m fine with it.”
My words seemed to have an immediate effect on her. Frowning, she turned in her seat, giving me her full attention.
“But?” she asked softly.
Rolling to a stop at the light, I turned on my blinker. We needed to stop for gas and ask around some more.
I tapped the wheel. “But I don’t know that Cash is thinking reasonably.”
“C’mon, Asher.” She flicked her fingers, but I shook my head.
“No, seriously. Think about this, Vyxen, without the exhaustion and the anger behind it. Just stop and think for a second. Pandora’s being turned into a ticking time bomb. Each time she sucks up a keeper’s soul, she grows ten times stronger.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip.
Finally the light turned green. Turning into the gas station, I parked and turned off the ignition. I wasn’t even sure of the name of this town. But judging by the darkened windows of Main Street, and it being just barely past six in the evening, there probably wasn’t much for us to learn here.
“What I’m saying is—”
“What you’re saying is we can’t just stand back and let her keep sucking up those souls.” She nodded. “I know. I get that. I really do.”
I spread my hands in exasperation. “Then if you know that, why are you backing this idiotic plan?”
“Because, what you’re failing to see is that she’s too strong. For you, for me, even with all the Neph forces combined. She’s too damn strong, Asher. You know this. No one could single-handedly do to Cacus what she did. She’s possessed by how many souls now? Who the hell knows?” She answered her own question. “Pandora, the one you remembered, it’s not her anymore. Look at all the people she’s killed recently. In the past four months she’s probably racked up as many deaths as she had in all of her life.”
Her words sat like bile in my gut. I shook my head, not wanting to hear this.
“No.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “You’ve got to stop denying the obvious. Now, we’ve backed you long enough, trying at every turn to reach her, and it’s not working.”
I clenched my jaw. “Look, what you’re saying, true enough. But I’m telling you right now there’s something about Cash I don’t trust.”
Her eyes gleamed.
But I pressed on; the truth of the Pride demon had been bugging me for months. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why, but after years of studying my prey, I knew when something was off. And something was fucking off here.
“How is it that every time he magically locks on to Pandora’s location it’s always a day late and a dollar short? I’m telling you, Cash is up to something. I know it.”
There were so many times when if we’d just gotten to her a couple of hours earlier we could have prevented this. Could have possibly gotten to the doctor, gotten to her mark, could have stopped this. But always, always we were too late, and each time she grew stronger and stronger and farther and farther from any possible chance at redemption.
“Hey!” She stabbed my chest with her finger. “Don’t you fucking go there. He’s done nothing but tried his best.”
Exhaling deeply, I clenched my jaw and stared out the window, only just realizing that no attendant had even peeked out in curiosity as to why I was just sitting in front of a gas pump without making an attempt to actually pump gas.
Stomach a churning cesspit of impotent rage, I shoved my door open and got out. They were screwing, her and Cash. Telling her my suspicions was probably a really stupid idea, but I was desperate and running out of time. I would have talked to Bubba about this, but his emotions were volatile and unstable. I couldn’t believe I was even thinking it, but I sure could have used Luc right about now.
Yanking the pump out of its holder, I popped the nozzle into the tank and tried to get myself under control. Stuck for hours in a truck with Vyxen was my version of Hell. And we were nowhere close to being done, because this ride wouldn’t end until we’d locked on to the Queen’s location.
Vyxen
got out of the truck a second later. Rubbing her arms she frowned. “Is it just me, or is this place totally Twilight Zone creepy? They have a working gas station, and yet no roadside diner, no lights glowing from house windows. What the eff is up here?”
I licked my front teeth as my stomach clenched with a sense of foreboding. Something was definitely wrong with this one-horse town. I was halfway through pumping, searching the dead streets for any signs of life, when I heard a sound that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.
It was the sound of eating.
The sounds were faint, but there was the snap of jaws, the slurping of mastication, and the throaty growl of a predator. Or predators, as I suddenly realized we were definitely not alone.
“Vyxen” was all I managed to say when seven solidly built silhouettes stepped away from the building.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” A man, easily six foot three, perhaps taller, with a shaved head, brown skin, and diamond stud in his left ear grinned with teeth much larger than was normal.
His crew, all dressed in leather and chaps, walked in a steady line behind him. There were men and women, none of them holding any weapons, but then why would they, when they were the weapons?
“Bosses said you might go in search of her. Though I gotta say”—he smirked, revealing a nasty scar above his upper lip—“I’m glad it was my crew you found, cause we were getting awfully peckish.”
A petite brunette snorted with suppressed laughter.
Vyxen walked slowly around to my side.
“Where are all the humans?” I asked.
“Oh, that.” The leader’s tawny-colored eyes glinted with mirth. “Like I said, it’d been a spell.”
“Ugh,” Vyxen snarled, “that’s fucking disgusting.”
“Hey”—he tapped his chest—“a puma’s gotta eat. They taste like chicken.”
A heavily paunched guy with gray at his temples chuckled as he cracked his knuckles.
“Seven to two. Jeez, your odds suck.” Vyxen beamed.
“Seven to two. Think again, carina, more like seventeen to two. You’re in deep shit now.” He snapped his fingers, and more silhouettes spread out around us.
The astringent smell of gasoline hitting pavement made my eyes water. I nodded, taking my time rolling my sleeves up.
“Well, it’s good to know you at least respect us.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, vato. Like I said”—his face began slowly transforming, turning into an amalgam of man and beast—“my family was hungry.”
Vyxen leaned against the hood of the truck, she still hadn’t put on shoes. “So the Triad sends you out here to do their dirty work. Nice. Let me just ask you, Carlito—”
“It’s Juan, bitch.”
She flicked her wrist. “Whatever. Jew-wan.”
I chuckled. She was needling him on purpose. None of these shifters were leaving here alive, and the mood I was in, I was ready to rain a little death and destruction down on the lot of them.
“What kind of dirt they got on you, eh?” She lifted a brow. “I mean. I know if I”—she tapped her chest—“was going to work for a bunch of sadistic pricks there’d better be a damn good reason for it. You’re a strappy, virile shifter, so what’s the deal?”
His grin looked more like a snarl now that his face was covered in a pelt of golden brown fur. “Fuck you.”
“Yeah.” She looked at me. “They got something on them.”
I leaned against the truck beside her, nodding slowly. “Sure do. Though I doubt our friend here will share what that is. Why a pack of such powerful shifters would just bend over and take it from their demon lords.”
“Mm.” Vyxen smirked. “I bet it feels good, don’t it, kitty cat?”
The female hissed, her body trembling with her suppressed animal instinct to attack. But clearly Juan was their leader and they all waited on his command.
“So now we know where the Queen’s being hidden; thanks for that, by the way.” I rolled my shoulders, preparing for the battle that was surely coming.
“You don’t know shit,” Juan snapped.
“Oh, I think we do. I think the Triad’s suddenly feeling a little nervous now. That’s why they sent you out here to run us off.”
“You think they’re scared? You’re an idiot if you believe that.”
“They wouldn’t waste their time or resources here if this was nothing, vato.” I sneered the last.
There was no verbal command. Juan simply took a step back and it was like the hounds of Hell had just been unleashed.
The pumas, shifted now somewhere between human and beast, attacked us as one. While I’d been chatting Juan up, I’d taken the time to call to my sword of righteousness, a steel sword dipped in the blood of angels. It materialized in my hand, flaming and begging for the blood of its foes.
I glanced toward Vyxen, just to see if she was okay. She was a blur of movement. Satisfied she could handle herself, I focused all my attentions on my own hoard.
I hacked and sliced my way through bodies, thrusting my heated blade through guts, whirling and swinging it in an arc to slice through necks, kicking heads out of the way as they dropped like flies around me.
A claw ripped down my spine. It would have been a killing wound, if my wings had been out.
Hot blood gushed out of the wound, plastering the shirt to my back, but it would heal soon enough. Ignoring the pain, I twisted out of the way, stumbling over a dead body and dropping to the ground, losing my weapon in the confusion. I had just enough time to roll to the side and away from Juan’s booted heel, which had come within an inch of smashing in my skull.
He rocked me with a fist to the liver before I finally got back to my feet.
His eyes were swollen, and the scar above his lip oozed dark blood. But there was still plenty of fight left in him.
I had just a second to glance over at Vyxen. Her jeans were stained with blood and she was grimacing as she wrapped an arm around the neck of the petite brunette before ripping her head off with a powerful twist.
Juan used that second to rush me, shoving me into the hood of the truck and pummeling my head with his fist.
Seeing stars for a second, I kicked his legs out from under him and then dropped a knee onto his gut.
He was panting, staring up at the skies, the whites of his eyes almost glowing as he became less beast and more man. “Don’t you get it,” he gasped when I reached for his neck, “none of this matters. You’ve lost. You’ve—”
I snapped his neck and then ripped it off. “Shut up,” I snarled, tossing the head over my shoulder.
There was blood everywhere, the smell overwhelmingly powerful, sure to attract predators of every kind.
Vyxen shambled over to me, dropping to her knees and sighing loudly. “Jeez, I haven’t fought like that in over a year. I’m getting out of shape.” She grinned.
The comment was so nonsensical and absurd that I couldn’t help but laugh back. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” she sniffed, scratching the side of her neck with bloody fingernails, “but at least I’m not dead.”
Tired, but knowing we still had a lot left to do, I got up, grabbed the nozzle still spewing gallons of gas and sprayed all the bodies down.
“Bonfire?” she asked.
“Yup.” I hung the thing up and reached for my sword, which had dropped to the ground. I was going to call fire to it. I glanced up at her. “You might want to take about a hundred steps back. I’m pretty sure you and I are covered in it too.”
“Of course we are.” Rolling her eyes, she got up and hobbled off.
Knowing this was going to hurt, I grabbed the sword. The moment I did, the world went up in a blaze of orange flame.
I hissed when it started licking at my shirt and jeans. Running, I caught up with Vyxen a moment later.
She laughed as she helped me to pat the fire out. “Hate to say this, Priest, but that was almost fun.”
“
Fun.” I scoffed, running my fingers through my singed hair. “If you say so. We know the Queen’s around here somewhere.”
“Yeah, now we just gotta figure out where exactly. That shouldn’t be hard at all.” The sarcasm was hard to miss.
Another giant explosion sounded a second later and bits of overheated metal rained down onto our heads as the truck exploded.
“Ow, shit!” she snapped, shielding her head with her arms and running into the empty stretch of land behind the gas station.
And then suddenly I heard a muffled oomph, and Vyxen saying, “What the eff?”
When I joined her I saw what she’d tripped over. Sprawled out underneath Vyxen was a pretty dark-skinned woman with light brown eyes. There was a name tag on her blood-stained shirt that read “Emily.”
Her right arm also happened to be missing.
But she wasn’t dead and didn’t seem to be in agony. She was looking at us with exhaustion lacing her eyes. “Saw that fireball. Guess my gas station’s gone.”
Vyxen gave me a wide-eyed look before saying, “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’re probably a zombie, amiright?”
Emily nodded. “Yeah, and I’m pretty sure you must be who my Queen’s been waiting for.”
Hanging my head as a feeling of euphoria-laced exhaustion finally caught up to me, I nodded. “Yes. And we need to speak with her soon as possible.”
“Yeah, okay.” Emily got slowly to her feet. “God, I really hate when they eat my hands, makes it so hard to do the simple things.”
Last time I’d encountered the Queen’s zombies, the only one able to talk had been her grandmother, and even then it hadn’t seemed easy for her. Her skills at reanimation had grown considerably.
“Anyway, y’all need to get cleaned up first before she’ll see you. I’ve got an apartment about a mile down the road.” She reached into her pocket and handed me the key. “She’ll send a delegate to get you in the morning. Good to finally meet you, Priest.”
Then with a nod and a small smile of farewell, the zombie turned and walked away.
“Well. That wasn’t weird at all,” Vyxen muttered.