by RS Black
Shaking, I stared at the comatose bodies on the bed. Keltse was a strong Sloth, stronger possibly than Kemen had been. Kemen fought the dreaming, whereas Keltse embraced it.
It was her knowledge of that demon that would save my soul.
The bedroom door was blown open; shards of wood pierced my face.
I held my hand up and glared at them, knowing I must look like a wild woman with blood pouring into my eyes and mouth from the fragments of wood piercing through me.
“Take another step and I end him!” I snarled, exposing my fangs, quivering as I hovered over his body with claws extended.
“Pandora, my God! What are you doing?” Vyxen screamed, her body rigid, her eyes incredulous.
“I’ll kill you, girl,” Bubba sneered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
I nearly lost my nerve when I saw an ashen-faced Asher leaning heavily against the side of the door, the bloody stump of his left hand (the one I’d cuffed to the wall) pressed tight to his chest.
My jaw dropped. “What did you do?” I sobbed, seeing the destruction of that beautiful hand.
I knew it would heal, but the depths of his fury, of the knowledge that he could believe me nothing other than evil now—it rocked me to my very core.
His pain-filled eyes were all I saw as he said, “You told me I could trust you, little demon.” He glanced down at Luc, my prisoner. “But I think I was a fool to believe it.”
I clenched my jaw, blocking out his censure, his words. If I listened for even another second I’d lose my nerve for what was about to come next.
“None of you understand. I told you all to stay away. But none of you listened—you thought you could save me. Well, you were wrong!” I flashed in front of Cash.
His eyes were huge and golden and terrified when I clasped onto his collar.
“Maybe now you’ll listen to me!”
And moving quicker than any of them could have followed, I shoved my clawed hand through Cash’s chest and ripped out his beating heart and tossed it underground, and then with a scream of fury I dug my nails into his jaw and pulled.
For a second it seemed like nothing happened.
His eyes blazed a brilliant gold, he blinked once, twice, and then...his head rolled off his shoulders to my feet.
There were gasps and cries of shock, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t explain.
I tossed his body onto Luc’s just as the blue wisps of his soul expelled from within him.
Everything happened in slow motion then. Time crawled. And it wasn’t Asher freezing time for me the way he once would have. It was me, moving faster than the speed of light.
Vyxen, Bubba, even my beautiful death Priest was coming at me. I had a choice who I’d take next. So I choose the one who would have chosen me had our situations been reversed.
I reached out for Bubba and yanked him to my side, wrapping my legs around his waist like a vise as I literally pulled myself up his back like a monkey and with fangs extended ripped into the side of his throat, bleeding us both as I exchanged our life’s essence.
It only took a second and then I was off him and at Luc’s window, and with my heart in my throat, I traced out of there, knowing I’d now lost the last remaining allies who’d so staunchly fought for me.
God help me, I only hoped I was strong enough for what had to come next.
Chapter 18
Asher
Within a few hours Bubba had quieted the worst of the rioting down. My anger had burned as brightly as theirs, my belief in her shaken to its very foundation. If she’d been before me, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have tried to kill her.
That Pandora could so easily come into her family home, injure Keltse, kill Cash—not to mention what she’d done to Luc, which none of us were even entirely certain of. There’d been no love lost between the two of them, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she must have truly hated him to have done whatever she’d done.
Keltse’s grip on Luc had ended the moment Pandora had severed the connection, but Luc still hadn’t woken. His skin was now blue-tinged, and he no longer breathed.
If I hadn’t known better, I’d think him dead.
But Nephilim couldn’t die that way.
Sitting down at Vyxen’s kitchen table, I stared at the stump of my hand. What did I know anymore anyway?
Vyxen and Bubba entered a few minutes later, straggling in. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, but it was Bubba who looked worse.
Pandora had been vicious in her attack on him. She’d ripped into his neck. If he’d been human, he’d have died from the ferocity of her feeding.
The front of Bubba’s normally white shirt was now stained a rusted brown color. Dried blood he’d not bothered to try and clean up. The wound in his neck was still partly open.
Whatever she’d done when she’d bitten him was causing his natural healing to be impeded. He was healing, but very slowly.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to Vyxen when she sat down beside me.
I knew she and Cash had had a thing. Not sure I’d call it a romance, but they’d definitely been sex partners for a while at least.
“Huh?” She jerked, as if startled to hear me speak, and then gave a flicker of her fingers. “It’s okay.” Her voice was a soft thread.
She was in shock.
Frowning, I glanced at Bubba. He was staring down at his hands and shaking his head, whispering over and over, “How did I not see this? How did I not know?”
I stared over at where Cash’s empty seat now rested.
Bubba and I both were snapped out of our reverie when Vyxen suddenly slammed her fist down on the table.
“No! No, it’s not okay!” She snarled and her eyes literally glowed in her face. Anger replaced the shock and, shooting to her feet, she motioned at Cash’s chair. “Look what she did! Look! To me.” She tapped her chest. “To you.” She pointed at Bubba. “Look at your hand, Priest!”
Her face was transforming, her skin turning a dusky shade of gray, flickering with a hint of scales. Her fingers bent as her nails lengthened into claws.
“She has to die. This is over. This is done. There is no hope of redemption. No hope. No chance! We let her devour that last soul, then we take her out. Once and for all. You hear me!” she screamed, staring up at the roof.
Bubba clutched his head with a hand smeared in his own blood. “I have to go. I can’t. I just—”
Without even finishing his words, he traced from the room.
Vyxen was in a rage now, crashing into furniture, flinging vases and whatever other valuables at the walls like tiny missiles.
She’d not turned fully demonic. She was doing the best she could to hold herself together, and maybe once I would have tried to do something. To stop her. But if she didn’t destroy her house, she’d go out into the world and destroy innocents.
I needed to think. Needed to try and understand what’d happened tonight, and I couldn’t do it here. Getting up, I walked out of Vyxen’s trailer and flew into the clouds.
My stump throbbed like a sonofabitch.
I’d had to use a blade I’d kept hidden in my dresser to sever it. Pandora had meant to keep me locked up there at least until all this was over.
I flew until I spied no civilization. Until I could find a patch of woods that was mine alone. Dropping down onto the nearest tree limb sturdy enough to hold my weight, I sat, hugging my stump to my chest, and shoved all the fears, all the worries out of my head.
I knew her.
I knew everyone thought I was crazy.
Vyxen had lost faith tonight.
Bubba seemed to have lost his mind.
Cash his life.
But I knew her.
This wasn’t Pandora.
The Queen’s book said the souls would change her. Would turn her dark and twisted. I’d sensed that darkness tonight.
And it was big and wide and impossibly deep. But she’d held me. She’d told me with her body that truth
in the only way she could.
She’d asked for my trust, even when I shouldn’t give it. Had asked me to believe in her and I’d given it to her wholeheartedly. There’d been salt on her lips when she’d kissed me, tears that’d run down her cheeks unchecked.
Those weren’t the actions of a monster.
Back at that rave I’d lost my head, scenting that incubus swine all over her. Rage and jealousy had consumed me. Greed had risen up within me and I’d wanted to hurt her as she’d hurt me.
In the end I’d succeeded only in wounding myself further. All the promises I’d made her, all the times I’d told her I’d never leave her—I’d thrown out careless words I could never take back.
I’d thought her lost to me forever then.
Not because of the monstrous souls she was forced to consume. Or even because of some false prophecy now come all too true.
No, I’d lost her because I’d broken faith with her.
I’d lain in bed tonight, sleeping fitfully, desperate to understand her. Understand this. To know which path to take. What I could do to set this ship back on course. Not for us. I’d not believed there could ever be an us again.
But for her.
Then she’d showed up. I couldn’t stop her from killing me same as she had Cash. I was no longer her equal. Pandora was almost godlike in her powers.
She was becoming the Scarlet Woman of myth and legend. One more soul and her power would be unfathomable. She’d be the bridge between Earth and Hell, a being capable of opening the Gates and releasing into the world the most vile, the most evil of all creatures.
She’d usher in the end of days and no matter what Cash had claimed, there’d be no stopping her. Not even if we somehow managed to secure her mark.
Not if she didn’t wish it.
She’d absorbed two of the three souls necessary to get her there. Her darkness should be nearly absolute.
So why hadn’t she killed me tonight?
I gazed at the raw flesh of my stump. It was already healing nicely. By tomorrow I’d have a hand back; within another day, full movement of my digits.
I had to believe Pandora hadn’t killed me, because she’d been trying to spare me.
There was a chip in her head. One that gave the Triad open communication between her and them. Pandora had spoken to me in a language only I was guaranteed to understand.
Dean kept telling me I couldn’t stop this. That my purpose in all this wasn’t to prevent her current path, but to help her remember. To fight for her. To believe in her.
Even when I couldn’t understand.
Once the dust settled, and she’d absorbed the final soul, she’d be as powerful as any of the Seven. And maybe that was it.
It wasn’t arms or steel or fire that would win this war.
It was Pandora herself.
The Father had imbued us all with one unalterable trait. Humans, demons, and angels, we all shared one basic and common thread.
Free will.
It didn’t matter what the Zombie Queen’s book said, what everyone else said, because in the end the decision would always be Pandora’s.
Chapter 19
Luc
My soul floated somewhere between Heaven and Hell. I was drowning in the touch of foreign souls, their roiling, festering hatred reaching out to me.
They hated being imprisoned inside me. Resented Pandora for pumping them into me. They clawed at me, screamed at me.
But Cash’s was the loudest.
His consciousness was no longer there, the betrayer Nephilim, but the demon he’d housed remembered everything and railed at his failure.
Pride had taken a direct hit and he was seething mad.
The body that housed me, it was fighting just to survive this onslaught. How did Pandora do this? How did she manage to remain intact through the onslaught of such rage?
Pandora had tempered Keltse’s Sloth, giving me much-needed time to acclimate, to learn to control the demons now attempting to consume me.
It was nothing but darkness, and when the panic would set in and I’d feel myself slipping away, I’d remember Pandora’s touch.
Her words.
My vow.
I will fight for you, Dora. I will always fight for you.
And as the demons fought me, as they came at me from all sides, taunting and teasing me mercilessly that they would devour me, the only thing anchoring me to the body and keeping me in control was the knowledge that she’d done this too. She’d done this and survived this.
I could do no less.
Not even when the trapped demons clawed at my soul. When they savaged me with sickle-shaped fangs, or even when my heart stopped beating. I was nothing but a vapor, a soul floating in the nothingness between life and death. Hell was coming at me from every side. I’d get up, only to be knocked down again.
But they wouldn’t take me.
I wouldn’t let it happen.
I was her only chance at redemption.
Her only hope.
I promise, Dora, I promise...
Chapter 20
Pandora
I’d closed off all communications with Luc after what’d gone down two nights ago. It wasn’t safe anymore to reach out to anyone. From here on out I was alone in this.
I stared at my bare walls, legs crossed in front of me on the bed, my feet freezing. Rubbing them one on top of the other I wished yet again that I’d thought to snag a couple pairs of my knee-high toe socks out of my trailer before ensuring I’d never be allowed entree there again.
It was cold outside, and in my room. But I barely felt it. I only wore a thin cotton shirt and My Little Pony underoos.
Amazing that I still managed to have any sort of a sense of humor. But it was funny how your perspective totally shifted on life when you no longer had anything to hope for.
Either Luc would come out of his coma, or he wouldn’t.
Either I would become the bridge, or I wouldn’t.
There was simply a blasé acceptance of both good and bad. Things were as they were. I’d done all I could do to try and stop it. Now, I could only sit back and hope my best had been good enough.
The door opened then.
“What?” I turned to look at Dean.
He’d showered, must have literally just come from there to here. He had a pink terry cloth bath towel wrapped around his incredibly muscular abs. I think the more proper term would be an eight-pack. The ends of his hair were wet and plastered to the side of his neck, his tricolored eyes blazing as they looked back at me.
“Seen your fill?” he asked with a cocky swagger.
I shrugged. “Seen better.”
“Right.” Snorting, he closed the door behind him. It was nearly impossible to ruffle Dean’s feathers. Even when I was insulting the guy, somehow he always seemed to take it as a compliment.
Resting against the bed frame he crossed his arms and ankles. Then took a slow, detailed look around the place. “Dorrie, after all this time, your walls are still white.”
I sighed. “Is there a point here?”
“Well, now that you ask.” He turned and sat on the edge of my bed, propping one leg on his other knee so that his towel spread just enough to give me a good luck at the junk beneath, and grinned.
I knew he wasn’t offering.
And Lust was cold as a dead fish inside me anyway.
Hot as the man was, she and I both wanted nothing to do with him. His constant betrayal ensured that.
No, Dean just liked to play games. Throw me off. But I wasn’t taking the bait. Not this time.
I waited him out.
Finally, after an intense one-minute, stare down, he huffed and straightened his leg. “You know, you used to be fun.”
“Yeah, well, you killed that in me. What do you want? Are the coordinates ready?”
“Almost. Maybe another hour, maybe less, not sure.” He shrugged.
“Great. And why exactly are you here right now?”
Li
cking his teeth, he smiled. “Thought maybe if I asked real nice I’d find out just why exactly you went back to Diabolique the other night.”
His question was met with stony silence.
“Riiight. So, I’m taking that as a no.” His brows lifted to his hairline.
“Pretty much.” I flicked at a nonexistent piece of fuzz on my kneecap, then hugged my arms around my legs, rested my chin on my knee, and gave him a bored look.
“Dorrie, you really have to get out of here. Live life a little. You know, before you get all zombiefied and lose all touch with reality once you suck up soul number three.”
“Gee, Dean, tactful much?”
“Never saw any sense in sugarcoating the truth.”
“Fine. You want something from me.” I sat up straight, giving him a fake smile. “I want something from you in return.”
“Shoot.” He flipped his palm up in an ‘I surrender’ pose.
“I’ll tell you what I was doing at Diabolique, if you tell me just why in the hell Dick doesn’t seem to see right through you the way I do.”
“Oh, that.” He flicked his wrist. “He knows the rules. I don’t work for him, and he doesn’t work for me, but he can’t interfere with me either.”
That really answered nothing and left me more confused than anything else. “‘The game’”—I finger quoted—“right. Of course. Sure would be nice if I understood it.”
“I’ve broken the thing down to its basest form. It’s not my fault you’re not smart enough to understand it.”
“Wow,” I chuckled. “And just when I thought you were actually semi...well...” I shrugged. “Not exactly decent, are you? Always hot and cold. I can’t make heads or tails of you. The one thing”—I held up a finger—“I’ve always prided myself on was knowing how others thought, but you, you’re just a giant question mark. You take orders from Dick and yet you don’t work for him. You betrayed us that night back at the compound. Probably were even the one who got that angel’s blood to make sure none of my family could get to me. You’ve helped Dick every step of the way and yet, you thwart him too. I don’t understand you at all.”