Green Agate Pretender

by Morgan Blade

  She stopped and abased herself, face to the floor, waiting permission to speak.

  “You are?” I asked.

  “Mousear Chickweed, my lord.”

  “Stand and tell me what you need.”

  Hastily, she scrambled up. Head down, she wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  Someone around this place is actually afraid of me?

  “It’s all right Mousy. What’s your problem?”

  “My shift supervisor says he likes the way I smell. He keeps asking if he can—pick my flowers.”

  “This bothers you?”

  Sexual harassment?

  “In my former clan, among my kind, such a statement is cause for blood-feud. I have tried to let Hawkim know I do not want his attentions, but he seems not to understand, or care.”

  “Has he been sexually aggressive?”

  “He did try…try to…” She ran down, unable to say the rest.

  Imari walked in from the side, joining me on the dais. Her gaze wept over the worker. Imari turned to face me, lifting a questioning eyebrow. I noticed several other demon applicants approaching, forming a line. I was going to be here a while.

  I raised my voice to fill the hall. “Have this Hawkim summoned to my presence.”

  I saw a demon in the back of the room hurry off to handle the matter. Several of the women in line lifted their hands together.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  One of the women, slightly braver than the rest, spoke up. “Several of us have come here concerning this person.”

  I didn’t like the pattern I was seeing. I spoke softly to Imari. “Did you know this was going on in the cleaning division?”

  “No, my lord. I have failed you. I am sorry.”

  “You have not failed me, so shut the fuck up.”

  Her brows arched. The flames dancing on her head fluttered higher.

  “I called you here to thank you for your services in Fairy. I appreciate competence. Keep up the good work,” I said.

  “You didn’t call me to review the after-action reports, and to instruct me in my mistakes?”

  “You came when called. You handled logistics flawlessly. You battle plan was competent and effective. What more can I ask?”

  “But last time…when the Clan House was attacked…”

  “Imari, I’m conquering all time and space. Soon I’ll be spread even thinner. I’m becoming an emperor, one who commands kings. I can’t be tied down micro-managing everything. Here’s my new policy. Do the job, keep the job. Fail me and if its due to incompetence, I will kill you. Otherwise, learn from your mistakes and get better. If I didn’t trust you, you would not be my First Sword.”

  A big, male demon came running into the Great Hall. He wore denim and leather boots, and a tunic of rusty bronze that matched the feathers on his face around his big yellow beak. He glared quickly at the women in line, then turned his attention to me. “My lord, I do not know what lies you may have been told, but—”

  I lifted a hand to stop him.

  In the back shadows of my mind, scales scraped. My inner dragon stirred, his golden eyes opening. Behind him, imprinted on the darkness was my seal on the shadow-beast. He glowered at us both with his giant red eye.

  My inner dragon said: Do I really have to share head-space with this guy?

  You should be happy he can’t reach you, I said.

  Caught me by surprise last time. I’m ready for him now.

  So why are you whining? I asked.

  I’m a dragon, damnit. I don’t whine.

  Says you. Shut up now, I’m dispensing justice.

  Are you sure you know what that word means? He asked.

  Shut up!

  The dragon snickered, and I could swear the shadow-beast did, too.

  I turned my attention outward again. I smiled. “Hawkim, these women have brought charges concerning your conduct. Are they true?”

  “My lord, like you, I am a connoisseur of beauty. I fear my natural appreciation has simply been misunderstood.”

  One of the accusers yelled. “He raped me!”

  Hawkim turned toward her, an expression of surprise engraved on his face, enhanced by his gaping beak. He addressed the female demon. “What? You didn’t have fun, too?”

  “You broke my arm!”

  “You said you liked it rough.”

  I shaped a shadow-pattern on the back of my left hand and flushed it with golden magic. A second pattern appeared on my right hand. It, too, shone with a brief flash of gold. The first spell gave me Dragon Voice, a command spell. “Hawkim, have you been preying on these women, abusing your power like a common congressman?”

  In the grip of my spell, the truth was forced out of him. “Yes, my lord. Knowing of your rutting exploits, I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “I find you guilty as charged.”

  “Kicking me out of the Clan?” he asked. “There are others out there.”

  He hadn’t noticed the pool of darkness under his feel. He didn’t know what the pattern on my right hand was for. Black tentacles shot up around him. They coiled and dragged him into the darkness. His scream lasted only a moment. Everyone stared at the dark pool on the floor as it shrank and closed.

  “In the future,” I said, “these types of issues should be brought to the attention of the First Sword. When she is on my throne, she speaks with my voice, and gives you my justice.”

  “My lord!” Imari objected. “You put too much in my hands.”

  “Imari, are you questioning my judgement?”

  “No, my lord, it’s just that—”

  “Then shut the fuck up and get back to your duty.”

  She came to attention and saluted. “Yes, my lord.”

  I looked out at the remaining demons. “Anyone else want to argue with me?”

  Silence answered.

  “Who’s next,” I called.

  Silence grew heavier, thicker.

  I waved them off. “Then go settle your own problems.”

  There was a sudden rush away from the throne. The demon workers couldn’t run fast enough.

  I finished my drink, and swirled the ice in the glass. “Ah, such a pleasant burn!”

  Inside my head, my inner dragon turned to watch the seal and the beast beyond. The shadow-beast chomped away on Hawkim who’d stopped moving.

  My dragon complained: Why does he get dinner instead of me?

  “You’re still a recovering invalid. If the kitchen has any green Jell-O, I’ll eat it for you.”

  Don’t do me any favors.

  I watched the last of my petitioners flee the room. “Yeah, that seems to be the general sentiment.”

  I held up my glass, shaking it to rattle the ice. I yelled. “Shui, I need another. And keep them coming. I’ve been sober entirely too long.”

  COMING JULY OF 2018:

  CRIMSON SWORD STALKER

  By

  MORGAN BLAYDE

  EXCERPT:

  Kane led me past a brass plate that simply said: Museum. Gloria walked beside me as we entered the new chamber of the mansion.

  An art gallery?

  He pointed up.

  I stared. How could I not. “It’s me and God!”

  The ceiling was all a giant fresco, an imitation of Man’s Creation from the Sistine Chapel. I reclined, as if caught in mid-change, half human, half dragon. I reached a finger-tip to touch a bottle of whisky that floated like God himself in the clouds.

  Michelangelo’s turning over in his grave.

  After absorbing the scene in silent awe, I drifted to a black wall. They were lined with a gazillion snapshots of me. The first one dated from the moment I stepped into Gloria’s bar as a teenager. The photos documented moments I was proud of, which I hoped would never come to the attention of the police or FBI. There were moments when I should have been alone with only corpses, and nobody with a camera around for miles.

  I would have noticed.

  I kept moving.

  My life, in endless det
ail. How is this possible?

  One picture rivetted my attention. Me, alone—I’d thought so at the time—in the rain, blood leaking from a large number of wounds. I had a smile on my face. In a corner of the picture, Kain gave a thumbs-up. He grinned, barring fangs, eyes red as hell-fire, dressed in a dark suit. It could be the same suit he now wore. Vampires like black.

  This picture has to be photoshopped, but the details are right. Has he managed to roll my mind? No vampire has ever been able to, but he’s the strongest. It would mean all this is illusion, for some reason. Maybe the frames are empty and my subconscious is filling them in.

  Before I could say anything, Kain walked away, waving for us to follow. More pictures passed. We went through an open archway and found display cases. I recognized what was kept here: my old guns, swords, some of them damaged from conflict, and in the center of the space, my very first Mustang that had been stolen years ago.

  I glared at Kane’s back. “You didn’t…!”

  He kept going. The next room was the throne room. The throne itself was carved from black volcanic glass. There was a red-cushioned seat with an obsidian back that loomed twelve feet, chiseled into the shape of a giant bat fanning wings. Someone had given the bat eyes made of fist-sized rubies.

  Kane headed straight for the throne, leaving me to look around. On the immense walls were massive oil paintings, the major events of my life. I looked across the images, feeling totally Punk’d.

  “Where’s the hidden camera?” I asked.

  “Have you noticed?” Kain’s voice effortlessly filled the space without trying.

  “Our similarities? Yeah.”

  “When I became what I am, I was told I’d lost my soul, that it would wander with nowhere to go, but hell on Judgement Day. It may be an insane fancy, but I have long wondered if that lost soul might not have been reborn—in you.”

  Fangs shining with an ethereal light, Kain pointed at one particular painting. “Welcomed by darkness, beloved by Death whom you gave this offering, this was your first kill, to make your adoptive father happy.” His burning eyes came back to me. “Recently, you killed your brother. I did the same myself once. Killed my brother, not yours. You and I have the same name, though spelt differently. Our lives have taken similar tracks. Just coincidence?”

  I had no idea how to respond.

  Kain gestured. A servant was just suddenly in the room, holding a tray with Cuban cigars and two glasses of bourbon with Norco on the bottom. Mixing acetaminophen/hydrocodone and alcohol together was a bad idea—for humans. We had nothing to worry about.

  I took a glass, and a cigar and looked over at Kain, smiling. “So, you been following me for years?”

  “More like following myself. Soon as you marry my little Gloria, you will rule over the vampires and I can retire for real.”

  Gloria yelled in a strange language, words sharp and angry.

  Kain remained calm. He pointed at a wall and each painting flipped over, showing new images. Every single one was of me and Gloria. They weren’t the kind that should be seen, not that they were pornographic, just intense. Intimate. They showed when one of us was distracted and the other observing, both of us stealing glances with naked souls.

  I downed my drink, set the empty glass on the floor, and lit my cigar. “So, you’ve been spying on both of us?”

  “I’ve seen that which you will not admit to one another, and I have decided that I must act before my own heart breaks.”