by Mark Eller
Wiggling her other leg free, Tessla hooked it behind his back. Mercktos groaned and pressed his mouth to hers, his tongue teasing, wanting, needing. He slid his hands over her breasts, gently squeezed, and then circled her hardened nipples with his fingertips, teasing and plucking the hard nubs. Tessla moaned.
Scraping sounds, accompanied by inhuman growls and curses, suddenly filled the air.
Stopping, Mercktos jerked his head upward. He smelled sulfur. They were coming.
With a sudden push, he rose from the street and changed into his devil form so quickly it almost felt as if his body was made of a viscous fluid.
“It’s time for you to leave, spawn.” Mercktos offered Tessla his hand.
When Tessla accepted it, Mercktos pulled her roughly to him. “I know you want the child, but you can’t have her,” he said while she calmly adjusted her clothing. “If you don’t leave now, you’ll be greatly outnumbered and more than likely killed.” Mercktos’s voice sounded low and thick, not surprising considering his recent mood. The urge to shift struck him again. His body ached to strip her bare, to take her under the cover of darkness, and to hell with any danger. His lust nearly overwhelmed his common sense.
Frowning, Tessla seemed confused for a moment and then shook her head.
Mercktos sighed. Now wasn’t the time for her obstinacy. A bone tired weariness stole over his body. The hide and seek he was playing with the child coupled with his admittedly odd behavior and Tessla’s stubbornness was shredding his patience and testing his sanity. Danger approached. The sound of hellkind’s numerous taloned feet on the hard packed dirt and their clacking teeth carried on the crisp air. They were coming in force, advancing quickly. The last thing he needed right now was to be seen defending Tessla, but the assassin’s attitude made it clear she wouldn’t leave here without the child. He didn’t doubt she would kill him to get Missa. What the hell was wrong with the spawn? Did she expect him to ruin himself on her behalf? It would never happen. This was not his fight. In fact, his only concern at the moment was keeping Missa out of Sulya’s hands.
“I can’t go,” Tessla explained. “I must have the child. Trelsar will accept no less.” Stepping back several paces, the assassin pulled out her pipe.
“Don’t.” Mercktos ordered, his voice a threatening growl as his body tensed. Even from this far away, he felt Athos’s poison roil and churn within her.
The first demon hove into view, quickly followed by several others. Behind them, Mercktos heard others in pursuit. Upon seeing Tessla, the demons howled in rage.
No more games, Mercktos decided. The assassin’s time was up; he had given her fair warning. It was more than he owed her.
Lightning quick, Tessla leapt at Mercktos, her pipe’s stem thrusting for his forehead. Just as swiftly, Mercktos jumped, spread his wings, and was airborne. Tessla stumbled forward and fell hard against the side of the shack, rattling the half broken shutters. Startled cries came from within. Straightening, she gazed in apparent frustration at the moonless sky for a brief moment before shaking her head and running swiftly into the inky night. Mercktos watched from above as hellborn started to pursue but quickly changed their minds when Calto Morlon burst among them. Within seconds he was joined by a dozen others, a force too small for demons and hellhounds this powerful. Two knights fell. Another dropped back, wounded. Mercktos thought the battle would be swift and perhaps too decisive if Anothosia’s High Priest died before his time, but then a new force entered the fray, a small force possessing a wretchedly debilitating voice.
Mercktos flew higher to escape the effects of a mother’s wrath.
Still watching the battle from far above, Mercktos pondered why his pretend heart hurt at the thought of Tessla being murdered. Did it twinge with…with…was this feeling regret? He hovered, his wings gently flapping, unsure of what he wanted and needed to do. These odd sensations, these feelings, made his head hurt and somehow caused his vision to blur. He blinked several times to clear his eyes and felt something wet slide over his scaled face. Wiping at the wetness, he wondered what it could have been.
The battle over, he saw Calto Morlon still lived. A desired outcome, and yet not. If the priest died before some plans reached fruition everything might return to normal.
Except his gods, Zorce and Athos didn’t want normal. They wanted the sun, and they wanted revenge.
Groaning with conflicted indecision, Mercktos went to find his charge and hopefully hide her away from prying eyes.
* * * *
“What do you mean you can’t find Mercktos?” Sulya sat at a darkened corner table in a dingy little hole-in-the-wall called the Cauldron Inn, ready to fly into a rage. A small incubus sat across from her, Heinous’s replacement. She didn’t like him. In fact, she loathed him. Heinous had been stronger and filled with more bloodlust. More than that, Sulya was fairly sure this one was a spy for Belthethsia. She had no proof, of course, but why else would she end up with an obviously inferior hellkind serving her? What better way to hinder her efforts than by making sure her minions were both useless and dull witted? It had to be that blue skinned whore who was to blame. Belthethsia wanted Sulya to fail, and wanted even more to assure herself a place by Zorce’s side when the god took over the upper world.
“Mercktos disappeared,” the incubus said. “He also let Tessla escape as well
“He…let…her…escape?” Suyla asked, feeling her rage about to explode. How dare these worthless pustules on a rat’s ass have allowed him to escape when he had the god’s damned kid? Had Mercktos finally gone completely mad, taking off with her that way, and later, allowing the fucking spawn to live? In a way, she could almost understand his attachment to the child. The brat had somehow bewitched him, had him in her thrall, but Sulya could not comprehend his reasoning behind letting the spawn live. Maybe he hoped Tessla would finish her off during one of the planned confrontations. Then he could kill Tessla and grab more of the glory for himself. Or maybe he was laying a trap for the spawn…making Tessla believe he was on her side. Then, when her defenses were down, he would capture her and bring her to Zorce alive, garnering even more rewards than he would get for killing the bitch.
Sulya grimaced. She just didn’t know. Too many things didn’t make sense, and with the child missing, all of her plans had gone awry.
“What are you going to do?” The incubus asked, a bemused expression upon his handsome face. Leaning back, he looked annoyingly relaxed about the fact her plans were falling to shit.
Several long moments passed while Sulya fumed and internally raged before she abruptly came to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “First, I’m taking a hot bath. Grace has some of the foulest water I’ve ever had the displeasure of almost drowning in. Then, I’m going to Hell to collect on a favor I’m owed.”
The incubus grinned. “As I recall, nobody’s returning to Hell until after Athos’s spawn is captured.”
Sulya’s eyes narrowed as she studied the insolent wretch, wondering if she should kill him, but no. If this one died Belthethsia would slip another spy into her ranks, one Sulya might not discover. Better the devil she knew…“The rule is for others, not for me. As Zorce’s General, I’m exempt.”
Abruptly turning, she walked away from the table. The stakes had been raised. She needed to better arm herself, and changes needed to be made to the plan. The only way she knew to do that was to pay a visit to a certain well placed demon whose unique gift was to transform a being into something more…deadly.
She smiled. Sulya Ibarra, Supreme General of Zorce’s army, would make sure her place at Zorce’s right hand remained vacant until she was ready to claim her prize, no matter what the cost to her pride or how many bodies she had to stomp over.
* * * *
Missa’s soft snuffle brought Mercktos out of his long silence. At first, he felt a momentary concern she would be heard, but his concern faded away. Nobody would hear her soft crying. Nobody would hear her if she screamed, not here, not in this nearly
forgotten temple of Flinstar. The submerged temple had been the center of an earthquake three hundred and forty-two years earlier, causing it to be covered by more than six dozen feet of water beneath the newly formed Lake Elmere, a ten mile wide and sixty mile long lake set at the edge of the Dover Cliffs and twenty miles inland from the Whispering Sea.. As best Mercktos could judge, a floating dock now stood over its former main entrance. The only way to reach its only remaining and now hidden entrance, once the terminus of an emergency escape tunnel, was by climbing or flying. The entrance, a thin slit three hundred and twelve feet up an impossibly straight section of the Dover Cliffs, was completely hidden by rocks and rough growth from where seeds had fallen into a few tiny cracks. Inside, the crack had been totally blocked by fallen boulders, some of which weighed nearly a thousand pounds. Only a Hell creature would be strong enough to remove the boulders each time he came visiting and then replace them later. When Mercktos had been shoved earth-side six years earlier on punishment duty, he had discovered the temple after sinking a ship. Three days passed before he managed to dredge the temple’s secrets from ancient and far too vague memories of when he, Flinstar, and yes, even Throm, had been friends thousands of years earlier, memories which initially seemed almost closed off. Another two weeks passed before he finally found the hidden entrance.
Mercktos smiled. Even Zorce knew nothing about his hideaway. Inside, protected from the surrounding water by Flinstar’s potent magic, it still retained much of its splendor. It had cathedral ceilings, marble walls, and floors inlaid with gold and jewels. Mosaic pictures created by minuscule ceramic tiles were scattered about the temple. Most of the mosaics were cracked. Several had missing pieces, but one, a picture of Flinstar, remained intact directly behind the altar. Studying it, Mercktos had to admit his old friend didn’t look as imposing as Throm or impressively regal as Trelsar and Anothosia. As best he could recall, Flinstar was more…average. More obviously human. Brown haired, tall, thin, his face somber, the mosaic made Flinstar appear as if he didn’t know how to smile, but that wasn’t the case. Mercktos squinted at the picture, seeing mental flashes of a young man on a stage quoting lines; a young man amazing crowds with sleight of hand, a young man who yearned for nothing more than a truly loyal friend, a young man who eventually came to resemble this unhappy mosaic.
Sighing, Mercktos shoved ancient history to the back of his mind and tried to focus on the problem at hand. The crying child.
“What do you want Missa?” Mercktos felt strangely tired, drained. His encounter with Tessla had been unsettling in ways he didn’t yet understand. Why had he spared her life? He should have stayed and helped the oncoming horde finish her off. Or at the very least, he should have rendered her unconscious and taken her prisoner since death was not always a permanent condition for the former spawn. Trelsar had on at least three occasions brought her back. Mercktos knew this because on one of those occasions he had caused her demise, and yet Tessla seemed unaware of the event.
Mercktos closed his eyes for a moment to help focus and calm his tiresome thoughts. Fucking Tessla. Why did thoughts of her always…well…maybe her unexpected attempt at seduction had thrown him off? Yes, of course. He was sure of it. Trelsar’s Assassin had more than one arrow to her bow, each more deadly than the last in their own particular way. She had tried to play on his passion for her, tried to deceive him with her body. Somehow, she knew how much he still wanted her. But how, and why did she have some connection to him he didn’t understand or feel? Using it, Tessla had followed him with perfection from the warehouse, an impossible task for anyone, even those born in Hell. He shouldn’t have been traceable, not when he was in flight.
Missa finally stirred, perhaps in response to his long ago question. Eyes damp, she tried to smile, but failed.
“You look so sad,” she said softly. “It makes me feel sad, too. Do you need a hug?”
The child was staring at him. Her large sapphire eyes delved into his soul as if they knew and understood his confusion and pain. “Mommy says hugs make everything better.”
Mercktos’s fingers twitched; his brow wrinkled, and then he released a deep sigh. For some reason, it felt good to be wearing his human form. Hearing the child sing to him again would make him feel even better; somehow, when she lay next to him while he slept, when she sang to him while he was awake, his tangled thoughts seemed to un-jumble themselves and start to make sense.
His false heart twinged as he gazed at her, quick and sharp, an odd, cold, feeling. Was the feeling pity; sorrow at the condition the child was in? She looked thin and dirty and lonely.
It suddenly struck him how truly piteous Missa appeared.
Walking over to her, he knelt, took a kerchief from his pocket, and dipped it into a puddle of water. “Child, you’re all smudged. Let me straighten you up a bit.” He began wiping at her face.
The child smiled and giggled. “My mommy does that too. She’s always washing my face and fussing over my clothes. Thank you. I know you don’t like me, but I like you. You’re the only one who’s been nice to me.” Missa stepped forward, threw her arms around his neck, and squeezed tightly.
Mercktos tensed. She was hugging him. His first thought was to fling her away, to shift back to devil and scare the crap out of her. It was, at the least, what he should have done because it was in his nature. Instead, he slowly brought his arms around her frail body and returned the hug. It felt…comforting? He wasn’t sure of the correct word. It had been so long since he had last experienced undiluted human emotions, since he had felt anything other than lust, hatred, or rage.
“You’re starving aren’t you?” he asked. “Sulya has barely kept you alive.”
Mercktos stood with her still in his grasp and walked far into the temple until he found an old well. He sat her next to it.
“Wait here. You’ll be safe until I return. I’ll find you food.”
Reaching inside the well, he pulled up a rope. On its end was a good sized bundle wrapped in an old brown blanket. “Don’t try to find your way out of the temple. You’ll drown if you break past Flinstar’s barriers, and you’ll never make it past the boulders at the entrance, or manage to climb down the cliff.” He opened the bundle. “Here is a knife as well as an oil lamp. Leave the other things alone. Take the blanket and curl up in the bottom of the well. If anyone comes…be silent…if you want to live…but you needn’t worry too much. We’re likely the only ones who have been here for hundreds of years.”
Mercktos showed her the small rope ladder hung precariously over the edge. “The well is dry. There’s nothing to be afraid of down there.”
The child’s eyes were wide, and she pulled her arms in tight to her body. “I’m scared of the dark. It’s really, really dark down there.” Her voice quavered, and her bottom lip trembled. “Please don’t make me go.”
Frustrated. Mercktos grabbed the lamp and jumped into the well, landing heavy and loud. Once down, he lit the lamp and saw the well’s floor was strewn with rocks. Kicking the stones to the side, he placed the lamp on the ground.
He looked up at Missa’s pale, frightened face. “See. Nothing. Completely dry. You’ll be safe here. Just a few spiders is all, andthey are harmless.”
Missa’s dull, dirty braids jiggled violently as she shook her head. “No. You’re going to leave me there. You’ll let me die.” Her beautiful blue eyes welled with tears.
The child’s fear reached out and sucker punched him in his gut, staggering him. Swallowing hard against bile he felt creeping up his throat, Mercktos leapt from the well.
“Enough!” he snapped. “If you’re not willing do as I order, I’ll take you back to Sulya and let her deal with you.” Glaring at her, he hissed evilly and bared his still human teeth.
Missa whimpered. New tears streaked down her face, but she made no move to protest. Meek and resolute, she walked to the well’s edge, carefully crawled over the short wall, and started down the rope ladder.
The devil’s shoulders slumpe
d. Unhappy…this emotion he felt was the thing called unhappy. Missa was also unhappy, and he hated it. The child should be back with her mother and the other people who loved her. This was not a right thing he and Sulya had done to her, this kidnapping, it wasn’t right. She should be playing in a courtyard full of sunshine and toys and…
Jerking upward, Mercktos shook himself. What in the two hells had he been thinking? This child was his destruction, his death, and he was trying to make her comfortable…wishing her back with the ones who wanted to kill him and his brethren, wanted to deny them their freedom from Hell. He shook his head to clear it. His mind wasn’t working properly. He was a devil, the very first devil, Zorce’s right hand. It was his job to keep Missa alive until it was time to give her to Zorce, that’s why he was doing all this. If she became malnourished in his care, grew sick and died, or if something found its way into the temple and killed her, Zorce would torture him for an eternity.
Mercktos wiped his hand over his sweaty face. What mess had he got himself into by taking off with the child? Maybe he should give her back to Sulya. Maybe the similian was right…the child had bewitched him…cursed him somehow.
His head hurt, throbbed. His chest felt heavy and tight. Stooping over, Mercktos clutched his head between his hands and tried to take a deep breath as dizziness overcame him.
A soft wind, full of summer flowers, blew against his flushed face.
Remember…
The voice…so soft…so sweet…
Swaying, Mercktos fell to one knee. His mind blanked for a moment, leaving an odd afterimage of a woman; happy…petite…beautiful smile…kind green eyes.
And she whispered a name…
Merrac Toscano.
The revelation knocked to him all fours. Shuddering uncontrollably Mercktos crawled to the well. He leaned against it for support and closed his eyes. Dawn was near. He could feel it in his bones. The market would be open soon. He could rest once he got provisions for the girl. He could sleep…and maybe…maybe Missa would sing to him again.