I was fucking livid!
“You dare to pull that shit with me!” I thundered as Asmodeus simply pushed his throne like chair back from the table and shrugged his shoulders casually.
“I thought it would be amusing to try,” he confessed making me snarl,
“I am no one’s fucking puppet!”
“No, for surely you are someone’s if you belong to her?” he challenged, making me lose my shit completely. I grabbed the end of the table and flipped it so hard that it and all its contents went crashing into the wall. This doing so barely missing the girls tied up there and unable to escape my wrath.
“SHE IS MY CHOSEN ONE!” I roared the second after it smashed into the stone arches and quickly became chunks of splintered wood. Finally, at this he released a deep sigh and rose to his feet before telling me,
“Come…I’d best help you find her then.” After he said this he turned around and started walking towards the back of the room where he knew I would follow. Especially after finally giving me hope of achieving the reason I had come here in the first place. I ended up following him onto a balcony that overlooked his dark, lustful realm. Sex wasn’t just an act to indulge in for Asmodeus, it was what fuelled his very essence and naturally made him one of the most powerful beings in all of Hell. For lust and sex was the same as what hatred and violence did for the Devil. Both sides were some of the most powerful emotions that fed the underworld just as worship, love, and loyalty fed the Gods in Heaven their power.
It didn’t make one better than the other, for each side of the divine coin was a gold forged from the exploitation of mortals. But in truth, not one could exist without the other, for the circle of life didn’t only spin in one direction. As wars were still fought amongst mortals despite there being enough land for all, just like Gods did in their quest for even more power. Only those that felt something more…found something more…were the ones in power that finally said…
Enough.
Their quest for more was finally over and fulfilment came in another form. So right now, the sight of his castle towers simply looking like the cities of the Earth. Only swapping carved stone turrets for metal and glass encasing mortal flesh in business suits. A sight that did nothing for me. It was just another fucked up reminder for me of what I once was.
Before there was her.
Asmodeus flicked out his long robe before leaning heavily against the high black spiral balustrades, and for the first time I had to ask myself had I gotten it all wrong? This sinful life most certainly got stale after a while, for even I knew that after only two thousand years of it. But then for someone like Asmodeus, who had endless lifetimes of not wondering when he would meet his Chosen One but instead, when would he ever get her back. Gods, but it must have been a tortured existence, one I wouldn’t ever fucking wish for!
Fuck me, but I had been forced to experience merely a few months without her and I was near tearing my mortal kingdom apart along with my fucking hair out!
“I heard whispers of a mortal girl,” Asmodeus finally said.
“Where?” I asked quickly and in a tense tone that said all it needed to about my waning patience.
“You really do love her don’t you?” He asked instead of answering my question and now turning back to look at me.
“I do…now tell me where?” I said sternly. He released another sigh and nodded to himself as if deciding something within him, something he didn’t share. Then he looked back over his kingdom and said,
“It was said she was wandering somewhere in the forest of rooted soul breeders.” Hearing this and my blood started to run cold, as I hissed a pointless plea through my teeth,
“No,”
“I take it that means my granddaughter is in danger?” He asked, finally looking concerned as he fucking should be, considering my Chosen One was about to walk into a fucking war!
“Yes…she fucking is, and we are done here!” I hissed through gritted teeth before releasing my wings and just as I did, Asmodeus gave me one last thing.
“I had to be certain, Luc…she’s my only granddaughter.” I knew what he meant…he was speaking about his fucked-up test of fidelity.
“Only the strongest love ever conquers it,” he added, and I growled low before letting my wings take me up into the air to hover about ten feet above where he stood and snapped,
“Yeah, well, next time…try fucking asking!” Then I shot through the thick, sinful air, ignoring the pull of lust far easier now that I was putting distance between myself and the castle. I was soon back at the portal and stepping through it after cracking the flint beneath my feet with the impact of my heavy landing.
Because finally it was time to go get my girl and if I had to, then I would…
Start another fucking war!
13
Sticky Web of Lies
After stepping back through the portal and into my own realm once more I took to the skies. I knew this was the quickest way to the outskirts of my realm and all I could think to question was if Dariush had got word to the McBain brothers in time. For they had been headed that way to begin with. Now all I could hope for was that they had reached their destination before being ordered to turn back and when doing so, they hadn’t been too late in finding her.
Gods, but there were just so many possibilities as to what could have gone wrong and all of them seemed to assault me at once. Doing so to the point that I was nearly a nervous fucking wreck by the time I landed. Of course, it didn’t help that when I did, it was in the middle of nothing but the death and destruction left after the war had clearly ended. I looked one way towards the side of the forest that belonged to the rooted soul breeders, and then the other towards the spiteful Spider Queen. It didn’t take me long to assess the damage on both sides, seeing as it had been extensive enough that most of the forest had been burnt to a cinder and beyond all life.
I could currently see what was left of the mortal part of the Queen’s body, nestled at the centre of a broken a mass of spider limbs and body parts. These sections of what was left of the arachnid demon were surrounded by smaller creatures that were all spinning webs and trying to recapture the human form of Arachne before she could drag herself free. The pieces that had been collected were slowly making their way back to their lair, as they were being dragged by lengths of webbing attached to lines of its surviving children.
Good, there was a mind left to manipulate the truth from.
But then I scented something on the breeze and froze my steps the second I did. It was blood…Amelia’s blood. I closed my eyes and sucked back a shuddered breath, holding it there for longer in hopes of calming the fuck down. I needed to keep my level head here and I started doing so by scenting just how much blood there was. I followed it towards a broken part of the land that looked as though it had been created on purpose, this along with the melting shards of ice that spread out on the usually dry land.
What the fuck had happened here?!
I flew over to a small ledge and knelt one knee to the ground, finding the source of my current panic. I found a few droplets of blood and swiped them with my fingertip. Then I rubbed it in between my fingers and brought it closer to examine, inhaling deeply as I did. Thankfully, after another quick scan of the ground, I saw that despite it being her blood, there wasn’t much of it to suggest she had suffered any major damage. This was good not just for the obvious reasons but also the fact she had been here and had obviously survived, because there was no sight of her broken body unlike the Queen’s fate. And one look back at the land’s fallen ruler and I knew there had been only one creature capable of delivering that amount of damage…or should I say three combined.
A Wyvern, a Gryphon, and a Cockatrice.
The swifter brothers McBain.
I released a sigh of relief despite knowing there was a small chance at it being premature, which was why I needed to be sure. I looked up from the blood on my metal covered fingers and snarled over my shoulder at the one who could ha
ve caused her harm. Then I flew myself over to the twitching form of the losing side’s Queen and curled a lip in disgust at the desperate attempt of the spider race trying to reclaim its cursed prisoner.
Oh, there was no doubt putting her together again could be achieved, and that she would rule once again, but from the look of all the children she had lost, along with her devastating injuries, then that rule would take years to rebuild once more.
The moment I landed close enough the few spider children that had survived scuttled away, obviously sensing the threat in me as being one they had no chance of fighting. They had been trying to drag even more of the pieces of the giant spider and the mortal body of Arachne to the cave it called home. And from the looks of things now, then they would need a fucking eternity to become whole once more as the damage was far more extensive than I first thought. The brother’s looked to have shifted into their impressive combined form and ripped the bitch apart.
I looked towards the sky as if I half expected to still see the mighty form flying off with what I could imagine was their new charge in their grasp. I also knew they wouldn’t have gotten far as one of the downsides to their remarkable power when shifting was that it didn’t last long. Meaning that they would only get so far. Well, if they had received their orders from my brother’s way of communicating with them, then they would have tried to get as close to my castle as they could. This before being forced to change back to their original form.
Which meant if they were on foot, they would have no choice but to travel through the Kingdom of Death, a place that started with a rickety old town that was full of thieves, brothels, and vagabonds. Among these were admittedly the few just trying to make what life they could in Hell. It was also a place that bounty hunters often used as a pitstop, for it was known as a good way to exchange coin for more than just a meal and a roof for the night. It was also used for information. People gathered it like currency, telling me that it wouldn’t be long before word got out about Amelia.
But it was towns like this that were found throughout all of Hell, with fewer cites than the mortal world. In fact, the biggest misconception about Hell was that it was simply filled with tortured souls of the dead and little more. But it actually was a civilisation of many races and demonic creatures, who for most parts co-existed somewhat peacefully. Although one glance around where I stood now, and that statement seemed weak at best.
Arachne made a pained sound that drew my attention back to why I was here and what I hoped to find from her memories. Because I knew it would do little good trying to get information out of her freely, for threatening death would have only been a welcome by one cursed as she. The demonic element of her new being was now in pieces and would no doubt, if they could, be scrabbling to try and contain their undying prisoner so she couldn’t escape them. This meant that offering an eternal death would be one she would no doubt have begged me for.
Any other time I might have felt pity for such a being, but not today…not when I knew that my girl had been here, that her blood had been shed. For despite how brave she was, when seeing Arachne for the first time, she would have been forced to face her fears.
She hated spiders.
But then this was Amelia we were talking about, which meant that even if she was afraid, she would no doubt fight with her last breath because that was my girl. I fisted my hand the moment I remembered her blood there and let my snarl of anger ripple through me. Then I set my sights on the one being that right now I could take some of my rage out on.
However, the moment I stepped forward I felt the usual crackle of the air next to me, and having experienced it many times before, I called out,
“It is clear, Brother.”
After this Dariush stepped through what seemingly would have looked to others as thin air.
“I thought their plan was to try and stop the war, not burn the whole fucking lot to the ground,” he said now being free to speak as he usually did when no one else was around.
“I have a feeling that they had no choice,” I replied seeing for myself what they must have been up against. Besides, I cared little for the carnage, just so long as they were able to keep my Chosen One safe.
“Do you know if they found this slave of yours?” he asked making me sigh,
“They found her.”
“You look relieved, which tells me there is more going on here than you’re willing to say,” Dariush commented and it came as no surprise, so I decided to give him what I could.
“The Tree of Souls is infected,” I said making him hiss through his teeth,
“Fuck”
“Yes, fuck indeed,” I agreed with another sigh resisting the urge to scrub a hand down my face seeing as that would fucking hurt giving the amount of edged metal that currently covered my skin.
“How did this happen?” I ground my teeth, lifted my left hand and said,
“This is how it fucking happened.” The gravity of my words hit him hard enough to snarl one name,
“Fucking Cronus.”
Cronus had been a God who was thought to be dead and who, before Amelia was even born, tried to bring about his rebirth. This time doing so as a God on Earth and to aid him in what would have been an apocalyptic endeavour, tried to release the Titans. It had been the start of what would become known as the Blood Wars.
We had won the battle that day, but it wasn’t without losses on both sides. My own sacrifice made, however, had been the first time we had managed to stop the Titans from breaking free of their once eternal prison in Tartarus. But unbeknown at the time, losing my hand in the lowest depths of Hell had kick started its own chain of events. And naturally the biggest problem we faced now, was how to stop it. Because there was something Amelia hadn’t known when stepping into Hell believing she had the power to stop the curse. There was only one way to do that and that was down in Tartarus where this all started. The problem with that was…
Tartarus didn’t fucking exist anymore!
It had been destroyed in the second battle against them and the Titans were buried along with their God, Cronus…or so we were led to believe. But of course, the Keepers of Three had conveniently chosen to keep this information from Amelia. The biggest question of all was why. The Fates could not lie, this was true, but what they were pretty fucking good at was keeping shit to themselves and the manipulation of others through choice words spoken. Basically, in short, they were crafty fuckers who couldn’t be trusted!
“And what of this witch, do we know of her involvement, as I gather there was more to this magical bitch you weren’t telling me?” My brother was most certainly right there, but now was not the time, which was why I told him,
“I will explain later, but all you need to know right now is that she is our enemy, she is more powerful than any other witch I have ever encountered and if there is a way for her to get to me, she will find that way with a blade in her hand.” He raised a brow at this, no doubt questioning, like I did, who could possibly come by that amount of power for a witch. Instead he refocused his question on my Amelia.
“And what of the girl, I take it this is also a means of—”
“The girl for the time being is not your concern.” I interrupted quickly and now we were alone, this prompted him to ask,
“And what of when it does become my concern Šeš, what then?” he asked referring to what was code for brother and derived from an ancient form of cuneiform and usage of Akkadian language. It proved useful to us for it was an extinct East Semitic language, one that was used in ancient Mesopotamia and dating back from the third millennium BCE. That was until its gradual replacement by Akkadian-influenced Old Aramaic among Mesopotamians by the 8th century BCE. In short, it was one not known in Hell and that suited us just fine.
“The day she becomes a concern is the day she becomes a threat to us but until then, leave her to me.” At this he finally conceded and nodded in understanding. I ignored his keen eyes and focused instead on when he asked,
“What are your instructions?”
“Send Carn’reau and my army to the first town when entering the Kingdom of Death, for it is likely that will be the first place they stop.” I told him, after first getting a bearing on where they would possibly land.
“I believe they are shortly to enter the shitty place, for it was naturally the first town to look at being as it is the closest from the wastelands. But what makes you so sure the brothers even found her here?”
“I have evidence to support that theory…” I said as I absentmindedly rubbed my fingertips together again, as if I was able to feel her presence in my realm by a single drop of blood.
“…but as you know, I am nothing if not thorough,” I added, making him chuckle as I had Arachne in my sights. Then I left him standing where he was as it was time to discover the truth.
Once again as I approached, what was left of her children scattered, dropping the broken pieces of their Queen after they had been still trying to drag them back to the cave. The battered female form of Arachne lay still with her face down in the ash coloured dirt barely even looking as if any life was left in her. So once close enough I flipped her over with my boot and faced what I wondered if at one time had ever been a beautiful face.
Her dark hair was matted with dirt, blood, and what looked like white vomit caught in fist size globules. This I soon discovered was from being forced to produce a stream of webbing that had first been impregnated inside her belly, before being regurgitated and directed at her foe.
I knew this after I had grabbed the top part of her head, placing my palm to her eyes and forced my way inside her brain to breach her memories. After this…I saw it all.
Eyes Of Crimson : Vampire Paranormal Romance (Transfusion Saga Book 8) Page 12