CHELISE LOST track of time as she followed the Roush through the forest, flooded with renewed energy and desire. Even the horse seemed to have gained strength, an almost unnatural stamina to chase this angel of mercy who flew above the branches, in and out of sight.
She knew that the desert would be upon them soon, and then it would be lighter and the path to the Circle more certain.
They are showing themselves again, she told herself. Something is happening. The world is flooded with darkness because it knows something is happening. It’s going to change. The thoughts repeated themselves over and over, and she clung to them as if they were a tether to Elyon himself.
She lost sight of the Roush in a thick section of forest, and with some panic wondered if he’d left her. Then she burst out of the trees and faced the open desert.
The white creature sat atop a small dune not fifty yards from the tree line, watching her.
Chelise walked the horse closer. Up the slope. She stopped twenty feet from the Roush.
“Come closer, my dear,” he said.
Oh, dear. Oh, dear, the Roush was speaking. Chelise couldn’t move.
“It’s okay, I know I must frighten you to no end. Like a ghost in the night.”
“No,” she blurted. “No, I . . .”
She couldn’t find the words to express her gratitude at seeing this Roush after so much fear and doubt.
The Roush looked at her a moment longer, then wobbled forward on spindly legs hardly made for walking. He stopped ten feet from her and spoke in a soft, comforting voice.
“I am Michal, and I’m here to give you courage. I come . . .”
Chelise heard nothing more because she was dropping to the sand, stumbling forward, craving to know, really know that this was no figment of her imagination, but a real, furry, white Roush.
She managed to come to her senses before running him over, feeling suddenly foolish. But instead of backing away, the Roush stuck out its wing.
“Go ahead. Everybody seems to want to make sure by touching these days.”
She touched his leathery skin. Ran her fingers over the fur along the wing’s spine. Then settled to her knees with a sob and gripped both of his wings.
Michal stepped closer, and she embraced his furry body. It was real, so very real. And soft, like downy cotton. Only when he coughed did it occur to her that she might be squeezing the air out of him. She let go and backed off.
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, waddling to her right. “It happens.” He faced her. “Yes, dear, yes. It is all very real, don’t lose sight of that. The world is darker now than it has ever been. If you only knew the treachery being plotted in the Black Forest, you would tremble.”
“I already am trembling.”
He arched his brow. “Then take courage. If I’m real, so is Elyon. And if he is, so is his purpose.”
“So Thomas will be okay? Samuel, my father . . . all of them will be okay?”
“I didn’t say that. Darkness demands its price—”
“What price?”
“I can’t tell you what will happen. Frankly, I don’t know. But Thomas is no fool. Trust him. Do what you must do. Go with courage; the light is brimming behind all of this darkness. You’ll have to trust me.”
“But why?” She knew she was bordering on sacrilege, being so bold, but after days of fearing the worst without a hint of hope, she couldn’t help herself. “Why would Elyon force us to face such darkness and tragedy? For ten years now we run and die and, yes, we dance at night to forget it all, but still the horror haunts us. Why?”
Michal frowned. His mouth slowly formed a gentle, empathetic smile. “I’m sorry for your trouble, my dear. But aren’t lovers always tempted to find another? You humans are lovers, yes? So you have this awful tendency to reject him who first loved you and follow after intoxicating scents. Evil is a jealous lover who will try to destroy what it cannot possess, so now evil is having its say. But don’t discount the power of a loyal heart. You’ll see. Have hope.”
“How can I hope when evil will charge its price?”
Michal eyed her for a few moments, then, without any answer, he began to turn.
“Hurry, Chelise. The world waits for you.”
To do what?
“They will come for you in the desert. Wait for them.” And then he leaped into the air and glided into the night.
“Wait!”
“Courage, Chelise!” he called back. “The world awaits you!”
Who would come for her?
STANDING BEFORE the queen Marsuuv was like standing in the presence of God.
The vast underground library was lit by three torches that illuminated thousands of ancient books along the walls; the ceiling was covered by a black moss. But Janae felt only intrigue at these observations.
Marsuuv put out another scent, stronger even than the mucus, and it drew her like clover draws a bee.
They’d descended a long flight of stone steps in silence, then entered one of several tunnels cut horizontally under the lake. Flames illuminated the passage’s well-worn walls, interrupted by iron gates that closed off smaller rooms: a storage room filled with artifacts that Janae couldn’t place, a smaller study with a writing desk overgrown by roots, an atrium leading into another tunnel.
But Billy took them deeper still, seemingly drawn by a force beyond him. Perhaps his connection to Ba’al.
In the library, the four lost books sat on a large stone platform, a desk of sorts, flanked by two tarnished silver candlesticks fashioned to look like upside-down crosses.
Marsuuv sat on a large bed of red vines beyond the stone desk. The carving in the mossy rock wall behind him explained the crosses on the lake platform. Three hooked claws dug into the cross’s inverted beam— a display of dominance. The talons were so long and hooked that they resembled sixes. Their tips looked to have pierced the wall, coaxing forth small rivulets of a dark fluid.
The queen Marsuuv sat at the edge of the bed with his own long talons hanging nearly to the ground. His black fur looked manicured, not bare in spots like the other Shataiki they’d seen. Quite beautiful, actually.
His head was large, like a wolf ’s or a fruit bat’s, with pink lips loosely covering sharp fangs. Red eyes stared like marbles, shiny, without pupils. You could look at this creature and find it magnificent, Janae thought. Absolutely stunning.
She stood next to Billy before the beast, aware that she was trembling. The mix of emotions coursing through her mind made her legs feel weak. The queen was wonderful, but not even someone as enchanted as Janae could look at this sight and not fight off waves of terror. She was unsure which she should pay more attention to, her longing or her fear.
“Hello, Billy.” The queen’s voice purred, soft and seductive. “Welcome home.”
Billy lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head, speechless. It struck Janae that Marsuuv was fixated on Billy, not her. His eyes had been on Billy from the start.
Billy found his voice. “I am your servant. Your lover.”
“Are you sure?” a voice rasped. The dark priest Ba’al stood in a doorway to their right, arms folded into a loose black cloak. He walked in and stood before them all, looking even more emaciated than Janae remembered. “Are you sure you know what you’re getting into, feeble human?”
“He’s mine, Billosssssss,” Marsuuv said.
The priest stared at Billy for a long time. Slowly his face contorted into an expression of pain and sorrow. A tear glistened on his left cheek, and he buried his face in his hands, weeping now.
The sight was so unexpected that Janae felt a tremendous flood of empathy for the poor soul.
Ba’al lowered his trembling hands and stumbled forward. “Please, I beg you to reconsider. What did I ever do to deserve this? You’re throwing me away for this albino?”
Marsuuv just looked at him.
“I defied you once, I know, but look in his history and you’ll see the same. We all defy you once before embracing the darkness.” Ba’al words came out in a breath-starved flood. “You bound me and you whipped me, and I still learned to love you! You gave me reason to live as your only lover. ‘Bring me the books, bring me the books,’ you said. Now I’ve brought you the books and you’ll throw me away? I cannot live with it.”
“Billossss,” Marsuuv said. “Always so impetuous.”
“I am not Billos!” Ba’al screamed. His face was a mess of mucus and tears. “I am Ba’al.”
“What life you have as Ba’al came from me. You have my blood. You are mine.”
Janae’s belly tightened.
“Please . . .” Ba’al leaned against one of the pillars for support. He lowered his voice. “Please don’t throw me away. I’ll . . . I’ll do anything.”
“Will you join me in hell?”
Ba’al rushed around the table, grabbed one of Marsuuv’s talons, and fell to his knees. “Just say the word, my lover. Say the word so that we can be together in eternal hell.”
The queen uttered a soft chuckle. Then purred. He lifted his claw, pulling the man to his feet. Ba’al clambered onto the bed, clinging to the beast’s talon with both hands now. Casting a glance up to be sure he was being accepted, not rejected, Ba’al settled against the beast’s furry underside and curled up, weeping softly.
Billy was still on his knees, weeping with Ba’al as Marsuuv watched him. Janae believed he understood Ba’al’s pain more than she could know. Billos had been held and tortured until he’d slowly become the wretched man named Ba’al. Billy had felt that pain when the two were one.
And what of her? Was she here on a fool’s errand, stranded in a foreign dimension, another victim of this hideous beast’s insatiable appetite? Heat washed down her neck. She’d made a mistake? She’d willingly entered this hell and would now pay for it like Ba’al had?
And Billy . . .
The sap was just kneeling there, weeping like a baby.
“What?” Billy groaned “What do you want? I can’t live like this. I can’t! I’ve seen the light; I’ve tasted the good; I don’t deserve to live.”
Marsuuv absently ran his claws over Ba’al’s body. “Such a tormented soul. But you’ve come to me. I will ease your pain and fill you with a new pleasure that you’ll crave. Nothing will be the same now, Billy.”
Billy gripped his hands to fists, leaned his head back, and cried at the ceiling in anguish. His voice echoed around the room. Janae wanted to tell him to stop this embarrassing display of weakness, but she knew her advice meant little here.
She was the disposable one in the room.
Billy finally ran out of breath and calmed. Marsuuv nudged Ba’al, then pushed him away. “Leave us.”
“My lord?” Ba’al was aghast. He began to cry again. “Please!”
“Leave us!” Marsuuv’s snarl shook the room, and Janae took a step back. Her pulse quickened. There was something about his jaw, his pink tongue, his fangs that excited her. The scent of blood . . . Could it be coming from his mouth?
Ba’al spun, hiked up his cloak, and hurried from the room, trying to hold back his cries of regret.
Marsuuv watched Billy. “Come here, Son of Adam,” he purred.
For a moment, Billy did nothing. She could imagine the fear pounding through his veins.
“Let me take away the pain, Billy. Let me give you pleasure.”
Billy pushed himself up and then walked slowly around the stone desk where the four books were stacked. He stepped in front of the beast.
Marsuuv lifted his claws and stroked Billy’s wet cheeks. “Why do you cry, my love? You’ve been chosen for a task that is the envy of the world.”
“What?” Billy breathed.
“Teeleh will tell you. You’ll be going back soon. We only have a short time together. We should treasure every moment.”
Billy was shaking from head to foot, and Marsuuv seemed pleased. His talons touched Billy’s head and arms and neck as if they were made of a delicate membrane that would break with the slightest pressure.
She knew Billy and Marsuuv shared a special bond that she did not. This was the devil, and Billy had welcomed him into his head a long time ago.
The truth of this began to eat away at Janae like a flaming cancer, and she began to fear for herself. How could she stand before such a terrifying sight and feel such jealousy? She should be on her knees, showing respect. Her anger would end badly. She would say or do something that triggered this beast’s fury.
But he hadn’t so much as acknowledged her yet. In fact, now that she thought about it, even back in the clearing, Marsuuv’s eyes had been on Billy, not her. She was sure of it.
She was nothing more than a rat caged for the next meal. She’d crossed into this nightmare to be food for this dreadful beast!
And yet, there was nowhere else in the world, or in her mind, that Janae wanted to be but here, facing the truth, the scent, the source of her own desire.
“What about me?” she said.
The beast ignored her. His long tongue snaked out and licked tears from Billy’s cheeks. This display of affection combined with the scent of blood on Marsuuv’s breath proved to be too much.
Janae stepped forward, enraged. “Am I just a piece of meat here?” she cried.
Marsuuv jerked his head to face her for the first time, issuing a crackling snarl as he snapped the air. “Patience, human!”
The Shataiki’s breath washed over her, and with it his scent, so strong now that tears stung her eyes again.
“The desire is so strong, is that it, daughter of Eve? Just one taste?”
Her voice cracked. “Yes.”
He shifted on the bed of vines so that his whole body now faced her. “Do you know how we reproduce, Janae? We carry blood in our fangs.”
Of course. Yes, of course.
“You are now in my nest, where I lay unfertilized eggs that become larvae. Any Shataiki but a queen can bring the young ones to life; all it requires is a single drop of blood. A single bite.”
Janae found the words irresistibly seductive. She wasn’t sure why; what he said surpassed all she yet knew about her own existence.
“You wonder why you long for this blood, don’t you, daughter?”
“Yes,” she whimpered, stepping closer.
“Once there were twelve of our forests, each a nest for a queen. One forest was burned, and the queen Alucard left us. And when Alucard left our world, he entered yours, two thousand years before you were born, at the turn of your calendars. There were no Shataiki to fertilize his own larvae. But he found a way to satisfy his need for offspring by injecting his own blood into a human woman. We know this from one of the blood books, the journal of Saint Thomas the Beast Hunter, where it is recorded that a race of half-breeds came into existence and spread their seed on earth. He called the descendants Vampirum. Offspring.”
She knew where he was going, and it terrified her.
“You, Janae, crave the blood because your father many generations removed was a half-breed. Shataiki blood runs in your veins still. You are offspring.” He paused. “Does that excite you?” Marsuuv was speaking softly, drawing her in with his eyes and the gentle movement of his talons.
“Yes,” she breathed. She could taste a hint of blood on her own tongue, and she gave herself to the desire for it. Even Billy . . . his blood had hints of the same irresistible taste.
Shataiki blood.
As she stepped closer, a distant voice whispered a warning: It’s evil, Janae. Raw, unfiltered evil, like the larvae. You have entered hell, and you are begging to drink evil.
“Come, my sweet,” Marsuuv purred. “Come, taste and see that I am evil.” He sprang from the bed and swept the lost books from the stone desk. An altar, she now saw. It was his altar.
Janae walked around to his side of the altar and reached for his claw. He leaned close so that she could feel his breath; the power in that hot blast of air robbed the last threads of resistance from her. She understood Ba’al’s desire to be with this magnificent beast.
She instinctively leaned forward and took his fur in her fingers, longing to be closer. He reacted like a sprung animal, plucking her from the ground and slamming her down on the stone. Pain flashed down her back.
The beast leaped upon the altar, gripping the deeply scarred edge with his long claws. He hunched over her and glared.
“You want more,” the beast growled. “More. This is why he chose you.”
Janae began to cry with gratitude. She’d always known that there was something wrong with her. Something different. Her own appetites for adventure, for pleasure, for more, always more, were far more pronounced than others’. Now she understood.
It was the blood. Shataiki blood. Her own father had passed this desire to her.
“Please . . .” She grabbed the creature’s hair and pulled. “Please . . .”
“You long for it. To be Teeleh’s daughter?”
“Yes!”
“To curse Elyon and embrace evil for eternity?”
“Yes!”
His jaw came down slowly, and she stretched her neck for him. Felt his fangs touch her skin.
Then Marsuuv, queen of the twelfth forest, bit into Janae’s flesh and injected his blood into her veins. And the power that flooded her body made it shake like a dying rat.
Her jaw snapped wide and she screamed. With pain, with pleasure, with the terror of raw evil.
Marsuuv pulled his fangs free, still dripping with her blood, dug three claws into her forehead to mark her as his own, offered a satisfied shudder, and slowly climbed off the table, leaving her to jerk alone.
Billy was saying something, protesting, but she couldn’t focus on him because her nerves had turned to fire. Not with pain, necessarily, but with sensitivity. She could sense everything, the cool stone beneath her, the movement of air around her, the pinpricks of pain on her neck. The scent of the flames, the blood, the sweat, the mucus, everything. Her pain had turned to pleasure, and she was having a hard time containing it all.
“In good time, my love,” Marsuuv was saying. “All in good time. Get her up.”
The sensations softened, leaving her exhausted and content. Hands pulled on her cloak, and she opened her eyes. Billy leaned over her, shaking her. She smiled. “Billy.”
“Get up.”
She looked up at him, lost in the moment.
“Get up!” he snapped.
She sat up, forgiving his jealous outburst. She hopped off the altar, feeling more alive and energized than she’d ever felt. An image of Ba’al’s shriveled husk of a body crossed her mind, but she dismissed it without a second thought. She was no Ba’al.
Janae glanced at Billy, aware of how little she cared for this human now. He seemed small and pitiful to her, a feeble man who’d succumbed to the thirst for evil, not unlike herself, except that she had been bred for it. What was his excuse?
Billy was the author, her inner voice whispered. He’s now your master.
She turned away, refusing to indulge the notion, and faced Marsuuv, who sat on his bed of vines once again.
“You wish to prove yourself?” he asked. Somehow he must know. Perhaps his mind had joined hers while he fed on her blood.
She pulled the three vials from the side of her bra and set them on the altar. He reached for the tiny bottles and touched them with the tip of his talon.
“Tell me,” he said.
“The one marked with the white tape is Raison Strain B. It has the power to destroy all life. Billy and I are immune to it now.”
“It cannot kill albinos or half-breeds,” he said. “None who have bathed in the lakes.”
He knew about the virus?
“The virus originates with Teeleh’s blood,” Marsuuv said, seeing her raised brow. “It will only worsen the disease the Horde already have.”
Her mind spun.
“And the other sicknesses?” he demanded.
“The one marked with the black tape is Asian Ebola. Terminal to all but Billy and me. We’ve been inoculated with a vaccine like everyone in our world. The last vial is as labeled, a sample of Thomas’s blood, which we both have in our systems as well.”
The beast reacted to the mention of Thomas with a jerk of his head.
“He’s in Bangkok,” Janae said, wondering how much the Shataiki knew.
Marsuuv pulled back slowly. “So, the time has come. The humans will decide. We can destroy the land, we can pluck their eyes out, we can whisper evil into their minds, we can rape and pillage and burn, but in the end only humans can unlock their destiny.”
“And now we bring you the keys to that destiny,” Billy said.
“Not you, Billy. My master has another task for you. As soon as you and I become better acquainted.”
Billy glanced at Janae with furtive eyes.
“But Janae,” Marsuuv said, purring again, “you will be our new Eve. Together we will destroy them all, and the world will know that Teeleh owns the humans.”
She had a craving for his blood.
“You will find Samuel. Seduce him. Seduce the half-breeds.” His voice popped with phlegm. “Seduce the albinos. The time has come for the dragon to consume his young.”
He plucked the vial of Asian Ebola from the altar and set it by his side, leaving Thomas’s blood untouched. “You have no need for this. The Raison Strain will give you the power you need.”
“What about the half-breeds?” she asked. “The albinos.”
“They will die.”
“How, if my poison only affects full-breed Horde?”
Marsuuv glared. “Do I look like a fool? Do as I say.”
“And me? Will I die?”
“You, too, are his lover,” he said slowly, enunciating each word. Teeleh’s desire was to destroy them all and begin over with Billy and Janae, his new lovers in his own twisted garden.
It all fit. The only reason the Shataiki hadn’t already destroyed humanity was because only humans could destroy humanity. As such, people were more powerful than Shataiki. Unable to complete their revenge on the world, the Shataiki had hidden themselves, biding their time.
Now that time had come. Janae held the virus that would destroy the Horde and leave the destruction of the Eramites and the albinos to Teeleh.
Marsuuv gazed at her. “Go and do what you must do quickly.”