The Apocalypse Script (45 page)

“
Alas, work before pleasure,” said
Moros, turning away.

Lilian, blood dripping from her
lips, managed, “Puppies to torture?”

The Peth stopped, sighed and
turned back toward her. “No, Lilitu, I have
people
to torture.”

“
You’re a freak Moros. You always
were.”

Looking amused, the Peth lord
said, “That’s rather hypocritical of you, Lilitu. You torture
freely.”

“
To achieve my ends. Not for
pleasure.”

Moros sneered at her. “Really? Is
that what you tell yourself? But look, this is pointless. I must
find your dear sister, Fiela. She and I are going to have
a…
conversation.
”

“
Too late,” Lilian said with a
sickly grin.

The Peth’s eyes narrowed and he
took a step toward her. “What do you mean?”

“
Your vanity has been your
undoing, Moros. You’ve given her too much time.”

“
Too much time
for what, whore?
Escape?
”

“
Fiela would never flee from a
fight. You know that.”

He did, actually. “What, then?
Time for what?”

Lilian’s laugh was a wet, sickly
gurgle. “
Time to bleed
out.
”

Moros became very still. “What do
you mean?”

“
You can’t have
it all, Moros!” Lilian laughed, globs of blood flying from her
mouth and splattering the man’s face. “The thing you want most? My
sister?
I, Lilitu of Sargon, deny
it!
”

The Peth glowered at the Maqtu
holding Lilian and at the others who stood in a circle around them.
“What is she saying?”

“
They killed her,” she whispered
loudly, nodding in the direction of Sibelius, who was just
returning from briefing his lieutenants.

Moros marched toward the man.
“Where is Fiela?” he yelled.

Sibelius didn’t waiver.
“Dead.”

The Peth lord’s eyes went wide.
“Dead? How? I ordered you to capture her alive! She is
mine
!”

“
The lights were out,” Lilian
said, taking on the man’s voice. Moros looked back at her as she
continued, “That’s what we’ll tell him. It was unavoidable. We
couldn’t even see her. She might turn Lord Moros against us. I
don’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my
shoulder!”

Moros looked back at Sibelius and
saw the truth in the man’s face. Without hesitation the Peth lord
pulled his pistol from its holster and shot the man in the
forehead. The rebel fell to the ground in a heap.

“
WHERE IS
SHE?!
”
Moros
screamed, spinning in a circle. When there were no replies, he shot
two other Maqtu who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong
time. As they, too, dropped, other Maqtu rushed to the side of the
stage where Fiela had been stowed away.

“
Here, Lord!” the one nearest the
girl yelled, removing the tablecloth that covered her and backing
away quickly.

Moros strode to the corner of the
platform but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the whiteness
of Fiela’s face. “Where are the doctors?” he said to the nearest
men.

Behind him someone said meekly, “I’m a doctor,
Lord.”

Moros twisted and saw that one of
the surrendered guests had a shaky hand in the air. A man in a
tuxedo, perhaps thirty years old, with greased blond
hair.

“
Get over here!”

The man nodded nervously and was
lifted to his feet by two Maqtu before he’d had an opportunity to
stand on his own. They shoved him forward. “Go!”

As the guest stumbled over the collected bodies,
Moros yelled, “Find the medical supplies! Bring them here!” and a
dozen troops disbursed at a sprint into the various corridors.

A shot rang out from a balcony
above. Everyone in the room cringed and looked up. Everyone except
Moros, who was staring at the hole in the wooden platform that had
suddenly appeared an inch from Fiela’s upturned face.

“
There!” shouted one of the Maqtu,
pointed upwards.

Three stories above, Lord
Shadernum, the Old Bear, pointed a revolver and fired again, this
time striking the doctor who was trying to make his way toward
Fiela. The man’s head exploded.

“
You’ll not take her alive!”
yelled King Sargon’s former guard.

“
Take me!”
screamed Lilian. “
Old Bear, kill
me!
”

But the former guard could not. A
spray of bullets from the men below tore his body to pieces and he
fell to the balcony’s floor.

Moros knelt over Fiela’s body,
trembling. Was he to be denied this, the one thing promised him?
The only thing he had ever really wanted? She couldn’t die, could
she? Not now!
Not ever!
She’s the Edimmu! The underworld won’t have
her!

For the briefest of moments the
corners of the girl’s mouth appeared to twitch upwards in a smile,
as if to mock him one last time.

“
Bitch!” He screamed, pounding a
fist into the floor.

Lilian laughed
hysterically.

“
Guards,” Moros screamed, rising,
“seize the whore and tie her face down to her throne! Strip
her!”

He fumbled with the large metal
buckle of his belt, so furious that he could hardly control his
hands. “Whore, I will thrash you until the skin rolls off your
back! I will pull out your fingernails and blind you with my own
thumbs. You beg for death
now?
You cannot
imagine
how sweet a gift it will be!
What I would have done to Fiela I will do ten-fold to
you.”

Lilian finally stopped laughing.
It was done. She had enjoyed her final victory. She didn’t resist
when the men came to drag her to the makeshift throne. She could
see Moros walking toward her, his long studded belt in one hand,
his face as red as a cinder. Still on her knees, she felt her hands
being tied to the arms of the chair. Then she felt the men’s
fingers on her dress, and the tug, and it was gone.

Moros moved behind her, lashing
the air with his belt experimentally. One of the surrendered
guests, a beautiful woman named Persipia, began to cry.

“
Behold your queen,” he shouted
back at the woman, and raised his belt high into the
air.

Lilian didn’t ready herself for
the first strike of the belt. She didn’t want to resist. She wanted
to scream and Moros wanted her to scream. She put her face into the
velvet seat of the chair and simply waited for it.

And waited.

She was mortified at how utterly
silent the Great Hall had become. There were no more cries or
screams or shouts of bravado from the Maqtu leering at her and
cheering Moros on. There was only the sound of the rain and the
thunder.

What were they doing, she
wondered?
Was this some cruel
game?

“
Strike me, you coward!” she
yelled, spitting blood.

“
Lilian,” came a voice from behind
her. It was not Moros’s.

“
Lilian” said the man, closer.
“Where is Fiela?”

It was Ben!

“
There!” she yelled. “There! Next
to the stage.” She tried to nod in the right direction and moaned
in frustration when she realized how useless she was tied to the
chair.

The man boomed in Agati, “Anyone with medical
skills, come to the Great Hall!”

Lilian heard doors above her
opening and then hurried footsteps on the stairs.

“
You will not let her die,” she
heard him say to someone.

A moment later she could feel the
man behind her, sensed his strong hands reaching over her shoulders
and felt them untying her. When she was unbound, she spun around
and fell backwards against the chair. Ben placed a cloth over her
naked body. She reached out desperately and pulled him to
her.

“
Ben!” she sobbed. “You’re
alive!”

He embraced her and said. “I
am.”

When she released the man she saw he was soaked in
blood. “Are you hurt?”

“
No. Never mind that. Who are
these men with Moros?”

Trying to collect her wits, Lilian
said, “Most are Maqtu who have sworn allegiance to him. Some may be
his personal guard, or Lord Nizrok’s. They have killed
Disparthian’s lieutenants and Fiela.”

Ben looked into her eyes and said,
“Fiela is not dead, Lilian. She is badly wounded but is being
tended to. What about the others?”

Lilian peered around him. Everyone
in the Great Hall appeared frozen in place. They breathed, yes, and
they blinked, and they swayed, but they did not
move
. Moros stood only a few feet
away, one hand in the air, a leather belt dangling limply from it.
Dozens of Maqtu stood around the room and stared at her with slack
expressions. Perhaps two-dozen guests kneeled on the
floor.

Was she hallucinating? Was Moros
beating her even now? Had she retreated into some kind of fantasy
world to escape the horror of it all?

“
Lilian, answer me!”

She blinked rapidly and said, “Any
on their knees are traitors. Guests who were willing to join Moros.
Any who are armed are against me. Those in the rooms above are our
friends, as is Lord Disparthian and his remaining guards. There are
Maqtu looking for them outside.” Bewildered, she said, “Husband,
why does no one move? Why are they…why are they
as they are?
”

“
They are doing what they were
told to do.”

“
I do not understand.”

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose
and after a second said, “You feinted and there was a battle.
Disparthian’s men have won, Asatu. They are on the balconies above
us, their guns pointed at Moros and his soldiers.”

The woman looked up at the Maqtu
frozen in place on the balconies but saw, instead, Disparthian’s
men, carbines to their shoulders, aiming at Moros. They appeared
jovial and a few gave her a thumbs-up. One yelled down, “The
situation is in hand, Annasa!”

Sargon’s daughter began to weep.
“We have
won?
”

“
We have. Now stay here and I’ll
send a doctor to you.”

“
No,” she protested, shaking off
his hands. “I need to tend to Fiela.”

“
No, stay here,” he said, not
using those words.

“
As you say,” Lilian replied,
going still.

Ben rose and walked to the physicians tending to
Fiela. “What’s her condition?” he asked.

The physician with the stethoscope said, “The pulse
is fading.”

“
Move!” yelled Ben, who dropped to
his stomach so that he could put his face next to the
girl’s.

“
Peth,” he said, “I command you
not to die.”

There was no response.

“
She isn’t breathing,” said
someone behind him.

“
She can hear me,” said Ben, “I
know she can!”

Putting his lips back to the
girl’s ear he said, “Peth, come back. The underworld does not want
you. You are needed here.”

The girl did not react.

“
Peth” the man said again, but
stopped. This would not work. The living cannot command the dead.
“Listen to me,” he said, and whispered something in her ear while
placing the back of his hand against her cheek.

The girl jolted as if struck by
lightning. Her eyelids opened a quarter inch as she gasped for air.
“Mutu!” she rasped.

“
I’m here,” Ben said, his voice
cracking.

“
Here?” Fiela seemed
confused.

“
I am,” he said, squeezing her
hand.

The girl’s mouth tried to form a
smile but failed. Her eyes closed and she was still
again.

“
She needs a hospital,” said one
of the doctors.

Ben rose, trying to control his
emotions. “There is a medical facility below. You,” he said to a
woman holding a medical kit, “tend to
Annasa Lilitu
. The rest of you
follow me.”

Ben was compelled to de-animate
several more Maqtu as he led the confused, impromptu medical team
to the cave. Though he was loath to leave Fiela as the physicians
began to work on her, he knew he had to return upstairs to ensure
no new enemy faces had appeared. He wasn’t sure what was going on
yet.
Were there other attackers? Was the
hotel full of them?

None had shown themselves in the
Great Hall since he left. Lilian was speaking to a young woman who
was cleaning the princess’s face with an alcohol wipe. The Maqtu
and Moros stood motionless and surrendering guests kneeled on the
main floor, in a trance.

There was renewed gunfire outside
the hotel.

The researcher moved briskly to
Lilian and the woman attending her and whispered something to them.
Wordlessly, both ran to the corridor that would take them to the
cave’s infirmary. When they were gone he walked to the makeshift
throne and fell into it, exhausted. He looked about him, at the
dozens of Maqtu, at Moros, and at the guests.