The Rise (20 page)

I pulled my eyes from Kayden and looked down at my small, scarred hands. “I want to see the Seer,” I said. “As soon as possible.”

Camillia left after that. When I asked her when I was going to meet the Seer, she said, “You’ve said you wanted to see him. He is near enough to know about what you want. If he wants to make a trade, he will find you.”

She shut the door behind her before I’d had time to argue. I turned around slowly, wishing that I could adjust the mood in the room as easily as I could adjust the temperature, which seemed to have dropped about ten degrees from the point it was at
before
Camillia had entered with her wonderful news. Suddenly, I felt very tired again, and all I wanted was to lie down and fall into the deep void of sleep.

I went over to stand before Kayden where he leaned against the wall, and to my surprise, he drew me against him and wrapped his strong arms around me. I tilted my head back and looked up at him, wondering if it always hurt so much when you loved someone, if maybe that was the defining characteristic of what we call love. A small half-smile pulled up Kayden’s mouth, but his eagle-colored eyes betrayed his pain.

Now, I felt like crying, but my eyes seemed to be as dry as my heart, and I gave Kayden a crooked smile of my own. “Will you come to bed with me?” I asked.

He came. I fell asleep with my head on his chest and half of my heart in his pocket. The other half was with my sister. Always. Wherever the hell that was.

Nelly

I awoke in darkness, hunger pains stabbing through my midsection hard enough to make me curl in on myself. The ground beneath me was cold and hard, like frozen marble against the bare skin of my arms. Around me I could feel the black and red pulsing souls of the Accursed. Most of them were awake, and staring at me. I could sense their inky eyes regarding me in the silent darkness. I sat up.

Something as cold and hard as the floor touched my hand, and I knew at once that a Lamia on my left side had placed her hand over mine. Her burning cold breath brushed up against my neck, stirring the hair there, but I didn’t shiver. Her voice, almost musical, but not quite, sounded in my head.
Night has fallen, my Queen. What is it you wish us to do?

I could feel the smile on my face, could feel my mind slowly unfurrowing, like tendrils of black smoke outward, beyond the walls of the mountain, over the hills and through the trees. Their energy sang out to me, beckoned me like the voices of angels. Something teased at the edge of some memory I couldn’t recall then, like a dream once upon a time, long gone and forgotten. I gripped the Lamia’s hand who had asked for my orders, and I stood, finding my feet in one fluid movement.

My mind continued to roll outward, Searching for something to feed the beast that seemed to be howling in agonized hunger in my stomach. My throat burned with need as I found several human souls not too far in the distance, and when I breathed in I could almost smell the salty copper of their blood. I let my mind Search farther, and farther still, until it locked onto a soul that was as green as the earth itself, the blood running through its veins seeming like fresh rain water running under cool skin. I didn’t think I had ever Searched such a creature, and something inside of me seemed to jump in anticipation, like a dog begging for a promised piece of bacon. I judged the distance of the green soul. Not too far. Not too far at all.

I’m hungry,
I told my subjects silently, and was answered with hundreds of agreeing hisses. Another grin touched my lips. Their sounds filled the dark cavern so completely that the tiny hairs on my neck stood up on end. But I didn’t shiver.

Lead us out of here. I will show you the way.

The Lamia still holding my hand pulled me forward, and the others all around us parted like the Red Sea to let us pass, falling into step behind us, moving as silently as the night’s breeze. We crawled back through the tunnel I had come through to get here, its curves and sharp edges already familiar to me, like the placement of things in an old home. Soon I was emerging into the cool night air, finding my feet, the Lamia ahead of me taking my hand and leading me over to the cliff on the side of the mountain. Behind us Lamias were pouring out of the cave’s entrance like white beetles, taking spots beside me at the edge of the cliff.

I tilted my head back, a breeze lifting my hair off my shoulders. Free from the mountain’s confines, the song of souls was so much clearer now, so strong that it stroked my skin in a gentle hum. Another sharp pain went through my stomach, and the tips of my feet at the edge of the rocks stumbled forward and found only air to cling to. What seemed like dozens of cold arms like stone snakes wrapped around me instantly and held me up. I looked to my left to see endless all-black eyes staring at me. I looked to my right. Same thing.

My hand came up as if by its own volition and stroked one of the beautiful white faces that hovered so near me, the backs of my fingers sliding over her cold face like feathers brushed against pearls. Her name came to me then, as if it had been passed through my fingertips straight to my head.

Carianna.

My fingers lingered on her face, her fiery red hair blowing out behind her. Her mouth spread open in a wide grin, shark’s teeth springing up in jagged rows. She tilted her head into my touch, her eyes closing, dark lashes pressing down against smooth cheeks.
Yes, my Queen,
she told me. Carianna looked down over the cliff to the land that waited some fifty feet below.
Do not be afraid. We glide on the night. It is ours. We will show you the way.

She moved forward and stepped lightly off the cliff’s edge, falling through the air with speed and grace, hair billowing like a silky red flag behind her, disappearing into the tree tops. Others began to step off the cliff, sailing down in the same fearless, graceful manner of Carianna, who I could feel waiting for me in the distance below. For only a moment did I hesitate, but then I felt another hunger pain, more burning in my throat, the tug of the green soul in the distance, and I stepped forward into nothingness.

I must have fallen very quickly, because I reached the ground in record time, but every detail of the descent was still clear to me – the way the air had lifted my hair along with my stomach, the brush of branches against my skin as I sailed down through the trees. My bare feet dug into the earth as I landed, my knees bending a little to soften the blow, though I wasn’t even sure that was necessary. The night air really had carried me, and had set me down as gently as its own child. Around me, Lamias poured down from the sky like milky rain.

Then I was moving forward, quickly, quicker even than I had fallen from the mountain’s edge. My feet seemed not even to touch the earth but to glide over it, only skimming its surface every so often. My chest rose and fell as I moved faster, locking onto that interesting green soul in the distance, closer now. The scenery flipped by in blurs of light and vague shapes, clearly visible, but too many to take much account of. The burning in my throat turned into an aching throb. The beast inside my belly cried out in anticipation. My Lamias followed right on my heels.

I came to a smooth stop and found myself standing atop a small hill, my subjects stopping with me. Below, accessed by a thin strip of road, backlit by the lights of some city, was a concrete structure that had flood lights surrounding it. From here I could hear loud music thumping inside, could smell the concentrated mass of warm bodies. Humans, mostly, about three hundred total. More than enough to satisfy the others. And that green soul was among them, rain water blood promising a sweet parchment of the burning in my throat, of the hunger in my soul.

Come,
I told them, and began my floating descent down the hill toward the entrance of the club. The Lamias followed in my wake, a sea of white death. There were people standing in the parking lot, and I could feel the sharp stab of fear as the first few noticed us, and it send more tingling anticipation ablaze inside me. Without having to be told, a few Lamias darted forward, striking like human snakes, and sank fangs into the humans’ necks, cutting off any chance of any scream that could have been made. The rest of us continued to the building’s entrance like a silent cloud of smoke.

The bouncer, a big burly man with tattoos trailing up his arms had been seized by Carianna, her white hand slapped over his mouth, blood streaming down his thick neck in scarlet rivers, his body jerking in her hold. The top of her fiery head was all I could see as she buried her fangs in his throat. Carianna moaned and hissed and slurped at the blood that sprang from his neck, and my stomach rumbled as loud as thunder in my ears.

I pulled open the metal door of the club, and stepped inside. Bright, multi-colored flashing lights bounced off stone walls that were painted an aqua shade of blue. The music was deafening in here, a fast, pumping beat that rebounded annoyingly in my ears. On platforms behind cages scantily clothed dancers moved to the music. The warm, sweaty humans gyrated on the dance floor below them, holding colorful drinks in their hands that splashed out over their fingers. I took in the scene slowly, Searching for the thing I’d come for.

A high-pitched, blood-curdling scream ripped through the music and the moist air as I moved forward, toward the bar along the edge of the room that was lit up with neon lights along the front of it. The music stopped as if on cue. More screams filled the air, like notes of sweet music in my ears. I kept moving. The keeper of the green soul was in my sights now, and I felt my mouth fill with salty saliva as I approached him.

Around me, chaos was erupting. The humans were stampeding toward the exits, pushing each other down, stepping on the fallen, some screaming just in panic, because most of them had not yet realized what was happening. My Lamias blocked the fire exits and flooded through the front door in wave of white skin and black eyes and sharp teeth. The smell of the blood that was being spilled was sharp in my nose. I reached the bar and hopped over it in one swift moment, landing on the other side so quickly that the short, hairy bartender jumped back and squealed like a frightened pig. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them, the bartender, the one whose soul had lured me all the way from the mountain’s cave, was pointing a silver gun right at me, his stubby sausage fingers trembling just over the trigger. I studied the face behind the gun, which was pinched and round and beady-eyed, covered in a thin sheen of sweat that had that fresh rain smell pouring out it in delicious waves. When my eyes met his, the sliver gun fell from his fingers.

My arms struck out and seized him by his shirt-front drawing him to me with what seemed like impossible strength. He was about my height, very short for a man, and his body shook with instinctual terror, though his green eyes had gone blank, as if he were staring into my own eyes and seeing something far, far away.

What are you?
I asked, and his response sounded plain, but awed in my head.

Luprachan,
he answered immediately, silently.
What are you?

A laugh bubbled up my burning throat. And I answered his question by sinking my fangs deeply into his neck.

His blood exploded in my mouth, sweet and cool with a hint of something like mint. The burning in my throat was replaced by cool thick rivers that tickled as they made their way to my stomach. I drank and drank, sounds like liquid being sucked through tiny straws taking place of the cries and moans of agony. A flower seemed to be blooming in my belly, spreading heat and waves of ecstasy through me, as if its silky petals were caressing me from the inside. A wild energy rushed into me, seeming to seep through the pores of my skin and sink all the way down to my soul, sucking it in like a black hole.

When it was over, when I’d taken the last drop of the man’s blood and cut the last threads of life that tethered his soul, I dropped the bartender and he slumped to the ground. And for the first time since I couldn’t remember, I
paused.