Nightwind (12 page)

Angeline leaned back on the loveseat. “Then we are agreed there will be no more killings,” she stated.

“If there are, you will be severely punished, Syntian.” She heard him sigh angrily in defeat. “Now that’s

settled, let’s move on to the second order of business.” She put out one foot and rested it on his

shoulder.

His head jerked around at her touch. He knew better than to move away from her, to push her leg from

him. The look on her face made it clear that she was not going to relinquish her hold over him until she

was ready to do so.

“You will stay with me until the new moon has passed,” she told him and saw him flinch with surprise.

He opened his mouth to protest, but she drove the stake deeper in his heart. “And you may remain here

even after that if I decide I desire you with me. You will learn you are not to destroy human life whenever

the mood strikes you.”

“You bitch,” he growled, knowing full well what she was doing. “I came to you and asked—”

“Be quiet!” Angeline cocked her head to one side. “Who is your mistress, Syntian?”

He ached to wipe the taunting grin from her ripe lips. His entire being throbbed with the need to

demolish her; to tear her body apart with his bare hands and teeth. Her scent filled his nostrils and that

part of him that gloried in defiling and debauching and degrading, that corrupted and contaminated and

consumed, screamed out to him to take her in his natural form, to rend her limb from limb in the way of

his ancient heritage. To drink her blood and devour her flesh, to take unto him all the meager power

inside her puny body, to rid him of her once and for all.

“Be very careful, Syntian,” she warned him. “You may not think so, my sweet incubus, but I have as

much power as I need to cast you back into that primordial ooze from which you were conjured. There

are thousands of others slithering in that vile muck who would gladly come forth to take your place at my

side.” Her foot slid seductively down his chest. “I can be your most steadfast champion this side of the

Abyss, my love, or I can be your most formidable enemy.” She smiled. “What will it be?”

“I will not be your plaything, Angeline. That was not part of the bargain I made with you!”

“You were conjured to be a woman’s vengeance, demon. And yours is still a binding oath although no

ancestor of mine ever required it of you.” She pushed against his chest with her foot. “And you are

blood-bound to me as you were blood-bound to your first mistress!”

Syntian tuned out her words as she berated him, reminding him of things he knew all too well and wished

he didn’t. His mind slipped past the warmth of Earth’s realm and flew to the land of his birth.

To the place where his hell began.

There had been a time, he thought with true regret, his mind swirling with conflicting emotions,

when he had been part of the human race. It was a long time past; many millennia removed from

this time and place in which he was now trapped. He had walked among those of his own kind:

smiling and laughing, loving and living, enjoying the companionship of other males, the attention

of the female members of his tribe. He had known what it was to look forward to the glow of the

hot sun, the cool of the nights on the plains. He had known the pleasure of the hunt, the taste of

raw meat on his tongue, warm blood oozing down his throat as he ate. He had known the frenzy

of bloodlust and the intoxication of tracking his enemies and destroying them. He had thrilled to

the scent of a female in heat, of falling upon her to satisfy the lust building in his genitals, of

impregnating her. He had experienced the wild elation and ego-satisfying joy at the births of the

many children he had sired; had delighted in teaching his sons to hunt and kill and war; had

watched his daughters grow into women. And when his tribe had settled upon his shoulders the

mantle of chieftain, he had sought out and become one with Tsahan, the last woman he would be

allowed to mate with and bear children by according to the laws of his tribe. He had grown to

love his dark-haired mate. Their love became the brightest light in his life. But when an envious

female whose advances he had shrugged aside murdered Tsahan, the light vanished from his

existence, plunging him into a darkness far beyond that of the night and he had howled with a

grief so intense even the were-tigers had run away in fright. He had known true, overwhelming

agony as he had held his mate’s lifeless body against his own, her thick blood running unheeded

down his bare arms. He had turned his eyes to the heaven, cursing the entire female race for the

actions of one. In his wild-eyed grief and misery, he had sought out the murderous vixen who had

taken Tsahan from him and in a frenzy of rage had torn her body apart, his fingers dripping with

her hot, sticky blood as he had devoured the still-pulsing heart he had ripped from her chest.

But the female he had killed had been the first-born daughter of the tribe’s High Priestess,

Uxumia. Uxumia’s own raging sorrow had called upon her to punish the male who had so

callously and violently taken her daughter’s life. With the womenfolk of the tribe gathered around

her, Uxumia had summoned the minions of the Abyss, bidding Them come to her to avenge the

death of Uxumia’s daughter. And the powers had come, Their beastly wings flapping about Them

as They dove out of the howling heavens.

“Take him!” Uxumia had entreated the beasts of the Abyss. “Take the murderer of my child and

confine him to the loathsome pit beneath the Abyss. Bind him there for a thousand, thousand

years in the piss and vomit and pustulence, the cesspool of all the wastes of all the living things.

Show him no mercy and grant him no surcease from the punishment my sisters and I have passed

upon him!”

The beasts of the Abyss had sought out Syntian, laying repulsive talons on his cringing flesh;

clasping heavy chains to his wrists and ankles and dragging him—kicking and screaming and

crying out his vengeance—to the noxious, lightless cavern that oozed beneath the bowels of the

Earth. It was in that horror as he was plunged beneath the pernicious surface of the pit to the

very depths of it, that he sought a higher power, a mightier master than the One served by those

he had offended.

“Hear me!” he had pleaded, his shackled hands thrusting up through the sludge and slime to

make entreaty to whatever Source might hear him. “I will serve him who takes me from this

wretched place. I will gladly do the bidding of he who will rescue me from this accursed existence!

I will sell my soul, such as it is, to be free of this hell!”

And One had come, red eyes gleaming, forked tongue slathering over scaled lips, cloven hooves

striking fire against the stone barriers of the pit.

“And will you sign with your own blood that you will obey Me?” the demon had asked, Its slit mouth

stretching wide over fang-like teeth.

“Release me from this place,” Syntian had begged, “and I will do anything. Anything!”

Anything, he had promised and the demon had taken him at his word.

“Rise up, Cree,” the hiss had slithered from the demon’s slathering mouth. “Rise up and hand me

your soul and you will find the place to which I have assigned you.”

The lair had been cold, colder than any snow that had fallen on the high mountains of his

homeland. And it had been barren of light or sound. But it did not smell of animal excrement; it

did not slime his skin with its loathsome, poisonous touch. It was a place for him to hide, to lick

his wounds and heal his soul, to await the call promised when he could once more return to the

world of light and sound and warmth. Little did he know, or guess, that when the summons came,

it would be from the very gender he had cursed; nor that when he was able to look at what he had

become, he would view in horrific silence the image of the master he had sworn to serve.

His terror had been so great, so overpowering, he had nearly begged to be returned to the pit;

but such was his joy at once again seeing the light of day and feeling the warmth of it against his

skin, he allowed the female to do as she pleased with him.

At first, his main purpose had been the settling of scores. With his vile looks he curdled milk,

made sterile the herd, caused all manner of problems among the human race. At the death of the

woman who had called him, he had flown back to his lair to await the next call. When it came, his

purpose for that female became more sinister. He caused stillbirths, gathered for her potions to

kill and maim and destroy, all the while crying deep in his lost soul at the things he was forced to

do. When that woman was burned at the stake for her evil deeds, he escaped once more to the lair

that had summoned him.

It was not long after that time that he heard the first faint call for his help.

Although he could not act upon that call, he could not escape it, either. The harder the tears fell;

the louder the sobs of loneliness and heartbreak; the longer the misery continued, the deeper the

pain of the woman’s wretchedness affected him. He soon began to realize that he might well have

found a way to escape the vengeance Uxumia and her tribeswomen had thrust upon him.

What better way, he thought with sinister glee, than to aid the weakly females who called out to

him? To take all they were willing to give and give pain and suffering to those who abused them

in return for the pain and suffering he had been forced to endure? To avenge the weak and

helpless with a vengeance so exacting it destroyed those upon whom he unleashed it? He dwelt

upon his plan, brooded upon it, seeking a way to go forth on his own, to find the one seeking his

aid, to punish those who preyed upon the weak, but the lair was a prison, binding him in its cold,

cold walls.

It was not until he was summoned again, this time to murder and cause mischief across the land,

that he was able to bargain with his new mistress, slyly hinting of untold delights he could visit

upon her unresisting body if she would but make him presentable to the human eye once more.

And in return? she had asked.

“You have enemies, milady. Enemies you want destroyed. I will reap the vengeance you seek. In

return, grant me what I need to sustain me,” he had asked. “Allow me to go to those lonely

women like yourself who need protection; who need the touch of a gentle hand upon their bodies.

Let me seek out and destroy those who have hurt that woman, who have oppressed women like

yourself.” His hooded eyes had gleamed in the dark. “Let me punish those women who have

turned their noses up to you and your kind; who have sought your misery and downfall with the

priests and inquisitors; who have laughed as your sisters have burned and drowned.” His hissing

voice had lowered to a seductive coo. “Let me be the vengeance of all the sorceresses from all

time!”

And will you remain faithful to me and mine? she had demanded. Will you come when you are

called?

“Aye,” he had agreed, sensing her capitulation. “I will serve you and be at your command for all

eternity.”

She had demanded he sign his name in blood—binding him contractually to the vow—and he had

gladly taken the athamé and slashed his palm, dripping his mark upon a page in her Book of

Shadows. “It is done,” he had whispered. “Now make me a man once more.”

The witch had agreed and had cast a spell that peeled away from him the scales of the viper he

had become; that had rounded his slit eyes; had stitched together his forked tongue and turned his

cloven hooves to human feet; had given him fair form and face so remarkably handsome it

dazzled all who beheld him.

“You will serve me and mine,” the woman had sighed as she looked up as he stood before her in

all his naked glory. “Do what you will to those of our enemies, but it will be me, and mine, you

will obey.” She had touched him. “Now make good on your promise, demon!”

For the vengeance he sought, he was more than willing to pay the price of lying with the woman

and pleasuring her body with his own. It had been thousands of years since he had coupled in

human form and the pleasure far outweighed the price he had to pay to achieve it.

Through the centuries, he had taken his revenge on those women who had dared to hurt and

cause hurt for the weaker of their gender. He listened for their call: the wounded ones, the ones in

pain, and he had sought them out, able now to leave his lair whenever his mistress did not need

him, and destroy, body and soul and mind, those who—because they had hurt the weak ones—had

become his enemies. His revenge was exacting and final and the acting upon it gave him pleasure