Riven (3 page)

“Do you know what this is, Jessie dear?” Lucretia asked with wicked glee. “It’s a spike from a demon tail, filled to the brim with poison. A little insurance, if you will.” She ran a gloved hand over the needle carefully, the swirls of red and orange within it turning to a wilted purple. “I’ve stuck it in the prime artery within your leg; if you pull it free without my magic, the poison will stop your heart in less than minutes. Do you understand?”

“Monster!” Jessica screamed, writhing within her confinement. “Kill me now, I’ll tell you nothing, nothing, you murdering creature!”

The Queen came closer, hand hovering against one of Jessica's cheeks. Heat built between them, an unbound friction reminding Jessica of the first time she clashed with her Mother over her cursed existence. Every touch was a double-edged sword; sweet comfort of knowing she was human, cursed bitterly to see their future with every brush of flesh.

"Tell me where she is," Lucretia said in a tense, low tone. Her voice quivered with every syllable. "Tell me where I can find the girl."

Jessica closed her eyes, shaking to the point of rattling teeth. Taking a deep breath, her words came out slow. "Burn in hell."

Lucretia snapped; she let out a wild scream, and plunged the needle deeper into Jessica’s leg. As the girl cried out, Lucretia smashed a hand over her mouth, silencing her with the thin satin separating them from a rush of visions. Jessica lay there, stunned in fear. Her mother had once spoken cryptically of the Queen’s power, citing how the cities surrounding Charon had been reduced to rubble and ash because her true daughter had been killed over three hundred years ago. Never in her mind did she think she would bare witness to her raw abilities.

The longer she watched, the more Jessica began to notice just how far from human the woman before her truly was. Bloody fingernails tore from the flimsy fabric covering the Queen’s arms, ripping in rippling waves until it all peeled back from the skin. Stained crimson scales covered her arms where pale flesh had once been, while rivers of green and black twisted like vines pulsating with dark life as they wrapped about her fingers.

“One last chance, halfling,” Lucretia called to Jessica, hovering her lips inches above the girl’s ear. “Tell me where she is.” Jessica shook her head, biting her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Roaring in fury, the Queen shed the last of her protective gloves, and with a single move slammed her hand onto the Seer’s chest.

Jessica screamed as loud as her vocal chords would allow, her body bucking on the bed. Outside, the winds picked up with ferocious intensity, rain heaving into the room in swells of bruising waves. Lightning lit up the sky, arcing in a display of dazzling forked wings. If Jessica ever needed a sign she was doing the right thing, that was it.

The visions began to pour into her mind, her eyes pooling to white. She continued to scream, flailing against the Queen’s iron-tight grasp as she too screamed, repeating the same question with a growing, ravenous panic.

“Tell me, Jessica! Tell me where the girl is!”

Pushing against the waves of images, Jessica fought back the screams long enough to give one solid retort, the last she’d ever give. “Give Essallie my best,” she hissed, daring to kiss the Queen’s cheek in a snark of defiance. Sweat and rain drenched her, and despite the hollow bruises under her eyes and sallow look of her skin, she never felt so alive. Her hands tightened around the needle. “When she lights you on fire.”

And she pulled the needle free.

Hell is cold.
 

For the longest time, I thought I understood what they meant by those words and just how real it was. A barren wasteland, lost of anything living and good. Scrapped raw by something dark and foreign, an unholy ground for the devil to ponder and grow. A chilling hell that sits deep in your soul, festering like an untreated wound unable to be cured. 

There's just one problem. I think they got it wrong. 

They don't know about tasting divinity, only to lose it in battle. To breathe with unbridled clarity, unaware of the smog creeping in the shadows. To feel passion running over your skin like a desired fever, yet be unable to act on those feelings. 

Whoever said that hell was cold was wrong, oh so wrong. They don't know what the real hell is like, and how scorching hot it grows. How badly it burns. 

Death is cold, not hell. 

Hell is here, inside of me, cooking me alive. 

And there's nothing I can do to stop it. 

CHAPTER ONE 

ANGELS
 

I opened my mouth to scream, water filling my lungs. It burned, racing down my throat as my body thrashed, starving for oxygen.

I hate water.

Okay, maybe I should re-phrase that; I hate bodies of water. Lakes, ponds, seas, rivers, they’re all the same to me. A mess of gravity and pressure, a mysterious expanse of hidden secrets, beckoning you to test your fate each time you dip into its space. It’s a cruel, unkind place that takes its victims without care, and spares those it feels deserve a second chance to fight. No rhythm or rhyme, just chance.

Hands pulled my head out from the small, rusted metal basin with a sharp jerk, nails scratching at my already tender scalp. The second I broke the surface, the pain in my chest intensified, each heave for air worse than the last. And to think, this had only been going on for the last ten minutes.

“I’ll ask you again, Essallie,” Ursula whispered in my ear with her sickly sweet tone, reminding me of honey drizzling over a box of rat poison. “Which will it be, the wrist or the ankle?”

I gave her a moment of mock pause. “Depends. Do I get screwed like all your other significant others afterwards?”

She shoved my head back into the basin, letting me linger until my chest felt like it could spontaneously combust. Black spots blotched my sight when she yanked me back up for air, her breath hot on my face.

“Care to repeat that?”

I shook my head against the pressure building in my temples, nausea rolling my stomach flat. “Of course not, Little Miss Loose Legs. I must aim to please you, just like all the other disposable men and women have through time.”

Ursula swore in a language I didn’t know before tossing me to the floor, laughing as I collapsed in a limp heap. Rolling onto my side, I heaved instinctively, my teeth rattling as my body shook in convulsions. I wanted to hit her, scratch the malevolent grin off her face and toss her immortal corpse to a pack of starving lions. A mixture of sweat and water clung to my skin in a sickly sheen film, the only barrier between me and my enemy.

The sound of her stilettos clinking on the cobblestone floor grew closer, the air shifting as she bent down to my level. “You talk big for a prisoner, Essie. But without your little demon lover and lost puppy Nephilim counterpart, you’re weak.”

Anger blazed in my chest. I rolled over to face her, tossing both hands in the air. Blue fire flared from my fingertips, suctioning to her face faster than she could react. She fell backwards to the floor, screaming as I burned her face for the second time since we met.

I scrambled to my feet and stumbled for the door, throwing it open in a single swing. All I had to do was make it to the end of the building. Racing down the hallway, I recited the plan in my head.
Three hallways, two left turns, kill anyone in the way.

The first left turn held three Vens, each armed with thick, black swords twisting with violet smoke. Ashpods, I already knew, extremely poisonous and paralyzing to whoever is cut by one. Exactly my weapon of choice.

One of the Vens screamed, pointing a finger at me in astonishment. Flicking my hand, I continued to charge towards them, fire cresting off my hand to form a half-shield, my other hands brandishing a sword crafted of flame. Slamming back into the wall to avoid the first Vens, I sliced at his extended fingers, watching his hand drop to the ground before fizzling to black bones.

The other two leapt into action, ashpods drawn. I ducked between the two, tossing my shield above my head to avoid both blows. Blue fire and purple smoke mixed, creating a frenzied haze in the hall. I used it to my advantage, pulling back my blaze long enough to sneak behind one of the Vens and wrap my hands around his neck. Fire lit up my palms, my hands twisting with a rough jerk until the sound of his neck snapping in half rang true to my ears.

A bolt of black cut through the smoke. I held up the Vens’ fresh corpse, watching the blade bury into his chest, black fire racing over his skin faster than a flick of light. My hands fumbled for the dead Vens’ ashpod, grasping the handle just in time to swing upward at the first Vens. Under better situations, I probably would have made a jab at his new stump.

Ashpod blades bounced off another, purple smoke dashing the air like hazy radio waves. I took another stab at him, nicking a pinch of flesh on his arm. That was all it took; he seized almost instantly, turning rigid before collapsing to the ground in a shuddering heap. He would stay there until someone administered an antidote, granted only if he’d live long enough to receive it.

My sigh of relief was cut short as the cry of the last Vens came from my left. I turned in time to block his swinging blade, the force of his hit knocking me to the ground. A quick tumble backwards and I was back on the balls of my feet, determination burning in my fire. Tossing the ashpod to the side, I dropped my fire shield, locked both hands in, and launched a fireball the size of the whole hallway. He didn’t even have time to scream.

I wasted no time for the fire to settle and clear the air; scooping up the black blade once more, I charged down the second hallway, scanning every inch of the way. At first, I thought it was luck no one heard the commotion of three guards and a prisoner fighting it out in the hall. My second left turn proved otherwise.

Standing at the end of the last hall, the only thing keeping me from my freedom, was an army of Vens deep enough to fill an auditorium. At the head of the pack, sporting pink skin flecked with ugly red burns, stood Ursula in all of her over-done couture glory.

“Really, Essallie? We’re going to do this again?” She said with a roll of her eyes, boredom written all over her face. “When are you going to learn, there is no freedom for you?”

I gave her a quick look-over. “Probably when you realize that those hooker heels are so 1980.” I added a wink for extra effect. “What’s the matter succubus, face meet stove? Might want some ointment for that burn.”

Rage boiled in her stare, a new shade of pink having nothing to do with her burns tinting her cheeks. “I cannot wait for the day the Queen finally takes care of you, you little half-breed scum. Shame you won’t be around to see the world under her new rule.”

I feigned dramatic shock. “Oh no! Me, dead? You promised me you’d keep my fortune cookie a secret.”

One of her stilettos began to tap impatiently. She gave me a twisted, malicious smile. “Give it up, drop the blade and I promise not to let the guards be too rough with you this time.”

“As if,” I laughed back. Taking stance, I beckoned them forward with a wag of a finger. “Come on, pretty girl. Give me something worthy of my time.”

Ursula laughed, then moved faster than I had ever seen. Her hand whipped forward at me, slicing at my cheek. The familiar feel of warm, wet stickiness ran down my cheek and under my jaw. I didn’t need to touch it to know it was blood, that Ursula had struck me quicker than I could even register the hit. Eyes on her, I watched her wiggle her fingers at me, taunting me with the stain of my own blood on her hands.

“Guess it wasn’t the wrist or the ankle today, but the cheek. Shame,” she faux-pouted. “I kind of liked your almost perfect face.” Ursula turned to the nearest Vens and gave a curt nod, seemingly satisfied. Swiveling on her heels, she sauntered through the cluster of them, her platinum blonde head disappearing in the sea of black clothes. “Have fun!” Her voice trilled from the mass, wicked laughter filling the silence as the Vens began to shuffle forward, each armed with their own black blade of poison.

I had the distinct, familiar sinking feeling that this wasn’t going to end well.

___

Hours later, they tossed me back into my cell with seemingly no effort. No sooner had the door shut was I back on my feet, hurtling fire balls at the steel door with a scream.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” I yelled, curling another ball of flame in the palm of my hand. It smashed into the door, fire licking the edges of the metal for a second before vanishing into a puff of smoke. “Tell that witch of a Queen to show her damn face!”

I waited for something, anything, but only the sound of silence greeted me with open arms. I slammed a fist into the wall, screaming as hot tears ran down my dirt-covered cheeks. Death would have been better than the cryptic, mind-numbing silence they continued to torture me with.

Back pressed against the heated door, I slid to the floor in a pile. Not for the first time I looked around my confined space, counting cracks in the slate grey rock walls and dingy, butterscotch cobblestone floor. The cluster of sheets and blankets in the corner was as close to a bed I had slept in for the last two weeks, and food was something of an entirely different matter. Well, at least they were generous enough to provide me with a bucket.