Soulstone Ch. 04 - The End

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SCATHE

Scathe's shadowy form roiled like hot tar, and he snapped to flesh in hell.

He'd been a fool to think Eirienna cared. That his life, or he, could mean anything to her. That a Fae woman could be interested in him, other than for a few hours of mindless coupling.

The fear and disdain in her eyes stung his blackened heart. To her, he was a fiend. A liar. A monster. He'd wanted to be better for her. Had been better for her.

And she'd thrown it in his face.

He liked the irony of knowing the soul he left behind would protect her. His soul. The soul of the monster that disgusted her. One day, she would figure out what added to her power. Especially now that their magics had been so thoroughly mixed. He hoped guilt gnawed at her, and she suffered for the rest of her life.

Time he acted like the monster she thought he was. He conjured his blade in a storm of black sparks. It gleamed in his hand, shiny metal of death. He groped invisible fingers through the burning air, dragging in every ounce of power he could summon. The light dimmed, and the air shrieked.

Wriggling creatures squirmed and died, giving up their life force to feed his spell. His blade burst into black flames that licked hungrily up his arm with an evil cackle of vengeance.

Dark corridors. The reek of rusty iron and pain. Screams shattered the dark, the results of torment demons doing their bloody work. Metaphysical shackles locked him down.

He stalked down the stone steps, kicking struggling squirming things and twisted, mutated wisps from his path. They squealed in terror.

Ancient soul remnants, tortured beyond endurance, had reverted to their primal state. The Empress' idea of fun. She was a demon of greed, twisted foul by centuries of jealous rages. He kicked more squealing monstrosities aside.

Let her grind these creatures to screaming pulp.

He'd do his bitch of an Empress' bidding one last time. Pleasure her. Lick her clawed feet. Tear his own skin off. Whatever it took. The humiliation he suffered at Eirienna's hands was worse than anything the Empress could do to him.

While the Empress reveled in his suffering, she wouldn't be expecting an attack. And if he failed and perished...well, who gave a fuck?

Not the world.

Not Eirienna.

Certainly not him.

Scathe charged up the steps to the Empress' ornate, carved stone throne room, pausing when icy air blasted his skin. He vanished himself and his sword into shadow when voices drifted to him.

Anything cold didn't belong in this world. He tasted the energy.

Fae. A Hunter.

The betrayer was here.

He drifted closer, intrigued. The Empress' bony body was wrapped in a long black gown. Firelight flickered through the high arched windows, making her paper-thin skin transparent. She resembled a desiccated corpse.

Fragile cheekbones, dry fevered eyes the color of rubies. White hair hung lank over her shoulder to her emaciated waist. A faded, rotting princess, once a thing of terrifying beauty, now just an empty shell, animated by hatred and greed.

"What do you mean, no?" the Empress screeched. "We have a deal!"

"And I'm changing it," said the Fae coolly. "Without me, you've got nothing. You would do well to remember that." He sauntered forward. Brown hair pulled back neatly, cold steel-gray eyes, sword sheathed on his back.

Scathe breathed a sigh, reluctantly impressed. You greedy little bastard. It was you all along.

The Empress sneered. "And without me --"

"Without you, I lack nothing," Augisto said airily. "There are other demons I can make a deal with. You're the one who's starving. Give me everything I want, or you won't escape this world."

The Empress was starving. Used up. Her power waning. Scathe knew that well. She'd used him to feed herself with his pain, but it wasn't enough anymore. She needed fresh human souls, and a lot of them.

How had the Hunter found out? Why was he selling out an entire human world and The Wild Hunt?

The Empress shrieked, and demi-demons screamed, exuding the stench of death.

Augisto picked at his fingernails, a study in utter nonchalance.

Little fucker was brave. Scathe had to give him that.

She subsided with a glare fit to rot a human's skin. "What do you want?"

"The rift in the portal is almost ready. I want what you promised."

"Eternal life." She sneered. "Yes, yes. What else?"

"The Hunter Eirienna. I want her."

Scathe's shadow form coiled, a black serpent of fury ready to strike. Eirienna likes you. She thinks you're her friend. Should've chewed your throat out when I had the chance.

"Not negotiable," snarled the Empress. "All the Hunters and their magic imbued souls are mine --"

"Not mine, and not that one." Augisto folded his arms, skin gleaming in the sultry firelight. "I want her soul. Her magic. Everything. Or no deal."

The Empress laughed. "You in love, boy? How pathetic."

Augisto's gaze didn't drop. Didn't defrost. "Claiming what's mine. You should understand that."

Her hungry eyes gleamed, and the air crackled, electric with her ages-old greed. "Very well. Now --"

"One more thing." A cunning smile. "You and I get along well. When we win, I want that chair." He pointed at where her twisted throne of petrified skulls and bones sat -- and the smaller seat beside it.

The Consort's chair. Scathe's chair. He felt like laughing. The Hunter was fucking welcome to it.

"I already have a Consort," the Empress snapped.

"Really? Didn't seem like it an hour ago when he was fucking Eirienna's brains out."

"What?" Her rage lit stinking flames along the walls. "He wouldn't dare. He's mine!"

Augisto shrugged. "So sad. Only one thing worse than a faithless lover, if you ask me."

"And what's that?"

Augisto smiled darkly. "A happy couple."

The Empress laughed, and the air rained ashes.

He leaned closer to her, hands behind his back. "Scathe's plotting against you. I can help with that. Set a trap for him. Shouldn't be hard with him so distracted."

"Mmm?" The Empress licked peeling lips.

"I bring you Scathe, you give me Eirienna. You get your souls, I get this chair -- and the power that goes with it. Fawning minions, demon hordes at my bidding. That sort of thing." He sat on the throne and crossed his leather-clad legs, resting his elbows on the skulls. "Everyone wins."

Scathe shook his head. He'd thought the very same thing, once.

Careful what you ask for, Fae. Everything has a cost.

The Empress' fingers lit with hungry flame. "And your blood, sweet Prince?" she crooned. "What of your blood?"

Your fresh, young, living blood. Scathe shuddered. Her thirst for youth was insatiable. Augisto better look to himself if he wanted to survive.

Augisto shot her a cold gray stare. "Maybe. If you ask me right."

"And how's that?"

"Naked on your knees would be a start."

She laughed. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Fae."

"Oh, I haven't begun."

She leered, and drool slipped down her wasted chin. "Everyone wins," she lisped, and laughed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

EIRIENNA

Eirienna stalked beneath skeletal trees in the park, senses and temper ablaze. Shadows -- every one a potential threat -- danced everywhere. Distracting reminders of Scathe.

His tendrils stroking her. His skin's dark flavor. The rough delight of his kiss. Shadowy embraces.

Forget him.

Her grip tightened on her blade. The dry air of the park sparked with broken magic. The portal shimmered, dangerously thin, iridescent like oil on water, and the stink of sulfur and brimstone thickened.

Hungry demons cackled and babbled nonsense. Anyone listening too long would go mad. All over the vast park, Hunters stalked in pairs, their signals thrumming along the mental net, tiny insect feet on a benevolent spider's web.

She caught stray words of murmured spells and heartbeats. Ahead of her, Logan and Giselle, almost silent, their swift thoughts in concert.

She couldn't look at them and turned away.

The Wild Hunt was laying a trap for the demons, but it was perilous work. Everyone was tense with anticipation for the coming fight.

Augisto, where are you? she sent. While she was still irritated with him, it was all hands on deck for the battle tonight.

"Right with you." Augisto oozed from the shadows, icy sword drifting low.

Eirienna swore. She hadn't sensed him. This thing with Scathe was making her careless at the worst possible time to lose her edge. "Where have you been?" she whispered fiercely. "I waited for an hour."

"Checking out the signs." He nodded at the darkness in the center of the park, where a stand of trees lay smothered in shadow. "The latest trail leads there."

"Right." She flexed rigid shoulders and marched in that direction. "Let's go."

"Eirienna, wait." He touched her arm, a warm shock, and his frosty gaze melted. "Listen. I'm sorry for being such a prick the other night, I mean. You can do whatever you want, it's none of my business. I just..."

Did his cheeks color? Was he blushing?

She squirmed. "Look, it's okay --"

"I just want what's best for you, Erie. I always have." A flash of his old sheepish smile. "Oh, crap. Did I just blurt out some best-friend, faithful-sidekick shit?"

Eirienna couldn't help smiling a little as her friend's playful side made a rare appearance. "I'm afraid so."

He winced and tugged his long hair. "Was it pathetic?"

She snorted, grateful for the out. "Positively pitiful."

"Won't happen again."

"It better not." Eirienna checked her weapon, flared an experimental spell. "You ready?"

"Lead on, fearless hero." Augisto bowed at the waist and swept an arm out.

They melted into the dark. The air grew sweltering. Demi-demon chittering ricocheted, bouncing off trees and grating on her nerves.

Invisible, questing fingers trailed over Eirienna's face. She batted them away and headed into the orderly right angles of the hedge maze. Cautiously, she spread her senses along the portal where it stretched and glowed like fevered skin.

It's close to breaking, she murmured. Despite the patch she and Scathe had applied. Maybe that had all been part of his demon trickery and never meant to work.

Augisto crept beside a high hedge, sword glittering in silvery moonlight. He tossed a faint silvery spell, and the air rippled and swam.

In here. I can smell them.

She inhaled. Sulfur, charcoal, a whiff of rot. Demons. Telltale scars of the betrayer Hunter's work shone like evil beacons within Augisto's spell. Her pulse quickened. At last. Sword ready, she followed her partner into the dark.

Shadows pulsed, throbbing with wet warning. The tightly woven hedge groaned, leaning under the weight of the straining portal. Thorny branches writhed and grew, blocking their path.

Augisto fought his way through, using his blade like a machete, but the hedge closed behind him. Thorns scratched Eirienna's skin, drawing blood. She slashed wriggling sticks from her path.

What the fuck is this, Sleeping Beauty?

She swallowed a scream as shadows engulfed her, wrapping her in dark rose-scented velvet.

"Eirienna." Scathe spoke urgently in her ear. "Augisto's the traitor. It's a trap. Come with me."

He tightened black tendrils around her and started to drag her into hell. But she'd already been there once, thanks to him. She fought his grip, sending stinging sparks into his face.

"Let me go!"

Augisto whirled and dove for her, slicing at Scathe's shadows with his moonlight-spelled blade. "Get off her, you freak!"

"Don't listen to him," Scathe hissed. "He's betrayed you all. He's letting the Empress out!"

Huh? Eirienna's mind crushed to useless splinters.

The portal groaned and split wider, and from within came a woman's laughter. Hungry, snorting, evil laughter.

The Empress.

Eirienna forgot all her training, kicking and fighting ineffectually, knowing only that she didn't want to go. Didn't want to be devoured body and soul.

Scathe's shadows coalesced, and he grabbed her with real, flesh hands. "You have to trust me, Eirienna!"

Trust him. A crazy giggle erupted in her chest.

"Fight him, Erie!" Augisto attacked, whirling steel and sparks.

Scathe lashed out a shadowy whipcord that tore Augisto's sword from his hand and flung it aside. "Don't touch her, traitor."

"That the best you can do?" Augisto laughed, but staggered, fingers burned and bleeding. His eyes shone silver. "He tranced you for a fuck, Erie. He's still trancing you! He wants your soul." He hurled a spell, and silvery sparks speared for Scathe's eyes.

"I never tranced her!" Scathe yelled, batting flames away from his face. He grabbed a fistful of wriggling shadows from the air, ready to strike.

Eirienna stared, torn. Scathe had awakened passion in her like no one else. He'd made her feel alive. And he liked her the way she was.

Scathe said he hadn't tranced her, and the words felt like truth, but demons were excellent liars. He was her enemy. A demon who wanted her soul. Nothing could change that. Not even wanting him so badly it hurt.

That was his incubus power.

She hefted her blade and stabbed Scathe's black heart.

Blood and ichor gushed out of him. His black eyes caught fire, scarlet with shock. Gasping, he staggered and fell to his knees.

Tears burned her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Freed from his grip, Eirienna jumped back. Her talisman sent agonizing pain through her, stealing her breath and nearly dropping her to the ground.

She closed her free hand around the stone, desperate to offer comfort. To stop its agony. For the first time, it rejected her. Its bright red color darkened.

The rift in the portal morphed into a great fiery mouth with jagged, yellow teeth. A colossal, serpentine tongue flicked out, and the thing swallowed Scathe whole.

Eirienna's heart stung, but she ignored it. She slashed at thorns and clutched her talisman. Why was it hurting her now? After all this time?

Augisto scrabbled for his sword. "You okay?"

"Thanks to you," she panted. "Never trust a demon, right?"

He grabbed Eirienna's arm hard enough to bruise and yanked her closer. His gaze met hers, gray eyes devoid of any emotion. "Normally, you'd be right, but this time, you should have," he said coolly. "You really, really should have."

What?

The portal-creature that had swallowed Scathe snapped bloody jaws, its teeth clashing around leaping flames.

Before Eirienna could jerk away, Augisto wrapped her braid around his fist and dragged her into the fire.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EIRIENNA

Eirienna awoke in hell.

Something hot and sticky trapped her limbs, pinning her to a sharp, spiky wall that sliced through her armor and cut into her skin like shards of glass. She struggled, but that only tightened her restraints.

The stink of burning flesh made her retch. She dry heaved, lifted her head, and blinked her vision clear. A vast stone cavern, with tall arched windows dripping flame and molten rock.

Her wrists and ankles were bound to the wall by shreds of black, slimy flesh, wet and squirming like living tongues. Eww. At least she still wore all her clothes. Screams echoed, near and distant.

Below her feet, a pit yawned. Rusty metal bars trapped mutant creatures inside. They moaned and gibbered. Human, yet not human, limbs misshapen, faces deformed and horrible. Their naked, squirming bodies knotted together like a pile of rats. Tortured souls.

Demon playthings. Not a nice way to go.

More pits dotted the floor. Hands stretched up through the bars. Demi-demons slithered and skittered.

In the center of the room, the Empress lounged on a throne of bones. Corpselike, with dry, translucent skin, wrapped in a long black gown, her white hair desiccated like a long-buried skeleton's. Her ruby eyes burned with either triumph or sick fever.

On the floor in front of her, lay Scathe's battered and broken body. Was he dead?

Eirienna gulped, but no air went in or out. She tried to fight, to kick, and punch, but her limbs were held fast.

Her head fell forward and she closed her eyes.

What had she done?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SCATHE

Scathe writhed at the Empress' feet in his human form. She'd torn his shadows away. A few wispy remnants floated aimlessly, sniffing at him like they were lost and didn't know how to get home.

His clothes were shredded, and poisoned claw wounds slashed his skin. Blood dripped from the unhealing wounds to pool on the stone floor. Fever sweat slicked his body. His muscles bunched and burned with useless fury.

A toxic green aura of demon greed surrounded him like a cloud, and he choked. He was trapped.

He spat a horrid curse at the Empress. If he hadn't sworn an oath to her for lifelong servitude, he could have struck her dead with that power. Creatures screamed and died in the pits to fuel his magic, tiny ghosts of life to be extinguished.

The Empress laughed off his curse and kicked his ribs with a yellow-taloned foot. She must have fed well from Augisto. "I'm sorry, what did you say? Shall I throw you back in the cage, you dirty whore? I hear you've developed a taste for Fae cunt."

"Don't touch him!" Eirienna's voice was a dream and a nightmare.

He'd hoped she was able to escape. But she hadn't believed him. Scathe tried to roll over. His head weighed a ton, but he lifted it. He had to see Eirienna.

The Empress kicked him in the face.

Scathe couldn't stop the pained cry when his nose broke. He'd never be able to get to Eirienna, but he could send his shadows home.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ERIENNE

The Empress cackled and slashed at Scathe with bloody claws. His pained cries tore at Eirienna's heart.

Why hadn't she believed him?

Eirienna gritted her teeth, searching desperately for her magic. With her hands trapped above her head, she couldn't reach her talisman. It pulsed a chilly current of fear through her.

I'm strong. I can do this. I have to believe...

Cool fingers bit into her chin and forced her chin up. "Nuh-uh," said Augisto coolly. A false warmth oozed into his eyes. "Watch. It's too late. For both of you."

She jerked her face away. Sorrow stung her blood. He'd been such a nice kid. Her best friend. What had happened to him? How had she not seen such drastic changes in him? "Fuck you."

"Too bad you didn't think of that sooner. You could have saved us all a lot of trouble, but you always thought you were so much better than me."

"What? I never thought that! I always --"

"Always made everything about you!" Bitterness filled Augisto's tone. "It's never about me."

He surveyed the black snakes that shackled her with smug satisfaction and stroked one with his fingertip. The creature licked at him lovingly, tightening painfully around her wrist. "Well, now it is."

"Augisto, I'm --"

"Don't pretend you're sorry. It's far too late for that. You've skated through life being gifted. I worked for what I've got."

"And what have you got?" Eirienna spat. "No friends, and a demon lover who'll flay you alive the first chance she gets? How is that better? What did she promise you?"

"Immortality." Augisto shrugged. "More power than you've ever dreamed of. It beats dying in a pool of blood after spending the next hundred years making you look good in fights. Sidekick is not my career of choice."

"No one said you had to be a sidekick. She's just using you to get to us!" Eirienna struggled, but her living shackles ratcheted tighter.

"Consider me used, then," said Augisto carelessly. "At least I don't whore myself cheap. When I get fucked by a demon, I get something worthy of me."

She couldn't stop her disgust from curling her lip.

He watched her expression and smiled. "That judging is so you. Your demon is a Prince, you know. You could've had anything you ever wanted for just the asking, but you traded yourself for...what, momentary pleasure? Oblivion? You can get that from a crack pipe and a ten-buck blow job."