Passion Ignited (19 page)

He reached up and ran his fingers over the
back of his sister’s hand. “One man watched over us constantly,
saying nothing as he simply watched us from the windowed door.
Occasionally he would enter the room, but he always sent others in
ahead of him to restrain us. When we could no longer fight, he’d
have me tied to the bed as they escorted Jezz from the room. I’d
yell at them to bring her back, but it was never any use. Another
guy walked inside, leading another behind him. That man’s head was
covered and his ankles and wrists had been shackled.

“The guard had freed the other guy, uncovering
his head and removing his binds. As soon as he’d been freed,
everyone else in the room hightailed it out of there. It took me a
minute to catch up as I recognized the differences in the man
before me. He looked like a man, but he wasn’t. His eyes were
glowing, his pupils were illuminating into red dots as he stared at
me. I’d never seen a being like him before. I’d actually thought it
a magic trick, one meant to scare me. And it had. Then I heard
Jezzebelle screaming from another room. The bastard leapt on me and
threw me to the floor. His fangs latched onto my arm as I tried to
fight him off. I didn’t last long fighting him, and he bit down so
hard, over and over again, until I passed out.”

Raider kept his eyes trained on Ash. He hadn’t
known the man long, but he did know that he’d never heard so many
words come out of the warrior’s mouth.

“When I woke again, Jezz was lying in the bed
next to mine. She was out cold. It took me a while to rouse her,
and when I did, she started crying. Her clothes had been ripped,
and there was dried blood everywhere. She was in just as much pain
as I was, maybe more even. I found out that after I’d fainted the
man I’d been fighting was taken to Jezzebelle. She never told me
what happened to her, but the signs were obvious. That bastard had
done so much more to her. And as much as it angered me what had
been done, I couldn’t get back at them. Every time I tried to
retaliate, that just seemed to make things worse.

“That became standard procedure over the
weeks, and Jezz remained silent, never confirming what I feared.
And I never would breach the subject. I couldn’t hurt her further
by bringing it up. So, we started to make escape plans. It seemed
that each day that this happened to us, the stronger we got. We
started to wake up faster after our ordeals, and finally we stopped
fainting altogether. Each time the scientist would enter the room,
he’d have to bring extra men with him, because we’d actually
started to give the guards a run for their money. I don’t want to
bore you with the monotony of it—”

“I’m not bored,” Raider
interrupted.

Ash nodded. “The weeks turned into months.
Soon, they completely separated us, not allowing us to even see
each other. I’m not sure how long of a time went by like that, but
it felt like an eternity.”

“You still don’t know how long?”

He shook his head. “It was too hard to tell
night from day, or to keep track in any way. Eventually, they
carted me from the room and took me down into a dark root cellar.
There were weapons lying on the ground. I couldn’t believe the
unbelievable good luck I’d run across, and that I could break us
out. I picked some of them up just as Jezz was pushed into the
room. She looked around quickly before her eyes met mine. We
embraced quickly, checking each other over for wounds. Hers were
fresh, and I could tell she’d just been visited by the creature.
She was tired and sore, and I swear she looked like she’d been
crying. We hardly had a chance to catch up though because others
were released into the room.

“In the beginning, I fought them myself,
protecting my sister. But each day we repeated this process, and
each day the creatures fought harder. Neither of us knew what they
were at the time. Demons were folklore, nothing that really
existed. But each day we learned to accept the truth a little
more.

“I knew years passed by then, I could see the
changes in Jezz. Eventually the scientist had started talking to
me, offering his own version of kindness. Besides speaking with
each other in what we called the ‘arena,’ we hadn’t spoken to
another living soul. We learned from him that we were at the
‘Institute,’ and that we were a part of something huge—something
that would change the world forever. He’d started to refer to Jezz
as Nitro and me as Ash.

Raider rubbed his fingertips over Nitro’s arm,
still engrossed in Ash’s story.

“I was taken to the arena again and went
straight for the usual weapons. Jezz came in shortly after, moving
straight for me. I’ll never forget that day for the rest of my
life. Something snapped in me as I’d fought the demon, before
they’d taken me to the arena, I mean. I’d actually started to win,
only to have a guard shoot me with a tranquilizer so the demon
could feed on me. As different as I felt, the change in her both
scared and excited me. We were both changed somehow. The red gleam
I’d learned was natural to the beast had started shining through
her eyes. The gentle girl I’d known growing up was gone as she bent
to scoop up a whip and a short-blade. I’d never seen a hardness in
her features before that day.

“The creatures were released into the room,
more demons than had ever been released before. Jezz leapt into
action. She didn’t stand back and watch as I fought them. She
sought them out.” He sighed, looking at his sister. “Nitro was
truly born that day.”

Something clicked in Raider, but he wasn’t
about to interrupt the man’s story. He listened on as Ash
continued.

“I remember watching her with horrified awe as
she worked her way through the demons. Even more were released into
the arena, and I moved forward to fight. Side by side we eradicated
every demon they’d sent our way. We’d actually been killing them,
which we’d never achieved before. It was then that she accidentally
stumbled across our powers. One of the demons had ripped her whip
from her hand and she’d reached out to grab it. A fireball flew
through the air, catching the demon on fire. I tried the gesture as
well, also releasing a ball of fire from my hands. It was scary,
but it felt right. It was what we were meant to be.” Ash shook his
head. “I actually thought we were being trained as
protectors.”

“But you weren’t,” Raider said. He hadn’t
phrased it as a question, though he didn’t want the tale to end. He
was clinging to every bit of information he could learn about
Nitro.

“We weren’t. We were being created to destroy,
not protect. We continued on that way for years, killing countless
demons. Eventually, humans were introduced into the arena, but we
were too far-gone to care. We destroyed everyone and everything
that was put in front of us. We didn’t discriminate who we killed:
men, women, children, demons. Everyone looked the same, and we
burned them all. We grew so strong that the scientist’s men could
no longer hold us back, and Nitro grew so angry that no one could
stop her. The guards came in, ready to fight us and ready to drug
us, but their weak tranquilizers did nothing to dull the rage in
either one of us. We’d fought through them, killing every single
one of those sick bastards.

“The scientist had even tried to escape, but
we’d caught him and killed him. Afterward, we finally made our way
out of the Institute. But when we made it out into the world,
nothing was the same. We were broken—soulless creatures in human
shells. We had to fight the urge not to kill everyone we came
across on the street. Everyone we’d met in the years before that
had been there to harm us; it was difficult to not feel the same
way on the outside.

“So we went into hiding: stealing food and
clothes, squatting in empty buildings. We eventually turned into
mercenaries, offering to commit crimes for others in exchange for
money or food. We became popular, were sought out for our special
abilities. After a while we became quite wealthy from our reward
money, no longer needing to steal to survive. But by that time, I’d
started to grow weary of that life. I still don’t know why. Maybe
it was because the demon’s poison had started to work from my
system, or maybe my humanity started to bleed through. But I stayed
by Nitro’s side. She lived for destruction. The woman showed no
compassion for anyone. The world was in her way. She’d fight and
kill anything she’d had the compulsion to.”

Ash stopped and regarded Raider. “The reason
I’m telling you all this is so that you know why she is the way she
is—the way she was—and because you got through to her. I’ve only
seen it happen to her once. Ever.”

Raider swallowed the lump in his throat. “She
got to me too.”

“I know.” Ash nodded.

Silence stretched between them for less than a
minute.

“What was the other time?” Raider
asked.

“Huh?”

“The other time. That someone got through to
her.”

“Oh, one night we were on a mission. We’d been
hired to acquire a specific ring from some royal nutjob. The timing
was perfect, because he was holding a party at his palace. Nitro
went in, using her real name, and acting like the lady I’d always
hoped she’d be. I stayed in town, letting my demon run rampant as I
destroyed anything and everything in sight.

“She was in there for hours before she finally
made it out. Not that I ever had a reason to worry about her, but a
part of me always did. I remember watching her ride Thadius from
the palace, all the while throwing flames at the guards behind her.
She was a vision that night, she truly was. We met up with Sloka
and exchanged the ring for our reward money. It was business as
usual until a woman and her children caught our attention. Sloka of
course demanded that we kill them. He’d been all about covering our
tracks, and he didn’t like survivors. I looked at the woman and
children, but I couldn’t bring myself to just kill them. They were
defenseless and injured. Not only that, but one of the daughters
looked so much like Jezz did when she was little that I couldn’t
take my eyes off her. When I finally looked away, I watched my
sister. She stared at the little girl and lit a fireball in her
hands. Sloka kept demanding that we kill them, and she finally
raised her hand.” Ash snorted. “She threw it at him instead. It’s
been hundreds of years, and I
still
can’t believe
it.”

****

Nitro screamed as the ghostly being entered
her body. She could feel it fusing itself to her, every part of her
now a part of it. Hades merely watched in rapt fascination, not
lifting a finger to help her through her anguish. As its pressure
increased, Nitro’s back arched and she cried out once again, her
eyes closing against the onslaught of pain. And as she did so, she
was taken to another place, another time. The scene before her was
so familiar and yet so wrong.

She was back in England, watching the scene
play out before her eyes. She watched herself ride Thadius, racing
through the thicket of brush and trees, outrunning the castle
guards, laughing all the while. At first, the scene was just as
she’d remembered it, but then flashes of the skeleton took over,
replacing her with its fleshless body. Men, women and children
littered the ground at her horse’s feet as he rode Thadius, not
caring that he was running over their bodies.

He charged toward the town as Ash lobbed
fireballs at him the same way he had so long ago.

As soon as they reached the town square, she
noticed so much more that was wrong. The beautiful fountain that
had been Thadius’s and Achilles’s watering hole now ran with blood,
more bodies littered the ground around it. Thadius couldn’t even
take a step without stepping on someone’s limbs, their bones
crunching under his hooves. Her eyes traveled upward as the
skeletal being jumped off the horse and called out for
Ash.

She’d done that that night. This thing was
taking the very steps she had. Ash spoke from behind the skeleton,
and he turned around in haste. His smile was sinister as he stared
at her brother. Only, when Ash stood to join it, the skeleton
struck out with a blade, slicing through her brother’s
stomach.

Nitro screamed out, launching herself toward
her brother. He fell right through her arms as if she were a ghost
herself. The skeleton laughed amicably, and this time she saw her
own features flash over its bones. Her own laugh sounded as it
continued to chortle uncontrollably. Nitro rushed toward herself
then, planning to murder the monster that was taking her shape. She
ran right through herself and turned around in horror. The other
Nitro turned, facing her. Her face morphed into the same sadistic
smile she’d seen on the skeleton before. It opened its mouth to
speak, but quickly threw a fireball outward, killing Sloka as he
approached. Sloka’s smoking body fell at the other Nitro’s
feet.

Her stomach tightened, sickened by all the
killing that was happening. Her brother, murdered. Sloka,
murdered—yes, that one was right, but not yet. The two Nitro’s eyes
met, and the skeletal form took over once again.

It was only when her eyes caught movement from
the shadows that she knew it was too late. Just as she surged
forward to thwart his attack, the skeleton threw out a fireball,
sending the woman and children into a fiery, painful
death.

And then she was taken away. Taken to where it
all began.