Royal Affliction (The Anti-Princess Saga) (23 page)

I sat up.  Kyle’s heart wrenching story had pushed my own far from my mind.  I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.  I wanted to know exactly what that Boru had said to him.  “No, Kyle, keep going.”

He resumed speaking, but slower this time.  “He told us that he could help my father.  He said that he could heal him, and that he could give us power beyond our wildest dreams, but he needed us to do something for him first.  My father seemed eager for the chance at life.  I wasn’t so sure.  There was something about that man that I didn’t trust.  Something in his cold eyes that told me not to listen to him.  He gave us his card and left us to think it over.  I tried to convince my father that this man was bad news, but he wouldn’t listen to me.  I finally caved, only because I loved my father, and I didn’t want to see him die.”

Tears were leaking down his miserable face.  I wanted to tell him that his father was a self-centered and selfish man who had used him in a way that was wrong in so many ways, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I felt sorry for Kyle.  He had had such a horrible life.  I held my arms out to him and he clung to me with such despair that it broke my heart.  I didn’t know what to say to him.  I had made him open up to me but I had no way of making him feel better.  What did you say to someone who had known nothing but pain and heartache in his life?  How did you make it all just disappear?  I had no answers.  I just tried my best to comfort him with my body.  I held him close and rubbed my hands up and down his bare back.  I just wanted to be able to take away his pain.

He pulled away from me and wiped his eyes with his hands.  “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for breaking down like this.  I try not to, but sometimes I can’t help it.”  He was trying to be strong.

“Kyle, you don’t need to be sorry for that.  I have broken down more times in this past week than I can remember.  It is normal to release emotion.  If you keep it all bottled up you might explode.”  I listened to the words that had just come out of my mouth and realized their meaning in my own life.  Of course I was scared of my possible fate.  It was perfectly normal for me to cry, to release my anguish.  Why had I thought of myself as weak for doing it?  Emotion wasn’t a weakness like so many of my kind thought.  Emotions made us who we were.  If we didn’t feel we would just be heartless robots going about our daily lives without really living.  I was glad that I had feelings.

“You’re right, Tess.  Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Kyle.  So, are you are feeling better?”

“Yes.”

He got off the bed and turned back to me.  “I’m gonna get something to eat.  Do you want anything?”

“No thanks.  I’m pretty tired.  I think I’m just going to go to sleep.”

“Oh, okay.”  He sounded a little disappointed.  “I guess I’ll just see you in the morning then.”

“Goodnight, Kyle.”

“Nite, Tess.”

I curled up in my bed and stared at the wall for a few minutes, thoughts of Kyle swimming through my head.  I was tired, but I didn’t fall asleep right away.  I just thought of how good my life had been in comparison to Kyle’s.  Maybe there was a reason that he had come into my life.  Maybe I was supposed to help him.

As soon as I closed my eyes I saw Violet but only because I knew it was Violet could I tell it was her.  She was screaming, in more pain than I’d seen anyone in…ever.  My eyes shot open, when I’d rather them stayed shut.  If this was a vision into what was happening to her right now I could have maybe seen something useful to help us find her.  I closed my eyes again tight, hoping for another flash of where Violet was, instead I saw a flash of something else my brain was reminding me of and my eyes shot open again, but this time by choice.

“Kyle?”

“Yeah?”

“That tattoo of yours, how close do you need to be in order to know a Boru is near?”

“I don’t know, a mile maybe.   Why?”

I leapt from the bed, grabbed his hand and said “You’re coming with me,” as I dragged him into the other room.

“Where are we going?”

“Hunting.”  My body was tense, my mind resolute.  I was going to find Violet.  She would have done the same for me.

“Can I at least put a shirt on?”

“Yes, but hurry up!”

“Where are you going?” Kafkus intervened.  His eyes were disapproving even before I told him the somewhat of a plan I’d concocted, and his face was even less forbidding when I did.  “So, you plan to drive around aimlessly, hoping to come across a Boru who you plan on torturing until he tells you where Violet is?”  The plan had sounded better in my head—as plans often do—but my mind was set.

“Kafkus, I can’t just sit on my ass and do nothing while they’re doing who knows what to her.”

“Your intensions are pure, Quartessa, but your plan…”

“Look, you can either come with me, or you can stay here.  Either way I’m going.”

Kafkus looked to Clifton then to Quino.  “You two stay with Loach.”

“I go where Tessa goes,” objected Clifton as I knew he would and I waited for the other one.  “If you are looking for Violet then I will not stay behind,” said Quino.

I sighed.  “We can’t all go.  Someone needs to stay in case of an attack.”  No one volunteered.  “I’ll be in the car and leave the decisions up to the rest of you,” I said before marching out of the house without glancing back and a loud “Men, ahhhh!”

My patience had just about run out when, finally, Kyle and Quino knocked on the window and I let them in.  Quino’s appearance was a bit surprising to me, but I was sure it was something along the lines of “if I can’t go with her you can’t either.”

“Can we stop at a drive thru first?” Kyle asked, taking the seat next to mine.

“Sure…whatever…just stick your arm out the window and tell me if it turns green.”

********************

Two hours of un-eventfulness left me feeling like my plan was a dud.  Other than a few groups of teenagers the night was dead at this hour.  Why did I think this endeavor would yield results?  But it made my conscious a little clearer knowing that I was trying, even if I was failing.

“Over there!” Kyle suddenly yelled out and I cricked my neck from turning so fast.

“Where?!”  It was pitch-black.  I couldn’t see a thing.

“I don’t know, that way.”

I all but slammed to a halt on the side of the road but neither of my guys made a sound of protest.  Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible we headed through the park entrance and into unknown territory.

We kept to the shadows mostly to search each area before continuing onward but everything was quiet and still.  There wasn’t even a trace of the grotesque Boru aroma.  Kyle had said that the tattoo had about a mile radius so he could be anywhere.  But it was then that I picked it up, that very distinct smell of decaying citrus.  My body tensed up even more than it already was.  The sword in my hand was my only defense.  I hoped it was good enough.

An outline of a figure came into focus before my eyes and I just reacted, charging at it with my sword raised.  The figure quickly turned around, as did his female companion whom I had failed to notice and froze the blade in my hand a split second before it touched him.

“Sorry,” I apologized but they both seemed to be in shock from the crazy woman with a sword that had almost killed them.  “Umm…have a good night.”  The two of them sprung to their feet and took off at a pace that implied I was giving them a head start before following them.

“Smooth,” Kyle mocked and I glared at him.

The smell had dissipated, so we traveled deeper into the forest-like area extending beyond the park.  The scent grew stronger the deeper we went but there was still no sign indicating where it was coming from.

Kyle tapped my shoulder put his fingers to his eyes then pointed to his right before doing a front stealthy roll behind a tree and I had to clasp a hand over my mouth to keep myself silent.  Leave it to Kyle to make light of a very serious situation.  Quino gave us both a look, clearly irritated by out immature behavior regardless of the circumstances.  I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and that sobered me up.  I knew what it was though I couldn’t get a good look at it.  I silently pointed it out to the others and Quino pushed me behind him as we headed that way.

A loan man was standing in a small clearing.  Just standing.  It was dark but the being appeared to be human.  The moonlight reflected off his pale skin but I knew that he was just who we were looking for.  I knew that he knew where Violet was.  Knew that he could tell me everything: about the Boru’s plan and where the jerk who attacked me was hiding.

Quino made some tactical gesture that left a blank expression on my face and I wasn’t the only one.  Kyle nudged me and shrugged.  Quino sighed and mimed us surrounding him so that he couldn’t escape.  I nodded but Kyle—who had no means of protection—looked far from pleased about the plan.  Quino went left, I went right and poor Kyle was left by himself.  I’d have given him my sword, but that’s the only thing I had to protect myself.

Quino hadn’t mimed a signal so I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for.  But just like I had to the poor teenagers, I ran flat-out, sword raised above my head and saw Quino doing the same thing across the way, but with much more stealth.  Kyle was nowhere to be seen but the fact that he’d chickened out wasn’t too surprising.

The Boru ducked and I went flying over the top of him, my sword buried in a foot of dirt.  Quino sliced cleanly through his wrist and I was showered in blood from the wound.  This Boru was strong.  He proved that by grabbing Quino round the neck with his remaining hand and lifting him two full in the air.  I struggled to remove my sword from the ground to help him but it was wedged in there good.

Frantically I stared between Quino’s choking body and my sword when out of nowhere Kyle came belting from the woods, leapt onto the Boru’s back and got his arm wrapped around his neck.  Not even that stopped the beast.  Quino’s face was turning purple.  I had to do something but I didn’t have any strength or weapons at the moment.  I reacted purely on instinct and with one good knee to his undercarriage, the Boru went down.

Chapter Ten

Kafkus and Clifton stood there staring at the man we’d, literally, dragged back to the apartment and who was now tied to the couch.  We’d put a tarp under him to protect the fabric as he was still bleeding pretty bad.

It hadn’t been the blow to the crotch that had rendered him out cold, yet it had impaired him enough so Kyle could bring the biggest rock he could carry down on the back of his head.  I’d voiced my praise to him afterwards, something that seemed to have made his year with the smile he’d flashed me after.  Kafkus had actually laughed when I’d told him how we’d brought down the big oaf and commended me and Kyle on our resourcefulness and instinct.

Kyle looked as exhausted as I felt after the ordeal and lack of sleep, but he didn’t dare sit down for the same reason I didn’t: we had an enemy in the house.  If I sat down I’d pass out, and I wanted to get all the information I could from this jerk.

The entire room tensed as the Boru’s eyes fluttered into awareness.  I was shoved back into Kyle’s front by Quino.  Fed up with their constant need to keep me safe, especially from a monster that I had helped bring down, I shoved my way past Kafkus with a grunt and he actually let me.  But I felt him pull closer to my side with his blade drawn as if he was my professional bodyguard.  It might have annoyed me had I not been paying more attention to the man on the couch.  Loach, I noticed, had retreated somewhere where he couldn’t be seen, and I couldn’t blame him after what the man’s race had done to him.  Hell it could be this very Boru who’d given him his torture.

The Boru’s eyelids lifted and he peered around the room, catching each of our eyes for a fraction of a second before moving on to the next.  To my astonishment, he laughed, though it didn’t shake my men and it kind of pissed me off.  His eyes found their way back to mine and he gave a little wink.  “That was a cheap shot, Princess, and you know it.”

My demeanor didn’t change.  “I used what would work.  There are no rules in war which is clearly what your kind have started.”

“War?  No, not war, more like…justice.”

“Justice?”  Quino’s voice rang out like a base drum.  “What did Violet do to your kind to deserve whatever horrible things you are doing to her?”

The Boru flashed a most wicked smile before answering.  “I assure you, Violet has been most cooperative.”

“Like hell she has!” I snapped taking another step towards the creature, a step Kafkus mimed beside me as if we were joined at the hip.  “Tell us where she is!”

He laughed again.  “Though I will not tell you where she is now, you will see her in a few days’ time.”

“And who knows what state she will be in by then.  I want her back NOW!”  The voice I’d used even scared myself.  I may have been angry, I may have been fearful, but my voice had undoubtedly reminded me of my father.  Though it didn’t shake the creature in front of me who closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath in no language I knew.