Scarlet Dusk (20 page)

You don’t know much about reptiles, do you, Zane?
he taunted.

Zane’s pained cries were throttled as the elongated tongue constricted around his throat.

Isaac growled, sacrificing his hold on Maledictus’ arms in an attempt to punch him in the side of the head, only to have the monster rocket his head back—driving the horned surface of his skull into Isaac’s bestial face—and worm free of his grip.

Drop to your knees on three!
Michael’s psychic warning buzzed in Zane’s dazed head.

Zane struggled to understand what the words meant in his oxygen-starved, pain-flooded mind, but somehow was able to bring himself to remember how to count to three. On faith alone, he let his legs drop beneath him.

One of Nikki’s sais screamed through the air, slicing through exposed length of Maledictus’ tongue and letting Zane’s fall
not
end in a hanging.

Isaac, also having heard Michael’s warning, jumped back over the railing to the first floor.

With the two safely out of range, Zane watched Michael move his arm in a wide arc, directing his aura like he’d seen many aurics do in the past. Maledictus saw the auric’s movements, but was too late to react as the attack caught him and threw him.

Maledictus howled in agony.

The group felt a swell of glee at the sound.

Zane, yanking the acidic length of tongue from his throat, hurried to Raith and Nikki, who was just finishing an enchantment on her still-whimpering lover.

“Is he going to be okay?” Zane asked.

Nikki nodded, “Things might not smell right for him for the next few days, but I neutralized the toxins before they could do any damage.”

Zane nodded, “Good. Wouldn’t want to have to find him
another
new face.”

Nikki forced a smile, “I know. I just started liking this one.”

Zane stood and gave Michael a pat on the shoulder. “You did good, soldier.”

“Did… good?” Maledictus growled.

Both therions dragged themselves to their feet and exposed their teeth to the monster.

Nikki’s tattoos flared as she retrieved the sai she’d thrown; catching it as it flew back to her.

Both Zane and Michael drew their guns.

“Where’s Serena, you twisted fuck?” Zane demanded.

“YOU THINK I’LL GIVE HER BACK TO YOU, MOTHERFUCKER?” Maledictus roared, dragging himself to his feet and clutching a dripping stump that remained of his left arm.

Zane gave Michael a smirk without taking his eyes off their enemy. “You took off his arm?”

Michael shrugged, also keeping his focus on Maledictus.
Figured you’d want a trophy
.

Maledictus’ voice echoed in their heads:
I got your trophy right here, fuckers!

The severed arm shook with spasms before twisting and beginning to drag itself down the stairs with its fingers.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Maledictus rolled his eyes, “This is going to take forever!”

Kicking the scuttling limb towards the group, everyone shifted their focus towards the animated arm coming their way.

Only to have Maledictus’ tail swing around at them…

Seeing the attack coming at them, Zane jumped into overdrive.

Time stopped.

The arm, with its clutching talons, froze in midair.

The incoming tail, its razor-sharp barbs positioned to slice the entire group in half, stopped a short distance from Isaac’s side.

Maledictus’ face, a horrific, inhuman mask of murderous gluttony and rage, was captured in the moment like a wax museum tribute to the worst things the world had ever known.

Zane had to put a stop to it all!

Lunging for the impending threat of Maledictus’ tail, he passed the blade of his katana through the wide hunk of bone, meat, and scales; kicking the severed mass away from the group so that its momentum wouldn’t finish its intended purpose after he dropped back out of overdrive. Turning back, he snatched one of Nikki’s sai from her hand and stapled the airborne arm to the wall with it. Then he sprinted towards Maledictus…

I imagine
that’s
going to sting when we get back to real time,
the monster’s voice chimed in Zane’s head as he followed him into overdrive, his body starting to creep to life as his muscles and mind caught up with Zane’s pace.
I’ll have to repay you for that… and that fuck-wad of a muted auric for my arm.

Zane didn’t have any way to respond, and, at that moment, he didn’t want one. Brandishing the katana, he started at Maledictus. Seeing the glistening blade—his time-frozen blood still caking the blade—Maledictus sprinted up the stairs, forcing Zane to chase after him. As they reached the second floor, Zane threw himself after Maledictus in a hail-Mary attack to bring the monster down. Once off his feet, the laws of physics began to take hold; the sounds of the world beginning to creep more and more into focus as his midair dive lost its superhuman momentum and took root in gravity…

Then Zane slammed into Maledictus. Realizing the tackle had worked, Zane scrambled to bring his enemy down before he could shake free and kill him in overdrive. The distorted outline of Maledictus took shape as he buckled. Zane howled and drove a fist into what he guessed was Maledictus’ knee. A blur became a shimmer of focus, and the two crashed to the floor.

Behind him, Zane heard the wet, loud sound of the severed tail as it landed on the floor—the shocked and then relieved sounds of his allies as they realized what had happened—and a brief bout of barking laughter from the therions as they spotted what Zane had done with the severed arm.

“—top of the stairs!” Nikki called out.

They were close; very close.

Zane could hear the cavalry coming up the stairs.

So close.

He kept punching Maledictus, trying to keep the monster that had plagued his life from getting up; trying to keep him from getting another chance at whatever else he had in his new bag of tricks.

So close. So very, very—

“Zane,” Celine’s voice rang from the base of the stairs.

He ignored her. He was too close to finishing this; he couldn’t allow himself to lose focus. Celine was a liability now; she’d woken up inside Maledictus’ lair alone and, more than likely, with no idea of
how
she’d passed out in the first place. With nobody around to protect her and no idea if the monster they’d come to kill might be back for her, she’d be frantic—desperate—and, in her desperation, she’d be a hindrance.

A hindrance at the one moment when they needed
none
.

Please
, Zane pleaded to himself, throwing more and more weakening punches into the back of Maledictus’ head,
just let this nightmare end!

“The nightmare,” Maledictus forced his head to turn towards Zane, “has only just begun!”

“Zane? Zane!” Celine’s voice rose above the sound of the others as they all reached the top of the stairs.

And suddenly Zane couldn’t contain his anger towards her; his
hatred
of her.

Zane growled and stood, turning towards the group—towards Celine—and jabbed a finger towards her.

Nikki’s eyes widened, “Zane, what are you—”

“You!” Zane bared his fangs at Celine and started towards her, “It’s not bad enough that your chicken-shit ass had to turn up
now
, when everything was actually working out for me, but that you have to be an ongoing fucking
plague
to my life—tagging along on my outings, begging for things to be like they were, interfering with my missions—just because you’re too fucking weak—too fucking
pathetic
—to watch out for yourself? Or is it that you’re just too eager to jump on my dick after all these years that you’ve gone stupid and can’t see that I’ve moved on like you
should
have
years
ago when you fucking
lied
and made me think I’d killed you!”

Celine gaped at him. “Z-Zane?”

The therions started to shift back, but, as their hulking, bestial bodies deflated into frail, pink human bodies, their growls remained.

Isaac turned on Nikki. “You said that if I joined this
joke
of a team that we’d get Serena back! You
told
me that coming here would give us what we needed to bring Zoey back from—”

Raith snarled, “Don’t you fucking talk to her like that, savage! There’s no way that she could’ve—”

“God dammit, Raith, I don’t need your protection,” Nikki pushed him away. “If this arrogant
child
wants to start throwing blame then I’d like to ask him where he was when Zoey first—”

“DON’T YOU FUCKING SAY HER NAME!”

Michael looked around the group, sneering and glaring at each one until his eyes fell on Zane.
You… it’s all your fault! All of it! If you’d have been decent enough to just
kill
yourself years ago when her wretched tribe—
he threw an accusatory finger towards Nikki—
decided to curse you with that… that
thing
, then maybe none of this would’ve happened!

Nikki glared, “My tribe…” she stopped and looked down.

Raith growled and took a step towards Michael. “You want a piece of this, you muted mind-fucker?”

Try it, Cujo! I’ll turn you inside out before you can lay tooth or claw on me!
Michael took a fighting stance.

Nikki shook her head, “Stop…”

Zane scoffed. “Do it, Raith! Rip him apart! Smear him across the fucking walls! Do what Maledictus
should’ve
done!”

Nikki took a deep breath and sheathed her sais. “Guys… stop.”

Michael glared,
Yea? You gonna do something now that you can actually control yourself, freak? Good luck with that! You couldn’t control that pathetic blonde loser we have to call our leader now—not that it matters, since Maledictus is going to
—

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Zane roared at him.

“No,” Celine sneered, “He’s right, Zane! That monster is going to rape and murder that stupid bimbo, and she
deserves
it! She shouldn’t have involved herself in
any
of this—shouldn’t have gotten involved with
you!
—but she’s too dense to know what’s good for her! Her and her loser father, who couldn’t have just
left
you to rot in self-loathing when he had to walk into the same bar as you and fuck up
everything
we had planned! If I’d have just done what I was told from the very beginning and
killed
you and that stupid mutt of yours”—she glared at Raith—“then Maledictus would still be inside the chalice and—”

“STOP!” Nikki threw out a blast of magic, her tattoos glowing bright enough to illuminate the entire floor in an eerie reddish light.

Everybody slammed into the ground.

Then, as they started to collect themselves, everybody—teary eyed and confused—began to apologize to one another.

Zane groaned, clutching his head. “What… what in the hell just happened to us?”

Nikki was shivering, hugging her arms around her upper-body. “It was him; it was Maledictus,” she whimpered. “He did to us what that… that
thing
—that relic of his—did to my tribe.” She shivered and slid down the wall, looking up at Zane and Raith, “That… that fucking thing turned everyone in my tribe—my
family
—into furious, blame-filled, monsters. It made them hate everyone,” she shivered and looked away. “Every day in my home was like that: everyone yelling and tormenting everyone else—using anything and everything they knew about one another to spread hate and pain—until the day you two showed up and gave them a single direction to point
all
their rage. That thing was
designed
to cause enough hatred for whoever found it to do the unspeakable…”

Zane frowned, looking around. “Maledictus?”

Gone, sir,
Michael’s “voice” was noticeably upset by that.
And I can’t sense Serena’s aura anywhere in the building, either.

Zane growled, punching the wall and turning away as the damage spread and rained down chunks all over the floor. “Motherfucker! He
saw
we had the drop on him and he fucking
cast
that bullshit spell on us to keep us distracted long enough to get away…” he turned and drove his boot into the wall, sending more debris scattering across the floor. As his pounding heart settled, he looked back at Nikki, “Are you going to be alright? I know that the memory of that thing can—” he stopped himself, “The relic…” He looked back at Celine, narrowing his eyes, “You…”

Celine shook and backed away, “N-no, Zane. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean what I said. You heard her! Just like she said! It was just… just blind hate; crazy talk! That’s all!”