“Only that I’ll have to change my plans and let you leave alive.”
Alarm bells are ringing. The choir sings, “Danger Danger Warning Warning.” “You’re leaving?”
“Unfortunately, yes. You’re free to go. I’ve learned all that I’ve needed from you.”
“And you’re not going to threaten me? Break my legs if I go to the COE or whatever?” I don’t know why I’m giving him ideas. I’m just ... confused. My adrenaline is keeping my voice calm, but my hands still shake. I’m not ... cut out for this world. Human-size conflict, I seem to be able to handle, but this is some big inhuman-size shit.
“No. If you’re Taranis’s key, and I suspect you are,” he says to me from the door, “then it wouldn’t do me any favors to hurt you and alienate him. He’s one of my most useful allies and now the most powerful being on this planet.”
I’m surprised to hear the Marduk admit as much, and I watch him stand in the doorway, darkness washing over him like a pall. It’s too dark outside still, sunrise an hour off. This morning, however, feels even darker than most.
The scent of roasting coffee fills my lungs as he watches me and I watch him. I can think of nothing useful to say, nothing useful to ask, and so I chirp, like an idiot, “He is?”
“Yes. He’s fully reverted and number Six.”
A little bell jingles as he leaves, his hands in his pockets. I think he might be whistling a tune as he makes his way down the street.
A clanging in the back coming from the kitchen startles me. I pick up the Marduk’s sweatshirt for no reason I can think of and follow the path he took on the sidewalk. I need to call a car. I need to calm the fuck down. My vision is blurring and my hands are starting to shake real bad. I feel completely adrift and in way, way the fuck over my head.
I don’t understand what the Marduk’s just told me, and the one person—being—I wish I could confide in is the one who might be first in line to tear off my head. If the Marduk is right, and I’ve got noreason to believe he isn’t, Taranis really is the bad guy. I can’t tell him any of this. I can’t even call him now for a goddamn lift.
Sniffling pitifully, I reach into my pocket to grab my phone and pull up any and every transportation app—whichever one can get me home fastest. But what I pull out isn’t my phone. It’s the little brick that the Marduk gave me. The one without internet. Because my phone got exploded.
I stand on the street, look up at the putrid gray sky, and shout at the top of my lungs, “SSI-BAL!”
I’m so fucked.
Chapter Sixteen
Taranis
She ran out on me. That littlehussy. That was always one of my favorite words my white human host family taught me.
I’m angry and irritated as I rush through a shower and pull on clothes. But ... I’m also pleased. And the rugged combination of emotions confuses me ... and makes me irritable all over. Standing in front of the mirror does not improve my foul disposition.
I’m still the same monster I was last night, and I look even more ridiculous in the soft morning light. For starters, I’m still blue. My horns and the claws on my hands and the talons on my feet are all white. Like a children’s art project, they look like they were dunked first in Elmer’s glue and then into a vat of glitter. I have fangs. Not a dainty set of fangs like the Wyvern has that affect only his back teeth, but a mouth full of them. My front teeth are pointy. And the worst part of all, I’m almost as big as that hideous pink creature. And definitely more hideous.
My faceisa different shape. Monika was right about that. Was it the ugly composition of my features that drove her off? My clawed hands come insecurely up to my cheeks. My brow, cheek-and jawbones stick out too much, making the unusual glow of my eyes even more startlingas they lie in shadowy hollows of my face. They’re not purple anymore, but blue, with only the slightest purple tint as I stare into them now.
Frowning, I go to my closet only to find that it’s been ruffled. One of my T-shirts is missing off the hangar, and the drawer where I keep my rarely worn sweatpants is ajar. Hmph. At least she left in my clothing.That has to count for something,I think as I pull a T-shirt on over my head and proceed to shred the hell out of it on my horns. Not that it would have fit.
I huff out a sigh, abandoning any hope of wearing a shirt and moving on to pants. I can’t come close to slipping my talons through the leg of my jeans, so I go to my sweats. I can pull them on with minimal tearing, but they only come up to my shins. Like fucking capri pants.
Irritation blasts through me, and a huge ball of electricity swells from my chest. Fuck. I stumble back, away from the full-length mirror, caught off guard by my surging powers. But after the initial shock wears off, I grin. I may be uglier than sin, but my powers are magnificent. I can feel fresh energy storming through my body, waiting to be unleashed. It makes it easier to recall the strange dreams that plagued me last night—an expansion of the visions that crippled me the moment I reverted—and remember exactly how to use my powers to their fullest extent.
Training on brutal battlefields made of black sand, the Elders watching over me as I attacked and was attacked again and again by monsters who could shift into wind, who had claws and hooves and horns, who could cause pain with nothing more than their will.
I shiver and frown, remembering so much about mychildhoodand finding it utterly unsatisfying. Not because of the violence. No, that I rather liked. But because on Tratharine, there was nothing that was mine. A collective army, we fought, slept, and ate together as we worked to protect a violent population that had few redeeming qualities. Babies were birthed in centers by magical machines that engineered us. Badly injured and disabled Tratharine were killed the moment the Elders deemed them ineffective.
I was among the top soldiers. I was counted among the ten the Elders confided in and depended on most. I was number Six.
I stretch out my arms, admiring the way the symbols glitter over them in the light. Symbols meant to bind me to my weapon and, more importantly, to the Elders whose magic created them. I shudder. The Elders had—have—more power than the lot of us soldiers combined. Though the Marduk still fights in their name and honor, I don’t want them here on this planet. I don’t want to invite creatures so powerful that they not only lay waste to humanity but also have the ability to rule overme, even in this form with all my newly acquired power.
I want to be out from under the COE—that motivation has not changed. I don’t need a new master.
As I watch myself in the mirror, I realize that, like this, I’ll have no problem killing Mr. Singkham and Ms. Lemon, if needed, and taking over the COE. I am also no longer sure I’ll have an issue with the Marduk. I can take him now; I’m quite convinced of it. And if my memories ring true, then he needs to die. Without him, the Elders won’t make it to this side.
There is just one other thing I must do first: Find and punish Monika Neumann.
