Mona Lisa Darkening m-4 Read online

  "You know something," Aquila said.

  Damn his sharp eagle eyes. Halcyon could have lied — considered it for one moment — but he chose not to. "I fear something even worse than that has happened."

  "What could be worse than dying and being no more?" Thaddeus asked.

  "Do you know the significance of this particular day, other than it being a full moon?" Halcyon asked.

  "It's the spring equinox."

  Halcyon nodded. "My people call it Aequus Nox, equal night. When day and night are of equal length. In Hell, it is the time when the wall between the realms thins, when inhabitants of one realm can sometimes cross over into another."

  "But you said she's not in Hell," Tersa said quietly.

  Halcyon swung his gaze to the girl whose dark eyes were more knowing of pain than they should have been at so young an age. "There is another realm besides Hell," he said, "though not many know of it."

  "What other realm?" asked Amber, his voice wary, remembering the expression that had crossed Halcyon's face outside.

  "A place called NetherHell."

  "Is it like Hell?" asked Thaddeus.

  "No." Halcyon's heart howled inside, crying for his mate. "It is a place far worse, far more dangerous than Hell. We call it the Cursed Realm. The realm of the damned."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sun Came up as we were trudging across the hot barren land. Or should I say suns, as in two of them, tadpole-shaped. Oddly enough, the brightness didn't affect me, though that didn't mean anything, if I was a demon now. Demons could walk in the sun without feeling the bite of pain that the Monère felt. I wouldn't feel anything until my Mesh became soft and tender enough to burst open at a touch, which was what had happened to Halcyon once, after prolonged exposure to the sun.

  I still didn't know where the hell I was. Or if I even was in Hell. That should have been the most likely conclusion. Only, so many things didn't add up. Among them was my demon thirst for blood — not there. Water was what I had a hankering for. and what we were searching for. That's right, we. After our nice What's Your Sin Versus My Sin chat, I'd perused our bleak surroundings and fixed on a distant area where the soil appeared darker. Darker soil equating water, or at least that's what I was hoping. I'd started trekking that way, and the other two — Juan, the gang member, and Charles, the corporate fraud guy — had followed me. Since all other footprints, fresh and old, led that way, I shouldn't have been surprised. I didn't discourage the two of them or try to distance myself from them. Frankly, I was unsettled. I mean my heart wasn't beating. One moment I'm alive, Basking under the moon's rays, and then wham! A giant black hand of light smothers me and I'm whisked away to some godforsaken place with a bloodred sky and a couple of broken-into-pieces suns.

  I missed the noises of my body, that ever constant drumming beat of life. Now all was silent in my body. Deathly still and quiet. The company of others, even those I didn't completely trust, was better than trudging alone in solitude. Plus they seemed frightened of me, that whole morphing into another woman thing. They weren't likely to be much of a physical threat to me.

  For now, Mona Louisa was content to let me take the lead, staying a quiet presence within me. Wherever we were, whatever had happened to me, it had made her stronger… frighteningly strong. I'd only been able to surface when she had allowed it. Until then, I had been trapped inside. I don't know if it was because of that initial weakness that seemed to have affected us all — the lethargy had gradually fallen away after half an hour.

  Even though the air still felt like thick syrup, a much heavier density than we were used to, the more time that passed, the stronger and more normal my body felt. Normal but for the absence of a beating heart — one crucial thing that changed everything… who and what I was. Which was still a mystery. For some reason, it was hard to label myself as dead. Not when I still felt so alive, and still had so much to live for, to go back to.

  As the hours beneath the two yin and yang suns passed, my thirst grew into fierce biting need, and hunger began to gnaw at my empty stomach. The good news was that I had no urge to sink my teeth into my traveling companions — no urge for their blood or flesh.

  I'd gained back my strength far faster than my companions had. Their strength was severely flagging now; almost back to that initial state. I heard someone stumble, fall. No other sounds. No quickened heartbeat, no labored breathing. No breathing at all except to talk — you had to draw breath for that.

  "Wait, please," cried Charles, down on his knees. Juan, younger, more fit. was almost a dozen paces ahead of him. Both lagged a significant distant behind me. Juan kept walking until he reached me, his swarthy skin damp with a heavy sheen of sweat. He looked tired but still able to go on. Charles, on the other hand, had clearly reached the end of his limit.

  When Juan looked as if he were going to continue walking, I said, "Charles won't be able to travel farther without rest."

  Juan paused and licked his dry, parched lips. "You stopping?"

  "Yeah. Were you going to leave him behind?"

  "We're almost there." There being that darker patch of land. "A few more hours and we'll reach water."

  "I'm going back," I said, and started trudging back to Charles. A moment's hesitation and Juan fell into step beside me.

  "Thank you," Charles said. His face was an alarming shade of lobster red. Thick beads of perspiration dripped down his face. We were all damp and sweaty in the oppressive heat, but Charles was excessively so.

  "Just a short rest and I'll be all right," he said, his voice sounding scratchy and dry.

  Juan looked frankly dubious of that but refrained from any comments. He supported Charles on one side while I grabbed the other arm. Together we heaved him to his feet and dragged him over to the closest shade available, that cast by a small stunted shrub.

  "Lie down and rest," I said, easing him down. There was only enough shade to cover his face. The rest of his body still baked under the two uneven suns.

  "Wait here," I said to Juan.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To see if I can find us anything to eat or drink."

  "Good luck," he muttered, dropping down beside Charles.

  Hopefully luck wouldn't have anything to do with it. My sight and hearing weren't yet one hundred percent, but they were far better than in my initial blunted state. And better, I believed, than those of Juan and Charles. The other two men were completely human. I wasn't. Three-quarters of me was of another species whose strength and speed were greater than any human could ever hope for.

  I moved silently, careful not to make any sound, and crouched by a small thicket. Seconds passed. Minutes crawled by while I stayed completely frozen in waiting stillness. Finally, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. A slow slithering along the dry, brittle ground. It was a creature such as I had never seen before. The front of it was like a horny lizard while the rest of its body was that of a snake. Its scaly hide was a brown-green camouflage pattern, blending it almost perfectly into its rocky desert surroundings. But that was the only perfect thing about it. The front end walked on two stumpy forelegs while the rear part of it slithered. It was hideous enough and big enough to have me run screaming away from it had not the others' need compelled me. Not even my own hunger and thirst would have driven me to do what I did next.

  I pounced on it and kept my eyes open while every girl instinct in me wanted to close my eyes and shudder as I grabbed it. It thrashed its thick, muscular body, surprisingly strong. Sharp fangs were revealed as it hissed, whipping out a long tongue. The snake part of its body was just starting to wrap around my legs when I snapped its neck. It went limp, and so did I. The shudders came as I carried the obscene lizard-snake back to the two waiting men. Juan's eyes rounded until the whites of his eyes showed. "Dios! What the mother is that?"

  "Food and drink," I said.

  Charles turned, caught sight of my offering, and jerked upright. "Jesus, what is that thing?"

  "I don
't know." And I didn't want to know. I dumped the body on the ground and the two men edged back away from it. I was as leery as them, but we didn't have the luxury of being squeamish. "We'd better hurry before it revives," I said.

  "Isn't it dead?" Charles asked. "It looks like you broke its neck."

  "I did. Doesn't mean that it won't heal or regenerate."

  "Can it do that?" Juan asked.

  I shrugged. "Don't know. And I don't want to wait around to find out." Next on the list was finding something sharp to cut the creature with. Picking up a small rock, I cracked it open against another rock, and presto, I wielded an instant knife. It took three repeated slices with the crude rock blade before I finally cut through the thick leathery skin. Blood dripped and I raised the snake body to my mouth and swallowed the sanguineous fluid flowing out from the cut I'd made. It wasn't as if it was the first time I'd drank down blood, but drinking it like this was different. I didn't crave it, hunger for it. Water was what my body really needed.

  I swallowed two mouthfuls, enough to take the edge off my thirst, then offered it to Charles. He took it with trembling hands and choked on the first mouthful, but the next two gulps went down easier. He shuddered and passed the serpentine body to Juan.

  With a muttered curse, Juan lifted it to his mouth. He'd barely taken his first swallow when the thick reptilian body suddenly twitched. Juan threw the creature away from him. "It moved! It fucking moved!"

  "Are you sure?" Charles asked anxiously.

  "Yeah. Look."

  The head twitched, the mouth opened, and there was no mistaking the hiss, the flash of scary fangs. With a spasmodic, disjointed kind of motion, it started to slither and crawl away from us.

  "Anyone wants another drink or maybe a bite of its flesh before it gets away?" I asked, not shocked or surprised. I'd been expecting it, actually.

  "You joking, lady?" Juan asked, clearly freaked out.

  "Far from it. Think carefully. That creature may be your last chance at food or drink for a while."

  Juan gazed at the creature and shook his head. "Fuck no. I don't want nothing more to do with that thing."

  Charles concurred.

  I crouched down, scooped up some hot, gritty soil and rubbed it over my hands to clean them, not so much of the blood — I'd managed to be neat in my drinking — but more to rid myself of the disgusting feel of that icky lizard skin.

  I stood. Asked Charles, "You ready to go?"

  He nodded wildly. I set off without another word.

  "How'd you know that thing would heal itself?" Juan asked after some time and distance had passed.

  "Just a damn unlucky guess."

  CHAPTER SIX

  when Gryphon had died, life — and his heart — had literally been torn from him. His living, beating heart. The organ with which you supposedly loved. If only that ability had been torn from him the same way his organ had been ripped from his chest, then perhaps death would have been easier. It certainly would have been more welcome. He might have drifted into his new existence with glad acceptance, maybe even peace. But his death had not come easily. He'd fought his departure from the earthly realm with every fiber of his being.

  He'd been torn from life, his last breath taken in Mona Lisa's arms, and thrust into smoldering darkness. Tumbling for a countless time in an empty void of nothingness. Encased in blackness like a womb or a shroud. Then vision had slowly returned. His senses functioned once more, and he found himself in a dark realm where a giant orange moon dominated a twilight sky. He'd heard sound — his quickened breaths going in and out — and he'd breathed by habit, still imitating the signs of life. But there'd been no beating of his heart. With a fumbling hand, Gryphon had felt his chest, whole, untorn, but no pulse. No throb of life thumped against his palm or sounded within his body. He knew then that he was dead. If only his emotions were also.

  In his mind's eye, he saw Mona Lisa's face again in that last moment of grief as she held him while he slowly slipped unwillingly from life. Pain such as he'd never felt before ripped through his chest, far greater even than the gruesome act that had brought about his rending death. An ache so powerful, so unrelenting, so throbbing in the empty space where his heart had once been.

  "No!" he'd screamed.

  Voices had shouted. Faces had peered at him, the brown faces of the demon dead. Then he'd seen a familiar face that he'd both hated and welcomed — Halcyon's golden skin, his dark eyes filled with compassion.

  Weak as a kitten, or a newborn demon, Gryphon had rasped, "Send me back."

  Pity had filled Halcyon's eyes. "You know that is not possible."

  Rage had filled Gryphon then. Poured through him like a burning, cleansing fire, killing the last, lingering essence of his old life, the old him. His new self, his demon self, was forged into being then, washing away the weakness of love and filling him with the strength of hatred. Of such blinding rage that the world changed from orange to red in the blink of an eye, and he knew that his eyes had turned bloodred. Knew that he was true demon then.

  "Send me back!" he railed, the words slurring as fangs erupted painfully, filling his mouth.

  Halcyon touched him, the last part of his demon birth that Gryphon remembered. "Sleep now," the High Prince of Hell had said. And Gryphon had slept.

  When he next awakened, it had been in a clean chamber — soft linen, a comfortable bed, a sturdy end table, and nothing else. The room had been stripped down to bare essentials and locked. The latter, Gryphon discovered only later when he had grown strong enough to roam beyond the bed, to seek a way out of his prison. Although the real prison was the new world he now inhabited.

  The first person he saw again was Halcyon, entering the room with a chalice of blood. One heady whiff and his eyes had fired red, his hunger growing monstrous within him. All else was wiped away — grief, rage, fear — and Gryphon became nothing more than overwhelming desire… overwhelming need for that blood.

  It seemed that Halcyon was always there in those first hazy days following Gryphon's rebirth. Once the jealous contender for affections from his beloved Queen. Now his ruler. Only he didn't act like a ruler; more like a brother. Someone who cared for Gryphon, bringing him the blood his new demon body craved. First lamb's blood, then over the next several days cow's blood diluted with wine, thinner, less sweet. Challo, they called the mixture. Blood wine. The normal drink of demons.

  Halcyon held him when he grieved, calmed Gryphon when he raged. And he was glad then, when that unthinking madness gripped him, that he was locked up, safely contained. He destroyed the room, ripped everything into pieces. A new bed, new furniture, and new sheets were brought in.

  Let me out! he raged.

  When you can control yourself had been Halcyon's answer.

  Emotions, though, controlled Gryphon. His rage, his grief. Railing against what had been and what was now.

  Mona Lisa! He cried out her name in anguish, in love, in grief and fury. Mona Lisa! And knew each time he howled her name that he had lost her.

  "You have not lost her," Halcyon told him, over and over again. "You will see her again when you regain control of yourself. When you can control your rage, your grief, your hunger." But he had lied.

  As the days passed, and they did so slowly, relentlessly, the truth had impressed itself on Gryphon. He had lost her. Lost her to life. Was kept from her by death, by what he was now — an angry new demon whose rage was always there, constant, ever hovering.

  Such a thin, fragile line separating fury from control.

  When his room was finally unlocked, when Gryphon was finally allowed to venture outside its doors, a new emotion had filled him — fear of the unknown. But the unknown had only proved to be the calm order and simple luxurious surroundings of the High Prince's home.

  Hell was not so bad, if one thought in terms of food, clothing, and shelter — the basic necessities of life… and death, it seemed, too. All was provided for Gryphon by the ruler of the realm himself. By Halcyon. Were Gryp
hon to hazard a guess, not many other newly transitioned demons were granted the High Prince's hospitality. Probably no other demons. A very private and reserved man was his host. Yet he'd opened the doors of his home to Gryphon, taken him in, offered his calming presence, and even more important, the tranquility and order of a well-run household overseen by a small dour female demon named Jory.

  Gryphon wondered how other new demons fared — where they lived, how they ate. That was one of the surprises, that demons ate food down in this realm, along with drinking the blood for which all demons thirsted. In Halcyon's house, Gryphon dined in civilized splendor as food was slowly reintroduced back into his diet — bread, fruit, meat. And ever present, always within easy reach, the blood wine of the afterlife. Challo.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  We finally found water. Not the clear pond we had envisioned, but a filthy, drying mud hole that glimmered oddly, as if bits of golden dust had been mixed into the wet soil. Whatever water source had been there had died, was dead like the rest of us.

  Finding our way here had been simple. Just follow the footprints. The many footprints that had all led this way, to this illusive dark patch of land, of moist soil. Look, see, smell. None of our senses had lied. The water that we thirsted for was here, just not in any drinkable form. That didn't stop the newly dead from trying. They were righting over it, a dozen rough men kicking, punching, shoving each other, trying to stake out their patch of mud. Our orange-clad jailbird was there among them, scooping up handfuls of the wet mud and squeezing dark liquid drops of it into his opened mouth.