Kiss of a Demon King

'Do I have time to check the smaller cells in the basement?' Lanthe asked.

'If we're back at the portal in twenty minutes we should be all right.' Their portal back to their home of Rothkalina was a good ten minutes away through dank London streets.

Lanthe blew a jet-black plait from her forehead. 'Watch the guard and keep the freed inmates inside this hall quiet.'

Sabine's gaze flitted over the unconscious male sprawled on the squalid floor, and her lip curled in dis­gust. She could read the minds of humans, even when they were blacked out, and the contents of this one's were giving even Sabine pause.

'Very well. But hurry with the transfer,' Sabine said. 'Else we'll attract our foe.'

Lanthe's blue eyes gazed upward out of habit. 'They could be here at any second.' She hastened to the stair­well once more.

Their lives had become a droning cycle: Steal a new power, flee enemies, have power stolen by a smooth- talking Sorceri male, steal a new power. . . . Sabine allowed it to continue.

Because she'd ruined Lanthe's innate ability.

When her sister was gone, Sabine muttered, 'Look after the guard. Very well...'

Lifting the man by his collar and belt, she tossed him in front of the exit doors. Some of the denizens grew wild at the violence, howling, pulling their hair. The ones who'd been eyeing the main exit scuttled back.

Shush the humans, easy enough. She sauntered to the guard and stepped up onto his back, opening her arms wide. 'Gather round, mad human persons. Gather! And I, a sorceress of dark and terrible powers, will reward you with a story.'

Some quieted out of seeming curiosity, some in shock. 'Hush now, mortals, and perhaps if you are good, quiet pets, I'll even show you a tale.' The cries and yells she'd ignited were ebbing. 'So sit, sit. Yes, come sit before me. Closer. But not you-you smell like urine and porridge. You, there, sit.'

Once they'd all gathered before her, she crouched on the guard's back. She gave them a slow smile as she readied for her story, tugging up her skirt to fiddle with her garters, then adjusting her customary choker.

'Now, for this evening, you have two choices. You can hear the story of a mighty demon king with horns and eyes as black as obsidian. In ages past he was so honest and upstanding that he lost his crown to cun­ning evil. Or, we have the story of Sabine, an innocent young girl who was forever getting murdered.' Who would one day be that demon's bride. . . .

'Th-the girl, please,' one resident whispered. His face was indistinguishable through the curtain of his matted hair.

'An excellent choice, Hirsute Mortal.' In a dramatic voice, she began, 'Our tale features the intrepid hero­ine, Sabine, the Queen of Illusions-'

'Where's Illusions?' a young woman paused in gnaw­ing her own forearm to ask.

Excellent-these were going to be narrative inter­rupters. 'It's not a place. A 'queen' is someone who is better at a particular mystickal skill than anyone else.'

Sabine could cast chimeras that were indistinguish­able from reality, manipulating anything that could be seen, heard, or imagined. She could reach inside a being's mind and deliver scenes from their wildest dreams-or worst nightmares. No one was her equal.

'Now the ridiculously beautiful and clever Sabine had just turned twelve, and she adored her soon-to-grow light-skirted sister, Melanthe, aged nine. Sabine had loved little Lanthe with her whole heart since the first time the girl had cried for her Ai-bee' over their own mother. The two sisters were born of the Sorceri, a dwindling and forgotten race. Not very exciting story fodder, you might think. Compared to a vampire or even a Valkyrie,' she sniffed. 'Ah, but listen on and see . . .'

She raised her hand to weave an illusion, drawing from within herself and from her surroundings-the mad energy of the inmates, the lightning-strewn night beyond the asylum.

When she blew against her opened palm, a scene was projected onto the wall beside her. Gasps sounded, a few stray whimpers.

'The first time young Sabine died was on an eve much like this, in a decrepit structure that trembled from thunder. Only instead of a rat-infested asylum, it was an abbey, built into the peak of a mountain, high in the Alps. The dead of winter was upon the land.'

The next scene she cast showed Sabine and Lanthe hastening down a murky stairway in their nightgowns and coats. Even as they rushed, they hunched their heads at each new batting of wings outside. Lanthe silently cried.

'Sabine was filled with anger at herself for not listen­ing to her instinct and taking Melanthe away from their parents, from the danger they attracted with their for­bidden sorcery. But Sabine had been reluctant because the two girls-though born of immortals and both gifted with powers-were still children, which meant they could be killed and wounded as easily as mortals, their injuries as lasting. Yet now Sabine had no choice but to leave. She sensed her parents were already dead, and suspected the killers were loose somewhere in the shadowy abbey. The Vrekeners had come for them-'

'What's a Vrekener?'

Sabine inhaled deeply as she gazed at the ceiling. Mustn't murder audience, mustn't murder . . . 'Winged avengers of old, demonic angels,' she finally answered. 'A dwindling race as well. But since memory, in our lit­tle corner of the Lore, they had slaughtered evil Sorceri wherever they could find them, and had been hunting Sabine's family for all of her life. For no other reason than because her parents were indeed quite evil.'

With a flick of her hand, Sabine changed the scene, showing the two girls stumbling into their parents' room. By bolts of lightning flashing through soaring stained glass windows, they saw the bodies of their par­ents, curled together in sleep.

The headless bodies, freshly decapitated.

In the image, Sabine turned away and vomited. With a strangled scream, Lanthe collapsed.

Another illusion showed Vrekeners emerging from the shadows of the chamber, led by one who wielded a scythe with a blade forged not of metal but of black fire.

Flashes of their huge ghostly wings appeared, and the double rows of horns on their heads gleamed. They were so towering that she had to crane her neck up to meet eyes across the room. All but for one. He was a mere boy, younger even than Sabine. His gaze was transfixed on little Lanthe, curled unconscious on the floor-one of the adults had to hold him back from her.

Sabine and Lanthe's situation grew clearer to her. This band of Vrekeners hadn't stalked them only for punitive reasons.

'The leader tried to convince Sabine to come peace­ably with them,' she told her audience. 'That he would

put the sisters upon the path of goodness. But Sabine knew what the Vrekeners did to Sorceri girl children, and it was a fate worse than death. So she fought them.' Sabine began the last illusion, letting it play to the end ...

Her entire body shook as she began to weave her spells around her enemies. She made the Vrekener soldiers believe they were trapped in a cavern, ensnared underground where they couldn't fly-their worst fear.

For the leader, she held up her palms, a gesture of supplication directed to his mind. Once linked, she greedily tugged free his nightmares, which she then offered up in a display before him, forcing him to relive whatever would hurt him most.

These scenes made him sink to his knees, and when he dropped his scythe to claw at his eyes, she snatched his weapon from him. Sabine didn't hesitate to swing it.

Hot blood sprayed across her face as his head tumbled to her feet. Once she swiped the sleeve of her gown over her eyes, she saw that her illusions were fading, the Vrekeners able to see where they truly were once more. Lanthe had woken and screamed for Sabine ; to watch out.

Then time ... stopped.

Or seemed to. Sounds dimmed, and everyone in the room slowed, all staring at Sabine, at the blood arcing from her jugular as she collapsed. One of these males had slashed her throat from behind, and all the world went red.