Chapter 84 

This world shouldn’t exist. 

Where was I? Familiar, yet not. An unplace. A void, but brimming with such immense power. Every hair on my arms was bristling. An ethereal energy threatened to crackle at any second, as if my fingertips were about to touch winter-frosted bare metal. 

The air, crisp and cool, chilling lips, throat, and lungs with each hard-fought breath. Each inhale brought smells so incredibly sharp they hurt. The most fragrant flowers. A sweetness beyond the thickest syrups. Metallic hints. Stone damp with water, flowing unseen and unheard.

Naked, my body was gripped with ceaseless shivers, and my teeth chattered. Vision dulled, I was left with only a pulsing haze filled with brilliant hues of every color. Slow, very slow, shakes of my head failed to clear the mushiness, but a few details resolved.

Far above, swooped tall crystalline arches, trooping into a distance shrouded in multi-colored nothingness. Under bare feet stretched the same slippery crystal, cold enough to drive a bone-chilling ache high into my legs.

Heavy and out-of-place among such delicate perfection, my footfalls were shaky and dragged on the glossy floor. Iron grips held both arms, but any attempt to glimpse my jailers resulted in a blaze so bright my brain ached; the thundering discomfort forced me to turn away.

Suddenly, the air grew heavier. Light stripped asunder, letting darkness swirl. Amid thick cobwebs and flashes of forgotten importance, my mind struggled. From the closest walls, slender wisps began to seep. The legs of a thousand tiny spiders skittered along synapses, tugging memories from dusty corners.

The more recent ones, those offering clues to my location, refused to solidify. Only haze, and gauzy at that.

Instead, other images grew so vivid, smells sharpened, and sounds, in the highest fidelity, echoed. These were far older, gathered over thousands of years. They sluiced to the forefront like a muddied surf tossing flotsam against a rock-strewn coast.

Grit filled my mouth, encrusted my eyelids, and clung to dripping sweat. The sun became a boiling mass high overhead. Every muscle ached from overuse.

“Get your Theban pig-fucker ass back into line!”

Greek. My first language. While screaming toward a grime-streaked, wide-eyed face, I shoved a spear from one of the fallen into his hand. All around us, the roar and clang of battle intensified. Dust, already kicked up by our march, now billowed in great clouds, clawing at that unforgiving ball of fire in the sky, as many more decidedly unfriendly sandals pounded down the surrounding slopes.

“The left, Iakovos!” His gaze flicked past me. “They can’t hold.”

“Let me worry about the damn left!” 

A hard shove on the cloth where a cuirass should’ve been sent him back toward the swirling madness on the nearest slope. He nodded over his shoulder at me.

“Yes, polemarch!”

No, didn’t bother correcting him. If he wanted to promote me, needed to believe somebody else cared, then so be it. Head still ringing from an earlier blow that had sent my helm spinning off into the haze, I grasped the damp, leather-wrapped hilt of a leaf-bladed sword. Strings of gore swayed from its blade. After a quick nudge of my teeth, loosened by the same blow, I launched a gob of spit and dirt toward the ground.

From high overhead, a descending cloud made me duck, though the gesture was foolish; thuds intermixed with distant muffled cries and sharper ones from closer silhouettes. One arrow struck the top of my shoulder before careening off into the melee. Even as my hand rose to massage the impact, a shadow resolved in the dust. In its hands, a spear. My mouth mirrored the arid foothills, growing desiccated as the glinting point sped closer.

Iciness filled my soul. A shake of my head, and I was again in the crystal-lined corridor. A second later, the next images tumbled. Those were less distinct, more of a rambling pictorial history. 

Castles, large, small, of stone, wooden. Dismal, endless swamps. High, craggy mountains. Forests so deep. Featureless plains stretching to a thousand horizons.

Gaudy carriages, first drawn by horse then… Expensive cars. Small, then larger planes. Helicopters. Sprawling homes. Hotels, so many. Surf-kissed or mountain-swaddled resorts, also mine.

People. Terrified. Happy. Loving. Hating. Close. Distant. Dead.

The others. The no-longer-humans. Undead, soulless vampires that shouldn’t exist. Likewise, the primal werefolk; like me, gifted and cursed with far too many years. A ceaseless life we shared, full of experiments, challenges, sadness, and hopes, mostly false, all for the entertainment of silent gods.

Mi! The tiny, hopeful…Fae. She was….

Coolness swaddled me once more, and the grip on my arms tightened as the corridor sloped upward. Another attempt to survey my captors only resulted in more of those brilliant lances plunging into my skull.

A groan left me as other memories solidified, flickering like images in an old camera.

Mandy. Those wondrous blue eyes. The most beautiful smile. My Mandy, the playful, intelligent woman I did not deserve. She had no boundaries…well, one. A true partner. My love. The love.

Her husband, Charles. Him? Why? My chest tightened. Kind, although foundering as her soulmate. Not a stupid man, but…so scared to touch. Fear-ruled, and also softness.

Cynthia. Cinder. Tall, gorgeous, pale with deep-green pools seeking so much from me. That rarest of survivors, a cast-off thrall, craving new control. Not my love, yet mine. My responsibility. My slave. My devoted.

More? Dear gods, why more? No more.

Fucktoy. Such stunning hazel eyes. An amazing, youthful physique. What I’d just done in Chicago, answering her plea. How I had done it, the training, so meticulous. The tests, all passed by her with matching attention to the most minor of details. Her expression: pure, utter submission. 

Plus, the wild-eyed look on her husband’s visage. That realization: he’d never, ever be like me. Not his fault; no human could achieve such a thing. His wife was mine for the taking, and that young man would gladly let me have her. For that matter, one command from me and he’d be mine as well.

The others. The young yacht girls who’d played with Mandy. That older couple at the resort, Denise and her husband. Erin… no, she belonged to Mandy. Rosa, the busty Rio bartender with such hungry eyes. Even youthful Monique, outside Cinder’s office. All would come to me should I desire them.

Lucy! Sultry darkness in the sexiest of alluring forms. Her husband and my best friend in ages, Gary would be so heartbroken, yet one call and…

Air hissed from chill-trembling lips. A swallow failed, dying on the lump in my throat as the endless multi-hued walls blurred around me.

What have I become? No, what am I once more?

Relentless, the images marched onward.

Take Lisandra’s offer; lead the Dusk Pride. Unite every pride under my banner. Confront the Baron, take back Kali, and all the others. They could never feed from me, but with their unquestioning loyalty, we might….

A sharper vision had my chest clenching. My pulse rocketed, and another attempt at twisting free of the iron grip on my arms failed.

Mi! 

No, not her. 

A young human girl. 

At the hotel bar, I’d been waiting for a ride to the airport for the late flight home from Chicago when the slender blonde appeared. Panic scrawled across the girl’s face. Her hushed, rapid words, the pleading; her Fae lover had been stolen away. 

What else could I do? The jet departed without me.

Images twisted. Other paths, ancient ones, had led me to….

Unplace. Null. A slice of the universe, inverted and reshaped into what cannot be, yet is. An intense chill. So many colors, then nothingness. Deep, body-shaking nausea. A blast of heat, making sweat prickle, then the ice of the deepest arctic. 

Hands had snatched at my arms. A fruitless struggle. Too weak, so very weak. With clothing stripped, gone was everything but the cold on bare skin and the throbbing in my skull. 

Still, we marched. Well, my silent, relentless captors marched, dragging me between them. The spiders kept crawling, pulling visions and sounds and smells and emotions and sensations, melding, then peeling them apart as if they lay atop a bone-chilling steel examination table. An endless review of my endless life along that endless hallway.

My first love, so long ago, up in that hill-shrouded hamlet. The simple people who still clawed at my soul. Fury. Disappointment, both in myself and those occupying their golden thrones high above. Frustration. 

Yes, my fists had driven a blade deep…several times. All for naught. No such simple liberation from this immortal hellscape. 

Sharpened anger, driving me to madness, then beyond. Owning, destroying, crushing, enjoying the screams, the begging, the sounds of defeat and torture and victory and wonderment at how much humans could tolerate.

The snapping of my mind. That day. The mountaintop. The sobbing…mine. My pleading words, my cries to the cloud-shrouded heavens. No curses; I was done with such things. A bargain offered; no idea if the gods, comfortable in their all-knowing haughtiness, thought this miserable undying soul worthy.

Again, the crystalline floor sloped upward, and my feet dragged. The arms lifted me higher. A brightness erupted, making me blink and turn away. Though the air grew lighter and thinner, the energy around me sparkled and hissed.

The presence of greatness. Of eternity. Of boundless life.

No, not Olympus. Nor even close.

A flash of realization. Been here before. That memory, no, several of them, only then unclouded, revealing… Madness gibbered at the edges of my mind.

The walls widened. Above, the ceiling disappeared into a colorful, swirling gloom. Pillars began to flank us, endless, also glossy and shimmering with every hue.

Like sharp-prowed ships charging through the surf, noises tried to force their way through the rushing in my skull. Music? A discordant melody, both bathing me in a supernatural calmness and laced with fear. Fear of me? Fear for me? Fear of something else? Such concepts lingered just beyond the suffering, frayed tendrils of my mind.

More sounds sharpened. The steady, echoing thud of metal. My pulse staggered. A swift scan showed that the brilliant figures flanking me wore the shiniest silver plate armor. In this day and age? Made no sense. That peek alone sent shards deep into my skull, and I found myself gasping.

Ah, but yes, there was indeed some actual sense forming. The air gained a metallic edge. No, not from the armored figures, but more a sensation. As if a razor were being dragged along a beyond-ancient whetstone. A place of work, of dedication, of import, of security, of…okay, fear, but also reason and resolve.

My stomach flip-flopped. Untethered. Unworld. Untime. Unnaturalness whirled and soared like ethereal waves, sluicing around a mind trying to grasp at what should not be. The gibbering in my skull became a high-pitched cacophony.

There must be an order to things. This couldn’t just…be. Those newly unshrouded visions? I’d strode this non-place before. Hope. Kindness. Wariness, mine. Traps, some disclosed and others hidden, for me, for others, for the unknowing. A sense of lightness mixed with the darkest darks. Dichotomy of existing where nothing could exist, out of space, out of time, out of all that should be.

The murkiness in my brain oozed and sloshed, thinning with every step. Though my ribs remained tight, the lump in my throat loosened. Around me, the pillars gained definition; not just colors, but patterns and etchings appeared. So much history engraved with such incredible care.

Ahead, more sounds resolved. Voices, hushed, melodious. Soft laughter. The music lowered, becoming more of a quiet background tempo. My footsteps resounded, an ugly beat amid such loveliness. Even the shiny boots of my closed-mouth guards seemed to sing as they marched me closer to….

The sudden halt made me sway. A glance showed wide, glossy steps rising in a broad arc to an immense dais. Upon its height sat a pair of gilded, high-backed thrones. The shorter one harbored a hunched, silent figure beneath a thin golden crown sparkling with all manner of jewels.

My heart thumped at the figure rising from the other red velvet cushion. Clad in nothing but diaphanous white swirls, pure, stunning female gorgeousness kept rising. With lengthy curls of spun gold framing a face that shouldn’t exist. The prototype of mundane earthly beauty, she embodied magnificence.

No need for her to wear any crown. As though lit by the sun, a vivid hue pulsated, enhancing every sleek curve.

Tall, lithe perfection. Proud upon her chest, perfect globes with points both sharp and dark, swayed. Lower, beneath a sculpted belly, an unruly tuft of golden curls peeked amid swirling translucence. Perfect toned thighs powered long legs, sweeping aside the wispy veils as she moved. 

Both gauntlets gripped me tighter as the vision of hyper-loveliness approached. Her motions, measured yet sultry, matched this world. On her toes, more of a hover than a walk, as if the highest of heels clad such perfect feet. Sounds stopped as perfection descended a single step. 

Beneath eyes of every color, the most wondrous smile beamed radiance into my soul. All my nerves sizzled, and the unworld became nothing but her.

“Welcome, Lord Iakovos the Undying,” she said with the most wonderful motions of the most perfect lips. A quiet laugh followed; the most perfect sound in the universe. “You honor me with such an expression.”

A torrent of memories sharpened.