Blackjack Wayward (The Blackjack Series) (15 page)

“Where are her chambers?” I said in a cruel whisper.

“Down the hall, sire,” Elgar said cringing in fear my next blow would take his head off. “I will–”

“I’ll find it,” I said, letting my rage guide me.

I pounded down the hall, and there, at the end of it, was a wide, circular antechamber with a dozen guards standing ready. They were professionals, sensing my mood as I approached, and all came to the ready with shields and spears. My anger grew exponentially with every step, but the guardsmen had a job to do, and they now stood in my way.

“Halt,” one said, readying his spear. “You are not allowed–” he gagged as I took the shaft of his spear and yanked him closer, ending his life with a single blow to the face. None of the other warriors hesitated, charging me with spears leveled, and in these confined spaces, they had a huge advantage.

But then again, I’m Blackjack.

I lifted the dead Vershani guard, his body still twitching, and hurled him at the shield wall. The body gained so much speed that when it hit the others, four men collapsed to the ground, draped with body parts. A spear flashed through, quicker than I could see, but the armor kept the blade from penetrating my skin. Grabbing the spearhead, I broke the blade from the shaft and threw it at an approaching warrior. Powered by my superhuman strength, the spearhead was an unstoppable missile, penetrating his shield and embedding itself deep into his chest. I lowered my shoulder and ran hard into the fellow with the missing spearhead, pressing him and another warrior into the nearest wall until their chests collapsed and blood fountained from their mouths. Others stabbed me from behind, jabbing at the back of my legs and my head and neck, but their weapons couldn’t break my skin.

I turned and glowered, “Run.”

But the men didn’t leave. They just died, one by one, each in a more horrifying fashion, my rage flowing through my fists into their bodies, crushing bones and skulls, tearing limbs off, leaving their lifeblood and innards staining the floor, serenaded by a chorus of agonizing cries of the men who were begging for death, men I left behind as I approached the main door. It was an elaborate affair that could only lead to one person’s chambers.

“Honey, I’m home!” I said, kicking the thing off its hinges and across the chamber. The heavy door tumbled through the room, demolishing the furniture, and finally coming to rest, half-embedded in a far wall.

I walked in, feeling the sticky blood that coated my armor, my face, and the uncovered portions of my arms and legs. Each step left a red mark from my passing as I entered the relatively dark room. One of the crushed pieces of furniture was some sort of birdcage, and the writhing creatures still lay inside the damaged metal frame. The door had left a long smear of destruction across the room as evidence of my coming. It was my first time inside her personal chambers. First was a welcoming area with several couches and chairs, damaged by the tumbling door. To the right was a large conference table covered with papers, some of which had fallen off due to my disturbance. Beyond, was a large, round bed; atop it lay the naked goddess. At the feet of the bed were two Vershani, each with impressive physiques for their kind, both naked and cowering in fear.

Aryani’s expression was one of rage and defiance, but she didn’t speak, sitting up and letting the sheet drop from her lovely frame. Then something, maybe an invisible hand, grabbed me, roughly, and I fell back. I blinked but there was nothing in sight, nothing that could have pushed me. Was it her magic? Was the goddess now going to show me who was boss? But looking at her, I saw nothing, just that defiant expression, the cold eyes upon me. I stood and walked up to one of the Vershani males, pulling him away from the sheets to reveal him fully erect.

“Please,” he begged as I put my hands around his neck, readying my grip so I could pop his head off. I stopped myself and readjusted my grip to his head, pressing hard until his skull collapsed and he died in a shrieking wail.

The other man made a move to run, but I crossed the room and grabbed him and hurled his flailing form into the far wall. His body cartwheeled into the wall and exploded through the alabaster, leaving only a smear of blood. I turned back to the woman, but something punched me in the stomach. I vomited, falling over, and saw some gelatinous goo come out of my mouth.

“Are you doing that?” I said, but it was a whisper. I couldn’t talk, something was stuck deep in my mouth, deep down my throat. I couldn’t breathe and almost collapsed to the floor, fighting the failing of my lungs, until a voice powered into the room, as if from the heavens.

“Take it out,” the voice said, but it was muffled, barely audible, despite echoing through my brain. I became aware of a light around me, illuminating the room; I looked across at Aryani’s beautiful form, her exquisite face, jaws clenched in anger that I would have interrupted her. I almost apologized, but the thought of that made me even angrier, made it easier for me to fight the emptiness in my lungs.

“You’re a whore,” I yelled despite my gagging. “A whore!”

The light became blinding, and when I tried to look past it, the details became fluid, like trying to see outside the pool while submerged. Was she summoning the gods to fight on her side? Was she using her powers to stifle me? She just sat there, unaffected by how I had mangled her lovers. She was sticky with sweat, and the bed was moist when I got to it, wet and warm.

“You will not touch me,” she said.

“I’m not going to touch you. I’m going to fuck you,” I said, feeling the bone deep need to devour this woman. Somewhere at the periphery, I knew something else was happening, but it was fleeting. My skin tingled as a formless light started to surround me, and in the back of my mind I heard a voice, but neither thing was as real as her.

She recoiled from my touch, but I grabbed her leg, pulling her toward me and dropping her back on the bed. I dove atop her, forcing my hips into hers, splitting her legs apart. I pinned her down by the neck, and she gagged, choking as my massive weight closed off her air supply. I reached for myself as she struggled, her legs jerking in futile spasms as she tried to displace my hold on her.

“You will not touch me!” she croaked, little more than a whistle through her pinched windpipe, and her face changed. The lines became indistinct, almost featureless, then Apogee’s viridian eyes stared into mine, all seething hatred, then it lost form again.

I didn’t care, she was mine. I probed between her legs, roughly opening her labia for me, but something hit me again and I collapsed on her. I expected her to scratch at me, to go for my eyes as I struggled to penetrate her, to show her once and for all who was in charge around here. Not her, not Drovani, not some fucking ancient ritual or prophecy. I’m Blackjack, you bitch, and in a second you’re–

Then I stopped.

I looked down and saw the horror on her face, felt my weight pressing down on her, and the anger and lust were sucked away as if in a vacuum, replaced with a shame so profound it dwarfed my worst anger, my deepest regret. I shifted my weight off her and she shuffled away like a child, taking the blanket with her to cover her nudity As she reached the head of the bed, I noticed her features fading, her color washing out, as if she were bleeding away into her surroundings.

My skin was still tingling and the voice in the back of my head was a beehive buzzing. I looked down and saw myself sheathed in a light brighter than anything in the room. I was coated in blood from the neck down, bits of gore clung to the blood as is congealed, and I saw the sheet Aryani covered herself with was awash in it as well. I found it hard to focus because the room around me started to lose detail, the same desaturation that I had noticed on Aryani extended to include it, and me. “I’m sorry,” I tried to tell her, but my mouth wasn’t functional and gazing in her direction, I couldn’t find her. The room spun and I was assaulted by that nauseous feeling when a rollercoaster reaches its zenith at the top of the track, moments before the deep plunge.

“I’m sorry,” I mouthed again, ashamed and disgusted, hoping that despite the violent rolling that Aryani would be near enough to hear me, knowing that no apology could ever cover depth of my violation. But her form was nebulous, wafting, impossible to ascertain.

“Holy shit, I know this guy,” I heard a voice, again, deep from the light. Muffled as it was, I had an audience, and I was going to show them as well. Then I might get the respect I deserved.

“Wake up,” said another voice, and in my hindbrain, I knew there was a scuffle going on, just past the range of my senses. It lasted maybe a second, but I was focused on something else. My body wasn’t cooperating, regardless of how hard I tried to move. A moment later, I was on my back, and Aryani was over me like a sheet of fabric
.
I could see her face, fading, her hands on my arm, pushing away. Then the blanket peeled away, back into the light radiating from the ceiling, filling the whole room, swallowing it so nothing beyond its illumination was discernible. The corpses of the two dead Vershani, the floor or walls of the chamber were gone. Nothing remained but the fading form of Aryani, a fleeing image that I was already having a hard time remembering.

As she faded, a strange rush of feelings assaulted me. I felt moisture on my back then my whole body, and instead of a cloth-covered mattress, the bed had transformed and I was partially embedded in it. I felt naked, half floating in the goo. I couldn’t see the floor to look for it. My form stiffened and I couldn’t move as my arms were pinned to the bed. I flexed my left arm and felt sharp pain tear deep through it from fingertip to shoulder, but I heard popping sounds and I saw my hand encompassed by thick, heavy metal gauntlets. The glove looked hazy, and I realized my vision was clouded. Something was in my eyes, and that light had grown so bright that it washed away all detail. Had she killed me? Used one of her powers to send me to their afterlife?

I was cold, and that alone told me I wasn’t dead. Whatever I was lying in coated me with a viscous layer of goo that was chilling by the second. I could feel parts of my body getting colder and I shivered. I was surrounded, figures fading into one another, and in my mind’s eye, I could see the legion of Vershani warriors ready to impale me for my treason. I looked for Drovani, for my whore fiancé, but it was impossible to make out faces. One of the figures handled my face roughly, wiping some of the goo away, but feeling the cold gelatinous material streaking across my eyes did little to help me see. My hearing was muffled, as if something were lodged deep into my ear canals, but I could tell from the mumbling and fretting that something about the room stifled sound.

“I tell you this is Crashdown!” someone yelled, and that was the only reason I could make out the words. Crashdown? Where the hell was I? This made no sense; this had nothing to do with anything. There was only one person who had mistakenly called me that, and he was back on Earth.

Blinking made my vision worse, but then a cold fluid poured onto my face and I sputtered around it, disagreeing with the added chill.

“Water will help,” said a voice, the nearest of them, belonging to a figure that I now realized had been beside me this whole time. The figure’s arms moved and I felt the goo as it was scrubbed gently from my face. Was this the person that the goddess had summoned? I tried to speak but nothing happened, except me becoming aware of a wave of vomit that seemed destined for my throat. I coughed, doubling over, and felt my back separate from the goo on the bed, hearing a wet tearing as if I was embedded into the thing, but hands pushed me back.

“Easy,” the nearest voice said, and I relented as I was placed back into what I realized was a ovoid crystal creche. The voice was kind, and while muffled, the only link I had to the goddess, the only chance of getting back and finishing what I started.

More water poured over my face, chilly water that made me sneeze several times. Something was stuck in my throat, but any attempt to grab it was thwarted by the thick, encompassing gauntlets, but I was strong, right? I should be able to break almost anything.

I couldn’t. My fingers were free inside the metal gauntlets, weak and grasping at the empty space inside. I couldn’t even lift the things to break them against the sides of the bed.

And it wasn’t a bed; it was more like a half-pool, filled with gelatinous gunk that sloshed around with my fumbling. Someone poured more water over my eyes, and things were starting to become more and more visible. There were shapes, dressed and surrounding my “bed.” Some black, some white, but that was all I could discern. I tried to speak but couldn’t, tried to take the thing in my throat out, but couldn’t. Tried to vomit, but couldn’t.

“I gave this guy his name, man,” said the loud voice. I blinked to see who it was, but he was a blur, a shapeless mass. I could tell it was a man, though, because the voice was deep.

“This is not Crashdown, you fool!” said another man, the fellow who was closer. He was speaking louder, sounding a little perturbed.

I blinked hard, reaching for my eyes, but a hand pushed the useless appendages away and again I felt slight scrubbing.

“No, this is Blackjack, and I have been waiting for this moment” it said, and the voice came closer. Closer was worse, closer meant less detail, but as it leaned over me his face came into stark clarity. I caught a glimpse of a mustache and a long nose, of a balding head and a long severe face. Blinking harder, I saw his eyes, those cold, dead eyes I could never forget, eyes that had haunted me in my waking dreams.