The Relic Read online

  Screaming a great deal, despite how I pat. A mewling, toothless kitten, at once pushing the cracked inferno of my flesh and drawing away from the inhuman texture. Pitch-black flesh, my eyes a glow of red in my temper, in my elation, in suffering through a mix of emotion I’d forgotten existed.

  All I had been over all the ages, all the battles, all the children, all the optimization of a species, had always been something to fill the time.

  Grief? That, on occasion, teased the outskirts of my thoughts. Dedication? I was nothing if not decided. Boredom? It consumed me utterly.

  The world, with all its modern marvels, was really no more exciting today than it had been when my armies swept entire civilizations under my feet. And I suppose, in a way, I was also a touch… probably, yes… irritated my love had left me waiting so long.

  She’d always been particular. She’d always been beautifully difficult.

  Formidable.

  Yet I was so beyond in love it stole my breath. So very piqued that rage almost eclipsed joy. The ground shook again under my feet. Sending my children fleeing in the opposite direction of my march.

  Seemed not all of Darius’ flock was as stupid as they appeared.

  Yes, I’d be the first to admit it wasn’t princely to lose one’s temper in such a fashion. But I wasn’t a prince. I was no longer a king. I was a God!

  A God who’d found his Goddess trapped in a tomb, withered in mind and body.

  Did she just try to bite me again?

  What joy! Kissing her crown, I’d never felt more in love.

  So cute. Just like the first time she tried to slit my throat all those ages ago.

  Our wedding night.

  How fond that memory. So fond that I felt the need to cuddle my hissing, screamed-herself-hoarse darling closer.

  I might’ve been old, but I was not senseless to female tendencies. I understood Pearl’s terror. It was more than just the current state of my body that brought on this paroxysm. More than my strength, my size, my altered nature.

  My bride’s only interaction with others of our kind had been….

  Maybe I would just kill them all. Five or six handpicked old guard would be enough to see to a Goddess’ needs. Tens of thousands? Excessive. Yes. That was what I would do. Flock by flock, I’d cull the herd.

  Malcolm would have to die for ripping out her fangs. Which would upset Jade.

  Who I supposed I had some sentiment for.

  There were too many humans these days as well. Easy enough to turn them on one another and let them do the work for me.

  Hmmm. But nuclear weapons. My bride would not like a sky full of fire and a world full of death.

  A Goddess required subjects to rule. Beauty to enjoy.

  Revisiting such a thought later would be best. Genocide was such time-consuming work, and no other creature would have a moment of my time save the one screaming memorized Latin prayers from under the membrane of my wing.

  Claws, black as the darkest human heart, clicked. Impulsively seeking out the soft thing that continued to beg for the mercy of Jesus. One smell of her divine blood and I checked myself.

  Be gentle. Excruciatingly careful.

  Taloned feet ceased their march, and I threw back my head in an uncharacteristic roar of frustration, only to realize that my skin was burning her flesh. Powerful wings tightened around my prize as if they might protect her from the very creature obsessed with helping her, and in doing so caused her further pain.

  Such irony deserved a laugh.

  A madman’s cackle that rang out against the stone walls of the vacant throne room.

  Fate was such a bitch. Which was why I fucked fate raw and would do so again.

  Fate brought me into life mortal. Fate stole my soul. Fate was denied when I tied that soul to me with an unbreakable oath. And fate would be denied again when I conquered my bride’s fears and strengthened her body. She who had fucked fate herself by being born half immortal.

  Which was endlessly amusing, considering her past.

  But the religious babble, those maddening prayers—they were not good for my beloved one. So I offered honest truth, rubbing my chin atop her head, careful not to inadvertently crush her skull. “I met your Jesus. A decent enough fellow, I suppose.”

  Adjusting my arms to aid in Pearl’s comfort, trying to hold a fragile body as cautiously as I might, I added, “Completely wasted the gift of immortality, if you ask me. He spoke and spoke and spoke, and who listened? Who remembered any of it correctly? Not a soul… except maybe myself. Our time in the desert was interesting, though thoroughly misquoted.”

  Tiny, her reply was. Tiny and meant only for her ears, her lips pressed to my chest as she sobbed. “Blasphemy.”

  She was so utterly cute that I could not resist running the back of a razor-sharp claw over her cheek. Success achieved, not a single drop of blood spilled. “Oh, sweet one, how I adore you. You’re just… delicious.”

  All fangs and cracked black skin, all flames and searing heat, wings, and bulging muscle… every last molecule of me was completely enamored with my soul’s new face. All of her was delicious, down to her toes.

  I wanted to eat them. Not really. Well, really. But I wouldn’t unless she gave me permission.

  What had I done to deserve this? This elation!

  The loving sigh that billowed, brought tendrils of steam from my lips, was both lengthy and the right amount of dramatic.

  In time, she’d look back upon our reunion fondly. And we had time, a universe’s endless expansion and contraction of time.

  With care, with feeding, with love and attention, my soul would find that it indeed recognized me. That it sang its song so I might be drawn closer.

  That deep down she always knew I’d find her and bring her home.

  Oh so carefully, I set the shaky thing on her bare, mostly reconstituted feet to spare her skin from further unintentional searing. Perhaps a little too exuberant in the way I slid her down my body as if she might ice the flames. And I was left with a shiver like an untried boy. “Shall we use this moment”—what was the best way to phrase it?—“to outline expectations?”

  Blood drunk, healing at a rapid rate, yet still bearing gnarled corpse’s fingertips and reforming organs. Driven utterly mad, for reasons that spread my wingspan and left her cowering, Pearl hid behind her tangled, dark hair.

  An improvement. She wasn’t trying to run… potentially because I held her slender wrist in my very large, very dangerous fist. And her pretty, filthy skin only smoked a little.

  Beating the air with one relaxing flex of my wings, I gave myself the luxury of a deep breath. And contemplated.

  She started screaming again.

  The bridge of my nose between forefinger and thumb—a habit from my mortal years I’d never quite set free—I even groaned in mirror to her terror, somewhat tempted to let her wrist go. Yet concerned that chasing her through the maze of the Cathedral would only heighten her confusion.

  Instead, I tried to explain. “You died in childbirth. Our seventh son.” Bitterness welled from a place I had forgotten, lacing a demonic growl into my litany. “Not in some great war, not from a rival’s poison… in duty and fealty to your husband.” My free hand, tipped with razor-sharp claws, knocked against my breastbone, a loud bang fitting the mood. “The universe dared take you from me, and I have squeezed payment from its bones. As you are my soul, there is a chance you spent our time apart in some version of hell you keep referring to.” I rolled my eyes toward the heavens, aware of the pun. “If there even is such a realm.”

  At the widening of her bloodshot, tear-stained, and beautiful eyes, I amended, “Though I greatly doubt you’d have been condemned. My bride is a creature of light. Even in immortality.”

  Which was, in many ways, hilarious.

  More importantly, the creature who suffered through hell had been I. “And now you are reborn and delivered. You are home. With me.” Adding, so it could not be said, that despite the form I m
ight bear, I still possessed charm, “And I will love you until time itself ceases to be.”

  An already fragile mind unraveling before me, my naked, filthy bride screamed, “Satan, has your demon not shown me suffering enough?”

  Never having enjoyed that title, I corrected, calm as the precious dead of night, “Call me Vladislov. Or Steven. Do you like the name Steven?”

  If Satan got her hackles up, the name she’d known me by in her past life would cause this hissing kitten further distress. Come to think of it, any of the monikers I’d borne over the centuries would. Therefore, Vladislov it would be. Just as she would remain Pearl.

  Wouldn’t that be nice?

  A fresh start that I could improve upon in all ways from our last union.

  With a reverence I felt down to my unbreakable bones, I said her new name. “My Pearl.” Adding, “And I agree, Steven is too bland. You could just call me ‘darling.’ ‘Sweetheart.’ Oh, I’m partial to ‘honey.’ Bees are such fascinating creatures.”

  I said it with love—my eyes, though glowing red, my skin, though black, cracked, and fiery, all of it softened with an adoration more eternal than the stars.

  In this, she found me hideous and screamed.

  How ashamed she was to be naked before her husband.

  How brittle her mind after so much damage had been wrought.

  And even as she was now, pathetic and weak, I was moved by the very being of her. I always had been a bit obsessive when it came to my soul.

  Just as enticing as the original, her form was a song. And though she tried to cover her breasts and pubis, I did look my fill.

  I drank her in.

  As she had drank me so she might live again. As my blood fortified her body and would strengthen her beyond measure.

  As my care would heal her.

  This little hiccup of fear… it would be forgotten once she had more time to learn how wondrous her bridegroom was.

  And despite fate’s fuckery, one day, Pearl would find me beautiful. For it was not our features that defined what we were, but our shared godhood. And I had spent mine as rationally—as purposefully—as any holy man might. Monitoring legions of vampires while trying to leave them free will, an impossible feat I really did not receive enough praise for.

  She would appreciate that.

  Perhaps that was reason enough not to kill them all? Let them sing my praises and scrape at my feet for her to see.

  And once I calmed, fed, and tended to this mess, I would choose a form to please her. One known by vampirekind the world over. One not so beautiful as to stun, but approachable, real.

  Despite my hold on her wrist, the woman I adored, coveted, and craved above all things fell to her knees before me.

  So unlike the queen she had been.

  “Queens do not kneel, even to kings.” But I wasn't a king. I was a God. And she was not a queen. She was a defanged Daywalker.

  Where was my possessive, violent vixen under all this meek ineptitude?

  Where was the impulsive, warlike beastie—the mirror of our great father?

  Where was the warrior, who the first night I’d taken her to bed had tried to cut my throat? Not that I’d ever faulted her for it. From the day she’d been born, I’d watched her, coveted, peered through the garden walls in which the female offspring of the king were kept, knowing one day I’d be the first man, the only man to have her.

  Not even the eunuchs had been allowed to touch, look upon, or pleasure my Jewel.

  The Jewel of our kingdom—one of dozens of offspring from hundreds of wives, concubines, slaves, and fodder. But she was the daughter of the Queen. Pure-blooded. A prize no intact male, save our father, was allowed to look upon.

  It was even forbidden to me, his favored son. Yet I looked, and I looked often.

  She was my soul, and I was her shadow. As she’d breathed softly in sleep, I’d smelled her hair. When she raged against captivity, I’d witnessed her tempers. As she plotted her violence against a fate she did not crave, I’d unraveled her every attempt to be free.

  And when I spilled my seed—as was my duty—within the conquered women our empire gathered, it was only her face I saw. Only her body I imagined.

  That body that haunted me for millennia.

  Her new form, despite the decay and filth, still smelled the same. Like sunshine and the very garden she’d despised. Which had always amused me, as she’d loved flowers, but only so long as they’d been cut, vased, and set out to die.

  She smelled like life itself. Uncompromising life.

  Troublesome, wondrous princess she’d been.

  Dangerous, passionate, wife stolen from me by death.

  Pure-blooded sister of a bloodline worshiped by the entire known world.

  I’d always admired the incessant and clever attempts to be free of her garden prison before I might claim her and raise her to Queen. That was to be expected, and despite her severe punishments, her every act of insubordination pleased our father greatly. Only a true-hearted Goddess would fight the shackles of luxury for freedom. My docile sisters were left to breed with foreigners and courtiers, their offspring impure. No, only the most determined deserved the role of Queen. Of Goddess.

  My Queen. My Goddess.

  She dared break her maidenhead on an ivory dagger handle. An attempt to diminish her worth and unravel her destiny.

  The knife was delivered to me, blood still drying as a report was made. Though it was long before this world was born, I still remember that first taste of her when I licked it clean. A memory worthy of a smile.

  She had dropped the weapon, one that had been stolen from our father—the king of the known world—and smuggled into the harem. Clattering right at the feet of the head eunuch. Blood was said to still be running down her thighs.

  And right there, she had lain upon her back, spread her legs, and shown the damage with a grin of triumph… to a guardian forbidden to so much as look, a half-man who could not tear his eyes away.

  As if it would not make me love her all the more.

  As if I was not to have the eunuch blinded for seeing the precious cunt of my bride.

  Naughty vixen. We would have fun with that dagger. I couldn’t even recall the amount of times I fucked her with the handle once she’d learned of the physical pleasure she would only ever know under my touch.

  That is, once I turned her body into the woman she was born to be.

  It was the very reason I left that dagger on her pillow the first night I dragged my new, hissing bride to our chambers.

  The first time she had ever left the seclusion and safety of the gardens to learn the truth of men.

  The first time I poured seed into her womb. As our father had poured his seed into our mother. And his before him, and his before him, in a line of kings and queens long forgotten by history—vaguely evoked as old gods by modern man, who lived and died long before the pyramids.

  They were not gods. I was the only God.

  “Please stop looking at me that way.” Blushing, her cheeks as rosy as her nipples, she meekly tried and failed to remove her wrist from my grip.

  As if I might be capable of turning away from such beauty. Though perhaps the rather large erection pointing her way was a bit insensitive… considering.

  I’d never hurt her, but I would transform her. Through tears, gasps, frantic kicking, and ultimate release.

  But not today. Not like this.

  Not when even after all these years I still remember that… it had taken her some time to love me eons ago.

  In that, I was prepared to reevaluate my approach.

  These days, I was nothing if not a gentleman.

  In my formative years, my father had taught me the ways of our people, of our Queens, of their power and frustrations. How to cow them as a man must a woman, how to physically please in the process, so they might be safe in their furious release and bear strong sons. The strongest sons were always made in battle. Their bodies growing under the changing h
eart of resentful yet passion-drugged wife.

  Until resentment bloomed into respect upon seeing that first bloody baby.

  Until it became more than passion shared between a lusty warrior and a strong-willed woman.

  Until it became love.

  But such was the world long lost.

  Such savageries were no longer considered romantic or rightful in this time.

  I would not rape her.

  This time, I would woo instead.

  3

  Pearl

  Three weeks. I knew it had been three weeks, not only by the rise and fall of the sun outside my windows—windows, as in more than one—but because something called a digital clock also confirmed the hours and date. Three weeks and I had not left that room, despite the fact that the door was unlocked.

  A cozy room, with simple furnishings and warm cream walls.

  A room with a feature, a luxury I could hardly describe—a private bathroom.

  A private bathroom, where no line for the entire floor collected. Where the warm water never ran out.

  Though when I locked myself in the bathing space—who enjoyed such luxuries?—upon leaving, freshly cleaned, covered from neck to toes, I found one wall had been papered. Little flowers, exactly like the paper from my apartment.

  Which I now understood had been demolished and something called a mall had been put up in its place.

  The exactness of that wallpaper, even the way it was faded and dingy, frightened me.

  The exactness of all the things left for me, as if the demon who kept me knew my every secret, was precisely why I knew I was still in hell. This was all a trick of Lucifer.

  Even the priest, as he heard my confession, looked at me as if my ravings of demons, of the black abyss, were only a trick of my mind.

  I wept when I told him why I was here, that I had killed a man who had followed me home from work and left his body in the snow. That I was damned. His eyes grew sad. “Chadwick Parker died in 1923. That was practically one hundred years ago. What you blame yourself for... it isn’t possible.”