Mona Lisa Blossoming

Chapter Eighteen

Ashes scattered to the ground, dusting over my knees, coating my bloodstained hands. His clothes lay on the floor like an empty shroud. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes.

Silence filled the room like a tomb, broken only by my shuddering breath. Carnage had swept the room with a clean, ruthless hand, piles of ashes all that remained of so many. I was surrounded by death and felt as if I had died also. Wished that I had, since living hurt so much.

Then the sweet, clean burn of rage filled my empty shell, giving me a driving purpose to focus upon. So that I thought of only one thing.

"Mona Louisa is mine," I rasped harshly, jerkily, looking up at the High Lord.

He crouched down beside me so that his dark compassionate eyes were level with mine. "She is much stronger than you now," he said gently.

"Mine," I reiterated with a flat, trembling voice.

"She will kill you," Blaec said simply.

My eyes held his gaze fiercely so that there would be no misunderstanding. "After I die, she's all yours. But she is mine until I depart this earth." I stretched out my shaking hands, coated with the dark redness of Gryphon's blood, and the words came to me from somewhere deep inside, some place old, long before my birth, a hazy past filled with the most base primal instincts: desire to own, to possess, to conquer. The words came tolling out of me. "I claim Mona Louisa's life as my blood right."

The words echoed, trembled in the air. Blood right. A claim that seemed to hold meaning for the High Lord. Bowing his head, Blaec nodded.

We left that house of death and stepped into the dark whispering night, tracking our prey where she had fled into the woods. I smiled with cold satisfaction. The stab wound in Mona Louisa's back had prevented her from flying away, from taking her vulture form. She was grounded until the torn tissue knitted together.

Deep in the woods, ahead of us, Mona Louisa's slow heartbeat sounded in the distance and the scent of her blood drifted to me like tracking beacons. We headed north after that heartbeat, after that obscene sound of life that still was and should not be. So many dead because of her. It was only just that she join them.

I threw myself into mindless pursuit, trusting to instinct, to primal senses to find my way, leaping over trees and bushes, springing blindly after her, after that beckoning heartbeat, landing wherever I landed, on fallen logs, on the moist rich ground, in clawing brushes, soaring over rocks and boulders, only to spring up again, throwing myself blindly forward, ever onward at full speed, letting that unthinking, natural part of myself that was more animal than human guide me onto paths unknown.

The High Lord was a silent shadow beside me, pure movement, no sound. No betraying breath or pumping of blood to mark his presence.

We were gaining on her. She'd been spoiled by the ease of taking wing and soaring high in the sky. On the ground, Mona Louisa moved more cautiously. She made her way carefully in the thick woods, less experienced in the forest than above it. She moved not with the dangerous speed I forced upon myself, the blind leaps of faith I took. And why should she? She wanted to live. I did not care if I did or not. All that filled me was that single driving purpose, that pervading anger.

Cold rage. I'd never understood the term before. Never thought that rage could be anything but hot. But rage can be cold. Like flames that burned so hotly they edged from orange to cool blue, from rash heat into cold fire. It was thinking rage. Anger, pain, sorrow did not fill you, overwhelm you. You were dispassionate, detached from your emotion, as if you were already dead. My heart was. When she had ripped Gryphon's heart out of his chest, it felt as if mine had died as well.

Almost there. I closed in on that slow, slow heartbeat, my only goal to make that beating stop. I drew my sword, called the dagger from its sheath. "Face me, bitch," I whispered and knew that she heard me.

With one last bounding spring, I fell down upon Mona Louisa, her blond hair glowing bright under moonshine, waving in the darkness like a beacon of light. She turned her face up to me, and I fell upon her with a soundless cry, aiming my sword at her neck, my dagger driving for her heart.

At the last possible moment she turned fully and, with blinding quickness, heaved a melon-sized boulder at me that she had hidden in her arms. Going downward, I was unable to avoid it. Like a cannoned missile, it struck my drawn sword aside, knocking it from my hand. The heavy rock smashed into my chest with crushing force. The pain was blinding, breath-stealing. Hot, searing agony ripped through my torso from the blow, and then once again as I hit the ground with jarring force. Before I could catch my breath, I felt her hands on me, gripping my hair, grabbing the back of my pants, lifting me up and heaving me into the air. I crashed against the huge trunk of a giant cypress tree, the rough bark shredding my cheek, my arm, my entire left side.

I hit the ground, half of me numb. I'd lost my dagger and wondered for a moment if I'd stabbed myself. My chest felt as if it were on fire, as if purgatory had decided not to wait until I died and was roasting me now. I glanced down to make sure. Nope, no dagger sticking out of my chest. Just felt that way. Broken ribs tended to do that. They hurt like the dickens.

Mona Louisa's battle shriek tore through the quiet of the night as she rushed me with blinding quickness. She may have been strong, beyond Monère strong, but she'd obviously not had much fighting experience. Experienced fighters didn't scream and warn you that they were coming.

I lay there waiting for her to come to me and she did. She threw herself at me, reaching for me with clawed fingers. I took a trick out of her own book and waited until she'd almost reached me. When it was too late for her to check her rush, I brought both legs up and donkey-kicked her in the stomach and chest. The jarring impact of stopping dead all that weight and momentum ripped another fiery pain through my chest, but the satisfaction of hearing that whoosh of breath and glimpsing the surprise in Mona Louisa's face was worth it. Seeing her go flying back and smash up against a palmetto tree, hearing the groaning wood crack and tilt as she hit it, was even better.

The stunned look that swept across her face and the twisting rage that flushed into an ugly red mask made me think that it was the first time she'd ever been hit in her life. Made me want to hit her more.

Pushing back against the tree that had broken my fall, I climbed back onto my feet, hunching over a little. "Did that hurt, bitch? Why don't you come back for more?" I taunted, mainly because I couldn't rush her. Heck, I doubted I could even take one step toward her.

With a screeching cry, she flew at me again. I got in one good swing that snapped her head back nicely before she grabbed me and tossed me up so I soared twenty feet in the air again. I was getting used to the feeling of flying. Landing, though, was a real bitch. Sure enough, a tree trunk tried to break me in half again. Holy sweet mother of God… I almost passed out from the pain.

I saw Blaec, or I thought I did, in my wavering vision. A hazy bronze shape peeping out from beneath the shadow of a tree, a question on his face.

"No." I shook my head stubbornly to clear my vision, to shake off the pain. "She's mine!"

And then she was on me, her breath in my face heavy with the smell of my own blood, imprisoning my arms, crushing them to my sides as she lifted me up with almost effortless ease and slammed me back against the heavy, solid tree trunk with pounding force, her teeth drawn back in a furious snarl. "You are nothing!" she screamed. Thunk! Thunk! Beating me like a board she was trying to break. "Nothing!" Rough bark tore into my back, snagged my hair. Blood trickled down, soaking into my pants.

"You are as weak as your lover!" she hissed. "Killing him was so easy."

The blackness that had been edging my vision cleared at her words, and I began to struggle in silent, fierce earnestness, twisting in her grasp.

Mona Louisa laughed and slammed me upright, back against the tree, pinning my wrists low with her shackling hands, restraining my legs with the press of her lower body against me. "Killing you will be even easier," she crooned, her breath warm against me. "And much sweeter."

Her teeth lengthened. Rearing back, she struck hard, her fangs sinking deep into the left side of my neck, the clean, unbroken side. I screamed as she drank me down. Tried… tried so hard with everything that I was to break free. But I could not. She was too strong. All I could do was twist my hands, wet from Gryphon's blood. They slid barely, just barely in her cinching grasp so that my palms turned outward, facing toward her.

Her loud swallowing sounds echoed in my ears as I reached out with that other part of me, with a willing, Come to me. My palms throbbed, but either the distance was too great or I was too weak. The lost silver dagger, the dropped sword did not fly to my hands. They remained empty, impotent. My vision was hazing, sounds growing distant as more of me flowed into her. All I could see above me now was the moon, three-quarters full, a neutral presence in the sky, a silent witness. Help me, Goddess. Hear your daughter's plea.

I forced my last conscious will into my hands, into those mounds of pearls embedded deep in my palms. The Goddess's Tears. I angled them up to the dark, velvety sky and begged: Give me strength. Renew me.

I didn't just open myself to the moon, welcome it, and let it flow down. I pulled it down, called it to me, demanded it. Give me justice! But it wasn't the moon's rays I pulled forth.

The Goddess's Tears trembled, gave one giant throb. Then another. They began to glow, twin pearls of light breaking the darkness of the night. Heat filled me. Power swept into me like a gentle spilling light. Mona Louisa's head suddenly jerked up, her eyes panicked and wide. "What is that? What are you doing?"

A light radiance sparked deep within her, like a candle lit by a match, the wick catching aflame. My hands pulsed, my entire body throbbed with the power, with the calling. And I drew more light from her. Pulled it into me.

She released me as if touching me suddenly burned her. She tried to draw away, step back. But I held her now. Energy rushed through me, her radiance spilled into me, filling me, renewing me, siphoning her power, making it mine. My palms pressed against her arms, imprisoning her, holding her to me gently like a sweet lover as I drained her of her power, of her beauty, of her youth and vitality. As I drained her of life itself. And the power that rushed into me and flooded me, stretched me with seductive heat was better than Basking. Better than sex.

Her essence rilled me, poured into me, kept coming in a steady streaming, a steady draining. My skin felt as if it had become porous. Her energy, her aura, her force flowed over my skin like thick honey and then seeped into every open pore. Was sucked in. And I watched her ebb, fade away. I watched myself grow stronger, brighter.

Power streamed into me until I felt as if I were a paper lantern. As if I had swallowed down the moon and it glowed within me, spilling from me with such blinding luminescence that the forest was ablaze with wild, glorious splendor, lighting up the night.

I watched Mona Louisa shrivel before me, her skin becoming tight, thicker, leathery, all moisture wrung from her. Her flesh melted, was sucked away until she was nothing but thin wrinkly skin draped over dried bones. Youth and beauty vanished. She became an old crone who had lived too long and yet still clung to life, her bulging eyes white and terrified. All that remained of her old self was her bright yellow hair, still shiny and silky and long, like a wig worn by a mannequin. Even her screams had dried up, as if all moisture in her vocal chords had vaporized and all she was capable of emitting now was a high keening sound. A wailing that did not stop.

I extracted the very last drop of her light into me like a final drop of sticky molasses. And yet she still was… screaming, keening, crying, always crying. "Why won't you die, bitch?"

She lay there on the ground where she had fallen, too weak to move, a drained bundle of sticks, an undying corpse.

"She has become more than Monère now." The High Lord's quiet voice came from a careful distance away. His eyes were neutral once more, his face inscrutable.

"Because she drank Halcyon's blood," I said. "Demon dead blood."

"Yes."

"Even demons can be killed." I stretched forth my hands, palms out. But still my weapons did not answer my call. Not for lack of power then. Simply too far away. My eyes fell to some nearby rocks and narrowed in thought. It wasn't just knives that could cut.

Smashing one heavy stone against another, I broke them open. One large piece of stone had fallen apart with a sharp glistening edge six inches long. Picking that up, I walked to where Mona Louisa lay. She rolled her eyes sideways to look up at me, and the movement of her eyeballs shifting in her sockets made a dry sucking sound. Dropping to my knees by her head, with her terrified eyes wide upon me, with that unceasing high, dry wailing buzzing in my ears like an irritating gnat, I raised the razor-sharp piece of stone up over my head with both hands. "Die," I muttered. "I want you to die."

The knife-sharp stone edge came down hard with my full shining power behind it. It sliced through skin, broke through bones.

I looked down upon my work. The dried-up hag was three-fourths decapitated.

"Oops, my aim was a little off. Once more, shall we." The rock blade came smashing down again and her severed head rolled off and came to rest a couple of yards away, rocking in the dry leaves on the base of her head, her long blond hair spilling around her like a yellow cape, part of it wrapped around her lower face and bloody, sticky neck stub. That high keening had stopped. Her mouth yawned ajar as if on silent hinges. No sound emerged. Her blue eyes were open and aware.

"What does it take to kill you, bitch?" I asked, breathing heavily, gazing down into those frightened knowing eyes. There were no handy Hell hounds here to feed her to.

"If I may?" Blaec asked, polite and distant.

I looked up at the High Lord of Hell, gazed at that dark, inscrutable, elegant face. He, of all people, would know how to kill that demon dead part of her.

"Go ahead." I stepped back and let Blaec come around to the front of Mona Louisa, the head part of her, that is.

He crouched down, his shirt torn, his pants ripped, with the smell of blood on him. But his skin beneath was whole, healed, even though his face was strained with fatigue. One bronze finger reached out and touched Mona Louisa as her eyes rolled toward him in terror, as her mouth moved open and shut in a mute parody of speech. The tip of his sharp fingernail came to rest lightly on Mona Lisa's forehead, between her eyes so that they crossed together inward as she tried to watch him. But all that lethal nail did was touch her. And I wondered if physical connection made it easier for the Demon Lord's power to flow.

A pulse of power so strong that I felt it shake the air reverberated through me, and Mona Louisa's rolling eyes closed.

I spoke softly. "What did you do?"

"Destroyed her mind. That psychic part of her."

He'd killed her mental power, that part of her that would have allowed Mona Louisa to become demon dead and exist in Hell for as long as that power continued. "What becomes of her now?"

"Now she will simply fade back into the darkness."

Another pulse of power and her head exploded into ashes, and her body puffed into dust.

Blaec stood as I moved next to him to stare down at the twin pile of ashes, her severed head and her body.

"You've killed Mona Louisa and all her guards," I said, my voice empty as I turned to look at him. "Will you kill me now, High Lord? I am the only one remaining who knows the value of a demon dead's blood. That drinking it can multiply a Monère's power, endowing them with demon dead strength."

"And if I wished to?" Blaec asked. He looked tired but still strong.

"I would not fight you" was my quiet reply, even though I still gleamed with my stolen light, my stolen power.

He smiled at me with a kindness that would have made me cry had I any feelings left. "There is no need, child. Your secret should be ransom enough to keep mine."

"What secret?"

Blaec gestured to my hands with a long nail. "Your Mortal Draining. An ability I had heard only in tales as a child. I had thought them merely that. Tales. I will keep your secret if you will keep mine."

"Why would I want to keep this ability secret?"

"Because nothing then will stop the other Queens from killing you or your brother."

It was the mention of my brother that made me flinch. "More than they want to kill me now?"

"Oh, yes. Now you are a mere inconvenience. If they knew that you were capable of Mortal Draining, of taking their power, their very life into yourself, then you would become the gravest danger to them. To them all."

I sighed. Secrets. So many of them to keep. They seemed senseless, with no meaning at the moment.

Blaec turned, put a comforting arm over my shoulder, and we started walking back. "Come, child. My task is complete. I am old and weary and eager to return home."

With Mona Louisa dead and gone, my focus was lost. She'd said that revenge was not sweet, that it was bloody. She was wrong. It was sweet. For one fleeting, glorious moment you felt incredible satisfaction. Then it was gone, empty, and you had to go on living. The power high that filled me with her light had faded, and all I tasted now were bitter ashes.

I drove Blaec in Mona Louisa's stolen van back to New Orleans as dawn beat back the darkness. At the white misty portal, I turned to the High Lord. "Let me come with you."

His tone was kind but final. "No."

"Is Gryphon down in Hell?"

"I do not know, child, but he felt strong. He should have made the transition."

I clutched the High Lord's arm. "I have to see him."

Gently, he disengaged my hand. "You cannot, for his sake. Think, child. Gryphon has just experienced a tragic loss, of life itself. Those newly dead have no desire to see the living when their loss is so keenly fresh. It takes time, sometimes a great deal of it for them to adjust to their new existence. Seeing those they once loved, who are still alive while they are not, would be painfully cruel."

My eyes clung to his. "I have to know if he made it."

"I will send you word," he promised.

I would have to be satisfied with that.

Gryphon's medallion chain slid out, clinking, as I pulled it from my pocket. It was the only thing I had retrieved from that house. I pressed it into Blaec's hand. "Give Gryphon this for me."

"I will." Taking the necklace from me, he walked into the mist. It swallowed him up and both winked out of existence.

I waited a few heartbeats, then went to where the portal had been. Felt for it, tried to sense it. But nothing was there. I felt along the walls, walked back and forth across the spot where it had been in that deserted alley. But it was gone, truly gone, and I could not call it forth.

Nothing left to do now but go home.