Chapter 24 #2
The demon would pay her no mind, dropping the carcass from its hold as it fixed its gaze in the direction of the ship that was leaving their shores.
It released an ear-splitting scream, a scream that seemed to contain multiple volumes from multiple women, loud enough to shatter glass.
It contained the screeches of multiple generations.
The sound made Houria’s ears pop and her child wail in agony, forcing her to close her eyes and hunch over in a desperate attempt to shield both their ears.
When it abruptly stopped, resuming the unnatural stillness of that morning, Houria raised her head.
The thing—she—was gone, as if she hadn’t been there at all. As if the entire thing had been an illusion. Except the soldier’s headless body was still there.
Duarte’s orders had been panicked and yelled, interspersed with grunts of pain as a captain attempted to bind his wounds while the ship moved away from the citadel and towards the open sea.
From his position, he could see soldiers—that he had abandoned—jump into the water.
The deep reds of the uniform for the Sultan’s forces lay just beyond his abandoned men, swords drawn and chanting the Sultan’s name as they spilled onto the docks.
The morning sunlight had only just begun to brighten their way ahead, and they increased their speed.
Dropping the sails as the morning breeze picked up, injured men were carried into the cabins below.
Enemy ships were spotted approaching from the north, but if they were fast, Duarte knew they could narrowly escape. The two behind him, however?
He would consider it a sacrifice worthy of remembrance.
The dozen accounts of what unfolded on the ship all conflicted with one another, but all began in the same way.
Aicha had crawled on board, cloak soaked from the salted water. Undetected. No one knew who the first victim had been, just that one bloodcurdling scream had been followed by another, blood spurting from the body of a faceless soldier that no man seemed to be able to recognise.
She had towered over all of them, hooves prominent beneath her cloak and her steps heavy as they boomed across the wooden deck.
One had drawn his sword, charging forward to attack, but she had gripped his arm and halted his advance.
Lifting him into the air and gripping onto his shoulder with her other taloned hand, she yanked with such force that it tore from his body.
Tossing him aside, she continued, obsidian eyes flickering across each man in search of the one she had vowed to make suffer unimaginable agony and a slow, tortuous death.
When an arrow pierced her shoulder, she roared loudly, swiping her claws across a soldier’s throat and slashing it open; blood gushed from the wound.
When the blood soaked into the decking, darkening the wood, and torn limbs lay strewn across the entirety of the ship, they began jumping overboard.
She found Duarte cowering below deck, unable to move without the assistance of others.
They had abandoned him. Aicha gifted him a smile, full, plush lips too wide for her face, canines overgrown and sharpened.
Her black eyes were bright, shining in the way that the spaces between stars did, and her cheeks were flushed enough that she almost looked human.
Almost. It was the smile of someone who took pleasure in horrors, who lived without the fear of a god that could punish.
And it curled Duarte’s stomach to know that the smile was for him.
“Please,” he begged, the first time he had done so since he was a child. “Please, have mercy.” His knees collided with the floor, heavy and unsteady as the pain of his injuries crept in, weakening him.
His bright eyes glistened with tears, held at bay with the last few remnants of dignity he had left.
A flicker of a memory cast through his mind, of him looking down at Fouad Sanhaji in a similar position, begging for his eldest to be spared from the gallows.
For the beatings to cease, and to—at least—allow him a peaceful execution.
It came with the dawning realisation that Aicha—or whatever she had become—would fail to show mercy, just as he had done.
“Please.”
Something low and menacing rumbled from her chest, as if displeased by his begging.
Her movements were quick, and he had barely blinked when she pressed into him.
Her head and shoulders hovered above him and arms wrapped around him tightly in a way that could have been mistaken for an intimate embrace.
He felt her hands grip his head, and her black eyes bore into his own as he helplessly watched her search his face.
Duarte felt her gaze shift into something almost like warmth.
Relief bloomed in his chest and his vision glazed over.
Fear transformed into enamour as she held him tight.
“Thank you,” he choked out, certain that this was her parting gift to him. His tears fell. “Thank you.”
But small mercy was short-lived, and he realised with horror that she was taunting him with the peaceful ending she could have given him.
Too much flashed in her eyes; too much pain, too much horror, too much rage.
All stemming from his own hands. Her grip became tighter, and he felt her claws extend as she broke his skin.
“No— No—please!” he screamed, his begging short-lived as her fingers dived into his mouth.
When she pulled him apart, she began with the jaw; ripping it away until blood spurted and his tongue hung out.
Streaks of crimson coated her face, and she licked it from her lips, the act slow, tantalising enough to have been seductive. If it had not been blood.
She bit into his tongue, and he could only stare as the ability to scream was stolen from him.
Soldiers hidden behind barrels and hammocks watched in horrified silence as she used her teeth to rip away chunks of his flesh with purpose, as if she had been a sailor lost at sea, starved of food.
When they returned home, their version of events would be muttered erratically, nonsensical, and riddled with fear.
A horror story to be told only in the dead of night, a monster in the dark for children to fear. A tale of evil.