Chapter 2 – Empusa
EMPUSA
We go into the woods slowly. With each step I take, I stretch my instincts out.
I feel strange, and it takes me a moment to recognize that it's because my heart is beating so fast. In the Underworld, my mother never seemed to be afraid.
Whatever dark creatures Hades sent to torture us, she handled them.
I never told her, but I was always afraid.
Most kids grow up hearing stories about the big, bad monsters under their beds.
I grew up watching beasts beat the shit out of my mother, while she did her best to protect me.
Sometimes a blow would hit me. Sometimes I’d be thrown back.
But the pain was nothing in comparison to watching my mother get hurt.
Watching her spit blood onto the floor of our cell.
Afterward, she’d tell me she was fine. But I’d tear my clothes and bind her wounds the best I could.
When she fell asleep, I’d wish my powers included the ability to heal her, and I pretended they did.
I’d stroke her hair and hum softly to tune out the sounds of other prisoners screaming.
It felt like the most I could do, and yet, it wasn’t enough.
Since coming to the surface, I’ve never been the prey. I forgot what it was like to feel my heart racing. Until now.
Except, I’m not prey. Not to anyone. If someone thinks otherwise, I’ll prove to them why I’m worse than any nightmare they’ve ever had.
“What’s your name?” the human male purrs, drawing my attention to him. He’s already got a thumb in the belt of his pants and a tiny, poorly hidden erection.
Poor tiny-dicked human.
“People call me Em,” I say.
“And what’s M short for?” he asks, even though his eyes say he doesn’t care.
“Nothing. Just Em.”
We make it to the shadowy woods behind the bar.
There’s just enough light between the streetlamp at the back of the bar and the moon and the stars to make out the human’s face.
But it’s not his face that interests me as I reach out and touch him; it’s that where my fingers land, I can look beneath his surface.
A toxic, black color rises like smoke out of his skin.
Only I can see the smoke when I do this, but it’s my way of seeing how dark of a soul my target has.
This guy is worse than I ever imagined. He doesn’t just harass women at bars. He hurts them.
And now, he’s going to hurt.
I use my other hand to push him back against a tree. His cocky smile falls away, and there’s something dangerous in his eyes that surprises me. Doesn’t this man just want to take advantage of a woman? If he’s getting that, what reason would he have to be angry?
Some unexpected part of me says to walk away.
That something about tonight, this place, or this man is wrong.
But I think of him bothering the women inside, and about his toxic soul, and know that I can’t just leave him here.
Then, in some strange way, every evil thing he does from this point forward will be on my shoulders.
At least that’s how it feels.
So, I release a slow breath and try to ignore the evil in his eyes, but the look continues to darken.
“You ready?” I ask, but my voice comes out harsh.
His mouth twists and his eyes flash with rage. “Yes.”
Suddenly, his hand closes around my throat and my air is cut off. There are a few seconds of panic before I remember that if this man thinks he’s going to murder some poor girl in the woods, he has no idea what he’s about to face.
I feel my claws starting to grow, and I know my skin is heating up and my eyes are starting to glow. But he doesn’t react. Instead, his hand continues to tighten around my throat, and I decide just to cut the damned thing off.
Suddenly, bright electricity crackles over his skin and down his arm. It hits me with all the force of a truck, and I go flying back, striking the trunk of a tree with such force that I know I had to have broken a bone. My entire body aches, and I finally manage to suck in a deep, panicked breath.
I hear him moving toward me and scramble to my feet.
“You’re not human!” I gasp out at him.
“No, I’m not,” he says, his voice low and husky as if watching my pain turns him on.
“I am Almops, little human. My father was the great Posideon. And since escaping the Underworld, I’ve continued my mission of enjoying the pleasures that pain can bring.
Tonight, it’s your turn to fill my desire with the screams of your pain. ”
A monster escaped from the Underworld? That rings a bell. But this creature and I aren’t the same. And I’m going to be the one to enjoy his screams of pain.
I open my hands, slowly letting my claws continue to grow.
He doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he laughs, opening his hands as lightning crackles all around us. I can sense the power from the electricity. I can sense how badly this man wants to watch me burn from the inside out.
Maybe he’ll be successful. But Zeus knows that he won’t escape this fight unscathed.
Suddenly, it feels like the trees are alive. Or at least the shadows seem to be. A man with grey wings comes jumping out of a tree, falling between me and my opponent.
Almops’s eyes widen, and then he directs his electricity at the new man.
I see it crackle over the winged man’s skin, lighting him up in the strangest way I’ve ever seen.
But it’s like the electricity can’t touch him.
It crackles over the huge man, flowing over his skin like he’s a god himself.
And yet, there’s no obvious reason to explain why the monster’s powers don’t seem to be working on him.
Because I know gods, and this man isn’t one.
Instead of the man reacting in pain, the hulking man starts toward the bastard.
My heart races even faster, and I feel cold fear roll down my skin. This man, whatever he is, should be running away right about now, not toward danger.
That’s what idiots like me are for.
“Don’t!” I shout. “He’ll hurt you!”
The strange man freezes, then slowly turns to look back at me.
A gasp escapes my lips. He’s…I don’t know. Made of stone. Stone. Stone…like a gargoyle. But he isn’t like the gargoyle who often guarded my mother and me. That gargoyle made me nervous. This one, I don’t know how to feel about.
He looks like a fucking god carved out of stone, with a face too beautiful to explain. I don’t know what color his eyes and hair are. But I know his jaw is cut perfectly, and his body is built like a titan.
I also remember what my mom told me. Most gargoyles hunt monsters like me and kill them.
Is he here as my friend or foe? The truth is, I have no idea. And that’s harder to deal with than Almops. Almops I want to kill. He deserves to die. I don’t know the same about this gargoyle, which means I can’t hurt him until I know.
The gargoyle looks back at Almops and heads toward him.
“Gargoyle,” Almops hisses. “If you think you’re going to hurt me, you have no idea what I’m capable of…” Suddenly, the color of the lightning turns red, and I hear the gargoyle scream.
I don’t think; I just act. I launch toward Almops, sprinting around the gargoyle, and slam Almops to the ground.
It feels like knocking over a brick wall, and my back screams in protest, but I don’t let myself pause for even a second.
I roll off of him, knowing that knocking this man down isn’t enough.
Almops turns that red lightning onto me, but I spring away from him, just barely avoiding it.
He keeps trying to hit me, but I keep moving, zigzagging as I try to circle him without getting killed.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that his powers might be enough to end my miserable life, and I’m not going out that easily.
Not today, asshole.
Another dark shape drops from the sky. Another fucking gargoyle. It’s an equally huge creature that dives at Almops, but then the red lightning hits him, and he’s screaming too, collapsing to his knees as birds lift off from the trees around us.
And then, I’m there. I slice off one of Almops’s hands with my claws in one quick movement.
The lightning stops. Darkness suddenly surrounds us, and then he begins to shriek.
“My hand! You cut off my fucking hand!”
“And that’s just the beginning,” I growl, getting ready to strike again.
He lifts his other hand toward me. I see the spark of red just seconds before someone knocks me onto the ground. I almost attack on instinct, and then I’m being lifted off the ground and into the air.
I raise my clawed hand, feeling the blood running down it, and my gaze connects with the man who’s holding me. He’s definitely not a gargoyle. Behind him are the most delicate-looking wings I’ve ever seen in my life, and they glow like fire.
“A phoenix?”
His gaze jerks down to me, and my breath catches.
His eyes are like none I’ve seen before.
Maybe some fool would call them hazel, but they are more than hazel.
They hold gold flecks that dance against the pale blue background.
They are breathtaking. And that’s just his eyes.
The rest of him is even better. His hair is a dirty-blond color that I instantly like, left a little long on the top, and it looks like he’d styled it, like some pretty boy in a commercial.
Except he’s too big and too muscular to be a model. He’s not as big as the gargoyles by any means. Those two are like fucking football players, so big that doors aren’t properly made to accommodate their sizes. But he’s still big.
“I’m Conley,” he says with a hesitant smile. “And you are way too comfortable with all of this.”
His gaze goes to my claws, and his brows rise.
“I’m not exactly human,” I whisper, even though he clearly already picked up on that.
Hell, maybe I should have waited to say that until I was on the ground. If Phoenix-boy is working with the gargoyles, that might make us enemies by proxy. But I guess if it did, I’d know when I hit the ground.
“Neither am I,” he says with a shrug, surprising me.
And then, reality comes crashing back in.
“We have to go back!”
Why did I even let him take me? Why did I get distracted by his good looks? That’s not the purpose of my life, not even in my wildest dreams.
“Back?” he asks, looking confused.
“That asshole could hurt the gargoyles with his powers!”
He shrugs again. “They can handle it.”
Or they won’t, and their lives will be lost because of me. Because I led a monster into the woods and didn’t have the stones to take him out.
My mom was hurt over and over in her attempts to protect me. I’d never again let someone be hurt to protect me. And that includes these guys.
I retract my claws and glare at him. “Take me back. Now!”
“Why?” He looks confused.
Maybe I’m a little confused too. “They don’t have dark souls… I have to…I have to get back and keep them safe.”
“We were there to rescue you,” he tells me as if I’m not very bright.
Like I’m some maiden who needs rescuing...
“Take me back,” I tell him, and there’s a threat in my voice this time.
He studies me for a second, and then we switch directions.
He flies faster, and I have to hold back a shriek as I finally look down at the woods far below us.
My heart is back to racing like crazy. I realize that I’ve got a death grip on his shirt a few moments too late, then force myself to release him.
We shoot through a space between trees and land and he lands, slowly letting my feet touch the ground, but still holding me close. Not far in front of us, I can see the red lightning.
I shove out of his arms and start toward the light.
He grabs my wrist, and I look back at him.
Our eyes lock for a painfully long moment where I feel like he’s evaluating me, deciding if I’m just going to get myself killed.
I give him that one second before, regardless of what conclusion he comes to, I’m jumping back into the fight.
But then, he releases me, and I bolt straight toward danger, trying not to think about what the phoenix saw when he looked at me.
What I see next takes me by surprise. Three gargoyles are on their knees, with the psycho blasting deep red lightning at them like he’s trying to shatter them.
I don’t think; I just act. My claws are already elongating before I leap onto his back. He makes a small sound, and then I slash his throat.
The lightning stops. Almops tumbles onto his knees, and then down onto the ground.
A human would bleed out and die very quickly from this wound. A near-immortal monstrous child of a god would heal. Eventually. And I’m not someone who lets my enemies get a second crack at me.
And yet, I need to get the hell out of here.
“You’ll remove his head?” I ask the phoenix as soon as he comes through the trees, even though he’s staring at me like he doesn’t know what I am.
The phoenix just keeps glancing between me and the asshole with wide eyes, while the only sound is that of the gargoyles gasping in pained breaths. Damn it! Staying here with angry gargoyles is not a good idea, but neither is trusting someone else to do what needs to be done.
I feel annoyance rush through me as I grab my dagger from my belt and start sawing his throat.
When his head finally comes clean, I’m covered in blood.
I toss the head to the side and wince as my back screams in protest again.
I’ll have to check out what the jerk did when I’m alone.
After cleaning my knife off in the grass, I resheath it, then try to wipe as much of the blood from my hands and arms as I can.
“What the hell are you?” I hear one of the gargoyles growl.
He’s trying to get to his feet but keeps falling back down. I can’t quite see this one’s face in the shadows, but I can hear the threat in his voice. The phoenix goes to help them, but the instant he turns his back on me, I do the only thing I can think of--I take off running.
They shout after me, but I don’t hear anyone following me.
Still, I don’t slow. I make it to my car in the parking lot, a car I “borrowed” from one of the assholes I killed, and race out of the parking lot.
I might not know if the gargoyles have dark souls, even if I suspect they don’t, but I do know that they’ll think I have one. And the last thing I want to do is to try to kill three gargoyles and a phoenix.
I’m tough, but no one is that tough.
Still, the whole drive out of that shit town, I keep glancing out my rearview mirror at the sky. Chances are they’re cleaning up the body in the woods. But when they’re done, I have no doubt they’ll come for me.
And I’ve spent too many years being prey. I’m not about to become prey again. No matter how handsome the gargoyles might be.