Scarlet Dusk (13 page)

Then, with a wheezing intake and a vulgar expulsion of clotted, black blood across Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s chamber floors, Utukku began to laugh.

Taken aback by this—his victim’s exuberant cackles rolling ever-freely despite his nearly totally decayed body—Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband took a cautious step back.

Utukku’s shattered ankle shifted and
pop
ped back into place, the meat around it beginning to thicken and shift to a healthier shade. Still laughing, the creature stood. Though the effects of the decay spell had taken their irreversible toll on Utukku’s tunic—the dye having bled out and what remained of the wool looking tattered and mangy—and the jewelry had all-but rotted and melted out of its original form, the creature was undeniably reversing the effects of Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s spell.

The Liche, overwhelmed by the spectacle, dropped to his knees and begged to know how such a thing was possible.

Utukku’s laughter calmed, replaced by an absent chuckle and a condescending and ongoing shaking of his head. He’d called Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband a pathetic child then; comparing his magic to a renegade peasant’s eager flaunting of a talisman with no clue as to how it worked. Waving an arm towards the door—pointing to the remains of the massacre he’d left in the hall outside the Liche’s chambers—he reminded him of all the servants he’d slaughtered just then; all the blood he’d taken into himself. He pointed off towards the side-chamber that Arezoo had retreated to, explaining that her orgasmic energy was
just
as nourishing for his kind. He taunted Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband, scoffing at his beloved death-magic and countering that death was, each and every day, trumped and cycled by new life. His laughter doubled over once more as he called attention to the thirteen he’d killed once more.

The blood—the very
life
—of thirteen of Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s servants coursed through his body; the combined energies of their terror
and
Arezoo’s climax just as revitalizing.

Chortling, Utukku asked Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband how he intended to cast a single death spell when the lives of so many welled within his body.

And, with that, Utukku took a long, gnarled, grayed fingernail and pressed it to his forehead—piercing through the dried, dead husk of skin—and began to drag it straight down, over his nose and bisecting his wicked, grinning lips; down his throat and further past his chest, splitting through wool and flesh alike as he went. The self-inflicted and ever-growing wound widened as the makeshift claw passed, sprouting the same vile, dark fluid he’d vomited earlier, and, as he reached the upper region of his loins, he let out a deep, relieved sigh and withdrew the talon from his grayed flesh. Eyeing the clotted, rancid residue on his fingertip, Utukku sucked the mess into his mouth—smirking at Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s retch at the display—before working his fingertips into either side of the part at his forehead and beginning to peel them apart.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s eyes widened in shock as Utukku pulled away the dead, gray flesh that his magic had inflicted upon him to expose, just beneath the surface, his young and vital form; the flesh even more flawless beneath the shedding cocoon of decay. The raven-black hair, not yet braided and shimmering like liquid-night, cascaded down his back and came to sway just above his buttocks. Much like the gray cloak he’d shed upon Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s floor moments earlier, Utukku, finishing his task, left the clotted wool of his tunic and the mangled flesh of his nearly-dead self at his feet before stepping towards Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband, the joints and muscles of his naked body rolling like a panther’s as he approached the stunned Liche master.

Smirking and running the back of his hand across Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s face, he explained that he was Utukku: son of the great goddess Sekhmet. Raising his hands and making a show of his missing pinkies, he let it be known that, angered by his strength and eagerness to drain the human race, his goddess-mother had come down upon him and taken two of his fingers—one for every kingdom he’d decimated simply out of pleasure. Coming to rest his four-fingered right hand to the quivering Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s chest, he told him that it was
solely
out of respect to his mother and a strong desire to
not
lose more digits that he’d not simply left the Liche master’s palace in total ruin, but that, in exchange for his ongoing challenges to the creatures of the night who answered to Utukku, he had chosen to show the brash and arrogant death-wizard what
true
power was.

With Utukku’s palm still on his chest, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband had felt a great swell of power grow within his guest’s hand and, before he could recoil, was hurtled across the room, where he crashed down on the hardwood frame that housed his mattresses.

The sound of her master’s pained cries compelled Arezoo, who’d been eavesdropping just outside the door, to rush to the Liche’s side. The young concubine, only slightly taken aback by Utukku’s nakedness in her master’s chambers, had begun to chant one of the basic death spells Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband had taught her in an effort to drive the unwelcome visitor away.

Utukku ignored the young girl’s words and kept his gaze on Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband, telling him that he was displeased with many things about that night, but none moreso than the disconcerting number of deaths he’d left in his wake.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband, stunned by the creature’s words, gathered enough of himself to demand an explanation.

Once again waving an arm out towards the hall, Utukku told him that he’d been content with the twelve souls he’d stripped from their mortal coils in his efforts to reach him. However, the thirteenth—the bold guard at Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s door—had disturbed the symmetry; the beautiful balance.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband, listening, remembered the strange behavior that he’d witnessed in Utukku’s behavior: four calls of his name, four pairs of impacts on the both the gates and his chamber doors; the breaks in the servant-girl’s arm: two on either side of the elbow. Two cycles of his braided hair. Two types of beads adorning his tunic; the perfect symmetry of his jewelry, always in even numbers. The perfectly even split down his face and torso to reveal his renewed body…

And thirteen bodies to his name.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband stared for a long moment. He was demanding another death; yet another of his servants to be sacrificed in his name to fulfill some personal itch of the mind.

He called him mad.

Utukku started towards him, telling him that he could just as easily claim the Liche himself as the necessary death to offer balance. He pressed that, while he did not care
who
represented the fourteenth body, there
would
be a fourteenth.

Then his eyes fell on Arezoo, and a glimmer passed over the jade-like orbs as he suggested the young concubine, who still chanted her death curse despite an increasingly shaky voice.

Arezoo trembled at the mention.

Utukku swelled and took a step towards her.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband roared and, for the first time in his life, acted without calculation. Calling once again upon the death-wave, he flung Utukku straight up into the ceiling—destroying the many expensive lanterns and fixtures thereon—and then, issuing forth yet another wave of death-magic, hurling him across the room and through his chamber doors; casting the powerful creature’s once-again mangled form amidst the bodies it was responsible for.

The Liche stormed after him, ordering Arezoo to remain within his chambers until he returned, and willed the doors to slam shut behind him as he stepped past the threshold.

Utukku was already reversing the effects of the spells when Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband reached him; pulling himself up on shaky legs and warning the Liche that he would not allow him to claim another attack upon him without grave consequences.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband nodded, telling him that he could claim any servant
but
Arezoo as his much-needed fourteenth death. With that, the Liche master bellowed for his youngest concubine, Bastet, barely past her first decade, to be given to their guest in exchange for sparing his palace on that night.

Satisfied by their agreement, Utukku retrieved his cloak, offering Arezoo one final leer before starting back down the hall. Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband joined the creature at the gates to deliver Bastet, who sobbed and pleaded for mercy. As the girl’s panicked cries fell on deaf ears, Utukku let the Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband know that their battle of power had only just begun, and that he would soon offer the Liche a more formal demonstration. Confident that his intentions were understood, he turned on Bastet in a sudden and gruesome display; tearing the terrified girl’s limbs from her body—snapping each in half like a wishbone—before taking the head under one arm and offering Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband the slightest of bows before vanishing into the night.

BLONDE.

The color of the sun.

Zane opened his eyes, finding himself facing the sun once more. The familiarity of it all hit him harder than he’d expected, though it had been so long since he’d gazed up at it like this.

It really was as beautiful as he remembered.

The golden orb shimmered and shifted, making him blink against it, and, when he looked up once more, his gaze fell upon a silhouetted female from; a familiar fantasy from a far-off memory.

He shook his head.

No.

Not a memory.

A dream.

The Dream.

She came to him, pressing her hands to his face as she leaned close to him. The features he’d never been able to make out—features that hid his perfect woman’s identity within the rays of the sun—suddenly came into focus; becoming, in the blink of an eye, as clear as day.

Her eyes—those beautiful purple eyes—lit up in front of him as the sun’s rays became her hair, falling over her strong-yet-soft face…

And suddenly all the mystery faded into nothingness like the night turning to day.

And Serena was there with him.

His Serena…

The beautiful blonde bombshell he fell in love with was now occupying the previously mysterious silhouette of the woman from the dreams he’d had so many years ago.
He smirked at the irony that the dream-woman he had created when he’d been engaged to Celine would turn out to look exactly like Serena.

The exact opposite of Celine in every way possible.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, running her hands down his bare chest.

“I’ve missed you too, Serena,” he smiled up at her and her eyes lit up at the mention of her name as though she’d been waiting all that time to hear him admit it.

She ran her lips against his throat, and he groaned at the feeling, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist as she came to rest against him. Leaning up, he pressed his lips to hers. The feeling of her soft lips against his sent a shiver down his spine and he groaned in the ecstasy that her kiss brought to him.

The memory of her kiss.

A memory he couldn’t let go of.

A memory he never wanted to relinquish.

Her lips were the medicine he needed then and pushed against her, eager to take another dose.

“I love you!” she whispered against his lips and he pulled her naked body against his, running his hands down her breasts, teasing her nipples as he continued to kiss her.

“I love you too, Serena. Never leave me again.”

He didn’t want to break their embrace.

He didn’t want to
not
feel her against him.

He needed this more than anything.

Those beautiful purple eyes of hers shone down at him in need and he smiled, determined to give her exactly what she needed…

Exactly what he needed.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, he pressed inside her, finding comfort within her walls. Groaning loudly, he began to move with everything he had inside her. He loved her so much and he was determined to show her just how much he loved her.

She lifte
d her eyes to his and he lost himself in those perfect purple pools.

The pleasured gaze she gave him was everything he needed.

Everything he could dream of.

The woman he wanted.

The woman he needed.

She was with him again.

The moment climaxed, and he followed after it; crying out with his release as she cried out simultaneously with her own.

Then
the cold air of reality came; a chill he was so familiar with.

The pain and cold
that he’d been forced to endure for so many nights now…

“Serena… no. Please don’t leave. I can’t do this without you… Serena, NO!”

His eyes shot open and he saw the faint silhouette of his hand reaching out into the lonely darkness.

The cold, lonely darkness.

Falling back against Serena’s pillow, he tried to loose himself once more in the fading remnants of her scent; the sweetness of cherry blossoms and the kick of spice on an otherwise bitter cold winter’s night.

“Serena…”

~December 28
th
, 893AD~

~Armenian outskirts; just outside of Dvin~

~Palace of Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband~

~Just before midnight~

Arezoo, still naked and wearing the glistening remains of sweat and Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s love on her skin, stood at the open door of her master’s chambers. The guards at the door, well aware of the concubine’s standing in the Liche’s eyes, struggled to keep their ever-alert gazes
anywhere
but the sensual image alluring them to steal a glance. Something that would surely cost them their lives. The challenge was made all the more tolling when, adjusting her posture against the door, her lover’s seed—despite being as dead as his magic—found fresh passage and began to trickle down her well-toned thighs.

This fresh stream of lewdness, coupled with the myriad of pearly traces that still adorned her breasts, chin, and portions of her blonde mane—her master, powerful as he was, was notorious for both his virility as well as his copious offerings; something that often demanded the attention of multiple concubines when Arezoo was unavailable—created a visual that the guards mentally cataloged in the hopes of referring to in a more private moment…

Should they live to see such a moment.

Though the other concubines practiced a certain degree of modesty—none so brash as to flaunt their nakedness, let alone the liquid evidence of their exploits—Arezoo had spent too much time in the focus of others as an object of carnal lust to mind the judgments or desires of any that might bear witness to them. Should one be so bold as to stare too blatantly or—gods forbidding—lay a hand upon her, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband would see them personally through to a horrid fate.

And all who served the Liche master knew this.

But temptation, like hunger, can only be tested for so long before…

One of the shakier guards shivered slightly under the weight of his own desires, his linen skirt visibly shifting over his growing erection as his eyes drifted towards the spectacle working its way down Arezoo’s inner-thigh.

Not noticing her new spectator, the concubine discovered a lingering pearl over her chin and raked the morsel onto a painted nail before absently sucking her finger clean; never once taking her eyes from the gaping hole that the one called Utukku had left outside her master’s chambers.

The guard groaned and pitched, his own seed abandoning his efforts for subtlety.

Arezoo, hearing this, glanced over and giggled at the vision of the guard writhing upon post-orgasmic weakened knees.

As the sound and foreboding chill of Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s approach grew more imminent behind her, she whispered to her admirer that she hoped it was worth it for him.

A shimmering wave of death-magic burst through the threshold and slammed into the guard with enough force to break several of his bones. As his body was thrown into the air, a murky whimper ushered as the magic took hold and he began to decompose before their very eyes.

By the time the unfortunate guard had reached the floor, there was no discerning his remains from the corpses that occupied the palace walls.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband narrowed his eyes at the other three guards and asked them if they appreciated the show he’d offered them.

Unsure if their master was referring to their comrade’s punishment or trying to lure them into a trap of confessing their own stolen glances of his prized concubine, they nervously muttered whatever sequence of words they felt might spare them the same fate.

Satisfied that a point had been made, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband ushered Arezoo back into his chambers.

Arezoo sighed at this, telling him that she enjoyed the spectacle that Utukku had left behind.

Her master pressed her to explain, once again issuing her to return to the privacy of his chambers.

Reluctantly, the concubine obeyed, going on to explain that she’d long awaited a fitting challenger to enter into her beloved master’s life; to offer both him and his powers a chance to flex to their full potential.

She offered him a coy smirk to accentuate the last part.

Feeling a fresh wave of vitality in his loins, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband couldn’t bring himself to chastise her for her flagrant display.

Still…

He reminded her that her body was his and his alone to enjoy.

Arezoo’s grin widened at that, and she made a show of massaging the lingering wetness into her breasts; reminding him, in turn, that she knew full-well that the servants’ reactions to such displays made him desire her all the greater.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband couldn’t bring himself to even try to deny this fact, and, instead, pressed the issue of her obsession with Utukku.

Shrugging before allowing herself to drop onto his cloud-like mattresses in a pose that was fit for sculpture, Arezoo repeated that she was excited to see him paired with a worthy adversary; that she knew that her body could stay his boredom only so much.

Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband smirked at that, asking her if she’d heard of the prior night’s eclipse.

Arezoo’s grin betrayed her, and she inquired as to what he planned to do in response.

At nearly that exact time the night before, a great clamor erupted that the moon was being swallowed by the heavens. Intrigued by these claims, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband had hurried to witness the spectacle for himself.

Sure enough, almost half of the moon had been rendered unseen, and, with every passing moment, more and more of the silver orb vanished. Squinting against the shadowy cloak of night, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband was certain that it looked like…

Blood?

Curiosity flared in the Liche then as his suspicion gave way to certainty, and he focused his powers—honing his magic senses to confirm that there was, indeed, an unprecedented amount of human blood saturating the very air—and traced the source to a neighboring hill not far from the palace.

Though his eyes were, tragically, still quite human, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband could see beyond the veil of death that Utukku was behind the phenomenon. The blood-creature was
somehow
sending so much blood into the sky as to totally block out the moon!

And, as this fact dawned upon Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband, his rival’s voice boomed within his mind, telling him that no display by a mere death-wizard could counter such a visceral vision of power.

Unable to curse the creature from such a great distance, Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband was forced to endure the inescapable taunts as he watched the moon vanish behind a massive curtain of blood.

Arezoo crawled across the mattresses towards her master, tugging lightly on his tunic and, once again, inquiring to his plans in responding to Utukku’s challenge. Clearly unsettled by Meleilzsi Shaykh Naqshband’s silence, she—rolling onto her back to look up at him—added that such a large amount of blood must have cost many people their lives, and she casually began reciting and correcting a series of rhetorical estimates.