The Labyrinth of the Dead (10 page)

Portia stayed silent, although a thousand
pleas and cries for mercy lodged behind her teeth. These creatures may have
been human once, but no longer. She could sense the empty place where their
hearts once were. No, she would find no mercy here.

The smaller units that had gone off
returned now, converging on the courtyard with their quarry dragged slack
between their spined arms. They grunted out some sort
of marching song as they came, falling into formation.

The captain raised a gloved fist, and
his army moved as one, bringing its prey up wide steps that were made of a
different kind of stone, mottled and flecked with bits of iridescence. This
stone was more beautiful, but also more fragile, crumbling along the edges and
shot with cracks and fissures. As Portia neared, she could see the entire
structure had been constructed of this same material in varying colors, and it
lent the awe-inspiring palace the air of an ancient temple in magnificent
deterioration.

Two of the herders
assigned to her broke away and approached two enormous bronze doors that sealed
the entrance. It took both of them to turn the great wheel set into a disk of
metal between them. What  Portia had thought naught but whimsical motifs of interlocking rings began to move,
creating a kaleidoscope effect as the gears and cogs engaged and moved together
in a discordant symphony. The doors swung inward with surprising ease, showing
a dark foyer.

The captain walked ahead of them,
heedless of the dark, and the others followed him into the decaying palace. As
the doors slammed shut, she heard the gears clang back into place with the
sound of a death knell.

She hated the
touch of those Nephilim-leather gloves across her flesh, but in the depths of
shadows within the building, the herders needed to guide her, even carry her,
through one cavernous room after another. The sounds of their whistling,
tea-kettle language and the shuffling of their feet seemed overly loud; the
whimpers of the other souls and the grunts of the reapers were deafening. The
steady stride of the captain echoed like thunder in the darkness. At the end of
a long hall, they came to a stop. A light burst forth
from between a set of double doors elaborately carved with Oriental fancies. It
dazzled Portia’s eyes, and she flinched away, catching sight of the captain’s
satisfied smirk as she did so. Before she could recover herself, they dragged
her into the room, cringing and shutting her eyes, unable to deny her body’s
automatic response to the sudden change in brightness.

Portia looked at the floor, made up of
long slabs of marble, black and veined in sickly red, and waited for her eyes
to adjust. The support pillars around them might have been fine once, but the
iridescent marble cladding that also comprised the steps and façade had
crumbled away from most of them, leaving the plain brick core exposed. Portia
had to laugh to herself at the irony. Whatever substance went into that fine
stone was not as sturdy as the fractured souls the captain had earlier
disparaged.

"Never disparage the strength of the
human spirit," she murmured. The herder on her left clicked, as if in reply.

She raised her head to take a better
look around. The light was still potent, but she could squint against it now.
Above them loomed Gothic arches, cloaked in cobwebs, that ran the length of the
grand chamber like ribs.

The captain made obeisance to the black
marble dais upon which rested a single throne carved of glossy dark wood.
Shaped like a thorned tree, it bore hundreds of tiny
leaves fashioned out of coppery dark shadow-gold. Vine-like coils rose up the
back of the great chair to a taloned peak upon which
rested an enormous crimson jewel. Decadent and morose, the throne dominated the
dais and commanded attention.

The woman resting there on
disintegrating cloth-of-gold cushions was occupied counting a tall stack of
shadow-gold coins. She deliberately dropped one on top of the other, gazing at
them with half-lidded eyes and a satisfied smile as each
clink
resonated
throughout the hall. Her hair, the color of warm honey, rolled in thick waves
down her shoulders to pool around her full hips. Her cream-white flesh gleamed
with an unnatural pearlescent sheen, covered only by the drape of a fleshy wing
nearly the same golden color of her hair and glittering softly in the light.

When finally she had contented herself
with the number of coins she had, she turned her fathomless black eyes onto
Portia. The herders forced Portia to her knees. Two gripped her shoulders, two
held her wings stretched out, and the last dug its knee into the small of her
back. But Portia could still see the queen, looking up at her through the
screen of her silver hair.

The queen’s laughter chimed. "You
thought I would be ugly, didn’t you?" She rose from the throne, unfolding her
lithe body and coming to stand before them. Her silky flesh bore no marks: not
a freckle, mole, or scar to mar its pristine beauty. Portia immediately thought
of the puckered ribbons of flesh that wrapped her body and envied the queen’s
perfect thighs and belly. The demoness settled her
bat-like wings about her shoulders, letting them drape gently over her arms
beneath her hair, and smiled. It was a cruel smile, and one that told Portia
this woman knew full well what power she wielded. Portia thought of Imogen,
then, of her flesh sprinkled with auburn freckles and just a few tiny scars.
Imogen had always believed that discretion was the better part of valor.
Imogen—Portia clenched her eyes shut against the vision of her beloved—now lost
amid mists and secrets.

Having lost Portia’s rapt attention,
the queen huffed and snapped her fingers for the captain.

"Lahash, what else have you brought me, besides this little treasure?"

The captain bowed curtly and motioned
the nearest group of reapers forward. They held the young man who had tried to
run. "Just one portion of the harvest."

The queen turned her back on Portia and
approached the young man. Although beaten and exhausted, he held his head high,
meeting her gaze defiantly. Her hand lashed out, lightning-fast, as if to
strike. The young man blinked but did not flinch. She pressed her fingertips to
his face, cupping his jaw and chin in her ivory palm.

"Perfect," she purred. "I daresay his
corpse is hardly even cold over in the living realm. This gives us excellent
leverage, a strong connection. Take him downstairs. Feed him to the machine."

He fought as they dragged him away, his
shouts reverberating through the hall. Portia had but shifted her weight toward
him when Lahash grabbed her by the wrist and,
twisting it roughly, managed to bring her nearly to her knees. Portia struggled
to keep her feet under her and lowered her hips into a crouch.

"While quite laudable, your heroics
have no place here," the captain said.

"Oh, Lahash,"
the queen chided, "she’s no threat to me in my own home. Let her up." Her tone
might have been construed as kindly, but Portia could hear the keen edge that
played beneath her words. The commander released his grip and Portia rose.
"Thank you, Lahash. You are dismissed."

"But, your Majesty—"

"Go on, now. Run along and find me
another tasty morsel like that dumpling you just brought me."

Through a clenched
jaw, Lahash conceded. "Yes, my queen." He motioned
for the herders to stay put, and he left the audience chamber.

The queen watched him go, and as soon
as the double doors had shut, she turned her chilling, prismatic smile onto
Portia. "Now, my dear, let us get acquainted."

Portia sensed the well of power
beginning to fill within her once more. The angel essence exerted itself,
pressing on and stretching the bonds. Feeling wholly different from the battle
at the sanctuary, the soul within her opened like a rose, peeling back layer
after layer until a glowing sphere remained, like a pearl, in its center.

The queen, unconscious of the alchemy
within, inclined her head toward Portia as if bestowing royal permission. "You
may speak to me. I have long waited to hear your voice, Portia Gyony."

What rose from Portia’s lips was not
her own voice, although she could feel the words flow across her tongue as if
they were hers. The sound echoed from the glow at her core, playing her vocal
chords like a fiddle.

"Belial," she said. Thunder and ocean
waves crashed within the name. "Beautiful deceiver. It is no wonder that I
would find you here. I should have known your foul hand was in this." And as
she spoke, Portia knew. With the words came the visions. Portia saw Imogen
kneeling in this very hall, her red hair veiling her face as she suffered the
boot of Lahash against the nape of her neck. Although
Imogen had been allowed passage through the dark and brutal streets of Salus to
the safety of the sanctuary, it had not been without reason or without cost.

Imogen’s soul glowed brighter than the rest, tied to a body
that still lived. She cast an aura that radiated beyond the under-side and
Portia saw the avarice in Belial’s gaze. Imogen had been spared for a reason, a
terrible reason. Portia had thought that Imogen was simply the bait in a
cunning trap designed for herself, but that was far from the entire truth.
Belial desired Imogen’s soul for its purity and its
power and its attachment to the world of the living, and she wanted it for far
more than just a pretty paving stone. The answer lay beneath her feet, deep in
the bowels of the palace, where they had taken the young man. To the
machine
.

The vision passed and Portia raised her
eyes to the woman before her. "I know what you want of Imogen. And what would
you have of
me
, Belial?"

If the demoness
queen was discomfited, she hid it well. The light played over her golden ivory
features, gleaming on teeth that looked starkly white against her blood red
mouth. She chuckled and shifted her weight, thrusting out one hip and folding
her arms across her naked breasts. She gazed down her elegant nose at Portia.

"Do not play brave with me, little
girl. I know all about you. I helped to create you."

Portia could not hide the shade of
surprise and dread that coursed through her features. It caught her entirely
off guard. "What?"

"Surprised?" Belial’s smile widened.
She had regained the upper hand, and she pressed her advantage. "I thought you
might be. You are nothing but a stupid village lass, after all…or aren’t you?"
The queen’s brows rose regally. "You do not even know, do you? No one has ever
told you of your heritage, have they? Such a pity."

"I tire of your games," Portia growled.

"This is no game,
daughter
. And
yes, I use that word to you. I have that right. The purity of Nephilim
bloodlines is a priority to me and mine. You are our children, our destiny, and
our strength. And you, my saucy darling, most in particular. The Nephilim are
the progeny of angel and man, but there is no difference between those hosts of
heaven and us, their
fallen
brethren. And you, my child, are not
begotten of heaven."

Portia nearly stumbled back, her mind
reeling, even the essence inside of her awe-struck with the announcement. "What
in the hell are you takling about?"

 "Exactly." The queen smiled. "At my behest, we
sought out the most pedigreed lines of Nephilim, most of them gone cold,
ejecting naught but weaklings from their wombs, but still stamped with the seal
of heaven on their brows. It would take but little help to reawaken the blood
of angels in their marrow. My brother-beloved, Zepar,
went with wine in one hand and roses in the other." She sighed at the memory.
"Oh, he was dashing. I could barely contain myself in his presence, and I
daresay no human woman ever born could resist him." Belial swept her golden
gaze across Portia’s face, apparently seeing something there that pleased her.
Smiling, she stroked a talon-like fingernail down Portia’s cheek. "You have the
look of him about the eyes, and I am willing to wager few can resist your
charms, either. You know, your mother even mended his favorite red shirt. It
was silk. Zepar gave her a night that no landlord’s
wife has any right to experience, a night that would haunt her dreams even
years later and leave her drenched in sweat with her moaning lust unslaked. Can you imagine your mother such a wanton?"
Belial laughed, throwing her head back as her silky thighs sighed against one
another.

Portia recoiled. The memories of her
mother had dimmed over the long years at the chapter house, but she remembered
her as a fond but distant woman with a dreamy smile that came upon her when she
thought no one was looking.

"You lie," Portia said.

"Do I? How shall I prove that I am in
earnest, then? Shall I tell you that I watched your childhood with eager eyes,
waiting for you to come of age? Such a pity the erstwhile saint of Penemue, the
Prodigal Princess Lady Hester, found you first." Belial clenched her jaws and
ground her perfectly sharp teeth. "I was waiting for you, Portia. You were to
be placed at my right hand. You were to be
my
daughter, not that insipid
Hester’s. I should have been the one to mold your powers, to raise you to truly
understand what you were. Even now, you have no clue. You could destroy me
where I stand and yet you bow. Pitiful." She spat. "But neither Hester nor that
short-sighted wretch Analise Aldias would heed me one word. Analise refused to
give me
her
precious rarity, thinking Nigel was the only one of his
kind. It was
Nigel
this and
Nigel
that! And thus I was robbed of
both daughter and son." She rolled her eyes. "And what she did to you, that
self-serving harridan! You do not need to be bound to any other soul—angel,
demon or otherwise—and neither did Nigel! But she went and did it anyhow. You
and Nigel were of the same blood. When the time was ripe, your father would
have returned to you and awakened the powers within you both. Analise was a
damned fool. She held a useless messenger angel in thrall and thought she could
bend either of you to her will. She got what she deserved of it. Would it have
been me, but Nigel got her first." For a moment, the demoness
looked wistful again. "You and Nigel were destined for one another, just like Zepar and I. It would have been a beautiful thing. Now, we
can only pick up the pieces and move on. Never try and part an Aldias from
something they want, damn the lot of them."