Another whoosh. Another thud. The shaking only worsened, trees toppling, the surrounding shrubs falling like dominoes.
Across the distance, a path cleared, and two flying beasts appeared. Some sort of dragon hybrid, maybe? They had red eyes, elongated snouts and teeth better qualified as short swords. Their bodies were long and coiled, but without arms or legs while their tails were thrice barbed. Resplendent scales reflected in the sunlight.
So...the two were flying snakes? Dragon snakes?
They soared above the remaining canopy of trees, their multipointed wings clipping branches and slicing through bark as if it were butter. One creature pursued the other. When he caught his prey, the two wrestled...playfully?
"Does the pretty miss require aid?"
The unfamiliar voice somehow turned the innocent question into a sexual promise. She glanced up--and had to swallow a yelp. A two-hundred-plus pound leopard perched on the limb directly above her, his neon-green eyes steady on her. His mangled tail wagged back and forth. One of his ears looked as if it had been chewed off, and his matted fur sported several bald patches.
Misery took an instant dislike to the animal and snarled.
The cat offered her a slow, toothy grin and batted a meaty paw at a fly. He actually speared the insect on the end of a claw. "I'm Rathbone, and I'm at your service...for a small fee."
He could talk. He was a cat, and he could talk. And with that voice, he could make millions as a phone sex operator.
Had the Paring Rod transported her into a fairy tale, after all? The porn version? Browniebitch Does Twelve Immortals.
Was Rathbone a shape-shifter? No, impossible. Shape-shifters didn't retain the ability to speak while in animal form. Although there were exceptions to every rule, right?
"I can save myself, but thanks for the offer." Having lived over four millennia, she'd waged world wars, fought countless battles against immortal predators, humans with a grudge and monsters of myth and legend. Sometimes she'd lost, but mostly she'd won.
The leopard flinched. Hardly a surprise. Everyone always flinched. Some even cried. If anyone had actually liked her voice, she couldn't remember.
Her hands curled into fists. Another memory Misery had stolen?
The dragon-snakes resumed their chase, nearly causing a full-blown earthquake this time, and she grabbed a branch to steady herself. Nope, not a branch, but Rathbone's tail.
He wiggled his brows. "I've got something firmer you can hold on to."
Surely he wasn't referring to his...
He contorted to lick a massive set of balls.
You've got to be kidding me.
She released him and peeked around the trunk. The creatures approached at breakneck speed...only to pass her. She began to relax. A mistake. Of course. When had anything ever gone her way? Both dragon-snakes came to an abrupt stop before slowly pivoting.
Two sets of red eyes locked on her. Long, thin tongues swiped over saber-teeth, and drool dripped from the corners of their mouths. Drool...or accelerant? The pungent stench of something akin to gasoline stung her nostrils.
Well. She'd just been placed on the day's menu.
In unison, the "chefs" hissed and bowed their spines, the scales around their necks flaring.
You have an eighty-seven percent chance of being deep-fried, never seeing your friends again and never finding Lazarus or the box.
No. She would fight, and she would win. If she died, Misery would be loosed upon an unsuspecting world; he would find new prey, devour sweet dreams, beloved hopes and any glimmer of happiness. He--
Had merely distracted her, the bastard.
Dual streams of fire spewed in her direction. Attuned to battle now, Cameo dived out of the way. Upon landing, she rolled and swiped up two petrified branches. As she stood, she swung at the nearer beast.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Rathbone began, reminding her of his presence. The pointed tips moved across her opponent's chest, and the cat sighed. "Congrats. You just made everything worse."
Argh! The branches hadn't penetrated a single scale. In fact, the branches hadn't scratched a single scale.
Enraged now, the dragon-snake roared.
All right. Their scales were impenetrable. Got it. Only two other options remained. Go for the eyes or go for the mouth. Easy, not a problem, if she could hop aboard the dragon-snake express and hitch a ride.
"Ssss."
"Ssss."
Two new streams of fire spewed in her direction, the heat level jacked to instant BBQ with a side of ash. Again she scrambled out of the way, but really, she had nowhere to go. The beasts circled her, working in tandem to trap her inside a ringed inferno. Smoke thickened the air.
A tickle irritated the back of her throat, making her cough--at the same time, a wing arced in her direction. She managed to jump backward, barely avoiding being sliced in two.
"Want my help now?" Rathbone remained secure on his perch, his smile as innocuous as a fistful of daisies. "I'll give you a discounted rate."
Ignoring him, she sprinted across the white-hot path of soot and char. As another wing swung at her, she used the branches she still held to bat it out of the way. Momentum spun her around, and she dodged another stream of fire. Next, a barbed tail lashed at her, but she jumped over it and motored on, increasing her pace. Almost within range...
There's no way you'll succeed, the demon told her, his sadness seeping into her. You're going to die.
No! She would win, and she would live. She would!
The moment of truth arrived.
Her heartbeat a wild thing her ribs might not be able to cage, she vaulted up, up. One dragon-snake vaulted with her--or rather, at her--clearly intending to snag her midair. The closer he came, the more he snapped his teeth at her. His mistake. She shoved a branch into his mouth.
The limb--as thick as her biceps, the length of her forearm and harder than stone--remained vertical, one end digging into the roof of his mouth, the other pinning his tongue to the bottom. Meanwhile, Cameo tightened her grip on the branch's center, swung around and straddled his neck.
He thrashed, the jerky movements impeding the glide of his wings, sending him plummeting back to earth.
Yee-haw!
Just before her second crash landing of the day, she jabbed the second branch into his eye. He screeched as thick black blood splattered over her hand and blistered her skin.
Boom!
The dragon-snake absorbed the worst of the impact, Cameo bouncing off him. As he screeched and thrashed, she lumbered to her feet, intending to run. Sharp agony seared her ankle when a hard yank dropped her flat on her face and wrenched her backward.
Her nails left grooves in the dirt. Trying not to panic, she glanced over her shoulder. Nooo! The other dragon-snake had snagged her foot between his teeth.
He began to chew, saliva penetrating her wound. A scream split her lips, her entire leg burning and blistering. She curled into a ball to swing at him.
Damn it! Her hands were empty of branches.
He dragged her over rocks and gargantuan roots, ripping her shirt. Her flesh, too. Her head swam again, oblivion beckoning. She reached for another branch, any branch. There!
He straightened, lifting her off the ground foot-first. Dangling upside down only magnified her pain.
Remember, pain is weakness leaving the body.
She could do this. No, she would do this.
Cameo contorted and strained her body in order to swing forward...back...forward again, faster and faster, coming closer and closer to her enemy's torso.
He flapped his wings as he soared higher into the sky--and provided a new lesson about pain.
Not sure how much more I can take.
Sweat drenched her and nausea boiled in her stomach, but still she continued swinging. Finally, blessedly, she was able to thrust the branch through the underside of his jaw, where no scales protected him, the end slamming into the back of his throat.
He jerked and roared
, releasing her. Down, down she fell. She braced--her lungs emptied once again, the chambers in her bursting like a balloon.
Her pain was so strong, so shrill she could almost understand a man's suffering when he had a cold.
She remained sprawled across the ground, praying for a quick recovery. Or death. Yeah, probably death. Her mutilated ankle throbbed in time to her distorted heartbeat as the organ regenerated. From her kneecap to her toes, she felt as if her skin had been baked like cheese on a pizza.
Though the dragon-snake tried, he failed to remove the branch; his wings refused to bend as needed. In the end, he could only return to his companion, drill his fangs into the beast's chest and fly them both away.
She'd...done it? She'd won?
You'll probably never walk again, Misery told her.
Wah, wah, wah.
"I'll walk again," she grated. Over the centuries, she'd had limbs severed and her tongue cut out. Her ankle would heal...eventually. The demon only sought to depress her.
Rathbone prowled from the tree and sashayed toward her. "Ask nicely, and I'll let you ride me free of charge."
"No, thanks." Too fatigued to care if he hoped to lure her into a false state of calm simply to attack her, she said, "Where are we?"
His flinch was more pronounced this time. "We're in the Realm of Grimm and Fantica, ruled by King Lazarus the Cruel and Unusual, the only son of the Monster."
Lazarus. Her Lazarus. He was here. And he was king.
Go ahead. Find him. I want you to spend time with the male known as the Cruel and Unusual. Misery laughed his most vindictive laugh. I bet he hurts you in ways I've never managed.
The demon lied. Or maybe he'd spoken true. With him, she never knew what to believe.
Maybe she should return to Budapest.
Did Lazarus even miss her? she wondered again. What if they'd parted as adversaries?
Well, so what if they had? Everyone deserved a second chance. Besides, she had no idea how to return. And really, what did his "Cruel and Unusual" moniker matter? Many immortals referred to her as the Mother of Melancholy. Names were just that--names.
"Where is the king?" she asked, her bland tone maybe, hopefully masking her eagerness. Reveal nothing, hide everything.
The leopard traced his tongue over his lips, as if he'd just spotted breakfast. "Do I detect excitement?"
Ugh. Was he planning to charge her for info if he did? "You'd be the first to do so." How true. And how sad.
"Now I detect desolation." A calculated glint appeared in his neon eyes. "The plot thickens."
"Why do my emotions matter to you, anyway?"
"Mysteries and puzzles intrigue me. Come. I'll escort you to Lazarus. However, I'm no longer willing to help for free."
Knew it.
"You will pay me a small escort fee," he said. "But be warned, my pretty. People enter his territory...and they never leave."
2
"Life is a game, and everyone you meet is an opponent."
--Becoming the King You Are Meant to Be
--The Fine Art of Decapitation
Between one second and the next, a sense of disconcertment enveloped Lazarus the Cruel and Unusual. He frowned. He wasn't unfamiliar with the sensation, but he wasn't well versed, either.
Bottom line, it could mean nothing...or everything.
With a weary sigh, he detangled from two sleeping, clinging forest nymphs and rose from the bed and fastened the pants he'd refused to remove. His legs were not for public viewing. Ever.
Anyone who had the misfortune to glimpse him bare, well, he turned the culprit into stone.
No matter where Lazarus had resided in his life or in death, he'd created a Garden of Perpetual Horror. His own personal stone army. A little like the terra-cotta armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China.
The newest garden currently had twenty-three statues, and they were a truly magnificent sight to behold. Each conveyed a different level of pain and panic.
His favorite? The king he'd defeated when he'd seized the Realm of Grimm and Fantica. The male was forever frozen in a position known as the blood-eagle, his body prone, his ribs cut from his spine and snapped backward to resemble wings.
Cruel and unusual. My specialty. Stand in the way of what Lazarus wanted, and suffer.
Cool air stroked him as he donned his shirt. He strapped on the weapons he'd discarded only an hour before. The daggers clinked together, reminding him of the day he allowed a demon-possessed warrior to behead him. The day he escaped the shackles of the sadistic Harpy who'd enslaved him.
The day his life with the dead began.
To be honest, the physical and spirit worlds remained indistinguishable to him. He still breathed, still thirsted and hungered. Still craved the touch of a woman. He could do everything he'd done before...except return to the human world. The same was true for everyone else in the realm.
In fact, there was only one difference between Lazarus and the other dead: a heart still beat inside his chest. He wasn't sure why he was the sole exception.
On the bed, the nymphs stretched and sat up. Plump breasts bounced, and tousled hair tumbled into place, sunny smiles blooming.
"If you can walk, we obviously need another go at you," the blonde said with a silky purr.
The redhead beckoned him with a crook of her finger. "How about I pretend you're a lollipop?"
They had no idea he'd found nothing but disappointment in their arms.
"I have duties," he replied. Lately, no one could satisfy him. Climaxing had become a frustrating impossibility, even on his own.
At least he never had to wonder why.
He'd found his monomania. His obsession. Or, to be more literal, his own personal kink. Long ago his father, Typhon, had warned him about her, whoever she was.
Somewhere out there is a female capable of weakening you. You will crave her with the whole of your being...but every second in her presence will lead you closer to destruction. Kill her. Do not make my mistake and allow your monomania to live. Save yourself.
Young Lazarus had listened, rapt, for Typhon had once been the most feared immortal on Earth. With good reason. He'd murdered anyone who'd opposed, offended or questioned him.
Typhon's monomania had been Echidna, a Gorgon. Also Lazarus's mother.
The Gorgons were a vicious race known for venomous snakes that grew from their scalps and an ability to turn anyone into stone with a simple meeting of eyes. An ability Lazarus had inherited...somewhat. He created his statues through touch.
Echidna had been Sovereign of the Sky Serpents, appropriately dubbed "Sss," the sound an opponent heard just before he died bloodily. She'd been an aberration among her tribe. Kind, sweet and endearingly shy--with everyone except Typhon. She'd hated him with every fiber of her being. He'd abducted her, continually raped her, and kept her from her only child.
Typhon had hated her right back, but he'd refused to let her go, his sick desire for her overpowering all else.
He'd gotten his in the end, though. Every time he'd neared her, a small portion of his flesh had crystalized. Eventually the crystallization spread to muscles and joints, limiting his range of motion, slowing and weakening him.
Hera the Cuckoldress, queen of the Greeks, had despised Typhon for reasons Lazarus had never learned. When she'd discovered his poor condition, she'd struck at him through his wife, hacking Echidna to pieces as a helpless Typhon was only able to watch.
Young Lazarus had been there, too. Despite his best efforts, he had failed to save his mother. Then Hera had vanished with Typhon and the warrior hadn't been seen since.
Lazarus curled his fingers around the hilt of the kris. The only dagger he refused to sheathe with leather, preferring to cover the blade with the blood of his enemies. Small barbs lined both sides; after piercing a body, they expanded into hooks, making it impossible to extract the weapon without removing a few organs, too.
One day, Hera would become intimately acquainted with the k
ris.
Soon after her crimes, she'd been locked inside Tartarus, the immortal prison. One day she would be free, and she would be killed, and she would end up in a spirit realm.
I will find her. His father, too. No longer a child awed by a parent, Lazarus reviled the male. Typhon had committed many crimes against his mother, but rape was a line no one should ever cross.
The pair would join the Garden of Perpetual Horror.
One of the forest nymphs leaned forward to rake her nails down Lazarus's chest. "Word has spread throughout the kingdom, you seek a bride. Is this true?"
"Very." He'd found his monomania, yes, but soon afterward he'd lost her. Desire for her still boiled in his blood and blistered his bones, and yet he'd made no effort to find her. The last time they were together...
His chest tightened with something akin to fear. The last time they were together, she'd begun to weaken him.
He rubbed a hand against his thigh, caught the motion and inwardly cursed. Along the surface of his skin branched thin, crystalized rivers. Poisoned veins. The beginning of his downfall.
He'd collected ancient texts to research the legends about his father's familial line, hoping to find a way to save himself. A fruitless task. Anyone who'd ever developed crystal veins--if anyone ever had--had kept quiet, just like Lazarus and Typhon.
Broadcast your weaknesses today, lose your life tomorrow.
So. He would fortify his defenses, instead. He would wed a vicious, bloodthirsty woman with a large army at her disposal. She would strengthen him, never weaken him. And he would ignore his burning desire for his monomania all his days, lest he track her down and attempt to convince her to return to his kingdom.
His monomania would spell the end of him.
"Come back to bed, and I'll show you why I'm your best choice," the nymph offered with a coy smile.
Mind reading was another ability Lazarus possessed, thanks to his mother. His head filled with the other nymph's thoughts as she considered ways to kill her friend and hide the body.
"I'll show you better," she rasped, batting her lashes at him. "Pick me."
The females tended the roses in the Garden of Perpetual Horror. They were lovers, not fighters, and lacked the necessary malice to be his wife.
He had to be ready for war. One day Hera and his father would end up in the afterlife. Everyone did. The Harpy who'd imprisoned him would end up here as well, and he'd have all of his enemies in one place.