The phantom, p.2
The Phantom, page 2
The most important words Laban had spoken echoed inside her head. Blythe cursed. Run and hide Isla it is. Then she would return to the battlefield.
Tiny wings flapping, she swooped the trembling girl into her arms and cast one last look at her consort as he reached the giant. Blink. Laban collapsed like the harpies—only his head went flying.
Shock pummeled Blythe, nearly drilling her to her knees. What...how...what? No. No! She hadn’t just seen what she thought she’d seen. But as his severed head hit the cobblestone and continued to roll, reality pummeled her.
“Laban!” she screamed. Her beloved, headless. Immortals like him could recover from many things, most things, but not that.
He was dead.
Gone.
There’d be no bringing him back.
Isla must have witnessed the assassination, too. “Daddy,” she cried, hurling herself from Blythe. The little girl ran as fast as her legs would carry her—straight toward the giant.
“Isla!” Panic shoved Blythe forward. She gave chase, cutting through the chaos. Harpies sprinted in every direction, quickly swallowing the child, blocking her small form from view.
An ear-piercing shriek ripped from her throat. Grief and rage boiled in the undertone. If the brute harmed such a defenseless child...
No! Can’t lose my child, too. Blythe teleported. Suddenly, she stood directly behind Isla, who stood directly in front of him, clutching the bejeweled dagger, ready to strike.
Had she stolen the weapon before Laban rushed off or had she lifted it from his corpse? A sob clogged Blythe’s throat.
Menacing red eyes glowed inside the shadows of the giant’s helmet. Those wild orbs locked on her, and something buzzed along her spinal cord. A sense of knowing. As if they’d met before. No time to unravel the mystery.
What happened next happened both at lightning speed and in slow motion. The enemy swung both arms, a split second away from swiping those blood-tipped claws through her treasured offspring. She grabbed Isla by the shoulders, forced her to dematerialize, and yanked her inside Blythe’s own body. Then she, too, dematerialized and dove into the perfect shield—the oversized frame of her consort’s killer.
In essence, she possessed him. An ability wielded by all phantoms. Most couldn’t hide their presence, but Blythe could. Without the warrior’s knowledge, she sank deep, deep, deep inside his conscious mind. A place to listen and learn while figuring out a safe time and place to exit.
A time and place she could slay her host in the worst possible way. After she toyed with him a bit.
Except, for the first time, Blythe lost track of the outside world. Even worse, thousands of voices screamed at her at once.
Echoes of his thoughts? Another first!
Sharp pains ripped through her mind. Could Isla hear this awful deluge? Feel this? But, but...too many layers! Too loud! Blythe couldn’t think; she needed to...she...
With all her considerable might, she attempted to slip out of him. Argh! She failed.
Imprisoned? Had she doomed Isla, too? Forever?
2
THE SIGHTING
Roux Pyroesis gripped hanks of his hair and tugged. One moment he’d glimpsed a black-haired, blue-eyed beauty on the battlefield, the sight of her like taking a hammer to the gut. The next she’d vanished, momentarily forgotten as thousands upon thousands of screams erupted in his head.
His prisoners had escaped their mental cells again.
He tugged his hair harder, hating the full-time penitentiary erected inside his subconscious—a consequence of his best and worst ability.
Roux could drain an immortal and utilize their life force as fuel. But. Anytime he did it, their soul ended up trapped within his own. All he could do? Hold the captives inside a mental dungeon, out of sight and out of mind.
Every so often, inmates fought their way free from the massive, shadowy labyrinth of cells, each frothing with fury and determined to punish him for his misdeeds.
Except for one. That one remained in solitary confinement. Roux ground his teeth. Upon occasion, he visited the male.
As usual, his world faded to black as he focused on the deepest, darkest corridors of his mind. A terrible thing to do while engaged in a realm-wide takeover.
Thankfully, well-honed instincts fired up anytime he shut down, creating a shield of energy around him. Any harpies or consorts who attempted to stab, claw, or hack any part of him dropped, out for the count.
Amid the chorus of screams, Roux confined his captives once again. Victim by victim. Beings who’d withered into shells of their former selves. No longer could he tell who was who or what was what. He only knew what they’d once been. An assortment of vampires, banshees, sirens, gorgons, sorcerers, gods, Amazons, and shifters.
How much time passed before a hand slapped his shoulder, bypassing the shield, he wasn’t sure. His eyelids popped open as the cacophony of noise faded into a dull whisper.
A fellow soldier stood at his side, patting his shoulder. Silver Stilbon, a son of Mercury and third in command of the Astra Planeta. A trusted brother-in-arms known as the Fiery One.
Details crystalized in an instant. Roux remained on the battlefield, exactly where he’d stood before. The conflict had ended, with sprays of crimson already drying on the trinite barrier he’d helped teleport into the world.
Around him, piles of dead consorts and sleeping harpies missing their hands and feet. The sleep came courtesy of the other Astra who must have forced the issue, changing the very atmosphere of the realm. On the horizon, the once glaring sun was in the process of setting. Hours had passed.
Was the black-haired female among the casualties, or had he imagined her? One second, she’d stood before him. The next, she hadn’t.
Had she flashed, moving from one location to another with only a thought? Unlikely. Flashing wasn’t an ability harpies usually possessed. More than that, Roux was able to clock the start and finish of any mode of teleportation, and she had stayed put. Like a phantom, but not like a phantom. There. But also not there, exuding a strange hum of power.
That’s right. He’d felt the brush of it a split second before she’d vanished. Who was she? What was she?
He conjured her image, hoping to unearth answers. Instead he discovered unwanted fascination. Not beautiful, but stunning. She possessed a delicate bone structure, with eyes like wounds, hemorrhaging agony. Her red lips were parted, as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath. She held on to a wee girl—a child who’d looked like her miniature.
Yes. Roux remembered the young one, too. Mother and daughter?
The moment he’d spotted the youth, he’d altered the trajectory of his swing. To win a war, he would commit atrocities. And had, often. But harm a wee one? Never. It was a line he refused to cross. The only line. What if he’d done it inadvertently during his blackout?
Chest clenching, he searched the sea of bodies in his vicinity. When he found no sign of either female, relief sparked. Except, they hadn’t escaped the realm, either. Not with the Astra on guard. So where were they?
Had the pair been a figment of Roux’s broken mind? No, surely not. Unless they were. But they couldn’t be. No way his passionless mind had the capacity to concoct a fantasy female as lovely as the mother.
A sliver of critical information seemed to hover on the periphery of his awareness. Perhaps the key to unlocking the mystery of her. He had only to reach it.
Why couldn’t he reach it?
“She was there,” he muttered, “then she wasn’t.” Same with the girl. “There, then not there.” How? How! “There. Then not.”
“Be at ease, my brother.” The shirtless Silver offered the kindest smile he was capable of mustering: a swift baring of his teeth. His long black ponytail contained more blood than the walls. So did his bronzed, alevala-stained skin. On his chest and arms, those revolving tattoos displayed the faces of everyone he’d killed for the sake of his blessing tasks. Peer at one of the markings long enough, and you would relive the memory through Silver’s eyes.
Roux, too, wore his own terrible deeds in his flesh. All Astra did. “I am well.” His version of well, anyway. This was a time of celebration, not worry. “Why wouldn’t I be? We won.” As always.
“That we did.”
“What of our comrades? Any casualties?”
“None.” Eyes like mercury glowed with satisfaction, softening Silver’s overly harsh features. “As usual, the Commander ordered each of us to select a female we think he might wish to wed. We were to bring our selection to the harpy throne room. You failed to appear, and I came looking.”
The word us snagged Roux, as always. He and the other eight war gods first met countless centuries ago. They were rescued as children by Chaos, Ruler of the Abyss, then trained for war together. Roux never tired of being part of a unit.
Today, their unit embarked upon a new blessing task. The Commander—Roc—was to marry and sacrifice a virgin in thirty days.
Roux scanned the sleeping harpies once again. Who to pick? Roc had always preferred warrior women. But weren’t all harpies supposedly warrior women? So, Roux would go with hair color. But which hair color did the Commander prefer? Roux had never paid attention to the bedmates of his brothers-in-arms. Had never cared to pay attention.
Due to the circumstances of his birth, he’d never experienced the slightest spark of sexual attraction. He saw those around him as friend or foe, nothing more, nothing less. Until the black-haired stunner.
Why did he continue to think of her? Why, why?
“Don’t worry,” Silver said, giving his shoulder a final pat and drawing away. The split second of contact was the most Roux could tolerate outside of combat. Another consequence of his birth. “Ian delivered two harpies. One for himself, and one for you. He informed us of your...predicament.”
Relief eased a fraction of Roux’s tension. Ian was the ninth ranked Astra and responsible for cataloguing the aftermath of every battle. Roux was sixth and had been for the past millennia; he’d been demoted from third after a few “bouts of madness.”
“I will thank him,” he said. This wasn’t Roux’s first blackout; only his first blackout involving a breathtaking harpy.
There. Not there. Where is she?
“Thank him later. Now that you’re back in the game, we should head to the palace. The Commander has chosen his bride and completed the marriage ceremony. You are to report to the dungeon, where you’ll guard the unchosen. I’ve already reinforced the cell, ensuring there will be no escapes.”
The temperamental Silver did all metal work for the Astra. There was no one better.
“Gird your loins, stab yourself in the ears, and thank yourself later,” the warrior added. “These harpies aren’t like any other species we’ve encountered.”
Stab himself in the ears? Surely there’d be no need for such an extreme measure.
“I’ll be fine.” As Roux flashed to the dungeon to see to the prisoners, he did his best to scrub the black-haired female from his mind.
He failed. There. Not there.
Weeks later
I should have stabbed myself in the ears.
“Did you know tattoos are exactly like vodka?” A familiar feminine voice echoed from the dungeon walls. But then, a familiar feminine voice always echoed from the dungeon walls. “They make my clothes fall off. Wanna come to my place for a drink, gorgeous?”
Behind him, snickers abounded. Roux stood guard near a cell filled with ten harpies. A spot he rarely vacated. Hadn’t taken him long to learn the prisoners never, ever, shut up. In a bid to disconcert him and escape, they constantly ridiculed and propositioned him, doing their best to harass him.
“Be honest,” another said. “That’s a Breathalyzer in your leathers.”
“Excuse me, Officer Sexy,” a third piped up, bending over to wiggle her backside in his direction. “I’m ready for my total body frisking.”
Roux never deigned to respond. The object of his obsession preoccupied him, plaguing his thoughts day and night.
He saw her waking or sleeping, if he dared to close his eyes and sleep in this dreadful place. He sensed her presence at odd times, too, but so far he’d found no sign of her nearness. Once, he thought he heard her whisper into his ear, teasing him.
I don’t know if you can handle the heat.
The statement taunted him. The heat of what? Her gaze? Her words? Her touch?
A moan nearly slipped past his lips. A part of him wanted her hands on him. A desire he shouldn’t entertain! No one could touch him for more than a few seconds without inciting an internal cringe. At the very least! Thanks to his father, he was damaged goods in any way that mattered.
He knew this, accepted it, because he had a chosen family now. His brothers-by-circumstance loved him, as he loved them. They squabbled, yes, but none of them ever lost sight of a simple but profound truth: they would willingly die for each other.
Sometimes, though, he couldn’t help but wonder if they should be doing more than killing and conquering, amassing a bigger army all to do more killing and conquering. But only sometimes. And in the near future, they could do more. They would. Once he and the other Astra successfully completed this newest round of blessing tasks, they would ascend and kill Erebus Phantom, their greatest enemy, along with his legions of soulsuckers. No greater outcome than that.
But of course, he also wondered what would come afterward for him. Would the Astra split?
What would Roux do with his free time? Other Astra employed a concubine. He kept a maid.
Did the beauty in his thoughts have a male?
How had she stood before Roux one moment and been gone the next without flashing? She hadn’t ghosted inside him. His impenetrable inner shields had been engaged. More than that, he’d played host to many of the spectral species in his early years. Phantoms, ghosts, wraiths, and demons. This was not any of that.
The mystery rolled on, consuming his days. And his nights.
The timing for this couldn’t have been worse. He should be focused on Roc’s task. How the Commander seemed to be doing the unthinkable—falling in love with his latest bride.
If, at the appointed time, Roc failed to sacrifice her, the Astra would lose everything they held dear. A circumstance Roux could hardly fathom. To betray the males who had served you for eons, merely to save a specific female? Couldn’t the Commander select another?
A sharp pang tore through Roux’s temples, a slight puff of air leaving him. For days, these pangs had attacked him with greater frequency and intensity.
The next one nearly dropped him to his knees. As something warm and wet leaked from his nose, Roc’s wife, Taliyah, snaked around the far corner, approaching the cell.
Roux tensed, but weakness invaded his limbs. His vision blurred. The world spun. The next thing he knew, he was laying on the floor, looking up at the pale firebrand who’d waged war against the Commander’s heart.
Taliyah loomed over his fallen form, patting his cheek. “There you are,” she said.
With a roar, he launched to his feet. “Why did I black out?” He’d heard no screams. “What did you do to me?” The questions shot from his tongue like poison-laced daggers. She must have done something. Phantoms were liars and manipulators, all of them.
The current Astra queen with a stubborn streak a thousand miles long held up her hands, palms out. “Okay. Let’s de-escalate a notch, soldier. I did nothing, m’kay, but I now recognize what’s wrong with you. I even understand how to fix you...kind of.”
She could fix him? He ground his teeth, rocked back on his heels, and inclined his head, saying, “My...apologies.” However he felt about this woman, she did bear a higher rank. Not only was she Roc’s wife, she was also the new harpy General. For the time being, he owed her respect. “You have answers?”
Despite the sharpness of his tone, his words placated her, and she nodded. “The woman you saw during the battle did, in fact, possess you. I can confirm that. She is a phantom like me.”
In his veins, blood froze. No. No! His shields were not so feeble.
Phantoms were mystically created by Erebus, the god the Astra battled for the blessing. Usually. But Taliyah was Erebus’s biological daughter and unlike any phantom they’d ever encountered.
Taliyah wasn’t done, either. “Here’s the thing. She probably possessed her daughter first. Meaning, yes, you’re carrying both mom and child inside your body. Knowing Blythe, she hoped you’d whisk them both to safety, where they could exit without your knowledge.”
Finally, his obsession had a name. Blythe. “The little girl. Yes. I saw her. Then she disappeared, and she appeared. The woman. But I stopped. I was swinging, but I stopped. I would never hurt a child. But by then, the two were already gone. Then the darkness came.” His brow furrowed. “If they remain inside me, why do I not sense them?”
“They’re buried too deep. At least, that’s what my niece told me when she took over your body and spoke to me.”
What! The child had overtaken him? He opened his mouth, a curse poised at the end of his tongue. Then the rest of her admission caught his attention. Niece. That meant Blythe was more than a phantom. She was Taliyah’s sister, a harphantom, and a daughter of Erebus. Enemy!
“No big deal,” Taliyah interjected with a breezy inflection. “Nope! Not another word from you. Just let your shields down, and I’ll draw them out.”
No big deal? Seething, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Lower my shields for a phantom?” Any phantom? Never. Surely he wasn’t so foolish. This might be a trick, after all.
Her expression hardened. “Do it willingly, or I’ll make you do it by force. One way or another, I’m getting my girls out. No, you know what? You don’t get to think about this, and you don’t get to fight it. Kneel.”
