Skidmark’s mind went into a full panic as she gazed at Cassy. It felt as though she were falling. Everything about the woman was wrong. Her skin too pale as it reflected the crackling light around Skidmark’s fingers. Her smile too wide with too many teeth as it tore at the corners of her lips. Black droplets wept from the stretched skin on her face. She stank of a grave and her fingernails were missing.

It was like the first night of the apocalypse. When those who refused the system fought with those who accepted. When the dead walked and ran and attacked like frenzied animals.

But this one… intelligence sparkled in those dead and doll-like eyes… The oversized tattered shirt was like a robe of office… aura crept around Skidmark like fog in the morning coming home late… it made a maze of the city and every turn led deeper… alcohol blurred… lost, and scared as the following footsteps grew louder… the fog ran tongues up and down her thighs… fingers trailed beneath her ribs… Skidmark shivered but couldn’t move.

Cassy smiled.

“What a tasty new friend you have made,” she said.

“Leave her alone,” Zoe said sternly.

Her voice ran through Skidmark like a shock. She had thought herself alone… The dread in the air pulsed with laughter. The corpse — the woman — Cassy — reared like a spire.

“Do you know what I want?”

“To eat my brains?”

“Not eat you, no…” Cassy stepped forward with her arms outstretched. She beckoned with her fingers. “I want us to know each other.”

Zoe backed up, and Skidmark’s blood ran cold. Even Zoe was scared? The lightning tec around her fingers died. Darkness swallowed the tunnel, but Cassy’s skin glowed with subtle moonlight. Her eyes and grinning mouth were pits of syrupy black. She shimmied closer.

“You were so quick to fight me last time, I wonder what changed?”

“What last time?”

“It was a blast,” Cassy said. “I wonder what changed?”

Her nostrils flared.

“You reek of Skein,” she sniffed again and her eyes rolled through her head as her tongue slithered across her lips. “Skein and… three systems all for yourself? You’re not attacking me, so surprising. Greedy for weapons you don’t even use. How dull, you’re afraid.”

Zoe backed up another step.

“Stay behind me, Skidmark.”

Skidmark hurried behind the stronger woman. She could hardly breathe.

“Who is this?” Skidmark asked.

She tried to sense Cassy, but there was no Skein at all. Looking at the strange, corpse-like woman was like walking through a dark room and stepping into a hole.

Cassy tilted her head at Skidmark’s question.

“Who am I?” she tapped her finger against her chin. “To Zoe, I’m the first body on the mountain she’ll climb to take down the king. I’m what happens when fools rush in…” her smile widened and dissolved into laughter. “But who am I? Who am I to myself? That is a very interesting question to which I do not care. If you are curious, let me help you learn.” She turned on her heel. “Come with me.”

She started down the tunnel. Her back was open and Zoe’s fist clenched. Why wasn’t she taking the strike?

“We’re not going anywhere with you.”

Cassy turned, her lips wide with surprise.”

“There’s the stubbornness. The selfishness. This body loathes you, but I don’t care. You are part of my plan, come along. Let us be friends, you like friends don’t you?”

ding!

I like her.

“We aren’t friends,” Zoe hissed.

Cassy shrugged.

“Not yet,” she shrugged. “But soon.”

Dirt and rock burst from the tunnel walls as screeching monsters leaped out of hiding. Claws like knives flashed in the unearthly pale of Cassy’s skin. Zoe swung her chains like a dervish. Skidmark ran away in the darkness, trying to get distance from the wet thump of metal on flesh, the cracking of ribs, and the scrabbling of claws on stone.

She threw lightning in fitful bursts. Electricity arced out and struck at random. Flashes of light illuminated the chaotic battle. A creature hissed at her, its face like a skinned possum, eyes beady, fangs wide. A chain looped around its neck and yanked it back so hard the beady eyes bulged.

“Run!” Zoe’s voice boomed in the confines of the tunnel. “Get back up!”

Skidmark sprinted as the echo of her friend’s voice chased her toward the exit. Claws followed, clacking, gaining, and fear contracted her mind as urine ran down her legs. Zoe kept fighting behind her. Zoe screamed.

This was worse than any Hell.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Something snarled behind her, and Skidmark whimpered, stumbling in her fear. She closed her eyes, expecting claws to slash into her back.

“No!” Cassy called out with a delighted laugh. “Let the tasty one go, for now. After all, who else will carry our invitations? We have a lovely home, a little tasty one, it’s where I was born. Won’t you tell the rest of my friends to come and party?”

The scrabbling claws fell away as Skidmark’s feet hit the ramp. She ran up and into the silence of the courts. Viridian light played through the stained glass in pools and whispered across the polished wood. She fell to her knees, weeping, shaking, lightning spitting around her fingers.

Her friend needed her, and she choked. She smacked the wood and screamed. Her voice echoed and died and the dark hole behind her remained empty and waiting.

Tears fell, as Skidmark rose and stumbled her way toward the doors.

###

In the confines of the tunnel, Zoe fought. Her chains thrashed. Mirrored skin reflected the pale light of Cassy’s laughing visage. The undead woman hunched over against the wall wheezing with maggot-dripping laughter — so wet! — as Zoe wrestled with her children.

Barkly stood before her, growling, and biting, but the children overpowered him. Claws punched through white fur. Barkly’s pained howl rose and filled the tunnel. It ended sharply and his Skein presence vanished.

The pain of his departure filled Zoe with a sickness.

The spawn were foul creatures. Their skin was so tight over their muscles that they were skinless. Teeth bulged from peeled lips. Claws like knives flashing in the air, skating across the rock. Blows bounced from her Mirrored skin, but every strike drained her power. They hissed and leaped at her. Dropped from above. Grabbed at her feet. Her chains lashed out and crashed into limbs. Bone shattered. Flesh tore.

She fought ferociously. She had taken down an Angel, she could do this! But where she had used the environment to her advantage in that fight, this environment worked against her. The confines of the tunnel prevented her from gaining momentum with her chains.

But when a battered child landed near Cassy, a long grey tube snaked from under her tattered shirt and dribbled into the fanged maw. The creature twitched, eyes rolling, jaw snapping, as its dented head re-inflated and it scrabbled back into the fray.

Zoe grew tired.

This wasn’t how she should fall.

She ran, huge leaping strides, as she pushed for distance. Cassy’s children pursued her. As Zoe ran, her hands flew out to the surrounding tunnel. Ten fingers extending out and carrying her intentions. They struck the rock and sank, planting the seed of the ruddy chain.

With the modifications from Rue’s lower treasury, the Black Star chains drew on Zoe’s Skein. The chains glinted with unseen red light as they burst out in all directions. Zoe stumbled and skidded to a stop. She gasped for air as the nausea of low Skein filled her.

The children scrabbled and clawed at the netted barrier the ruddy chains created across the tight tunnel opening. They reached through with their long nails. Tongues lashed the air.

The chains held.

Zoe sighed against a wall. Skidmark had gone ahead. She would be safe. Zoe had to hurry to join her, in case the others mounted a rescue. She needed to stop them from coming here.

A glowing light approached down the length of the tunnel. The children parted, hissing, and cowing, as Cassy walked toward the barrier of chains. She cradled a child in her arms. It suckled at her breast greedily as the foul milk untwisted its broken legs, Black veins bulged beneath Cassy’s gray and flaking skin. Tooth marks littered her chest, oozing wounds, but she paid no heed and merely smiled at Zoe.

“My children enjoyed playing with you,” she said. “You would make a wonderful mother.”

Zoe blanched.

“This is not a game.”

“This is all some kind of game…” Cassy placed the child down on the ground. “You know that’s true.”

Her breast remained hanging from her torn shirt. Black ichor beaded on the nipple.

Dripped.

Cassy gripped the chains and leaned against them.

“I can taste your desire to destroy,” Cassy said. “Destroy me. Destroy the world. Destroy yourself. You are entropy raging across the land, and look how little land you have covered. How sad the flame that craves starlight!”

Zoe glared at the monster. The rage overpowered her disgust, for now, but the thought of the chains collapsing, of the creatures clawing over her again….

She shuddered.

Her Mirrored skin flickered, and she dismissed the technique rather than continue draining Skein. She couldn’t afford to run out around Cassy… She would rather die.

ding!

I won’t let you die.

Don’t let her turn me into one of…

She didn’t even know how to finish the thought.

“What do you want?” Zoe asked.

“Wanting is for the flesh,” Cassy cooed as her nostrils flared. “New flesh, old flesh, black flesh, blue flesh. Yes, all of it hot and wanting — seething with desire — but not I —”

“Enough!” Zoe shouted as she straightened. “I’m leaving, if you try to follow me, I’ll kill you and your children.”

“Oh, ho, ho, such threats! And I’m sure you’ll feel brave under the open sky with room to move and friends to sacrifice. But no, we can’t let you leave!”

“Try to stop me.”

Cassy fell to her knees, chuckling.

“We try nothing.”

Zoe backed away.

She wanted to run, but couldn’t avert her eyes. The air pulled at her. The fog of her breath in the pale moonlight of rotting flesh curled like fingers upon her skin. Tugged at her.

[Mind’s Eye Incision]

The psychic blades formed on the tip of her chains as she swept them around herself. Her attacks rippled through the miasma, but it pressed upon Zoe all the same.

Cassy fell to the ground clutching at her sides. Her head spasmed as she laughed so hard she gasped.

Zoe cut furiously at the air around her as she backed away. She had to cancel the technique!

But there was no Skein to cut.

Cassy’s gasps became a squeal.

The dark tunnel opened around her like the dark ceilings of an abandoned house. Zoe took a step backward, cold rock springing like an old floorboard under her feet.

There was no Skein to cut.

She ran. Away from the empty home and into the forest. The dark tunnel grabbed at her as she slammed into the walls. The baying of hounds in her heart urged her on.

Cassy’s voice echoed down the tunnel.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Was she close behind? How did she get past the ruddy chains? Zoe shielded her face as she charged blindly ahead.

“Come out, Joel!”

Fingers grabbed her face. Caught her hair. Zoe shrieked. All confidence vanished. She was a little girl running blind. No! She grabbed at the mass dropping onto her. She rolled onto the ground. It was a man she wrestled with, but he moved like a boneless animal. Joel wrapped himself around her head with inhuman strength. It was like drowning in sweaty cement. His rough hands pulled at her lips.

They tasted of dirt.

She chomped down. Fingertips severed between her teeth. They crawled toward her gullet, blunt nails poking at her throat. She spat them out as her chains wrapped around Joel’s arms. He was bent over, licking at her face with a hot tongue that felt like a dog’s.

Her chains pulled his arms free of their sockets with a wet tear. Lukewarm blood spattered Zoe’s face as the man continued to lick. She grabbed at his body as his tongue ran across her lips and she tasted the bitter slime of his drool.

With a savage roar, she slammed him into the cave wall.

His body crumpled like a sack of rotten fruit. A gasp through unseen, shattered lips. A titter.

Zoe jerked away. She could still taste the bloody earth.

“Who are you?”

“Me?” a harsh voice pierced the wet flesh of the neck. “I’m nobody, cousin. Nobody at all, but the one called Joel has something to say,” the bubbling, raspy voice smacked its lips with amusement. “He begs of you a favor.”