chicks! Let me show you to your bedrooms!”
That caught the kids’ attentions. Their eyes widened significantly and
diminutive smiles formed on their faces as the thought of having a room to
themselves. Joke’s on them.
The “bedrooms” were nothing more than row after row of cots in a
sweltering hot room. Each room fitted approximately fifteen cots.
Yup. Living the good life.
“I’m going to talk to B,” I told Mali.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked hesitantly. As Head of
this mission, it wasn’t necessary for me to bring her along for the debrief.
However, I could use the moral support when B got on my ass about
protocol.
“I’ll be fine,” I said instead. I nodded towards the buffet line. “Go grab
me a plate.”
Smiling gratefully - Mali was as afraid of B as I was of Nightmares - she
skipped in the direction of the heavenly smelling food. She, of course,
wouldn’t eat any of it. She had her own supply of animals to drink from in
the lower levels of the caves.
Taking a calming breath, I headed in the direction that housed B’s office.
The light in the cave got scarcer and more unreliable the further I ventured.
The lights above me flickered intermittently.
Fortunately, I knew my way through the tunnels by heart.
I arrived in front of B’s office door, heart pounding, before raising my fist
to knock. Before it could connect with the wood, the door was yanked open.
B stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his bulky chest and his
receding, gray hairline revealing his true age. This life had taken its toll on
him; already, I could see an ancient despondency to his creased face that went
centuries beyond his forty-years. His eyes were sharp though as they traced
my features.
“I heard that there was an incident on your assignment,” he said at last.
“How did you...? Never mind.”
I forget that B knew everything.
“Normally, I would get on your ass about killing a Damned, but I’m
rather grateful that you did.”
I blinked. I had expected him to yell at me for risking both myself and the
organization out of a stupid vendetta. This? Saying the word “grateful”?
“It provides us with an opportunity,” he continued, moving to sit behind
his stone desk. A single hanging bulb illuminated the bare walls, casting the
room into shadows. Hesitantly, I walked further into the sparsely lit room. I
wasn’t usually a timid individual. I was more of a stab-first-and-ask-
questions-later type. With B, I turned into an entirely different person. What
could I say? The man scared the shit out of me.
“Opportunity?” I parroted. There was a single seat in front of his desk,
but I knew better than to sit before he allowed me to. Instead, I rested my
hands on the hardwood (not a sex joke, you pervs) and watched B’s face turn
thoughtful.
“You know about the crowned princes? Correct?”
I nodded mutely. Who didn’t know them? A prince from each Nightmare,
all the same age. There were numerous rumors concerning these men: that
they were monsters. Murderers. Worse than their parents who created and
enforced human slavery.
And there was also the prophecy.
I didn’t know the exact wording - no human did - but the message was
clear: these princes had more power than any Nightmare that had ever
existed. This excessive power could be used to either bring equality to all the
races...or completely destroy the world. There was no inbetween.
What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on those men, those monsters…
“You have the invitation, I presume?” B said. I nodded and produced it
from my pocket. B’s smile was positively radiant; he looked years younger
than his actual age at that moment. “Did you know that the invitation is
designed specifically for each person? The Council gives it to a killer, and the
killer is obligated to join The Damning. It was created by a group of very
powerful Mages.”
“Okay?” I wondered where B was going with this. He had a tendency to
speak in riddles, especially when he got overly excited.
“People will kill others in order to receive an invitation,” he continued.
Look at me. A badass assassin confused by an old man’s ramblings.
“This will be a perfect opportunity to take them out from within,” he
finished gleefully.
Again...the hell?
Seeing my confusion, B let out a grunt of annoyance.
“Read the invitation.”
Frowning, I stared down at the piece of paper I was holding. The blood
drained from my face as I read the words once. Twice. Three-times. The
words were intricately written, as if someone had spent time creating each
individual letter.
Surely there was a mistake.
Surely I had read it wrong.
Surely…
But the letters didn’t change, no matter how much I willed them to.
Z - You have been chosen as the competitor of The Damning. Please
report to the Capital in five days time.
“When you killed Luka, the magic transferred itself from him to you.
Congratulations Z. You’re now an official competitor of The Damning.”
Oh fuck me.
TWO
Z
Ileveled another punch at the black bag. It swung like a pendulum, the
movement almost rhythmical and hypnotizing. I couldn’t help but wish
that the punching bag would fight back. I wanted to feel the pain, the
adrenaline, the excitement, of a fight. I wanted blood to cascade down my
face. To feel something other than this numbness tightening my lungs.
I was afraid.
It was an emotion I hadn’t experienced since I was five and was forced to
watch my parents die at the hands of Nightmares. I remembered the copper
taste of blood in my mouth as my little hand grasped my mother’s
desperately. I remembered hiding behind her clothes in the closet, waiting for
the bad men to finally leave.
I hadn’t only lost my mother and father that day. I lost a little piece of
myself as well. My innocence. My humanity.
The Nightmares had destroyed it all.
I thought of S then as well, his shirt soaked with blood and his hand
reaching for me. His eyes had been anguished when they met mine, but they
still held more love than I deserved. Especially since I was the one who had
gotten him killed.
Just the thought made my blood boil. I rapidly punched at the bag until
my knuckles were scraped and bleeding. The pain - I needed more of it.
How did B possibly expect me to compete in The Damning, let alone
assassinate the royal darlings? Even I, certifiably insane, knew it was a
suicide mission. Either I would die in the competition just because I was a
female human (a prime target for fucked-up Nightmares), or I would die by
execution after I killed the royal family. My only option seemed to be death.
Yup. Not a big fan.
It wasn’t as if I was afraid of death, per se, but more so of the
implications behind it. Where would a person like me go? Cert
ainly not
heaven, and I wasn’t ready for a Hell worse than the one I was currently
living.
I stared at the rivulets of blood cascading down my fisted hand. I barely
processed the pain as I thought about what I had to do.
There were rumors of the royal family, though most of them were only
that. It was the type of gossip you would hear in bars and clubs. I reckoned
no one actually knew the families that were supposedly devil-sent to lead us.
Each group of supernaturals were descended from one of the Seven
Deadly Sins. It was a lesson that us human children were taught religiously:
Don’t mess with the Nightmares. They’re descended from the devil himself.
Shifters were the most volatile and dangerous of the species given that
their sin was Wrath. If a Shifter became angry enough, frightened enough,
passionate enough, they would shift. Fortunately, it wasn’t something they
could do at will. When they transformed, it was immensely difficult to
separate the man from the beast. The two became one and the same.
the king’s soulmate, had died years ago at the hands of hunters (aka people
like me). Apparently, the loss of his mate made him completely unhinged. He
had always been cruel, but her death made him evil. He was one of the
biggest proponents of human work camps. His son, twenty-three and with the
dumbass name of Lupe, was one of the elite seven. The seven princes, all
born within minutes of each other. All destined to either save the world...or
destroy it.
Our profile of Lupe consisted only of photographs, all of which showed
the big man in the Capital’s library. So far, he hadn’t found his mate. I hated
him more than the others, despite knowing next to nothing about the beast of
a man. It was a Shifter who had killed S, and it was a Shifter I would enact
my revenge upon. If that Shifter happened to take the form of a prince…
well...I never said I wasn’t a greedy, vindictive bitch.
The Mages were descended from the sin Sloth (read as: they were lazy
sons of bitches). Their magic actually developed through evolution, for it was
difficult to get them to do anything that involved moving. They required a
simpler way to enjoy the pleasures of life, thus the creation of magic. Their
prince was named Sebastian - or Bash, to his friends - and was the
stereotypical party boy. I was willing to bet what little money I didn’t have
that he had never worked a day in his life.
Most people had to work for what they wanted, but not him. Not any
Mage. They snapped their stupid fingers, and the world fell at their feet.
There was only one Mage I had ever met that actually worked for what he
wanted. He was my other half, my best friend. An asshole, yes, but still ten-
times better than any other person in this fucked-up world, Nightmare and
human combined. Diego may have had his flaws, but he was one of my best
friends.
The Vampires were the offspring of Gluttony. According to Mali, it felt
as if you were constantly thirsty. As if you were wandering a desert for days
on end, unable to reach that lake of water in front of you. No matter how
much you drank, how much you consumed, you always wanted more. She
described it as a painful burn in the back of her throat that only diminished
when she fed. The relief would last for an hour before the pain began once
again in earnest.
Out of all the Nightmares, Vampires were my favorite. That could’ve
been because I was partially biased towards that species. After all, I really
couldn’t hate the species of my best friend. What type of racist bigot would
that make me?
Their prince, next in line for the throne, was Jax. From what little intel we
had gathered, he was engaged to marry the Shifter princess, Atta. She wasn’t
his mate, but that didn’t seem to matter in the supernatural political world.
After all, the chances of him actually finding his mate were slim to none. It
was quite literally like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Genies were the race most likely to interact with humans. They needed us
to live. Needed our greed. As descendants of Greed, Genies thrived on human
fantasies and dreams. They picked apart every desire, every wistful thought
you ever had, and kept it as their own.
I had once called upon a Genie - Lin the Asshole - to help me avenge my
parents’ death. Stupidass Genie. I had also made the idiotic mistake of falling
in love with said Genie.
Not one of my finest moments.
Seriously, if I had a time machine, I would use it to slap the stupid out of
younger, hormonal me.
The prince of the Genies was Devlin. Not much was known about this
prince since he constantly traveled the world to grant wishes. Like all Genies,
he was considered selfish and smug. He created contracts with so many
loopholes it was impossible to catch them all until it was too late. I had heard
more than one horror story of people getting cheated by Dev the Genie.
Incubi were the love-child of Lust, as you could have probably guessed.
They fed off the sexual energy of others. They needed sex, like Vampires
needed blood and Genies needed greed, to survive.
Their prince was some tool named Killian. As you would expect with any
Incubi, he had a different lover every night. Apparently, a string of hookups
were required for an Incubi to survive until they found their mate.
I sometimes wondered if I was half-Incubi. Mad respect for them. Using
their species as justification for lots of sex? Yes please.
The Mermaids were another interesting creature that I yearned to study.
Their sin was Envy. They were forced to spend twelve hours in the water and
twelve hours on land, never fully a part of either world. They would become
jealous of the creatures in the water, the natural way they were able to adapt,
and they would envy those on land. The relationships, the technology, the life
they would never be allowed to have. I might’ve pitied them if their royal
family members weren’t raging dicks.
Their envy towards humans caused them to back the Shifters’ proposal
for human work camps. If they couldn’t be happy, no one could.
Dair was their prince. Again, not much was known of him. When he was
human, he hid away from the world. Rumor had it that he appeared more fish
than human, that his life was tied more to the water than to the land. Others
believed he was so beautiful, with the siren allure common in most
Mermaids, that he had to hide his face away to keep women from falling head
over heels for him.
Pretty damn vain if you asked me.
Finally, we had the Shadows. This was the most mysterious group of
Nightmares. They were direct relatives of Pride.
This pride kept them hidden away from the rest of the word. They didn’t
believe us peasants should have the pleasure of knowing their names or
seeing their faces. I heard rumors that the Shadow prince had a name that
started with a R. Ryan? Ryland? Rachelle?
The world may never know.
They had never, not e
ver, talked to a human. We were so beneath them
that we didn’t even register on their stupid “importance scale”. We were the
scum beneath their feet, the disgusting virus they vaccinated themselves
against.
The seven royal families. The seven princes. And it was my job to kill
them.
No pressure.
I found myself on the dusty ground, my back against an old treadmill as I
stared at the makeshift gym. It was empty at this time of night, though I knew
the morning would bring in dozens of people. Everybody wanted to train. To
fight.
To kill.
I didn’t know how long I sat, wallowing in my own self-pity, before T
came looking for me. Without a word, he sat beside me, his knee touching
mine. His auburn hair hung in his face, in desperate need of a cut. Almost
absently, he brushed a strand behind his ear.
I always startled at the resemblance between T and his brother, S. If I
were to squint my eyes, I could almost believe that S was sitting beside me
once again, laughing at one of my poorly-timed jokes or attempting to make
me smile.
T’s own smile turned sympathetic, as if he knew the direction my
thoughts had headed. Knowing him, he probably did. I would like to say that
I trusted T based on his merit alone, but that would be a lie. If he hadn’t
looked like the man I loved and lost, I wouldn’t trust him as much as I did.
He would never own my heart, but he would always hold a piece of it in a
way that only close friends forged from a shared trauma could.
“Are you going to say anything?” I asked after the silence became
unbearable.
“Are you?” he retorted.
“I don’t know what to say.” My finger traced patterns across the stone
flooring. It was something I had always done, a way I had found to escape.
Draw. If only it was possible for me to draw my pain away. “I don’t know if I
can do this, T. I don’t know if I’m ready to die.”
T was silent for a moment, his eyes intensely trained on my finger
moving across the floor. It was the first time I admitted my own thoughts
aloud.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he finally said. He
leaned forward to rest his long arms on his knees. His head tilted to the side,
expression thoughtful. “That’s what makes us different from them. Free-