The Tattooed Heart (Messenger of Fear 2)

“It’s this place, isn’t it?” I asked, struggling to wring any evidence of fear from my voice, trying to sound strong and unafraid. “You can’t maintain the illusion here. The true Oriax is peeking out from behind the curtain.”

“The true Oriax.” She almost whispered it, and yes there were slithering snakes in that voice, but now they were cobras reared up and ready to strike. “You want to see the true Oriax? Follow me, little fool.”

She turned and began walking, supremely confident that I would follow. And what choice did I have? I didn’t know this place. I had no map. I had Oriax.

We walked down a cavernous stone hallway that widened and grew as we went, and with each step Oriax herself grew. The seductress’s skin was shed in bits and pieces, as if she was disrobing. Or, more aptly perhaps, like a snake molting.

She grew and as she grew, her skin roughened to something more toad-like than human. Her hair fell from her head in locks and then in hunks and finally all at once, revealing a ridged and horned head. From her once-gym-toned behind a tail sprouted, lengthened, and then split in two: whipping, furious serpents, fanged mouths slashing at the air.

The light, too, grew as we advanced, a strange light of a color I had known since first entering the world of the messengers and their foes. It was the yellow of rotting teeth, the yellow of new bruises and dripping pus. It was the yellow of the mist.

Oriax turned to face me and I nearly bolted in panic, but fascination kept me rooted to the spot. Oriax was outlined against the yellow light that pulsed sullenly from some vast open space behind her. She was no longer anything like a human, yet still female, an exaggerated comic book fantasy of femininity.

She was naked, clothed now only in a reptile’s skin. Her eyes were blazing red orbs, spheres of blood punctuated with vertical black slits. Her nose was twin gashes that widened and narrowed with each audible breath. Her hands were claws, her feet now unconcealed hooves. Power and malice radiated from her. She stood at least ten feet tall, huge and menacing.

“Do you like me now, mini-Messenger? Do you still fantasize about me sneaking into your bed some night? Will you still shudder ever so coyly at my breath on your neck?”

I should have been terrified. Once upon a time I would have been a puddle of tears and terror on the stone floor. But in revealing herself, Oriax had lost her power over me. This was the Oriax Messenger knew all along, the Oriax he had so effortlessly resisted even as I had practically swooned.

“You know, Oriax,” I said, reaching back to my high school mean girls’ days, “you used to be hot. But you’ve really let yourself go.”

I had seen Oriax snarky, irritated, frustrated, subtle, and cruel, but I had never seen her lose her temper.

She grew another two feet, a monster of snake skin and ebony hooves. Her tail whipped around her waist, reaching for me, snapping serpent jaws at me. She roared in a voice that by sheer force of moving air pushed me back. She bared fangs large enough to impale me.

But my fear of her was lessened, rather than heightened. I recognized impotent rage when I saw it. She could not harm me. In fact, I suspected, she could not touch me. Not here, not in her home.

“Take me to Ariadne,” I said.

She screamed a foul curse I cannot repeat here.

“In the name of Isthil and her messengers, I command you to take me to Ariadne.”

Where did that come from? I had not planned the words; I’d barely thought the thought. I had no notion of being able to command anyone, let alone in the name of the goddess. But the words came from me, and in a strong, clear voice, too.

“You want to meet Messenger’s one true love?” she raged. “Then come, and see, and despair!”

She ran down the hall and I ran after her, albeit on shorter legs, but with the power of a messenger that allowed me to keep pace. She came to a stop when the hallway itself came to a stop, at the edge of an open space so enormous I have no ready analogy for it. A stadium could have been tossed into that space and made no more impact than a coin tossed in a lake.

It went up toward light, toward the glittering underside of the diamond. And it went down, down far beyond sight, down into lightless vastness. It stank of raw sewage and salty blood, of fear sweat, and raw meat.

The space itself was overwhelming, and the smell was overpowering, but those were not the sensations that crushed my heart in my chest. There were objects in that hollowed mountain, the objects were human beings, men and women, young and old, all hung in midair, suspended by nothing visible. They rose slowly, or fell slowly, up . . . down . . . They were like scuba divers trying to reach the surface but dragged down each time by too-heavy weights.

They were not alone. Smaller in number but quick as hornets, demons raced from form to form. They hovered close to the humans who rose, and they whispered and laughed and mocked and screamed. The demon cries became a background noise, a soundtrack of rage and hate. I could only clearly hear those closest.

You are filth.

You killed her.

You will never be free.

He cried for mercy and you gave him none!

Sadist!

Pervert!

Murderer!