"What do you mean by ‘you don’t know who I am’?”
With an confused stare of green-gray, Inia repeated her answer to Rashad and said, “I have never met you before, sir. Given your aggressive demeanor towards me, I doubt we’d ever get along.”
The girl kneeled over Jollum and stroked his face as Moira held his prone form. Jollum’s injuries and his condition were getting worse with all the stress in the room and he moaned in discomfort.
“What? You don’t think we’d get along? We’ve been on a date—just last night, we were out on the top floor of the construction site and we kissed. Twice!” Taking her by the shoulders, Rashad said, “Don’t you remember anything? Anything at all?”
“Get your hands off me, buddy!” Inia shouted and pushed Rashad off. “First of all, I wouldn’t go to some damn construction site for a date, ‘cuz Auntie said guys are mean and all of them are liars. With that said, I certainly wouldn’t be going out with you, because you’re both a mean person and a liar.”
“I’m tired of people calling me a liar and I’m TIRED of hearing about that damned auntie of yours,” Rashad yelled. “You don’t have a single original thought—”
“Whoa whoa whoa, there.” Kitty stopped him with a powerful paw, saying, “We’re trying to get her to remember who we are, not make her our enemy. Cut her some slack; maybe she’s suffering from the stress of the day.”
“Yes, Kitty,” Donovan interjected, “but we must get her memory back to where it was before we can get what we want.”
“Get what you want?” Inia looked at the ice mage with a wary eye. “What do you mean by that?”
“Never mind that. First, we must get your mind in order. Do you know who I am?”
Inia shrugged. “I don’t know…some guy asking me questions?”
Sighing, Donovan asked, “Do you recall meeting me before?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Alright. So you know, I’m your boss here at the Egress Bar,” the ice mage clarified. “The name’s Donovan.”
“I don’t work here,” Inia spat back. “I’d never work in a filthy little knothole like this. I work for my Auntie’s friend Moira at the Loom House. I have been for three days now.”
“Yes, she has worked for me during the daytime,” Moira piped up as she held the injured Jollum. “And it’s true: she’d never work here because her aunt would never allow it.”
“If she ever knew about it,” Donovan added, brushing off the comment about his bar. “Okay, so you remember your aunt’s friend Moira. Do you remember anyone else here?”
“C’mon kiddo.” Kitty put on a smile and danced a bit, adding a flourish to her finish and said confidently, “You have to remember me.”
Frowning, the tanned teenager replied, “No, I think I’d remember meeting an attention whore in this small town. Especially if she was an Enigman.”
“Oh…” The humbled cat-woman slinked back to her seat next to Wyle, who said, “You remember me?”
“I’ve seen you in town, but I’ve never met you. I’d have no reason to talk to the likes of you.”
“HOW ABOUT ME?” Barcrab asked, expecting the best.
“Heavens no!” Inia wrinkled her nose at the crab-man saying, “You’re ugly as sin and you smell like fish! By the night sky, who do you people think I am?” She looked about the room and surveyed the other nine people as they stared back at the rude young woman who impatiently asked, “Well?”
“We are your friends!” Rashad said harshly. “We are the ones who saved you from a fate worse than death out there. We saved you from your aunt: the woman you hinge your ideas on is the one responsible for what’s going on past that door.”
A look of shock washed over Inia’s face. “My aunt? She’s got something to do with what’s going on outside?” When Rashad nodded in the affirmative, she replied, “Let me guess…she’s an evil magician who’s bent on destroying the world with that peasant army outside, so she can take her revenge on the world of mankind.” A sarcastic smile spread across her bronze face and she asked mockingly, “Am I even close?”
“You’re very close, little girl. One mistake: they aren’t peasants.” Cyan stood and patted Rashad’s shoulder reassuringly. “They are the undead.”
With an angry stare, Inia said, “The undead? You mean as in walking corpses? HA!” She got up from Jollum’s side and said, “The dead can’t walk, because they’re dead. Dead. As for my aunt Blackheart being the cause of all this, I think you all need to stop telling lies about the person who runs this town. She made this town—”
“And she can break it whenever she wants,” Shuya cut in. “I’ve seen her do it before, and she’s doing it again. Only this time, she’s has foot soldiers to do whatever she wants done. Our “benefactor” didn’t have that luxury in Sumptor.
“Sumptor? That town was destroyed! And you say my aunt did that?” Inia stomped her foot and said, “I am not going to sit here and let you people slander my aunt’s good name in Karmor’s Bend. She’s done far too much good in this town: there’s no crime to speak of in this town because the commoners stay in their places!
“And you rabble are trying to upset that balance with lies,” Inia said as she pointed a slender finger at the group in front of her. “I’m going to tell my aunt about you subversives and see that you are punished justly. I’m leaving, and you can’t stop me.” With a swirl of her cloak, the haughty teenager tromped up the stairs to the upper floor of the bar.
The other survivors in the bar looked at each other with worried looks, thinking that their plan was lost to the whims of an impudent young woman. The only exception to the rule was Donovan, who smiled brightly. Shuya looked at him, asking, “What’s so funny?”
“She’s never gonna get past that ice wall I put up.” Donovan laughed and said, “Somebody go get her.”
Wyle stood and went upstairs to find the upper bar empty. “Inia?” he called. Suddenly, he saw a bit of movement pass by the window closest to the frozen barrier. Wyle couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Inia pass by the frost-edged window. He ran to the window and said, “Inia! Come back!!”
A snarling ghoul replaced the sight of a retreating Inia. Wyle jumped back in shock and made a beeline for the underground bar, yelling, “She got out, man! She’s headed for Blackheart Estates!”
“How the Hells…” was all Donovan could manage at first. “If that little twit broke any of my windows—”
“Ain’t no windows broke, Don. She did something though, and she’s gonna get the Benefactor on us! We’re stuck in this trap!” Wyle ran down to Shuya and Rashad and said, “We’ve gottta get out of here! We gotta move or we’re gonna get killed!!!”
Cyan reached over and slapped Wyle twice, saying, “That’s two out of three statements right: we have to move or we will be killed. But we aren’t trapped.” Turning he said, “Donovan, is there another way out of here?”
“Yeah, the back door. I sealed that with ice.” The ice mage stroked his white goatee. “I can unseal that back door…”
“Ah!” the halfling exclaimed in excitement. “You see where I’m going with this, right?”
“Yeah. I clear us a path and we all escape, leaving Karmor’s Bend behind. But to where…”
“By Toren, we’re not leaving without her!” Rashad looked pointedly at his fellow survivors and said, “Something is wrong with Inia, and I think that Blackheart the Benefactor has something to do with it. I’m not going to leave her to the mercy of that evil woman any longer!”
Cyan looked at the two dark-skinned humans with an equal amount of confusion and said, “The both of you are wrong about my plan.” Looking at Shuya, he explained, “I want Donovan to make a way through the undead creatures out there with his ice magic. We’re gonna go to Shuya’s house and get the rest of her gear, get my gear and then we deal with this necromancer. Are we clear on this?”
“This man’s injured,” Moira said. “He can’t be moved. We must stay here…”
A rattling cough stopped the seamstress and the foreman Jollum spoke. “Don’t worry about me, lass. You’ve got to get out of here, y’hear?”
“B-but if you stay here alone you’ll die, Jollum!” Shuya said. “We’ll take you to my house—”
“I’m already dead inside…” Jollum coughed a glob of phlegm, swirled dark red and yellow-green. It sat in his beard as he said, “That woman on the hill has had me wrapped about her finger…since the days of Sumptor. This damned disease…and my foolish wants of living forever were…were the cause of so much pain and suffering.”
Jollum turned to Shuya and said, “I sold out all of Sumptor for a new life, free of disease and all I had to do…was open the gate. Please forgive me my errors, little one…if you can …” Turning away from a wide-eyed Shuya, the Halfling foreman rasped to Moira, “Hear…she has you too…you must…get free…” The hacking coughs rattled his body and spittle flew from his mouth as Jollum breathed his last.
“No…” Shuya sobbed as she fell to her knees in frustration. “Why, why, why…”
“Ey,” Cyan said. “You can’t cry over this traitor, Shuya. You have to go on.” Wyle picked the bartender off the floor and got her to her feet. “Sumptor and this town were your towns too, human,” Cyan said to Wyle, “and I say it’s high time we paid the foul Blackheart back. Are you with me?”
“Yeah, and Shuya’s in too, even if she can’t say it,” Wyle said.
“I’m in,” Rashad said. “I’ve got a bone to pick with her.”
“ME TOO” Barcrab added.
“I will help you in your mission,” Donovan said. “You’ll need it.”
Cyan turned to Kitty and said, “Kitty? You with us?”
The Enigman cat-woman sat on the edge of the stage, looking at the floor in contemplation. She had been thinking about what Inia said when she heard her name and she said, “Something’s not right with her…wait, what?”
“We’re gonna put a stop to the woman who’s changed your little buddy. You coming with?”
Kitty got up wearily and said, “Yeah, I’m in.”
Moira looked around at the other people, ready to go and asked openly, “What of me, good sir?”
Cyan turned to her and said, “You’ve got no choice but to come with us.” Before Moira could protest, he said, “I heard what the foreman said. ‘She’s got you too’ he said. How’s she got you? We’ll have to find out when you come with us, ‘cuz you’re certainly not going to go out there alone.
“No buts,” Cyan cut in over Moira’s second protest. “We’re leaving now. Donovan, are you ready with your plan?”
“Yes,” Donovan said as he hefted his ice axe onto his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
With a wave of his hand, the back door leading to the back lot of the Egress Bar opened and the group filed up the stairs through it to street level. No ghouls were in the back lot, so Donovan cast his spell. While the eight survivors headed to Shuya’s house under a protective spell, the basement of the Egress Bar filled with a cloying smell of death and decay as Jollum’s rotting body decomposed at a supernaturally fast rate. Moments after Shuya cried over his dead body, all that was left of Jollum the foreman was the fine jacket coated in a muddy mixture of dark bloody phlegm and brown dust.
“Auntie!” Inia shouted as she rushed through the front door of Blackheart Estates, knocking the door handle into the wall. The tanned teenager ran upstairs to her aunt’s bedroom, then to the privy and stopped short of her aunt’s study. The punishments she had endured over the years for violating her aunt’s wish that she never go into the study kept her from entering. She turned and headed back down the stairs and plunked down in the kitchen with a glass of water.
“Hello, Inia. How was work?” came the voice from the outer hall. The young woman turned to see her aunt in a bodice worn over a black high-collared dress with flowing sleeves rolled behind black gauntlets. Blackheart’s hair was pushed up by a subtle headdress, allowing her hair to fall over and around the small silver skull centered in the middle of her forehead. Pushing away the bangs, the necromancer continued, “And how many times am I going to have to tell you not to rush in the door like that?”
“Auntie, there’s some peasants outside stirring up trouble. They’re killing people and breaking everything you’ve tried so hard to build. “ Inia thrust herself into the open arms of the Benefactor, burying her face into the familiar bosom. “What’s going on out there?”
“I’ve no idea, child. I have been working the entire time and cut off from the outside world.” Blackheart held the tanned teenager close and said, “You know how I am when I have my projects.”
“Yes, Auntie.” Inia pulled away, tears streaming down her face. “Those peasants could come at any moment and kill us, Auntie! What are we going to do?”
With a confident smile on her face, the necromancer said, “Come, child. I learned many things when I was in the Academy. Know that the most important is to always have an escape plan.” She took Inia by the hand and led her to the coat closet.
“Auntie, I just told you how it was outside; we can’t go out,” Inia reminded her aunt.
Blackheart snorted lightly and knelt to the pull ring, saying, “We’ll not be going out but down below the house.” She threw open the lid and a cold wind tickled Inia’s sandaled feet. When Inia asked what was down there, she merely replied, “Come and see, child.”
Complying like she should, Inia and Backheart went down the ladder into the first level of the basement. Cold as a tomb, Inia looked around and saw the bolted blackwood door, stairs that led up to the backyard and asked, “Where are we going, again?”
“To my special sanctuary, dear girl.” Blackheart took Inia’s hand and said to the girl, “Would you like to see what I’ve been doing with my late nights?”
“Sure, Auntie, I would love—“ A moan cut Inia off and echoed in the hallway to the second basement. Tossing her curly hair as she looked around warily, she asked, “W-what was that?”
“Ah.” Leading her by the hand in the unlit stairwell, Blackheart explained, “That’s the door spreading because of the cold. It’s another thing they teach us at the Academy. They say that when the temperature changes, the things we build spread and stretch as the temperature changes during the day and nights. That’s what makes things go ‘bump’ in the night.” The greatest half-truth ever told, the necromancer thought as they made their way to the second basement.
“Auntie,” Inia said, “I met some people today who say that you’re responsible for the peasant uprising. Is that true?”
“Dear girl, that’s nonsense! Why would I want to destroy my own town?” Blackheart turned with concerned look and said, “After all my work…” Curious as to the source of such information, she asked, “By the by, who told you this?”
“Some guy I met at the bar.”
At the mention of a bar, Blackheart froze. “W-what were you doing at a bar?” Blackheart stammered in controlled anger.
“These guys dragged me into a bar to save me from the peasant uprising.” Inia snorted in disgust and said, “Y’know, two of those people had some outlandish stories to tell on top of you being responsible. One of them said I was his girlfriend…”
“Go on…” the necromancer said as the young woman volunteered information.
“…And the other one told me I worked for him in some underground club beneath the existing bar.”
What. So that’s what she’s been doing…
The necromancer’s face was a mask of controlled emotion as her anger towards the tousle-haired trollop that stood before her mounted and threatened to break the surface. She took great care to say, “Those all are lies, lies by males to trick you, dear child” without striking the wall for emphasis.
The two women traveled further and reached a door at the bottom of the stairs. Inia turned to her aunt as she reached for the door handle. “To think that the common male who had his hands on me claimed to be my lover dared to touch me! You’re right, Auntie,” she said. “All men are liars.”
Blackheart put her hand over Inia’s and said, “You forget, Inia, that women will always surpass men. Even at lying.”
“Auntie, whatever do you m—”
The strong smell of blood and death struck Inia before the door opened to reveal the horrors of the second basement. Everywhere she looked, a drained body hung in the green pods with each familar face bleeding blood into the connected tubes. The tubes swirled and tangled into a mass that led to a strange chapel under the earth. The chapel had no features other than four doors and a huge eye with raised tentacles carved in its stone façade. She turned to her aunt with fear written on her face and whispered, “Auntie, we…”
The realization Inia had upon seeing her aunt was one barely fathomable by the young woman’s mind: She saw a woman who had given her mind, body and soul to a dark power unknown on the face of Cordoba. There stood woman who had lied to her about her role in the peasant uprising, and only the moons know what else. A face snarled in a grimace of anger and unending hatred for everything; a face the tanned teenager could never imagined her aunt could make. Was this the true face of her aunt, Inia asked herself, and if not, then who was the monster that stood at the locks of the basement door?
“A-Auntie?”
Inia received a backhanded slap as an answer, knocking her to the floor. The teenager looked up and saw her aunt stand over her and grab the front of her dress. Inia could feel her aunt’s eyes burning in her head as she stated with a growl, “You LIED to me.”
“W-w-w-what?” the girl stammered in fear. “I-I-I didn’t! Y-y-you lied to me!”
Another slap, then Blackheart spoke: “You dare to speak to me like that? You…little…bitch!” She picked the teenager off the ground with one hand and said, “Lies, everything out of your mouth, lies! You lied to me? I made you what you are!”
“Auntie…stop!” Inia cried as the necromancer slapped her again, sending a shower of green energy across the room. “Please!”
“You’re just like all the others, aren’t you? You just want what I’ve got, you sad little lump.” Shaking the girl at points, the necromancer continued, “You know nothing of the world around you and you have no respect for those who gave you their time to see you prosper…and you give back nothing!
“I see that sparing you was a grave mistake. Perhaps I should have sent you on to the Other Side…“ Blackheart said, admitting the truth, “…with your mother.”
The necromancer used her unholy strength to hurl Inia towards the solid rock wall of the cursed chapel. The teenager’s body melted into the wall and appeared inside the chapel, where she landed in the central aisle. Dizzy from the landing, she was able to see the sinuous carvings on the walls and the pews before she blacked out. Blackheart entered soon after and approached the unconscious teenager. Reaching down and picking her up by the neck, the necromancer carried her to the altar and dumped her unceremoniously behind it. She felt the need to hit something so she went to the pews.
Here sat the last few townsfolk, turned into ghouls. They stared ahead with empty eyes and bleeding black holes where ears and noses once stood. The Benefactor walked towards a ghoul and barely looked at it as she struck its head off, thinking about how Doyle had failed in its mission to kill Rashad. She grabbed the ghoul’s severed head and threw it at another ghoul, knocking its body into a slumping posture.
Again that male defiles this house with his name and memory, Blackheart’s squirming brain spat. No man will ever do such a thing again, so long as I exist. When I summon my master, that male and all others shall rue the day they tangled with Blackheart the Benefactor. Then they shall all know my pain. They shall know my suffering and they shall know my fury and wrath.
CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 10
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