Everything hurt. My face throbbed, my arms screamed, every part of me ached. I tried to open my eyes, but even my eyelids hurt, so I kept them closed. Fog swirled in my brain. What happened? I was at the library, but where was I now?
Something tickled my face, and I realized it was my own hair. I tried to bring my hand to my face to push the hair away, but when I did, my arm wouldn’t move. I tugged harder and a sharp pain shot through my wrist, radiating down my arm. I tried the other arm and got the same result. What the fuck?
I forced my eyes open, but for a moment, I could see nothing. Everything was a mass of dark blurs. Slowly, my eyes began to focus. Little pinpricks of light appeared, and then grew, until finally, my eyes cleared, but all I could see was a dirty floor littered with… Oh, crap! Were those bones? I jerked my head up and instantly regretted it. Pain sliced through my head, sending a wave of nausea into my stomach. My body jerked, but I couldn’t move. Slamming my eyes shut, I took deep breaths to keep the dizziness at bay, but the putrid stench of the air around me made my stomach lurch even more. I gagged, and then coughed, trying not to puke my guts up.
“Ahh, it seems our guest of honor is waking up, Amos,” said a creepy, high-pitched, nasal voice. “Check her restraints and the amulet. We don’t want a repeat of what happened with our last visitor.”
“Yes, My Lord,” came another voice.
I opened my eyes again, just in time to see a thin man with stringy, brown hair dressed in a shapeless, gray robe walk towards me. Amos, apparently. My gaze followed him, still not able to completely focus, as he reached up and checked the iron shackles at my wrists. Iron. Damn. That would make pulling energy hard, but not impossible. But wait, the voice said, “and amulet”. As I thought it, Amos reached towards me. I looked down to see him grasp a large crystal wrapped in wire strung on a length of leather that hung between my breasts. He tugged it once, and then let it go.
“She is secure,” Amos said, backing away from me.
Unfortunately, he was right. There was no doubt in my mind the crystal around my neck was charged with a null spell, like the one I used on mages for transport. Damn.
My vision was clear now, and I could see the world around me. I immediately wished I couldn’t. I was in the largest room I’d ever seen before in my life. It was dark, only dimly lit by torches attached to large, crumbling stone columns that lined the cavernous room. I was chained to one such column. Across from me was a row of cages. Some of the cages were empty, but some were inhabited by people. From the sounds coming behind me, there were more cages behind me, and they were also occupied.
My head swam. How many were here? How many had been here? I scanned the room, taking in the grisly scenery. Bones littered the floor, like cast-off trash, but I couldn’t tell if they were human or animal. I could tell that the skeletons hanging from the columns and propped up in various positions around the room were all human.
“How do you like my temple?” the nasal voice asked.
Temple? I had already figured out this was Bokor’s lair, I mean, why else would I be hanging here like human piñata? But, now that he said the word, I could really see that was what it was. It was set up as some sort of strange place of worship. I was chained, my arms spread out above me, my legs bound together, and my back against a stone column, about halfway between the two ends of the room.
One end was empty, save the tallest double doors I’d ever seen. A massive statue stood on the other end. It was cracked and huge chunks were gone, but I could tell it was a woman. Her long, flowing dress and elaborate headdress were flaked with large spots of dull gold, as if they had once been painted that color. A huge disc was leaning against one leg; the top of it was broken, as was her arm. She’d apparently been holding the disk, a shield, I thought. The top of a thin spear was attached to her shoulder, but the base of it was broken and gone. The other arm was bent at the elbow, extended outward, but also broken off between the elbow and wrist. This woman was a warrior, that much I knew.
The warrior woman stood on a huge, rectangular stone base. Around her feet and around the bottom of the base were more skeletons. They were spaced out, leaning against the stone. Dozens of skulls filled with flickering tallow candles cast an eerie glow.
“My Goddess is beautiful, is she not?”
My attention was caught again by the nasal voice that seemed to echo throughout the huge room, and I realized its point of origin was right next to the warrior statue. I blinked, trying to adjust to the dim light.
“Goddess? I’m having a hard time seeing,” I said, making my voice sound as weak as possible, which really meant I talked with as much strength as I had. I vaguely remembered a feathered dart between my fingers.
This asshole had drugged me.
“Bring more torches,” the voice called. Instantly, two gray-robed figures bustled from behind the statue with large sticks of wood wrapped with some sort of cloth. They lit them in the other torches and then stuck them in holders attached to the four corners of the base. Within moments, the entire statue was lit up with a golden glow.
That was when I saw him. It? A huge throne that looked like it was built out of rock and bone sat on the side of the statue’s base that was furthest away from me. On the throne was a figure unlike anything I could imagine, even in my nightmares. It was a man, or had been once. Now, I didn’t have a name for the mass of gray-tinged flesh. My stomach roiled. This had to be Bokor. He was at least four or five times the size of Rangel, who had been a bear of a man. But Bokor wasn’t fat; it wasn’t like he’d just eaten too many honey cakes. It was more like his entire body was bloated, misshapen, and mushy. His skin cascaded in folds and rolls, and he was only covered by strips of cloth across his groin. As I watched, his greasy, gray skin twitched and shuddered as if something was crawling beneath it, pushing out, trying to get free.
“What are you?” I screamed, my voice shrill with anger, fear, and disgust.
Pain exploded in my cheek as Amos’s hand collided with my face. “How dare you speak to the master that way, you filth! Mind your manners in the presence of a God,” he spat.
“That’s enough, Amos. I said I want her unharmed,” Bokor’s voice boomed, echoing through the chamber.
Blood from my lip trickled down my chin, and I felt a strange giddiness start in my stomach and boil up into an almost-insane laughter. “A God? That is what all of this is about? You are kidnapping and murdering because you want to be worshiped?”
“My sweet Fiona,” he crooned in a tone you would use with a petulant child. “This isn’t about what I want; it is about my calling, my duty to the world. I walk among the unclean, consuming and purifying worthy souls.”
I snorted. “I doubt you’ve walked anywhere in a very long time on those jelly legs.”
My remark didn’t seem to have any effect on him. He serenely replied, “It is true; my mortal body has its limitations. But I cannot be contained by this shell. My spirit can walk in any shell I choose.”
“Really? Is that why I’m here? You wanna take my body out for a test drive?” I taunted, even though the thought made my blood run cold.
“No mere woman’s shell would be strong enough to hold my energy,” he scoffed. Then he added, “Though yours might come close. But no, I have no need for your body, delectable as it is.”
“Oh, and what do you have planned for me?” I didn’t really want to know; I had enough imagination without hearing the words. But I needed to keep him talking. I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but surely, someone had noticed me missing by now. Sam would send a team of Blades after me. Ian would come after me. I had to hold out for a little while longer.
“You are as curious as a kitten. Very well, I have a few minutes before the ceremony begins. You see, my sweet Fiona, my avatars don’t last very long. They are fragile, human. I can only use one for a short time before it depletes my energy and I must return to this body. As long as I am tied to this corporeal body, as long as I must come bac
k to it to recharge, I am only a demigod. A half god still bound to the mortal world.”
“Unchain me and give me back my hanbo. I’ll cut those mortal ties for you really quickly,” I jibed.
He chuckled and the sound made me want to scrub my brain out. “I love how feisty you are. But, of course you would be. No one with your power, with your state of grace, would be anything but. You are going to be the one to help me break my bonds, but you won’t kill me. Not even you have that power.”
“So, how am I going to help you become the god you always wanted to be? Is there a secret handshake or are we talking full-on virgin sacrifice here? Cause, I gotta tell you, the ship has sailed on that one…”
“Through no real effort of your own. I shall consume you, and with your power, I will no longer be forced to feed on the unclean. I shall consume the energy of the world. I shall ascend and finally be with my goddess as her equal. As her king.”
This guy was completely off his rocker. He thought he was a god and was going to eat me? No, he was going to consume me. Oh, fuck! He planned to suck the life out of me. I looked around at the skeletons and realized he would probably eat me after he sucked out my spirit. Then, a sudden, gruesome thought occurred. More gruesome that being eaten, strangely enough. The way his skin crawled and pulsed—what if it was the spirits he’d pulled into his body and never let go? He had hundreds, maybe thousands, of people’s life energy swimming around under his skin.
I was no religion expert, but nothing about anything he’d said, nothing about anything I’d seen in this temple, or whatever it was, sounded like the Voodoo religion I’d researched and learned so much about.
“So, Bokor,” I said, conversationally. “Why do you call yourself Bokor? You don’t seem like any Voodoo priest I’ve heard of.”
He sneered. “Religion is a construct of mortals that have never been in contact with true divinity. I am the truest priest of my religion, because I know the truth of the universe. I once lived with a gypsy tribe. I was born into it through my mortal mother. We practiced Voodoo, and I was the loyal apprentice to the priest, until I was cast out of the tribe for being unclean and evil after I consumed my first soul. I tried to tell them I was divine, but they did not listen. Not until I consumed the priest and every elder in the clan. I formed my own tribe of worshipers who could see the truth of my divinity. I became their leader, their Bokor. When I found this temple, found my goddess, I knew this was where I would ascend. And now, it is time.”
I opened my mouth again, but was silenced by the huge doors at the end of the room opening. Twenty or thirty grey-robe clad figures marched in. They silently strode across the dirty, bone-littered floor and knelt several feet away from the statue’s base and Bokor’s throne.
Amos went to stand in front of them. He cleared his throat, and then in a loud, carrying voice declared, “The Ascension ceremony will now begin. Bring in the girls.”