Reaching into his back pocket, he found something thin and flat. Pulling it out, he recognized it as the pressure-compressed sodium solution he had gotten to kill the wall-crawler he’d seen in the ship, what felt like a hundred cycles ago.
At first he just stared at it. How could this possibly help him? If a shot from a powerful blaster didn’t kill the Slimerian, how could the sodium spray?
Think, whispered a little voice in his head. How does it get rid of the wall-crawlers? It doesn’t actually kill them—it just dissolves their slime and leaves them vulnerable.
Finally, Stone understood. Waving his blaster to draw attention away from his other hand, he stepped forward.
“You want to shoot us again, do you, Kindred?” Clearly Gozeriam hadn’t heard the Goddess’s voice, though it had sounded like thunder in Stone’s ears. “Go ahead. Let him try once more, guards. It amuses us to see the Kindred’s failure.”
Stone didn’t say a word, he simply lowered the blaster and raised the nozzle of the sodium packet instead. Turning the setting to “full,” he blasted out a stream of compressed sodium vapor that surrounded the Slimerian like a cloud.
“What? What’s this?” Gozeriam’s voice—formerly deep and rumbling—was getting higher. “Help!” he screeched as the cloud coalesced around him, forming into sodium particles that ate into his precious coat of slime.
His guards drew back, looking at him uncertainly. As the thick slime was eaten away, his true skin became visible—a dull gray, wrinkled hide like an elephants’, only not nearly as thick. In fact, it looked quite thin and easy to penetrate to Stone.
He took aim once more, but the Goddess spoke again and this time her voice was not just in Stone’s head. It thundered through the entire throne room, making everyone look up in awe and terror.
“Listen, guardians of Gozeriam,” she said, clearly talking to the Slimerian’s personal guards. “You have been held in bondage long enough to this creature. For years some of you have been here, longing to escape but knowing he would have you killed if you tried to leave. Countless times he has defiled and violated you. Take your vengeance now, before it is too late. This is your only chance!”
The thunderous voice stopped and Gozeriam’s personal guards looked first at each other and then at the thin-skinned, wrinkled, mewling thing that had been their boss.
Xempi Gozeriam was much diminished. In fact, without his slime, he was barely half of his normal size. It made Stone realize that the slime had not only protected him, it had magnified his size and strength exponentially.
“You heard the Goddess,” he said, turning to the guards. “Buy your freedom with his life. He cannot hurt you anymore.”
The guards looked at each other once more and Stone saw all of them nod their heads at once. As one, they raised their sharp silver spears…and plunged them down.
“No! Nooooooo!” shrieked Gozeriam as the spears continued to rise and fall. His voice was so high now it hurt Stone’s ears. “No, you cannot…you must n—”
The hideous shrieking was cut off suddenly and Stone knew that Xempi Gozeriam was no more. His evil had ended in a fitting way, as he was skewered by those he had violated countless times. The Slimerian had gotten exactly what he deserved.
Good fucking riddance.
Fifty-Six
Sending a prayer of heartfelt thanks to the Goddess, Stone was at last able to get back to his partner.
Cassandra was no longer writhing in pain. Instead, she hung limply from the leather bonds that tied her. Looking at her hanging from her bindings, Stone had a horrible flashback of the crime scene back on Earth. The Beast’s victim had hung just like that, limp and motionless from the St. Andrew’s Cross.
“Please, Goddess,” he prayed hoarsely. “Oh, please no!”
Gently, with a hand that trembled, he brushed her long black hair away from her face.
“Cassandra?” he whispered. “Gods, sweetheart, please tell me you’re alive!”
“Stone?” She looked up and Stone saw that her eyes were red and her cheeks were streaked with tears.
“Sweetheart!” Stone cupped her face tenderly. His heart felt as though an iron hand was squeezing it ruthlessly.
“It hurts, Stone,” she whispered, her tears sliding over his fingers. “Oh God, it hurts so much…”
Stone was horrified. He had assumed that she had passed out from the terrible but momentary pain but that it was over now. Now he realized she had simply run out of energy to cry out or thrash but the burning pain was still tormenting her. To know that she was still in agony—agony he had caused—made him wish to die.
“I’m so sorry,” he told her, his voice breaking on the words. “Oh Gods, sweetheart—so damn sorry! I never meant to hurt you.”
“Make it stop,” Cassandra begged him, her eyes huge and filled with agony. “Please, Stone—make it stop.”
Stone opened his mouth to say he didn’t know how to make it stop—he didn’t know the antidote for the Amaryllis Fatalis serum or even if there was an antidote at all—and stopped. He suddenly realized that he did have a way to stop her pain after all—or at least, he could counter pain with pleasure.
“Hold on, sweetheart,” he told Cassandra. “I don’t know if this will stop the pain, but I hope it will.”
And, tilting her chin to one side to bare her throat for him, he opened his mouth and sank his fangs in deep, pumping as much essence as he could into her bloodstream.
Please Goddess, he thought. Let it work—let this ease her pain. Please!
Fifty-Seven
The burning agony inside was the worst pain Cassie had ever felt. She had heard lots of women say childbirth was the worst. Of course, she hadn’t had kids so she couldn’t say, but it was hard to know how anything could top the horrible feeling of being burned alive from the inside out.
The pain was so bad it seemed to have sapped all her strength. She could barely even raise her head to talk to Stone when he came back to her. She had a vague idea he had been fighting—maybe for his life—but she had been completely unable to get free and go to his aid. The pain was so bad it ate up everything else and soon, Cassie feared, it would eat her sanity.
There was just no way anyone could hurt so badly for so long and stay sane.
Then, for some reason, Stone bit her.
Cassie wanted to protest—she knew he didn’t want to bite her. That would make his body think he ought to bond her too, which was the last thing he wanted to do, since he only wanted to be friends.
She opened her mouth to say all this…and then a blessed coolness ran through her veins. It washed through her like a river of relief, quenching the horrible burning inside her, putting out the fire that had been tormenting her for so long.
Cassie began to sob again, tears running down her face as the pain finally eased.
Oh thank you! she prayed, though she wasn’t sure who she was praying to. Oh thank you for finally making it stop. Thank you for making the pain go away.
But her tears must have made Stone think he was hurting her because he pulled away quickly.
“Cassandra?” he asked, looking at her anxiously. “Did I make it worse?”