Page 21 of Crimson Skies

Theo walked in ahead of Victor and Charlie.

“They took the bait.” The South Star grinned triumphantly as he came over to hug Cassius. “Hook, line, and sinker.”

10

Inky currents writhedand throbbed around Elios, their agitation reflecting his rage. The cord of throbbing shadows he was using to sear Ulrich Karlstad’s right cheek thickened. The smell of burning flesh merged with the stench of death permeating the chamber.

The warlock bit the inside of his cheek hard.

Though the skin on that side of his face was numb, Elios knew it had to be excruciatingly painful nonetheless. The man was trying his best not to scream after all. For a moment, Elios considered ripping his flesh off to bare bone to see what kind of sound he’d make.

Karlstad swallowed convulsively, head bowed and eyes on the stone floor before him. “I’m sorry, Master.”

He dared not look directly at Elios. None among his damned army did. His mood these days was such that that simple act could earn his wrath and culminate in death. And it wouldn’t be a swift ending.

Karlstad’s fear-struck gaze flitted to the bloodied mess around him.

The bodies of the sorcerers who’d accompanied him to London were unrecognizable, their spines and limbs twisted at impossible angles and their chests and bellies torn asunder by the inhuman forces that had visited them. Their deaths had been slow and agonizing.

Elios shuddered at the lingering pleasure their demise had brought him. He wondered briefly if killing his own troops made him technically insane. At the rate at which he was burning through them, he would soon put a considerable dent in his army.

But the punishment he had delivered to the sorcerers for their abject failure was warranted. He needed to make an example out of them. And their death was the only reason Ulrich was still alive right now.

A grisly sound made the warlock jump.

Giant hounds were feasting on the organs of several of the sorcerers, their bloodied snouts buried deep inside the dead men’s body cavities.

“It was a simple task, was it not?” Elios said in a deceptively saccharine tone. He tilted Karlstad’s chin up with the corrupt band he’d used to burn him, forcing him to meet his eyes where he sat on his dark throne. “You were to retrieve the summoning staffs.”

He rose and descended from the dais. Flagstones cracked under his feet as he crossed the floor.

Karlstad trembled when he stopped in front of him.

“Why, I even lent you some of my power so you could defeat the wretched rats under Victor Sloan’s command,” Elios hissed.

He wrapped his right hand around the warlock’s throat and lifted him in the air. Karlstad choked.

The shadows around them lengthened.

“How could you and your incompetent sorcerers not realize that those staffs were fakes?!”

His roar shook the walls and sent dust spiraling from the ceiling.

“They—” Karlstad tried to gulp and found he couldn’t, “they seemed real when we found them, master!”

Elios narrowed his eyes at the warlock’s protest. He tightened his grip. Karlstad wheezed, face turning purple. His eyes rolled back in his head.

A thrill danced through the dark God. He leaned in and took a leisurely sniff. He could practically taste the man’s death.

Sanity prevailed.No. I still need him.

Elios flung Karlstad across the chamber with a sound of disgust. The warlock struck the wall hard enough to crack several ribs.

Elios ignored his groan as he slumped to the ground, his mind on the one he blamed for this latest mess. “Icarus.”

The hatred that twisted his insides at the name of the demigod he had loathed for as long as he could remember had his nails slicing into his palm. Shadows fluttered where his left hand should have been, a constant reminder of the humiliating defeat he had suffered in the Seventh Purgatory at the hands of the Guardian of Light, his bastard brother, and his lover.

The sizzle his blood made when the drops struck the stone at his feet barely registered as outrage clogged his throat.

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