Author's Preface
Merkra: So Big Daddy D, we’ve all but confirmed he’s a devil. We know he wants Yasha, likely to raise her to be essentially the same thing she’d be raised to be on the Isles just on a much larger, more terrifying scale, and we know that his threat to escape the portal is not idle. So…
Solana: Apologies for the interruption, but…Big Daddy D? Have you given a petname to a planar threat?
Merkra: Of course. Why wouldn’t I?
Solana: Why is it awkwardly sexual?
Merkra: He’s an ancient being who requires the people beneath him call him daddy. If that’s not a fetish, I’ve never heard one before.
Solana: So, just so I am clear, you have effectively placed a being of untold power on the same level as some man that wants his sexual partners to call him “daddy”?
Merkra: I’m finding it hard to respect him.
Solana: Apparently you are finding it hard to fear him as well. Please continue.
Merkra: Thank you. So Big Daddy D is about to be pissed. Do you think he’d really risk coming through the portal? Grimjaw said it would take a lot of his power to get through on his own.
Solana: I suppose that depends on if he thinks there is a viable threat on the other side. There is a legion of his “children” obviously, but would they fight him? The king and his non-Gifted army?
Merkra: King Vilrut’s been tagged a few times as being weird. What do you think all that is about?
Solana: Yes, I noticed that as well. Both Atania and Fletcher have described him fondly, and yet predatory. Then we had the strange excerpt from Penelope with the ruby in his sternum. I think it is safe to say he isn’t human, I can not be certain what though.
Merkra: Well, whatever he is, he had the confidence to put a portal to hell in his basement. Right now, it contains a very pissed off Big Daddy D.
The otherworldly pull on her psyche had gone completely unnoticed until she looked up from the trance she’d been in and found herself in front of two matte black iron doors. Her palms went clammy. Heat radiated from the handles, delivering a sizzle on contact that sounded like a fleeting gasp.
Father was waiting for her.
And she could feel his displeasure.
She stepped inside the immense room. The doors slammed closed behind her, dismissing any thought of turning around to go put on the dress. A scorching vortex replaced the normal gentle radiance coming from the brazier in the center of the room. Father did not wait for her to approach. The already lit sconces along the walls flared as his enormous, dapperly dressed torso emerged from the center flame.
“Atania.” His voice lacked its sweet viciousness, instead cracking against her eardrums. “Where is the child?”
She swallowed hard, tongue flicking over her already dry lips as she took a few steps forward. “I’m sorry, Father. The situation has become slightly more complex.”
“Explain.” His crimson nose twitched as he loomed over her.
Atania’s knees were close to giving out, but she steeled herself and continued. “I’ve been in contact with her, but Penelope has used some sort of magic to age her significantly. She’s no longer an infant.”
Flames roiled out of the brazier, spilling onto the floor like a mountain erupting. The air shimmered around Father’s onyx, talon-esque fingernails as they tore from the portal and carved into the stone floor. Atania’s eyes shot open, despite the blazing heat, a shiver covered her body as she stumbled and fell back. He was ripping himself out of the Hells.
Father let out a roar of pain that shook the very bedrock beneath her. He withdrew, breathing deeply through snarling lips.
“Daughter. You will listen, and you will obey.” He took a slow, steadying breath and stared down at her. “You will retrieve the girl, and you will bring her here to me within the fortnight.”
Atania trembled, still sitting on the ground, leaning back on unsteady hands. “Y-yes, Father.”
His eyes closed, and he took a moment to breathe before opening them again, the burning coals cooled to a dull red glow. “I can trust no one else with this task, my sweet daughter.” The calming tone overcame her, soothing the shaking instantly and urging her back to her feet. “If you can’t accomplish it, I’ll need to do it myself. That won’t be good for anyone.”
“I understand, Father. I will bring her to you,” Atania wrung her hands together and bowed her head.
“Penelope too.” He added. “Kill her if you must, but I want her at my feet.”
“Yes, Father.” She whispered, chin tucked to her chest. He reached out, a single finger lifted her head to look up at him.
“Do not disappoint me, favored child.” His lips drew a thin line on his face as he observed her for a moment longer before pulling back, and the portal sealed.
Atania dropped to her knees in front of the inert brazier. She shook violently, pent up emotion erupting free through tears and one long cry of frustration. Rock floor beneath her fingers crackled and popped, tiny fissures emerging on its surface where the hellfire had poured out.
She pressed her forehead to the scorched and scarred floor, hot, but bearable, and took a few unsteady breaths. The point where she could deny an order like this was gone. The life of a single child would be the least of the world’s worries should he break through that portal. A planar threat would draw the eyes of the gods.
In the few minutes she took to center herself and regain her composure, a murmur of voices had formed outside the doors. When she pulled them open and glanced out, she realized why. The castle walls around the entrance to Father’s room had arcing cracks through them, and rubble had fallen from the ceiling, revealing the rooms above. A heavy scent filled the hall, like a lightning strike after it shatters an old tree. Most of the voices fell silent when she emerged, but a few still whispered prayers to the gods.
“Never seen an earthquake before?” She stepped around the fallen marble and stone, and glanced up at the crowd that had gathered at the top of the stairs. “Somebody should probably get this cleaned up before the king sees the mess.”
No one moved, so she shimmied through the crowd, intent on her quarters, where she desperately needed a nap. With peace and quiet just out of reach, her eyes closed, and she let out a deep sigh at the sound of skipping footsteps approaching from behind.
“Ataaaania.” Penelope cooed at her.
“You don’t want to do this right now,” Atania whispered. It was apparently loud enough, because the skipping stopped.
“Was that a threat, Atania?” The Halfling stepped around her and looked up into her eyes. “Did you just threaten me?”
Atania’s eyes focused on the sphere hanging from her neck immediately. It was smaller. Still orange, but no longer swirling with white and gold. “Did you recover his body?”
“Who’s body?” Penelope’s grinning face tilted, brows furrowed.
Atania’s shoulders and neck shook. “Benicio’s. Did they recover his body?”
“Oh. No.” Penelope huffed through her nostrils and tucked a stray stand of hair behind her ear. “Not high on my priority list, but the team I sent didn’t find his body.”
“What about his gear? Anything?” Atania’s lip curled. The callousness of this fucking woman was beyond belief.
“This conversation is a waste of my time.” Penelope cleared her throat. “The quake. That was Father, correct?”
A shiver shot through Atania’s body as she held herself back from striking her. “Father made the quake, but you caused it.”
Penelope’s smile flickered. The slightest break, as if surprised, before it returned even sharper. “You need to remember who you’re speaking to.”
“Fuck yourself.” Gods, it felt good to say. Pointless. But good. “Father gave you an order. Bring him a little girl. You don’t have a fucking moral compass in that fucked up head of yours.” She reached down and planted her index finger between Penelope’s burnt orange eyes. “So it shouldn’t have been a problem for you. Yet, you didn’t. Now he’s threatening to come through the portal and get her himself.”
The almost imperceptibly small pupils of Penelope’s eyes cross, looking at Atania’s finger. “Good.” She said simply. “Let him come.”
Atania’s eyes went wide, and she took a step back. “Excuse me?”
“Let him come.” Penelope said with a shrug. “Father doesn’t scare me.” There was no performance in her voice. Just absolute and terrifying belief.
“Okay.” Atania let out a frustrated laugh and drew her lip through her teeth. “I understand you’re batshit crazy, but you realize that he could destroy the world if he got through that portal.”
“He could.” Penelope shrugged. “But he won’t.” Her voice sang as she spun around and walked backward away from Atania. “You won’t touch a hair on Yasha’s sweet little head.” Her grin widened. “If you try, you’ll only die sooner.” Penelope turned and skipped back the way she came.
Two weeks.
Atania pushed through her door and plopped onto the bed. She had two weeks to figure out what she was going to do. What was the choice to be made? If she didn’t get Yasha to Father, it would a cataclysmic event at least. And it could get so much worse.
Wringing her hands together, she glanced up at Benicio’s bed as the scent of sage filled her nose. She could almost see him lying there. Could almost hear his smooth, calm voice.
“Don’t worry, Tani. We’ll figure out a way out of this.”
There was no way out of this. Not one she could be happy with, at least. She dug her palms into her eyes, trying to rub the hallucination from them. Her options were deliver a faultless child to a being of immeasurable power and unknown motive, or leave her with Penelope. The woman who thinks an actual devil isn’t scary.
Then again, kidnapping the kid was unlikely to be a walk in the park. Maybe she could get to her while Penelope wasn’t around, but the little psycho would almost definitely have Gregor watching her constantly. The last thing she needed was one of those ghost blades to her throat.
She opened her eyes again, regarding the hallucination mirroring her folded over posture on Benicio’s bed. Chestnut hair hung in his face. Broad shoulders shook…with laughter.
“Dead a few weeks and you’ve already given up?”
“I haven’t given up, you fucking asshole.” Atania snapped, only moments later realizing she was arguing with a dead man. “You don’t have any right to judge me.”
His head tilted back, beautiful bright green eyes temporarily erasing the horror of his fiery eyes at the end. “I save you, and this is how you thank me? Let Penelope win?”
“You let me go!” Atania snapped. Muscles tensed, fists clenched…then came the second thump. The one in her chest that wasn’t hers. The chord of life Father had injected her with thrummed as Benicio smiled. She was barely fast enough to move her hands from her face as blinding white flame rose from her palms and encased her hands.
“I’ll never let you go, Tani.”
It came to her like a skill she’d mastered once then never used again. The flames moved along her fingertips in a mesmerizing dance before she cut them off. After a panicked moment of searching her skin for any new burns and finding none, she glanced back up at Benicio’s bed.
Gone.