Sunny - Mona Lisa Blossoming

Smashing one heavy stone against another, I broke them open. One large piece of stone had fallen apart with a sharp glistening edge six inches long. Picking that up, I walked to where Mona Louisa lay. She rolled her eyes sideways to look up at me, and the movement of her eyeballs shifting in her sockets made a dry sucking sound. Dropping to my knees by her head, with her terrified eyes wide upon me, with that unceasing high, dry wailing buzzing in my ears like an irritating gnat, I raised the razor-sharp piece of stone up over my head with both hands. "Die," I muttered. "I want you to die."

The knife-sharp stone edge came down hard with my full shining power behind it. It sliced through skin, broke through bones.

I looked down upon my work. The dried-up hag was three-fourths decapitated.

"Oops, my aim was a little off. Once more, shall we." The rock blade came smashing down again and her severed head rolled off and came to rest a couple of yards away, rocking in the dry leaves on the base of her head, her long blond hair spilling around her like a yellow cape, part of it wrapped around her lower face and bloody, sticky neck stub. That high keening had stopped. Her mouth yawned ajar as if on silent hinges. No sound emerged. Her blue eyes were open and aware.

"What does it take to kill you, bitch?" I asked, breathing heavily, gazing down into those frightened knowing eyes. There were no handy Hell hounds here to feed her to.

"If I may?" Blaec asked, polite and distant.

I looked up at the High Lord of Hell, gazed at that dark, inscrutable, elegant face. He, of all people, would know how to kill that demon dead part of her.

"Go ahead." I stepped back and let Blaec come around to the front of Mona Louisa, the head part of her, that is.

He crouched down, his shirt torn, his pants ripped, with the smell of blood on him. But his skin beneath was whole, healed, even though his face was strained with fatigue. One bronze finger reached out and touched Mona Louisa as her eyes rolled toward him in terror, as her mouth moved open and shut in a mute parody of speech. The tip of his sharp fingernail came to rest lightly on Mona Lisa's forehead, between her eyes so that they crossed together inward as she tried to watch him. But all that lethal nail did was touch her. And I wondered if physical connection made it easier for the Demon Lord's power to flow.

A pulse of power so strong that I felt it shake the air reverberated through me, and Mona Louisa's rolling eyes closed.

I spoke softly. "What did you do?"

"Destroyed her mind. That psychic part of her."

He'd killed her mental power, that part of her that would have allowed Mona Louisa to become demon dead and exist in Hell for as long as that power continued. "What becomes of her now?"

"Now she will simply fade back into the darkness."

Another pulse of power and her head exploded into ashes, and her body puffed into dust.

Blaec stood as I moved next to him to stare down at the twin pile of ashes, her severed head and her body.

"You've killed Mona Louisa and all her guards," I said, my voice empty as I turned to look at him. "Will you kill me now, High Lord? I am the only one remaining who knows the value of a demon dead's blood. That drinking it can multiply a Monère's power, endowing them with demon dead strength."

"And if I wished to?" Blaec asked. He looked tired but still strong.

"I would not fight you" was my quiet reply, even though I still gleamed with my stolen light, my stolen power.

He smiled at me with a kindness that would have made me cry had I any feelings left. "There is no need, child. Your secret should be ransom enough to keep mine."

"What secret?"

Blaec gestured to my hands with a long nail. "Your Mortal Draining. An ability I had heard only in tales as a child. I had thought them merely that. Tales. I will keep your secret if you will keep mine."

"Why would I want to keep this ability secret?"

"Because nothing then will stop the other Queens from killing you or your brother."

It was the mention of my brother that made me flinch. "More than they want to kill me now?"

"Oh, yes. Now you are a mere inconvenience. If they knew that you were capable of Mortal Draining, of taking their power, their very life into yourself, then you would become the gravest danger to them. To them all."

I sighed. Secrets. So many of them to keep. They seemed senseless, with no meaning at the moment.

Blaec turned, put a comforting arm over my shoulder, and we started walking back. "Come, child. My task is complete. I am old and weary and eager to return home."

With Mona Louisa dead and gone, my focus was lost. She'd said that revenge was not sweet, that it was bloody. She was wrong. It was sweet. For one fleeting, glorious moment you felt incredible satisfaction. Then it was gone, empty, and you had to go on living. The power high that filled me with her light had faded, and all I tasted now were bitter ashes.

I drove Blaec in Mona Louisa's stolen van back to New Orleans as dawn beat back the darkness. At the white misty portal, I turned to the High Lord. "Let me come with you."

His tone was kind but final. "No."

"Is Gryphon down in Hell?"

"I do not know, child, but he felt strong. He should have made the transition."

I clutched the High Lord's arm. "I have to see him."

Gently, he disengaged my hand. "You cannot, for his sake. Think, child. Gryphon has just experienced a tragic loss, of life itself. Those newly dead have no desire to see the living when their loss is so keenly fresh. It takes time, sometimes a great deal of it for them to adjust to their new existence. Seeing those they once loved, who are still alive while they are not, would be painfully cruel."

My eyes clung to his. "I have to know if he made it."

"I will send you word," he promised.

I would have to be satisfied with that.

Gryphon's medallion chain slid out, clinking, as I pulled it from my pocket. It was the only thing I had retrieved from that house. I pressed it into Blaec's hand. "Give Gryphon this for me."

"I will." Taking the necklace from me, he walked into the mist. It swallowed him up and both winked out of existence.

I waited a few heartbeats, then went to where the portal had been. Felt for it, tried to sense it. But nothing was there. I felt along the walls, walked back and forth across the spot where it had been in that deserted alley. But it was gone, truly gone, and I could not call it forth.

Nothing left to do now but go home.

They say that time heals, but that's a lie. All it does is allow you to hurt. And I was so tired of hurting. The sun was shining brightly when I pulled up in front of Belle Vista. I shut the engine and sat there looking at it. The people I loved were all in there, sleeping. Except one of them was missing and would never come back. I wanted to return to the sanctuary of my chamber, but to reach it I'd have to pass Gryphon's room. Empty now, forever. I couldn't face it. Not yet. So I just sat there until Amber came out the front entrance, and flowed down the steps.

Concern flared in his eyes when he saw me—concern that I was alone in a strange car. "Mona Lisa, where's Gryphon?"

"He's dead," I said numbly. "Mona Louisa killed him, and I killed her. She sacrificed her men. They're all gone."

He opened the door, spoke gently. "Come inside." But I refused to get out. I felt so brittle. I was okay just sitting here, but if I had to go inside, pass Gryphon's empty room and smell his scent, it would break me. I didn't know how to tell Amber this, other than to say, "I can't."

Amber knelt, took my limp hands, engulfed them protectively in the largeness of his own.

"It hurts, Amber. It hurts so much. I don't want it to hurt anymore. I don't want to think or feel anymore. Come running with me."