The Curse of the Winged Scorpion
The Scorpion

“Whereis it?” Tomah rounded on Rashari. The tattoos covering his face flashed paleyellow in anger. Rashari said nothing. He was staring down at the pieces ofSmith on the floor. He was almost panting, quick shallow rasps of breathbetween clenched teeth.In contrastFantel was barely breathing at all. All the breath had left her lungs whenArmen tossed aside Smith’s broken pieces. Her heart beat loudly in her ears; she’dclenched her fists at some point and her claw tips had pierced the flesh of herpalm. Her blood was thick and hot as it seeped through her fingers onto thefloor.

“Answerme.” Tomah was incensed. The cool commanding mien he’d maintained throughoutthe interrogation had evaporated. He advanced on Rashari. “Where is it? Whereis the Heart?”

Rasharilifted his head and whatever Tomah saw on his face stopped him dead. Quiteabruptly it felt colder in the loft. Fantel drew in a shallow breath. The airseemed heavy, the atmosphere charged. At her back the pipe she was chained tofelt like ice. Her ears buzzed, reacting to a near subliminal vibration runningthrough the floorboards. At the edges of the room the scattering of phantasmalamps started flickering. The Dha-hali near the exit hatch shifted nervously,looking around them. The Dha-hali standing near Fantel moved away, eyeing thepipe warily. Fantel wriggled against her chains. The sudden cold radiating fromthe pipe intensified and the metal reverberated with a force from within. Thebuzzing in her ears increased and her head throbbed painfully. She sensed arising swell of death energy in the room. The bulb in one of the lamps popped,and a shower of rainbow sparks rained down onto the floor. The gun totingDha-hali cursed in Bhuvanti. The creeping cold spread through the room like athunderhead ready to burst. In dawning horror Fantel realised what washappening.

“Youwill pay.” Rashari ground out, his voice almost unrecognisable, dragged from aplace deep inside of him that was cold and hungry and filled with a voracious,terrible fury. On either side of him the Dha-hali holding him immobilecollapsed to the floor like broken puppets. The rich lustre of their chestnutskin now grey tinged and riddled with crawling black lines. Their eyes wereclouded white with death.

TheDha-hali with the gun turned, eyes darting from his two dead compatriots toRashari. He raised his revolver, finger curling around the trigger. Rasharipivoted smoothly, moving with unnatural speed, his motions fast but jerky,almost like a clock-work toy. He threw up his left hand, a corona of deep,pulsing purple energy crackling around his upraised palm. He clenched his fistas if snatching something invisible from the air. Two of the lamps in thecorner behind the armed Dha-hali exploded. Sparks flew and the lamps erupted.Raw necrotasmic energy bubbled up from the shattered lamp heads. In the blinkof an eye two phantoms had materialised in the room. The phantoms hurtledthrough the air toward Rashari, their nebulous, gaseous forms burning bright asred hot embers, gaping maws open on hungry roars. The armed Dha-hali didn’tstand a chance.

Thephantoms ploughed through the Dha-hali’s back, passing through flesh and boneas easily as air. The Dha-hali went into spasm, arms flung wide, spine arching,head snapping back and mouth falling opening on a wordless scream. His fingerjerked on the trigger. There was a flash of black-blue light as the necromanticbullet left the chamber, but instead of striking through the air and into thefar wall the ghost bullet changed trajectory, bending toward Rashari, thebullet shining like a winter star. Rashari caught the bullet in his upraisedfist, clenching fingers around the ghostly glow.

Thestricken Dha-hali continued to convulse on his feet, body rocking and jolting,limbs flailing as the two phantoms ricocheted within. The first of the phantomsburst free of the Dha-hali’s mouth. It ripped itself loose with hook-like clawsstreaked in blood and ichor. The second phantom seeped out of the man’s eyes,ears, and nostrils like steam rising from a kettle. The Dha-hali crumpled tothe floor, well and truly dead.

Morebullets flew, this time fired by one of the Dha-hali guarding the exit hatch.Rashari whipped his head toward the bullets. His eyes burned blue; a coldglacial light. Malicious rage had redrawn the lines of his face, sharpening theangles of cheek and chin and bleaching the colour from his skin. Waves of powerrose like heat haze from his body, forming a cloak of angry indigo light thatspread outwards through the air. The ghost bullets hit that cloak of energy, explodinginto blue-black fireworks before their power was absorbed into the pulsingwave.

Chainedto the pipe in the corner of the room Fantel could barely breathe. At her backthe pipe, a conduit for necrotasmic power running the entire length of thebuilding from the basement to the loft, burned with a flesh withering cold,shuddering and clunking as the converted soul energy running through itstrained for release. The same dragging, clawing suction she had felt whenLieutenant Roake had tried to heal Rashari with anima filled the room, onlythis time it was several magnitudes worse. Fantel writhed in her chains, heartpalpitating, lungs straining, limbs twitching. Death energy was everywhere,pulsing through the air, reverberating through the floorboards, drawninexorably toward Rashari and the great aching void inside him. The void he haddeliberately unleashed on everyone in the room.

YOU. WILL. PAY.

Hescreamed; a furious, incensed howl that Fantel felt in her bones – in her verysoul. His unreasoning rage lashed out through the loft. The last of the lampsexploded and above Fantel’s head several rivets in the pipe came loose, flyingthrough the air, pushed loose with explosive force by the torrent of necrotasmicenergy erupting from the pipe. Phantoms shrieked, echoing their summoner’s rageas they burst into existence and whipped around the loft like a flock ofscreeching geese. Until they too were sucked into Rashari’s maelstrom anddevoured. The floor rocked with an explosion further below. Fantel choked,seizing in her chains, tasting her own blood when her teeth bit her tongue. Shewas sure she was going to die. Rashari would kill her, as surely as he laidwaste to the Dha-hali in the room. The pain and pressure was like nothing shehad ever experienced. She felt as though her soul was being torn from her bodyinch by inch. If she didn’t die soon she was certain she would explode, everylast erg of life energy within her loosed into the air in a shower of blood andviscera. She had lost her sight and the shrieking of death was the only thingshe could hear, and still the pressure did not diminish. The soul vacuumcontinued to grow, sucking in everything around it. Fantel tried to replace breathto shout. She did not believe Rashari had any desire to hurt her. He would stopif he knew…if she could just call his name…

Sheshuddered, fighting the chains that pinned her arms to her side. Her effortswere futile; her limbs would not obey her. She could not draw breath towhisper, let alone scream. She managed only to slump to the side, and as shedid so something in the inner pocket of her coat jabbed against her ribs.Something with a sharp edge, something that, when it brushed her ribs throughthe thin inner lining of the coat, sent a jolt through her entire body, like atiny fork of lightning. Instantly Fantel could breathe, the hideous pressurelifting from her soul. Her eyes flew open, vision dancing with black spots. Sheturned toward the object in her pocket, curling her body around it as much asphysically possible. Whatever the object was, it radiated its own cool power,not cold like the soul vacuum, but sharp like a mountain breeze.

Fantelwriggled in earnest trying to inch down as close to the floor as she could. Sherolled her shoulders and twitched her spine slithering underneath the chainswrapped around the ruptured pipe. The pressure from the released necrotasmicenergy had caused the metal to dimple and dent, altering the shape of the pipeand granting Fantel just a scant half inch of extra give. Scrambling low, untilshe was almost supine on the floor, Fantel was able to free her arms, inchingthe loop of chain up around her neck, past her shoulders. Blindly she reachedinto the inner pocket and snatched out the small wooden box she found there.She ripped open the lid, fingers brushing against the cool, smooth sliver ofglass-like stone inside. The shard fit into her palm easily and when sheclenched her fist around it she immediately felt better, as if a switch hadbeen flipped within her body she was no longer fighting against the forcetrying to suck the life from her. Galvanised Fantel rolled across the floor andinto a clumsy crouch. She held the shard of cool stone clenched tightly in herfist and blinked to clear her vision.

Rasharihad not moved. He stood in the middle of the floor; he was barely recognisable.A great hulking shadow loomed above and around him, enveloping him inside ahideous skeletal shell. The winged scorpion; the creature he had claimed washis own personal curse. This close Fantel could see that while its body wasthat of a scorpion its head was a giant human skull. It was only partiallyformed; Fantel could see the ghost of bone under the cloud of indigo energy.The faint impression of half-furled wings stretched out behind the scorpion’sback, twitching like a fly. Ghastly insect legs reached out across the floor,punching holes in the floorboards. The almost human looking skull adorning thescorpion body glowered down at Tomah, the only Dha-hali left alive. Viciousmandibles curved around the skulls bottom jaw and its empty eye sockets burnedwith cold blue fire. The barbed tail scraped the ceiling, curving over thescorpions head so that the barb hung over Tomah. On the floor by Rashari’sfeet, inside the scorpion’s shell, lay Smith’s remains. The twisted pieces ofmetal and scattered ball bearings glowed with a bright, almost cheerful mauvelight, creating a strange contrast against the ugly darkness of the scorpion’sform. As Fantel watched Rashari knelt down on the ground beside the remains,reaching out and gathering the broken pieces to him. He cradled the bits ofSmith to his chest, head bowed, while the scorpion held Tomah at bay.

Tomahwas on his knees as well, arms loose at his sides. He stared up at thescorpion, transfixed. Beside him Armen lay on his back, dead. The bodies of theother Dha-hali were strewn around the loft. Clutching the shard of stone in herhand Fantel crawled across the floor toward Rashari. The scorpion ignored her,its focus entirely on Tomah.

“Iwant a name,” Rashari said, the ordinary timbre of his voice sounding trulybizarre coming from within the scorpion’s shell. “I want the name of the whoeverhelped you; the name of the person who told you about me, and about Smith. Giveit to me.” The scorpion’s tail quivered threat implicit.

“Mishmanpreserve me…w…what are you?” Tomah whispered in his native Bhuvanti. Histattoos were stark white against his dark skin.

“Thename,” Rashari snarled. “Tell me the name.” Reflexively he clutched the stillglowing pieces of Smith closer to his chest. The scorpion pulled its tail back,barb arching over its back. It lowered its skeletal head, spirit legs shiftingover the floor, leaving trails of violet crystal in their wake. The scorpionwas ready to strike, its wings flexing and stretching to brush against the farwalls. Fantel froze in place, every muscle tense and waiting.

“Ruthy,”Tomah blurted out. “She calls herself Ruthy.”

Rashari’seyes widened with recognition and his grip on Smith’s remains relaxed. Ahandful of ball bearings slipped from his fingers, bouncing on the floorboards.They glowed with a livid fuchsia light. Rashari scrambled to snatch them backup and one half of Smith’s shell slipped from his arms. He looked panicked andwretched as he gathered Smith back into his arms. “Ruthy?” He whispered.

“I’lltell you everything,” Tomah promised. “Anything you want to know about thewoman and what she told me.”

Rasharilooked up at that, eyes sharp and expression sour. “You’ll tell me everything?”

“Yes,”Tomah held very still, caught on the sharp edge between hope and desperation.

“Youlie.” Rashari told him, tone flat, still holding the pieces of his friendtightly cradled in his arms. Grief left his face stark and cold. His eyes,reassuringly black once more were nevertheless opaque, “you’ll say anything tosave yourself.”

“No!”

Thescorpion’s tail plunged downward, barb aimed like a spear. It went throughTomah like a hot knife through butter, passing through his flesh with spectralease and neatly, deftly, tearing his soul in two.