The Walls of Jericho

Ritual

By the time I’m back on the trail, routed toward Tassler house, the temperature is climbing as if the sky didn’t just crack open and dump millions of gallons of  cold water all over us. There’s a squelchy aspect now to the pine needles and leaves on the trail back, and the petrichor scent in the air is incredibly appealing. 

Not quite as appealing as Channing’s wet sand and salty ocean smell, but one takes enjoyment where one must.

The entertaining deck is slick and wet, and a multitude of wind-blown leaves and other debris float in the saltwater pool below. Great. The skimmer must be full. One more thing to take care of this morning.

A quick scan of the house’s wonderful electronic nervous system tells me Mr. Adriani has fallen asleep in one of the reclining lounge chairs in the cinema. Rebecca’s awake, and in the shower now, so unless I want to hear it from her about my appearance, I don’t have long to change and make a vain attempt at my hair and make-up. I glance down at my body.

With the murderous kind of internal voice I have, it’s easy to understand why I have self-esteem problems and how easy it is for Rebecca to twist my feelings about myself into something even more brutally critical of me.

The buoy right now is that, in less than two months, not one but two extraordinarily gorgeous and powerful men—first Channing, and now Drake—have told me I’m beautiful, even when they’ve caught me looking arguably my worst. The thought makes me smile. 

Then the thought makes my stomach twist up in terrible convoluted knots like a macrame wall hanging.

Down low, my insides are still tingling slightly, deliciously tender and thoroughly coated in multiple thick layers of Channing’s seed like the front door to an old house that’s been painted over thirty times in as many years. Much as I hate to admit it, I’ve spent so much time feeling lonely and unwanted, now finding myself wanted by two men—well, the urge to take everything I can get is overwhelming.

And stupid, I chastise myself.

Grabbing a plate, I throw on a couple pancakes and some scrambled eggs that my mate fixed for breakfast this morning and rewarm them in the microwave for Mr. Adriani. The plate of lovingly prepared, home-made food is a pointed reminder. That same desire to bask in the attention of both men is also guilt inducing. Nice as Drake is, Channing is too. And who could fault my werewolf for his care or loyalty?

It's not where I ever expected to wind up in life— a Mrs. someone kept like a pet by a doting mate— and innately it stirs my distrust. Then again, it's kind of sweet being someone's pampered pet. Especially when that someone looks and feels as good as Channing does.

By the time I get Mr. Adriani fed and the kitchen cleaned up, Her Royal Rudeness Rebecca is sauntering her way downstairs. With her usual disdain, she completely ignores me while she pours herself a cup of coffee, adding a light splash of cream which, after she stirs, turns the color the same warm rich shade of brown as Drake’s complexion and I blanch ruefully.

“You’re wet.” Her piercing, ice-cold glare fixes on me. “Please, don’t tell me you’ve been out in public looking like that.”

Heaving a deep sigh, I roll my eyes. “I took a walk. On the trail. By myself. And if you’d bother to get up at a reasonable hour, you’d know that a huge storm blew through here this morning and deluged us. I got caught in it and had to take shelter. That’s why I’m wet.”

“Whatever.” Dressed to the nines already, Rebecca clickety-clacks in her stilettos over to the sliding door and stares outside at the glistening, leaf-strewn deck. “Did you hear back from KDS?”

That earns another sigh. “More rejections.”

“Dammit.” Rebecca’s platinum blonde head hangs.

“I think that’s the most supportive thing you’ve ever said,” I comment sourly. From the kitchen closet, I remove a broom and dustpan, intending to head outside and sweep up the deck.

“Maybe you should just break in—hack them,” she suggests. “You are a technomage, right?”

“And clearly you’re not.” I shoot her a scathing glare. “That won’t work.”

She doesn't bother asking anything else, which tells me that clearly, she doesn't care. She already expects she's not finding the dragon before Avernus does and neither am I. At least she's free from their underground lair. “Fine. I’m going into town. On the off chance you ever do get an interview, you don’t have any clothes for that.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me, Rebecca!”

She eyes me with the most contemptuous stare I've ever seen. “When you can do something, Jericho, then I’ll be able to help. In the meantime, this was our deal.” Insolently, she dumps her coffee down the drain in a splattering mess I’ll have to clean too, leaving the cup on the granite counter, then clickety-clacks into the hallway towards the elevator to the garage. “Stay in the house unless you dress appropriately.”

There is no unit of measurement that describes the sheer volume of buyer's remorse I have for asking for her help.

It’s ridiculously hot by the time I clean up the entertaining decks and skim out all the stuff that had blown into the pool. If previous behavior is any indicator, Rebecca won’t be back until late, so it’s me and Adriani to entertain each other for the rest of the afternoon.

I change into my swimsuit—a slinky, stringy number that Rebecca picked out or I’d never consider wearing. There’s not much to  it, but the few bits there are, the black fabric heats up quickly in the sunshine. I spread out my towel on one of the chaise loungers on the deck next to the pool, then wade into the cool, sparkling water and backstroke lazily for several minutes, back and forth across the surface.

I have to admit, for as ostentatious as Tassler house is, I sincerely love the pool. The sun beats down, warming my water-cooled skin and making me feel lazy and drowsy. I pull myself out along the side nearest my lounger then pad quickly across the hot decking to my towel-draped chair, leaving wet footprints behind me.

I spray some sunscreen over my exposed skin, rubbing it in carefully, then tip the umbrella so it’ll shade my face as I lay back. That’s when I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise.

There are eyes on me.

Forcing my shoulders to relax, I finish with the umbrella and straighten in my chair. I hide behind my large-framed sunglasses and take a sip of the powered iced tea I made before I came out, letting my hidden gaze scan the landscape around me. Reflected sun from the pool crosses my face in wavering ribbons of light, intermittently obscuring my view with its brightness.

A tense minute passes. Unable to spot anything, my anxiety is rising and I’m about ready to collect my things and go inside when I hear a loud shriek, “Whoo-hoo!” and the quick slapping of feet on the pool decking, then Mr. Adriani vaults off the edge into the pool.

Curling into a ball, he sends a huge cockscomb splash up into the air and soaks the deck on every side with the water. When he surfaces, he faces me with his hands up Olympic-gymnast style. His scraggly gray hair clings to his head, limp and dripping into his eyes, but he’s beaming a delighted smile. I can’t help but smile back, then lift my hands and applaud.

“Your feet are wet now, Adriani,” I advise. “No more running by the pool.”

“Awww,” he groans, wading to the shallow end to get out and walk obediently around to the deep end to jump in again.

“What are you wearing?” I ask, staring at what looks like knee-length pair of red genie pants straight out of Arabian Nights.

“My swimsuit,” he replies immediately. “Watch this, mom!”

“’Swimsuit’,” I mutter, clapping as he makes a show of a twisting leap that ends in a graceless head-first tumble into the pool. “Of course.”

It takes another half hour before he wears himself out and wants to go back inside before I figure out his ‘swimsuit’ is actually a t-shirt he’s put on with his legs through the arms and tied into a knot at either side to keep it over his bony hips.

“Hey!” I shout as he wades out of the pool, water pouring off him. “Listen here. You rinse off in the shower. Right there. See?” I point to the full bathroom built as a glassblock extension to the outdoor kitchen. “Leave your swimsuit in the tub when you’re done. Adriani, listen. You dry off completely before you go in. Wrap yourself in a towel then go get dressed first. No television until you do. Got it?”

He groans again, his upper lip curling, then nods and plods off.

With him out of the pool, I can finally relax. Laying back on the lounger, I take off my sunglasses. Closing my eyes, I let myself doze.

**

The warm golden glow of the sun against my eyelids reminds me of Amber. As if simply thinking her name invokes her, the image before my eyes melts into a dingy dismal gray like the winter's sky on a snowy day. A heavy layer of chalky dust stirs beneath my feet, filling the air with drifting particles that choke and burn my throat. They taste charred and repulsive when I inhale them.

Where am I?

I glance around me, appalled and confused to find myself deep within a long rocky cavern. A single beam of light from a jagged crack in the stone ceiling high above shines down upon a bed sized rock. Worn smooth, the outcrop from the cave wall is carved with intricate interwoven symbols with a shallow, ash-filled depression, like a basin, in its center.

It’s a language I can’t read, but there’s no mistaking the smoke-blackened image carved into the  wall above as if rising from the stone’s basin. It’s a horned dragon, its leathery wings outstretched, toothy maw open and belching flames into the sky. The mere sight of it sends a dark terror shuddering over me.  

This is a sacrificial altar.

Scrambling backwards, I stagger against the rocky wall, scraping and cutting my hands as I seek purchase and try to get away. Stirred by my frantic movement, the air fills with suffocating ash that coats my nasal passages and throat in a stinging sludge. It blurs my vision amplifying my terror. If I’m here, that means only one thing.  

The dragon’s coming.

In the dust and gloom, I feel my way along the walls desperately, moving into the darkest recesses of the cave, searching for an exit.

His voice in my head draws a panicked scream from me. It bounces about the cavern, ringing painfully. Almost as soon as the echo fades, the cave reverberates again with the high-pitched shriek of another and overhead, the light from the crooked gash in the stone is blocked. The dust flies, stirred to an obscuring cloud as the dragon descends, a shrieking struggling woman clutched in his talons.

Dropped from above, her body crashes into the stone basin with a heavy thump and a pained cry. For a moment, she doesn’t stir and I’m certain the fall has killed her. Her tattered clothes are soaked with blood from where his vicious claws pierced her tender flesh.

Stunned by the hard fall, she groans and rolls slowly to her belly. Her ruined clothes and golden hair cake with ash as her clawed fingers clutch at the stone, trying to drag herself away from it. 

Away from him. 

It’s too little, too late. Even if it wasn’t, from this unholy temple, there is no escape.

Standing at the foot of the stone, the dragon shifts. His leathery wings fold and retract, his massive form somehow compressing into the body of a large, muscular man. His ebony skin glistens with sweat that the stirred ash clings to before it runs in thin dark rivulets, gravity-driven towards the ground.

A shuddering panicky whine escapes her and she claws harder at the stone. She drags herself only a few inches further before his massive hands are upon her.

 His orange eyes dance with dragonfire as the ritual starts. As he looses it inside, it flares along his veins, glowing bright orange in forked and crooked lines visible beneath his dark flesh.

The woman screams in terror, flailing ineffectually as he shreds her clothing. He pins her hands with his, pins her body with his weight, then penetrates her core with a forceful thrust of his enormous organ.

Her agonized cries grow frantic and weaker as he mesmerizes her with his dragonfire gaze and takes her roughly. Slowly, the terrified sounds morph into fierce urging as her pain becomes pleasure at his hands. Her slender white legs, pale and ghostly against his dark hide, wrap tightly about his hips and his thrusts become harder, more violent still, as she arches to take him.

But she’s not his One.

I can tell the instant the fatal blow falls. As his dragonfire seed floods into her, her body bursts into flames that envelope them. But where she should glow, luminous like the moon to his golden fire like the sun, her limbs blister, crackling grotesquely, then writhe and twist and char. Her body—like the others before—pulverizes to ash beneath him.

the dragon roars. His great hands comb through the rapidly-disintegrating cinders of the woman who should have been his mate, but nothing remains.  

Desperate, I scrabble across the ashy floor, blades of shale slicing my hands, my clothes, my knees and feet. But there’s no place for me to hide. Still burning with dragonfire, he rises like an erupting volcano above me, bends and closes a scorching hand around my neck.

he demands.

Frantic, I clutch at his wrist, stunned and confused to realize these gnarled, arthritic hands, tangled with long, coarse silvery hair, these belong to me. 

I’m old.

he roars again.

“I don’t know!” My voice quivers, hoarse through ash-coated vocal cords and rough with long years of use.

I truly don’t know. Foggy thoughts—memories—swirl in my head. This woman was not the first I accidentally sent to her grave. This place eddies with the ash of my previous mistakes. Women who died at the hands of the dragon.

Because of me.

Above me, the dragon’s visage contorts with rage. His wings extend with a slapping, snapping sound and his hand tightens around my throat.

**

I come awake abruptly, gasping in horror. Then I scramble to a sit, wild-eyed and frantically searching my my surroundings. Bright sunshine. Beautiful landscape. Cool, clear waters. 

Home.

Panting heavily, I grab at my hair, pulling it where I can see the bright, strawberry blonde locks, silky and shiny in the sun. I pat my youthful body in the skimpy swimsuit. Relieved, I stare at my palms, then turn them over. Young. Healthy.

Gradually, my eyes fix on the mute Amber, the glittering bright, right-hand ring upon my finger.

“What the hell was that?” I demand, just in case she can't figure out I'm fantastically pissed off. “Was that the past? My past?”

The answer comes from my other hand. Bright twinkling tingling.

Oh God.

I couldn’t care less about betraying the dragon. Even if I did— and I’m not committed to that belief at this point with what I’ve seen—he paid me back in spades.

What I do care about was that chamber, that lair, it was layered in the ashy cremains of how many women?

Could I have done that?

Even in jealousy, even in anger, could I have sent even a single innocent woman to her agonizing death at his hands?

And if I did, for God’s sake, why!?

‘Bride’ he’d called her. Unwilling bride.

Unwilling mate.

But if someone else was meant to be his mate, then why did he ever keep me prisoner?

‘What is wrong with you?’ Those words of the dragon’s weren’t angry. They were confused, maybe—frightened.

Was that possible? To scare a dragon?

And if it is, what had I done to accomplish that?