FULL NOVELXO Queens and Monsters: Chapter 44
I was lost. The hallway where I stood should have been outside my chambers at the House of Axl. The hallway should have been dark and calm.
But nothing around me was dark or calm. In the distance I heard wailing and the crashing of glass. There was so much turmoil—both physically and metaphysically—I couldn’t orient myself. It was as if the House of Axl had also broken free from gravity and was spinning like a ship lost in space. Paintings hung haphazardly from their hooks. One was torn to shreds. Another had blood smeared across its surface. Glass was everywhere. There were holes in the walls, the carefully hung wallpaper shredded. I couldn’t say why exactly, but I felt terror in the air.
Saoirse was right, something bad had happened since my poisoning.
I reached out to the Plane, hoping to find Lou, but all I felt was pain and despair. At least I felt something now, not that it was a great consolation. I crept along the wall to the first doorway and peered in. I found more of the same. A couple of candles flickered, melted down to the base, wax dripping everywhere. The couch was turned over, an end table leaning precariously against it, more broken glass on the carpets. I didn’t recognize the room, but someone had suffered greatly inside its walls. The pain left a mark.
Maybe I was in one of the wings? I spent almost all of my time in the main part of the House when I was here. I’d recognize those rooms, therefore I had to be in one of the other wings, didn’t I?
Why couldn’t I figure this out?
And what the hell had happened here?
I drew my sword and kept it at my side as I peered into the next room. This one was less of a mess but was also unfamiliar and abandoned. The next three rooms were more of the same.
Then I reached the last room of the hallway. This room had blood smeared on the couch, the tables, the walls. Furniture was smashed to the tiniest of fragments. Someone (or someones) had fought here.
Whatever happened, it was very, very bad, and I had to assume it had to do with the thing outside.
Another crash took place to my left. Someone screamed. I ran to the right. I didn’t know if I was headed in the right direction, but at least it was away from whatever was happening in the other part of the House.
Down a dark hallway, around a corner, past a set of stairs I finally recognized, and into another doorway. Then I froze in horror. In front of me was a man, but not a man. A Dreg. He crouched over the dead body of my cousin Rhymus, blood covering his face and hands, his eyes dark and wild. The place where Rhymus’ neck had been was now nothing but black and red shreds of flesh. His eyes stared back at me blank and cold. I knew instinctively there was no saving him. No amount of Axl blood in my veins could give me the ability to resurrect my cousin from a death that gruesome.
The Dreg roared at me and I knew I was next. So I did the only logical thing: I ran. My body slammed into one wall and then another as my legs tried to move faster. My hand ached, probably from hitting it somewhere. My hip burned. I didn’t look back. I was too afraid to see what was following me and even more afraid that the split second it would take would be the death of me.
Against the wall stood another cousin—Mattieu?—but he wasn’t the same. His skin was grey and he twitched as he tapped his skull against the wall behind him. When I darted past him I caught sight of a stab wound, the blood still seeping out of his skin and soaking his shirt. No…not a stab wound. A bite. Blood dripped from his lips.
The Dreg roared behind me.
I ran until I saw the white horse statue. The one that stood at the end of my hall. I’d finally found my chambers and it was too late. Probably. Whatever happened to these Dregs, it came with bloodlust, and bloodlust was almost impossible to escape.
My lungs hurt as I rounded the last corner, my chamber door in sight. I could feel the Dreg on my heels. I could turn and attempt to fight but without my powers I had a lot of doubt that I’d survive. What would a sword do? Anything? By the looks of my cousins there wasn’t a lot that slowed these things down.
Two more feet.
My legs covered the distance in a second. But as I reached for the door, half expecting the thing to leap on top of me and start feasting, the door to my chambers flew open. Lou appeared, sword in hand. I turned, bringing my sword up as well, and together we attacked the thing. We sliced its flesh just like normal, but the thing howled, the blood drying as fast as it dripped free, the flesh healing almost instantly. Its black and blank eyes flashed, baring its teeth.
Lou stabbed it in the heart. “Cut the throat!”
I brought my sword up, turned my hips, and put everything I had into not only slitting the things throat, but hopefully taking a chunk out of the spine, too.
His body crumpled to the ground.
“Inside!” Lou shoved against my armor, sending me backward, through the door, and into Seema’s outstretched arms.