Something in his tone—low, absolute—sent a shiver through me. Against my better judgment, I slid my hand into his, completely unprepared for the heat jolting up my arm like lightning, sharp and alive. My breath caught, my eyes widened. His did too, though he masked it fast, his mouth flattening into a grim line.
And then we moved.
The jungle fell away in a blur of violet, and the ground vanished beneath my feet. My stomach lurched into my throat, but I wasn’t falling. I was—God, I didn’t even have words. Drifting, sliding, floating through blackness that pulsedand stretched around us.
I gasped, clutching his hand tighter.
“Don’t let go,” he advised.
As if I could.
I didn't recognize the planet we were heading toward until we were landing, and even then, it looked different. Not only were the formerly sprawling buildings nothing but ruins now, but this wasn't the same place the blue lagoon elf-like aliens had dropped us off.
"Now what?" he asked, scrutinizing my face that must have reflected my disappointment.
"This is not it." I managed.
"I assure you, this is Rotodex," he smirked.
That smirk. It made me want to slap him. So arrogant. So self-assured and derisive at the same time.
"I realize that." I hissed. No man, no woman. No other person had ever exasperated me like him, and I've met a lot of exasperating people. From grave robbers to black market dealers to entitled millionaires who thought they could keep artifacts for themselves. None of them had riled me like this man did. Was he even a man? He looked a lot like a human, but then he also didn't, with his golden skin and black eyes.
"This is not where we were staying," I tried to keep my composure and was proud to keep a lot of the venom gathering inside me hidden.
He sighed again, like a person would with a petulant child who asked to go back on the carousel for the sixth time. Again, he held out his hand. "Close your eyes and envision the spot you want to go."
I did. I concentrated hard, but neither he nor I got lifted off our feet; instead, I felt… a weird tingling sensation in my mind. Like tendrils reaching in. I opened my eyes just as the palace popped up in front of us, and we began to hover again.
"Did you… did you just…" I couldn't put my suspicions into words; I was even less certain I wanted to hear his answer, but I was sure, somehow, he’d gotten into my brain. I shuddered, but then we landed right in front of the once sprawling palace.
The streets that had been laid out neatly—what, hours ago? Days?—were riddled with cracks, some so deep, I worried about falling through and coming out at the other end of this planet—What? I was floating here; nothing seemed impossible.
"Is this it?" he demanded, again in the same tone one would use with a child.
I nodded and looked around. Everything was ruined, destroyed; there were no signs of life anywhere. "Hello!" I called.
My voice bounced off the walls and echoed back at me. "Hello!"
Nothing.
Discouraged, I tried to retrace my steps to find the spot where Ed and I had been separated. Wordlessly, the alien/demon/god followed me.
"I'm Ella, by the way," I said after a few minutes, because the quiet of this place was getting to me. Then, because for the life of me, I couldn't remember what hisname was—there had been a lot of jumbo mumbo mixed in with it. "What was your name again?"
I half expected to hear the crazy chanting of the religious group, or the moans and groans of the… orgy people, but there was nothing besides the wind howling through newly wedged openings.
"Zapharos," he said behind me.
"Zapharos," I repeated. "Mind if I call you Zaph?"
"I do." He growled.
Just then, I turned a corner of a house I was sure Ed and I had found refuge in a few nights ago. It was hard to tell with the broken windows and shattered walls, but that wasn't what caught my attention. No, that was reserved for the most gruesome sight I had ever seen.
At first, it didn’t register, just a hulking figure crouched among the rubble, its back to me. Its massive shoulders were hunched; the skin was the color of curdled milk stretched tight over muscle and bone. Its arms cradled something limp, and for a single heartbeat, I thought it was helping. That maybe, impossibly, one of the others had survived.
Then I saw the blood.
