They hung their bodies from the old light and electricity poles. There must be fifty corpses lining this particular street.
“Did they die from the fire?” I ask hopefully.
“No. It looks like they were all alive and hanged after the fire went through here,” Mordecai murmurs. His brow wrinkles as he peers up at a corpse in front of us.
I recognise some of them from my travels. They are old and young and in between. Male and female. No mercy was shown.
With shaking hands, I walk down the street, almost tripping over tufts of weeds. It goes on forever.
“Quick! Hide!” Cadel spits out.
I rush into the closest building and climb up to the second level, plastering myself up against the wall. Jarek lands beside me, while Mordecai and Cadel take the other side of the window.
“It’s so pretty,” the Beta’s Voice says.
I glance out and see her walking down the street with her jerky movements. She’s wearing gold body paint and nothing else. I’ve heard that she burns the bodies up quickly, overheating them.
I wonder if the girls are willing and happy to sacrifice themselves to her or whether they, like us, are just prisoners waiting to die. I remember the cages in that warehouse. I can’t imagine they are all voluntary, besides,there are lots of ways to force someone to do something against their will.
Her two pets walk beside her, the newly appointed Fang and Claw. She stops almost directly outside the place I’m hidden.
“If you show yourself, I will give you leniency. I will let you die first or last, however you’d like?”
She bends over, cackling. Her skin stretches and splits, weeping. I duck back and press my hand to my mouth. Jarek closes his eyes, but he’s pale and looks very close to throwing up.
“Do you like my present? It’s to welcome you all back home. You are my masterpiece, my artwork.” She’s talking to the corpses, I realise with a morbid horror. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Her people murmur approval and words that affirm that her depravity is some kind of god-level art instead of the murder that it clearly is.
“But she is my star.”
I glance out and see that she’s staring up at an old skeleton, one that Ihadn’t noticed because it’s literally just a skull.
The beta sways in the street, almost as if she’s dancing.
“Kaida Keres,” she sings out.
I stiffen. Why is she calling my name?
“Kaida Keres, I know you’re here. I can smell the stench of you. That wild and foul scent. I want it gone.” She turns in a circle, and I duck back. “Did you come and say hello to my pretties?”
I cover my mouth with my hand to muffle my breathing.
“Ah, you’re not a talkative one, huh? Well, it’s a good thing that I am. It turns out that after having your pain in the ass, interfering mother run riot around my city, we caught her. And now she’s just…hanging around.” The goddess explodes into rancorous laughter.
My whole body freezes, listening intently.
“We caught her just outside the city walls; it was almost like she wrapped herself in a pretty bow and delivered herself here.”
Jarek takes my free hand, squeezing my fingers tight. I look at him, and he mouths two words at me.Don’t react.
“So, into the Culling Ground she did go. Her head held high, a withering glare in her eyes. She refused to be cowed, not even when we hit her.”
She laughs suddenly.
“She was impressive. She evaded capture for four months, and it wasn’t until my Claw pushed her from the building that we finally could start the party.”
She swans back and forth, jerking like her limbs aren’t even under her control anymore. Blood weeps down her back from the split, and another opens up under her eye.
