First, he would feed and satiate himself. And so he inveigled his many tentacles into this one’s orifices, watching her scream and squirm and cry out, and moan. The pleasures and the pains and the many horrors inflicted soaked into his mind. Sweet, soverysweet human. With a final pump of his main tentacles into her mouth, ass, and vagina, he wrung a final climax from her and a last weak cry as her body failed. Then he began to consume her, piece by piece, starting at the cute toes. Blood squirted, gouted, and left her flaccid and lifeless, but not before he’d removed the brain, tenderly scooping it out and cradling it to him. He allowed it to sink into his body core.
He kept it alive, nestled in the jelly of his being, and when the shock of its death subsided, he let it join him in thought.
What is my best solution?I seek vengeance.He posed this question to his freshly caught brain.
More, it told him.More brains will help us think.
Ahhh. Of course.
And so Avidex harvested more brains from more unwilling feeder humans, savoring their emotions and fears as he went about the task of building himself into something bigger, smarter, more… skilled at defeating humans. The species they preyed upon often possessed the skills of self-defeat in abundance.
Ideas poured in.
Enlist your fellow Ghoul Lords by showing the dangers of humans. Make a skin-suit army. Create an attack to trackthe enemy. Gather information. Find the weaknesses of your enemy.
TheArt of Warfrom one brain, the training of a soldier from another, the general knowledge gleaned from yet another brain… it was all coming together nicely.
Oh my.Avidex twined tentacles and even clapped them together. Humans were fun things, after you ate them.
Other Ghoul Lords answered his call, and they listened to his plans to destroy the one dangerous human who had ever almost destroyed a Ghoul Lord. They slithered away to find their own feeders to harvest and turn into skin-suiters with the ability to brave the dark and broadcast the Lure.
He splayed out his half array of tentacles and declared bombastically, though in his mind-thoughts only—because he had no human voice-box at this current moment: “Our parting was such sweet, sweet sorrow but never mind, Cyn.” He knew her name now, having gleaned that much data from the incident below. “I’ll be back.”
33
Cyn watchedeveryone pack into cars and trucks, and all the vehicles had their roofs ripped off so the bigger beasters could fit their heads. Honestly, she was half expecting these vehicles to groan and die. They had to be over their weight limit. The tops of wings projected above the roofs as well as some horns. The fuel was going run out within a day but that was all they needed to negotiate this large roadway to the edge, where a covered bridge should let them travel across to the next quarter.
She counted them off. In the blue car behind this red one she stood beside were Locke, Kiko, Maura—she was dosed with a sedative and tied up so the Lure wouldn’t grab her—and lastly, Vargr. She didn’t expect him to come near her. He was still treating her as if she had a deadly infectious disease. She couldn’t really blame him, not entirely. Tom had been from Mercantor Quarter, and the small population there meant he and Vargr would’ve known each other well.
Friends, maybe? So, she’d killed a friend of his who was also a good man. Fucking bummer. Her gut twisted in self-disgust, but she controlled it. These were bad times. Bad things happened.
Her speculative examination of Vargr’s wing tips drifted lower, past the dividing line of the car’s roof where she was jolted to a stop by his eyes. He watched her, and such a mean stare. Her heart squeezed in, and she floundered into those memories of him caressing her gently and not-so-gently, of holding her in that shower while fucking her with water pouring over them. She wrenched away her gaze.
What will be will be. She would get him happy with her again, somehow. She had to.
God, she had to.
Then she continued with her observations of the convoy.
Twenty or so beasters she didn’t recognize were in two black trucks at the rear—most sat in the open back trays. They’d made the fat tires squeeze down and look ready to pop.
Willow, Rutger, and Mads Thresher, the wing-soldier judge, were in this car with her.
Not that long ago Mads and Willow had been ready to sentence her to death. This fast transition seemed surreal. Maybetheyhad easily cast off their previous attitudes to her, but she was floundering. Cyn rubbed her forehead and sighed.
What was this world she’d been reborn into that death was a minor matter? Everything that once washerein a neat pile had been blown away, or blown to smithereens, or just was not what it should be. This was a new and very odd world of darkness and despair. This road-trip to find out what she once had been, what she now was, and well… everything to do withMaelstrom, it made her feel lost.
Lost, yes, that was her. She frowned at her own bewilderment.
For starters, she needed to talk to Mads and Willow, and clear the air. Not here and now though, around a campfire, or a burning pile of banknotes, as such fires often were.
“Time to go,” Willow said softly, and she opened the front passenger-side door.
Cyn walked around the trunk to get to the other side and discovered someone had used white paint to write across the back.
TO MORDOR AND BEYOND
Below it in smaller capitals was:
