Xia fell to her knees, the stiff ends of the carpet digging into her skin as she screamed. Nothing could have prepared her for the sight. She bent forward and retched, the need to both vomit and breathe warring with her soul shattering cries.
Piled together against the wall was a mess of flesh and ichor. Xia had seen a lot of terrible things in her existence, but nothing rivaled the daemon laying dead on the floor. Their mutilated bodies looked like they'd been torn apart from the inside out. The exposed flesh was riddled with gaping holes and patches of deep reds and purples as if every organ and vessel exploded outward.
Xia couldn’t move, or think, or breathe. She couldn’t believe that Brooks would do this. He wasn’t capable of it, and she had to believe that he wouldn’t allow Chaos to do it either.
“He couldn’t have done this, Ruby. I know him and he wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have done it,” she sobbed as her body rocked back and forth. “I know he couldn’t have.” Tears mixed with her nose drippings, spit dotting her chin as she cried.
A hand rubbed smooth circles on her back as another cupped her cheek. Ruby appeared in her blurry vision, shushing and whispering with her forehead pressed against Xia’s.
“How do you know? Ruby, how do you know it was him?”
Ruby focused those pink eyes on hers with an intensity Xia felt down to her bones. “This is every room, including the tavern downstairs. Every room, Xia… except yours.”
Xia cried out as grief poured from her in waves at Ruby’s implication. She wanted so badly to believe it wasn’t Brooks, but who else would leave her untouched? To murder every single daemon in a building?
Every single daemon… butone.
Xia grabbed Ruby’s arms in a crushing hold as desperation consumed her. “What about, Nyx? Is she okay? Please, Ruby, tell me she’s okay.”
Silver lined those eyes, and it was answer enough. Xia wanted to go back to sleep and pretend it had never happened. Curl up in a ball and never wake up again. Her heart couldn’t take it.
“I know it’s hard to understand right now, Xia, but we’ve got to go.”
“Just leave me here. I can’t, gods, I can’t… It’s too much.”
You do not deserve to die here,her Siren hissed. Do not let him do that to you. I will drag us out of here if it’s the last thing I do.
Ruby gripped Xia beneath the arms and pulled, forcing her onto trembling knees as Ruby led her from the room toward the stairs.
“When we get to the bottom, don’t look, okay? Xia?”
Xia nodded but as they hit the landing, she couldn't help herself. The scene in room nine was but a preview to the real massacre. She turned her head into the crook of Ruby’s neck as she gagged.
“Shhhh, I know it, sweet girl. It’s okay. I’m going to get you out of this. We’re going to go through the kitchen and out the back door so no one sees us, and then I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
Xia focused on putting one foot in front of the other as her friend led them out into the dawn. She didn’t ask questions when Ruby took the back alleys instead of the streets. She didn’teven ask when Ruby helped her into a black carriage with two crossed sickles on the door that shone like diamonds against the morning light.
Ruby settled Xia on lush black cushions while she talked to someone outside. Xia was too numb to keep track of what was happening. She felt nothing as Ruby got back into the carriage to help her lay down, covering her with a blanket. Colors blurred to gray as she sunk into the deepest recesses of her mind where she would hide until she felt strong enough to face the horrors of the day.
With her head settled in Ruby’s lap, the carriage rocking rhythmically back and forth, and fingers combing through her hair, Xia submitted to the nightmare that would haunt her forever.
“They’re all gone, Xia. The villagers. He killed them all.”
The city of Dion was a cesspool of the worst sort of daemon. Chaos spent the night lurking through the shadows listening for any whisperings of the Freakshow and stealing the chaos from anyone carrying enough of it to make a difference. The trail of bodies in his wake was adding up and would double before he left.
He’d gained enough chaos from the tavern to move through the night without issue, but was careful with how much he used. Even if he ripped the soul from every daemon in Dion, it wouldn’t make up a fraction of what he once held. Chaos told himself for the millionth time that night that it would have to do. He was lucky that Brooks was silent throughout the night. He needed a clear head, figuratively and literally.
Though he didn't learn anything of the infamous Freakshow, he did get some background on the city. Dion was an empiresoliciting every debauched deed imaginable. From intoxication to fetish and torture, it was a playground for the wicked named in honor of Dionysus and was the main settlement of his worshippers. Daemon who frequented the city to party were wary of the crazed followers, but the consensus was that if you didn’t bother them, they wouldn't bother you.
He’d mapped out the entirety of the city during his exploration. A river ran from the top of Mount Olympus and branched into several streams at the base. Built around the centermost stream, the neon lit buildings sat on either side and funneled citizens to a large, marble temple.
Chaos visited the temple and scoffed at its grandeur. Villages like Nyx’s starved while a power-hungry daemon had a monstrosity of granite erected for looks. At least fifty steps were carved into the mountain leading up to the shrine that stretched the entire length of the bluff. Columns stood at the entrance of a grand foyer. Grape vines sprouted from trunks and climbed the walls on either side, overflowing with ripe fruit even though there was no water or sunlight to support their growth. It was a disgusting display of a daemon abusing the chaos he’d gifted them.
Through the foyer were a few steps leading into the room where his cult held rituals. A gaudy statue of Dionysus was the focal point, standing proud in the middle with a wreath of evergreen placed on his head. Ivy leaves accented with needles and cones from pine trees draped his form. The man carved in marble was handsome, each limb and muscle pronounced in a masculine and elegant fashion. An altar encircled the stone under his feet, dripping with candle wax and fabrics of all colors. Bottles of wines littered the floor and flesh sacrifices lay amongst the offerings in different stages of rot.
Chaos nearly left the second he lay eyes upon the monstrosity, but the cold rage darkening his veins made him stay. He circledthe altar multiple times before sweeping an observant glance around the rest of the room. Grape vines climbed the walls like a pest and covered nearly every inch, but nothing else was to be seen.
Or so he’d thought.
