Blood and Madness Read online

  Looking around, I tried to decide on how I would get her out of here.

  There were guards below me, and more guards on the roof outside of this room. In front of me, I could see terrace doors that led out to a private balcony. Moving over to the window, I peeked out both sides.

  No guards.

  What a colossal screw up on his part. He wanted privacy so bad that no one was watching this side of the building.

  Terrible idea for security, but a boon for me.

  But, how to get her to the ground?

  I stepped out onto the balcony in my Goblin-girl shape.

  The wall behind me went all the way to the edge of the roof. The guards on each side wouldn’t be able to see me take her out this way.

  Looking down over the edge, I saw an alley.

  Score.

  Finally, something was going my way.

  Then, I saw movement.

  Dammit.

  It was all a trap. The alley had three guards hidden down its length in little bunkers. Anyone who tried to enter the Rooster using this path would be cut to shreds.

  The only way out was how I came in.

  Yes, I could change my shape and look like Kakx. But, someone would ask why I was carrying Shy’s sister on my shoulder.

  I walked back into the room and sat on the bed.

  How the fuck would I get out of here?

  Xot.

  I needed a distraction.

  What could I have him do that would be…

  Explosions.

  Then, I remembered the arcane fuel that the Goblins were using for their motorcycles.

  Smiling, I prepared to reach out to the little Goblin through our connection. Then, I noticed a book under a pile of debris across from me. There was something about it that reminded me…

  Jumping up, I yanked the book out from under the pile.

  Shy’s spellbook.

  I looked at it in shock. The thick book was the one I had given her twenty years ago.

  What was it doing here?

  How had Kakx gotten it? Shy had a house that was a fortress. She would have kept it under lock and key.

  Then… it hit me.

  Turning, I knelt by her sister and dropped my illusion.

  Seeing a Gray Goblin instead of a red one didn’t help, especially since I was male.

  “I’m going to remove your gag, and ask you a question,” I said. “If you scream, Kakx’s gang will bust in here and hurt us both. Do you understand?”

  She made a snuffling sound and then nodded.

  Setting the book down, I removed her gag. It came off in a disgusting wet pile of snot and drool. The fucker had rammed a whole mouthful of rags into her mouth. Then, he had wrapped another cloth around the outside to hold all of it tight.

  She made several coughing, choking sounds and then settled down. Her dark eyes stared at me with worry. I was sure that she was wondering if I would rape her.

  “I found Shy’s spellbook,” I told her, holding it up so she could see it. “Were they lovers?”

  She nodded.

  Fuck.

  God Dammit.

  That bitch had sent me up! There was no way that Kakx got her book without Shy knowing about it. Dammit. She had probably hidden it here.

  “Was she involved in the kidnapping?”

  I already knew the answer. But, hearing confirmation would be good.

  “Yes…” her sister rasped.

  “Why?”

  “She wanted to force Mother to relinquish control of the Park to the Reavers.”

  Shy was a Reaver.

  Dammit.

  One lone Goblin versus an army of them.

  Shy didn’t expect me to get this far. Retrieving her sister was just a distraction to get me out of the way.

  Azlin and Taesa were in danger.

  Thinking furiously, I glanced down at Kakx’s blue blood all over the ground. If they were lovers, she probably was bonded with him, like I was with my girls.

  Shy knew that he was dead.

  The unexpected backlash would hurt her. Shit, it might even kill her. But, if Shy survived, she would come at me with everything that she had.

  We didn’t have much time.

  - 24 -

  “Do you know anything about Kakx’s magic?” I asked as I began removing her bonds.

  “Shy inscribed the hex into six of his ribs,” she replied as she sat up.

  The left side of her face was one big bruise. The bastard had hit her, hard, several times.

  “What do I call you?”

  “Mockery.”

  That told me a lot. Wizards, every one of them that I had ever met, usually hid their real name behind a nickname, like Shy, Blister, or Mockery.

  Shy’s sister had to be a Wizard, like her. Kakx must have kept her sedated, or unconscious until her magic faded. Like any human, she would have to keep it fresh and ready, or it would dissipate. Without her spellbook, Mockery wouldn’t be able to replenish her spells.

  Mockery also had deep bruises on her wrists, knees, and ankles where Kakx had tied her up.

  “She will know that he is dead,” Mockery pointed out, mirroring what I had already been thinking.

  “Yes, but his death will hurt her,” I said. “That will buy us a little time.”

  I wanted Kakx’s anti-magic spell. Being able to absorb my enemy’s magic would be incredibly useful.

  Looking around, I found a knife.

  “Look away,” I told her, as I cut off his clothing, revealing the Red Goblin’s ribs.

  “Why? Worried I might puke?” she joked.

  Her sarcasm was a good sign. Kakx had abducted her, with the help of her own sister. Then, he had violated the younger woman.

  Sighing, I began slicing the flesh away from his ribs. Mockery surprised me when she picked up a second knife and began carving away on the other side.

  I looked at her in shock.

  “Hurry up,” she countered, “unless the blue blood is bothering you.”

  She was living up to her nickname. Looking down, I returned to my bloody project. Working quickly, like a butcher with no finesse, I exposed three ribs on my side that had dark black runes inscribed into them.

  If someone ever filleted my own back, they would find the runes for my stone skin inscribed on my own bones. The tattoos on the outside were just a ripple of power like the hair on a peach. The real magic was buried much deeper.

  I could feel the constrained power in their depths.

  Glancing over at Mockery, I saw her smiling back at me with blue blood coating her hands.

  It excited me. The smell of the blood and seeing it all over her fingers… shit, it was hot.

  I looked down immediately. It was the Goblin in my heritage that was excited, not the human. She had been hurt too much already for me to get involved with her. Plus, I already had too many women I was sleeping with.

  And… shit… she was seventeen. Just a child.

  “Snĕpa,” Mockery mumbled.

  I felt a little spell twist and crackle.

  Then, one of his ribs popped out.

  I sat back and watched Shy’s sister remove all of his ribs in shock. Then, she wrapped them in the remains of Kakx’s shirt and stood up.

  “What?” she snapped at me. “Never seen a Necromancer before? Not all of us are old, gray, and fat.”

  Shaking my head, I stood up and wiped Kakx’s blood off of my hands. Then, I grabbed an old burlap sack and placed Shy’s spellbook in it. No matter what she had done, I wasn’t leaving it behind.

  “Xot,” I whispered with my mind.

  “Boss?” he screeched out loud.

  “Quiet,” I snapped. “Just think, don’t speak.”

  “I was so worried,” he began to babble.

  “Quiet,” I insisted. “I don’t have time. I need you to create a loud, fiery explosion as a distraction so that I can escape with the girl. Use the motorcycle fuel.”

  “But, I like the Go-bikes.”

>   “You like me more!” I bellowed in his mind. “Blow them the up!”

  “Yes, Boss,” he grumbled.

  “And hurry.”

  --M--

  We didn’t have to wait long.

  The explosion shook the house so hard that it knocked me to the ground and made the floor buckle and vibrate.

  The first explosion.

  Two more--even more violent--struck the building. Then, with a moaning shriek, the whole structure began to crumble.

  The stupid Goblin had destroyed the integrity of the whole building. The floor beneath me snapped and began tilting at a forty-five degrees axis. I fell forward, as the entire upper level began rushing down toward the street.

  “Dagaḍa Tvacā,” I shouted, pulling on my spell to protect me from the destruction. I grabbed Mockery as I grew bigger and covered in black stone. She screamed in fear as the house disintegrated around us. Together, our bodies rushed to the ground, and then debris was slamming into me from every direction.

  The noise was so loud that I shouted in terror. It was a thundering crash that surrounded me on all sides, pounding into my brain. The lights that had filled the room were gone. Without my Goblin vision, I would have been blind… like Mockery.

  I held her in my arms, wrapped around her like a huge ball. I could feel her moving a little, but it was impossible to tell if she was hurt or not. It was taking all of my strength to hold the weight of the collapsed structure off of us.

  “Prakāśa,” I heard her mumble.

  A glow began to emanate from her hand, lighting up the surrounding wreckage. Dirt and crap floated in the air in a nasty mist. It was already getting hard to breathe.

  Coughing, Mockery looked up at me.

  “You’ve looked better,” she said with a grimace.

  Nice.

  “And, your big stone dick is poking into my side.”

  I shifted, shocked and horrified.

  Mockery laughed.

  We were buried under a pile of crap, and she was giving me shit.

  “You should have seen your face,” she chortled.

  How was she even breathing, much less laughing?

  “Use your muscles and get us out of here!”

  “I am doing everything I can to keep the debris off of us,” I rasped, as dirt made me sneeze. The roof on top of us pressed harder down, and for the first time, I saw fear in her eyes.

  “Don’t sneeze,” she snapped.

  “Use your magic,” I ordered.

  “I only have access to my cantrips,” she shouted as her voice rose up and trembled. “It’s been days since I had access to my spellbooks.”

  She was human. All of her spells had faded and disintegrated in her head during her captivity.

  We were fucked.

  “I know one spell by heart,” she mused. “But, it will freak you out and probably result in our deaths when the ceiling collapses on top of us.”

  Smiling up at me with bloody teeth, she asked, “How do you feel about bugs?”

  - 25 -

  “Let me in,” Mockery hissed at me. I could feel her mind trying to enter mine, but I was having trouble relaxing. Keeping the ceiling from crushing us made it hard to calm down.

  “There…” she said with a gasp, as she slid into my thoughts. The feeling of someone else in my mind made me shiver uncontrollably. I hated every second of it.

  Dust shifted down, falling on both of us.

  I fought not to sneeze. Holding up the ceiling was getting tiring.

  Mockery couldn’t cast the spell, but I could… if she carved the hex into the bubbles I had gotten from draining energy from Taesa.

  Letting a Necromancer into my thoughts wasn’t an idea that thrilled me, but being crushed to death wasn’t high on my to-do list either.

  “Your mind is so different from mine,” she murmured, as her presence moved through my sigils.

  “Hurry up,” I growled, which made Mockery laugh.

  “Patience, apprentice,” she teased.

  Then, I felt her begin to inscribe arcane circuits and patterns on the three spheres that I had received from Taesa. It was hard to focus on using my physical strength and watch what she was doing, but I did my best.

  Mockery connected all three spheres, looping the patterns together, so the circuits entwined around all three. Then, she did something weird, Mockery looped a spell circuit around the sigils and connected it directly to the mana vault.

  “That will harden it,” she murmured.

  Then… fuck… I smelled apple blossoms.

  The sphere that connected me to Taesa began to wobble and throb. Energy began to leak into my brain, filling me with power.

  “What the fuck?” Mockery exclaimed.

  Then, Taesa’s thoughts overwhelmed us both.

  --M--

  I was in the Pale Witch’s body.

  Her naked body.

  Adrenaline and endorphins raged through her veins, making my body hard and stiff… but that was somewhere far away.

  A tongue was lapping at her privates, sucking on the soft feminine lips that surrounded her clitoris. I felt them get pulled into someone’s mouth and then played with.

  Fuck.

  That felt good.

  Electricity ripped through me as energy permeated the link between us. Sex was an ancient way to raise magic, and Taesa was enjoying generating it.

  A finger began to trace the hard, puckered opening of her ass. I could feel its delicate touch, tracing each crease and wrinkle… And, so could Taesa.

  She groaned and moved her hands down to curl in someone’s long, red hair.

  Azlin.

  I could see the tips of her Elven ears peeking out from either side of her head.

  Dammit.

  Mockery was still in my mind, and she was enjoying the show.

  And, by opening a mental connection to my mind, she had also shared hers with me. That was why it was so dangerous, forming connections, even temporary ones. It gave people access to your thoughts, feelings, and memories.

  I felt Mockery grow wet, as she rode Taesa’s skin, just like I did. Together, we felt every lick and tickle.

  Azlin slipped her finger in… just a little.

  Then, her thumb began playing with Taesa’s wet opening.

  Mockery moaned in my arms.

  My shaking arms.

  Fuck, I tried to force Taesa out of my mind. My body was growing aroused, and I was losing focus. My arms began to tremble, and panic flooded my mind. We were going to be crushed.

  Mockery tore herself free from Taesa’s flesh with an unhappy groan.

  Then… she made me shout, “Rātrīcē kiḍē Jāgr̥ta karā!”

  Dammit. I had let her in too far. She was in complete control of my mouth and tongue.

  I opened my physical eyes to glare at her… but then, insects began crawling out of the cracks in the debris all around us.

  I almost lost it. But, in my mind, I felt Mockery whisper, “Relax. They are mine.”

  Mine.

  Not my bugs. But, hers.

  That worried the shit out of me.

  Bugs of all shapes and sizes pushed into the air pocket all around us. I could feel them crawling on my hands and feet. Growling, I knew that I would lose all control if they touched my…

  Face.

  Fuck.

  I gasped and spat as a huge cockroach, the size of my dick, scurried over it.

  “Give me more control,” I heard her demand.

  Fuck.

  She could have all the control that she wanted. I flung my mind open the rest of the way and shut my eyes and mouth tight, focusing on my quivering arms.

  “Bāhēra ēka Mārga Kōra!” she screamed with my voice.