Demon Lord 6: Garnet Tongue Goddess (33 page)

She smiled again.  “Sorry.”

Her amulet stone glowed with a bloody light that sank into my skin.  The pain vanished.  The swelling visibly subsided.  The bruises looked purple in the light, until they paled away, revealing healthy flesh as the stone dimmed.

The yantra was back on its lethal feet.

“Go get it!” Ryella clasped her hands, excited as a toddler blowing out candles at a birthday party.

1

THIRTY-THREE

“Things are never so appalling

they can’t get horrific.”

                                                  —
Caine Deathwalker

Dhal and Silf each grabbed an arm and pulled me to my feet so I could run off and play in heavy traffic.  They smiled like Ryella. 

I smiled back.  “Do you think your mothers would be happy with how cold hearted you’ve become?”

Ryella stopped smiling for some reason. 
Oh yeah, I killed your mother, didn’t I.

I shook off Dhal and Silf and walked straight toward the yantra.  The Old Man was off to the side, his hands lost in the hard blue-white glow of lightning.  Jags crawled up his arms.  Throwing the energy at the yantra wasn’t going to do any good.  We both knew it.  That meant he planned to grab the brass grill and destroy it by touch.  And that meant he expected me to do something about the sphinx so her lion paws wouldn’t slash him to the land of Fuck-I’m-Bleeding.

The yantra was basically an animated spell, a magical doorway to an altered space of its own.  The natural laws of that space, its divine energy, was the real enemy, but its physical expression could still alter its nature—I hoped.  Time to see.

I stopped and looked the sphinx in the eye.  “What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?”

It froze.  It stared at me.  It said nothing.  I wondered if it could talk.  It seemed like it wanted to. 

“Time to get a new fence,” I said.

“Why do elephants wear green tennis shoes?”

The sphinx took a slow step toward me.  Then another.  The rage on the woman’s face was gone, wiped clean away.

“To hide in pistachio trees.”

The ball-shaped grillwork bobbed on its spider legs.  Its wings fluttered.  The woman’s lips opened.  No tongue inside, but there were sounds spilling out.  “Stasshiosss.  Stassshiosss.”

“That’s right.  What kind of sphinx can’t talk?  Use your word.  That’s a big girl.”

Her jaw worked, up and down, round and round.  The sphinx was rewriting its nature to be what it looked like.  I’d given it a hunger for words by taking its role.  These sphinxes are only supposed to eat travelers that can’t answer their riddles. 

I wondered if she had any riddles, and if not, where would they come from.  Her inner goddess?  Scary thought.

I provoked her some more, desperately trying to remember jokes from an elephant joke book I’d had as a kid. 
Fuck it, I’ll just make up my own.

The Old Man was now soft-footing it, sneaking up behind the sphinx, getting into position.  I made a point of not looking at him.  That might give him away to the sphinx.  Of course there’s also that bright glow he’s throwing off.  His blue light washed across the pavement, sliding under the sphinx, painting me blue as well.

“How many elephants does it take to change a light bulb?” I said.

She dipped, her spider legs folded so the brass cage rested on the pavement.  This brought us close to the same level—much easier for conversations.  She flexed her claws, anticipating gutting me no doubt.

“Bulbbbb.  Bulbbb.”

“Sorry, wrong answer.  It’s just one elephant, but it has to have a psychiatrist’s license, and the light bulb must really, really want to change.  Do you want to change?”  I nodded my head, implying the right answer.  “Don’t you want to be the one to ask the riddles?  You’re a sphinx, right.  That’s your role in the universe.  Right?”  I kept nodding.

The sphinx nodded along with me.  This wasn’t turning out to be a hard sell at all.

I slapped a look of genuine sympathy on my face, master deceiver that I am.  “I can help you.  All you need is the garnet tongue of a goddess.”  Or the stone tongue from an idol that someone just left lying around for me to steal.  My hand caressed the leather-wrapped knife hilt in my thigh sheath.  “I have it right here.”  I eased the knife from the sheath and slowly brought it into view between us.  I held it by both ends.  “See how pretty it is?  Feel the magical energy it has—naga energy.  Fix you right up.”

Her gaze clung to the knife.  Her eyes smoldered.      Hunger burned there.  Naked.  Deep.  She hesitated.  Distrust is an awful thing.  Of course, we had been trying to destroy her up ‘til now.

“Why did the elephant take his laptop fishing?” I asked.

Her gaze shifted to my face.  Her paws were limp like her wings.  I had her whole attention.

I gave her the punch line.  “He wanted a byte.”

Holy and Shiva were off somewhere, groaning at my efforts. 
Bitches
.

But the sphinx had become more of a living thing.  Her stone lion’s body was shifting texture, developing real fur.  The woman’s face warmed, living skin replacing polished stone.  The tits I’d shot off were regenerating, filling in, and getting nice and bouncy, I couldn’t help noticing.

Gimmee, gimmee!
My cock said.

I often amaze myself. 
Geez, I can put you anywhere, can’t I?

The sphinx inched closer, her gaze back on the garnet tongue again.  The tongue full of poisoning magic.  I held it in one hand while slowly reaching inside the cage.  I placed my right palm over the lion’s heart and rubbed the fur soothingly. 

“Such a pretty monster, you are.”  I half way sung the words.

The sphinx rumbled, something like a purr.

My hand went wandering all on its own, feeling her up, and softly tweaking her nipples. 

Osamu softly called to me.  “Focus, Caine-sama.  Time and a place.”

I wanted to keep the sphinx for a pet, but couldn’t risk it.  Who knew what might eventually wander out of the altered space in the brass ball.  No, she had to be destroyed. 
But maybe if the tits survive…  Focus.  Focus.  One more push.

“Why did the elephant cling to the slice of lime?”

“Lhimm.  Lhimmm.”

I gave her the answer.  “So he wouldn’t fall into the Margarita.”

She looked at me blankly.

“It was a pygmy elephant.  At a bar.”

She opened her mouth wide.  Then wider.  An open invitation. 

Sadly, I release her tit.  I pulled my hand back, and put it on the knife.  I rotated it so it pointed back at me.  “Here you go.”  I stuck the butt of the knife in her mouth, pressing it in.  I saw the back of her throat brighten with the murky green light of the blade.  The knife fused in place, becoming hers.

I stepped back.

The stone went fluid.  It rippled.  The knife point flicked at me.  It hung down past her chin, like she was eating someone’s tie.  Her mouth closed to a thin slit.  The poisoned tongue jerked as she struggled to speak.  The garnet prong shriveled, resizing itself.  A moment later, it was in scale to the woman’s head.  And the green light in her mouth shone much brighter.  She said, “What’s pale and cold and covered in blood?”

I knew the answer. 
Me
, once our conversation was done.

I smiled.

She stiffened.  Her eyes turned green.  Her skin turned green.  Her fur turned green.  Her wings turned green.  Even the brass cage took on that sheen.  The woman’s head jerked.  A spasm twitched her face.  Her paws fell from the grill, dangling limp and useless.  I could hear her heart pounding in furious distress.

“Fuh-fhu-fhu—”

I helped her say it.  “Fuck.”  I backed away some more.  “I know it hurts.  Sorry.”

The Old Man pounced on the cage.  His hands gripped the brass grill. 

Lightning dancing over her fingers, too, as Holy walked up and grabbed the grill in another spot. 

Shiva came over and touched the driveway.  It went liquid.  The spider legs sank into the softened pavement.  The pavement hardened again, trapping the yantra.   Osamu joined them, his demon sword a black streak at the core of crackling red demon energy.  He slashed the side of the ball, damaging the grill.  At some point, like a slashed circuit board, the brass would fail to be a gate, and the world would be safe from the altered space inside.

The sphinx closed her green eyes tightly in pain.  Her mouth writhed, not quite as paralyzed as the rest of her.

I said, “What’s pale and cold and covered in blood?”

Her eyes opened.  They sought me out, full of reproach.

I said, “The hands of the Red Moon Demon.”

“Closer, closer,” Teresa screamed.  She ran up beside me.  Her camera guy had a portable.  He circled like a shark, looking for the best angles.

I sighed.  “People never listen to me when I say keep back.  It’s like they can’t stand to be safe.”

Teresa looked at me.  “What?”

The sphinx smiled. Its tail lashed.  The end morphed into a snake’s head that flashed fangs.  The sphinx was turning chimera, trying to assimilate the poison energy I’d given it.  
Not good
.

I yelled, “Hurry it up guys.”

The chimera tail stabbed out through the brass grillwork.  Fangs caught the camera man in the chest.  He dropped the camera. Teresa stared at the possibly damaged camera in horror.  The camera man crumpled to his knees, the snake still attached.  His face went white, then green.  He shuddered and died.

Shiva grabbed Teresa by the shoulders and forced her back to a safe distance.

Osamu danced over and slashed.  The snake head was severed from the rest of the tail.  The tail flailed like a rampaging cock, spitting blood that splattered the pavement, making it smoke.

I pulled Osamu back, keeping him safe.  Good combat butlers are hard to find. 

A few more steps and I was back at the head of the woman.  Her tongue was stiff and jutting, back to being my knife again.  I reached in and grabbed the blade, my fingers bled.  I knew the knife had discharged all the energy it had taken from me, and I knew how to refill it.  As long as I held on, the poison energy in me would flow into the knife, and from the knife—into her.

You want to be a chimera?  Let’s see how much poison you can take
.

The wounded tail reformed its snake head.  The tail struck at the Old Man.   He was forced to let go and leap backwards.  The tail jerked back inside the ball and launched again.  Holy was forced to release the grill work she’d been attacking in order to catch the new snake head.  She struggled to control it.  Dhal moved around and slashed with his silver sword.  Another snake head was severed.

Learning its lesson, the ass of the creature sprouted seven tails, all of which grew snake heads of their own.  Sphinx had become chimera, and was now on the way to becoming a hydra.

My inner dragon said:
An ugly trend is developing here.  It’s becoming a nagi goddess.  I don’t think destroying the brass part of the yantra will help anymore.

I muttered.  “It’s never easy.”

Better let me take over.

“Monster to monster?  Sure.”

In my mind, his golden eyes flared with outrage. 
Hey!  A dragon is the pinnacle of creation.  Not a monster
.

“Depends on who you ask.”  Seeing its wings ripple, its paws slightly flex, I knew it was fighting off the paralysis, the poison.  I pulled on the knife and ripped it free.  I’d gotten all the use from it I was going to for now.  I backed hastily away and raised my voice for everyone to hear.  “Keep it busy but don’t get to close.   It’s getting stronger.”

The spider legs wobbled at the knees.  The brass grillwork ball jerked up in the air.  The yantra swayed, straining, but the pavement held it.  The woman’s head hissed.  Its mouth opened and it grew a new tongue—no, my mistake.  Having decided talking was overrated, it had a snake stabbing out from its mouth.  The rest of its snakes poked out of the grillwork, seeking prey.

I backed away even more, needing a lot of space.  Once I started changing, I’d be vulnerable until the change finished.  Already, I could feel muscles warming with golden energy.  Bones softened.  My joints went wobbly.  I was forced to move off the drive, onto the brown grass.  I wilted and waited, my skin starting to scale.  Pain came, sharp, tearing, like a trillion razor blades were cutting me open from the inside.  A red haze obscured my sight.  Oddly, my ribs no longer hurt. 

Always a silver lining.

The change fused the fractures closed.  The cloth-wrap around my ribs burst away.  The vertebra of my spine popped like firecrackers.  My tailbone lengthened, becoming a true tail.  Fresh muscle and blood filled in around it. 

I grimaced as newly grown nerves protested existence.  The changes went cell deep.  My shoulder blades grew bone spurs that lengthened, growing joints, fanning into a new kind of ribbing.  The space between the ribs filled in with tissues, muscle, and a circulatory system for blood supply.  Leathery wings completed themselves, as piece by piece, my human shape twisted into
otherness
.