Hello... And Farewell Read online

  Published by Mojocastle Press, LLC

  Price, Utah

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Hello...and Farewell

  Free Title(Not for resale)

  Copyright ã 2007 Michael Barnette

  Cover Art Copyright @ 2007 Mojocastle Press

  All rights reserved.

  Excluding legitimate review sites and review publications, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Copying, scanning, uploading, selling and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission from the publisher is illegal, punishable by law and will be prosecuted.

  Available online at:

  http://www.mojocastle.com/

  Also By Michael Barnette:

  All Hellos: A Mojocastle Trick

  [Gryphon and Adrian]

  Mercykill: Shattered Melody

  Through Neon Eyes Series

  and

  GameNet Series

  [Bells]

  Hello... And Farewell

  Clouds hid the moon, blanketing the ruins in a darkness worthy of the Pit, transforming the shattered remnants of the castle into an horrific vision straight out of Dante.

  A tall blond man hurried through the Stygian gloom, a dark-haired man of equal height draped across his shoulders. He stumbled, fought for balance, regained his footing and moved for the deepest shadows he could locate, an archway that led into the crumbling remains of a tower on the castle’s southwest corner.

  He was struggling to breathe, the burden of the man across his shoulders too much weight for him to carry much farther; added to the coat of mail he wore made it unbearable. But he had to bear it, had to get them both as far from the unholy altar as he could. Even this far from the thing he could feel the slow drain of it on his soul. A miasma that had nearly undone him while he’d rescued his injured lover from the horrible clutches of the thing.

  He looked up at the sky, saw a few scattered stars, gauged the time as a few hours until dawn.

  Dawn.

  Another enemy.

  A deadly and dangerous one.

  But his biggest worry right now was the enemy lurking somewhere out there in shadow. An enemy he could fight but never beat. He’d already tried twice, and it had nearly cost him everything he loved.

  It had nearly cost him the man he was carrying. The burden on his body too great, the burden of suffering the other man had endured a wound to his own heart.

  And if he lost him…

  If he died from the horrible things his enemy had done....

  Tears blurred his vision, but he steeled his emotions and kept going, every step taking his lover farther from the danger of the altar.

  When he discovers his prey is missing, he’ll be on our trail quick as any hound.

  The man shoved at the tabard he wore. The length of it hindered his legs as he wove his way through broken stone and climbed over blocks he couldn’t go around.

  A scream, shrill, sharp as daggers driven through flesh tore through the night’s silence.

  “Wretched creature! Where have you gone? Accursed bastard, where are you?”

  Silence reclaimed the ruins; the screaming stopped.

  He reached the archway, moved into the thicker darkness it contained, eased the body from his shoulders and crouching down beside the still form, pulled it into his arms.

  Bare hands touched the pallid face. Cold. Cold as the grave.

  The blond pulled the body closer, able to smell blood, the faint scent of death.

  “Beloved, don’t leave me,” he whispered and kissed the chill lips.

  He got no response. Nothing.

  He drew the short knife he carried at his belt. Useless against his adversary, it might serve to save his lover’s life. He drew the blade across the palm of his left hand, hissing at the pain, then pressed his bleeding flesh to the lips of the man across his lap.

  Nothing.

  He pried the mouth open, pressed the wound to the parted lips, and still there was no reaction.

  A sob tore at his throat, wanting freedom. He held it in, held back the tears.

  “Please, beloved. Please don’t die,” he whispered, voice choked with grief.

  “Adrian, where are you? Come out. There’s no sense hiding from me.”

  Closer. Full of mocking amusement. Like someone searching for an unruly child.

  He pulled his lover closer, wanting to shield him, to hide them both. His hand remained over Adrian’s mouth, but in his heart he suspected the act wouldn’t serve any purpose. His lover was too far gone this time.

  “Adrian? Come out, come out!”

  A moaning sigh reached his ears, the cold flesh in his arms stirred, the tip of an icy tongue grazed his wounded hand. Light surged through him, something fierce, unyielding, filled him, lit his soul.

  His lover wasn’t gone. Some dim spark of the unlife that animated his lover’s flesh remained though the blood that fueled it lay pooled around the ungodly altar where he’d found his lover chained, the veins in his legs and arms opened.

  He could feel the taint of the altar. The taint of the Thing stalking them.

  A thing he’d once known.

  Jerome. Not a friend, but not an enemy either.

  Not until he’d let his drive for power, for wealth lead him down the path to corruption.

  “Adrian, where are you, sweet morsel?”

  The blond man shuddered at the sound of Jerome’s voice. Where in the past it had carried the mellow bass notes of a strong singing voice, it had now turned to shrill stridency. The taint had robbed him of one quality as a tradeoff to another.

  Jerome was more powerful.

  But every vestige of beauty, that of countenance, voice and soul were gone.

  In their place was the horror of what Jerome had become.

  A Beast, tainted by his own dark lusts.

  Warped by the power he’d attained.

  Jerome could no longer live among humans the way Adrian and he did. His aspect was too horrific, and he would be marked as ‘demon’ the instant the eyes of the Church fell upon him.

  He feared that Jerome would lose his fear of humans, because nothing of the mortal world could harm Jerome. Then the blood would flow, and the killing would begin.

  Killing he would be unable to stop.

  “Ah this explains much. Yes, of course,” he heard Jerome say. There was the sound of steel sliding across stone.

  His sword. Jerome had found the blade he’d discarded. Unable to use it anymore, the blade dulled and bent from freeing Adrian, he’d left it behind. It couldn’t be scabbarded, and carrying it served no purpose.

  But it had revealed his presence.

  “So it was you freed your sodomite, Gryphon. I should have known the vampire hadn’t the strength to break those chains.”

  The blond held his lover even tighter as he felt Adrian’s cold lips close on the wound, sucking with greater intent. Feeding.

  The two of them were much too close to the altar, the drain of the magic powering it strong enough to drain them.

  Beyond the archway, something moved.

  Something twisted and black as the night around it.

  A sinuous neck looped around, a neck that ended in a head crowned with clusters of dagger-sharp horns. The body lumbered forward, dragging useless wings. At the very core of the horrific Beast was a darker form, something vaguely manlike, but stooped and as distorted as the Soul Beast around it.

  “The t
wo of you may as well surrender yourselves to me, Gryphon.” Mocking laughter rolled around through the ruins, the echoes coming back to them with a quiet susurration soft as the flutter of bats’ wings.

  “Come out, little boys. I’ll not hurt you.” The same eerie laughter was repeated. “Not for very long, at any rate.”

  Adrian moaned, body shuddering in his grasp, the vampire’s need for blood overcoming him, driving him to feed. To survive.

  Strength draining from him into the undead creature in his arms. He leaned closer, whispered through the disheveled tangle of hair, “Shhhh...beloved. I’m here. I’m here.”

  The Beast stopped moving, head coming up on the serpentine neck. A loud snort, the sound of a titanic bull, echoed.

  “Blood. Such a savory fragrance. It gives you both away, Gryphon.” The Thing moved toward the narrow archway. Huge as it was, it couldn’t come through such a narrow space if it were the Beast’s true form.

  But it was no more of a reality than mist was solid. The shambling It at the heart of the black Beast was the real solid part, so it came on toward them.

  Lifting his lover, the blond retreated, moving away from the horror coming for them.

  There was no way out. Nowhere to run.

  He reached the far wall, put Adrian onto the stones and gave him a fleeting kiss before turning to face their adversary.

  He couldn’t kill Jerome, and Jerome couldn’t kill him.

  Gryphon and Dragon, they could fight, but there couldn’t be any victor.

  “Yield him to me, Gryphon. Spare yourself the agony of what I will do to you.”

  “I won’t do that. You know that so why even ask?”

  The malformed Thing at the core of the equally distorted dragon that was Jerome’s corrupted soul shrugged. “I’m offering you life, Gryphon. Deny me what I desire, and I might not leave you even with that.”

  “You can’t kill me.”

  “So sure of yourself, but you always were.” The thing came closer, and the Gryphon could see two mismatched glints of red, one huge and staring, the other a bare pinpoint that flickered as the Thing blinked.

  “Look at what you’ve made of yourself, Jerome. You’re a parody of a human.”

  “And you aren’t? Oh, yes, you have the appearance of a human on the outside, but inside you’re no different than I.”

  Gryphon sighed. Arguing was pointless. Jerome was lost to the taint, washed by foul corruption.

  Jerome couldn’t be saved.

  He had to be stopped.

  Gryphon released the power of his own Immortal Beast as he strode toward Jerome. Wings unfurled, gold and sparkling in the dark. A leonine head with a eagle’s beak rose above his shoulders, the huge talons of an eagle forming the forelegs, the hind legs and body those of the lion.

  A sound, part lion’s roar, part the scream of a giant eagle rolled through the dark. A shrill battlecry answered as the two Immortal Beasts clashed, talons tearing, fangs and beak rending. Their battle carried them out of the tower into the space beyond, across the shattered walls and down a short slope.

  Blood spilled, flesh and scales rent, torn, flesh shredded.

  Gasping, the Gryphon stumbled. The mail covering his human form was gone, as were his clothes, Nothing but ragged tatters of steel and cloth remained. Blood streamed from torn flesh; chest, shoulders and back gouged, shredded. His thighs too were marked with the fury of their fight, and only by some miracle had his genitals been spared.

  Sobbing for breath, agony weakening him, he sank to the ground. Alive, but beaten.

  Please, no, don’t let this happen. If there are any gods or goddesses watching, please don’t let it end this way. Don’t let him take my Adrian from me.

  He raised his gaze to see Jerome standing over him. Bleeding, torn, but undefeated. The twisted Thing that had once been called Dragon looming over him, triumphant. Victor and defeated, the spoils of the battle lying helpless in the ruins.

  A bright sliver of steel was clasped in the talons of the other Immortal, his once human form so distorted that it made the gorge rise in Gryphon’s throat to look at it.

  “It won’t kill you, of course, but it will take months lying here before you’ll be whole again.”

  The steel blade rose, and he knew Jerome meant to remove his head.

  At the last instant he pushed himself aside, rolled down the slope and came up hard against a stone. Dazed he shoved himself to his feet, stumbled and sat down on the block that had stopped him from dropping into the dry moat at the end of the hill.

  Jerome was coming down the hill toward him, a grimace of a smile further distorting his twisted face.

  Power. Immense power. It rolled across Gryphon’s senses.

  But it hadn’t come from Jerome, or from the Gate he’d sought to open.

  Motion the sound of a horse at full gallop caught Gryphon’s attention he turned his head.

  A strange sight greeted him. A massive charger of the most costly type came sailing over the wide dry moat of the ruined castle with no more effort than other such mounts would show leaping a ditch. Even in the dark he could tell the beast was an unusual color, a dapple grey that gathered up the faint starlight so that the beast’s mane and tail turned to silver banners.

  Strange as the animal might be, it was the rider upon its back that grabbed and held Gryphon’s full attention, Jerome forgotten.

  Blond like himself, the rider’s hair was done up in a wild tangle of braids that made the slim man astride the horse seem some sort of barbarian warrior. The sword gripped in his fist was as alien in appearance as beast and rider; a slender, curving line of steel that looked like no blade Gryphon had set eyes on during his travels.

  Jerome saw the horse and rider coming for him and laughed. “I know not who you are, fool, but you’d be better off taking yourself elsewhere unless you seek death.”

  The horseman didn’t change course; he came on, and as he did, a mist borne of magic flowed around them. Cobalt and emerald mist shot through with glints of gold and aqua, the blue-green color almost the match of Gryphon’s own eyes.

  Another Guardian. But who is he? I’ve never set eyes on him before.

  In all of Europe there were but two Guardians—Jerome had once been the third.

  The horse and rider were drawing near, the grey animal running faster than any horse Gryphon had ever set eyes on. No mortal animal could match such speed.

  They were almost upon them and Gryphon saw a pair of broad wings unfurl, the image of an Immortal Beast taking form in the mist.

  Jerome moaned, backed away, tried to run.

  Golden scales clad the form of a Dragon. But this wasn’t the almost ungainly type of Dragon Jerome had once been. This was a sort of Dragon the Gryphon had never heard of, sinuous and agile as a panther.

  When it struck Jerome’s black Beast, it was the malformed creature that recoiled, that screamed out its agony and went on the defensive as the golden Dragon ripped its body with talons of ivory and blue.

  The rider jumped free of his horse, vaulting from it. Jerome tried to drive his sword through the human form of the Dragon but missed, the blade knocked aside in a move so fast that Gryphon failed to see what had happened.

  The sword in the warrior’s hand flashed, the talon of the golden Dragon moving to the motion, rending the throat of the Beast that was Jerome’s twisted soul. Black with tainted blood, it rose again, the sound of steel singing in the wind of its own passing reached Gryphon.

  A tortured wail rolled across the ruins and the Thing that had been Jerome crumpled to the grass amid a cloud of foul stench, his head rolling along the grass, leaving a trail of foulness that smoked.

  Gryphon wavered to his feet as the blond who’d saved him months of agony and the loss of his lover stood over Jerome’s corpse.

  The horse trotted over to him and rested its chin on his shoulder. Gryphon noted that the animal wasn’t even breathing hard, as if such a long, impossibly fast gallop hadn’t even taxe
d the beast’s endurance.

  Then again, the rider didn’t appear to be burdened with the weight of mail, either. His garments were as peculiar as the rest of him: an odd tunic and some manner of close-fitting leggings that vanished into equally unusual boots that appeared to be belted on.

  But it was the hair and face of the man that pulled his gaze. A wild jumble of barbaric splendor, each thin braid glittered with adornments, beads and tiny silver bells that spoke in muted song as he came toward Gryphon. Feathers danced in the breeze as he stopped and turned the most heartbreakingly beautiful face on Gryphon.

  The steel in his fist was swung, the wind humming, a spattering of foul droplets spinning away from the blade. Then it was returned to a scabbard across the blond’s back.

  The man opened his mouth, paused, then shook his head, awakening the gentle music of his hair. Instead of speaking, he reached out, stroked a hand across the Gryphon’s wounded body. He felt a tingle. The offer of power.

  Gryphon shuddered, gasped at the intensity of the flow coming from the other Immortal.

  The flavor was younger than the taste of his own soul, but the scope, the full range of it took his breath away.

  He turned his gaze up to that face. An angel’s face that held the soul of something at once filled with the pure brilliance of a Guardian, and the unutterable darkness of something even more tainted than Jerome had dared dream of becoming.

  The feel of that taint made him jerk away from the touch. Gryphon had no wish to become like Jerome, seeking power at the cost of his own soul.

  He stared as the mist shifted, danced across his vision and saw that the darkness was and yet wasn’t part of the being standing before him. This was no tainted Guardian. Nor was it like any Immortal Beast he’d ever heard of, the entire encounter strange. This creature was something beyond Gryphon’s knowledge, beyond his experiences.

  An enigma of power encased in a slender body all but revealed to his gaze by the tight-fitting garments the small Dragon wore. And it was a beautifully formed body, if his eyes weren’t lying.