Malice Maze

Disclaimer at the bottom so as not to give away spoilers for the chapter.

Chapter 8
Roxy’s Descent

“Maybe we should stick together,” Nanaia suggested.

“He said it would be best if we did not,” Roxy pointed out.

“Who wants to trust Dralnu?” Ilona asked bitterly. “He is the one who cast the spell that tricked me into agreeing to be here.”

“She’s right,” Hope agreed. “He may just be playing with our minds.”

Roxy huffed and felt the small blades at her back, covered and unseen by the darkness of the black shift. “I do better alone,” she said and stepped forward. “You three would do best to heed his words. This is not just a game, this is survival.” Roxy turned from the remaining three women and chose a tunnel slightly to the right and disappeared into the darkness.

She never did well with female companionship. After her sister had died three years ago by some disease the demon’s had spread through the land she never wanted any more women her life. They were too weak, too soft, and she was in no mood to travel with these three innocent women. What did she care if they lost their way?

She could almost hear Rivalen laughing at her in her head. He would tease her for leaving them, she, the Angel of Justice, had left three women to die, or worse. Roxy knew better than Rivalen. When it came to survival it was every woman and man for themselves. She could not allow herself to be dissuaded by kindness or compassion. She was angry enough that her face had been revealed to all of these people, a desert woman’s face, an assassin, should never reveal their true beauty. Real assassins did not kill using wiles, they killed using strength, speed, and power. Now her face was revealed and her embarrassment was endless.

“Damn it!” she screamed into the darkness, enjoying the feel of her voice rumbling through the corridors, turning the corners and echoing back to her. Her voice sounded powerful, her adrenaline began to move, and she smiled in pleasure. Perhaps this would be just what she needed to gain the pleasure back, the joys of killing. Maybe she had been wrong to listen to Rivalen all along. Perhaps she was not just a woman of justice; perhaps she was just a murderer. The thought did not bother her.

Roxy turned a few corners, but she did not go far before she came to her first dead end, a door standing in front of her. Testing the words the king had spoken she turned around to go back the way she came and found a wall where once had been an opening. Now she stood in a small boxed in area with only a door before her as escape. She reached for the doorknob, resolving there was no other choice, and with no prelude to fear or hesitation, she threw the door open and stepped through. Once again she was pitted against a fall. Roxy’s feet were one moment on rock, the next soaring through air, her body following. She hit the rocks below with a thud, the only light coming from the door she left open above, a door that looked out of place hanging in the darkness with nothing to connect it with the other world she had come from.

Roxy reached under her shift and instinctively pulled the knives from the sheath she kept back there, a knife in each hand, held out to protect her from anything that would be coming. Her adrenaline once again was feeling that sweet rush of need to hurt something and instinct alone told her something was coming, something for her to kill, to destroy.

It was not long before they appeared before her.

She knew these creatures, they were written in one of Rivalen’s books. Men who had the figures of men except their eyes were blind focal points that over the centuries were growing lids that were sealed shut instead of eyeballs at all, their ears pointed in an odd arc, and their teeth were sharp like the vampires from old story books. These men were half vampires, half bat, and completely ruthless. The other terrifying thought was they were all male. No females were born to them, so they took innocent women and robbed them of life by mating with them and allowing them to give birth to their children. Different stories told different tales of the reactions of these women’s births. Some women survived, those women were used again and again to give birth to creatures, and some women died horribly upon the first birth, the baby rejecting the woman and ripping its way out, only to die shortly after. Apparently the baby was born with a defect from the woman’s genes and it was even more feral than its father.

Roxy hoped they would believe her a man and just try to kill her. These creatures did not like men of any sort and killed them on contact, or would try. Roxy, knives held pointedly out, would fight them until she was dead, or they were all dead.

The first clawed hand reached out to her and ripped at her shift, the eyes unseeing, but the bodies wanting something they knew was there. No, they knew she was a female, at the very scent of her they had all started to grow hard, and Roxy had lost count of how many of them were there after twenty of them had appeared. For a moment Roxy allowed herself her femininity and let out a scream that echoed on the rock walls, and then the door above her closed and left her in complete darkness with these creatures rushing at her.

Roxy prepared for a fight.

Author's Note: As titled, some of this is a rip off of several stories. The first is from the movie The Descent. After seeing it, and having a discussion with my boyfriend of what we thought should really happen, I decided Roxy was going to play some of that out. The creatures, however, are more reminiscent of the Famor (I believe that was what they were called) from PC Cast's Goddess by Mistake. (Good book). The many many birth thing is more like the Dwarves from Selena Luna's Eclipsing Orion (Selena Luna is my alternate pen name for titles that are not as much about sex). With a combination this chapter came alive and Roxy is faced with her dilemma.

Thanks and keep reading!