The Necromancer - Ch. 3

“I wonder every day what I did to earn the love of such an honest and beautiful woman like you…” He kissed her, laying her on her back. He kissed her on her neck, gently caressing her hips. “…and I would be lying if I said I have not been thinking about this moment for a long time…”

“Then let us not delay it a single moment longer…” Matryona whispered, guiding his hands up under her dress. They had to make love their first time on the bed the local priestesses blessed. It would ensure their long and happy marriage together, and that all their children would be healthy and successful their whole lives. It was the reason the vehicle also had a blinder as well, to keep their love from the driver. Matryona giggled with the joy of anticipation as she heard the lock pop open, but her joy seemed frozen in that moment forever.

A great shadow engulfed the entire vehicle, eclipsing the sun. They both gasped, seeing a giant alien monstrosity hovering hundreds if not thousands of feet in the air. They could barely comprehend what it was. A more foreign object had never entered their lives. Matryona looked up at it with stunned amazement, but every fiber of Alek’s being yelled bloody murder. Both knew it was man-made, but couldn’t understand how. Suddenly, a cluster of small object rained out of the bottom of the craft. They whistled and screamed like demons as they fell out of the sky.

Reality seemed to stop around them in a deafening din. Alek woke up in a bloody and burned pile on the ground. He felt his heart slowing and struggling to continue. His body felt roasted and seared from the blast of the bomb and the steam from the boiler. He tried to pull himself over to Matryona, who was lying on the ground in front of him, but his twisted flesh refused to cooperate. He snarled, forcing himself up off the ground. The land around him was the same burned and twisted wretch of its former self as he was. Matryona seemed to be untouched by the madness. She was absolutely pristine.

As he tried to crawl towards her, he started making out a ghostly figure standing over her. It was a tall, slender woman. She wore an elaborate but ragged coal-black wedding dress. It was dull, without a glimmer of life or reality in it. The specter had on long leather gloves that went up past her elbows. They were just as worn and old as the dress, grasping a tall scythe and a massive book with her arm around it. The book was bound in dark brown and ancient skin that Alek instinctively knew was human. It had a thick and heavy chain, shackling it to her wrist. On her waist was hung a simple but perfectly constructed hourglass, with the last few grains dribbling through its neck.

The woman herself was monstrously pale, telling Alek exactly who she was. She was death incarnate, likely just a hallucination from his injuries. He gasped for breath, trying to near her to see if she was just a figment of his imagination. She turned to him slightly to him as he squirmed towards her.

Alek shook his head, coming out of the slight trance. It was a minor annoyance he went through before every battle, made worse by his lack of dreaming the last couple of days with Lily. It didn’t help that he felt obligated to tell it all to Lily. Almost none of it was reported on in the media. The government purposefully censored it, trying to make it appear like Alek just arrived one day like as a gift from god, descending into the chaos that is the world.

Alek was in a troop transport vehicle loaded up with dead bodies collected by the government. They were all armored and armed as well as any living soldier, though they were giving old, out of date weapons and armor. No use wasting top-of-the-line tech on someone who’s already dead. It wouldn’t cost them anything if their guns broke down or if the enemy’s bullets weren’t stopped by their armor.

This group in particular was going to be Alek’s commandos. He’d expend more power on them to give him extra control and make them more skilled. Otherwise they’d likely just drop their guns in a feral and truly blind rage. On the battlefield, he’d raise any other fallen soldiers from both sides to back them up. They could be shock troops, controlled and directed like a raging river. They didn’t need weapons, being far more terrifying as they clawed, bit, tore, and ripped their way through their former comrades.

The troop transport, despite being for dead men, was one of the high-end transports the military had, a mighty vehicle that had wheels as tall as a man and weighed a hefty two tons. The military wanted to make sure Alek was rested and comfortable before he went into battle. They also wanted to guard him to make sure Alek wasn’t going to be stolen or destroyed somehow by the enemy. Alek didn’t complain, though the people who had the macabre duty of dressing, arming, and strapping the dead men into the vehicle.

Alek felt the troop transport come to a stop, hearing the faint sound of weapon’s fire through the hull of the vehicle. He unhooked his harness and stood up. He knew the exact place to stand in the transport to make the resurrections easier. He closed his eyes and stretched out his arms. He focused, feeling the energy start to flow from his fingertips. Slowly, from around his feet, his omen appeared, growing past his hands as he stretched them out. Bolts of energy flowed out of the omen and into the dead soldiers. They screamed and roared, fighting against their safety harnesses. It seemed to be instinctive. Nothing was supposed to come back from the dead, at least not like this.

What followed the resurrections was an eerie silence. The soldiers were raised, but they didn’t breathe or blink, sitting there in a dead quiet, just waiting for a command. Alek didn’t have to do anything silly like pantomime a command, just thinking what he wanted them to do. Almost completely in unison, the undead soldiers reached up and undid their harnesses. Alek had them stand up, pivot on their feet, and lock and load their rifles. He opened the door at the back of the vehicle, ordering them to run out into the battle.

As they started breaking the doorway, they opened fire on the enemy, each one picking their own targets. Alek walked out after he was sure they had secured a small area for him. He looked around, getting his bearings on the battlefield.

The modern battlefields, while still host to the atrocity that is war itself, are nothing compared to the battlefields of the Great War. There was certainly no joy in the air of modern battles, but the battles of old seemed to devour light itself. Alek didn’t miss the dread the old battlefields carried at all.

“Huh…She is nowhere to be seen…” Alek said to himself. “Good sign…” He stretched his arms and legs a little. He knew Lily was safe far away from the battle, so he figured he could take his time. Even if all the local friendly troops were killed, it was just more un-killable soldiers for him.

As Alek searched the battlefield for worthy targets, he heard a cheer and English shouting. He didn’t know what they were saying, but knew it well enough to realize it was a rallying cry. It had to be the big secret weapon they had been planning to use for some time. It had to be their attempt to replicate Alek. He was certain if that was true, it would more than likely take him to kill it.


Lily hated being left behind, even if she was still technically on the front lines. She could hear the sounds of distant gunshots and small quakes from the local artillery firing at the enemy. It reminded Lily of thunderstorms when she was a child, mostly because it had her just as on edge and nervous then as she was now. She wished it was raining or it was dark out so that she’d have something to distract her from it all.

Lily had already read the book Alek had with him cover to cover, and was reading a newspaper to try to kill more time. Alek hadn’t planned on her being able to read so fast, only having the one book for her to read. So, now she was doing her best to slowly read her newspaper. It had the best news outside of Rusinova than all the other papers combined. Lily had no idea how they got away with it. It just made her all the more determined to read it before it got shut down.

“Jimmy Pierce, age ten, heir of the Pierce Enterprises…” She read out loud because she couldn’t believe what it said, “…was witness to the brutal murder of his mother by his own father…His father, Kenneth Pierce, has been infamous for abusing his wife before, but he carried it too far Sunday night, beating her with a metal baseball bat.

“Supposedly, it was all started when Jimmy Pierce told his father he didn’t want to play little league baseball. His father ripped the bat from his hands and swung, breaking Jimmy’s right arm in two places. At this point, his mother, Maria Pierce, tried to stop Kenneth’s brutal assault and was the victim of a vicious assault. He repeatedly hit her with the same bat, leaving Jimmy to call the police. The New Atlantis police force arrived in time to stop the brutal assault, but Maria died in surgery early Monday morning.

“More bad news for young Jimmy has arisen since this tragic event, as Kenneth’s parents have refused to adopt him, claiming that the rumor from over ten years ago that Maria was raped and Jimmy is the child of that rape. The rumor may very well have been true, as a DNA test showed that Jimmy wasn’t the biological son of Kenneth, though in this reporter’s honest opinion, that may very well be a good thing, as living with the parents of the man who killed your mother, whether he’s your real father or not, would have to be incredibly traumatizing for anyone.

“Rumor has it that Carl Jones, founder of Jones Industries, Pierce Enterprises’ biggest competitor in New Atlantis, is attempting to adopt Jimmy and give him a safe home. Jones, whose wife died in child birth last year, said it would be what his wife would have wanted and that ‘after all the trauma Jimmy’s gone through in the last couple of days, the last thing Jimmy needs is to be bounced from foster home to foster home’, and this reporter is inclined to agree.

“A guilty verdict is all but certain for Kenneth for the murder of his wife, but what he will be sentenced to is still up for grabs. Polls at both this newspaper and other news stations around the city have found that eighty-five percent of citizens in New Atlantis have called for the death penalty in his case. While his lawyer is calling for a change of venue for his trial and sentencing, I don’t see how that would make any difference in this case.”

Lily reread the article a handful of times more to make sure she understood everything. It was almost too horrible to get her brain around. How could a father be so violent to his wife and son? Jimmy’s tragic origin was no excuse for his father’s actions. It saddened Lily beyond words, and actually made her thankful for her own parents. She couldn’t focus on that anymore, feeling like it was dragging her into a well of despair. She folded the newspaper up and dropped it on the table in front of her.

Lily got back up on her new prosthetic leg and her old leg, still getting use to standing without a crutch. It was weird, a sensation she hadn’t felt for years and years. It made what was left of her bad leg hurt, and it played games with her feeling of balance. She was use to having to lean and put all of her weight on her good leg and the crutch. Now, putting her weight across both her legs was disorientating. Still, she figured not only did she have to get use to it, it also freed up her hand for the first time in as long as she could remember. No more desperate fumbling with doorknobs to try to get them open. No need for people to close the door after her. It made her incredibly happy to finally have even that bit of self-reliance back in her life.

Lily decided to see if she could find somewhere in the base she could see the battle from. She knew they had several look-out posts around the base she could probably see for miles and miles from. She thought she might even be able to see the enemies and give Alek some back up with sniper fire.


Alek was able to follow a straight line to where the cheering was coming from. He had picked up a rifle from one of the soldiers he had risen as he followed his course and loaded it with a full clip. He didn’t have to tap his ever growing knowledge of foreign rifles for this one. It was a rifle native to Rusinova. Alek started shooting any enemy soldiers he saw, getting one-shot kills without too much trouble, at least until he saw him.

Alek had seen numerous things that seemed to be beyond the laws of man and nature, but this took the cake. The soldier the Atalanta Republics had made as a copy of him was wearing dark blue and black. He had armored gauntlets and boots, as well as an armored chest plate. His suit was all leather with a steel collar around the neck, but that wasn’t the strangest thing about him.

The man seemed able to launch himself great distances with large and easy bounds. As the Rusinova fired at him, he seemed to shrug for a minute, but keep going through the hail of bullets without even the slightest injury. He grabbed artillery pieces with his hands and threw them for yards and yards. He ripped guns out of soldiers’ hands, killing them with quick, almost un-seeable blows.

Alek decided he had to get this mysterious soldier’s attention. He aimed at the soldier’s head and fired, seeing the bullets hit with a harmless and small shower of sparks. Alek had heard a word the Atalanta Republics’ soldiers were shouting and cheering, knowing it had to be the name of the super soldier.

“AVENGER!” Alek bellowed while he continued to fire at him. The Avenger didn’t respond to the shots, so he decided to pick a better target. He fired at the soldiers around him, killing his friends to incur his wrath. “AVENGER!”

“Bastard!” The Blue Avenger yelled back at him. Alek wasn’t ready for his pure, blinding speed, taking a thunderous blow to the chin. It launched him backwards for what felt like miles, making Alek all but certain it would have easily killed any mortal on the receiving end of the punch. After skidding to a stop and hearing his uniform overcoat being torn to shreds by the crash, Alek stood off, dusting himself off. He pulled off his tattered overcoat and dropped it to the ground.

Now that Alek knew he could take the best of the Blue Avenger’s attacks, he could focus completely on his own attacks. He dropped the rifle he had, stretching out his arms and legs to get his joints reset. He could hear the vertebrae in his neck start to pop and slide back together. It hurt like hell to have them misaligned, so the short bursts of agony from it all grinding and snapping back into place were worth it and mild in comparison.


Lily managed to find a look-out post that had a step ladder instead of just poles so she could get to the top. It was a hard climb, making her break a sweat as she climbed. It made her ashamed of how out of shape she was. That was going to change now that she had her prosthetic leg. She stumbled at the last chair, almost falling on top of the sniper that was stationed there.

“Easy there, Miss Lufian.” To Lily’s surprise, the sniper was actually a woman. It was one of the few combat positions women could have in the Rusinova military, the other being pilots. Either way, while men were allowed to wear combat fatigues, women were forced to wear conservative and intricate uniforms even heavier and more complex than Alek’s. The government didn’t want sexuality to be a distraction on the battlefield. “You do not want to hit the grate flooring here with your knee.”

“How did you know my name?” Lily had to ask her. It was almost eerie that some random person would know her name without ever seeing her before.

“Everyone at this base already knows about the beautiful and incomplete doll that has stolen the heart of the legendary Alek Vanyusha.” The sniper said with a smile. She had several scars on her face, a crescent shaped one around her eye, a knife scar across the other eye, and little nicks and cuts all over her face. Clearly, she was an experienced and weather soldier. “What can I do for you?”

“Can you see the battle from up here?” Lily asked the moment before she saw the sprawling battle off in the distance. “Never mind…”

“Did you come up to see Colonel Vanyusha in combat?” The sniper picked up another sniper rifle, handing it to Lily. “Or are you here for some sport shooting?”

“A little of both, actually…” The sniper handed Lily a clip and helped her load it into the rifle. “Thank you.” She put it on the small ledge around the bottom of the look-out post. The sniper stopped her before she laid down in the prone position, taking her coat off and putting it down for Lily to lay on. “I cannot…”

“Think of it as doing me a favor. It is far too hot out for this whole uniform, so by laying on it, you are giving me a convenient excuse to take it off.” Lily smiled and nodded. The sniper reminded her of a combination of Alek and the big sister she always wanted growing up. She put her eye against the hard rubber eyepiece on the scope and saw the battle. It was uncomfortable for her to keep her eye against the piece, almost like pushing her face against a plastic ring. Still, Lily wasn’t about to take her eyes off the battle.


Alek was finally healed and took out his revolver to take some pot shots at the Blue Avenger. His revolver was the only gun he had specifically made for him. It was heavy, a forty-five caliber bullet. It was silver with a black ebony handle, and every inch of it was covered in a beautiful and intricate pattern. It was perfectly balanced and one of the most accurate guns in the world. Alek had been given the gun since the Great War, and it had proven itself the most reliable weapon he had ever carried. Now, it was showing Alek that while the bullets didn’t pierce the Blue Avenger’s skin, he was definitely feeling them. That told him he was definitely vulnerable, it was just a matter of overpowering.

Alek put his revolver in its holster, stretching his arms out. The Blue Avenger stood back, not sure what Alek was doing as lightning flowed from his hands. It didn’t fully sink in until the dead around him shrieked and rived.

“Stop!” The Blue Avenger bellowed in English, not that Alek would have cared if he could understand him. The Blue Avenger rushed Alek, punching him again and again, but it was no use. Alek was ready for him this time. “STOP, DAMN IT!”


Lily was speechless and panicked as she watched the beating the Blue Avenger was giving to Alek. What if he managed to kill Alek? He could find a way, she was sure of it. He could knock Alek’s head clean off his shoulders. There was no way Alek could regenerate from that.

The Blue Avenger grabbed him by the neck, lifting him up into the air. Lily had no idea what he was yelling at Alek, just knowing his seemed intent on doing him serious harm. She aimed square at the Blue Avenger’s head. She had never killed anyone before, but she couldn’t lose Alek. She grit her teeth, doing her best to steady her shot.

“Hey!” The sniper yelled, desperately trying to break Lily’s perfect concentration. “Do not have your eye against the piece when you…” The sniper didn’t have time to finish her sentence when the shot rang through her ears. Lily took her eye away from, swearing and holding the bloody wound the rifle gave her.


As the Blue Avenger held Alek up by the neck, pulling back for the punch he planned to finish him, he heard a sharp whistle. Suddenly, he dropped Alek and was thrown to the side by a blinding pain. Alek knew it had to be Lily acting as his guardian angel. He focused, bringing all of the dead he rose to attack the Blue Avenger all at once.

Countless dead in both uniforms started swarming over the Blue Avenger before he could recover. They clawed and slashed at him as he scraped off the bullet from his face. He started swinging wildly to try to get the undead to stop their relentless assault. They snarled at him with maws that dripped with foam and blood. He yelled as they bit and dug into his flesh.

The Blue Avenger grabbed the vicious attackers, throwing them away and into other attackers to try to get them off. He tried to jump away, but they grabbed him, dragging him back down to the ground. Wherever they could get their fingers into, they clawed and tried to rip him to pieces.

Alek thought the brutality was deserved after what he was doing to the troops, but also realized that it was going to take far more to kill him. He called over a few of his commandos with a small gesture of his hand. They came over, plunging their bayonets into the Blue Avenger, slowly grinding them into his body. He yelled at the top of his lungs and struggled as hard as he could, but it was no use. Soon, his strength drained, he gave in, but that didn’t stop the undead’s relentless assault. They tore him to scraps of flesh without devouring him. Alek had no desire to see that, and was completely unnecessary since the undead didn’t have to eat.

It was hard enough for the enemy troops to keep fighting when Alek was on the field, making them all terrified that he would kill them and then use their bodies to kill their friends. Then, when word of the Blue Avenger’s horribly brutal death got out, and that it was at the hands of Alek’s undead legion, fighting became impossible for the Atalanta Republics forces. Soon, the whole force was in full retreat, and Alek was sure they wouldn’t stop until they were back in the safety of their home nation.

It made Alek realize the truth of the matter; the only reason the Atalanta Republics forces invaded was they had their Blue Avenger. Maybe they were trying to test him, or maybe they were trying to use him while he was at his strongest to take down Alek and their nearest competition in Rusinova, but it didn’t matter. All that did matter was that Rusinova was safe again, or at least that was all that mattered to Alek. He knew the government might send their forces to attack and invade the Atalanta Republics, but it would end like it always did, in a stalemate between the two forces with nothing gained on either side. It was a waste of lives and resources, but it was also an inescapable fact of life.


A part of Alek hoped to be greeted by Lily’s smiling face at the gate after the ordeal he had in battle, but instead he was met by a man telling him Lily was in the med ward on the base. Alek couldn’t be stopped or even slowed on his run to get back to her.

He knocked over a nurse here and a doctor there to get into Lily. He didn’t care what he had to plow through to get to her. His mind was racing with what could be wrong with her. What if his almost always perfect measurements were off for her leg, and because of it, she slipped and fell and cracked her ribs? What if an enemy sniper had gotten to the base and shot her? He didn’t know what he’d do, which is why he had to know what happened. He couldn’t take not knowing.

Finally, he managed to find her in her own private room, he burst through the door, making both Lily and the nurse treating her jump about two feet in the air. One of Alek’s worst fears was confirmed as the female nurse was wrapping Lily’s chest to help what had to be broken ribs heal. Worse, she had stitches around her right eye. Alek knew it was because he measured her leg wrong. She slipped, hit her head on something, and then cracked her ribs against the ground. It was the only possibility. Still, he had to confirm what happened.

“How did you get so hurt?”

“…Gah…” Lily turned to her nurse. She had to collect her breath, the bandages slowly cutting off her air, or at least that’s what it felt like. “Does it have to be so damn tight?”

“Yes, I’m sorry dear…” Alek growled slightly that he had been ignored, and that the nurse treating Lily talked like a slave. He wondered why his clout hadn’t been able to get the best nurse on the base, instead of this nurse who was likely forced to be a nurse by her master.

“Ah…uhn…” Lily gasped for a little more air. “It’s alright…” Lily turned to Alek, biting her lip for a second before she spoke again. “You saw the rifle that hit that blue freak in the face, did you not?”

“Yes…that actually was you?” Alek had to ask, knowing she must have been pretty high up to pull that shot off against the Blue Avenger. “How the hell…”

“I found a look-out post that had a step-ladder instead of a pole-ladder and got to the top so I could watch the battle…There was a sniper up there and she gave me a rifle…” Alek’s jaw dropped ever so slightly. “What?”

“There was a sniper in the look-out post…that not only let you up there, but gave you a rifle you FIRED and hurt yourself with?” He gestured to the new wound around her eye that would definitely be a permanent scar. When Lily nodded, Alek dragged his hand across his face.

“Coming down the ladder, I got blood in my eye, and it hurt enough that it broke my concentration and I slipped down the last few steps and cracked some ribs.” Alek grabbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “What?”

“You are a civilian, Lily. Even though you are with me, even though I have a great deal of sway in the military, you are still a civilian…”

“So…what does that mean?” Lily had to ask. As much respect as she had for the military, she knew almost nothing about its rules and regulations. Alek, on the other hand, was intimately familiar with every single line of the regulations and could recite them if need be.

“It means your friend…the sniper…will be flogged.” Lily’s jaw dropped. “I cannot stop it, either. She will have to be punished…”

“But…but it was not her fault!” Lily panicked. What if the sniper was killed just because she had to see Alek in battle? She couldn’t live herself with that. “There…there has to be something you can do! Some string you can pull!”

“There is no way to keep her from being flogged, Lily…I am truly sorry. Even if we got you declared an unofficial member of the military, she would have STILL broken the regulations and…I really am sorry, Lily.”

“There’s one thing you can do, Mistress…” The slave nurse spoke up. She spoke timidly in front of Alek, but didn’t want to stay silent and see Lily so upset. “…If you interrupt the flogging, you can take her flogging as your own…”

“Damn it!” Alek snapped, knowing it was right but wanting to keep Lily from danger and harm. “You are a NURSE! Do you not have to follow the Hippocratic Oath!?”

“It goes either way in this case, since one or the other has to be flogged…It’s BARBARIC either way.” Alek snarled, but Lily put her hand on his.

“I do not want her to suffer because of me…” Lily reassured him, but Alek still wasn’t considering it as an option. He didn’t want to have the haunting memories of Lily getting flogged and then all the horrible aftermath of trying to clean them and get them to heal properly. He would literally remember them forever, and he knew Lily would too. “Alek…The most painful thing in my life was losing my arm and leg…No matter what they do, it cannot hurt as much as that.”

“But I cannot be there to hold your hand. You will have to bear this alone…” Lily nodded, telling Alek there was no way he could talk her out of this. Still, he had to think of something. He was searching his nigh-infinite knowledge of the regulations for any way to get around it.


The sniper Lily met earlier was stripped down to just her dress shirt and pants. They were marching her out in front of everyone, a menacing drum beat making her more and more tense. She couldn’t take the waiting. The actual pain would only be a temporary feeling that died over time, the waiting could very well stretch into infinity.

They slammed her into a massive wooden support pole the was topped with the base’s ancient and archaic weather equipment. They lashed her wrists together with an extremely coarse and painful rope, pulling them so tight that it felt like it was going to cut her hands off. Her arms were barely long enough to get around the pole, making them feel like they were going to be pulled out of their sockets just from her heart beat. She had no choice but to have her chest and face against the ancient splintering wood. She figured she’d probably end up jamming them into her cheek or other unfortunate areas of her body.

The heaviest, most muscular sergeant on the base walked up behind her, ripping the back of her shirt off. She yelped slightly, knowing it showed she had been flogged before. She had a fine webbing of scars across her back from her vicious training and a case or two of insubordination. Now, she was going to make it far more intricate. They were going to give her thirty lashes for everything that happened. She took a deep breath, waiting for the first crack of the whip and searing pain to come. She heard the drawback of the whip, but before it came forward, she heard a scream.

“STOP!” Lily screamed at the top of her lungs, rushing out as fast as she could with both her arms outstretched. Alek was standing off to the side, still desperately trying to think of some way out of this for everyone. He was coming up with nothing upon eternity. “I was the one who took the rifle from her, I was the one who snuck up the ladder, and I was the one who fell down it! I should receive the punishment you are going to give her…”

“Little sister, no…” The sniper spoke through grit teeth. Lily turned to her, giving her a look that told her she had suffered enough.

“I am Colonel Vanyusha’s lover. She assumed I had the right to be there, and I did not correct her…I should have NEVER have put her in that situation to begin with, and I cannot just let her take the penalty for my own ignorance…”

The sergeant holding the whip looked over to Alek first, but then looked at the base’s general and commander. He nodded, and the sniper was cut free. Lily was pulled over to the post. They didn’t know what to do since they couldn’t tie her wrists together. They came up with the clever solution of tying Lily to the pole around her waist, making it so tight she could barely breathe. The sergeant didn’t want to rip the back of Lily’s dress off, leaving it to the medic that would have treated the sniper. She was barely strong enough to do the task, struggling with it briefly.

“The penalty for you digressions and trespassing is thirty lashes.” The ancient base commander spoke. His accent was almost as ancient as him, from a part of the country that had since seen indescribable growth and change since he was a child. It gave away that he could likely say he remembered when the entire area was all farm land and not just be using it as a cliché. “Sergeant, when you are ready…”

Lily heard the first crack then, moments later the incredible blinding pain. It was unbearable, ripping the breath out of her body and making it impossible to scream. It ripped the bandages off her back and made her broken rips grind together. She gasped for breath as the whip slice across her back again. She started feeling numb to the world, but the world made itself known to her with the third strike. Finally, at the fourth, she couldn’t contain it anymore. She screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping it would frighten off the pain.

Alek couldn’t think any more. Every strike across Lily’s back hit him with the same intensity for him as it did for her. How much more would Alek’s mere presence cost Lily? It had already caused the tragedy with Aleksandra’s master, now this. She was going to literally be scarred for however much longer she’d survive with him.

That’s when he thought of it. Lily relied on him for almost everything. Money, food, shelter, and more. It could get him a technicality to save Lily from the full brunt of the flogging. He thought about it for a second, realizing that it could make Lily furious with him. Still, if it meant saving her from this torture, he didn’t care how mad she got.

Before the sergeant could whip her for the eleventh time, Alek stepped in front of him, blocking the whip with his arm. The whip coiled tight around his arm and with a smooth pull, he ripped it out of the hands of the sergeant. He pulled it off his arm, tossing it to him.

“That is enough!” Alek yelled at him. It was an open act of defiance that would likely get a regular soldier shot. “Cut her loose…”

“You do not have the authority to order that.” The base commander spoke firmly but not angrily at Alek. Alek was almost certain he was older than the general, though they had kept Alek’s rank low to keep him as a field unit. Still, that meant he didn’t necessarily have direct command over generals. “She has twenty lashes left…”

“She is UNCONSCIOUS. Even if you whipped her, she would not feel them.” Alek slipped off his coat and put it around Lily. He took a knife off his belt, cutting the rope with a small flick of his wrist. He caught her, seeing she had a couple of large splinters in her face and neck. Her fine, smooth skin didn’t offer even the slightest resistance to them. It was more small scars that he wouldn’t forgive himself for. “I am taking full responsibility for everything that transpired. Lily’s essentially my slave, I should have informed her of the regulations and laws on the base.”

“Are you saying…”

“I am saying you have punished her enough. I will take the remaining lashes for myself.” He walked over to the General, staying a healthy distance away but getting close enough that he could still whisper something and only the general would hear. “Think about it, sir. Actually flogging ME? You would be legendary…I will make sure you suffer no ill effects from this. Consider it doing me a personal favor.”

“Alright…” The General growled back. “Sergeant, have Colonel Vanyusha prepared to be flogged.”

Everyone around the base was silent with disbelief. Alek was prepared the same way as the sniper, his hands tied tightly around the pole to give him no hope of dodging or diverting the force of the blow. Alek was able to take the force the blows with only grunts and groans. It was far from the most painful thing he had suffered in his life, and he had learned how to tune out severe pain like this. Taking the blows for Lily made it that much easier to bear.


Lily woke up with sharp blades of agony stabbing into her chest from laying in a bed on her stomach. She could feel the wounds on her back still weeping scarlet tears, wondering how long it would take for them to finally heal. Worse were all the little wounds across her face, shoulders, and neck. Their scars would be harder to hide.

Lily was afraid to move, scared that any movement would cause all the scars on her back rip open like splitting seams. She realized she passed out after the seventh or eighth strike, but she didn’t expect that to stop her flogging. Did they have mercy on her? She knew she was famous now for being Alek’s lover, but would that really save her? She didn’t think so.

“Do not move too much…” A voice said from the blind spot behind her. She couldn’t turn enough to see who it was, but knew who it was. It could have only been the sniper. “You are too kind for your own good, Miss Lufian…”

“Yes…” Lily grit her teeth, her words seemingly making her wounds dance and part slightly. “I know…but I could not let you suffer for my mistake…I did not know it was going to be so damned painful, though…”

“I brought something that might help with that.” The sniper removed a tall bottle from a velvet bag, setting it down on an end table next to Lily’s bed so she could see it. Lily smirked. It was a topflight bottle of vodka. It was instantly recognizable that it was from Smirnoff. “It is the best vodka in the world. It is so good, even their super spy novel hero James Bond drinks it.”

“I should warn you…” Lily was distracted for a second as the sniper put down glasses, “I am a light weight because of my missing limbs…”

The glasses were cheap, smooth, water glasses, made of a cheap and slightly opaque glass. They clearly weren’t crystal, but Lily wouldn’t complain out of respect. She also wouldn’t mention that she was a couple years younger than the drinking age, out of respect as well.

“Ah, then it will be all the more effective…” She poured a glass for Lily and a glass for herself. “This cost a lot of money…but you should enjoy it. It is worth every penny if it eases your pain.”

“I have to ask how much it was…” Lily took a drink. She had sneaked small of her father’s low-quality vodka, but it was bitter and stung her throat all the way down. This vodka was entirely different. She could still slightly taste the alcohol, but it was practically a faint imagination. It was as smooth as water otherwise. “…and your name…”

“My name is Dominika, or Dom for short. As for the vodka…I do not want to say, for fear I might go ‘HOLY GOD, I spent that much money on ANYTHING!?’ and ruin this for both of us…”

“Alright, Dom…” Lily took another drink and felt warmer and number. She knew by the time she finished the whole glass, she’d be well past tipsy and probably be officially drunk for the first time in her life. “Why did they not finish with my punishment?”

“I told them you were my slave.” Alek answered as he came into the room. He decided to come completely clean with Lily. “I took your last twenty lashes myself. I hope you are not angry with me, but I could not let them destroy you any further.”

“Why would I be angry?” Lily felt her entire face blushing, not knowing it covered almost her entire body. “You lied to save my life…As long as you do not actually make me your slave, it is fine with me…” Lily finished her glass of vodka. “Though I would have to thank my master with whatever he desired tonight…”

“I could not ask for anything too wild from you…” Alek carefully eased himself into a chair and back onto his wounds. It gave him a sharp pain in the back, but he was able to get pass it and ignore.

“Then I will have to surprise you…” Lily smirked at him slightly. Alek didn’t feel comfortable talking about his desires in front of Dominika. Dominika was already laughing at it like it was a dirty limerick. Lily fixed her hair before she spoke again. “Can we leave here as soon as possible, though? This whole place has me on edge…”

“We can leave first thing in the morning.” Alek sat down on the foot of Lily’s bed. His bones and joints were still repairing and realigning themselves, making it uncomfortable to even exist, but Alek was use to it. What he wasn’t ready for was how to treat Lily with her injuries. He was repeating how fragile she was in the back of his mind so he wouldn’t be too rough on her in any way. “I was wondering, after I take care of my assignment, would you be interested in meeting my friend Illyana?”

“THE RADIATION ELEMENTAL!?” Dominika blurted out without thinking. Illyana use to be a common name, but not since Illyana became famous as a ‘radiation elemental’. It went from being a proud, strong name to meaning ‘poisoner of the earth’. “How could you even get Lily near her without literally COOKING her!?”

“I would not have her there for too long…” Alek hated when people pointed out the obvious like that, especially interrupting him to do it. He hated it even before he had any authority or power. “Besides, I can get Lily a radiation suit, so she can stay as long as her air lasts. It would just be briefly and it would mean the world to Illyana. She has only been able to talk to me for years and years…”

“I guess it would not be a problem, though I would probably need help getting around in the suit. I imagine I would not be able to fix my new prosthetic leg if it got messed up inside the suit…” Lily realized her prosthetic leg was actually in the corner of the room and not still on her. She knew it had to be an attempt to keep her in her bed. Lily was mad because they should have known she had common sense and wouldn’t get out of it unless it was absolutely necessary even if they left it with her.

“Would having a pen pal help her?” Dominika poured Alek a glass of vodka as she spoke, then topped off hers and Lily’s. Lily didn’t think she’d be able to finish another glass without getting completely drunk, but she didn’t mind. “I might not be able to see her, but I could at least give her some contact to the outside world.”

“Alright, but I must warn you, she is very…eccentric from her years of forced solitary confinement.” Alek didn’t want to tell Dominika that Illyana had decided she was a lesbian, worried it would blow Illyana’s chance of getting another friend. His admittance of her being ‘eccentric’ was the best warning he could do.

“I do not mind…though I imagine her outgoing letters might be…what is the word…”

“…Irradiated.” Alek had experience with it, getting a crash course in radiation safety after accidentally giving people radiation poisoning from not going through a thorough enough decontamination procedure. He hadn’t made that mistake since. “Do not worry. They would put the letter through decontamination procedures, so it would add a week or two to the time it would take to get the letter, but it would be fine after that.”

“Good, because I hope to have children one day…” Dominika took a deep drink of vodka. Alek was already planning on giving her four times what the bottle cost before he and Lily left the next day. He was extremely generous, and since he had near-infinite resources from the government, he hated getting gifts. He didn’t need gifts, after all. Still, for now, he would just drink with Lily and Dominika, trying to distract himself from his own pain and how much his mere presence seemed to be costing Lily. He could only hope that it didn’t cause her any more harm. He didn’t know how much more he would let her get hurt before he’d forcibly remove himself from her presence, but he worried that he’d find out soon.

The Necromancer - Ch. 2

One of Alek’s few friends was a woman named Illyana. That was the tricky part of Alek’s relationships. He had countless people who would say they were his friend, but he would only return the favor to a handful of people. Illyana was different, though.

Illyana had been put through a program by their government to replicate Alek’s powers. They had isolated a unique energy signature in his cells and had managed to replicate a number of times. It was a radical and exotic radiation shower that few survived, but Illyana did. And what did Illyana’s astonishing luck get her? Horrible, agonizing experiments to see just what kind of weapon they could make her into. Like Alek, she seemed to be immortal and contain unbelievable healing properties, but unlike him, she couldn’t raise the dead, making her ‘worthless’ as she was.

That was what made Illyana unique. They had implanted uranium in her body, using what mystic rituals they had to bind her very being to it. It left her in a constant wasting condition, much like people who suffer from tuberculosis. She even had the same coughing fits, horrible pale and sickly skin, and was always dewy with sweat, but couldn’t die, forever caught in her hellish life without death. To make matters worse, she had a constant cloud of radiation around her, forcing her to live in isolation. It even made her impossible to use in combat, as her mere presence would likely kill friend and foe alike.

All of it made Alek like her more and feel like a kindred spirit. Both would view death as a friend, and had their unfortunate circumstances forced upon them. They had tried to be each other’s lovers for a time, since Alek was just about the only man on the planet that wouldn’t be killed by her radiation. Unfortunately, before things got far enough for along for Illyana’s liking, they discovered he couldn’t touch her without severe radiation burns. Quick kisses and embraces were all they could achieve before the burns set in. The radiation even seemed to bleach the color out of her clothes. The dress she was wearing now had started out as a vibrant, full yellow, now reduced to a faded out white with a ting of yellow to it, much like the long, flowing blond hair that went halfway down her back. The only things around her in her massive mansion that had any color still were her beautiful emerald eyes.

“So, the young woman that got on the train for you…” She took a trembling sip of tea. Illyana spoke in a slow, methodical and proper manner. She spoke weakly and quietly, but fortunately, Alek had excellent hearing. He did have to speak up for her, sitting across a large room from her to keep contamination low on his clothes. “Tell me every little miniscule detail or your love making. Do not be shy. You know it is all I live for.”

“I do not know why you like hearing about the women so much. Does it let you picture yourself in their shoes?” Alek spoke and took a sip of tea. He had to wonder about Illyana, like how she was still sane after being alone for all these years. Even when their government’s men dropped off supplies in their biohazard suits, they would rarely talk to her. “I would not blame you, but…”

“Actually, I have decided if I am going to love anyone to death, it is going to be a woman. I am so much fonder of our shapes compared to yours…” Illyana spoke with very little fear in her voice. She wasn’t going to worry about what other people thought about her, even Alek, the only person in the world who’d really speak with her. “I assure you that it has nothing to do with the fact that the only body I have access to is my own, female body.”

“That would explain all those art books you have…” Alek chuckled under his breath slightly. Now that she had said it, it was incredibly obvious to him. He took another long drink of tea to give himself some time to process it, though he already knew how he felt about it.

“Alek, I hope this will not prove to be a problem between us, but I…”

“You like adult women, correct?” Alek interrupted before she could say that she was sure she couldn’t change. He knew that had to be where she was going, having known her for years. It was as intimate as anyone knew her.

“Yes…appropriate women, as loosely as that fits in this scenario…” Illyana chuckled again. “It is…one of the few decadent eccentricities I allow myself…Woman-love, exotic teas that made it out of Hayabusa before the…incident, dark chocolate, commodore’s private stock spiced rum, and ripe strawberries…”

“That is a good list.” Alek joked with her. “It keeps it almost literally a handful of excess.”

“The best part is, should I be able to get near another woman without killing her, I can easily combine all five…” She laughed again. “You will forgive my failings, I take it?”

“When you have lived as long as I have, you learn that there are more important things than what gender a person happens to be attracted to.”

“That is good…” Illyana had a small but violent coughing fit. She had them periodically through the day and was use to quickly getting them under control. Still, she always gestured for Alek to stay back. “Now, will you please describe the girl in enough detail to easily fuel my twisted fetish for women?”

“I do not know if this one would be your type. She was younger than I usually care to go…but she was incredibly radiant with her youth.” Alek put down his cup. “There was nothing particularly large about her body, but every inch was supple but strong…And it all tasted like the finest, most pure vodka I have ever tasted.”

“And I take it you drank deeply of it?” Illyana smirked. “You will have to literally draw me a picture of her, since you cannot bring film near me without erasing it…Though I am not sure if photographs would be erased or not by my mere and pathetic presence.”

“It would not erase developed pictures, so I am sure I can get you a photo of her.” Alek wiped his mouth on a handkerchief from his pocket, getting a few drops of tea that escaped his lips. “I will spend the money to make sure it is a color photo, because to have her in anything less would be a travesty…I honestly loved her, but how could I condemn her to life with me?”

“Should that not be both of your decisions, not just yours?” Illyana had to ask. Unlike Alek, she easily remembered being mortal. Alek wished he could, grinding through existence one day at a time. Life and emotion lost their meaning when you know it will never end. Immortality was a curse no one would want if they gave it any thought. “If it makes her happy, why not do it? You are not wasting your own infinite time, after all. And who knows, maybe you would actually enjoy companionship.”

“Illyana…”

“Not all women are as frail and useless as I. She could be useful as something other than a living sex-toy.” Alek knew Illyana was right in her normal blunt and unafraid way. That seemed to be the only purpose women would play in his life, though he rarely used them for that anymore either. Illyana was just about the only person he spoke to at all outside of work. “Though if you would not mind feeding my vulgar imagination with a few more sordid details…”

“I have actually written them down in a small journal for you…” Alek reached into a satchel and pulled out a small leather-bound notebook and placed it on an end table next to him. “It felt more dignified than speaking it, and I wanted to record every detail of it for myself actually. This is just a copy, but it is identical, I assure you.”

“…Why are you so damned adorable, Alek?” Illyana said through a series of uncontrollable chuckles. “You know that it is important enough that you will want to save it through the grind of our eternity…something which, as I recall, only Matryona invoked in you before…yet you deny yourself what will most certainly be a period of ecstasy and love that will stretch that gorgeous girl’s long and fruitful life…”

“Illyana…”

“I imagine with a good man to take care of her, she could crest eighty before she had any serious decline in her faculties…” Illyana was definitely over-estimating the probable age before Lily would start giving up the ghost just to try to convince Alek to go back to her. The average life expectancy in Rusinova was around sixty depending on where the person lived. Since Lily lived in a small town, she wouldn’t be exposed to the constant stream of toxins the wretched factories in the cities put out. That would add roughly ten years to her life as long as her mind didn’t go out first. “And so what, you might have to deal with losing her some day. You would be no worse off than you were before. Plus, with her not by your side, she becomes Schrödinger’s cat. She is either alive or dead at any given moment if you cannot say for sure either way.”

“I will make a deal with you.” Alek thought of a way to buy himself some peace and quiet from Illyana. It was a desperate plan, but he hoped that it would work. “Should I ever run into Lily again, I will confess my literally undying love to her and we will spend all our time together, making love whenever possible, until…we can no longer be together for…some reason…”

It may have been sad to some people, but Alek actually hoped to die some day. It would be a massive relief to him. He had made sure Illyana and the few he had would know to be happy for him instead of sad if he died. It wasn’t really the end anyway, he knew that well enough. So, even if he died, they’d meet in the afterlife, unless either he or whoever would be joining them angered god in some way and literally went to hell.

“Alright, but if I find out that you have lied to me, I will find you and I will cook you until you glow in the dark…” Illyana was always true to her word. Alek wasn’t sure if she could literally make him glow in the dark, but he was sure she would do her best. “…All I have is people’s word, Alek…That and my imagination…”

“I am still looking for a cure for you. You know that, right?” Alek had to reassure her, as he had done countless times before. He had travelled the world for her, looking into every possible way she could be saved. One option he had learned about was bathing in the blood of virgins in a special ritual that he dared not tell Illyana about. It wasn’t even a relatively small amount of blood, either. It would require a large tank filled with what would likely be every last drop of blood from at least thirty girls. To say it was horrific would be one of the greatest understatements in the history of mankind. Alek didn’t know that while he was travelling the world, Illyana was following in books. She had heard about the ritual and already decided against it. She couldn’t take the life or freedom from one person just to have her own.

“That is good to know…Though I should tell you…” Illyana had told Alek about her officially being a lesbian, but that was just sex. This was something much more intimate. “…I have thought about increasing my radiation field on purpose…frying the convoys that drop by to give me supplies…see if I could starve to death…”

“Illyana…”

“I have not seen another living soul…like…really seen, met them, and gotten to know them since I was sixteen and ‘volunteered’ by one of the government’s old Amot seers…I barely had my first kiss before that. I have never even felt another warm body pressed against mine.” Illyana hung her head. “I have not known any pleasure other than the kind I shamefully bring on myself…so please, go to this girl and tell her what a colossal ignorant jackass you are and that leaving her was the single biggest mistake you have made…which is actually saying something for you…”

“Hey…” Alek paused for a moment, thinking things over. He knew they both completely agreed on some of his massive mistakes, but this had to be the worst. Now, he was haunted by Lily. After all, she saved herself for him specifically, and he just used her and dumped her. He tried to ignore the fact that he was obsessed with her, but he knew it would just be a matter of time before he would be kicking himself over the whole thing. The worst part was that he had literally all eternity to dwell on this massive mistake.

“Just do not make it so poor Lily spends the rest of her life like me…with only fantasy to keep me warm at night and fulfill my desires.” Illyana finished the last bit of tea in her cup. She looked over at her antique grandfather clock. She was use to keep track of time for Alek. He had been ageless for so long that he could easily lose track of time if he wasn’t paying attention. “You said you had a train to catch a quarter past eleven, correct? If you leave now, you will get through decontamination with plenty of time to catch your train…”

“You know I do not mind rushing a bit for you.” Alek reassured her, but she just shook her head in response.

“If what I have heard is right and the Atalanta Republics are actually invading us, then our military will need you to show them the errors of their ways…” Illyana poured the last bit of tea out of her pot and took it off the ancient hot-plate she had underneath. It barely had enough for a full cup, but she lived by the ‘waste not, want not’ creed. “I know you ‘raise the dead’, but you really should try not to wait until they have built up a sufficient supply at the battlefield…”

“Alright, if that is how you want it…” Alek stood up and got his coat off the rack behind him. He dusted it off with a couple quick smacks. He put it on, quickly tugging the sleeves and collar to make it tight and neat. “I will be sure to send you any interesting medals the ARA soldiers have on them.”

“Look for their coins and guns as well…Since they stopped using silver for their coins, I cannot convince the importers that I plan to use them as jewelry any longer…As you can easily guess, I have fallen flat on my back when it comes to collecting…” Alek was going to ask why soldiers would have their own money on them in a foreign country, but let it go. It wouldn’t hurt anything to tell the soldiers to keep their eyes opened for things like that while they were burning the bodies of the soldiers.

He hated that they burned the bodies instead of sending them home to be buried. It was the government’s paranoia that prevented it from happening. They worried that if they were able to replicate the energy in Alek, the ARA could do the same after examining soldiers resurrected and controlled by Alek. They weren’t sure if it would lead to the ARA to making their own necromancer, or if it could help them develop a treatment to prevent him from controlling their own soldiers. They weren’t willing to take the chance either way.

“I will visit you again on the return trip, Illyana, so…”

“Do not waste your time…” Illyana pled with him. “While we both may have an eternity to waste, I know you have better things to do than keep me company…” She took out an ornate ivory pipe from a small chest next to her chair, tapping tobacco into it. It was a half-and-half blend of tobacco and marijuana. It didn’t get her high. It just numbed the pain from everything. It was far healthier than drinking away the pain, or at least that was how she viewed it. “Besides, the longer you stay away, the more you will have to tell me next time…”

“Alright…” Alek smirked slightly. “I will be able to spend more time with you in a month anyway. I am sure I will have the ARA retreating by then.”

“Cocky and sure as always…you never disappointment me, Alek.” Illyana watched as Alek walked off into her huge, dusty mansion without saying goodbye. Neither one would say it to the other. After all, neither could die, so it was definitely never the last time one would see the other.

Once Alek was completely gone from sight, Illyana slumped down into her chair. She no longer had to pretend to be strong and sure any more. She wasn’t willing to let the only person she could talk to think she was weak or depress him with her constant abysmal health. Alek knew she was hiding it, but let her play the game. Image was everything to Illyana.


Alek got to the train station with well over an hour to spare. The decontamination procedures were easy for him, just a change of clothes and a shower. Still, it gave him time to think. Once again, he wondered if it was truly impossible for them to make love. Since both were impossible to kill, he thought he might be able to build up his tolerance for her radiation. Maybe he wouldn’t even get burned after a while. More than likely, he wouldn’t be allowed to be with her. The government wouldn’t risk Alek being irradiated long term and not able to join the troops without making them sick. They would never want to give him more ‘troops’ that directly.

He knew he would have to vain like he was actually looking for Lily. He already decided he couldn’t damn her to a life with him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be pen-pals with her. He knew it would probably do him some good to have someone else he could talk to. Right now though, he was focused on reading his mission briefing for after the battle. A rich man had bought enough favors to borrow Alek’s services momentarily from the government. He hated doing stuff like this, bringing back the dead as false hope so the government could make a few cheap bucks.

Suddenly, he felt a familiar presence and looked up from his briefing. He saw her radiant face crushed with sadness and rage, but instantly knew who it was. He didn’t get to say her name before she slapped him with an incredible strength that left him reeling for a brief moment. He refocused in an instant, seeing Lily standing on her new prosthetic leg. Tears were pouring down her cheeks, forming waterfalls like she was a goddess, reforming the world with her sorrow.

“Lily…” Alek was relieved to see her again. The instant she was near, the part of him that was saying to spare her the torment of life with him instantly and permanently silenced by the rest of him. He didn’t regret it for a moment. “Lily, what is wrong?”

“I…I should hate you…so…so much right now…” Lily sobbed, trembling with rage that was dissipating into an unbelievable and euphoric joy that engulfed her whole body. “But no matter what…I will always love you, Alek Vanyusha…”

“I tried to deny it…but I love you as well, Lillian…Lillian…” Alek stopped, desperately trying to dig through his memory and to find Lily’s last name buried in the mines of his mind. He went through, atom by atom, scouring every resource he had, but turning up nothing. He stuttered for a second, but Lily didn’t let him spin his wheels for long.

“It was Lufian…and I did not tell you, because I am hoping it will be Vanyusha soon…” Lily sniffed, trying to stifle back her tears but to no avail. Alek put his arms around her, holding her close. She put her hand against his chest, her bad arm attempting to do the same. “I…I have something horrible to tell you…but you have to swear you will not hate me after I tell you…”

“I could NEVER hate you, Lily…” Alek assured her. After all, they were clearly fated to be together if they should just randomly run into each other again. He didn’t know that Aleksandra had told Lily where she needed to be to get to him again. It didn’t matter, though. He had fallen hopelessly in love with her the moment their eyes met again.

“Fine…just promise me that you will…still love me…after I…” Alek put a finger over her mouth to silence her. He didn’t like it, but it did stop her frightened rambling. It was still a far too dominating gesture for his liking.

“Lily…” was all Alek had to say to reassure her again. Lily knew he wasn’t the type to mince his words, and trusted him completely. She felt completely safe in his arms, like he could shield her from flames and Death herself. “What happened?”

“There was a slave girl…” Lily looked around, tears still showering from her eyes. She was scouting the area, realizing just how surrounded by the public they were. Alek didn’t go anywhere without attracting a cloud of people. It was the cost of being a hero, sacrificing any privacy he had in the public. “Can we…can we go somewhere…anywhere…other than…”

“Of course.” Alek swept Lily up into his arms, a grand heroic gesture he was used to making. If they weren’t the center of attention already, they certainly were now. Lily blushed a bright red, just glad to be this close to Alek. The embarrassment of everyone seeing her flaws, her freckles, and her missing leg as she looked like a helpless, lost little girl being carried off to her mother by the legendary hero was something she was willing to put up with for it.


Lily held nothing back when she told Alek about what happened. She could only hope that Alek wouldn’t deem her unworthy after everything that Aleksandra’s master did to her and made her do to buy Aleksandra’s freedom. It gave her unbelievable joy when, instead of casting her out like a leper, he suggested they ‘purify’ her by doing everything she and the master did and more.

After they had spent many countless hours enthralled in passion, they laid spent in bed. Alek kept his arms around Lily, holding her close. He didn’t want to hurt her, pretending to be exhausted to give her time to rest. The only thing that really sapped his strength was raising the dead. Even now, that was becoming less and less of a problem. Remembering to have limits, especially now with Lily, was the biggest problem he had faced in his memory. He could easily spend an eternity finding what solace he could in Lily’s body, a deadly truth for her.

Alek had watched her sleep on their train ride to battle for a few hours now, mesmerized by the gentle cresting and falling of her chest as she breathed. It kept him from drifting off into one of his waking dreams over night. He knew it was only a matter of time before they started again, though. His mind could handle the lack of sleep, but not the lack of dreams.

He took a deep breath, accidentally stirring Lily from her sleep. This was a happy accident at least. It told Alek that Lil was a reasonably light sleeper, and would prevent him from accidentally waking her up in the future.

“Morning…” She sighed a happy and contented sigh. Alek had promised her he would never leave her again, which to her meant they’d never be apart again. She rubbed up closer to him, wishing she could just melt into him. “Do you think we could…one last time…”

“We do not really have the time.” Lily was a little crestfallen to hear that news pass her ears. Alek rubbed her arm. “I do not want to rush things between us…I want every time to be glorious and legendary, not just a cheap thrill.”

“Alright…” Lily smiled. She did want every time she and Alek made love to be special and not just a way to kill time. She rubbed up against Alex again, deciding to just enjoy being close to him. “At least this train’s a LOT cleaner than that piece of crap train last time…”

“Being on that train was a run of bad luck for me until you came along, to be perfectly honest. I think that bastard purposefully arranged things so that I would be on his train AGAIN…” Alek shuttered slightly. Aleksandra’s master was obsessed with him to say the very least. Alek viewed it like her master had a school-girl crush on him. He wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to spy on him while he was taking showers. Now though, it was far beyond just a creepy thought in the back of his mind. Alek had to wonder how many of his previous lovers fell victim to him like Lily. Whether or not Aleksandra’s master had done the horrible crimes Alek imagined didn’t matter, though. He had to pay for what he did to Lily. It would only take pulling a few strings to see that the man was entirely broken and destitute before the end of the week. “Do you want him humbled or broken completely? Because I can do either.”

“Punishing him…” Lily took a deep breath and closed her eyes, not believing what she was about to say herself, “…will not change what he did to me…no matter how excessively you do punish him.” Lily rubbed her eyes, giving herself time to think. There were times to be calm and times to strike with the wrath of God. “I did volunteer for everything, after all…despite wanting with every inch of fiber of my being to have you be the only man I…knew in my lifetime…” Then, Lily remembered it. Her fury was ignited and in full force, crushing all the barriers of understanding and tolerance she had in her mind. “But…he RAPED Aleksandra…”

“So, what level do you…”

“Burn him to a CINDER!” Lily snapped. The rage felt good, giving into it feeling like submerging her whole being in a hot spring. It soothed a pain Lily had developing in the pit of her stomach since it happened, denying the rage that was slowly devouring her. “Be sure his slaves find good homes, though…Aleksandra said…said that he was using them as his personal brothel…”

“Unfortunately, most slave masters do…” Alek had always avoided buying slaves just for that reason. Having complete control over someone’s life was a seductive power to say the least. Many slave masters even used it to make more slaves to either sell or keep and start the process all over again. “I may have an idea…”

“What’s that?” Lily had to ask. She idolized Alek so anything he thought up clearly had to be brilliant. She waited on pins and needles to hear what he had to say.

“After I break the master, we can send his slaves to nunneries…” Alek heard the words leave his mouth and couldn’t believe he was saying them. Still, it was the only option and he knew it. “They might be able to heal them there…undo the horrible damage he has done to them…”

“That’s not too bad an idea…” Lily sighed, coming to the same conclusion Alek did. Nunneries were the only place they’d be safe from slavers looking to put them back in the market. It would definitely be hard for some to get use to the life, specifically the ones that were the master’s willing partners. Giving up all physical pleasures was a price both Alek and Lily would be willing to give up for freedom, but could they count on the slaves to do the same? “I hope you do not mind…but I set up Aleksandra with an expense account…like you gave me…using the authority you gave me when you…You get it…”

Lily always tended to ramble when she was confessing things she thought she would get in trouble for. It was actually what kept her out of trouble most of the time. She was too afraid she’d start confessing things that weren’t even related to what happened.

“That is fine.” Alek stretch slightly now that he didn’t have to worry about waking Lily up. He had lived with a severe pain in his legs since about four o’clock in the morning. “I have an unlimited account, after all. It could support Luxemburg with it without noticing.”

“That’s good.” Lily stopped when she realized she was using contractions, biting her lip. She realized she had to have picked up the habit from Aleksandra. She hoped that Alek had somehow managed to not notice, but he soon dashed that hope.

“Why are you shortening everything?” He had to ask. From what he had learned about Lily before, she was always very proper when she spoke. It had only been a couple days since he had left her. How could she have changed so much in so little time? Alek did realize he was exaggerating when he said she was shortening everything, though.

“I spent a LOT of time talking to Aleksandra…She’s a fascinating girl…and it does take a lot of the frustration out of saying ‘is’ every two seconds.” Lily sat up slightly. “I do not think it’s disrespectful, even if it is a ‘slave’ habit…I guess sort of a ‘if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me. She’s gone through all this hell…and somehow survived it…I think…now that she’s away from her master, she will be fine. She might even get to be happy one day…have a nice big family.”

“I thought you said you did not want children.” Alek had to say, worrying Lily was telling him whatever she thought he wanted to hear just to get to sleep with him. It wouldn’t be the first time he was tricked, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last.

“I do not, for me at least…” Lily smiled and shook her head slightly. “Did I not tell you about how I was adopted and wanted to adopt a child?”

“Oh, I remember now…” Alek got up out of bed, looking around for his clothes. He was sure he was going to be late because of Lily, but he didn’t care. She brought a spark of hope to what had been a bleak black life. To top things off, he knew the military would give him preferential treatment, not wanting to anger their secret weapon. As long as he arrived and won the battle, they’d be happy no matter how many casualties there were on their own side. “…though it is going to be a long time before I ever want a child. I have gotten use to the fact that I would never have a child of my own.”

“Do not worry too much.” Lily stretched out herself. She loved that Alek was one of only a few people she knew that didn’t look at her like she was insane when she stretched her bad leg and arm. No one stopped to think about the fact that what was left of both still had muscles in them. She was a little bothered by the fact that he seemed to be staring at her horrible scars. “I am still in that phase where kids annoy me more than anything…There are kids, then really bad colds, and then unforgiveable perverts as the top three things that bug me to death…”

“Well, you do not have to worry about catching colds from me. I cannot carry any sickness, fortunately.”

“Hey…” Lily had had enough. She couldn’t take Alek’s constant staring at her scars. “I get they are gross, but could you please stop staring at them…”

“They are not gross. They add to your beauty if they do anything…” Alek gently caressed her bad arm, leaning in and kissing the big disfiguring scar at her elbow. Lily was speechless. Most men had forced her to hide it in ridiculous ways. Her own father made her get what were basically socks to put over her knee and elbow. “You do not have to hide anything from me, Lily. Nothing about you could be foul or disgusting to me…”

“Alek…” Lily sighed and kissed Alek passionately. For a second, Alek was drunk with passion again, caressing her until the harsh reality of duty flashed into his mind. He pushed her away gently, seeing the same look of disbelief on her face that he knew had to be on his.

“After the battle, we will have plenty of time for love. It can be glorious and triumphant in victory…” Alek told Lily while telling himself the same thing. He didn’t have a single idea or decision made about what Lily was going to do during the battle. He didn’t want to risk Lily in any way, but knew she was too strong to listen to his pleas to stay behind in the nearest town or military base. The field hospital was far too grotesque a place to subject her to, but where else could she go? “I have my own barracks at the base nearest to the battle. If you do not mind waiting there, I could…”

“I could not stand to be that far away from you…Not during battle…” She sat up, finally not worrying about modesty any longer and letting her bed sheet covering her fall away. She didn’t care if Alek saw her anymore. She’d almost be willing to damn all modesty and walk around naked if that was what Alek wanted. “Besides, I have told you, I am a very good shot…”

“There is a difference between hunting animals and clay pigeons and taking a life, Lily…” Lily bit her lip and looked away, blushing ever so slightly. Alek knew something had to be haunting her, already learning the minor habits of her body. Lily didn’t bother trying to hold back what happened.

“I am…almost an old maid in my village. Most girls…get married as soon as their bodies start blossoming into full womanhood…”

“I am…familiar with that practice…” Alek didn’t mean to interrupt, the words just commanding their way out of his mind into the real world. It was worse in his day, girls married off at ten or eleven tended to dominate the society. They spent the next few years as what most people would consider house slaves, learning exactly what their husbands expected of them. They wouldn’t consummate the marriage until usually the fourteenth birthday, which would actually signal that the rough times for the wife were over. Alek couldn’t help but remember that if it weren’t for Matryona’s angelic singing voice, she would have been married for four or so years when she finally came back into his life.

“I told you that no one wanted a cripple for a wife…Well, that was not completely true…” Lily didn’t like to cry in front of Alek, but she couldn’t stop a small trickle of tears coming out of her eyes briefly. “There was a wretched man…one of the local policemen, actually…who always just had all of their horrible acne sores on his face and all this dry and almost like…blistered skin under his stubble…and he was easily three times my age. My parents tried to make me like him, since he was the only man in town to show any interest in me at all. Well, I finally completely rebuked him…and he…he was not going to take no for an answer…He started trying to force himself on me…He tackled me and was sitting on my legs…and started ripping off my clothes…threatening me with a knife that if I did not give him the key to my chastity belt, he would slit my throat…I panicked…and…and grabbed the pistol off his belt and emptied it into him…and a few imaginary bullets after that…I almost think killing him was worse…worse than letting him rape me…”

“Do NOT think like that!” Alek snapped, walking back over to her with his uniform on perfectly. He had put it on so often that he could put it on more precisely than a general in his sleep, not that Alek had to sleep, of course. “The ONLY thing you should regret was that you did not give that son of a whore a slower and more agonizing death.”

“Thank you…” Lily kissed Alek. “You have no idea…how much…” she had to stop talking for a minute, fighting back her tears, “…how much that has haunted me and how…how my parents…” Lily couldn’t control her tears anymore, starting to cry uncontrollably. Alek embraced her, letting her bury her face in his chest for a moment. “My parents told me if I had just accepted his proposal…he would not have attacked me and I would not…would not have had to kill him…My father went into a rage because of the whole thing…would not let me leave the house for months…”

“Do not worry. Everything is going to be alright…” He rubbed her back slightly to try to calm her down. He stopped when he realized that it was what his mother did for him when he was a toddler. He decided to just hold her close for a minute until she was calm. “Trust me when I say time heals all wounds. Someday, you will look back and think to yourself ‘how did I survive this?’, but it will not haunt you like it does now.”

“I can only hope that you are right…”