The portal yawned open, and the ghoul queen emerged. She heaved her paunchy rolls of fat forward, their glutinous appearance making me sick to my stomach. Her cold blue veins were stretched beneath her translucent skin like marble, and she wore the grotesque crown that I’d seen her in last—an assortment of black and green decaying teeth proudly adorning her head. The lank strands of hair trembled with the effort of moving her ginormous figure.
“Ben?” my dad hissed at me as quietly as he could. “Do you know this creature?”
I nodded, trying to find my voice.
“She was in The Underworld—the residence of the ghouls,” I added for the benefit of the others, “I was trapped there in ghost form. I saw her deep underground. The Necropolis, it was called—the furthest depths of The Underworld. I saw her moving through a graveyard of ghosts, wailing like she is now. We left her…Aisha tried to kill her, but she vanished. I didn’t think she would ever emerge.” I didn’t think I would ever see her again. The fae and ghouls had engaged in a battle soon after Sherus granted me my fae body—I was aware that not all the Underworld ghouls had been wiped out, but I’d thought the queen would have been one of them.
Some stones are better left unturned…
That was the exact thought I’d had after we’d left that queen alive in The Underworld’s depths… I couldn’t help but wonder now if she was a stone we should have unturned while we’d had the chance.
“Do you know why she might be here?” my father asked.
I shook my head. I had no idea why she would be appearing in Nevertide…Unless, of course, the entity was drawing all the dark supernatural creatures here to join its forces? It seemed so unlikely. The ghouls were not known for building allegiances with other supernatural creatures. The only exception that I’d heard of was the deal with the fae—but that had been to serve their purposes only. What might the entity have offered them?
I kept watching, barely able to tear my eyes away from the repugnant queen. She certainly hadn’t improved with age. She lumbered forward, and then Jenus stepped into view.
Instantly, the wailing stopped.
The queen’s face transformed. The rolls of fat beneath her chin wobbled like jelly, her fleshy gray lips splitting open into…a smile?
Jenus’s arms opened and she lumbered into his embrace. Her sharp black claws clutched at his soiled robe, her face bearing down toward his. The last rays of sun glared brilliantly in their final descent, and Jenus cried out in exultation before his lips, wetted in excitement by an anxious tongue, leapt onto hers. Their putrid bodies drew together as they grunted into a lustful kiss.
Bile burned at the back of my throat.
One of us dry-heaved—I thought it might have been Tejus, but I could not look away to check.
Suddenly, the screeching of the ghouls stopped. En masse, they darted down to the ground. Slithering like eels against one another, they all bowed down low before Jenus, and then turned, scraping the floor once again to honor the shadow.
What is going on?
My mind searched frantically for understanding. Clearly there was a hierarchy of evil here—the ghouls acknowledged that they were lesser beings than the entity and its shadow…and the entity had clearly just been reunited with a long-lost companion. Had it been what the ghoul queen had been wailing for, yearning for, all that time ago in The Underworld? Wandering the graveyards, waiting for its return? Binge-eating ghosts to cope with her misery?
I thought about what the Impartial Ministers, Tejus and Ash had told us about the entity. How whatever creatures were contained in those stones were the first inhabitants of Nevertide. Had the entity and its queen somehow been parted in the supernatural realm when it had been banished to the stone lock? Were the entity and the ghoul queen somehow of the same species?
My mind boggled. I looked across at my father and Sherus, both as stunned as me at the unfolding of events.
“What the hell is happening here?” Tejus breathed.
“I have no idea,” I replied slowly, “but this has to be the most traumatizing thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
Tejus grimaced.
Clearly I wasn’t alone.
Ash
When Tejus and the other members of GASP left for the cove, I went in search of the Impartial Ministers. I still had unanswered questions about the water, and more specifically, the effect on my mortal life.
I found them sitting in an empty room in the palace, nursing a flagon of mead. They had clearly been drinking for some time—the air was thick with its heady, sweet scent. I observed them with disgust. The guards and ministers of Nevertide were out in the grounds, doing what they could to protect the land and its people. Not to mention members of GASP, and Tejus, risking their lives down at the cove. If the Impartial Ministers were meant to represent a ‘brotherhood’ of Nevertide, then they were doing a horrendous job of it.