Our Dark Prince (The Scottish Play)

LXII. Underneath The Rotting Sky

9

Lolita crept it in with the stealth of a snake; with Eopsinʼs sight at her side, she descended into the Jail of Broken Dreams via its canals of pure gasoline, following the rivers of the toxins on the drawbridges that laced them together, constructed from cobwebs and pure bone. The skulls, flesh, and remains of human people lined the bridges, flooded the walls, and lead Lolita towards the watchtower. The prison, Lolita had come to realize, was living and breathing. Its sight never left hers, it expanded and constricted air through its lungs, and the watchtower was its beating heart, all that haunted her beyond her wildest dreams.

Above her, as the rivers of gasoline bolstered down in fat, portly droplets of angry rain, she saw a Creature tower over the entirety of the Jail. An old hag with webbed feet, one nostril, one protruding tooth, her ribs and breasts contorted and twisted to wrap around her body like a boa constrictor. Squeezing and ringing articles of clothing down the spine of the watchtower, caked in their blood and in their gasoline, she growled the names of souls Lolita assumed to be trapped in the prison. The prisoners entering the Jail trembled with fear, as similar, ghoulish guards came to usher them in, greeted by the Creatureʼs singing praises.

"The Bean Nighe," a familiar voice murmured. "A Scottish omen of death. She bears witness as the Warden of Tonoho Oʼodham, and more specifically, the Jail of Broken Dreams."

Voltaire emerged from the shadows, dancing with the devil. Here, his face was refined a bit more into the ideal image Lolita always had of Voltaire, compared to the typical faces he showed her in Vinci and here in Tonoho Oʼodham. With those handsome chiseled features, that smoky electric blue skin, and reposed Arabian, Eastern, features kissing his face, Lolita saw the constellations and galaxies continue to dance on his physique, in his beard, seducing her further-and-further. Under his cloak, Voltaire was neither man nor myth, and it was difficult to hide her fear, and her anger, under the shattered veil of the Jail of Broken Dreams.

"Nice of you to join," Lolita muttered, seething. "Would have been nice to be warned about being thrown into the abyss before you did it."

Voltaire smiled, snakelike.

"Tonoho Oʼodham has a life to its own, I told you this," Voltaire murmured simply. "The Order constructed it similarly to its Keeps: impenetrable, impregnable, to lock in supernatural creatures and criminals. I needed to cast you away so you could find it, and more importantly, so I could track you down. I would never put you in harmʼs way, Lolita."

Lolita huffed, unbelieving. Under the cloak of darkness, they hid, the Bean Nighe growing more restless in its hunger.

"You told me that Robin sent me here to get the Book," Lolita said softly, angrily. "You want to be released from this place. Well, I want answers."

"I told you, thatʼs not how this game works," Voltaire whispered, tucking Lolita deeper into the fog as Dragonsguard – rotten, decaying, skeleton-like Dragonsguard – flitted across the valleys and rivers of the monstrous Tonoho Oʼodham. Paranoid, Voltaireʼs catlike eyes scanned the perimeter, and as Lolita stared on, she sensed fear.

How uncanny for the Ifrit from Versailles, older than time itself, to smell like fear.

"The Voltaire you met, I presume, was in Robinʼs pocket. A vizier, a courtier, with an agenda. A pawn in the Orderʼs game. I donʼt know if heʼs playing you or her and I donʼt know where the Book is in there."

Lolita scowled, fuming.

"So you led me down a rabbithole on a f*cking hunch? A hunch?"

Voltaire furrowed his brows, eating at Lolitaʼs raw emotion, and shared a look with her that wore deathʼs greeting. In the distance, a babyʼs giggle echoed. Cutting through the air, through their hearts, with a petrifying giggle. Resounding, piercing, the most unholy thing you could hear. Lolitaʼs heart fell in her chest, suffocating her as she swallowed nervously, with Voltaire staring his fear straight in the face.

"We havenʼt much time and you know there is a reason Tonoho Oʼodham is growing darker, more violent. I have to get out, just as much as you. Lolita, you told me you were her confidant. What she did tell you? What do you remember?"

"Letʼs start with you," Lolita choked out, shivering. "Who is Robin DeMarcus to you? The Order, to you, in this time?"

Voltaire looked over his shadow, beckoning Lolita closer.

"To the underworld, sheʼs a homicidal maniac who burned down Havana to avenge the death of her son. The devil, they say, went to Havana with her that day."

Lolita was silent, stark.

"In our time, it was Reina Santiago – that she massacred the city, and that Robin was a casualty in that bloodshed."

"As far as we know, they colluded together. Doesnʼt matter who did what, it doesnʼt give us anything and doesnʼt bring us a step closer to figuring out why you were sent here. Think, Lolita."

"She and her brother, Remedios, want revenge. Control of the Order. That is what they whispered together in Spanish. But it also doesnʼt explain why she would send me to Colombia. Back nearly a decade."

Lolita gripped Eopsinʼs eyes, rolling her fingers around the flaccid flesh. Voltaire peered at them, curiously, his fingers snaking towards Lolitaʼs.

"Time is frozen in Tonoho Oʼodham. It is the thinnest line between the rip in the atmosphere of the past, present, and future. There is no concept of time here. She didnʼt send you here to just get the Book, she sent you here to lose it."

"Thatʼs the same thing, to these people. Lose a chance at getting blackmailed."

"No, it isnʼt. She sent you here as a pig for slaughter, Lolita," Voltaire whispered, frozen in his words. "Because the significance of 2004 is that...it was the first sighting of the Dark Prince. Of his bloodline...firjil."

Terror; pure, unadulterated terror.

"Give me Eopsinʼs eyes, now."

And when she did, the world went black.