hard surface, splashing blood. Immediately the vampire crest in the center of the table took offense and sank huge fangs into the satyr's spine that came out through the small, fawnlike creature's abdomen. A puddle of urine soon spread, causing Harpies to shriek in hot disgust.
"Do not make me get up out of this chair," Lilith said in a deadly whisper and then cleaned the offense away with a wave of her hand. She stood. "Now. Firstly, I bet you wish you'd never betrayed Cain and had remained loyal to the end?" The satyr nodded quickly, blue tears running down his face.
"You Pan creatures are so fickle and given to such waste ful excess and mischief, but this time you've really gotten yourself in trouble, haven't you?"
"I'm sorry, miss. I didn't know. We just wanted to run and play, and didn't want to fight anyone," he whined, beginning to sob.
"See, that's the problem with being in the middle, not making a commitment, especially in the end of days - you were committed to nothing, so you must now endure everything."
"Oh, no!" he wailed and covered his face.
"If you had sided with the Darkness and Cain, you would still have a place ... like my dear Harpies," she said, petting the largest one that fought to be near her. "Or my bats, or messengers. Even my pit bulls have a place in the realms."
When the satyr's cries escalated, she leaned over him with a hand at each side of his trembling body. "Silence!"
He sucked up a sob with his lip quivering.
"If you had sided with the Light, even if you were killed, a highly probable thing ... you would be in a place of utter bliss," she whispered and pulled back. "Completely boring and disgusting by my standards, but at least you wouldn't suffer." Folding her arms over her chest, she peered at the terror-stricken creature impaled on her table. "But as a reasonable woman, I'll bargain with you for a do-over, a chance to make a wise choice a second time around."
"I'm on your side," the satyr said quickly, nodding. "You, miss, I choose you." She shook her head. "Delightful." With a sigh, she sat down. "Now, I need to understand better how Nod works ... you see, Cain's time there in the Light did not translate to our thrones. The data was garbled. Only his dark passions and lusts and plots did we receive, but the way Nod works, what fuels it, how things ... grow there ... we could not see for the blinding Light."
"Nothing grows in Nod," the satyr said quickly. "It is the same, ages very, very slowly over eons. It is pure energy, that's why we wanted to leave. There's no food or water, only energy to quench you, but stable, even energy and no procre ation. We cannot even mate, it is all mental stimulation ... so you see, Miss Queen of all that I'm bound to uphold, that's why we tried to leave after Cain."
Panic shot through Lilith and made her pace. Her mind quickly seized on the reality that, if nothing could grow there and could only remain in stasis, then her fertilized egg was simply languishing without a procreation or life-energy jolt. It didn't matter that it had been successfully couriered into Nod while the seals were breached and Cain was at war sending hybrids over the barrier between worlds. Nor did it matter that it was stored within a willing host. It would re main there, possibly for eons at a time when her husband had called for her to bring forth his heir.
"Are you sure, satyr?" she said, suddenly sweeping to the frightened fawn.
"Yes," he cried, beginning to sob again. "That's why we followed Cain's energy trail out -
only Hubert was strong enough. He was biggest and Cain's opening then was such a horrible tear that a few of us slipped out behind him. But the others are trapped inside because it takes a Neteru's call to be released." He covered his frightened face with his hands. "Only his warriors could pass both ways on his call while he fought. But once he died, they cannot get out, either. But those two Neterus, they can go in and they can bring out warriors for you, Miss Queen. They both went there and vis ited Cain ... and he really liked her. His energy still res onates with her there, I'm sure." Lilith returned to her throne quiet and intrigued.