Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #13 April 2015 | Page 74

before my very eyes.
He laid it all out with the conviction that only the truly
insane can achieve. Yes, Sacculina came to him. He
knew she cursed mother to die. He wanted Sacculina
so much he let his beloved die and stood back and
watched. He let her take his rule, his daughter, his
wife, his mind.
And now, here I was, an avenging angel of darkness
and damnation and he wasn’t going to let me take him
from his goddess, Sacculina. Not even for the chance
of redemption was he going to give up the sweet,
sweet coochie that drained away everything he’d ever
been as a man.
The only thing left to do was to shoot him in the
cheating heart. My precious new heater, a Tommy
gun, sent five bullets into a target that’d shrunk down
to nothing. My beloved Father. I stared a long while at
his face. I wondered if he’d ever been a good man. I
suppose it doesn’t matter at this end of his life.
I continued on. Sacculina was waiting for me. I could
feel it in my bones. She had to know I was coming. I
could hear the mechanical dragon pounding on the
castle while I walked to the throne room. I could hear
cheers and chants, as if the people of the kingdom
were gathering to back up my guys.
As harsh as the taxes had been since Sacculina took
over, I can imagine they were.
Finally, I ran the bitch down in her lair. Still a long,
thin drink of water, elegant like she invented it, and
surrounded by the men she’d enslaved with her magical gold plated honey pot.
I expected that. They came at me, ready to give their
lives for their hive queen, and I was happy to oblige
them. Rawls did damn fine by me, my Tommy barked
out bullet after bullet and I never had to reload.
It was a suspended hell of screaming, howling, blood
splattering fast as fireworks, bodies colliding and hitting the ground with wet, final thuds. I stood through
it all, firing, firing, until my arms were aching. A few

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scored a few hits on me, but what’s a knife to a hotbed
of revenge already getting its first sweet taste to the
tongue?
Then it was just her and me in a throne room strewn
in bodies and blood. She just smiled, lounging in that
stolen throne like it was giving her the best head ever.
I knew she was just warming up.
She hit me so fast I didn’t know it was coming. Black
lightning. It clawed over me, screaming like pigs at
the slaughter and far more foul. But I shrugged that
off. I worked for years in the mines, show me something heavy.
I let her hit me again just to make my point. And I
smiled. It was bloody and vicious but I wasn’t out to
win any beauty contests. The funny thing is, Sacculina
was.
You couldn’t kill me when I was a girl, you couldn’t
kill me with your fancy apple magic, you can’t kill
me, I tell her, purring and low. I just can’t decide if I
want to lock your ass up so you can watch yourself get
old and ugly while I get more and more beautiful every damn day, or if I want the immediate satisfaction
of blowing your pretty head off.
That’s when I saw it. Fear. Fear lit up in her lovely
green eyes. Not for her life. For her looks. Broad’s
as shallow as a spring puddle, and I’m the sun. She
lashed out with all she had and then some. I just kept
firing, hammering against whatever shield she conjured up.
I could feel it cracking and pushed harder, walked
closer, kicking bodies aside and keeping my feet
steady against the slippery blood.
All at once, Succulina stops. Puts up her hands, falls
to her knees. She surrenders. Bows to my might and
justice.
This is what my guys want. They want their filthy
tramp of an oppressor brought before the blind goddess in a celebration of justice, truth, and restored
honour. And as I look at Succulina, I can see she wants