Seven Kingdoms: Ugly and the Beast
I only know one thing: He betrayed me. I only want one thing: Vengeance.
The barren desert is for no man, but I am no man. I am a half-beast seeking answers for my lover’s death. I know the killer is connected to the infamous gang called Hounds of Hades. I know where the cowards hide in the desert away from everything. Where they can have their fill of prostitutes and drugs, and why they call this place their home.
They hide secrets.
I won’t rest until I find them. And I won’t stop until I have an answer… or until they’re dead.
I walk alone with my fury mane like a lion but a man’s face, a scar across my eye with a bear’s snout, down the dusty desert road.
Gleaming in the sunlight, my ax given to me by my uncle has our family’s crest etched on it: A bear and lion roaring on the sides between two axes blazing with fire. My two daggers dangle at my sides and my hidden blades are in my sleeves.
My hairy chest is soft like a dog’s hair. That’s what Angeline used to say before she was taken from me. I found her in our house stabbed to death seeing a ripped emblem of the Hounds of Hades on the floor with a single blotch of blood.
Now I search for an answer for her pointless death.
I fondle the piece of cloth between my fingers coming to the tavern. I walk inside with my true purpose.
Angeline was wrong. I am a murderer and nothing else. A criminal with a single fate: death and destruction.
I stalk the halls of the darkened and despair-filled inn seeing the dangerous men look my way. I place my ax roughly on the bar.
“Whiskey, neat.” I gruffly speak.
The bartender glares at me. Then looks to his man as he nods for my approval.
The bartender pours me a good-sized one. I finish it down to the dregs. Down into the muck and filth, I will place my hands streaking the day with blood and entrails.
“What do you want, beast?” The man with the black leather jacket says.
His friends rally around him looking to harm and beat.
“All I want is justice,” I say honestly.
He guffaws, “Justice? You won’t find no justice around here. Not in any of these Kingdoms will you find it.”
He pours another one for me and I drink again. “Well, then. Vengeance it is.”
I pull out my ax faster than his friends can stop me stopping right towards his neck and holding it there to make a point.
“OK, so who can tell me where I can find my lover’s murderer!”
Holding up the cloth with their insignia on it.
I scream, “Who’s gonna tell me or do I have to find out the hard way!” The men gather now with their knives drawn.
“If you kill me,” the big man says scared. “You’ll never find out who did. Lower the ax.”
Willingly, I put it down out of trust, but it is a big mistake.
Suddenly, twenty men rush upon me. They lead me to a back room and zip tie my hands to my back. Gluing my arms and forcing me into a small room with a table and chairs, I curse and scream violently.
The door shuts.
“Let me out! Let me out, you cowards!” I roar like a lion and charge toward the door trying to break it but it’s solid steel.
It opens after a while. I don’t look up as my head is bowed out of exhaustion. The tiny leader, about three feet tall comes in with his two giant bodyguards.
“So, what do we have here,” the little man asks. “A half-man, half-beast mercenary, huh?”
He sits down and sits on top of the chair staring at me. “What does a freak like you want with us? I hear you’re looking for someone?”
Heaving a sigh, “Yeah, someone took something from me. And I intend to pay back the favor.”
“Ah, good. A man with nothing to lose. My name, dear friend is Hugh Wallace. And yours?”
“Abe.”
“Abe what?”
“Just Abe.”
“Where are you from?” Hugh folds his hands.
“Vale is where we were.”
“You see that’s far away from here,” Wallace says fingering the rings on his pudgy fingers. “But my men aren’t stationed there anymore but…”
“What is it?” I ask curiously desiring what he holds secret.
“Sometimes they’ll go out to Vale on their days off. Look around, chase some tail, gamble…”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because freaks have to stick together, right? I help out when I can, I’m not like those other crime bosses—merciless and causing bloodshed for no reason. My men are loyal and they respect me but… sometimes they get too carried away. They’re sometimes sloppy. The newer ones cause a mess. I always talk and ask questions first, then attack.”
“You make many enemies that way.”
“Oh, I’m aware,” Wallace laughs heartily. “Why do you think I’m out here in the desert? In this place? You think I wanna be here? I thought you were sent by one of ‘em. One of the Kingdoms aimed to kill me. You know bosses and mercenaries are in their pockets.”
“I hear some are noble and-”
“LIES! You hear me: The Seven Kingdoms are all corrupt and evil. Don’t trust ‘em.”
“I’m not from there or working for any of ‘em. I’m looking for a man who has claws. I saw marks of a beast where she was found dead! He couldn’t have gotten far.”
I speak the truth. I saw in my room marks of a beast just like me. I never knew there were more of us.
“Ah, a freak on freak violence. That doesn’t sit well with me, my friend. However, one of ‘em passed by last week. Heading away from Vale. Heading somewhere far away to another ancient Kingdom, I presume. It’s called Hath. You heard of it?”
“I’m not familiar, no,” I say wondering about this ancient desert Realm.
“Well, anyways, his hands trembled, his breath smelled foul, now that I think of it. He seemed like he was hiding something.”
“Where did he go? Tell me,” I cry.
“Ah, let’s not get too hasty,” Wallace says smiling and mocking me. “It would be proper to… pay one for their valuable information. Don’t you think?”
Hugh lets out his small slimy hands.
Begrudgingly, I pull out three gold coins. “I think this should cover it.”
“Certainly, my good man, it requires a little more, don’t you,” the crime boss smiles wryly.
Trying not to seize his throat, I pull out three more. “Will that satisfy you, my liege?”
“Good. Good, good. Now about the beast-”
Suddenly, I hear a crash through the front doors outside the room. The two men move quickly like hyenas roaming in the wild.
Hugh turns back, “Is this your doing?”
I shake my head, “No, but maybe it’s him.”
I hope it’s not.
Screams and curses echo through the halls as Hugh and I go for the door exiting. He unties my back and I’m free.
We enter a bloody violent scene: a monster ripping his men apart limb from limb. Bones crack, flesh bitten into, organs strung on the rafters, and crimson color everywhere.
“Boss, RUN!”
His one henchman cries as his head is ripped off his torso. Wallace almost faints as I fling him out of the way of danger.
Everyone is dead.
The hairy miserable and bloodthirsty beast stands menacingly, his back turned breathing in and out hate and malice. Fury is his mane and disgusting brutality of apathy is his essence.
“So? You came looking for me?” His voice is like nails rubbing against a chalkboard. “Well, here, I AM!”
The monster lunges without a warning as we fight struggling for power. I break away from him as he laughs. His dog-like snout smells my fear. Ears like a jackal stick up hearing my every movement. His eyes are like pythons. Violent seven-fingered claws rip at me as I dodge them awkwardly.
I stagger back as his laughter pierces my soul. I’m not sure I even have one.
“Little miss princess, had it comin’, Abe. She was gonna drag you down with her.”
“How do you know me?” Confused, fear clouds my mind.
“Oh, isn’t it obvious,” the monster roars. “The lion’s mane, a bear’s snout, a beast in the middle of the desert cursed by a witch as a young man. Beauty has destroyed who you once were. She had to go.”
“It is you then,” I say astonished.
Laughing maniacally, “Yes, brother…”
His wolf body heaves in and out causing a stir and panic in my lion-like body.
“No, I don’t have-”
“A brother,” the beast taunts me as he pretends to shed a few tears wiping his eye.
“Oh, but you do, Abe. You really DO!”
He strikes again cutting me badly with his sharp claws. I fall and he viciously and furiously rips my body to shreds.
Blood gushes out. I cannot escape, but he relents walking towards the bar for a drink casually.
“You are pathetic,” my brother says. “Can’t even fight your baby brother. She made you WEAK!”
“I don’t understand, why are you doing this?” I get up my body in terrible pain.
“Because you’re a beast, not a man and you’ll always be one, you understand, Abe! You’re bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. We need each other and now we’ll finally be united once again.”
“Where were you all this time?”
“I didn’t know where you were all these years until I found you in the city. Vale, the city of sin as it’s called, alone with her, the woman whom you loved,” he sips his drink. “I never had a family and then I finally found you. My brother, my own blood. But she was going to get in the way.”
“You’re crazy you’ve been living on the streets for way too long! We coulda been a family together!”
“The streets are where I’m most fully alive. But you’re wrong, she was scared of ALL of us! She was playing with you, Abe until she found someone else. Someone like a man!”
“I am a man. She told me that I don’t have to be a monster anymore.”
He laughs and mocks me as he sips his drink. “You really believe that bullshit?!
“She infected your mind with lies, but I’m here to rectify that! Z, the terrible beast will wreak havoc!”
He picks up paralyzed Wallace and stabs him through his chest his spider-like fingers oozing out the other side as red trickles down his bony back. He chucks him to the side like a rag doll.
“Enough of…”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you! Enough of what?” Z yells curtly.
“Stop with the bloodshed,” I say quietly.
He mocks me again, “Why? The whole world is violent, what’s a little more?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“No, you won’t, you’re soft. You need me, Abe! We need each other, brother! Stop running from who you are.”
“That’s not who I am.” I rise standing defiant toward my only family.
“Then,” he snorts wickedly. “Let’s FINISH what I started!”
As we fight, I dread the misery and darkness surrounding the inn in the desolate desert on the outskirts of Vale. Hope is far away. Evil closes in.
The first story in the Seven Kingdoms series! Tune in next week for another fairytale!