18
I met Bia, the High Priestess a few times. Short instances. The longest was at my coronation, where we actually spoke to one another. She asked the ritual questions, and I gave the ritual answers. Even so, having no idea how she envisioned the Goddess, I knew she, herself, was a woman of force and raw energy. Power didn’t cowl her. She embraced power and took the lion’s share of what was available in the room, if she were pressured.
Bia’s influence stretched out far beyond my own, to other temples and many queens. My mother was said to be her match, but if that were true, then Bia was beyond me in reach. This made her a bit intimidating to me - her power and my ignorance of the temple.
If any of my men or even Iris had taken my hand on a whim and said, ‘let’s go to the temple,’ I would have snatched my hand back and stomped my feet like a child, I’m sure. I knew, now that I was queen, I needed to learn about the temple, and to come to terms with Bia. Always some pressing matter, even ones I would have loved not to be involved with, barred the way. Or perhaps I was the one that barred my way with them. Regardless, this trip was long overdue and I didn’t like the ground I was standing on for the meeting.
High Priestess Bia was tall, statuesque and muscular. The clothing she wore was sheer, white, yellow and soft blue. She wore no undergarments, and her heels lifted up her ass perfectly. Her hair was glorious, full of long curls - red as fire in some places, smoldering lava in others. When she turned, the shock in her blue eyes was candid, and sudden. "Your highness, I didn’t know you were coming! Martha! Why didn’t I ..."
"Forgive me, and your assistant," I said, stepping forward. "This is sudden, unplanned…and a bit hasty." I growled the last bit back at Fenrir.
"It’s completely out of sorts," Fenrir nodded happily. "No way to guess this was coming."
Bia’s shock didn’t last long, and Fenrir’s words interested her. "No," she agreed, her eyes set on Fenrir. "Not at all. Especially not with you using the common route."
He stepped up, and gave her a short bow. "Well used roads are frequently traveled, thus the safest."
She nodded. "But they also attract the most dangerous thieves." Looking back to me, she said, "Though my information is vague, and I’m missing many details, I think I understand why you’re here.” It puzzled me how certain of her words she seemed.
"We’ve yet to do anything but hint." The response came before I could think of whether or not I should say the words.
Bia’s eyes met mine and she nodded. “Sometimes a hint is all we need,” she answered simply. “Let’s go into the back chambers, where we can be alone with our conversation." She then turned to a young blond girl. "Martha, ensure that no one can disturb or overhear us, and then come back to join me in the chamber. Have Elle and Samantha keep watch, will you.”
"Yes, mistress," she said, and flashed full nudity from the wrappings she wore as she spun and ran barefoot across the marble floor to perform her duties.
"She is most trustworthy and it is better to have her there, than to shout out for food, paper, pens and whatever else we might need. Agreed?" Bia asked.
I nodded. Then thought over what I learned this morning. "Are there windows nearby?"
Bia smiled. "No, my queen. Actually, the inner sanctuary is below the surface. About four meters.”
Long, narrow, sheer curtains hung from the ceiling, passively slowing the visitor down. Fenrir and I walked as close as we could get to each other without touching. The smile he wore was one that I wasn’t sure I wanted to decipher. I’d scrubbed my hands as he suggested. I felt foolish while doing it, sure. But there was a part of me that didn’t want him to know just how hard I rubbed my clit, or how deep I sunk my fingers, thinking about him. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew and that he’d figure out a way to blush my cheeks because of it.
The curtains were easy to brush aside, and see-through enough that following Bia posed no problem.
When we entered the room Bia guided us to, sound felt muted and stilled. I looked around at the walls. They were at odd angles and several had rows of pyramid shaped columns on them.
"They dampen sound," Bia said, answering my curiosity. "Standing directly by the door, it’s difficult even for a shifter to hear anything inside. Oh, and many find it uncomfortable to be in here long," she added, looking to Fenrir.
"I’ve spent several hours in similar rooms. But thank you," he replied.
How often did Fenrir go to temples? Shifters were welcome, certainly. They were our main defense against zombies, an enemy which could destroy us even if we win.
I cleared my throat. "What is the purpose of the hanging curtains?"
"To hide the unfinished concrete walls, " Bia answered with a smile. "Our queens have always given us more than we require, but some things are beyond our reach. This temple however is one of the finest on the west coast, I’m told."
The room had an area which might have doubled as a pool or bath. Cushions and pillows of all sorts lay in easy reach to make sitting or relaxing possible. Electric lighting was in place as well but there were still large candles positioned throughout the room.
"Since you brought it up, when was the last time you had a shifter in this room?" Fenrir asked, sitting down on one of the lower steps, and stretching out.
Bia thought for a moment and then sat close but above him. "Nearly a year, I believe. A visitor from the tribes west of here. He came in to offer his respects and brought a gift."
"No one else?" he asked.
She shook her head slowly. "Not that I know of. It has happened, though frowned on, that a woman of silk will get naughty and bring someone in here. Our wine is very good... But I doubt that has happened recently. Even if they aren’t caught in the act, we usually find out some way or the other.”
"Could you please call your guards," Fenrir said, and stood up. There was no panic in his voice, but there was panic in his brow. I felt the tiny hairs on my arms stand at attention.
I watched his motions. The way he seemed like he was sensing something with not just his eyes and his ears, but all his senses. My eyes went from curtain to curtain, up, down. I couldn’t figure out what had Fenrir on such high alert. And that scared me even more. It’s the things you don’t see coming that are the most dangerous.
“What’s going on,” I asked, but no answer came.
Bia wasted no time, calling for her two guards by name. They came within a split second, carrying large military type rifles and handled them as if part of their own body.
“What the hell is going on,” I asked again, this time, there was no doubting the panic in my tone.
Fenrir seemed at least a little relieved once he spotted their weapons, but that didn’t stomp down my fear. This made it more than one hundred percent clear that we were in some kind of danger.
I parted my lips to ask for the third time what the hell was going on, but Fen’s voice came first.
"Don’t shoot unless it looks like it will get past me. My queen and Bia, please step outside," he said, and again Bia wasted no time grabbing my hand and pulling me from the room. Which I was getting a bit tired of people doing to me.
Behind me I heard the sound of stone breaking. I yanked to look back, and from the dirt under the broken step came a zombie. Needless to say, my mind was blown, time and time again when I was faced with just how good the shifters are at spotting the unseen.
The zombie’s hands reached out to grab Fenrir and I almost screamed my warning at him. Fenrir was quick though, and turned in time, one motion swiping the thing’s head clean off its body. So he was right? Shit. Fuck. He was right.
Another zombie and another, Fenrir ducked, his muscles tensed and the man who had saved me all those years ago was back in action. He didn’t use his gun for quite some time and relied only on the brutality of his fists. There were times I closed my eyes. Times I didn’t want to see what he did to them. Fenrir didn’t look like just a man who was winning a fight. He looked like he had something to prove. Like he was fighting an enemy he needed to teach a lesson to.
Another zombie grabbed at him and he bent, smiled and snapped the thing’s spine, and then it’s neck. Looking around, he said, "There are others, and they are digging their way out. Get the guards, and HAZMAT teams."
"Do you know how to shoot, my queen?" Bia asked.
"An AK47 would be handy about now." My direction was for sunlight and the curtains did little to sway me.
"Certainly. Martha? See to it and bring one for yourself." As Martha ran off, she whispered, "I can’t imagine three or four zombies making much trouble for the guard, but always good to be seen armed and ready."
Three or four turned out to be twenty-eight. Bullets zipped and zapped through the air. Zombie bone and zombie flesh flew high, splattered low. I had my gun ready. We all did. There’s no reason we couldn’t or shouldn’t have helped, except that Fenrir had it under control. Every single brainless creature was taken out by him. Every single onlooker stood in awe, their mouths agape as this man, outnumbered, added another rumor to his name. I could almost imagine how this would pass around. Someone would tell someone who’d tell someone and eventually all the ladies in the taverns would have their clits raw with desire as they spoke of Fenrir the great. And that was all good and fine. What wasn’t so good and what wasn’t so fine was how tightly perked Bia’s nipples became. I didn’t mention it, not to her and not to Fenrir. But I felt the jealousy, uncalled for as it was, tighten my nerves.
“Now that that’s that,” Fenrir said, slicing the last zombie from skull to pelvis, “how do you all feel about getting out of here.”
No one answered. Too awestruck. Star-struck. Whatever label one might wish to slap on it.
*
All of the curtains and decorations of the temple had to be taken down and stored in the Keep, while my shifter guards and men hunted the grounds.
It appeared that while different in measure, zombies did have to breathe. They could hide under loose ground, but not packed ground.
In the inner sanctum they were able to breathe through the cracks in the marble. Most had long rubber tubes with them. These, it was discovered, were coming in from outside of the wall. Tracing these inside, zombies were discovered dead, suffocated, because the ground shifted behind them or something else cut off the air supply.
What that told me was someone had been doing this long enough to experiment with different means and ways. How long? Weeks? Months? Years? Someone with enough control over a zombie to keep him from drawing attention by clawing to the surface for air, and instead, lay there and die. Even getting a rat to do that would be a feat.
Not everything discussed in the temple was spiritual in nature. Temples offered neutral territory for discussions of treaties, trade agreements. Politics of all sorts were discussed inside those adorned walls. Figuring out who the hell was doing this would be a task in and of itself.