The Archress [HOLD]

XI

Ulysses' head hurt. It felt like a pickax had been slammed into his skull over and over, and then released a nest of hissing butterflies into it.

Or something like that. Great Beasts, he couldn't even imagine pain clearly.

His eyes were closed, and he didn't even try to open them, especially when the sound of heavy footfalls came into the room.

"Alive?" a deep, bored-sounding voice asked.

"Well, he's breathing," a more feminine voice answered from behind Ulysses' head. He didn't even know she was there. "But I can't imagine the pain he's in now. The Revival definitely took longer than his friends, and we had to undergo much more...brutal treatments."

"Yes, Lauraine," the older man drawled. "Leave."

"Whatever you say, Sakel." A lighter pair of footfalls faded away.

"Told her don't use my name." Ulysses heard two steps against the floor and felt a small whoosh of air before the man, Sakel, took a seat in an old wooden chair, identifiable by the long creak it made and the musty smell that filled the air. A small, almost nonexistent, squeak of leaking air said that the furniture was cushioned, if somewhat poorly. Obviously there was a hole, and the miniature telltale breeze told him that--if he had to guess--it was in the side of the cushion to Sakel's left.

"Wrong," Sakel barked suddenly.

Wrong? Ulysses thought. But how? He listened again, harder than before to try to catch his mistake. He could tell by the sound of rustling that the man's head was leaning to the right; that he was tired by his slow, labored breathing; and that the clothes he wore smelled like velvet covered by a day's worth of dirt.

But for the life of him, Ulysses couldn't hear, smell, or feel what was wrong about his first guess. It had to be impossible, to guess where the exact puncture was on a piece of furniture that was probably older than him--

It was impossible. The thought hit him hard, hard enough to throw him out of the groggy sleep-like state he was in. Slowly sitting upright and clearing his eyes, Ulysses went over what he just did. The impossible. No one--not even Sasge or the other Huma leaders--could hear the sounds of a big crawling up a wall. No one else could feel the change in air from the breath of a person's breathing.

No one.

"Guess?" Sakel asked and Ulysses nearly cracked his neck getting a better look of his strange captor. Everything about Sakel was red: his hair a dark crimson, his clothes and shoes and gloves a lighter shade, even his irises were a bloodshot color. Out of any other shade, the reds were the most violent and menacing and matched the man who wore them. Broad shoulders, broad biceps, a broad face, everything was big and bold and looking as if they belonged to a Huma strongman.

And then there was the chair. Again.

"I was right," Ulysses said.

"Hmm?"

"There's another hole." Ulysses pointed to a small puncture on the right side, Sakel's left. Even with the feet of distance between him and the chair, Ulysses could clearly see each and every thread, each and every color clearly. Was this another effect of...of whatever this was? He had put little to no thought on why exactly all of his senses had been one-upped.

"Where?" Sakel mused, a smirk on his terrifying face.

"There." Ulysses pointed to the opposite side, Sakel leaned over and looked at it, then let out a growl. A real, back-of-the-throat growl.

"Why you smilin', boy?"

The small show of triumph was quickly wiped from Ulysses' face as he muttered, "Sorry, sir." Oh, he wanted to open his mouth and say more, but this man looked angry. His pale face was beginning to match the rest of him.

"Should be," he huffed and strode over to the miserable cot Ulysses was on. Looking down on him, Sakel looked monstrous. Most of the light in the room had faded--or maybe it was getting late--only illuminating half of his face while adding extra depth to his alien eyes. A soft voice in the back of Ulysses' head told him to look away, but he couldn't. Not for the life of him.

Unaware of the sudden drop of temperature around them, Sakel jerked his head up before walking out the low-hanging door. Tentatively, Ulysses followed.

"You know why you here, boy?" the man asked.

"No."

"Long story short, you died," Sakel said with scary calmness, the kind of emotionless that one would used if they were sick and tired of the world, the kind that said that they'd killed before, and may have not minded it. It was the kind that sadists and power-hungry men used when they thought they were safe, too high up to be brought down.

Until they had an encounter with the Huma.

"Died?"