
HERE BE MONSTERS
A collection of tales about vampires, demons, and other horrors
M.T. Murphy
S.M. Reine
India Drummond
Anabel Portillo
Jeremy C. Shipp
Samantha Anderson
Sara Reinke
Alissa Rindels
Jose Manuel Portillo Barrientos
Copyright for each story is held, all rights reserved, by the individual authors. All rights reserved.
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Anthology Table of Contents
M.T. Murphy
S.M. Reine
India Drummond
Anabel Portillo
Jeremy C. Shipp
Samantha Anderson
Sara Reinke
M.T. Murphy
Dark Fantasy Art
by Alissa Rindels
by Jose Manuel Portillo Barrientos
Blackmail
All rights reserved.
Edited by Erin Stropes
It wasn't every day that Tim knocked a beautiful woman flat on her back. He stared at her from atop his clumsy six-foot, three-inch frame, wishing he could turn back time.
"Oh my god. I am so sorry." He knew the words couldn't possibly convey his horror.
The young woman sat up and crossed her feet as elegantly as one could do in such a situation. She had long black hair and the greenest eyes he had ever seen. He expected her to be hurt, furious, or both.
Instead, she laughed. It was a warm and carefree sound, one that made him feel far more comfortable than it should have. After all, he had bowled her over like a stampeding ox as soon as the elevator doors opened. It didn't get any more ungentlemanly than that.
She stood before he had a chance to offer to help her up.
"It is all right. The hour is late and you wish to go home," she said. "I should have known better than to wait directly in front of the elevator."
"No, I'm an oaf. It's totally my fault." He shoved his hand out at her with a weak smile. "I'm Tim from accounting."
She shook his hand. Her grip was stronger than that of most of his male colleagues. It was the kind of grip that demanded one's full attention.
"Hello, Tim from accounting," she said with a warm smile of her own. "I am Lucy. It is nice to meet you."
He liked the way she said his name. Her barely perceptible accent made it sound like the letter "t" was just a little heavier than the rest.
He tried to think of something witty to say. Nothing came to mind.
"You are here late, Tim. Are you working on anything exciting?"
He glanced down at his leather satchel, suddenly remembering why he had been in such a hurry. "Not really. Just a special project for my boss."
"Something that will benefit all of us in the Romana family of companies, I hope?"
Tim frowned. "We'll see." He shook off the gloom and jumped as the elevator buzzed at him for blocking the doors open too long. He moved out of the way and stuck his hand in front of the impatient doors, holding them open for her. "I'm really sorry about, you know, acting like a human bowling ball. Could I buy you a cup of coffee sometime?" Inwardly, he cringed. Knock her down, then hit on her. Subtle as a caveman.
"I am not much of a coffee drinker," she said, stepping into the elevator.
"Ah," Tim said, and released the doors. He knew a polite rejection when he heard one. He couldn't blame her.
"But"---she held out a business card which he snapped up greedily---"I would love for you to stop by my office sometime so we can chat."
He nodded like a confused puppy. She smiled again. The doors closed and he took a step back, watching the floor numbers change on the digital display. Lucy's suit had been crisp and elegant, much like the rest of her. She was probably a personal assistant for one of the reclusive executives. It would figure that one of those dirty old men would hire himself a woman like that to ogle.
The lobby of the Romana Industries tower was empty save for the spiky-haired blonde woman stalking around the front doors. The woman worked as bodyguard and additional security for the executives. She made no effort to hide the fact that she was staring at Tim. He nodded politely but she did not return the gesture.
He glanced back at the elevator. The display indicated that it had stopped on the thirteenth floor---the ultra-private executive floor, only accessible by a numeric code held by a handful of people.
"Figures," Tim said to himself. Then he looked at the business card.
Lucille Romana
President and Chief Executive Officer
A chill ran down Tim's spine. He had a crush on the very person his boss was planning to blackmail.
He rushed out the front door, pretending to ignore the menacing glare of the spiky-haired blonde woman.
\*\*\*\*\*
An hour later, he recounted the tale on the old couch in Barry's apartment.
"You actually met her?" Barry asked. "I've been working there for four years and never saw her once. You've been there three months and you're practically dating?"
"It's not like that. I was getting off the elevator. She was getting on. She was really nice considering I nearly killed her." Tim paused, replaying the scene in his mind. "And..."
"And what?"
"She's pretty."
Barry thumped him on the head. "Get your noggin in the game. She's the enemy."
"I told you I don't want any part of this."
"Tim"---Barry tapped his chin and wrinkled his brow as if deep in thought---"I'm drawing a blank here. Who was it that loaned you the money for that last year of grad school when they cut your scholarship?"
Tim grimaced. He knew where the question was heading and he didn't like it. "You did, but---"
"Who made the other seniors stop beating you up every day in high school when he was a senior and you were a freshman?"
"You did."
"And whose family took yours in when your good-for-nothing father left?"
"Yours," Tim replied.
"And who helped you get a dream accounting job right out of college when you had no other job prospects?"
"You did." He wanted to point out that he had paid back the loan and his mother had paid more than their share of the rent and other expenses for the month they stayed with Barry's family all those years ago. That didn't change the fact that Barry had helped him again and again. Reminding him of that seemed to be one of Barry's favorite pastimes.
"You're like a brother to me, Tim---albeit a younger, stupider brother. I've always looked out for you and I need you to back me up on this."
"Barry, how much money do you make?"
Barry waved away the implications of the statement. "I make low six figures, but you don't understand. I have some...vices."
After resisting Barry's invitations to go with him to the casinos every weekend for the past two years, Tim was actually very aware of the man's dirty little "secrets." If gambling debts, drugs, and prostitutes were riches, Barry would have been King Midas.
"Look," Barry said. "I got invited to a celebrity poker game after hours last month, but I was already out of cash. To make a long story short: I owe some guy named Vince seventy-five thousand dollars by the end of the week."
"Have you thought about talking to human resources at the office? They always talk about us being a part of the Romana 'family.' Maybe they could..."
"They could what?" Barry yelled. "Fire me on the spot?" He took a deep breath and regained his cool. "I'm sorry. Did you bring the package I left?"
"Yes." Tim removed the brown pack from this bag. "I don't see why you couldn't bring it."
"It would have been too suspicious if I did it." Barry opened the box and shuffled through the contents. "Did you look at what's in here?"
"No," Tim said.
"Good. Plausible deniability for you." Barry flipped through the documents, stopping at one very old photograph.
Tim couldn't see the image, but the corners of the photo were rounded and the back had yellowed with age. It had to be at least fifty years old, if not older.
"Our CEO has a secret," Barry said, "and I think the price tag for keeping that secret is a cool 1.5 million dollars."
"Let's set aside the fact that you are obviously bat-shit crazy for a minute. How did you arrive at that number?"
"Don't you pay attention, rookie? This company makes so much dough that anything less than two million is not even a blip on the radar. It's a rounding error. I'll pay back what I owe to the sharks and take a million for myself. I know a guy in Costa Rica who needs a financial director for his new resort. I'll take that job and retire in style at the ripe old age of thirty-four."
"And the rest?" Tim asked, already afraid of the answer.
"That is your cut just for helping me with a few simple, untraceable tasks. You deserve it. I won't take no for an answer." Barry reached into his work bag next to the couch. "Check this out." He tossed a dark object toward Tim's face.
Tim caught the thing in self defense. He turned it over in his hands, and it took him almost a full second to realize what it was. "A gun? Why do you have a gun?"
Barry shrugged. "Hey, man. These are some rough characters I owe. It's just for protection."
Tim moved slowly, placing the gun on the table as though it were a bomb that was ready to explode. "I'll see you tomorrow, Barry. This is getting crazy."
He wanted stay and argue with his old friend, but the thought of what Barry wanted him to do made him nauseous. Instead, he went home and dreamed of guns, loan sharks, jail cells, and the CEO's gorgeous green eyes.
\*\*\*\*\*
When Tim arrived at the office the next morning, Barry was sitting at Tim's desk, using his computer. "What are you doing?" he asked.
Barry jumped, obviously startled. "Sorry. System update was taking forever on my machine, so I was just surfing on yours. Had to check my messages." He took his time, finally getting out of Tim's chair after making several more precise clicks of the mouse. "I'm sending the CEO an email today to request a meeting tonight."
They were the only two people in that corner of the building, but Tim still glanced around nervously. "Why are you talking about it out loud like that? Are you nuts?"
"Relax. I made friends with one of the security guys who works in the main control room. He said that only the entrances and exits are monitored. They don't even log what websites we visit. Thank God for that, otherwise they'd have fired me years ago." Barry laughed and punched Tim in the arm.
"Barry, we have to talk about this. There's no way you'll get away with it."
"It's fool-proof," Barry said. "I'll send Miss Romana a taste of the incriminating documents via a totally untraceable email account and tell her where to wire the cash. Once the transfer is made, the receiving account will split it up and send it to forty-three separate accounts in fifteen different countries. By the time they track them down, I'll have run that money through several legit businesses and made it so squeaky clean you could eat off it."
He reached into his pocket and produced a piece of paper with two series of numbers scrawled on it. "Before I forget, here is the account number and phone number for the bank with your cut." He folded the paper and placed it in Tim's shirt pocket, not giving him a chance to protest. "Don't worry, I made sure yours goes through twelve different banks on its own. It is completely untraceable."
"What makes you think she'll go for this instead of calling the police?"
"It really is an offer she can't refuse. Her choices are to call the cops and lose everything or pay the measly million and a half bucks. She'll pay." Barry's confidence spilled out in the form of a smug grin.
Tim couldn't help but see the specter of prison bars in their future.
"Look, Barry. I told you I don't want any part of this. I've already done more than I wanted to. Just do me one favor. Don't set this in motion today. Sleep on it. We'll put our heads together and figure something out so you don't have to do this."
Barry scowled. Tim knew he was nearly impossible to dissuade once he'd set his mind to something, no matter how crazy it was. But, surprisingly, after a moment the scowl softened and Barry smiled. "Fine. Waiting one day won't kill me, I guess. Let's meet in your office tonight at eight. I have some month-end stuff to finish so I'll be working late anyway. Go grab a bite to eat when you're done with work and come back. I don't know how the hell you think we can figure out a way to make enough cash to pay off my debt, but we can talk about it."
They parted with a nod. Tim was surprised at how quickly Barry had caved, but he felt a little better. After Barry left, he looked at the computer and found that the last thing he had done was clear the internet history.
Tim shook his head. "Barry and his porn. I don't even want to know." He spent the rest of the day working and trying to figure out how to raise the money without breaking the law.
He finished up his work well after sunset and walked by Barry's office door on his way to the elevator. It was closed, as it was every month when crunch time rolled around. He could hear fingers furiously banging on keys as Barry drafted the monthly summary for the executives to let them know the state of financial affairs. He had his issues, but Barry was a wizard when it came to numbers.
Tim rode the elevator down to the third floor. The bell rang and he reminded himself to look before rushing through the doors. They opened and he jumped.
"Hi, Tim." Lucille Romana smiled and stood patiently outside the elevator.
He stood with his mouth agape for several seconds before rational thought returned. "Hi...uh...Lucy. I didn't knock you down this time." Smooth.
"I appreciate that," she said.
A moment of awkward silence passed. Lucifera glanced into the elevator behind him. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. Great. Never better. You?"
"I am well." She was still smiling, but a look of concern had crept into her eyes. "Are you sure you're all right? Is there something you wanted to tell me?"
My friend is a psychopathic dope fiend and gambling addict who is planning to blackmail you. Also, he's armed and I'm pretty sure he downloaded a gigabyte of x-rated videos on my company computer.
"Uh...no." He realized he had been blocking her path to the elevator and she was waiting on him to move, so he quickly stepped out of the way and held the door for her. "Sorry."
"No apology needed," she said. The doors started to close, but this time, she stopped them. "Tim, if you ever want to talk, feel free to stop by my office on the thirteenth floor. The code is six, six, six. I know it is rather silly. Security is somewhat lax here on the inside, but that is why we only hire people we know we can trust."
"Yeah, trust," he said, twisting his face into an approximation of a smile. "See you later."
"Goodbye," she said.
Tim took a deep breath to keep from trembling and made his way to the company café. Thankfully, it stayed open twenty-four hours a day to accommodate the company's sometimes grueling work schedule. Grabbing a sandwich from the cooler, he took a seat two tables away from a man and woman he vaguely recognized from the logistics department. They were in their early thirties and were part of the lucky group that was able to get away with wearing polo shirts while everyone else was stuck in business suits. From their posture, it was fairly obvious that the man was very attracted to his khaki-skirt-wearing coworker while she barely knew he existed. Tim knew the scene well. He had played the part of the harmless, sexless guy-friend more than once.
Tim wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but the woman was speaking loud enough that he didn't have much choice. She was relating the story of her sick mother who had been on the verge of losing their family home just weeks earlier. The poor job market and mounting medical bills had drained their finances to the point where foreclosure was imminent. Tim strongly suspected the woman's coworker was feigning interest in her family while biding his time to change the subject to a sexier topic.
The ending of the story caught Tim's attention. The woman had related her mother's plight to someone in the human resources department. Within a week, the company had purchased the house from the bank and worked out a modified payment plan that would allow her and her mother to buy the home at a fraction of the cost. Earlier in the day, the woman had received a personal note from the CEO thanking her for her loyal service and wishing her mother well. It was almost too good to be true.
Tim wondered if that might work for Barry. He was a damn good accountant, after all. They had no idea that he was anything other than a loyal employee at the moment. The thought of betraying his friend's trust sickened Tim, but the thought of getting dragged into a blackmail plot and going to prison sickened him more.
He threw away the rest of his sandwich and headed to the elevator. He stepped inside and pressed the button for the thirteenth floor. The digital readout requested a password. He pressed six, six, six. The floor number display went black and the elevator shot up to the executive floor.
Tim stepped through the open doors and looked around. The floor was black marble and the walls were dark brown mahogany. The tables in the vacant hall were adorned by vases of roses so deeply red that they almost looked black.
Tim glanced down the empty passages. The air was cold and the place was completely silent. It almost felt like a tomb. He immediately regretted his decision to come. He turned around and pressed the elevator button furiously, but nothing happened.
The barely audible sound of a foot tapping against the floor caught his attention. Turning back around, he jumped, finding that he was no longer alone.
The surly blonde executive bodyguard was standing directly in front of him with her arms crossed. He was suddenly aware of just how similar her shimmering eyes looked to Lucy's.
"Hi," he said.
Her only response was a slightly raised eyebrow and a deeper frown.
"I'm here to see Lucy. She said I could stop by?" It wasn't really a question, but Tim's apprehension made it sound like one.
"Of course she did. This way."
She walked over to an enormous oak door directly across from the elevator. Tim wondered how he had failed to notice it before.
The door must have weighed at least a hundred pounds, but the woman pushed it open like it was nothing. "You have a visitor," she said.
Tim stepped into the office and the woman left, closing the door behind her. Lucy sat at a stylish black desk that was empty save for a phone and a small day planner. Behind her, the Los Angeles nighttime skyline poured in through the floor to ceiling window, a sea of glass towers, lights, and life.
"Hello again," she said. "Have a seat."
"Hi." Tim sat in the amazingly comfortable leather chair directly in front of her desk. Immediately an object on the shelf next to the window caught his eye. "Is that a samurai sword?" he asked.
She glanced back at the shelf. "Yes. They tell me it is a very old wakizashi, the shorter sister of a katana. Would you like to see it?"
"Uh...no. I just didn't know you'd be armed."
"Should I be?"
They laughed, and Tim realized that his hands were trembling again.
"There is something I need to talk to you about, Lucy." Sitting in her office and calling her that just felt wrong. "I mean, Miss Romana."
"Lucy is fine," she said. "You can talk to me, Tim. What is going on?"
"I have a friend who is in trouble. He made some mistakes and borrowed a lot of money from the wrong people. Now I think his life may be in danger." He didn't realize just how weak the story sounded until he said it aloud.
"Your friend is an employee of Romana Industries?"
"Yes."
"I can do nothing for him unless he requests help of his own free will."
Tim nodded. The trembling was getting worse. He forced back tears as the weight of the situation hit him. If they didn't do something Barry might end up dead.
Suddenly, Lucy was sitting in the chair next to his. He hadn't seen her move, but it must have been the stress. He wasn't paying attention.
"It is all right, Tim. You did the right thing in coming to me. This company is run like a family and a family takes care of its own. Tell your friend he can come to me and he will have nothing to fear. Loyalty is a quality I value above all others."
"Thank you." Tim felt a little better. Lucy had to be close to his age, but her confidence and manner made her seem so much older.
"You are welcome. And now, there is something you can help me with if you have time."
"Anything," he said.
She led him to the private elevator in the back of her office, offering no further explanation. They entered the elevator and descended into the lower levels of the forty-story tower.
"Will you give me your completely honest opinion?" she asked.
"What if it isn't what you want to hear?"
"Then perhaps it is even more important that you tell me."
The elevator stopped three levels below the lobby. She led him down a dusty hallway that ended at a metal door. There was no lock or security keypad on the door, which was quite unusual.
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob.
"Can I ask you something of a personal nature?"
"Sure," he replied, a little too enthusiastically.
"What do you value most in a friend?"
It wasn't the kind of question he was expecting.
"I guess I value loyalty and trustworthiness above most things." He thought about Barry. "A friend you can trust and who is loyal to you is worth his weight in gold."
Lucy smiled. "I could not agree more." Her green eyes seemed to twinkle even more than they usually did.
She opened the door and ushered Tim inside. He squinted in the glare of the single naked light bulb that hung from a wire in the center of the large, bare room. Lucy closed the door behind her and the sound echoed in the emptiness. The walls were unpainted cinderblock and the floor a concrete slab. Five rectangular columns made of red brick stretched from the floor to the ceiling against the left wall. The columns were about four feet wide and four feet deep. It seemed unlikely that they were meant to support the weight of the upper floors.
An extremely tall man in an obscenely expensive business suit was working on a sixth column. He had completed the two side walls and bricked up about three feet of the front portion. He placed the final brick of a row, then set his trowel next to the mortar and pile of unused bricks and faced them.
Tim was finding it very difficult to breathe. The relief he had felt after his conversation with Lucy was being replaced by a growing sense of dread.
"From the quality of his work," Lucy said into the silence, "one would never guess that Mr. Nash is not a mason by trade."
The man towered over Tim by nearly a foot. A quick glance at his menacing stare and Tim recognized him as one of the executive security goons.
"What exactly did you want me to do?" Tim asked. He wanted nothing more than to get out of the room as quickly as he could.
"Of course," she said. "Please examine the contents of the column Nash has been so diligently constructing."
Tim nodded and walked toward the incomplete column. He took his time, not because he wanted to move slowly, but because it was as fast as he could force himself to go while fighting his mounting terror.
Before he was close enough to look inside, a sound escaped the brick enclosure. Something moved. The ring of metal brushing against metal grew louder as he approached.
A standing figure stirred in the darkness.
"Tim? Is that you?"
It was Barry.
Lucy appeared at Tim's side. "Your friend Mr. Barrington has been quite insistent that he talk to you before Nash's job is finished."
Chains rattled as Barry moved as far forward as he could. His hands and feet were tethered to the cinderblock wall with about two and a half feet of heavy chains. "Tim, you've got to help me. Tell them. Tell them the truth."
"Barry? What is going on?" Tim looked to Lucy for an explanation, but she stood silently, an enigmatic grin her only response.
"Tell them," Barry pleaded. "It was your idea. I didn't want to blackmail anybody." He turned to Lucy. "You have to believe me. Tim said he'd kill me if I didn't go along with it."
Tim was too shocked to reply. He looked at Lucy again.
"It is true," she said. "All evidence does indicate that you were planning to blackmail me. Nash, show Tim what you discovered in the bottom drawer of his desk."
The giant reached into his hip pocket and produced the pistol Barry had shown him the night before.
"Our science department checked and the only prints on the gun match what we have on file for you at human resources, Tim," she said. "A quick check on the gun's serial number confirms that it was purchased with your credit card and registered in your name."
Tim recalled Barry asking to borrow his only credit card to purchase a microwave at a local pawn shop a few weeks back. He hadn't wanted to let the card out of his sight, but his friend had always been very persuasive.
"Lucy." Tim wanted to explain. He had to.
"No," she said. "I will ask you a question in a moment, but for now I want you both to listen very carefully."
Tim silently locked eyes with Barry.
"As I am sure you are coming to realize, I am the type of employer who prefers to settle matters internally rather than involving outside authorities. We are a family. You are both a part of this family. A family handles its own matters, including discipline and punishment."
Tim glanced at the other five brick columns.
"It is true," Lucy went on, "that I value loyalty and integrity. I also value strength of character in those I allow into my trust. Someone has shamed this family. One of you must die."
Tim thought about running.
Lucifera casually placed a hand on his shoulder. Her grip was like a steel vice. He winced in pain and let out a yelp.
She nodded to Nash. "As I was saying, one of you must die. I do not care which of you it is."
Nash handed the pistol to a very shocked Barry.
Lucy continued. "My only question is---"
Barry cut her off with a primal scream and pointed the gun at Tim's head. Tim stared directly down the barrel and heard the distinctive click of an empty chamber.
Barry pulled the trigger five more times. The gun clicked harmlessly each time. After the last click, he threw the gun down and buried his face in his hands.
"How rude," Lucy said finally, releasing Tim from her grasp. She held out her hand, revealing the six bullets that formerly occupied the pistol. "I had planned to allow you to decide between yourselves who lived and who died. The battle between a man of virtue and a cowardly scoundrel is always entertaining." She placed the bullets in Tim's hand.
The metal door swung open behind them.
Tim and Barry both looked to the door, hoping for a savior.
The blonde executive bodyguard stepped inside, dragging a young security guard behind her by his throat. The man was struggling, but she held him effortlessly.
"Ah, Sylvan," Lucifera said. "There you are."
The woman smiled and nodded. "I figured out how the gun made it inside. Barney has been a bad boy." She hurled the man like a bowling ball, sending him sliding across the floor on his back.
Lucy halted the man's progress by stomping on his throat. He grasped her foot and tried to pry it free, but he couldn't budge her. "I know Mr. Barrington is the culprit," Lucy said, ignoring the squirming man under the sharp heel of her Salvatore Ferragamo boot. "His bad intentions follow him like a poisonous cloud. There is no place in this building where I cannot hear his convoluted, scheming thoughts."
"You can read minds?" Tim asked.
"Yes," she said with a wink. "Now, Tim, would you like to see what the fuss is all about?"
Nash retrieved an old photograph from a package on the floor and presented it to him.
He cautiously took the picture and held it up so he could see it better in the weak lighting. It showed the lobby of what appeared to be an old movie theatre. From the way people were dressed, the photo was probably taken some time in the 1930s. Most of the crowd was walking to the right, but four individuals were walking to the left: an extraordinarily tall man, a blonde woman with spiked hair, a feral-looking, shaggy-haired man, and a beautiful dark-haired woman in an evening gown. They all appeared to have glowing eyes and fangs. Tim wanted to believe the eyes and fangs were the result of some sort of a problem with the development of the image, but it was amazingly crisp and clear otherwise.
He was also painfully aware that three of the individuals in the picture were standing in the room at that very moment.
"Photographs do not lie," Lucy said. "It is simple to trick the human mind and make it fail to notice our eyes and fangs. To our great annoyance, we have discovered that electronic equipment is not so easily fooled."
Tim looked up from the photograph to find that Lucy's eyes were burning with green fire and her smile was now punctuated by two very sharp fangs. He took a trembling step backward.
She pointed to the picture. "That was taken in New York on February 12, 1931, after the premiere of the film Dracula. We were heading to the rear exit to avoid the crowd. Nash and Sylvan went out to feed, and Mickey---he is the dashing though somewhat shaggy one---took me dancing. I have so few pictures of us all together. I would have gladly paid a million dollars for this if Mr. Barrington had chosen to come to me directly."
"I'm sorry," Barry said, "I..."
Lucy ignored him and lifted the security guard off the floor. With a hiss, she tore into his throat with her fangs, forcing him back to the edge of the incomplete wall of Barry's tomb. Blood poured from his ripped neck and she gulped it down.
When she'd had her fill, she hoisted the man up and over the bricks, dropping him at Barry's chained feet.
"For the love of God," Barry gasped. "He's still alive."
Tim could hear the man wheezing and gurgling as Barry stomped on him and kicked him in the darkness.
Lucy licked the blood from her fingers. "Fear not, Mr. Barrington. He shall likely perish before you do." She pointed a still-bloody finger toward the pile of bricks on the floor. "Mr. Nash, if you would be so kind," she said.
Nash picked up the trowel and spread a layer of mortar on the top of the unfinished wall in front of Barry. Working quickly, he stacked the bricks on that level and spread another layer of mortar on top of them.
"Miss Romana, you can't just leave me here," Barry screamed.
"Actually, I prefer Lucifera." She produced a handkerchief and daintily wiped the excess blood from her hands and face. "Five other individuals have attempted to betray me as you have, Mr. Barrington. There are five brick columns in this room identical to yours. I trust someone as gifted with numbers as yourself can figure out what that means."
Nash was spreading the mortar and stacking the bricks with superhuman speed. In less than a minute, only a small opening remained at the very top of the brick tomb.
Barry cried and begged the woman for mercy. When she did not answer, he called out to his friend. "Please, Tim. Don't let them do this to me."
Lucifera frowned. "The true tragedy in this is that he was a very good accountant."
Nash handed the final brick to Lucifera. She, in turn, held it out for Tim.
"Life is full of choices, Tim. Here is yours. You can take the elevator to the lobby, then walk out of this office and never return..."
Tim's eyes settled on the brick and did not move.
"Or, you can place this brick and accept your promotion. It seems we need a new senior accountant."
"I...I can just leave? You won't kill me?" he asked.
"That is correct," she said. "But the instant you even think of betraying me, I will ensure that something unpleasant happens to you, your friends, your family, and everyone you have ever known."
Tim took a step backward.
"Consider this," Lucifera said. "Mr. Barrington's death would have occurred either by my hand or by the hand of those to whom he is indebted. Your conscience is and will be clear. Had he the means, it seems Mr. Barrington would have killed you without hesitation. Such treachery hardly seems like the actions of a friend, but, then I am not telling you anything you do not already know, am I?"
Tim stared at the last unfilled hole at the top of the wall.
"And there is still the matter of that picture you are holding."
He looked down, finding the photograph still in his hand.
Lucifera extended her empty hand, beckoning for the photograph. "I believe that one million dollars is a fair price. Do you not agree, Tim? We can consider it a signing bonus."
Barry's muted screams drifted out of the unfinished tomb. Tim tried to ignore them as he stared at the picture. His mother had sacrificed many things for his sake---her pride being one of them. A million dollars would go a long way toward healing the wounds she took for him.
But that didn't make it feel any less wrong.
He placed the photograph in Lucifera's hand. Then, he took a deep breath and grabbed the brick. Without stopping, he shoved it into the final opening, locking Barry in the dark with his screams.
He stared at his trembling hands. "Now I'm a monster, too."
Lucifera appeared in front of him and touched the side of his face. "No, Tim. As I said, your conscience is clear. Now let me remove the burden of this unpleasant memory so you can focus on your new job."
Before he could protest, she bit into his neck. Her presence invaded his mind, erasing and twisting his memories. Pain and fear were the last things he felt before everything went black.
\*\*\*\*\*
Tim awoke in his apartment with a throbbing headache. He removed an empty liquor bottle from the night stand and stared at his alarm clock until it came into focus.
Saturday? The last day he could remember was a Monday.
Slowly, things crept back to him. Barry had wanted him to do something.
No. That wasn't right. Barry had quit with no notice and moved down to Costa Rica to work for some acquaintance of his. It all seemed so vague and fuzzy, but that was what he remembered.
The idea of never seeing or hearing from Barry again didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. Then he felt a tinge of guilt, but another dreamlike memory drove it away. He had been chosen to take over Barry's old position and given one hell of a promotion bonus.
He picked up a black envelope from his nightstand. It was a very nice letter from the CEO, Lucille Romana, thanking him for his loyal service and congratulating him on the new position.
"Lucille Romana," Tim said. "I hope I get to meet her one day so I can thank her in person."
Tim put the letter aside and forced himself to get out of bed. His headache was getting worse. He knew he had to get some coffee---otherwise the lack of caffeine would make him a real monster.
Something Wrong
All rights reserved.
There was something wrong with her.
I could tell from the beginning. It was something I knew with the same certainty that I knew we were not of the same blood. We had the same ink-dark hair and bone-white flesh, but the resemblance ended at our skin, no matter what Father said.
It's easy to recall the day she came to us. Take care of her, Father told me. She's fragile. And then he put her in my arms, this new pink-skinned baby, and I looked into her little baby-black eyes and wanted to kill her. I put my hand on the paperweight at the desk, but Father was looking, so I set it down and gave her back.
I regretted letting that tender skull remain intact.
She had no interest in the mobiles dangling above her crib. They were bright shiny things with pink ponies and blue bunnies that whirled and twirled and reflected fragments of sun on the walls. Father gave her toys that glowed and pulsed like a heartbeat during the dark hours of the night so she wouldn't feel lonely or scared, but they would not shine for her. She seemed to prefer the darkness anyway.
I found her standing in her crib one night, staring at the sliver of the waxing moon through filmy pink curtains. Her eyes rolled over and she looked at me with a toothless smile. She smiled. It was a dark smile, an ancient smile, and I thought again of that paperweight and the soft spot on her skull.
It was worse when she crawled. She always wanted to be at my side. She came to my feet while I sat in the rocking chair, her hair a puffy black cloud around her face, and opened her mouth to grin that foul grin with two sharp little teeth. I didn't pick her up, and she never cried.
She became as quiet a toddler as she was a quiet baby. Father dressed her in fluffy pink skirts with white trim. I sat her in the sandbox in our back yard and she didn't want to play. She stared unblinkingly at the sun as I sat in the shade. I wanted her delicate skin to burn. I wanted to watch it turn red and crisp and boil.
I left her on the hot sand and hid in my room so I wouldn't hear her cries as she scorched, but she did not cry and she did not burn. I brought her inside before Father came home, and she pressed wet smiles on my neck. Her skin wasn't even warm.
I watched her as she grew. I always liked children, but I never liked her, and when I held her I wanted to put one hand on her small chin and another on the back of her head and twist hard enough to hear the snap. I would do it later, I thought, because she was too small now and there was still time. Later. Always later.
It wasn't long before she dressed herself. Father insisted I needed to take her shopping, and she selected her clothing. It was all black or blood red, but she never touched anything gold. For her birthdays I got her a little necklace, bright pure gold, and I put it on her. She screamed, and with her short nails clawed at her throat and Father made me take it off.
She still liked me. She sat on my lap when I read during the day, and knelt by the computer when I tried to ignore her, her large dark eyes just staring at me. And smiling.
She didn't go to school, nor did she learn from Father. She taught herself, reading what Father told her to read and writing what Father told her to write, but her real education came from the things she did when nobody watched.
I found the first one when she was seven: a little mockingbird pinned to the bark of a tree with one of her ruby-encrusted hairpins. Dried blood caked its feathers like stigmata. It was still twitching when I took it down. I held the bird like I held her, and watched the blood flow over my hands until it finally stopped moving. I buried it under her childhood sandbox.
She sat by me while we ate Father's lasagna at dinner that night. Father lectured us about his work that day, and she nodded along as though she was listening, but her eyes stayed on me. She smiled like she had when she was a baby. Her teeth were white and her lips were dark red. It looked like the blood of the jay.
Later. I'd have time to kill her later. I would pin her hands to the tree and slit her throat quickly. I'd wait until she bled dry from her hands before the actual cutting, and then I would bury her somewhere under the moon she admired so much. Her pale dark eyes would close, and she would never look at me again. She would not suffer like the bird had.
She grew curves, her breasts before her hips, and her cheeks hollowed out. Her dark eyes grew darker, her black hair blacker, and still she loved me. I found the cat under my bedroom window, stomach slit from its genitalia to its chin with its innards artfully arranged amongst the flowers. They were concentric circles, perfect and bloody.
Boys asked her out. Girls asked her out. She never said yes, and she spent her nights with me while I watched television, while I cooked and ate dinner, while I cleaned the house. She didn't often speak. I saw the words in her eyes and her movements. She seduced me with her silence in its infuriating grace, and I wondered if she seduced the animals with her sweet princess charms before the slaughtered.
She finally grew to the age I'd been when I'd first found the bird. She dressed like a slut, the little tease. Children came to our door asking if I had seen their lost dog, and I said no. But I knew she had buried it by the river. She took her kills further away as she got bigger and could walk further.
Father died that year. The police didn't know what happened to him. I found him in the forest, his skin eaten away by animals and his skull bleached by the golden sun.
Later would be too late.
I studied her long legs and slim waist and sturdy arms. She could match me now. She was too fast, too strong. I'd have to do what I had to do while she slept.
I went into her room, where she slept on her back tangled in silk sheets. Her bare breasts reflected the moonlight splashed through the window. I thought of the grinning baby, the grinning toddler, and even in sleep I thought she grinned at me.
She didn't wake when I took the paring knife and the nails from the kitchen. She didn't wake when I straddled her hips, looking down at her blank face. Her black hair made soft circles around her head, like the cat's guts. I would slit her open like she had slit open the cat, and crucify her like she crucified the bird, and bury my knife in her stomach like she did to Father.
She finally roused when I nailed her palms to her bedside tables. Her eyes were wide, afraid, but I put my hand over her mouth to keep her silent. She tried to bite me when I shifted to smooth my hand over her sweaty brow.
I knew then that I had always waited---later, always later---because I loved her.
It's for the best, I told her.
She shook her head. No.
I pressed the knife into her blossoming vulva, where black curls opened to the slit between her thighs, and sawed it up her gut and stomach and chest. I had to press harder on her breastbone, but it eventually cracked, and I slipped the blade along her cheeks to give her a final bloody smile.
Her eyes were open, but she didn't shake her head or try to fight anymore. Blood dried on her hands like it did on the mockingbird's wings. I could see the way she had cradled it lovingly while she tacked down its limbs. I could imagine how she spread the cat's stomach and intestines in the flower bush. I could even see how Father had died, how he had begged, and how he asked for her to spare me. Or had he begged me to spare her? It was all too confusing. I couldn't tell anymore.
It's for the best, I wanted to tell her again. But now she was gone.
There was something wrong with her.
The Reaver
© 2011
All rights reserved.
Edited by M.T. Murphy
Krel went to his private gallery to think. He walked among the delicate hovering globes and tapped the thin glass with an extended claw. The souls within shimmered as a perfect tone echoed off the stone walls. Each orb would produce a different note, dependent not on its shell, but the timbre of the human life within.
As he stood in the centre of the chamber, he recalled the taking of each one. The only pleasure that exceeded visiting his collection was expanding it by harvesting new human ore.
The newest of his collection still struggled within their confinement. He stroked the cool glass with the dark green flesh of his palm and heard the magical echo of two voices. A smile played across his gnarled lips. When he had coaxed the female's essence from her body, another tiny flicker came with it. She'd been with child. The challenge had delighted him: how to encase two as one, and yet still keep the casing thin and the sound clear. It had been tried before, always with disastrous outcomes. But no two souls were as intimately connected as a mother and child, and his triumphant artistry had stunned everyone who'd seen it. They swirled together, blending their blue and golden light, then flew apart as though dancing. It filled him with pure delight. He had considered giving this one to the clan warchief, but found he could not part with the pair.
His thoughts of the warchief reminded Krel of the summons he'd received. The hour had come to attend his patron. He turned toward the door, bracing himself for the meeting ahead. His heavy boots thudded against the stone floor as he strode with purpose to the stairwell.
His thoughts lingered on his collection, distracting him to the point of obsession. He nearly collided with his daughter at the top of the stairs.
Krel's heart swelled with pride at how beautiful Ruygret had become. Her black hair hung over her shoulder in a braid that reached her waist, making her the spitting image of her mother. Krel thought of his lost mate often since her death in the Battle of Curtol six years before.
"Father," Ruygret said. "I want to bring my new pet to live in my rooms, but Hyug won't allow it in the house without your consent."
Krel scowled. "Another? But what about Crush?"
Ruygret met his eyes fiercely. "My wolf died nearly a year ago, father. I told you. The new pet needs more attention. It gets bored tied up outside all day."
A pang of remorse shot through him. He'd neglected Ruygret since her mother died, but his work had helped fill the gap left by his wife's death. His collection had grown to number in the hundreds. If he sold it, he could retire in comfort and buy his daughter a legion of her own bonded warriors. But he knew he couldn't part with any of his creations. He found it difficult enough to offer the required occasional tribute to the warchief.
"So I'll tell Hyug it's all right with you," Ruygret said, bringing him back to the moment.
"Why would he say no? Hyug is our servant, not you his."
She shrugged. "He worried the noise might disturb you. The creature is not fully trained and it tends to howl at night. But I think having it inside will help."
"I must attend the warchief," Krel said absently.
"So I have your permission then." A statement, not a question.
"Yes, my heart," Krel said and started to go, but paused at the archway leading out. "Keep it on a leash until it's domesticated." He shuddered as he imagined the wolf, or perhaps a werecat cub, clambering around in his gallery.
"Thank you, father," she called as he walked away.
The conversation was forgotten within moments, and he considered the meeting ahead. The warchief possessed ten of Krel's orbs. Not his finest. Those, Krel kept for himself. None could match his rate of success or the complexity he achieved in his designs. Reavers were not the only artists of their race, but they were the most sought-after. The powerful wanted soul-orbs decorating their strongholds, reminding visitors not only of their wealth, but of their hand in the subjugation of the indigenous humans.
Krel climbed the long, stone staircase that led into the warchief's stronghold. Scarred and battle-worn warriors stood guard at intervals, their marred and tangled faces showing that the warchief's legion was the one to be feared above all others.
The audience chamber had an immense fire burning in the centre of its dome-shaped space. The flames burned blue, fuelled by magic. At the back of the room, the warchief sat on a raised crescent-shaped dais, looking glorious in full battle armour, with his black hair pulled into a top-knot. His face broke into a snarling grin when Krel stepped forward. "There you are," he said with an excitement that made Krel wary.
The reaver followed the path around the fire and approached the iron throne. He knelt, as was customary in such a formal setting. "Warchief," he said with a fist over his heart.
"Come," the warchief replied. "Stand beside me."
Krel dared not hesitate. He rose and stood to the warchief's left and slightly behind the throne. "How may I serve you this day?" he growled.
Instead of answering, the warchief bellowed, "Bring the prisoner!" His voice echoed in the huge chamber, and the magical fire leapt and crackled in response.
A grated wooden door on the left side of the chamber groaned as two warriors worked a crank and chain to draw it open. It led to the dungeons many floors below, in the base of the stronghold. A female warrior emerged from behind the rising portcullis. She dragged a small human behind her by one leg. It wore with a filthy satin gown, and its tangled chestnut hair was adorned with sagging ribbons. Its face was purple with bruises, and dried blood caked around its mouth.
The warchief roared. His dark eyes flashed as he extended a claw toward the guard. "I told you to keep it alive."
The warrior dropped the human's leg and then prodded it none-too-gently with a toe. "Get up," she hissed. When the prisoner didn't move, her green skin flushed darkly. "It's unconscious. The humans are not strong." She strode back toward the iron grate and passed through it, returning moments later with a bucket of foul water.
Krel couldn't take his eyes off the human. He must have been called for a commission. In the past, he'd always chosen the subject for his art. Every human soul had a different quality. Some spoke to his sense of beauty, some did not.
The water splashed all the way to the bottom of the dais. The human choked and spluttered, and the guard grabbed its hair, forcing it to kneel on all fours with its head up. "See?" the guard said. "It breathes."
The warchief turned to Krel, his eyes shining. "I want the largest globe you've ever done. Can you add etching to the glass without ruining the tone? I want it suspended here." He pointed a gnarled finger toward the centre of the room, above the fire.
Krel stared at the human, entranced, and inched down the stone steps. "A glaze on the glass will give a better effect than etching," he murmured absently.
"The soul of a princess." The warchief barked a laugh. "It was captured in Guitanmarsh. A rare find, wouldn't you say? It will be like a beautiful shining jewel, yet it will strike fear in their rebellious hearts. How long will the process take?"
The human shook, whether from fear or shock, Krel didn't know. "Stand it up," he said to the guard as he closed the last few steps toward the pair.
"No human stands before the warchief," the guard growled.
Krel glanced over his shoulder at his patron. "The time required depends how complex its strands are. I need to examine it."
"Do as the reaver wishes," the warchief said, leaning forward on his iron throne, watching eagerly as the guard lifted the young human to its feet.
Krel began his inspection. With a ceremonial knife he kept on his belt, he cut away the filthy fabric wrapped around it, baring the skin down to its navel. The human trembled, but held itself as still as it could as long as the blade was next to its pink flesh. Krel slipped the knife back into its sheath.
Something wet hit his face. He looked up in disbelief. The thing had spit in his face. It began a stream of the high-pitched babble language the primitive creatures spoke. Its legs flailed forward, tiny kicks landing on Krel's hardened muscles like the slaps of an infant. "Restrain it," he said.
"Does it need to be conscious?" the guard said, sounding hopeful.
Krel shook his head. "Just alive."
The guard delivered a heavy blow to the side of the princess' head, and its movements stopped immediately. Green hands as hard as steel held the human upright while Krel continued his examination. He retrieved a thin glass bar from his belt-pouch. He had created the divining rod with the same enchantment he would use to make the orb. Running it along the path from the chest bone down to the navel, he began to delve, looking for the seat of the human's soul. The strand presented itself quickly. There was only one.
Krel shook his head with disappointment. The creature's soul was simple, plain, uninteresting. Worse than that, it was unworthy. He sighed.
"There is a problem?" the warchief asked.
"I do not think this subject will yield an adornment worthy of your hall."
The warchief's fist banged against the arm of his throne. "It is a princess. It is adored above all other humans. It is my prize," he shouted.
"It is ugly," Krel said, looking deeper, hoping against hope his first inspection would have proved wrong.
"Of course it is ugly," the warchief grumbled. "It is human. It's the soul orb I want." He paused. "Eight thousand crescents."
Krel glanced up. Eight thousand was ten times more than he'd been paid for his best piece. He could see the warchief was determined to have his way. Krel would have to do it. He could extract and preserve such a simple soul in less than an hour, but he had to find a way to craft it into a piece worthy of the clan leader. "I need four days," he said, looking at the frail pink creature in front of him.
"Good!" The warchief bellowed a laugh. "Take the human to my reaver's work chamber." To Krel, he added in a low voice, "A delegation from the Grem clan will be here in three days. I want the orb ready before they arrive." His eyes glowed yellow, and his teeth bared into a menacing smile. "For eight thousand crescents, I expect miracles."
Krel thumped his fist to his chest and lowered his eyes with respect. But his thoughts were tortured and dark. He didn't know how he could deliver what was required, but he had no choice. The last one to disappoint the clan leader ended up hanging on a row of spikes while ravens picked at his body for the five days it took him to die.
The guard dragged the human behind Krel, and they walked together in silence to his workshop in the lower floor of his home. The guard waited until Krel strapped the subject to a stone table in the centre of the room before taking her leave. Krel stared at the tangled mess of humanity and sighed. His divining rod in hand, he ran it over the princess' body again, looking at the pathetic, simple, muddy soul. He didn't know where to begin.
A screech like that of a demon harpy startled him out of his reverie. It came from above. Ruygret.
Krel left the unconscious human and ran up the stairs. His daughter was the only thing that kept him from becoming completely lost in his own mind. If anything happened to her...
The thought was lost as soon as he got to her chamber door.
In the corridor stood Ruygret, holding a chain. At the end of the chain was a collared, naked, well-muscled human female. Ruygret had a pointed stick in her right hand and the leash in her left. The human had several small gashes and thin welts on its back and thighs, and it paced back and forth like a caged panther.
"What in the name of Brogdell are you doing?" Krel roared.
"This is my new pet. Remember, father? We talked about it earlier," Ruygret said with a tone seemingly full of patience.
"A human?" Krel stood stunned. This was worse than a werecat cub. "But...what's wrong with another wolf?"
"Father, I'm not twelve any more. Humans are more intelligent than wolves. Pryshaq has one that can dance, but mine will be even better. Watch." She put the stick in a loop at her waist and clapped her hands. The human's attention snapped to her immediately.
"Up!" she said sharply.
The human eyed her warily, but stood upright.
"Good. Now flip!" Ruygret gave a quick hand signal.
It hesitated only a second before leaning forward and touching the ground. Krel stared in amazement as it shifted its balance and put its feet in the air. It kept its balance admirably for a moment before toppling back to an upright position. It looked at Ruygret hopefully, and she smiled and petted it affectionately. "It took me four weeks to get it to do that well," she said with pride.
The sweet moment was ruined, however, when the human lunged for Ruygret's training stick. Fortunately, she got the creature under control with a sharp yank on the leash and a hiss. "I still have a lot of work to do," she said apologetically. "But, father, it's wonderful. So smart and adaptable. It's a spirited beast, but we have a connection. I can feel it. It just needs more time. Now that I have it inside with me, I'm sure our progress will be even more remarkable. It'll be fit to entertain a warchief by winter."
Krel had heard of human pets, but the idea turned his stomach. He would sooner invite a troll to dinner. "But they're dangerous," he said.
"I know." Ruygret looked delighted. Krel had to admit, her determination made him proud.
Suddenly, Krel realised his divining rod was thrumming. He pointed it at Ruygret's pet. The sensation intensified.
"What is it?" Ruygret asked.
"Hold it still."
Ruygret gave another yank to the chain, and said, "Up!" As before, it stood still, shoulders back and chin up.
Krel admired how well she handled the creature. But his thoughts for his daughter disappeared when he glanced the pet's skin with the divining rod. The soul practically leapt out at him, dancing and shining with furious light. It had at least a dozen soul-strands, all varying shades of greens and pinks---wide ribbons of shimmering beauty. This, he lamented, was a soul worthy of the clan chief, not the festering sludge down in his workroom.
"I want it," Krel said.
"What?"
"The warchief has commissioned a new piece, but the subject he gave me to work with is inadequate. Ugly. This one's soul, though, is magnificent. The most beautiful I've seen in my life."
Ruygret loosened her grip a little in her shock, and the pet began to fight again. It took her a moment to regain control. "If I give you its soul, will it live?"
"You would have to feed it, clean it, and it would not speak, but if you cared for it, it would live."
"Would it be trainable?"
"No," Krel said. He knew from experience it would be little more than a shell, and although tempted, he would not lie to his daughter.
"No," she said. "It is mine. I chose her for her spirit. I've slaved over her for months. It's the best pet I've ever had."
"If I please the warchief, we will receive eight thousand crescents. I can buy you another one. I can buy you ten pets as strong as this one."
"How do you know it is not her soul that makes it special? You said yourself it was the most beautiful you'd ever seen. You wouldn't be able to replace that, and all my work. Father, please."
"Ruygret," he said firmly. "I must take its soul for this commission. Come. I'll show you." He led his daughter down to his workshop, the pet in tow behind her. The creature's eyes widened when it saw the princess strapped to the table, and it began to yelp. "Control that thing. There's delicate equipment in here," Krel scolded.
He stood over the princess and, with his divining rod, tapped the seat of its soul. Intoning a well-practiced enchantment, he teased the ugly brown strand upward and let his magic do its work. A crystal casing formed, and he coaxed the mire toward it, taking his time with his art, as he always did, even though he knew this subject was unfit. The resulting glass was small and thick, and the soul measured barely the size of the human's eye. Krel had seen horse droppings more pleasing to look at. He spoke the words to suspend it in the air, but sent it flying to an upper corner of the workroom. He didn't even want to look at it.
Ruygret frowned. "Can you not fix the orb?" She kept her pet tightly restrained, but it seemed transfixed and horrified at what it saw. Water ran from its eyes, and it made a strangled, choking sound.
Krel chuckled. "No. They are what they are." He untied the straps and shoved the princess' empty body to the floor. It wouldn't fight anymore. "Put your pet on the table."
"Father, please, no."
"Let me just show you," he said patiently.
"You promise you won't take the soul?"
He paused, then nodded reluctantly. "Once you see, you'll understand."
The pet struggled fiercely, panicking the moment it recognised what they planned to do. Krel helped Ruygret when he saw that she could not control it in its current state. She held it while he strapped it down.
"Watch this," Krel said. Because of the brilliance of the soul-strand, he had a little difficulty finding its root. He'd never had that problem before. It resisted him, and when he pulled, it fought him. Doubling his efforts, he chanted loudly and finally subdued it. He tugged the strand upwards, as he had with the princess'. It shone a brilliant gold. Then, Krel released it, and touched a second strand that was intimately connected to the first. It was a bright rose colour. Together, the two were like a fiery sunrise. "I see a dozen such strands, Ruygret. Each more beautiful than the last. I must have it for the warchief."
"The warchief has many soul-orbs."
Krel grew impatient. "You want me to give him that one?" He thrust his green finger toward the muddy orb in the corner. "My guts would decorate the floor before I could say a word. That," he said, indicating the pet, "is the soul of a princess."
"You have a large collection. Give him one of yours. He'd never know the difference."
"He would know, Ruygret."
"How?"
Krel glanced up angrily. How could Ruygret not see the beauty in front of her? "I would know." He pointed to the writhing form on his table. "This is a soul worthy of our clan leader. Do you not believe him worthy of honour?"
"And do you not consider your promise to me worthy of honour? I said I would look, and I did. Yes, the soul is beautiful. But it is more beautiful within the creature. I will make her the envy of all. She is fierce, and she is mine. Find another for the war chief."
"There is no other," Krel said, his eyes transfixed on the dancing wisps emanating from the pet. "This is the one I must have."
"Father, no. You promised."
Krel ignored his daughter, beginning his work. He chanted, and the soul strands rose up, first one, then another. They swirled in the air in front of him.
"You lied to me. You care nothing for me, and you never have," Ruygret screamed at him, but he was deaf to her. "This is the only thing I've ever asked you for, the only joy in my life, and you would take it from me?"
She beat her green fists against him, but he barely noticed. Couldn't she see? He would make it up to her. He would buy her that legion, but the warchief must have a worthy soul.
"I will never forgive you," Ruygret cried, finally spent and exhausted. Krel's mind barely registered even the sound of the slamming door.
For two days he worked. He could not stop to eat or rest, or the intricate configuration of filaments would be unwoven. The glass-like enchantment swelled as he filled it from the pet's body until it was wider than his shoulders. Any larger, and he would not be able to fit it through the door. He continued working the magic over the slack-jawed and drooling body on the table. It moaned, but he ignored it. Hyug always cleaned up after Krel's work. The servant would do the kind thing and cut the humans' throats before dumping the fleshy waste. Krel saw no reason to be cruel.
This, Krel knew, would be his masterpiece, the work by which all other reavers would be judged. He spoke the final words, and watched the gold, red, and blue filaments flying inside their glassy home. Unlike any other work he'd completed before, this was like molten fire, like the birth of a universe. No adornments or glaze was required. It was breathtaking to behold.
He cast the enchantment to hold the globe in the air, and stepped around his table. He had no idea what time of day or night it was, nor did he care. The warchief would not mind being interrupted for this.
Propelling it ahead of him through the air as he walked, Krel made his way up into the house and down to the streets. Pride swelled as he heard the gasps from the few passers-by. The word must have gone out ahead of him, but he didn't hurry. He kept his eye on the orb, and others formed a procession with him, escorting him to the stronghold's audience chamber.
His growing exhaustion loomed as he placed it high above the fire, and a murmur spread all around him. There must have been a crowd of at least a hundred there now. Only once the piece was mounted in its place of honour did Krel meet the eyes of the warchief. The clan leader stood and inclined his head to Krel, slowly placing his fist over his heart. "I told you it would be magnificent," he said, and the crowd cheered.
There would be a feast in his honour, he vaguely heard the clan leader proclaim. Now that he'd released the orb, the price of such magic took its toll, and Krel staggered back. Someone, he wasn't certain who, escorted him away from the stronghold and to his own front door. He was in a daze. Tired, but happy, and so proud. Only the moment of Ruygret's birth had ever made him feel so complete. She was his heart, as he so often told her.
He reflected that he would have to find a way to make this up to her. He should speak to her now, before he did anything else. He owed her at least that. Hyug met him in the entryway. "Where is Ruygret?" Krel said. "I need to talk to her right away."
"Krel," Hyug began. "She left two days ago. I came to your workshop and told you, remember?"
"What?" Krel thought back. Of course he didn't remember. Everyone knew he couldn't think about anything else while he was working.
"She left for the homelands. She said to tell you she was going to live with your wife's sister until she got settled."
Krel looked up sharply. "She's gone?"
Hyug looked down. "The convoy she travelled with was attacked by a wild pack of humans, hundreds of them. I was told she fought bravely." He hesitated, his voice strangely quiet. "They brought her back this morning."
For a moment, hope threatened to break through. "Where is she?"
"Krel, you don't want to see her like this." He stood in respectful silence a moment before adding, "Don't worry about the details. I'll arrange the rites. She will have a magnificent procession into the afterlife."
Krel staggered away, not hearing anything more. "My beautiful Ruygret," he wailed.
With tumbling steps he made his way down to his private gallery, which was situated just across from his workroom. The many orbs around him vibrated, as though shaking with the grief that washed over him.
Why? Why his Ruygret? Over a human? Was his crime so severe that he deserved to lose his only child? Yes, he'd wronged her, but he could have made it up to her, if only she'd given him the chance. She'd told him many times he was obsessed with his work, but it was only because she couldn't see what he did. If only she would see his point of view for once.
He sank to the ground, sitting on the cold stone, surrounded by his creations. "My heart," he said to the air. "Ruygret, my heart is gone." He slumped, and something within him broke.
His race did not have the same kind of soul humans did. They were not so simple as the weak, pink creatures. They could not be confined to an orb of conjured glass to decorate the walls of a conquering race. Krel's last words were an enchantment. Like a human without a soul, one of his kind without a heart could have no true life. He went slack.
The soul-orbs vibrated even harder, and the most delicate ones shattered instantly. A spray of colour churned before scattering in an invisible wind. The glass of the larger ones exploded outward like fireworks. Even the squat, ugly orb that held the princess' soul dropped to the ground, cracking as it hit the stone floor. But instead of disappearing, the soul dust made its way back to the princess' inert body.
The last orb to break was the masterpiece over the warchief's fire. All in the chamber looked up as it rumbled and shook with the force of an earthquake. The strands of the pet's soul flew out together, creating a firestorm like nothing any of them had ever seen. It was tragic, beautiful, and devastating. The warchief roared as the light of a hundred suns flared before his throne. Then a multitude of light-ribbons wisped their way through the air toward Krel's workshop.
Krel's heart, his spirit was gone. He did not see the dark sand enter the princess' body, nor the brilliant filaments that flew through the air into the workshop only moments later. No one heard the human's voice as it groaned, and no one saw the body rise, then release the now-conscious warrior woman strapped to the table. Krel did not see the human pet staggering toward him, naked, disoriented, and armed with his ceremonial knife. He did not feel it when the human cut his throat. He also did not have the consciousness to be grateful that the pet, too, saw no reason to be cruel.
LUX
© 2011
All rights reserved.
Edited by Ian Sharmon
It always rained on nights like this. The girl's hair hung like ribbons from her ponytail and her clothes were clinging to her like the hands of dead men.
It had been a long game of hide-and-seek through the maze of rubbish-strewn alleys. The monster was fast, faster than his bulk should have allowed, and he could smell her. Even in the rain, and more so now that it had stopped.
The girl was getting tired. Monsters don't get tired. They shake droplets off their rough fur and they keep going.
Without the relentless curtain of water, the chase moved to higher ground.
Up a rusty ladder bolted to a crumbling red-brick wall.
She was a fast climber, and nearly silent in her soft running shoes, but the monster could jump, powerful leaps from impossible muscles and the flesh-rending grip of dirty claws.
He smelled like a wet dog. He always did.
She found a place to rest, upwind from a smoking chimney to mask her scent. Her fingers worked fast, blind, from memory, while he searched for her, panting with bloodlust and anxiety.
The Beast stomped past her, performing what passed for stealth in his mind.
"I can smell you, little girl. All your juicy sweetness," he smacked his lips. "Come on, what do you say? Just a taste, huh? You've been thinking about it too, you dirty cherry pie."
He was provoking her now, in his clumsy way, baiting her to take a false step. She had no doubt that he had caught her scent, but it was diffused by the wind and the smoke, or his fingers would have been around her throat already. One hand would suffice to encircle her delicate neck, the pressure of his thumb crushing her larynx.
He was moving again, unable to stay still, pumped high on adrenaline. He moved away from her hiding place.
She stripped off her shirt, stood up without a sound and threw it across the roof.
It fell, with barely a wet thud, as far from him as it was from her, but he spun around, quicker than a creature of his size had a right to be, called not by the noise, but by the scent hitting his fine-tuned senses. He could taste her on every breath.
With a hungry growl, he leapt towards his prey, cornering it. The little mound of cloth had fallen in the shadows and it took him a few minutes to locate the focal point. The slates cracked like eggshells under his enormous boots.
Her trick was short-lived. The Beast picked up the shirt with a low growl, jagged claws tearing the thin fabric.
Behind, the girl made a noise, a calculated high whistle, and he spun around, ready to pounce.
She stood on a low wall, the crossbow in her hands aimed at him. As he remained in the shadows of the roof, she occupied the light, her clear blue eye following the straight line of the arrow to her prey at the end of it, as if an invisible thread was tied already between her arrow and his heart.
The sight of her naked torso was enough to give him pause, a breathless second, a gasp of surprise that forfeited his life.
The arrow whistled through air and smoke, a semitone higher than the hunter's call.
\*\*\*\*\*
The Beast had been a dead man for years.
Or he should have been. His agonizing body was stolen away, bought and sold like a horse for dog food. He woke up in a regeneration tank covered in runes and pigeon blood. No peace and no grave, his flesh changed forever, pumped and stitched, a beast of skin.
Spooked by the malevolent intelligence in his yellow eyes, the investors demanded termination. The Doctor, in a rage, packed up his creatures and went underground.
\*\*\*\*\*
Everything is sound. The twang of the string, the whistle of the bolt, the dull thump as it hits his chest, fur, skin, bone, flesh. It doesn't stop until its silver-laced point is buried in his monstrous heart. That final sound has a deeper, crimson tone, nerve-jangling to the primeval instincts. It is intimate.
He tried to take a breath, frowned at the sudden flash of pain and went down slowly, like a felled tree.
The impact reverberated through the entire roof. The girl lowered her weapon and approached, reloading as she went, her finger on the trigger.
The Beast looked down at the black shaft protruding from his bloody shirt.
"You missed," he croaked, with a raspy laugh.
"I hit your heart."
The girl stood above him, crossbow aimed at his eyes. His gaze ignored the arrow and lingered on her breasts, with a little smile.
"Ah, yes. The heart. It's all about...the heart... He...wouldn't shut up about it," he gurgled, coughed. "Do me a favour, will you, cherry pie?" he whispered, with the last of his breath. "Break his fucking heart..."
His chest spasmed in a convulsive attempt to breathe, and then the monster's body was still.
With the tip of her loaded weapon pressed firmly against his throat, the girl untangled her slashed shirt from his fingers. But he was done.
She took a picture on her phone, added the coordinates and sent the message.
By the time the recovery team arrived, she was far from the building, a girl with a black backpack and a retro-fashionable t-shirt artfully slashed to expose her young skin. One more on the streets.
\*\*\*\*\*
The house was cleaned by little robots, buzzing and zapping around the furniture. They always had a busy couple of hours after she got back from her trips, bringing a myriad of exciting new particles of dirt and germs.
Lux shed her clothes on her way up the stairs, knowing that they would be burnt anyway.
The sound of mechanical vacuums and brushes sang a comforting symphony while she bathed.
There weren't many bruises this time. The girl examined herself, recounting old scars. They were small, but strategically dangerous, most of them caused by sharp objects, drawing a map of her mission. Many of her prey had been close enough to draw blood. Too close, it was true, but death requires closeness.
Only those such as the Beast and his well-armoured heart required other means of extermination.
She had a sandwich in the kitchen, her bare toes perched on the bar of a high stool at the breakfast counter which had never seen a breakfast.
Lux looked like anyone's daughter. Dark honey blonde hair, clear blue eyes, slight frame. She was stronger and heavier than she appeared, but she moved like a dancer (or a trained assassin) and it made her seem weightless.
\*\*\*\*\*
Alchemic Genetics, he called it.
The Doctor's science was a mix of alchemy, chemistry, anatomy and superstition. All these elements combined had produced his monsters, and all of the elements were necessary to destroy them.
As the body count rose, he trusted Lux more and more, to the point where he didn't even inquire about her strategies. He simply waited for her call.
The Doctor was absorbed in a new project, and his faith in his own control over her was absolute.
As if all that she contained, all that she was, was what he had put in there---his own witch's brew of cruel, cold potions. He allowed her to read. He was oblivious to the pathways growing through her mind, the connections being made that had turned her many pockets of knowledge into a powerful network of resources.
From herself and the others, Lux had learned that their mutations continued to evolve, just like their minds. He had archived their files too soon.
He collected hearts. Framed pages from old medical books, plastic anatomical models, the drawings of DaVinci, the speculations of the ancients...
But the heart had no secrets. Muscle and blood, entrances and exits, chambers, electric impulses, systole and diastole. No mystery.
Brains were a mystery, minds even more so. He even spoke about the aetheric spirit sometimes. And yet, there were hearts everywhere.
A memento of his old obsessions, surpassed now and forgotten. Mere decoration.
Lux's favourite was a marble heart, an antique paperweight. It was carved from blue-veined white marble with exquisite detail, and perfectly proportioned.
Her own heartbeat was faster than it should be, faster than any human's. Maybe she would die young, or live forever. It had worked without falter till now but, if she was ever examined by a regular doctor, it would cause some alarm.
\*\*\*\*\*
She always disliked breathing in the complex. That's what they called the underground extension of the house, the lab, the cells, the other rooms.
The air down here was filtered, processed, fabricated gas that made her lungs cringe.
It didn't matter that she had grown up in the complex, with precious little outdoors time. There was no nostalgia there. Who would be homesick for a plastic cell and the hum of machines keeping you alive?
But she took deep breaths and measured steps, a good little monster doing her chores. No feelings, no wishes, no superfluous thoughts.
The steel doors swooshed open, her biometric scan a flawless match.
\*\*\*\*\*
The Witch was next.
She was one of the most dangerous, not just because of her abilities but because she'd want to keep Lux alive, keep her for herself. The Witch was one of the smartest minds to escape the Doctor's nursery.
Lux had prepared herself for a long time, studying the files, adamant about not flinching at the most brutal tests. She had read many of those reports before, all of them in fact, even the ones from the dead. Each one was a one-way mirror into a bubble of pain and isolation. She was familiar with the bubble. She had one of her own. The Doctor had never allowed her to read her own file, but she suspected that he was still writing it. His last monster.
The Witch was hiding in plain sight.
No shady alleys or trailer parks for her. The apartment was beautiful, a welcoming space designed for comfort. It wasn't even bobby-trapped, but of course, an empa-telepath has her own in-built alarm system. Not to mention weapons.
It wasn't a pristine abode. Lux found it pleasantly dishevelled, a textured chaos of life being lived. She walked into every room, the methodical exploration of a well-trained killer, getting the feel of the place.
But hiding places are useless when facing a telepath.
According to the file, the Witch could detect her emotions, and possibly hear her thoughts, from at least two rooms away. Who knew how much bigger her range might have become since the break-out.
She examined the clothes carelessly flung everywhere. They were soft, colourful fabrics. Not garments to fight in. Exotic images adorned the walls, far away lands captured into frames. The bathroom was a special place, with shelves full of jars and bottles. Modern potions of beauty. Fragile bowls held aromatic salts, bars of soap carved into flowers and powdery spheres of bubble bath.
A luxury of scents to overpower the senses. A fragrant hiding place. She recognized a safe-room when she saw it.
Lux was coming out of the bathroom when a flicker of movement startled her. A cat was looking at her from the sofa. It was a slick creature with misty-grey fur and golden green eyes on its heart-shaped face. It waved its long tail, like an undulating question mark.
The Witch's primary power was a biological self-defence. Her skin produced a mutated pheromone combined with a mild hallucinogenic to aid her psychic suggestions. Simple chemistry. Lux raised her hand and inhaled deeply on her sleeve, soaked with a mixture of essential oils to neutralize the Witch's subtle scent.
"I can see you," she said, even though it wasn't true yet.
The cat blinked twice and a woman took its place. Like her feline illusion, she continued to study Lux with the calm eyes of a predator that isn't hungry at the moment.
"Come closer, girl," a smile bowed her perfect red lips. "Sit down with me. Be welcome to my home."
She wore a lovely summer dress, and her hair had been meticulously braided.
"That was a good trick, with the perfume. You've done your homework. But it's quite unnecessary. I only use my tricks on paying customers."
Lux gave in to the telepathic pull, but not completely. She resisted enough to take a chair, instead of joining her host on the sofa. The mental fingers probed her mind lightly, as delicate as a cat licking blood.
Meanwhile, she kept talking, talking.
"And how is the Doc these days? Still strapping girls to tables? You grew up pretty. He must be all over you..."
Lux flinched at the salacious images filling her head.
"Oh, I see. It's not like that with you, is it? You're just a sweet obedient killing machine. I suppose I was your prototype. Or maybe all of us were. He enjoyed my services a few times, before he decided that I'd be an ideal subject. He paid well, until then." She watched the girl shift, uncomfortably. "He's just a man, cherie. He bleeds and he comes and he can be...distracted."
Lux, concentrating on keeping the woman out of her mind, thought of a wall of spikes.
"No need for that, sweetness. I am only skimming the surface. Although I don't suppose he allows you to have depths. No. Thinking creatures make bad slaves," she paused. "You are here to kill me. But...you don't want to. What is it that you want, Lux?" She had picked up her name, like snatching a fish off the water. "What's your heart's desire?"
The Witch's skin was flawless, creamy caramel. Her skin was her armour. No one would ever touch her again. Were their powers determined by their wishes? And, if so, what did a terrified five-year-old wish for?
"For a while, I thought you were his child, but he must have stolen you from somewhere. Do you even remember?"
Lux flinched again, and the probing stopped.
"No, of course not. You are not his, Lux," her voice sprouted hard edges. The honeyed charm had no place here. "None of us are."
The girl stood up. It was the Witch's turn to flinch.
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
"What will you tell him?"
"That you're dead."
\*\*\*\*\*
The Witch dropped her clothes on the floor and walked naked into the bathroom. Everything was in its place. The girl had felt longing here, but she had resisted temptation. Clever girl. She wondered how well-trained Lux really was, how long before she tried to break free. Her mind was full of bolted doors, repressed horrors going back to a tender age. How long before he sent her back, better prepared this time, a true menace?
Her scents enveloped her in a comfort cocoon, perfumes and soaps blending in the steam. She inhaled deeply, waiting for the water to reach the perfect temperature. The Witch stepped under the high-pressure shower and let it wash the darkness from her mind. After the initial relief, she felt an uncomfortable tension creeping through her body. She was rooted to the spot. Gasping, she looked around for the source of the pressure choking her. In the thickening steam, a pattern on the ceiling revealed itself. Chalk lines of an iridescent glow. A practiced hand had drawn a circle above the shower, complete with cabalistic symbols that made her insides burn. The runes hurt the roots of her eyes.
The Witch stood under the high-pressure cascade, screaming without sound, while the soluble contents of a muslin pouch stuffed inside the showerhead mixed with the water. Alchemy-chemistry, magic and science poured down in burning droplets, rising into the fine mist, dissolving every inch of her perfectly bewitching creamy caramel skin.
\*\*\*\*\*
Lux could almost taste the bone-dust chalk on the smell of her hands. She rubbed them against her jeans but the hairspray (a spur of the moment inspiration) had fixed it to her skin as well as to the ceiling.
From a park bench two blocks away, she closed her mind to the telepathic howls and sent the text message. In the buildings around her, babies woke up screaming, dogs whimpered, cats' fur bristled.
Her mind was exhausted from the strain of allowing herself to be read while keeping the little corners hidden under everything else.
Her own perception was perhaps stronger than the Witch's but it was triggered by emotion, rather than will, and her instinct had been to hide it from the beautiful woman she had to kill.
Her list was nearing completion. She didn't want to count, just move on to the next target, research and execute, but she was very aware of the refrigerated chamber where the Doctor kept the remains of his subjects.
For future examination. For secrecy. For Lux to never forget. Each one of them had possessed a weakness; each had to die in the right way. Some methods were cleaner than others. Eyes of the seer, skin of the witch, spine of the wall-crawler, heart of the beast, voice of the enchanter... A long list.
\*\*\*\*\*
The Machine was a nest of glass tubing. Pipettes, alembics, distillation chambers, retorts, cooling domes and refining filters, like something out of a museum. At the end that connected to the subject, the technology became high end medical equipment, all polished steel, pure porcelain and sterile needles.
It was a mind-boggling contraption of science spanning five centuries. No need to wait for a lightning bolt, though. The Doctor had devised a less capricious catalyst.
But Lux had been its last subject. Or, rather, the last surviving one.
The labyrinthine instrument slept in a long-abandoned room, gathering what little dust made its way though the air filters down here. In the beginning, building it in the farthest corner had been a necessary inconvenience, so the screams would not be heard. Lux remembered the screams.
The others, the ones that stopped so abruptly.
And her own. Over and over.
She didn't tell him about her nightmares anymore, so he assumed they were gone. Forgotten. He thought she was transparent to him, a simple lab rat. However, she had thoughts, when he wasn't looking, and she kept secrets. Truths. Memories.
She had never been fully awake inside the machine. There was hypnosis, those bright oscillating trinkets, and the bitter juices poured into her mouth.
Her memories were in her dreams. For years, she fought to shut them out, but now Lux listened to them, dove into the remembered agony and examined every detail her five-year-old subconscious had retained by binding it to horrors.
Her examination of the machine, aided by research of science old and new, had reached an intriguing conclusion. The contraption was quite whole, if slightly disassembled, but the linchpin was missing. There was a hollow space in the glassy entrails, where a key component had been removed. All she could guess about it was its size (not big) and that it was equipped with at least four connection points, where four now sadly gaping rubber tubes linked it to the system. It was the catalyst.
\*\*\*\*\*
No colour on his craggy cheeks, no feeling to his stony fingers. Dead hair, faded blond, clinging to his cracked scalp. Fingernails turned into glass.
Dead, he would give away too many secrets. This body could not be recovered. He must be allowed to live long years, until every part of him had petrified, and no tests were possible.
In the meantime, he had free reign of the dream world.
He lay on a bed, covered by sheets he couldn't feel. Tubes went in and out of his shell, keeping his insides alive. Acute scleroderma, it said on his chart.
The bed was reinforced, and double sized. His body had gained weight and density with petrification. The nurses needed a mechanical crane to move him.
They opened the curtains every day. Perhaps sun was not such a good idea.
Brain activity was inexplicable, off the charts, an unpredictable flurry of thought and emotion in a perennial electrical storm inside his skull.
They didn't know what was going on inside his head, but Lux did. He was living a hundred lives.
She wore skirts and pretty shoes, put on pink lipstick, became the sweetest of volunteers at the hospital where his family had stored him. They had stopped visiting, because life goes on and why spend time caring for an unresponsive rock?
It wasn't too long before she became his regular companion. Nobody else wanted to. When she fell asleep in the room, the nurses laughed it off.
"You are not the first one," they said, "he must give off sleepy vibes."
He did. It was one of his abilities, and now he wanted company. (Come play with me). There were many books in the room, old super hero comics brought from his bedroom at home, from his old life when he was a real boy and not a thing to be found under a bridge.
Lux read them to him, then went out and bought new ones. Superpowers and saving the world. Secret identities. Endless violence. Some made her laugh, probably for the wrong reasons. She wondered where her character would fit in, if she was one of those paper girls in sex-fantasy clothes.
The Dreamer's file was far from specific. He had been a wild card, developed in unpredictable ways and, when his condition deteriorated, the Doctor lost all contact. He seemed to have been an out-patient, which she didn't understand, but he was only sixteen then, and in his family's care. Somehow, all of the Doctor's subjects had found a way to escape the project before his results were conclusive. Except for the Beast, but he, the first one, had remained stable after a few weeks. He was different. Older than the others. Also, dead before his first treatment.
The dead remain static, the living adapt and grow. Even more so if they are children, like the Dreamer. Like her.
Lux had been reading for a while, a dimpled smile dancing on her lips for the nurses when they came and went, like clockwork, to refill his supplies and check his vitals.
They were reading a new comic today. It was about the king of dreams and his little sister, a young girl who was Death. The ward fell silent, a temple of comatose sleep punctuated by the mechanical bleeps monitoring beating hearts.
Lux walked across a dilapidated manor house, long abandoned, the gold leaf peeling from the rotting wall paper, intricate mouldings on the ceiling slowly turning to dust and beautiful tiled floors covered in dirt.
The white marble chimney was open like a door, gaping in a phantasmagorical green glow, the passageway into the bowels of the house.
She descended iron winding stairs until she began to feel dizzy.
Someone turned on the lights.
She was in the white sterile corridors of the complex. As she walked under the glaring lights there were sounds, voices, cries from the innumerable doors, but she walked straight ahead, never slowing down. She knew how it worked.
The machine was waiting for her, a beautiful beast of polished glass and mirrored steel. It pulsated, it breathed heavily, rubber tubing extended like yellow tendrils to pull her towards the chair. She closed her eyes, willing the dripping tentacles away from her skin.
"So, this is where you hide."
The boy was sitting on the chair, his face young and clear of disease.
"Why are you hiding in my dream, girl?"
"I'm not. This is my dream."
He began to stand up and she took two quick steps back. His body was covered in bandages, right to the tip of each finger. He looked around, thoughtfully.
"Perhaps it is."
He opened the door, the one behind the machine that shouldn't be there, and left, his red cape billowing in the wind.
Lux followed him, anxious to leave the throbbing glass thing behind. The Dreamer's world reminded her of the comic books she had become so fond of lately.
It was built in bold colours, sharp corners and deep, contrasting shadows.
Every sound made an echo.
The boy had pulled up the hood of his purple cloak, a new costume, but his fingers were still bandaged when he motioned for her to follow.
They walked a fantastic cityscape of vertiginous angles until she stopped.
"No. Here."
He didn't seem put off by her boldness.
"As you wish."
They were sitting at a long dinner table, a fairytale banquet between them.
"Shall we talk, little sister?"
"I am not your sister."
He played with a silver napkin holder, two snakes biting each other's tails.
"We are all brothers and sisters, all we who lay inside the machine. One house, one heart, one soul? No, no souls," he seemed to be thinking out loud now. "We have no souls. He took them. He made us...more, and we pay the price."
He nibbled on a delicate cake, sugar flowers on marzipan stems. They were too bright and colourful, uncomfortable to look at.
"Why are you here, little sister?"
"I came to see you. There aren't many of us left."
"Did you kill them?"
She looked up, startled. The scope of his power was unpredictable too. He might be connected to all of them, feeling them go out like candles, one by one. But he changed the subject.
"I see your dreams. I see his dreams too. You have ideas, and he doesn't know," he smiled a wicked, sugary smile. "What will he do when he finds out?"
"He won't."
"No, I suppose he won't. Because you are very good at hiding. He made you that way." He offered her a blue biscuit butterfly. "He doesn't know that either." She didn't reply, so he went on. " Show me what's in your heart, sister. Your heart's desires. Are they dark and pure?"
"Yes" she looked at him, and wondered how much he really knew, and if he could be saved, "but you know that. You've seen my dreams."
He changed gears again.
"You used to cry every night in your cage. I listened."
"I don't cry."
"No," he crumbled a sugar daisy into sticky dust. "You don't need to anymore. You kill," his smile was desperately wide. "But you are not going to kill me. I am dead to the world, a thing in a dream."
"You are alive."
"Only in here. If you were going to kill me, I'd be dead already," he blew up his floppy fringe, feigned indifference.
"That's true. You will die of your illness."
"It's not an illness. It's my power. Did you know that I volunteered? He didn't take me, like the others. I wanted it, I wanted to be...."
A super hero.
He wanted to be a super hero.
The walls melted into dark branches and their dinner table was in a forest clearing. Every tree was twisted and every shadow had yellow malevolent eyes.
He looked around, surprised.
"You dream of this?"
"Sometimes."
"Where are we?"
"Outside the house."
"I see. The world. Yes, I suppose it is like this. I don't miss it, you know?"
She just looked at him.
"I don't," for the first time, a defensive chink on his voice. "I don't miss it," he murmured into a teacup.
"What's there?" he pointed behind her. A path had opened and a merry light could be seen through the branches. Lux knew there would be a house at the end of the path.
"Nothing,"
"Is this it?" he was up and moving already. She tried to grab him but the beautifully inked cloak slipped like rain through her fingers.
"No! Don't go there!"
She was running after him now, but it was like fighting thick mud. She couldn't catch up, "NO!"
The golden glow flickering in the window was a Sleeping Beauty nightlight. The bedroom had white and blue wall paper and it smelled of plasticine and baby shampoo.
Lux stopped fighting thin air.
Helpless, she watched the Dreamer peeping into her long-ago bedroom. His previous giddiness had turned into clenched teeth and frozen limbs. A familiar voice, faint echoes through the walls, was reading her a story.
"No," she sobbed, her voice breaking into a croak, her throat suddenly dry.
So much pity and horror in the dreamer's eyes.
"He is your father."
"No."
"He did this to his own child."
"NO!" her voice grew into a howl that ripped through his mind. He fell to his knees, useless hands cupping useless ears.
Up was down and unbearable pressure choked them before an implosion released the emptiness.
It was white. Not a white room. Just white.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"A blank page."
"I don't like this," he took her hand. "Let's go back to mine. I haven't shown you everything yet. And I can make so much, whatever you want."
She pulled at the edge of his bandage. The finger underneath was pink and healthy.
"I have to go now."
His hands were shaking in hers.
"And me?"
"You live here."
He looked up for a moment, confusion, then horror spreading through his features.
"I can't. I can't make anything...I can't leave," he turned to her, "please....please, not this."
"It's the only way."
"Plea---"
A nurse picked up the comic that had fallen from her lap. Lux blinked in the half light of predawn and smiled at her.
\*\*\*\*\*
She found the answer in his old books, the ones yellowing in the attic. Cryptozoology was just something to keep herself entertained until she noticed the little annotations scattered throughout the text.
Dates and places, nothing more. The dates spanned the years before he began experimenting, and the locations were random towns, sometimes addresses, all over the world.
Lux knew that he had travelled; the house was full of mementoes. Now, it seemed his wanderings had been a quest. The Doctor had brought something home, something he could use.
It was all around her. The machine was missing a heart.
The blood had to go through a delicate process of temperatures and speeds, while being enriched with minerals and metals, to a perfect balance, until the immortal heart could beat again. Then the heart would pulse this blood into the subject strapped to the table. It burned, it screamed inside the soft human veins, and it came with terrifying images and wild feelings.
When it was over, the heart would turn to cold hard marble once more.
Lux used to admire the detailed work, where the arteries were broken in irregular patterns. She knew now it wasn't the product of tiny chisels, but of tearing it from someone's chest. An immortal that could turn to stone.
\*\*\*\*\*
Just as with the books and files, he had left her alone at the computer for too long. It was easy, her fingers knew how. The Complex had an Emergency Clean-Up program in place. It only required a few minor adjustments.
As she walked out, resetting every door, the system went into lockdown, irreversible until the procedure had been completed. The robots began as soon as she left. Computer hard drives were wiped clean, every surface disinfected, every machine turned off in an orderly sequence. The Doctor could hear it all, step by step, from his plastic cell. Just for insurance, in case he had devised secret escape routes, she took his biometrics. Eyes, vocal cords, fingerprints. Easy to burn.
Locked cell, knots and straps to keep him in the chair, broken fingers. Magic that out, Houdini.
He wouldn't die of these injuries, and hunger and thirst took longer than three days. After three days, the robots would fire up the furnace and incinerate every piece of organic matter, dead, alive or frozen.
\*\*\*\*\*
Lux had flown many times, but this was the first plane she had wanted to take.
The marble heart was a cold reassuring weight in her handbag. It knew her; she could feel it coursing through her veins at inhuman speed. There were several creatures of legend that came from stone, but all her evidence pointed in one direction.
And Paris seemed like the right place to start.
Lux dozed happily in her first class seat and wondered how hard it would be to climb the façade of Notre Dame in the dark.
Figs
© 2011
All rights reserved.
The black ink on the bathroom wall tells me, There is hope in God. And below that, God is a lie. And below that, Your mom is a lie and a whore. Then, a drawing of a cross-eyed stick woman having sex with an anthropomorphic teacup. I search the stall and find the word whore four times. Fag, nine times, and eventually, I hear a woman screaming. I can't paint over the graffiti, so I do the next best thing. I take the Nikon out of my backpack, and take a picture.
At this point, the woman calms down, and I finally feel comfortable enough to take a dump.
After leaving Sierra Library, I wander around and end up in Cruikshank's Orchard, sitting on a fern-patterned bench next to the girl of my dreams. She's wearing a T-shirt that says, Vegetarian Zombie. Below that, the zombie says, Graaaaaaains.
"You don't mind me sitting here?" she says.
"No, not at all," I say.
"It's just, this is my favorite bench. I love the smell of the figs."
I turn my head toward the old Mission fig tree, and sniff the air as loud as I can.
"Do you have a cold?" She opens her brown leather stash bag. "I think I have some Airborne."
"No. No thanks. I'm good. Thanks."
She retrieves a tin of Altoids from her bag and drops a few mints into her mouth. "So, are you a photography major?"
I look down at notice that I'm still gripping my Nikon in both hands. "I used to be. What about you?"
She shrugs, and stands. She approaches the fig tree. Then she picks up a moldy fig and holds the rotten fruit close to her thin red lips.
Time freezes.
No, I can feel the wind on my face. I can hear a boy laughing behind me. She's the only thing in the world that isn't moving.
"What are you doing?" I say.
"Posing," she says, without moving her mouth.
"Um. I can't take your picture with this camera."
She drops the fig, which lands on her white tennis shoes. "And why not?"
I could tell her that the camera's out of batteries, but the thought of lying to her makes me feel a little nauseous. "It's hard to explain. It's weird."
"What's a little weirdness between friends?"
When she says the word friends, I can't help but grin. "With this camera, I only take pictures of...well, bad things.""And you're assuming I'm not a bad thing?"
"Yeah."
Then she runs at me, and wraps her hands around my neck. She squeezes, gently. Then she laughs.
I laugh.
And then she kisses me.
Her mouth tastes a lot like cinnamon and little like manure, but I don't care.
On the way to my apartment, Teresa freezes on the sidewalk and points. At first I can't see what she's seeing, but then I spot what looks like a dead baby bird caught on a low branch.
"The fall broke her neck," Teresa says.
"Must have," I say.
The woman in my head whimpers.
I take a picture.
In my apartment, Teresa kneels beside my DVD collection. She runs a finger down the tower.
"You're a geek," she says. "You know that, right?"
"Right," I say.
We spend the next hour and a half watching Bio Zombie and making out. And then I sit on the bed, reading my textbook for the psych test tomorrow, while Teresa rummages through my drawers and cabinets.
"Are you looking for something specific?" I say, smiling.
She shrugs.
After a while, Teresa joins me on the bed and massages my shoulders. Sometimes she squeezes me a little too hard, but I don't tell her that.
"Take off your shirt," she says.
I obey.
"Give me my gourd," she says.
"What?"
"From my bag."
I open her stash bag, and inside I find five tins of cinnamon Altoids, an egg timer, a simple wooden box, and a small decorative gourd. I hold the gourd close to my face, but even then, the carvings are too small and intricate for me to make out.
Teresa lifts the top off the gourd, and sticks a finger inside the hole. Her finger returns, covered with a dark yellow substance.
"Massage oil," she says.
"Oh," I say.
Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.
The oil smells a lot like cinnamon and a little like manure, but I don't care.
"Don't wash this off until tomorrow morning," Teresa says.
"Alright," I say, and she kisses me goodnight.
After Teresa starts snoring, I get out of bed and kiss her forehead. I get the feeling that I've known this girl longer than a day. Much longer. Of course, that's probably just the love talking.
In the living room, I sit at my desk and turn on my Nikon. I stare at today's photographs until the woman in my head weeps.
As my hands tremble, the graffiti and the dead bird swirl together in a whirlpool of ink and blood. The woman shrieks, and I caress the body of the camera.
I say, "I'm sorry."
I can't save her from all this hatred and bigotry and death, so I do the next best thing.
I delete the pictures.
After heaving my Del Taco into the sink, I search my mind, and I can't remember what was on those photographs anymore.
And I finally feel comfortable enough to sleep.
In the morning, I find a pyramid of cardboard boxes beside the bed, on Teresa's side.
"What's all this?" I say.
"I'm moving in," she says.
Things are moving so fast, I know I should freak out. But when I think about living with Teresa, my heart jumps into my throat. Then my heart crawls up toward my head like a snail, and I can't stop it, and I don't want to try.
My psych test starts in thirty minutes, but Teresa wants Denver omelets. Then she wants to watch Dead Alive. Then she wants me to sit still and look into her eyes. Finally, she wants me to take her to Cruikshank's Orchard for a picnic.
We sit near the old Mission fig tree, and the smell of the rotting fruit makes me feel nauseous.
"I'm really excited about the Joining," Teresa says, and touches my cheek. "You are too, aren't you?"
"Yeah," I say. "Of course."
I try hard to convince myself that when Teresa says Joining, she's talking about sex. But I know that's not true. Teresa's been talking about the Joining all day, and every time she mentions it, her eyes narrow and she starts panting. Whatever this Joining is, it's more intense than sex. More important.
"Take off your shirt," Teresa says.
"I can't," I say. "Not in front of everyone."
"There's no one here. It's almost midnight."
I look around, and realize that she's right. Outside of our nest of candlelight, we're surrounded by darkness. I remove my Cthulhu T-shirt.
While I eat my tuna salad sandwich, Teresa opens a simple wooden box, and sticks two fingers inside. Her fingers returns, covered with a luminous purple substance.
"Massage oil," she says.
"Oh," I say.
Teresa rubs the oil into my chest.
The oil smells a lot like rotten eggs and a little like ant poison, but I don't care.
"Don't wash this off," Teresa says, and sets the egg timer beside her. "You'll fully absorb the oil in about ten minutes."
"Alright," I say.
Teresa lies down with her head on my lap. I caress her hair. Sweat pours from my face.
"Do you love me?" Teresa says.
"Of course," I say.
"How much?"
"So much it hurts. The oil you put on me feels like a thousand angry fire ants."
"You're sweet."
After Teresa's egg timer goes off, she stops kissing me and says, "Happy anniversary."
I laugh. "What?"
Her smile withers. "You really don't remember, do you? You don't recognize me at all. I mean, from before."
"Um."
Teresa stands and holds out her hands. I take them. I gaze into her eyes, and they're like tiny planets, full of life and death and power.
"You and Teresa were a couple," she says, squeezing my hands a little too hard. "Teresa didn't tell me all the grisly details, but a year ago, you killed her. You can't imagine how much that hurt her feelings. Her spirit screamed at you to repent, but you just ignored her. You erased her. I can't even find anything that smells like her in your apartment. How could you forget her like that?"
"I...I don't know," I say.
"Well," Teresa says, grinning. "You're not going to forget her ever again."
Teresa kisses me, and when she pulls away, her flesh rots and cracks and shrivels. She holds out her skeletal hands, as if she's going to choke me.
"What are you doing?" I say.
"Posing," she says, without moving her mouth.
I lift my camera with trembling hands, and take her picture. I hear Teresa screaming. All the photographs I've deleted over the past year flash in my mind. I see hatred and bigotry and death. I see the dark marks on Teresa's neck where I choked her. I search Teresa's corpse and I find the word whore eight times. Bitch, twelve times. When Teresa opens her mouth, a dead baby bird wriggles on her tongue.
I say, "I'm sorry."
I can't take back what I did, so I do the next best thing.
I delete the picture.
But Teresa doesn't go away. Instead, she knocks me to the ground, and gazes down at me. Her eyes are like post-apocalyptic worlds, full of all the destruction I caused.
"I love you," she wheezes.
Then she holds down my arms, and presses her decomposed face against my chest. The angry maggots tickle my chest hair. I know I should push her off me, but when I think about Joining with Teresa's corpse, my heart yells her name, and I can't stop it, and I don't want to try. Teresa keeps pressing and I keep screaming, and she and I swirl together in a whirlpool of life and death.
Finally, we Join.
After tossing the Nikon into the darkness, we pluck a fig off our white tennis shoe. We sniff the moldy fruit as loud as we can.
We love the smell of rot.
Deals and Demons
All rights reserved.
Edited by M.T. Murphy
The wrecking ball came down, the force of it blowing the hair back from my face. A rumble went through the ground as it impacted the building it was aiming for. I didn't cry for the destruction; it was a bittersweet moment. I held the whiskey bottle in my hands and poured some of the contents to the ground in a silent toast as the bricks started to fall.
"To new beginnings," I whispered. Capping the bottle, I slipped the whiskey back into my pocket. A month ago my life started over and now was the time to focus on bigger things and get back to the basics of purpose. Loyalty and duty were the only things I was concerned with at the moment. I headed to the darker side of town. Even a village as remote as this had its unmentionable areas.
I opened the door to the jingle of little bells and was bombarded by the smell of incense, tobacco and musty hardwood flooring.
"Be right there," a gruff voice from the back said. I looked at the artwork on the walls, flipping through the displays until I found what I wanted.
"Are you rebellious or a pain junkie?" a man asked as he walked in from the back. He looked like an Ozzy Osbourne impersonator with long black hair, borderline slurred speech, and tattoos covering him everywhere I could see except his face.
"Neither, being reborn. I would like this," I said, pointing to one of the sketches. He looked it over and brought me into the backroom. Lifting my shirt off over my head, I leaned my face into the massage-style chair, rolling my shoulders forward. He wiped my back with alcohol and then drew the design with a marker. Lifting a mirror so I could see the reflection of my back, he showed me that the tattoo would cover a large section from shoulders to waist.
"That's what you want?" he asked.
"Yes, exactly." I didn't move as I heard the buzzing of the tattoo gun, and I only winced as I felt the first bit of pain. I lost myself in thoughts of my life and what had led me here to this moment.
\*
If I look at you, you will see, your place is in Hell, right next to me...
I was rocked awake, sweat dampening my skin as I gasped for air, gulping in as much as I could before the sobs choked me. The dragon tattoo on my left leg felt like it had been branded there and my skin was over-heated beyond what it typically was. Images from the dream flashed in my mind as I blinked, wiping the sweat from my face.
The alarm next to my bed sounded, startling me further. I slammed my hand against it, shutting it off.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I kept repeating the mantra in my head. I heard the dogs barking, their snarling growing louder with each passing day and I ignored it as I set about washing my face.
Dressed and no more calm, I pulled my chestnut hair into a knot and zipped up the black sweatshirt. Putting the earphones in, I pulled my hood up over my head and stepped out into the icy rain. This time of year it always rained in this part of town. It was said that it was the heavens' way of cleaning the wicked. An Old wives tale told to kids so they ate their vegetables and did their homework at night, I was sure. Rain was rain.
Taking off into a jog, I rounded up Van Siclen Avenue and crossed through the alleyways to make it to Flatlands. The nicest building on this street was St. Laurence Church. It looked out of place with their rich landscaping and bright colors next to the dull blacks and grays of charred buildings and slum streets. I refused to lift my eyes on the statue of St. Laurence as I went past. His eyes always looked down on me. Judging me. Seeing right through me. Today was not the day for it.
I rounded the corner and stepped into the MonroeBuilding. My sneakers slid slightly against the grimy floors, but no one paid any attention. This wasn't like I was in Manhattan in one of their marble-floored buildings. Here the air clung to you like a stink you couldn't clean off. It smelled like 70's shag carpet, old ashtrays and mildew.
I entered room 66F, head down, not looking at anyone, not getting the complimentary stale cookies or even a cup of coffee to take the chill out of my bones. I took a seat and crossed my ankles. My left foot soon started to tap in impatience.
"Good morning everyone," Mrs. Chamberlain said, her voice calm, but raspy. The room mumbled hellos back to her. "Who would like to go first today?"
Whitney was always the first. She was a chipper little thing, someone I didn't readily care for, but didn't exactly hate either. She didn't belong in this group, but some would say she was just what it needed.
I tuned her out. Her saccharine voice was extra sweet today, but I focused on a spot of dull yellow on the floor.
"Jani?" I lifted my eyes when my name was called, my face still hidden mostly by my hood.
"Yes?"
"Care to share your story with us today?" Mrs. Chamberlain asked. I pulled my hood off and stood , biting at my lower lip and shoving my hands in my pockets.
"Hello, my name is Rajani, I've been sober for nine years, eleven months and five days." The room erupted as everyone said hello to me like they had been programmed to do so. "I was addicted to cocaine and heroin and just about anything else I could get my hands on." I told the rest of my story while barely looking up from the floor and sat back down, Mrs. Chamberlain thanking me.
Yes, it was rare that someone went to addiction meetings for as long as I did, but it was the program I was on. I complied, and in twenty-five more days, it would all be over.
I didn't say anything to anyone as the meeting ended, pretending to not hear Mrs. Chamberlain call my name as I left the room. I made it home and out of my clothes, safely tucked back in my bed before the chill started to subside. Life had been this way for almost ten years now. My probation and required rehabilitation was almost over but then it would continue to be much more of the same.
There was a knock at my door a little after four that afternoon. I tied the threadbare robe around me and went to answer it. Leaving the chain in place, I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door only a fraction of an inch before it was kicked in. Four uniformed officers were the first through the door and I was forced to the ground just in time to see a man in plain clothes come in behind them. My tiny room was a mess of activity but I didn't struggle or argue. Instead, I grinned.
"Miss Rajani Eve Aspara, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one can be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?" the plain-clothed man asked. He stood before me, his lips grinning slightly as he held up his badge.
"Yes."
We rode in a black sedan down to the 67th precinct and I was put into an interrogation room. My handcuffs were removed and I was left alone. I examined everything around me as questions filled my mind. The arresting detective walked in, breaking my train of thought.
"Miss Aspara, can I call you Rajani?" he asked as he sat with my case file and a cup of coffee in hand.
"Jani," I said.
"You are quite the interesting little woman," he said, his eyes still scanning the file. He fished out a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and lit one. "Would you like one?"
I shook my head.
"It says here you haven't been so much as a hiccup on anyone's radar in almost ten years. Jani, I have to tell you, that is odd, especially with your track record from before."
I said nothing, trying to see what he would throw at me.
"We see a lot of addicts come through here, criminals and such. They never shape up, and we didn't think you would either. We found it strangely odd that you would stick to a narrow path with everything and get your life turned around."
I shrugged.
"Not that we were unhappy that you got your life in order, but it was rather odd. Now we see why, you were biding your time." He set the file in front of me and I pulled it closer.
There were the bank statements from international accounts that had transferred money to an account in my name. My eyes widened. The amount was in the high seven figures.
"Now we are assuming you got involved in something you probably didn't want to be involved in, and we're also assuming you want the bad men that are trying to get you involved in their illegal drug smuggling behind bars. So if you can agree to help us then we can make this all go away."
I couldn't explain my predicament to him. He would never understand.
In the silent confines of the interrogation room, I heard the snarling of the dogs unseen. Felt their breath heating the room around us. It sounded as if they were laughing. They were laughing at me for believing in a figment of the night, the little leprechaun of a man who had promised me things unheard of In return for my soul.
Yes, I'd made the deal. It wasn't that I'd promised my soul with the intention of handing it over. He tricked me. It was a bait and switch and I'd done exactly what had been asked of me. Only now that the trickster was supposed to protect me when the demon came to collect my soul, he had not held up his end of the deal. The money wasn't supposed to come until my life was safe, my soul was safe. So why did I still hear the dogs? Still feel them breathing down my neck waiting for my ten years to be up?
The door to the room opened and a man entered, providing temporary relief from the panic raging within me. He was taller than the detective by at least six inches and he had a much warmer demeanor. His hair was the color of hot chocolate, eyes a smoky gray and he had a wide, friendly smile. His face twisted in anger when he looked at the detective and he slid a stack of papers towards him.
"You have no jurisdiction here Baroni. You shouldn't be interrogating her without legal counsel, not to mention that warrant was forged at best," he said turning back to me as the detective scrambled through the papers.
"Hello Miss Aspara my name is Tyler Devereaux," he said as he outstretched his hand to me. "I'm your attorney." I shook it, immediately yanking my hand back as I felt something like fire burn in the pit of my stomach at his touch. He looked at me closely with his smoky-colored eyes. He shook his head slightly and pulled another few papers out of a leather briefcase, setting them down for the detective.
"These are signed orders for the transfer of my client to a facility in Louisiana, to receive mental and physical rehabilitation at the JerichoHillsMemorialHospital. It was signed by Judge Moretti an hour ago. So if there is nothing else you have, she is to be released into my custody for transport."
The detective stood speechless as Tyler took me by the arm and led me from the room. We were in his dark SUV within minutes and on the freeway shortly after that. I strained my ears against the sounds of traffic but to no avail, the dogs had fallen silent. It was the confirmation I needed about Tyler and I finally calmed, facing the man next to me.
"The prophet sent you to get me?" I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. "You've met a prophet?"
"Well yea, he's the reason you're here, the reason I made the deal with Leviathan."
"Right, the deal with Levi," he repeated. "So tell me more about the prophet, and what his instructions were specifically."
"Not right now," I yawned suddenly feeling tired. "I just want to sleep, I'll explain more later."
Two things happened on our almost three-day trip to Louisiana. First, I completely lost my voice due to a throat infection. Second, after a trip to the emergency room I realized nurses didn't like Tyler for some reason. I wasn't sure if it was simply because he looked like a pimp in comparison to me, or they simply just didn't care for him. Two of the nurses refused to make eye contact with him, and a third had held my hand long enough to say she'd be praying for me. If I'd been feeling better I'm sure I would have laughed.
We made it to Louisiana though, unharmed and still no barking to be heard. I knew the dogs would be closing in. I was down under the three week mark of time left on my pact, surely they would be coming to collect. But Tyler was here now, and when he was around I didn't hear the barking. That alone restored my faith that everything would be all right.
Tyler got me settled in the hospital which wasn't really a hospital, and my voice still wasn't strong enough to ask him the burning question: Why, after I had lived in the slums of New York for almost ten years attending meetings and rehab on my own, did I now need to be hospitalized?
It wasn't until my second day in Jericho Hills that I realized not everything was what it seemed. There was no reason for me to be there. I was not even close to being as bad off as what these other patients were. This was a psychiatric hospital and I didn't have any mental disorders that I knew of. This was protection. It reaffirmed my belief that Tyler was what the prophet had spoken of. He'd said that Angels would come to protect me when it came time; that they would be the ones to take the dogs captive.
The prophet had told me that they needed one of the beasts of hell, a pack of their rabid dogs. That all I had to do was offer my soul in exchange for something I wanted and when it was time to collect, the dogs would come and the Angels would grab them. He had described them as being bigger than wolves and that I would hear them before I'd ever see one. He hadn't been wrong so far.
One day in the gardens, while watching the other patients around me and waiting on Tyler, I noticed one particular man who seemed even more out of place than I did. Everyone else was a mess, and while he made no sense when he talked, Jamie Sullivan looked at me and it was easy to see he comprehended everything going on around him. He would watch the others, his eyes taking them in and I noticed the smiles that occasionally tugged on his lips in reaction. The nurses spoke of him being autistic or something---a term I wasn't familiar with---but I enjoyed watching him wander around the gardens.
Jamie was in his thirties, but had a cherub face with big blue eyes and sandy brown hair, flecks of gray already shading his hairline. I had watched him every time I could, intrigued that he spoke in riddles. All of them rhymed and made no sense to anyone who heard them, but I found it rather endearing even if some of the rhymes were completely morbid.
"Is your voice any better today?" Tyler asked as he sat down across from me.
"A bit," I managed to croak out as I grinned.
"Do you feel up to telling me more about this prophet?"
"Sure but don't you already know all about it?" Something was spinning in my stomach, making me feel uneasy.
"Well of course. We just needed to," he paused, flashing a wide grin, "make sure he told you everything you needed to know."
"He just gave me the information of how to summon Leviathan. He told me that I was needed and my soul was pure, which I thought was nuts because I was a junkie." I took a few sips of water, my throat screaming at me for straining it.
"Yes, but he told you why it had to be Leviathan?" Tyler asked.
"No, not really. He said the chances that there would be more of these dogs come after me in the end were higher if it was Leviathan."
"And he fully explained all of the conditions of what you were offering in return?"
"Yes Tyler," I chuckled. "I thought I was having a bad trip, I didn't believe him."
"But you did it anyway." Tyler pulled his lower lip between his teeth in an odd sort of grin.
"Did he explain why they need the dogs?" Tyler asked.
"Two of four, three of three, five of one," Jamie said in a panic and gripped my arm, his eyes fixated on Tyler as he tried to pull me from my chair.
"Jamie what are you doing?" I said, trying to free myself.
"Two of four, three of three, five of one. Two of four, three of three, five of one. Two of four, three of three, five of one!" Jamie was screaming by the time the orderlies got to him. It took six of him to pull him off of me.
"What does that mean Jamie?" I asked. Before he could answer, they sedated him and carried him away. I rubbed my throat and tried to fight back the cough I felt at the pain. I felt a poke in my arm and I turned, finding another orderly pulling an empty syringe from me. Everything spun as Tyler caught me.
"I didn't do anything..." Everything went black.
I am not sure how long I was asleep for but when I awoke in my room, a figure loomed over me. As I opened my mouth to scream a hand clamped over my mouth.
"Shhh." I realized it was Jamie. He uncovered my mouth and handed me something cool and round.
"Two of four, three of three, five of one," he spoke softly, his blue eyes visibly upset in the small sliver of light from the window. "Demons control the man who plays his vicious game. Oh how the mighty have fallen and now evil will reign." He left my room and I looked down at what he'd placed in my trembling hand. A St. Jude emblem engraved on what looked like a coin. The patron saint of lost causes. What was that supposed to mean? It was then that I heard the dogs growling again and I started screaming.
\*
"And then he gave me this," I told Tyler, holding the coin out for him to see. His gray eyes turned dark as he narrowed them but he didn't take it. He just sat back against his chair and studied my face.
"This is a very precarious time Jani. There are a lot of things that came to pass to get you here."
"Yea I get it. I'm not blind," I chuckled and took a sip of my water. We were seated in a small corner of the cafeteria discussing the events that had occurred.
"What do you mean?" Tyler asked.
"Well, addicts spend their whole lives trying to fight urges and to stay sober. I didn't. I made the deal with Leviathan and I never had an urge to get high again, not once. Rehab and the meetings were a show for my probation and to keep me out of jail. That was it. Now I can hear the dogs all the time, Ty, except when you're around. Plus, I'm in a mental hospital when I have no business being in one. I'm not stupid. You guys are doing this to protect me so when they come to collect, you can grab them."
Tyler looked at me with a wicked grin.
"Nice set-up by the way," I said as I took a bite off of a carrot stick. "With the bank accounts and red flags with the cops just waiting to bust me on something. Good idea. Should have known you weren't an amateur but still. Props to you my man."
Tyler's smile grew a little wider. "Can I give you a piece of advice?"
"Sure."
"Stay away from Jamie."
"Why?" I asked. "This isn't like an angel stronghold? I thought everyone here was a protector or something."
"No, even the strongest of fortresses still have their weaknesses. Look at the devil."
"What do you mean?"
"Lucifer," he said the name like it pained him, "was in heaven of all places and tried to overthrow things. Look how well that went. Nothing is completely safe."
Tyler finished his water and stood. He touched my shoulder, sending that same odd sensation through me. Even though it was pain, that same strange burning, I gripped his hand. In twenty-eight years I'd never begged for anything, but I was about to.
"Tyler do you have to go? Can you please stay?" I pleaded.
"No," he said flatly and pulled his hand away. "You're safe here. Be good, and stay clear of Jamie. Things are going to be tense around here for the next few days. A hurricane is coming and we're all trying to prepare for it. I'll be back when I can."
"Oh, a hurricane, right," I said and nodded. It would be a good cover for the fight I was sure that was going to happen. I doubted it would be as simple as an angel coming in and taking one of Hell's prized hounds.
"Goodbye Rajani."
Tyler looked at me for a moment, his eyes drifting down to my hand and his lips pressed into a thin line. He turned his back to me and walked away as I looked down at the coin still in my hand.
\*
For the next few days, I did as Tyler had asked and stayed away from Jamie. The sound of the dogs got closer and I was terrified. The fear was gut-wrenching. I could hear them and if I let my eyes lose focus I could see them in crystal-clear perfection. They were big and black, the size of pickup trucks with shark-like teeth and red eyes. Their breath was hot against my skin. The heat left my face permanently flushed and my hair damp always, and the smell of rotted flesh was enough to make my stomach turn.
The days I spent waiting for Tyler to return and avoiding Jamie. Nights were spent with nightmares, screaming to drown out the sounds from the dogs and pondering if I was slowly losing my mind there.
Had I been completely insane to make this deal and believe all of this? Hadn't Tyler at least proven that he was connected to the angels that were coming to save me? The longer that Tyler stayed away, the more I felt my faith diminishing, and fear was beginning to take its place.
The night before my contract was set to expire was the worst of it. I kept waking up screaming. Tyler still hadn't shown up and I could hear the scratching of claws inside the room. The dogs were pacing and snorting, snarling and huffing. They were growing impatient.
I sat up and listened to the wind and the rain. The hurricane wouldn't make it here fully until the next day, but the outer bands of the storm were already here. The staff would start boarding up all the windows at dawn I was sure. I went to the window and stared out. Lightning flashed, illuminating the gardens. There was Jamie, huddled down in the middle. I knew Tyler had told me to stay away from him, but I couldn't just leave him out there. I grabbed a robe and snuck out of my room.
The gardens were secure within the hospital grounds, so I wasn't worried about setting off any of the alarms. I was, however, worried about Tyler finding out, so I couldn't let the staff know. I made my way out through one of the side doors and down through one of the maintenance walkways to the west end of the garden. The temperature was colder because of the rain, and I was soaked the minute I stepped outside. I ran to where Jamie sat on his knees rocking back and forth, mumbling something in the wind and the rain.
"Jamie, come inside," I said, putting my arms around him. An icy chill ran through me at how hot his skin felt. It was like the fires of hell were alive in him. I heard the snarls as I froze in place, listening to his words.
"Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour."
I looked up and saw them: twenty pairs of red eyes watching us. The rain and wind still spread chaos, but over it all I could hear the snarling. In that moment I realized Tyler had been right. I let go of Jamie and turned to run, but he grabbed my ankle.
"Two of four, three of three, five of one!" Jamie yelled trying to pull me back to him.
"No! Jamie let go of me." I kicked, my foot landing in his stomach, sending him sprawling. I scrambled inside through the door I'd come out of. My heart was hammering in my chest as I ran through the halls trying to get back to my room. I could hear Jamie and I could hear the hounds, all trying to get to me.
Rounding a corner, I crashed into someone who grabbed me and I screamed.
"Rajani it's okay, it's okay," Tyler's voice said soothingly, his arms holding me. Everything but the storm outside fell silent around us. No more hounds, no more Jamie. I held on to Tyler tighter, ignoring that strange burning in my stomach I got every time I touched him.
"Let her go in the name of the Father," Jamie said, speaking perfectly clearly. I jumped at the intrusion.
"Your instructions don't work here, my brother," Tyler smirked and I tried to pull away but he held me tightly to him. "You should at least know that."
"I figured I would give you the option," Jamie said, his blue eyes looking to me. "Be vigilant and faithful, they are coming."
"They? They who?" I asked, panic filling my voice.
"The angels. They have been trying to find you but Mammon here has kept you very well hidden."
"Mammon?"
"I believe you know him as Tyler," Jamie said calmly. "His demonic name is Mammon, he's a prince of hell."
"B-but he's an angel Jamie, you're the demon," I said less than convincingly. Jamie stared at me neither confirming or denying what I believed.
"Rajani don't listen to him. I don't expect you to remember the things you learned when you were such a young child," Tyler said softly next to my ear. "But you know I would never harm you, I'm here to help you and save you from him. There are always false prophets, the ones that try to sway your faith in what you believe."
"Jani, do you know of your heritage?" Jamie asked.
"What does my heritage have to do with anything?"
"Everything. It's the only reason they would have accepted the deal they did. It was why, regrettably, Elijah had to come to you and get you to make the deal. It ends and begins with you because of your heritage."
"Rajani he is trying to fill your head with nonsense," Tyler said. "You cannot listen to him. You have to be stronger than this."
"What am I supposed to do?"
Tyler handed me a gun. "Shoot him."
"What?!" My hands started to shake at the feeling of metal seeming very heaving in my palms
"He's a demon Rajani," Tyler's voice was like smooth velvet against my ear, calm and soothing. "He's trying to take your soul to Hell. Kill him."
"I-I can't."
"Jani look at me," Jamie said calmly. "Your heritage, think of your name, the origins of your names. Your grandmother told you when you five what they meant."
I stiffened at Jamie's words. He spoke of a memory of my family that I had buried with so many others: The parents that had abandoned me to my grandmother, the grandmother who had died when I was fifteen and the drug addictions that had come as a result.
"She said Rajani was Hindi for death and I was cursed," I said, my voice shaking slightly.
"It means dark one, but your grandmother was a bit too superstitious," Jamie said. "Your middle name?
"Eve."
"Eve means Life or mother of all that lives," Jamie said. "And then when you were eighteen you had your last name legally changed to what?"
"Aspara."
"Why?"
"Because it means Goddess."
"Yes, and all of these things mean what, Tyler?" Jamie asked, his eyes finally lifting to meet Tyler's gaze.
Tyler didn't answer. He just snatched the gun from my hands. He took me by the arm and started to lead me away.
Jamie called after us, "The demons come out of hell today, coming to take a soul. They will drag you kicking and screaming down the big, black hole. Are you just going to let him take you away, Jani?"
"Stop, Tyler," I said, trying to pull my arm away, but he pulled harder. "Tyler, stop. You're hurting me!"
"I don't care, shut your mouth or I will cut out your tongue!" he spat. His normally calm, gray eyes turned red as he hissed at me. I froze in place, realizing I had made the worst mistake of my life.
"Then just take me now," I hissed back at him.
He laughed. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"He knows why," Tyler said motioning behind us to Jamie.
"Why not?" I demanded again.
"Yea Tyler, why not?" Jamie asked.
Tyler stopped. "Her time isn't up yet, not for another nineteen hours. If I try to take her now, you'll take her. You're an apostle. I know that they've given you the juice to harvest her soul if needed. It's not mine to take yet."
"Well for a demon you're not that dumb, I think I've been fooled about you guys," Jamie chuckled. "So what now?"
"Now we wait. I keep her under my watch until your brothers show up, watch the bloodbath that my four-legged friends are going to make of them, and then I take her with me."
Jamie nodded as he spoke. "You still think you'll win?"
"Oh, I'm banking on it," Tyler growled and we started walking again.
"I don't even get a say in this?" I asked.
"You had a say in this ten years ago. You made your deal and you got clean. Now it's time to pay up. Lucifer says, 'hi,' by the way, can't wait to see you."
Tyler's words made my stomach drop. I was beginning to think I really wasn't going to get out of this alive. We got to my room and I was pushed inside, Jamie shoved in next. Tyler came in and pulled a small blade out of his pocket and slit open his palm. Using the blood he drew symbols all over the door and the window as Jamie and I sat and watched. Watching Tyler draw his symbols triggered a memory for me. I remembered something a minister had shouted during a sermon he was giving on a street corner.
"The mark of the beast!" I exclaimed.
"What?" Tyler asked and Jamie chuckled.
"Two of four, three of three, five of one. That's what it meant didn't it?" I asked Jamie and he nodded. I felt like I should have gotten to that realization sooner and I nodded apologetically. Tyler glared at us and went back to drawing his symbols. After he was done he sat down in the corner with his head laid back, his eyes closed.
My eyes looked from Tyler to the door and I gauged how fast I could sprint for it and be down the hall.
"Do it and the hounds will start tearing you to shreds," Tyler said. As if on cue, the growling started to ripple through the deserted halls of the hospital.
"We got you into this, and I'm sorry," Jamie said as we sat down on the bed next to each other.
"You didn't do it."
"No, but the angels convinced you."
"A prophet did, but I was higher than a kite at the time. Hell, I think he could have convinced me he really did have Lucky Charms and they really were magically delicious and I would have believed him."
Jamie laughed and so did I. It made things calmer somehow to talk to him.
"Doesn't matter anyway. I was dying then, just a slower death. If I die now, I die now."
"I still think we could have won this without the hounds, but that was my opinion. I'm a messenger at best, nothing I say really matters to them. It only matters down here," Jamie said.
"So they aren't just demon dogs are they?" I asked.
"No," Jamie answered. "They are hounds of hell, specially created from demons and Lucifer himself."
"Why do you need them?" I asked.
"It's like taking two armies, one has swords and the other has tanks. Who do you think is going to win?" Jamie asked solemnly.
I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think about heaven or hell, winning or losing wars, any of it. I chose to drift off to sleep occasionally, never staying out for long, always waking up to the same scene.
"Shouldn't the sun be up soon?" I asked after sleeping for what felt like a few minutes and Tyler chuckled.
"The storm has blackened the sky," Jamie said flatly.
"What time is it?" I asked in a panic, not realizing that time was slipping away faster than I'd thought.
"It's three in the afternoon," Jamie said softly.
The information made me sick and I felt the whole room spin. Jamie touched my face, his eyes intently looking at mine. I was sure I was imagining it, but in his eyes looked like endless skies of blue. The power I felt from his touch was like nothing I'd ever experienced.
"Shhh," Jamie said. His lips turned into a small grin and I felt peace come over me and I slept.
I knew when I awoke that the storm had come full force to our little inlet of Louisiana. I also knew that the war was beginning. My time was up. Tyler stood and went to the window, whispering something I couldn't understand. Then he stepped back, his face sweeping into a satisfied grin. I heard the hounds snarling, heard ripping and biting and clawing from outside. I tried not to imagine the sight I would see if I chose to look.
The window blew out first. The wind was fierce beyond the window, the sound of metal scraping against metal, branches creaking and breaking from nearby trees. The sound of the power of the storm had my full attention, but Jamie seemed to be listening intently to something else.
"What is going on?" I asked over the noise as the pressure in my head grew painfully strong. Jamie gripped my arms and pulled me to the corner.
"Whatever happens, we will lay say siege to Hell to get to you, I promise." His words hit me like a brick wall as he was yanked from me by an unseen force. All I saw were his blue eyes flying into the black as he was pulled out of the window and I screamed after him.
Tyler grabbed me and tossed me to the floor. He started babbling words in a language I didn't understand. I struggled, trying to force myself up.
"No, my Father I have not failed you. She is the chosen," Tyler pleaded to someone unseen. All I heard was more snarling and wind. He dropped his head as if he were about to be struck.
"Please take her, the time is nigh and she is ready. I am yours and am ready as well. Please bring me home," he begged and dropped to one knee. The snarling grew louder and blood started running from his ears as he screamed. I watched in horror as he crumbled to a pile on the floor clutching at his head.
Blood poured from his ears and his nose, forming a snake on the ground. The bloody monstrosity slithered towards me and I screamed, unable to move. I could hear the creaking of boards and the rushing of water as the storm came inland even more, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the sight of this blood snake that was attempting its way to me. The head of the beast formed, black eyes opened and stared straight at me.
I heard the explosion a moment before the sensation of flying registered and everything went dark.
\*
"Just about done," the tattooist said. He was quite the talker while he did his art. His name was Earl and he had a wife who was a seamstress and four children.
"Just terrible to hear about all the devastation in town though, the ritzier buildings all got ate up pretty bad, lots of people gots to spend their money to rebuild now." He rambled on and I let him talk. His accent wasn't native to Louisiana in the slightest, but I couldn't quite place it either. He had a big heart, and I figured it was why he hid behind the long, black hair and tattoos.
"I heard about the Wilburn Facility. Gas main blew just as the storm hit. They'd evacuated it the day before though. Only time they'd ever did that though, lucky they done it though I guess. It's just odd though that nothing else on that whole street got damaged by that, no fires, nothing. And only one half of that there building blew out, left their inner garden untouched. Just real odd."
I grinned at his words as he wiped off my back and handed me a mirror again. My back had a large blue bird rising up out of flames and ashes with a red-eyed black dog in its talons on it now. A phoenix was fitting I thought, considering.
"Can you add just one more thing?" I asked. "Right under the flames in script: 'Two of four, three of three, five of one'."
He looked at me oddly for a moment but complied, handing me the mirror once more. I nodded my approval and paid him generously for his time and work.
Stepping outside the shop, I realized the street was much like those I was most familiar with. I glanced back at the shop window to see my reflection. My eyes flashed red as I pulled my sunglasses down over them and grinned.
My phone started buzzing in my purse and I picked it up, looking at the display before opening it.
"Good afternoon Levi," I said sweetly as I left the shop front ready to start the next chapter of my new life.
Periphery People
All rights reserved.
"Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there," the man at the bar said to me, nursing a fresh two-fingers worth of Ketel vodka in a tumbler he cradled between his thick, calloused fingers.
"'He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away,'" I answered, drawing his sleepy but surprised gaze from the basin of his drink. "Antogonish by William Hughes Mearns. That's what you were quoting right?"
He studied me for a moment as if seeing me for the first time and trying to size me up. Most of the terminal drunks who typically dragged their sorry carcasses into the tavern this time of the night amused themselves by ogling my tits or hitting me with slurred promises of unimaginable sexual pleasure. Not this guy---John was his name. His first name anyway, or at least that's what he'd told me. I didn't know his last one, didn't really care.
When he said nothing, I rolled my eyes and turned away, grabbing beer mugs off a drying rack by the sink beneath the bar and mopping beads of residual water away with a hand towel. "Forget it," I muttered. Why try to carry on an intelligent conversation---much less a literary one---with someone who'd pretty much polished off a fifth of vodka all on his own, all in less than two hours?
"What's your name?" he said.
"Mel," I replied. "Short for Melanie. No one calls me that except my dad."
He'd asked me this before and I'd answered him the same. I waited to see if there was any dawn of recognition in his face at the words, wasn't the least bit surprised when there wasn't.
"You drink, Meg?" he asked.
He'd called me Meg every time, too.
I held up the mug in one hand, the towel in the other, gave both demonstrative little shakes. "Not while I'm on duty."
I didn't tell him I never drank because my old man was a drunk, and even though he'd been clean and sober for seven years now, once upon a time, he'd liked to get into the Pabst Blue Ribbon and then slap me and my mother around for shits and grins. I had never tasted alcohol. I worked in the bar so I would never forget it---the hot stink of booze on his breath---and how much I hated him still for that.
John nodded once, fingered his glass again, and tossed back the entire dollop in a solitary swallow. "That's good," he told me, his gaze wandering distantly toward a nearby pale water ring stained into the top of the bar. "I wish I'd never started. Maybe then they'd leave me alone."
I glanced around the pub. It was a Tuesday, almost midnight---almost closing time. Besides John on his bar stool perch before me, the place was pretty much empty. A couple of kids with greasy hair and too many crude tattoos to have earned them anyplace but prison loafed in a far corner, shooting pool and drinking beer. They had one girl between them, a bleach blonde in a too-tight denim miniskirt who didn't seem to mind the two-to-one odds.
Figuring what the fuck, I had nothing better to do, I took the bait and walked back over to John. He had that cast in his eyes, a tone in his voice that my chronic drunks sometimes affect when they want to get nostalgic or wax rhapsodical.
"Maybe who would leave you alone?" I asked. Probably his family---his old lady and kids. He was wearing a wedding ring. Old ladies, kids and chronic alcoholism seldom mixed company amicably.
He looked at me. "The periphery people."
I blinked at him, wondering if I'd heard him right. "The who?"
Still he studied me, his gaze unwavering---surprisingly steady, in fact, given the amount of booze he'd been knocking back that night.
"Periphery people," he said again, pronouncing the words slowly, carefully, as if each was a delicate crystal vase he was trying to swaddle in newspaper before packing away in a box in the attic. "Although they're not really people. Not like you and me. I don't know what the hell they are." He blinked, his eyes growing cloudy again, and he looked away. "Never mind. You can't see them."
Again because I had nothing better to do---and because I was actually caught off-guard by both his poem quotation and his use of a functional vocabulary word not typical of the common lexicon---I leaned comfortably across the bar. "Why can't I see them?"
"You have to be drunk," he replied. "Or at least I do anymore. Didn't use to. I could see them just fine on my own when I was a kid. I think kids are more receptive to seeing them. They believe in things, you know? Like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny."
"Or periphery people," I supplied and he nodded. "The periphery of what?"
John flapped his hand, indicating the room. "Here. There. Everywhere. Everything. They're always around, standing in the shadows. All along the edges."
"The periphery," I said.
"Yeah." He lifted his glass to his lips, then realized he had no more vodka.
"So they're here right now?" As he set the glass down, I reached for the Ketel bottle and topped him off.
"Yeah." Nodding to me in thanks, he took a small sip, smacked his lips appreciatively and drank again.
"You said they weren't human. What do they look like?"
He shrugged. "They're tall. Really tall. Like seven or eight feet high. They wear cloaks, hooded cloaks. The cowls cover their heads."
Cloaks. Cowls. Periphery and poetry. I was beginning to wonder if this guy, John, wasn't your typical chronic drunk at all, but something more...tragic.
I made a show of glancing around, brows raised. There were plenty of shadow-draped edges and corners in the dump where I worked. Not a one of them seemed to be harboring a seven-foot-tall giant hooded man with a cowl over his face.
"You can't see them," he told me.
"Because I'm sober."
"Yeah. But they're hideous." He shuddered, though whether from this admittance or the drink, I wasn't sure. "Their faces are flat. There's nothing there---no eyes, no nose. Only a mouth. Round and gaping, taking up almost the whole front side. Ringed with teeth. God, lots and lots of teeth---rows of them going backward down their throats, just like a shark."
The color drained somewhat from his face, leaving him with a sort of putty-colored pallor. "They like to eat, you see."
Maybe it was the unspoken body language that seemed to suggest this poor son of a bitch was really buying the snow cone machine he was selling to the Eskimos. Whatever the reason, I found myself simply staring at him. And fighting the urge to shiver.
"Eat what?" I asked, my voice uncharacteristically small.
His expression shifted, growing grim, his eyes round and earnest. He whispered one word in reply to me: "Souls."
I'd expected him to say "human flesh." Maybe even "brains," or perhaps spleen, appendix, right little toe. This, however, caught me by surprise.
"Souls?" I asked.
"They latch on to the back of your head with their teeth. Then they wrap themselves around you, make you carry them around like that while they glut themselves. Sometimes they take a little. Sometimes they take a lot. Depends on how hungry they are."
The cracked vinyl seat cover beneath his ass creaked as he shifted his weight, pivoting to glance behind them. With a nod, he pointed out the ménage-a-trois-in-situ playing pool. "You see that girl over there?"
"Yeah."
Turning in the seat again, he leaned across the bar toward me, close enough for me to smell the vodka in his breath. "One of them's feeding on her right now."
I took another look, but saw only the blonde laughing, slapping away one of the guy's hands as he tried clumsily, vainly to grope the generous outward swell of her ass.
"She looks okay to me," I said.
"Because you can't see it. And she can't feel it. Not yet anyway."
"But she will?"
John nodded. "One day, yeah. She'll find out she has cancer. Or AIDS. Or maybe she'll step off the curb at the wrong time and get plowed into by a bus. Or have a psychotic break and shove a seven-inch-long butcher knife through her husband's sternum while he's sleeping one night. But not at first. That comes later. I've seen it. No, at first...she'll just be sad."
"Sad." I repeated this, brow raised.
"You ever feel like everything in the world's gone wrong? Like you can't do anything right? Like the world is nothing but a big pile of dog shit, and you're just a smear in the fecal matter taking up space? That kind of sadness, that sort of despair---that's what they leave you with once they've eaten enough of your soul. From there, it only gets worse. Because that sorrow...that unhappiness, it must smell good to them, draw them somehow. They're always with you after that, like a pack of wolves, fighting over you, for their chance to latch onto your skull and drain you dry."
I've been tending bar for a long time---for seven years, starting about the time my mother had died and my dad had first sworn on her deathbed that he'd go clean, and then had shocked the glorious ever-living shit out of me by sticking to that. I've heard a lot of stories, yarns woven by a lot of guys far more wasted and crazy and pathetic than John. But for some reason, I couldn't just bob my head and cock that condescending smirk that I usually reserve for someone shitfaced and rambling. The in-one-ear-and-out-the-other look, I call it.
"They've fed from you, you know," he told me pointedly.
I felt a chill steal down my spine, slithering and unnerving, like a live eel dropped down the back of my T-shirt. Managing a hoarse bark of laughter, trying my damndest to sound dubious, I said, "What?"
He nodded.
"How can you tell?"
His eyes found mine---round, sorrowful, nearly sheepish. "You knew the poem. You haven't always been a bar maid."
Normally, that antiquated and decidedly misogynistic term---bar maid---might have made me bristle. But this time, instead, it only sent another of those unpleasant little tremors racing down from the nape of my neck toward my ass.
"No," I said in slow admittance. "I was a teacher. English literature. High school."
"World civilization," he said by way of introducing himself in ex-career fellowship. "At the university. Had tenure and everything."
We studied each other for a long, quiet moment.
"Something happened," he said. "Something that changed you. Maybe a moment you can't quite put your finger on or remember, but it's there. And in that moment, whether you knew it or not, a part of your soul was gone."
"My mother died," I said. "My dad's on disability. He can't get around. I have to be home in the daytime with him. There's no one else who can take care of him."
"Feels like your life's being sucked right out of you sometimes, doesn't it?" John asked, and when I nodded, hesitant, the corners of his mouth hooked in a brief, bitter smile. "Because it is." A glance beyond my shoulder, split second but pointed. "There's one behind you right now."
I whirled, eyes wide, but saw only rows of liquor bottles and phalanxes of cocktail glasses lined up dutifully along the shelves.
"It's not feeding," he continued. "Not yet anyway. But it wants to. And there's only one way to stop it."
"How?" I asked. As ridiculous as this whole thing sounded, I couldn't help but believe him. There was such a tremendous, sorrowful sincerity in his face, his eyes. It was as if all of the booze had been wiped from his system and he was sober again---brutally, helplessly so.
He leaned toward me. "You have to see them." His hand draped against mine, his skin dry and warm. "If you can see them, they'll leave you alone." Another fleeting, humorless smirk. "No sport in it for them then."
As he drew back his hand, he shifted on his stool again, letting his feet fall heavily to the floor. I shook my head as if snapping out of a trance. For the first time, I realized we were alone in the bar. The trio of pool players---along with their invisible, soul-sucking new friend---had left.
"You ever see movement out of the corner of your eye?" John asked, fishing his wallet from his back pocket and dropping a pair of twenties onto the bar. His glass still had vodka in it, but he left it alone, turning with a shuffling gait for the door. "A flash of shadow, maybe, like something's there, just beyond your field of sight---only when you turn your head, it's gone?"
I nodded and he said, "That's them. The periphery people."
He started to walk away, but paused when I said, "What about you? You said something changed me---the moment where one of these things fed from me. What about your moment? What changed you?"
He looked over his shoulder at me and this time when he smiled, it was something melancholy and lonely. His lips pursed, then parted, as if he meant to speak, but then he must have thought better of it because he closed them again. Still shuffling, the palsied gait of a man far older than his years, John turned again and walked away, leaving the bar without another word.
I locked up behind him, the heavy sound of the deadbolt sliding home as I turned the key as sharp and loud as a gunshot. I tried to laugh it off, to tell myself he was just a crazy drunk, that he'd been spewing vodka-infused bullshit he wouldn't even remember come the morning.
But then, as I started to turn away from the door to face the bar again, I thought I caught a glimpse of something reflected in the glass---a looming shadow directly behind me, standing just along the peripheral edge of my vision. With a startled gasp, my heart jackhammering in sudden, bright fear, I whirled around, pressing myself back into the door.
I was alone.
At least, to my sober eye.
There's one behind you right now, he'd told me. It's not feeding, not yet anyway. But it wants to.
I thought of how he'd described them---their ghoulish mouths ringed with teeth so they could latch on and hold tight. Again, I wanted to dismiss it---and him---as utter bullshit, and again, I couldn't suppress an uneasy shiver just the same.
There's only one way to stop it, John had told me. You have to see them.
I returned to the bar and stood beside the seat he'd only recently vacated. His last shot of Ketel remained where he'd left it, and I reached for it now, lifting the glass in hand, giving it an experimental sniff. I'd never tried vodka before; had felt neither the urge nor desire to drink myself into a stupor.
If you can see them, they'll leave you alone. No sport in it for them then.
Bracing myself, I drew the glass to my lips, tossed my head back and swallowed. Having drained it dry, I leaned forward, poured another and downed it. Then a third. Then a fourth. And after the fifth, as my mind started to grow murky, and the shadows in every corner of the room seemed to grow elongated and sinister somehow before my eyes---becoming nearly human in shape, creeping closer to me, slowly but surely---I took a seat on the bar stool.
And waited to see.
Spider Bag
All rights reserved.
Edited by Erin Stropes
"Are you ready to become food for the immortals, Lindsey?" he asked.
She stared at the vampire's glistening fangs and nodded. Her friend hesitated for a moment, also regarding the protruding teeth that had suddenly appeared. Then she nodded as well.
The other vampire groaned. "Doug, did you just rip off that line from a movie?"
"I don't know. Shut up. We're doing a thing." Doug knelt in front of where Lindsey sat on the couch and caressed her cheek. "Don't mind my friend. He's a young one."
The other vampire fiddled with the buttons of his silk shirt and avoided looking at the woman who awaited him.
"Chad," snapped Doug, "Susan is waiting."
"My name is Britney," said the woman sitting on the couch. If being called the wrong name bothered her, she hid it remarkably well with a beaming smile.
"Whatever," Doug replied. "These women are placing their immortal souls in our hands. They have waited long enough. Let's give them the dark gift."
With a marked lack of enthusiasm, Chad knelt in front of Britney and placed his hand on her cheek. He was a mirror image of the other vampire, with one hand on the victim and the other hand by his side.
Both women were wearing black dresses and heavy white makeup. If they were to be transformed into vampires, they already looked the part.
"Did you wear what we instructed?" Doug asked.
Lindsey nodded breathlessly. "Yes. I'm wearing the black lacy kind."
"And I'm wearing the same thing, only white," Britney said.
"Good." Doug brushed a few stray blonde hairs out of Lindsey's face. "Close your eyes and we can begin."
Both women did as he instructed.
The two vampires looked at each other and took identical straight razor blades out of their back pockets. They slowly positioned the blades over the women's throats.
Doug nodded. It was time.
A thunderous knocking shattered the silence.
Lindsey and Britney jumped and looked toward the front door. Their hosts jumped as well, narrowly avoiding slicing them open prematurely.
"Holy heart attack," cried Chad as he quickly hid the razor from view by holding it against his leg.
"I thought your brother and his wife were gone all weekend," Doug said, palming his own razor.
"They are," Chad replied.
The knocking sounded again, this time louder. The walls shook, and a large, ornate painting of a sad clown fell to the floor, cracking the glass of the frame.
"My brother's going to kill me," Chad groaned.
"Just see who's at the door and get rid of them," Doug said.
Chad opened the door as far as the security chain would allow and peered outside.
A man with dark, shaggy hair stood outside, sniffing the door frame and mumbling to himself. With his faded Rolling Stones shirt, leather jacket, and jeans he would have easily blended into a crowd, save for the ridiculous sideburns that dangled past the edge of his jaw line.
"Can I help you?" Chad asked as insincerely as he could manage.
"This is the place," the man said with a hint of an Irish brogue. "It has to be. But the scent is all wrong. I don't smell death. I only smell..." His eyes drifted away from the door frame and settled on Chad's open mouth. "Ah, there we go. What big fangs you have."
He shoved the door open, ripping the chain out of the wall and sending Chad tumbling to the floor.
Doug brandished his razor, but did not make a move towards the intruder. "Who the hell are you?"
"Name's Mickey," the man said. "But that's not important." He ignored the vampires and glared at the women on the couch. His already red irises took on an eerie glow. He smiled, revealing his own abnormally large canine teeth.
The two young women trembled in horror and looked helplessly at their vampire hosts. The vampires made no move to protect them.
Mickey took a step towards the couch. "Do I really need to tell you what to do next?"
Neither woman moved a muscle.
"Run," he snarled. They scrambled to their feet and rushed toward the door.
"No," Doug gasped. He tried to grab Lindsey's wrist, but Mickey clamped a hand down on his throat and flung him to the couch.
The women ran out the door and did not look back. They clamored into their rusty old sedan parked on the curb and drove away, leaving the neighborhood full of young urban professionals none the wiser.
Chad found a reserve of courage and rushed at Mickey, thrusting the blade into his neck.
The shaggy stranger didn't flinch as the metal sank into his skin.
Chad tried to push the blade in further, but Mickey grabbed his right hand, squeezed, and twisted, breaking Chad's thumb, index, and ring fingers with a sickening crack. The young vampire barely managed to let out a yelp before Mickey tossed him onto the couch next to Doug.
He removed the blade from his neck and tossed it to the floor. "Even for vampires, you guys are really weak."
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." Chad held his injured hand and buried his face in the arm of the plush maroon couch.
"That's right." Doug tried to sound forceful and confident, but instead he sounded like what he was: a guy who was in over his head and knew it. "We are vampires. We may be young, but our master is old. If you lay another finger on us, you're dead."
Mickey slammed the front door and regarded the vampires with narrowed eyes. "Okay. If you're vampires, what does that make me?" He smiled, again displaying the four disproportionately large, pointed canine teeth.
"A lonely vampire looking for friends?" Doug asked, with a hint of hope in his voice.
Mickey shook his head. "Not even close."
His smile faded and he lunged for Doug, pinning him back against the couch and forcing his head to the side. He sniffed his neck. "All wrong," he muttered, and reached over to drag Chad's head down and smell him as well.
"What the hell is this?" he growled. Then he forced Doug's mouth open. He grabbed the two sharp, pearly-white vampire teeth and pulled. They popped free with little resistance, revealing normal human teeth beneath.
He looked at Chad. "And you?"
Chad held his broken fingers tight against his body and voluntarily removed his own fake vampire teeth with the other hand.
Mickey stood and took a step back, looking the two men up and down. "You aren't vampires. Eight-hundred-dollar silk shirts? Leather pants? Ten gallons of hair gel? You're just..." He paused, searching for the right word. "You're just stupid."
"Please don't kill us," Doug blurted. He suddenly noticed he was still holding the razor.
Mickey noticed as well. "You going to use that?" He turned his head, giving both men a view of the damage caused by Chad's razor. Only a barely noticeable scab remained.
Doug tossed the razor away without hesitation.
"I should kill you both right now for being idiots," Mickey said, "but you have sparked my curiosity. Why are you playing dress-up, and why were you going to murder those two women?" He sat down on the coffee table in front of them and drummed his claw-tipped fingers on the wood.
"What?" Doug managed to sound shocked. "We weren't going to kill them. We were just ..." His words trailed off when Mickey's expression grew even more sour. "Oh my god. You can tell I'm lying, can't you."
Mickey nodded.
Doug burst into a fit of hysterical crying. Between sobs, he blurted out a frantic explanation. "It was Hines. He promised to make us vampires, but first we had to dress up like this and bring him an offering."
"The women?" Mickey asked.
"No..."
"Their blood?"
"No."
"What, then? Their heads? Their skin? Their teeth?"
Doug's gaze drifted to the floor. "No. Their underwear."
The answer hung in the air like a two-ton flying pink elephant that no one wanted to acknowledge. Mickey's eyes narrowed. Finally he stood with a sigh.
"Whatever. Lucy ... I mean, Lucifera, the master vampire of Los Angeles, wanted me to give a message to the vampire or vampires responsible for the rash of bodies popping up lately. Are you two morons responsible for that?"
"No," said Chad with a sigh of relief. Both men shook their heads.
"Lucy doesn't care who or why you kill. I don't either. The point is, even though you're technically outside her lands, you're being sloppy and making waves. And those waves are splashing over into L.A."
"You don't understand," Doug said, his crying finally dying down. "Tonight was the first time we tried to do this. We're not vampires. We want to be, but we aren't. We haven't killed anyone yet. It was Hines. He must be recruiting more than just us. He's the one you want."
"You expect me to believe that a master vampire told you to dress like clowns and kill two women not for their blood, but for their bloomers?"
"It's true!" Doug stood, dragging Chad to his feet with him.
"I told Lucy I should just kill whoever was responsible, but she insisted I give them a chance to pack up and leave first."
"Please, don't kill me," Doug pleaded. "There really is a vampire named Hines."
"Tell you what. I have to kill one of you just on principle," Mickey said. "The first one of you that can tell me exactly how to find this Hines character lives a bit longer. The other dies, now."
The men's eyes grew wide. They glanced at each other frantically.
Chad looked back at Mickey. "Wait," he said.
Doug pushed his friend to the couch. "Go five blocks east and take a left. He's in an old white house with lime green shutters at the end of the cul-de-sac. You can't miss it." By the time he finished speaking, he was out of breath. He panted and smiled, then looked down at his injured friend on the couch. "Sorry, dude."
Chad stared at him, his eyes wide with horror.
"Thanks," Mickey said.
He grabbed Doug's head with both hands and wrenched it to the side. Bones broke and ligaments and tendons popped as he twisted the man's head around so it faced backward, then let the lifeless body drop to the couch. It landed with the head cocked at an awkward angle, face pointed toward the other man.
Chad found himself looking directly into Doug's dead eyes. He wanted to run away, but he didn't know where to run. Instead, he voiced the only semi-coherent thought in his head. "You said the quickest with the directions got to live."
"Huh?" Mickey stroked a sideburn as he pondered this. "I guess I did, didn't I. Oh well. I didn't like him."
"And you like me?"
"Not really, but you actually tried to fight me. Idiot human vampire wannabe number one there just rolled over. I hate wimps."
Mickey picked Doug's corpse up with one hand and tossed it into the corner, knocking over an end table covered with tiny unicorn figurines. He sat down on the couch next to Chad and made himself comfortable. "Tell me about this so-called master vampire."
"Are you a vampire?" the man asked.
"No. I'm something much, much worse." Mickey nodded toward Doug's corpse. "Would you like me to give your neck the owl treatment as well?"
Chad shook his head as quickly as his body would allow it. "What do you want to know?"
"For starters, what does Hines look like?"
"He's unremarkable. Looks like he's in his thirties. Tall, with small, beady eyes. They're always darting around. Even when he's looking at you, it's like he's looking over your head or through you. He's always rubbing his hands together and grinding his teeth while he sits on his big leather sofa." Suddenly, Chad slid to the far side of the couch and pointed at the floor near Mickey's feet. "What the hell?"
A bulging brown spider the size of a large hand was creeping toward him.
Mickey grabbed the heavy oak coffee table. He swung it with a snarl, slamming it into the spider. He lifted it and slammed it again, then once more. The wood splintered and opened a large crack in the floor.
He lifted his makeshift swatter, revealing a messy pile of twitching legs and spider innards. Then he slammed the table on it one final time and left it there.
"Are you familiar with the term overkill?" Chad asked.
Mickey shuddered. "I hate spiders."
"You hate spiders or you're afraid of spiders?"
He grabbed Chad by the throat and dragged him to his feet. "Oi ... you. Shut up and start walking."
Chad took a last look at his friend's body. He wasn't sure why, but he felt bad leaving him in a heap on the floor.
"If it makes you feel any better," Mickey said, "I plan to burn the place down and make it look like an accident later."
"It really doesn't."
They left the house and headed east.
"If you have issues with spiders," Chad said, "you won't like Hines' place."
"Why is that?"
"I have never seen so many spiders in one place in my life. He told me it was a vampire thing. Most of them look like smaller versions of the one you just killed."
Mickey mumbled something. It sounded profane, but Chad couldn't understand the language.
As they walked, Chad scanned their surroundings for any chance of escape. The neighborhood was full of warm, inviting houses that looked lived in. It was late, so most of the lights were out. Still, if he screamed, maybe---
"If you're thinking about screaming or running," Mickey said, "understand that I'll just rip out your throat and toss you in the bushes. I already know where to go." He reached toward Chad's throat with a clawed hand, but stopped just short. Then he snapped his fingers, drawing a startled yelp from the man. "Keep talking and I might not kill you when we get there. How do you even know this Hines character is a vampire? Is he unnecessarily broody and melancholy? Does he recite poetry for his pet spiders?"
Chad didn't like the idea that his life depended on the whim of the killer before him, but it seemed unlikely he would get a better offer. "Hines has to be a vampire. He crushed a pool ball with his bare hands and climbed up the side of a building the night we met him. He told Doug to try and stab him and the knife blade bent on his chest without even breaking the skin."
"Parlor tricks," grumbled Mickey.
"You don't understand. He also showed us his fangs." Chad shook his head, wishing he could forget the image.
"I have fangs. What's the big deal?"
"Not like Hines' fangs. He opened his mouth and it stretched out like rubber. These two dripping fangs flipped down. They were the size of bananas."
"That settles it. I don't know what your buddy Hines is, but he's not a vampire. Vampire fangs don't resemble any fruit I've ever seen, nor are they retractable. Sometimes a bloodsucker will mess with your head so you don't notice the fangs, but they're always there."
They walked the rest of the way in silence. It seemed to Chad that there were more spiders out than he had ever noticed before. It felt like they were watching them as they walked. It was paranoia. It had to be. Mickey was almost as frightening as Hines, but every time they passed a spider, big or small, Chad could see him cringe.
When they arrived at the house, it hardly seemed fit for the lair of a master vampire. It was nearly identical to the other forty-three red brick garden homes on the street. Mickey pushed Chad forward toward the door. "Open it," he said.
"Why me?"
Mickey pointed at the top of the door. Five black widows with bodies the size of grapes patrolled a thick web over the threshold. "Because I don't want to touch it."
Chad watched the black things crawl slowly around their web. He didn't know much about spiders, but he knew black widows were not the most poisonous variety. They paid him little mind, so he tried the doorknob. The door opened without a hitch, no key required.
Mickey shoved Chad through, then hustled through himself, slamming the door quickly.
They both surveyed the interior. Webs covered every wall and surface. A single lamp illuminated the room.
Chad felt a light tickling sensation in his hair. "Please tell me that's you," he said.
Mickey's hand collided with the top of his head.
Chad was about to complain, but the muffled sound of something hitting the floor stopped him.
"You're welcome," Mickey said.
A brown spider, nearly as big as the one from earlier, flipped itself back upright and scurried away.
In the stillness that followed its departure, Chad became aware of a faint buzzing coming from deep within the house. At first it sounded as though someone had left a faucet on in a distant sink, but after a few moments it had grown in intensity until it sounded like stady rain on the roof.
"Is it raining?" Mickey asked.
"Seems it never rains in southern California," Chad replied with a weak smile.
"I should kill you just for that."
"Not a Hammond fan?"
Mickey growled and shoved Chad forward. "Keep walking."
Chad took two steps, but stopped when the shadows began to crawl.
An army of brown spiders flowed into the room from cracks in the ceiling and holes in baseboards. The patter of their feet grew louder in the darkness as they lined the edge of the room. Most were about the size of a human hand, but a few of the things were as large as cats.
Mickey shuddered.
"Can I run away now?" asked Chad.
"In a minute. Where is Hines?"
"Through that open door on the other side of the room."
"The one with all the webs and black widows?"
"That's the one," Chad replied.
"Figures."
Mickey brushed past Chad and moved toward the open door. The spiders began to close in on both of them, their numbers covering every visible inch of the floor.
Mickey took off his leather jacket. "Turn around and face the exit. When they scatter, I suggest you run. No matter what happens, do not look at me. You look at me and you'll wish I'd let the spiders get you."
Chad did as he was instructed. "I believe you," he said. The front door was only ten steps away---six if he ran.
A blast of heat hit him from behind. It felt like someone had poured gasoline on a barbecue, then dropped in a pack of lit matches. The spiders felt it too. They rushed for the shadows, clearing a path to the door. Despite Mickey's warning, Chad looked back.
He immediately regretted it.
Where Mickey had been a moment earlier, there stood a great black thing. It was easily seven feet tall and covered in fur from its pointed ears to its clawed feet. Two glowing red eyes stared at Chad.
"Why must you humans always be reminded to run?" the thing snarled.
Chad turned back to the door and rushed forward like he was sprinting through the gates of hell. The spiders were staying away. Three more steps and he would break outside to freedom.
His foot bumped into something heavy and he tripped, slamming face first into the closed door. He tried to shake off the dizziness and pain in his head. Looking toward his foot, he saw what had tripped him. One of the cat-sized spiders was sitting on his foot. It began crawling up his leg. He kicked at the spider and tried to drag himself forward, but the other spiders returned out of the shadows and enveloped his hands.
Chad wanted to scream but he was afraid they would take the opportunity to crawl down his throat. He closed his eyes and tried to block out the horrible sensation of ten thousand tiny feet pouring over his body.
The monster that had introduced itself as Mickey watched the swarm take down the hapless human. He couldn't count all the brown spiders that covered his body. At first the man struggled and tried to throw them off, but after a few seconds he grew still, from the sheer weight of their numbers or possibly a heart attack. The fancy silk shirt disappeared under the sea of spiders.
The monster shrugged. It didn't really matter. Chad had been only human, after all.
He took a step toward the inner door. The spiders regrouped and blocked his path with a mass of shuffling bodies and scurrying legs.
He leaned down and growled. The sound was deep and grating, like a bear and a tiger arguing over a meal. The spiders recognized the presence of something far scarier than themselves and ran back to the shadows.
The beast ducked through the doorway and stepped into the room. With a very unmonsterlike gesture, he batted at his pointed ears to make sure he hadn't picked up an unwanted hitchhiker or ten.
Hines was sitting on a brown leather couch in the center of the room. He was exactly as the two men had described him: tall and completely unremarkable.
"Are you the one who's been bullying my little friends out there?" he asked.
Mickey glanced around the room. To his relief, there were no spiders to be seen. "Aye. You Hines?"
"I am Hines, the master vampire."
"Liar, liar, panties on fire. You're no more vampire than I am."
"Fair enough," Hines said. "I have killed many vampires, but I've never seen one that could transform into a beast such as yourself. What are you?"
"Werewolf," Mickey replied. "Not many of us left, but we believe in quality not quantity when it comes to, you know, killing and general badness."
"Interesting. You remind me of a type of demon I saw in my youth. We were warned to stay away from them. But you have so much human in you that I doubt the warning would apply to a half-demon such as yourself."
Mickey shrugged. "Whatever. I have a message for you."
"Do tell," Hines said.
"Lucifera, master of Los Angeles, wanted me to cordially invite you to get the hell out of town."
Hines rose slowly to his feet, still milking the master vampire angle. "Oh really? And why is that?"
"Because your underwear collectors are leaving bodies all over the damn place and causing us headaches."
The man's expression grew dark. "Filthy humans. They just can't wait to share everyone's business with the world."
Mickey yawned, displaying his sharp, jagged canine teeth. "Sorry. Long day. I'm assuming we're about to fight, which means you're about to die. So, I have to ask, what's up with the underwear thing?"
Instead of answering, Hines held his arms out wide. His face stretched as two banana-sized pink fangs unfolded from his mouth. His body grew longer. For a second, he looked the werewolf in the eye. Then his two eyes split into eight, scattering across his face. His own red silk shirt tore as four appendages shot out from his body. The new limbs turned light brown and quickly surpassed his arms and legs in length. His other limbs grew in proportion and he fell forward, landing on eight legs.
Mickey took a step back. Hines was now identical to the massive brown spider he had killed earlier and the crawling masses in the front room. The only difference was that Hines was the size of a compact car.
"Are you afraid?" the spider asked. Venom dripped from its massive fangs with each word.
"No," the werewolf replied. It was a lie and they both knew it.
Hines nimbly leapt around the room, snapping his jaws. He lunged at the werewolf.
Mickey rushed out of the way of the playful strikes, doing his best to avoid the monster entirely. He was fairly certain he had little to fear from the spider, but he couldn't get over the feeling that such a beast was just plain...icky.
The spider struck again and Mickey moved too slowly to get out of the way. The thing's fangs dug into his thigh. He roared in pain.
"How is your fear now, little werewolf?" Hines asked. "I suspect you are ready to run away and hide before I bite you again."
The pain in Mickey's leg was excruciating. He wondered how his leg could both go numb and be in such agony at the same time.
"You know," Mickey said, "that actually wasn't as bad as I imagined it." Another lie.
The spider laughed. "On second thought, you are rather large. I may have to bite you a few times to make sure you don't wiggle. Then I will fill you full of venom and make a nice soup of your insides."
Mickey was quite fond of soup---but being made into soup, not so much.
Hines leapt to the wall, then propelled his massive body toward Mickey's head.
The werewolf tried to dodge, but his right leg was dead. He fell backward. Hines's fangs just missed his snout as his jaws snapped shut.
Mickey landed with a thud and the arachnid scrambled on top of him, using its weight to hold him down before again striking at his face.
Mickey grabbed the fangs, stopping them just short of his eyes. Venom dripped, burning the skin of his cheek where it landed.
Hines bucked and shuffled with his legs, but could not break free from the werewolf's grasp.
Mickey tugged on the fangs and Hines moved to the left. He pulled them to the right and the spider followed that way as well.
"Stop that," it said.
The werewolf saw something new in two of the eight beady eyes in front of him: fear.
He pulled outward on the fangs with all his might, like he was trying to break a giant wishbone. The fang in his left hand ripped free from the spider's head.
Hines screamed.
"Wait, stop! Time out!" he cried.
"Time out?" Mickey's own fear of the arachnid was diminishing by the second. He kept his grip on the remaining fang and tossed the other away. He grasped the edge of the spider's head with his other hand. "Tell you what: I'm still curious about the underwear thing. Humor me."
"Fine. I'll tell you. Let go."
"No way, snaggletooth."
The spider sighed. "Very well. I come from another dimension where spiders rule. Humans do not even exist. I was a prince of that realm. Years ago, I stumbled through a door at the time you call All Hallows Eve and found myself here. I learned to take on the appearance of a human to more easily live among them."
Mickey waited for the end of the story, but the spider said nothing else.
"Does that explain about the underwear thing?" Mickey asked. He shook the spider's head violently from side to side and spoke for the beast: "No, Mickey, that doesn't explain anything at all. I think you should rip off my other fang so people call me Hinesy no-teeth."
"No! Don't!" the thing shrieked. "As I said, I am a prince in the spider world. I found that I preferred to wear the ceremonial undergarments of a female spider under my armor. If my mother the queen had found out about this practice, she would have eaten my head on the spot."
Mickey pondered the thought of an even bigger spider biting this one's head off and immediately wished he hadn't. "Go on," he said.
"After I arrived here, I learned that human males and females wore differing undergarments. I found that I preferred the female human undergarments, but I was saddened to discover that this practice, while not a death sentence, was not widely accepted here either. I also discovered that humans had a fascination with vampires, though as a whole they do not believe in their existence. I decided to make them work for me and obtain the undergarments I desired before I fed on them. That way, I did not have to endure the ridicule they invariably pushed upon me whenever I would enter one of their undergarment retail establishments."
The werewolf now saw something else in those eight beady eyes: pain.
He considered ripping off the remaining fang, just to be safe, but a tiny shred of sympathy wormed its way into his head. Mickey hated the wormy sympathy feeling. It never led to anything good.
"When I was a kid...a human kid," Mickey said, "I had a little rag doll that looked like me. My mother knitted it for me when I was a baby. I carried that thing everywhere. I was still carrying it around when I turned seven years old. The other kids made fun of me until I cried, so I put it away."
"What are you getting at?" Hines asked.
"I can kind of relate," Mickey said.
The spider erupted into laughter. "Wait. I don't see the correlation. You carried around a mottled old toy when you were far past the age to know better? Was there something wrong with you? I may wear women's under things, but a seven-year-old acting like a baby is rather pathetic."
"I just realized something," Mickey said.
"What is that?" Hines asked. "Do you miss your dollie?" He broke into raucous laughter again.
"I realized why I hate spiders."
"Do tell."
Mickey jabbed his massive talons into the soft flesh between the spider's head and its body.
"No! Stop that!" Hines cried.
Mickey dug his foot into the opening and pulled on the thing's head with both hands. With a wet ripping sound, the head, along with two of the legs, tore free from the body. The other six legs danced for a moment, then curled up against the bulbous body.
Mickey tossed the lifeless head to the floor and pushed the body to the side.
"Spiders are arseholes."
He stood and placed his weight on his bitten leg. It hurt, but he could move it again. He limped out of the room and headed for the door. Webs still covered the room, but all of the spiders were gone.
He picked up his leather jacket from the floor, quite relieved to find it also arachnid-free.
The front door was open. He distinctly remembered it being closed before he entered the other room. The spot where the human's body should have been was also oddly vacant. Could the man have gotten out? Had the spiders eaten every bit of him, including the silly silk shirt? Mickey didn't really care, but the possibility seemed highly unlikely.
He ducked through the front door, cringing as the tips of his ears brushed through the now unoccupied black widow spider webs.
"You're a werewolf, aren't you?"
The man's voice took Mickey by surprise. Chad was sitting in the grass in front of the house, looking disheveled and sporting a dark bruise on his forehead, but otherwise no worse for wear.
"I mean, you look the way I figure a werewolf would look if they were real, which, apparently, they are. I mean you are." Chad let out a laugh tinged with madness.
Mickey dropped the jacket and stretched the fingers of his right hand, displaying his massive claws. "Idiot human vampire wannabe number two? I thought the spiders got you."
"Me too. It's Chad, actually. They buried me with their bodies and scratched my neck. I don't know what they did, but not one of them bit me." He looked up into Mickey's eyes. "I guess you have to kill me now, huh? It's okay. I'm not really keen on living after that. Every time I blink I see them, hear them, feel them all over me."
The werewolf was less afraid of spiders than he had been when the night began, but he didn't care to imagine the horrors this man had been through. "I'll make it quick."
Chad stared blankly into space. "Great. Thanks."
He reached for the man's throat. A quick rip and he'd be dead in seconds.
A sound stopped him. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there.
It sounded like millions of tiny beings trying to gnaw their way out of something.
Chad coughed. A tiny, bloody silk spider egg landed on the ground. The man didn't notice it, but the werewolf did. It was likely one of thousands.
Mickey stepped back and retrieved the jacket. "I have decided not to kill you," he said. "Best of luck."
"Yeah," Chad said. "Lucky me. I wonder why my head and insides hurt like they're on fire." He blinked, then fixed his eyes on a spot in the grass as a bright red trail of blood started to trickle from his nose. "Maybe I should go to a hospital. First, though, I'm going to sit here for a very long time."
"You do that," Mickey replied.
Sticking to the shadows, he walked away from Chad the unwitting spider bag and retrieved a torn notebook page from his jacket pocket. He scratched through the name "Hines" with a claw and moved on to the second name on the paper: Donovan.
He considered taking care of the next item on his list immediately but decided to put it off until the following day. The way the night had gone, Donovan would probably turn out to be a giant squid.
Mickey hated squid.
Bartleby
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Midnight Requiem
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Nightingale
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Pendulum Swing
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Sins of the Father
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Lamia
Jose Manuel Portillo Barientos
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Author Biographies
M.T. Murphy
M.T. Murphy prefers his vampires evil, his werewolves feral, his facial hair excessive, and believes that shades of gray are far more interesting than black and white. He lives in a den deep in the woods of Alabama with his beautiful and patient wife, their two ridiculously adorable children, and a were-Schnauzer named Logan.
His debut novel, Lucifera's Pet, is a tale of vampires, werewolves, revenge, sex, biting sarcasm, and even a little romance if you can get past all the blood. It is not for the faint of heart or anyone under the age of eighteen.
Blog: http://werewolfkibble.blogspot.com/Twitter:http://twitter.com/WerewolfMike
S.M. Reine
SM Reine is an author of dark fantasy for teen and adult audiences. Her most widely known work is "Six Moon Summer," which has been hailed as "fresh and fast-paced" and "captivating." She lives in Nevada with her husband, the Helpful Baby, and too many black animals to count.
Blog: http://smreine.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/smreine
Anabel Portillo
AP spent her childhood in a kingdom by the sea and her awkward years in the Spanish wild West. She then found a room of her own in only-slightly-haunted Dublin, where she still enjoys the rain.
She learnt to read at age 3 and hasn't stopped since.
She accidentally read Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal at 8, and E.A. Poe's Extraordinary Tales at 11, which might have shaped her literary tastes.
Stephen King became her first writing teacher, through the glimpses of his process explained on his books' introductions and post-scripts.
She writes horror, science-fiction,fantasy, steampunk and songs.
Avid reader, lover of horror, hand-writing fiend, A concocts stories that will stay with you when you are alone in the dark.
Website: http://nemone7.livejournal.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Nemone7/
India Drummond
India knew from age nine that writing would be her passion. Since then she's discovered many more, but none quite so fulfilling as creating a world, a character, or a moment and watching them evolve into something complex and compelling. She has lived in three countries and four American states, is a dual British and American citizen, and currently lives at the base of the Scottish Highlands in a village so small its main attraction is a red phone box. In other words: paradise.
Website: http://www.indiadrummond.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/IndiaDrummond
Jeremy C. Shipp
Jeremy C. Shipp is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Cursed, Vacation, and Sheep and Wolves. His shorter tales have appeared or are forthcoming in over 60 publications, the likes of Cemetery Dance, ChiZine, Apex Magazine, Withersin, and Shroud Magazine. Jeremy enjoys living in Southern California in a moderately haunted Victorian farmhouse called Rose Cottage. He lives there with his wife, Lisa, a couple of pygmy tigers, and a legion of yard gnomes. The gnomes like him. The clowns living in his attic--not so much. Feel free to visit his online home at jeremycshipp.com. His twitter handle is @JeremyCShipp.
Samantha Anderson
In the world of writing, you can have obsessive compulsive disorder and no one really notices. That was part of the big appeal for Samantha when she first started writing. Growing up in the middle of cornfields of the Midwest, life was all about imagination. It was either that or boredom. Samantha started off writing poems mainly, after her initial short stories were deemed disturbing or too taboo for her mother's tastes. Then later in her life however, while she may or may not have been acting like an obsessed fan-girl (okay she admits it, she was), she stumbled upon a group of online writers and the rest is history.
An avid vampire fan, she is more inclined to enjoy Eric Northman over Lestat.
She is the author of The Devil's Angel, the first novel in the Devrynne Kaine Series. The sequel to that novel is The Devil's Apprentice, and is scheduled for release in the Winter of 2011.
Still residing amid the cornfields of the Midwest with her fiancé and their four children, she is currently working on seven other novels. Her main goal is to be able to write various genres and not be limited to one type of story.
Website: http://thexdevilsxangel.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SDAndrsn\_Author
Sara Reinke
"Definitely an author to watch." That's how Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine describes Sara Reinke. New York Times best-selling author Karen Robards calls Reinke "a new paranormal star" and Love Romances and More hails her as "a fresh new voice to a genre that has grown stale." Her Brethren Series has been called "a vampire mythos as dark and disturbing as it is unique" by One Good Book Deserves Another, while New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Sharon Sala raves that the series' "bite -- and what comes with it -- is worth the blood." Find out more at www.sarareinke.com.
Alissa Rindels
Alissa was drawn to art by the unlimited possibilities to display contrast. Dark vs. light, romance and violence, ugliness and beauty; the allure of the villain. She is a storyteller at heart, as she believes every artist is in their own way. If you're partial to the darker side of art, visit Alissa's website. Browse through a collection of original paintings, watercolor, and charcoal works, fantasy prints, and unique merchandise, all from the artist.
Website: http://www.direatrium.com
Jose Manuel Portillo Barientos
A Spanish artist inspired by the classic masters and the oddities of everyday life.
Website: http://jm-portillo.artelista.com/
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