I breathed the cold, harsh night air, the scent of urine-filled alleys and alcohol-stained doorways sharp and pungent. I had followed the trail of destruction and death from Chicago to a small town in California, then on to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had managed to save a few clans, but not all I came across were so lucky. I had not had an active lead in nearly eight months, and I had to prepare myself for a treaty meeting with the local supernatural underground. The meeting was in a month, and in the meantime, I had to continue protecting the streets, discouraging rabble rousers, and communing with local spirits to prove my sincerity. I had the Fae support, but I needed the five local Coven and Pack elders, and a smattering of other, unrepresented shifters, to approve my long-term stay.
A sharp wind blew shrill and fierce in the street, and the few humans still out hustled into nearby bars or restaurants. I gazed down at the street, not really seeing anything but the memories invading my mind. Humans strung out on Djinn juice in the hookah lounges; vampires lounging in covered outdoor patios, sensuous and beckoning humans into their thrall. All that and more filling my mind, seeping through the cracks in my mental barrier. Ghosts mourned and raged along the streets, desperate and frenzied into insanity by the neglect humanity inflicted. I winced as a Syren sang, and was joined by police sirens blaring by. Downtown Albuquerque on a Friday night.
I sighed and slouched against the post to my right. I reflected on the cities I protected in the last twenty some-odd years, and the changes I had witnessed from town to town, state to state. I fell into remembering and allowed my tired body a few minutes respite from the constant vigilance I kept. I remembered the journey here, the creatures and people I met along the way, and why I was chased atonement.
*********************************************************************
THEN
When I finally reached the hotel that night many, many years ago, I found death, destruction, vandalism. Blood and fur and bodies burned, littering the vacant lot of the smoking shell. I couldn’t understand at first what happened, until I saw the Elders, my clan, our allies, my friends ripped to shreds and bloody.
Flames licked at the remaining walls, seeking more fuel to feed its ever-hungry belly. I shrieked, warded myself as I dove into the fire, and threw rubble and scorched beams out of my way. I leapt from clear spot to clear spot, and pulled as many out as I could. I was too late for them. I battled on to the room Wesley shared with Ronyan, slamming my body until the door gave way. I spotted a shape in the smoke, and snatched it into my arms. I could hear the heartbeat, slow and faint but there. I ran out of the building and laid Wesley in the overgrown grass behind where the utility shed used to be. I dimly registered tire tracks in the grass when I remembered my mother. I hadn’t seen her.
Fear poured through me. I abandoned Wesley and flung myself at the building. An explosion knocked me back, past Wesley’s still form and rocking the remains of our home into collapse. . I landed, though I didn’t remember doing so, and felt slow, a loud ringing leaving me wincing and deaf. I held my head in my paws and my world swam. Everything had a visual echo, and I stared dumbly at the blood coating my arms. I couldn’t feel enough to know if it was mine, but I couldn’t seem to care. I barely registered someone grabbing my shoulder and shaking me, lifting me and moving me onto my back.
Ronyan’s face flittered above me, and then he just… disappeared. I breathed, ragged and laboring. Then, suddenly, sharp pain shot through me and split my skull, sending me into Darkness’ arms. I did not wake for some time.
*********************************************************************
NOW
The clattering of a man-hole cover brought me crashing back into reality. I shuddered, stretched, and looked down into the street. A bunch of swamp Fae had clambered out, glamoured from human sight, and were stalking towards a small dive specially marked for our kind. It resembled a permanently closed storefront, but the protected viewer would see the dancing lights, smell warm and delicious things in the air, and if they were weak they would fall into the glassy pond of the window and be lost forever, never remembered in this world again. They would simply… vanish.
I glanced up at the night sky, noting the clouds covering the moon, and opened a small, blood-blackened door in the back of my mind that released my vampiric sire’s gift to me- an innate sense of natural time, embedded in every Fae creature’s blood. A long time ago, only the Fae existed. Then, according to their lore, the First Prince died at the hands of his lover, who was cursed to need blood forever; in Her loneliness, She turned others of the Fae court and left to forage in the Unknown World. She and Hers communed with nature, and that gift was passed to every vampire born or created. I used that gift now, thanking the Darkness and Her for their blessing, and judged it time to change my location to another protectorate. I had to create areas between territories that I watched, making them neutral ground.
I walked away from the ledge, preparing myself to take off. I glanced to my left and froze. I held eye contact with a young girl, maybe ten, maybe not. She stood in her pajamas, a little ruffled top and capri-length pants that were inappropriate for this weather. I relaxed my pose, breathing deep and slow, moving very slowly so as not to scare her. I crouched, and stayed low to the rooftop with my wings close to my body. She looked at me, eyes wide, curled hair swaying and dancing in the wind. She held a small doll in her arms, gripping it tightly.
The silence was unnerving. Her stare was unnerving. I couldn’t leave her here alone, but I couldn’t stay either. I cleared my throat with a purr and smiled gently at her.
“Hello. I’m Ray. Who are you?” she jumped at my voice, and I projected a calming, easy manner at her. She relaxed and murmured, “I’m Naia. What are you? I’ve never seen anything like you before.”
I kept smiling, and slowly sat on my rear, relaxing and making no sudden movements. I took a deep breath and whispered, “I am a dream, child. I am a guardian of old, and you have nothing to be afraid of. Go back to bed and sleep.”
Her eyes grew glassy and she yawned, my spell weaving into her consciousness and making her lids droop. She turned back and went down into a skylight I hadn’t noticed. She said, “I thought I heard my sister up here. Her name was Raina. She died last year.” I felt a surge of pity, and wove a little more magic into the spell, promising happy dreams and “guided” Naia down into the room below. As soon as she was settled into the daybed below I closed the skylight and jammed it shut. All her parents needed was another child dead.
I was about to leave when Naia dropped her doll. I looked closer and it was a plush dragon, long and dark with green eyes. I smiled sadly and muttered, “Cute,” before turning away and taking a running start across the roof, one foot up onto the ledge, and vaulted into the air, catching the low thermal wings and using the momentum I had built to push me higher and farther than just jumping would have done for me.
As I flew to my next stop I focused my energy and allowed myself to recharge it with the clouds, weaving in and out as I looped over the sparkling lights of Central Avenue. I followed the asphalt line, keeping one eye on it as I mused over Naia’s innocence and my own family deaths.
********************************************************************
THEN
When I awoke, I was alone. Rain fell on me, cold and hard, like balls bursting on my skin. I slowly sat up. Nausea wracked me, and I turned aside to vomit. Even the day-long stone sleep couldn’t cure all the damage the explosion did to me. I finished dry-heaving and just sat there, feeling the mostly healed aches and injuries from my tail to my wings to my horns on my forehead. My mind was swirling, and unfamiliar. There were so many noises, voices crowding in my head, I couldn’t stop feeling and hearing. I finally screamed and barely registered a new thought directed in my direction, the sound of gravel and rubble crunching under boots. I was suddenly on my back again, blinking up at a man in dark clothing pointing a gun at my face. I felt a sharpened pain in my ribs and I dimly thought, “broken” before the man raised his gun, reversing it and preparing to slam the butt on my head. I “saw” it, knew what he was doing before he did it, I had read it in his mind. I yelled and felt a pushing in my mind, not inward but away, knocking the gun out of his hands and blowing him onto his back. I scrambled up and tried to run but he tackled my haunches and I slammed face first into the grass. He clawed up and onto my back, straddling my wings and grabbing my hair. I flailed and screamed, and one claw somehow snagged his skin. I could smell the blood, then I went still. I stopped fighting, and instead dove mentally into his mind, telling him to let me go, face me, and give me my first kiss and love me here in the grass. He did as I bid and I watched the clouds swirl as he stripped off his shirt and began kissing up my neck. I felt him trying to resist, but he couldn’t. I was stronger. He may have had technical battle experience, but he was powerless. I read his whole history as he kissed my ears, praising my skin and hair, loving my wings with his hands. I studied his whole life, and then I got to the present.
He was a part of the team that killed my clan.
I felt cold rage spreading through my stomach to my limbs, but he didn’t notice. He went for my mouth and I stopped him. I placed a claw to his lips and asked, “why did you kill my family?”
My control over him broke, and he reached for his ankle, baring his neck to me and snarling curses. I bit him, and gasped with shock as his blood hit my tongue and spread through me, dark and sensuous and forbidden. I gagged trying to gasp then sealed my mouth over the wound and drank. He choked and then sighed in bliss, but I didn’t want him to feel happy. I stripped his shields down, tore them apart like cloth, and made him scream and beg for my mercy.
I gave none.
Comments (0)
See all