Venusâ Illusion by Esmeralda Platania
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Venusâ Illusion by Esmeralda Platania
@shoutoutout
This made me think of Ivy.

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The Night Is Ours: Chapter 7 - Incarcerage
Celais reached out â a vision, a memory, a Curse â and stabbed her fingers past the bone, her claws sliding into my heart. She tore it down the middle, my death-scream howling forth from the ruptured meat, black as our Banner.
YOU ARE THE ONE! She roared in sacred silence, fingertips of her left hand searing into my jaw like red-hot iron.
Iâm not strong enough! Iâve failed you, I canât hurt her!
DO IT FOR THE UNDYING GLORY, YUSUF.
DO IT FOR US.
SAVE HER.
Save her.
All the Strains are Cursed - comes with the name, yâknow? Enkindled hearts were softened by their own fire, easy for âem to fall for their own Prey. Behexxed like me? ShiyitâŚbad luck we bring to others snaps back on us at some point, like a broken spring; probly why Iâm cornered by you nasty little pockmark-predators. Yusuf, werenât no different from any other Enkindled, and that was how he got himself fucked upâŚ
______________________________________________________________
The next three days passed in flashes of white-hot euphoria.
Rust-red sorrow.
APOCALYPSE-BLACK FUCKING RAGE.
âŚand a gunmetal grey quiet that dragged on for eternity. Â
The moments leading to my dissolution were sweet as swan-song. Would you believe me if I told you I'd wanted to kiss her from the moment I saw her? I'm for real. Vera Estrada rolling up on me in that shitty bathroomâŚÂ
The way she put a gun to my back was a beautiful thing.Â
Like Aphrodite herself got a cholita makeover and channeled her brother Ares.
The bathroomâs klaxon-color lit her up like a sin I couldnât quit, that Iâd never pray away.
That pin-straight hair, shimmer-glinting like it was still wet...
Her full lips with their silk-soft kiss hiding a maw full of daggers... Â
Those mile-long legs. Her firm fuckin' tits.Â
Fuck man, that callipygian ass .Â
All of it together and everything and I hadn't been able to evict her from my damn mind since the day I met her...it was a ravishing disguise.Â
A portrait of dangerous beauty graffitied over a canvas of wolf teeth and .45 calibers.
Her kiss had been sweet as milk and honey, and like Sisera, my reward for dropping my guard was a bloody death; at least she'd left my face intact, but the theft of my voice?
I might as well have died, as if she too had hammered a tent peg into my temple.
Fitting end...I'd countered her straightforward aggression with my own silver-tongue, black-silk bullshit, all smarm and charm. I saw how it wormed its way into her brain when I'd brushed past, and like a serpent, I let it coil around her judgment when Galen and I sang to her.Â
She'd been Prey like any other, and the history of my kind was spattered with these kinds of stories like arterial blood sprayed across vellum.
Here's what happened to me over the next three days.
I woke up, slung over Galen's shoulder like a sack of broken meat and bones.
First instinct: struggle...an effort sabotaged by the sheer amount of blood I'd lost from the shredded void where my jugular had been.
"Quit yer fuckin' squirmin' you damned jackass," came Galen's voice from somewhere nearby â he gave my ear a rough flick, nail going âtnkâ against my piercings. "Not like I enjoy sayin' I told you so for runnin' off after that danger-quim, but Yusuf..." He paused long enough to get a strong one-handed grip on the fire-escape ladder. "I told you so, you dumbass."
Second instinct: argue...once again, I was denied. Nothing but a rasping hiss escaped the ruination of my throat, what little gore remained in my body drooling from my fangs.
"Yusuf...nnfph...you're...heavy, ya damn fatass, just...shut yer trap...can't even talk, daft fool..." Galen complained as he threaded his way down the fire escape. "What'd you do? Tip your head back, push the gun right up against your neck? Stupid to call a Night Howler's bluff. Stupider to enjoy it."
I did not enjoy it, I lied to myself.Â
It was hard to hear through the pain - yes, cuz of the blood-drained muscles, my utterly fucked neck, but also the pain of being silenced. Never, even when I was at my sickest during my mortal years, had I been denied my voice.
Thus my third instinct: wallow. Yâknow, at least I did that pretty good, cuz there wasn't fuckall else I could do.Â
Galen was right, I'd been an S-tier idiot for rushing out like that after finding Randy all beat up and scrawled on. I'd taken the bait, passions inflamed by her violation of my Mortal, my arcade manager.Â
I was, for sure, a daft fucking fool like heâd said, but that meant nothing against the prospect of seeing her again in the flesh â like pitting yourself against someone you gotta beat.Â
Someone you gotta fuck.
"Why the hell'd you even go after her alone? You barely bullshat your way out last time she had a piece on you." He cursed in that calm tone that let me know he was well and truly pissed with me. "I swear the metal in your dick is a south pole magnet to north pole crazy..."
Was that it?
Did I have that disorder, of constantly falling for the craziest and most dangerous among us? Was it one of those things that would go away if I got her under me, thighs opened, nails dragging down my back?
"Least you didn't fuck her...we're not ready for a shootin' war with the Crows. You know this."
There went the idea of fucking the obsession away.
Fourth instinct - well, more of a lifelong constant - was to feel guilty. Iâd let my cock do the thinking, following the shape of her like she was a beacon, and I was a sailor in her storm-tossed sea, I smelled her above the brine of my sorrow - hot blood and iron-duty, hit my mind like a crossbow bolt.
Galen hit the bottom of the ladder, greased up like a sweaty hog. Fuckinâ gross, dude-sweatâŚmade me think of that doodle I did of that pig. I chuckled, bereft of voice.
The pain went nova; illuminated the world like â
Baton Rouge. On the night of its Doom.
The Mortals were blind to it â the Moonâs tendrils slid through their ears by its Curse-laden song, stabbing behind their eyes and blinding them to the truth. Those of us already Accursed, we had no choice but to see it: the crystal spikes, curving outward from buildings. Hard as horn, vein-pulsing, a sacred blasphemy.
The serene stillness reminded me of Chicago, midnight in deep winter; shattered by the shrike-shriek of the Lunar Strain.
I knew the silver glow, argent particles floating before my eyes werenât real - just a flood of Selenosis through my veins keeping me consciousâŚSarkic Lymph, dissolving carcinomas that grew from the knitting of my fleshâŚColloidal Thymosol, keeping on the edge of a Killing Frenzy, last-ditch resort if another predator came for my blood.
My body was a meta-chem meat-reactor, running full-bore to keep me alive.
It did nothing to stop the visions.
Galenâs reflection in the rearview was moon-warped, like wax softened by silver candlelight. A fanged mouth had opened in his forehead, gibbering wordless blasphemy. His main mouth - the one above his chin - was griping. â â gotta scale everything backâŚshit man, we might have to abandon the fuckinâ Point if they come at us. Two of us can handle an assault, but just me? Mizrah.â
He turned to face me at a SILVER red light. âThis is bad olâ buddy.â His pupils split into three.
Yeah. I knew. Cracked me to the core with shame.
Iâm sorry I mouthed, the words a hollow whisperâŚit tormented me to be like this.
Galen just shook his head in disappointment and kept driving. Didnât look like we were homeward bound.
She got stuck in my headâŚcouldnât evict her, man.
I imagined him asking âwhyâ.
Why.
You all fuckinâ saw her, didnât you? Those eyes, like ice glaring through cabernet sauvignon. You saw the shape of her hips with that seductive flare; a woman shaped like a scimitar whose blade I couldnât help but caress, even as my fingers sliced away.
The heat of her breath; her soft tongue, hard-candy sweet. Those long fingers, tangled in my hair, working my belt open.
Vera said Iâd cursed her with my song, got her brain playing my face and voice on loop. She had it backwards, you fucking get it now?!
She was my curse.
Only Celais had anchored herself in my thoughts like that, but she was a demigod in her own astral planeâŚa goddess who never climbed down from her mountain, I could but howl my love to her from below.
Vera was down here with me in the steaming dark; she could look me in the eye, separated by a bridge and a strip of polluted seawaterâŚdaring me to cross.
She was an enemy by any measure; the enforcer of another pack, literally another manâs girl. Sheâd almost taken me the fuck outâŚbut I could feel her, and I wanted more.
More.
Ever fucking MORE.
I felt the shape of her, lain across my skin - like the muzzle flame of her revolver had been nuclear fire, flashing her silhouette over my body. I could remember the bare impression of her ribcage under my palms; my fingertips tingled from where theyâd traced the shape of her breasts. Close, but not claiming. Not yet.
I wrongly assumed G was heading back to our crib.
We drove South, grinding through night-traffic until we reached the docks. Harbors jutted into the wine-dark water, like the broken teeth of a giant.
The fuck is this? I wanted to ask as he hauled me out of the back seat, carrying me through a warehouse door. Salt-stinking airâŚthe groan of shipping liners in the distance.
Galen dumped me inside an empty shipping container. "Whoop..." he winced as my head clanged against the container's wall. "Ah well, not like you're exactly usin' anything in that skull of yers."
Dickhead.
We stared each other down like wolves in a corrugated cage.
He dipped out, and returned with a plastic bucket and two gallon-jugs of water.
No fucking way.
âYes way,â Galen grunted, reading the disbelief in my eyes like graffiti sprayed on a corpse. âWhat, you think youâre just gonna bleed all over our place? Shit no boy, you got a gaper.âÂ
Galen unscrewed the cap of a water jug, tilted my head back with the kind of care heâd show a wounded bird or rabbit. Lukewarm water (fucker couldnât even get refrigerated?) crawled down my tongue. Couldnât swallow, muscles of my throat were shot.
Gravity and peristalsis did the hard work. I felt like a fucking infant.
âYouâre gonna be laid up for a while Mizrah, and you know what that means?â He capped the jug, pushing it into my hands, âmeans I gotta pick up your slack, so donât go glarinâ at me with those bitchy lilâ eyes.
Galen dipped out for a second and returned with a sleeping bag (wrong climate for that shit) and a half-used roll of paper towel. âHere. Weâre not fuckinâ Ferals.â He ripped off a piece and hunkered down at my side.
âNow you listen here, not like you got much choice.â Galen blotted my forehead like he was some kinda nursemaidâŚhis eyes were normal, no forehead-maw chanting sickness. Iâll be checkinâ on you throughout the day, keeping it random. We donât need some jacked-up Hisser or overenthusiastic Nachten noticing a pattern and following me, finding you, and eating your liver.â
Bastard, I gummed my teeth at him.
He wasnât wrong of course.
It wasnât some Prey-beast I had to worry about; left unsaid were the Feral Brood, as we called âem. Ferals didnât respect territory, whether it was turf or people. They saw any sort of weakness as a chance to get in, make Unchained like us suffer. Iâd seen how depraved they could get when they caught one of us alone.
Deep-digging fangs and claws, tearing their brands into our fleshâŚleaving us stinking of violation, defiling with stinking seed and juices. Some Unchained never came back from that sort of thing, some of them didnât even want to.
Iâd sooner blow my own brains out.
Mortals in their endless hunt for the moral high ground might try to offer pity, or laws to undo that sort of barbarism.
Down here in the Jungle? Thereâs no such modern pietyâŚjust power, fear, and hunger.
âRest up you idiot. Iâll catch something and bring it back for you to choke down tonight.â He slapped my shoulder with a meaty âthudâ, then closed the container and locked it.
Leaving me in darkness.
Shit.
Iâll tell you something. I wasnât afraid of Ferals or other Accursed Beasts finding me in here. NahâŚI was wondering:
What would Vera think if she saw me like this?
Crippled. Broken. Wheezing like exhausted prey.
I mean letâs be real, she was the reason I was here. Sheâd pulled the trigger â why was I so hung up on her?
Wasnât the first time Iâd had my throat torn out â this was the worst though. Itâd take at least a week for the tissue to close; the bare seal over my jugular vein was nothing but muscle, stretched tight like overtuned guitar string.
This was going to be a long fuckinâ week.
Hours passed.
I lost my fucking mind after the third.
LightlessâŚSoundlessâŚnothing got through the walls of this MIG welded prison. A fever ran through my veins, buoyed by the Thymosol keeping my heart beating and my mind spinning. It cast phantasms against the walls, ghosts of the past putting on a show.
âRemember that night we went bowling?â
Angelâs voice came from where he sat cross-legged across from me. It had this wise-guy cadence. You could picture him, leaning against a wall, snapping a finger like a bit character from Grease . âStruck you out good cuz you took my advice.â
You always talked too much Angel. Look where it got you. Ghosts didnât need to hear your voice, not when they climbed outta your head.
âYou always trusted too quick.â He raised a finger, tsking at me, other hand cradling his severed head in his lap. âThis loco fuckinâ plan of yours, ainât gonna work the way you think.â
The fuck you mean, headless douchebag?
âItâs gonna be someone you trust who fucks you overâŚkarma man. Morgan said you were the most gullible of Celaisâ little harem.â
âShut up man. I fucked your girlâwait, her nameâs Morgan?â
Asshole.
We glared at each other across the darkened steel box, ghost-on-wolf.
So thatâs how you think it is? You think Vera and the Crows pecked out my eyes by tearing out my throat?
Youâve always sucked at seeing the forest, just barking at the trees. Hear that end coming for you buddy?
He held his head up from his lap, jaws hanging open and slack as he howled; it turned my marrow to glass, crystalized my blood.Â
Stop that, I demanded, growling voiceless and impotent.
He didnât.
Angel just kept screaming and yowling, his voice distorted by echoes from beyond the caul of death.
SHUT UP!
The War-Form exploded from my body in a sudden wave of impossible violence and heat â shoulders broad as two men side by side, covered with black fur, claws like butcher knives. I threw myself upon him, ripping him into ectoplasmic tatters. When he was gone I didnât stop, just raged against the walls of my prison.
I tore at the walls, dented them outward, just raged until time disintegrated.
BLACKNESS.
HOWLING.
A CAGE.
I came to lying on my side, cheek pressed against the dirty floor.
Couldnât hear my voice, or anything besides the gory air rustling uselessly between my teeth.
I whisper-crooned the words to nobody:
âAtzmat einai la-mashma ha-yeri, Motziâah kol shaâagah, Ach bin rega mithalefet ba-yeâush, Ha-kol avur mei shechi bâtoch siyut, Mitgaâagaâat mikol ha-levâŚâ
Doubt youâve ever heard that one. I didnât write it, heard it on my buddyâs PS3 while he was playing some game whose name I couldnât remember, but whose words I couldnât forget.
Let me tell you what it means:
Closing my eyes to the sound of gunfire. Uttering a howl. In a flashâI fall into despair. All for the one who lives inside a nightmare. Missing you with my entire heartâŚ
Celais.
Fucking hell I missed her.
Have you ever longed for someone so badly, their absence becomes a phantom limb? You remember their heat against you, feeling it bleed away forever.
I wondered if Galen missed her like that. It wasnât something we ever talked about â never directly. When we spoke of her it was with awe, like acolytes at her bladed altar.
Did he vent his heartâs blood for her, from the space left by her absence?Â
Even with Veraâs hard movements, her casual brutality taking up space in my frontal lobe, Celais was constantly there. I could see her, feel her, dancing onstage against my mindâs-eye. Her hair followed her like a burning contrailâŚher saber, a steel comet.
No matter the partner in her deadly dance, her smile was perfect â a gorgeous monster unleashed upon the world.
I failed you. I confessed to her phantasm, pushing up to sit on my knees, head bowed in self-admonition.
The hallucination of her joined me on my knees, coiled like a fiery asp. Despite towering over us all by her sheer power, she insisted on being eye-to-eye with me. Knife-sharp, hot as the heavens, her gaze pierced into my skull.
SHOW ME, she commanded.
I understood.
I didnât scream. I couldnât, not as I was now. My talons flensed the left side of my chest, ripping it open, peeling the skin like rind, slashing the muscle open. Blood poured down my flanks, staining the floor with stinking copper.
My heart thundered behind the cage of my ribs â a gore-stained hawk desperate to break its osseous prison.
Do you see it my love? Look what she did to me, Celais. Her name is written in bullet holes over my soul. She dragged me down to the bottom of her silver pyramid, just to kiss me and pull the trigger.Â
How can I betray her?
Celais reached out â a vision, a memory, a Curse â and stabbed her fingers past the bone, her claws sliding into my heart. She tore it down the middle, my death-scream howling forth from the ruptured meat, black as our Banner.
YOU ARE THE ONE! She roared in sacred silence, fingertips of her left hand searing into my jaw like red-hot iron.
Iâm not strong enough! Iâve failed you, I canât hurt her!
DO IT FOR THE UNDYING GLORY, YUSUF.
DO IT FOR US.
SAVE HER.
Save her.
Reality began jump-skipping from there, like a VHS pulled from a fire â grainy flashes of colorless euphoria, choke-sputtering pain, blackouts where time felt dilated unto infinity.
I mercifully forgot those initial hours of that first night, chained up in that claustrophobic steel coffin Galen had locked me in. The guy was a merciless cunt on a good day, but I must have been just that pathetic since he hauled my sorry ass home. The next thing I remembered was roaming my apartment like a tiger in a cage.
That bile-fever still reigned supreme, cooking my flesh from within; Selenosis flooding my bloodstream kept my jaw working, grinding my teeth together and chewing the inside of my cheek like gristle. My pupils were black dots in the coal-dark of my gaze.
Any reasonable Turnskin would have been laying low, down for the countâŚmaybe curled up in the closet under a pile of clothes heavy with their own scent for comfort. I should have let the metavolis in my ensorcelled meat scab shut my throat from within, but I couldnât stop moving. Couldnât rest.
I had to pace, had to get the fuck out of this apartment, otherwise Iâd rip my heart open again, burst into Frenzy and rampage through the Red Light District â blasting Veraâs name in arterial spray across neon-lit glass.Â
Nothingâs ever fuckinâ easy is it.
I wonât deny it. The better part of me, the part that wasnât entirely monstrous, it wanted to entwine myself with her. It was the part that wanted to feel her hold me close, demanding every inch of my strength; I wanted to claim her, to mark her as mine the way Mateo hadâŚpanting in my arms, groaning my name with carnal adoration.
Then againâŚI thirsted for retribution. The lust and admiration, they twisted into a triple helix with a need for vengeance.Â
Donât get me wrong, I didnât hate her. Quite the opposite, I didnât begrudge herâŚIâd practically invited her aggression. Might as well have bow-wrapped the large-caliber round sheâd put through me.
This was about cred.
Understand this: cred isnât just a flex for Accursed Beings. Itâs real, literal power. A glittering Tithe Altar? Having your Hunts whispered by Prey with fear and awe? The Curse hears you, it imbues you with Force. By that logicâs flipside, a broken rep dulls your claws, makes your Imprecations fizzle like wet gunpowder.
Worse yet, Galen and I were bound by mutual strength - the intertwined crowns that were our calling card were again, quite literal. My glory was his; the fear he provoked made me all the deadlier. Fucking up like this, it dragged him down.
Galen was more than just my best friend, he was my brother-in-arms; the covenant weâd forged beneath blood-blackened-banners was thicker than the water of any womb. Where Vera devastated my flesh, sheâd also shot-up Galenâs street cred.
That was my failure though, I didnât blame her. That, in a way, made it all the harder; if I could hate her, if I could hunger for recompense out of spite, I could spill her into the Red Rock River.
But I didnât hate her, not even slightly.
Even burning up from within I didnât want to turn my teeth to her throatâŚI wanted to make her love me, because then itâd be safe for me to love her back.
Pretty fucked, huh?
Still. I couldnât let her think I was weak. I couldnât let Galen think I was unreliable, or let Celais see the mess Iâd made. If she saw me, enervated by my Enkindled heart, I was afraid sheâd cast me aside.
Replace me.
I needed to Hunt. I needed to dig my talons into the Jungle, to rip a monstrous skull from the concrete foliage to mount on the Altar â I needed to feast on writhing, Curse-soaked guts. The eldritch might that emanated from the demon-moon above was a feedback loop that empowered me for cleaving to my nature, not hiding from it.
The problem: we didnât have a chymist, not yet. Alkhestry might have provided a quick way out of my sorry state, but neither of us had picked it up. The Hunt was my only option.
Galen was outside, probably pouting over the situation Iâd put us in or finding a near-suicide mission to guilttrip me intoâŚnobody here to keep me chained to the radiator like a sick dog.Â
I pressed a thick wad of cotton gauze against the pit in my neck, slapped it in place with medical tape. Didnât stop it from throbbing in time with my pulse. Threw on a jacket of black leather with steel-studded lapels and shoulders. It was overkill in the oppressive Ashland humidity, but I was shivering like a junkie in detox.Â
I sprayed Galenâs Axe all over my body, enough to hide the reek of blood, weakness, shame âŚnipped his skinning knife too, slid it carefully in my belt. Out the door, descending into the Pointâs ozone-stinking night-streets, making my way to the center of the island.
Pennâs Point wasnât the Riviera with its glitter-glam. No high-class hookers eyeing Johns through pink cocktails. It was a place of shitty dives and strip joints with guttering lightbulbs. Everyone knew the gentlemenâs clubs and bars moonlighted as brothels; a quick blowjob behind a dumpster, a sweaty fuck after a strip tease.
Where there the money flowed, the sex followed, and where there was illicit sex?
Youâd find Hissers stalking.
Fucking WerecatsâŚHissers, makes sense right? Piss-yellow eyes, piss-poor etiquetteâŚcruel like hyenas. They were dangerous enough to rank just below Werewolves, arrogant enough to think they were royalty until leashed. Every Hisser slain or Enthralled made the world a better place.
Just ask Tanner. A good guy, absolutely undeserving of what theyâd done to him. Heâd never walk through this life the same again.
Even the shit Vera had pulled with Randy paled in comparison; yeah sheâd beat him down, dislocated his shoulder, yeah Randy would need some help with the trauma (Iâd throw him some extra cash to pay for therapy if he ever trusted me again).
A Hisser would have done so much worse, like Vlad-fuckinâ-Tepes levels of cruelty. Iâd seen what those things did to people. Men castrated and hung from light poles like screaming decorationsâŚmothers bawling themselves blind over the half-gnawed remains of their children, shit there was one time with a babyâŚ
Fuck, man.
Wasnât like I was Hunting to save the Mortals.
That shit though?
It had no place in the Jungle, no place even in this unjust world.
One reality stutter later and I was stalking like a jaguar, shoulders braced in anticipation for the crimson blitz of violence. Made me think of the fangs gracing Veraâs jaw, flashing white in the dingy light (so fucking sexy / so fucking disrespectful). Another Turnskin would have recognized the threat bleeding through every step, even with the near-perfect disguise afforded by this Human form.
The rain came down like bullets; each drop might have left a welt against my skin if not for my leather. Great camouflage; even with the stink of wounded wolf I was just another ghost in the night. Hissers, Skitterlings, Nachten â only way theyâd notice if they got within biting distance. Too late for âem by then.
Corothers Way slashed across the Point like a knife mark, narrow stretch of road branching off the big thoroughfares like Baxter and Colombia. Funneled you straight into the booze-and-cum reeking heart of the Point.
It glistened like the head of a canker.
Purple-piped signage imitated the Riviera as best as it could â only made the browns and grays seem dirtier. One of those signs buzzed its name in curlicue print: đ´đśđđđđđś'đ â never been. Strip clubs were bottom-shelf, even for someone like me. Even out here though, I could smell it, the unmistakable musk-reek of Hissers.Â
Smelled like hate-sex and open sores.
Yavonnaâs interior felt its decor was pulled from a thrift shop on the outskirts of Hellâs Second Circle. Girls threw away their dignity into the firepit of their clientsâ lust, using the ashes to pay rent and soothe addictions. The rancid concrete floor crackled stickily with each step, while chrome-framed sports car photos recalled simpler times without the pain of self-awareness. They were interspersed with vintage porn, some of which was illustrated in that swoop-sleaze style Galen called âBoomer Hentaiâ.Â
My tongue tracked along the dry roof of my mouth. The Curse jangled in my skull like a dinner bell.
SoâŚwho would I feast on tonight?
Was it the pale girl with cornflower hair on stage, someoneâs daughter twisted around a pole like an unstrung marionette? Green thong, dead eyes, greenbacks drifting near her feet.
What about the bartender? We locked eyes, he and I; nothing. Out of place with his pinstripe vest, gold nose-ring chained to his earringâŚbut otherwise disinterested. If he was Prey, he was clearly bored with it.
Ah. Then I saw her.
Skin dark as teak. A snow white bikini top, a shimmering skirt so short it didnât even count. The way she walked, that predatorâs gaitâŚfuck, it made my mouth water. She watched the John she followed into the back with Hate in her slitted eyes â not the shale-gray resentment hookers had for their clients. Something far purer, driving her forward like the Hunt drove me.
That one.
Waiting was a bitch. Worst part of the Hunt. Youâd think a guy with appetites like mine could be entertained in this debauched pit â not so easy. The Hunt predated deviance and was heavy with the weight of urgency. Sat down close enough to keep at the edge of the Preyâs scent, far enough to spook the humans.Â
They were edgy under the presence-weight of two Turnskins, even if they didnât know it. The Curse was corrosive, a malevolent entropy. It made their bones ring, something in the lizard brain that reminded them of the misfortune we brought, but over millennia itâd atrophied.
I pretended to sip at a beer. The struggle to force down water was bad enough, carbonated pilsner would be Hell. My turned in on itself, wrung with hunger â I ignored it as best as I could.
I could have grabbed any of these Humans â man or woman, stockbroker or street sweeper. Didnât matter, when their eyes reflected in mine Iâd have âem hooked by the soul, and Iâd just drag them outside where I could feel their pulse break against my teeth.
Chomp. Rip. Spray.
Weâd tasted that forbidden ambrosia before, Galen and I â twice. I wasnât desperate now that Iâd stoop again to man-eating, not when the Prey was within a fangâs breadth.Â
The lights skelter-blinked above, purple and black strobing over sweaty flesh . A new girl took the stage, her face a mask of cracked self-respect as she curled around the pole.
Ten minutes. Thatâs how long I waited, according to a clock on the wall shaped like a pair of tits.
The John came stumbling out, broke-gaited and limping. Shirt half-tucked, doughy skin blotchy with fear. I smelled blood and trauma on him, jaws trembling in fear.
She was standing in the mouth of the hallway, like a knife hammered out of shadows and sex. A bead of cum trickled down the corner of her mouth â her tongue caught it like whipped cream. Satisfied with whatever cruelty sheâd inflicted on him.
I knew then: her skull would shine white and proud on my Tithe Altar, and her heartâs blood would gush sweetly between my fangs.
______________________________________________________________
Whenâs the last time you skinny little fucks ate anyway? Aww you poor dull-fanged small-dick kids, hard times tailinâ Skitterlings and Bats? Shiyit, well, they are gettinâ harder. SmarterâŚwhich means you little lame brains are SOL â OW!
First Lines tag game
Let's go! Tagged by @jammerific yayayayya thank you!
Rules: share the first lines of ten of your latest fanfics (or up to if you have less!) & tag 10 people.
I'm gonna drop some unposted WIPs and some from upcoming chapters because I'm so slow (I'm sorry) and have had a few of these sitting in my drafts for awhile đ
Bonnieâs quite pretty in the right light. (WIP Vampworld AU, Bubblegum/Marceline, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake)
Nyla is getting old. (Show You What All The Howling is For, June/Azula, ATLA)
"I'd rather put a bullet between my fucking eyes than be caught dead in those Arkham oranges again, Harls." (WIP ch. 3 of Couldn't Wait 'Till Morning, Harley/Ivy, Harley Quinn)
Charlie had no shortage of dreams. (WIP ch. 3 of Believer, Took Me Over Like a Fever, Charlie/Vaggie, Hazbin Hotel)
You catch your first glimpse between the columns bordering the palace parterre and she brands reds onto golds inside your eyelids. (WIP Azula/Reader gift fic for @thepieisalie hehehe, ATLA)
What Harley remembered were the great swaths of stars that peppered the sky like California poppies blooming. (And Love Is Holding Back, Harley/Ivy, Harley Quinn)
The chill of early winter settled between the trees and Caitlyn caught its draft along her neckline. (Off Balance, Caitlyn & Jinx, Arcane)
The grand hall teems with polite chatter and whispered gossip and thinly-veiled political plays that altogether blossom into a near-constant buzz. (When Am I Gonna Lose You?, Caitlyn/Vi, Arcane)
It springs to life in Ivyâs hand: green stem, pink blossoms. (she breaks (out, down, through), Harley/Ivy, Harley Quinn)
She would go back, she told Bonnie. (my last days on earth eating you, Bubblegum/Marceline, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake)
This was fun, I actually like all my first lines! Tagging @sylphidine, @thepieisalie, @viskarenvisla and anyone else reading this consider yourself tagged by me! <3 I wanna see your first lines please share <3!!!
âEight lance-legs impale the sun,â
âGory guts strewn past our knees,â
âSaber-fangs drip ichor bright,â
âHowl my triumph against the sea,â (The Night is Ours, Yusuf Mizrah + Galen Drake / Vera Estrada [Original Characters]; Werewolf the Curse)
2. "So...you're not going to stick me in an institution, or tell the school I'm not fit for study, right?" (Where the Shadows Lie, Ascher Razanski / Tessa + Lyra [Original Characters]; Changeling the Lost)
3. âKyle! Kyle, Youâre failing AP Human Geo?! Put the controller down and get up here, come on!â (Magna Cum Laude, Narea / Nathaniel [Original Characters]; Original Fiction)
4. I see their names limned in flame. Carceri. Acheron. Gehenna. PHLEGETHON. (Land of Traitors, No Romance [Original Characters]; Werewolf the Forsaken)
5. Four nights ago, down at the river... (Thirst 2.0, Yusuf Mizrah / Monroe Carter [Original Characters]; Werewolf the Curse + Vampire the Requiem)
6. It was trouble from the moment you made eye contact with...Her. (Arjuna's Descent, Arjuna Chattar / Carmen Tecahl [Original Characters]; Werewolf the Forsaken)
7. Against your better judgment, what you'd sworn was a singular (and later, a double) act of impulsive perversion on your part had become something of a ritual, every time you saw them now. (Package Transit, Anastasia Romera / Avram Lin [Original Characters]; Original Fiction)
8. Before the well-ordered ebb and flow of his life had been thrown into chaos by the twin catalysts of Tiefling and Disaster, he'd always regarded her with mild revulsion. (Bonds of Flame and Scale, Tidbit / Z'Sairah [Original Characters]; Baldur's Gate 3)
9. When the bell struck for the 19th time, signaling the arrival of the 19th hour of the 19th day of the frigid month of Sichyen, Vera of House Dumakin knew this was no random gathering of angry peasants and laborers, stirred by the ramblings of some half-starved deacon. (The Record of the Red Dynasty's Fall, No Romance [Original Characters]; inspired by Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver]
10. Fell crimson moth in thy little gleamsilk cage
What today the texture of thy fine murderous plumage?
What shape thy sly talons, blindly grasping escape? (Fate of Tyrants, Askara / Various Evil Daevites and her Concubines [Original Characters]; SCP]
@jetalveran @chaotickimchi @rivnedell @the-frankenman-writes @sylphidine @khoobsuratletters @andtherainremembersnothing
This was pretty cool. Made me look back at work that I haven't completed. I'm in reading mode for a bit because I just finished a lot of work!
Clothing Style & Vibe Descriptors for Writers
(Because how someone dresses says so much about who they are.)
Polished â Sleek, well-put-together, and clean-cut. Grungy â Worn, layered, dark, and deliberately messy. Bohemian â Flowing, artsy, natural fabrics; lots of patterns. Minimalist â Clean lines, neutral colors, nothing extra. Sporty â Functional, casual, often branded or gym-inspired. Vintage-inspired â Nostalgic, retro cuts, old-school flair. Dark academia â Tweeds, layers, and mysterious literature major vibes. Streetwear â Trendy, oversized, edgy with a splash of attitude. Gothic â Dark colors, lace, leather, often dramatic. Soft girl / boy â Pastels, gentle patterns, dreamy aesthetics. Preppy â Polos, cardigans, and a âtop of the classâ shine. Business casual â Professional, but relaxedâlike they could go from meeting to martini. Careless / wrinkled â Looks like they got dressed in the dark, and kind of did. Eclectic â Mix-and-match chaos, but somehow⌠it works. Utilitarian â Functional over fashionable, lots of pockets, maybe ex-military.
Where the Shadows Lie: Chapter 2 - Five Seconds of Eternal Spring
There was something about the chase - no, not the chase, the totally-not-creepy approach - that already felt romantic. She wandered back toward the reference stacks, where the shadows drew long and illumination bloomed from dim 1980s desk lamps. I felt like I was following her through a place that was at once an enchanted forest, but also the school library.
I meant it quite literally.
Vines and ivy twisted among the bookshelves, disappearing up into the ceiling, curled around glowing blue stones. I saw bizarre, long-limbed figures crawling amidst them, little dibbuks or something with oversized noses and pointed ears on unknowable missions.Â
AâŚtroll? Was it a troll? Something big and brutal-jawed with beady black eyes and sloped shoulders leans forward to pick through painting catalogues, mumbling unintelligibly to the crow-feathered girl scanning a QR code.
I ignored them, following the gentle percussion of Tessaâs shod hooves around another stack. I reached one of those towering walls of tomes the library curates but few people seem to stumble across. Their age could be measured in triple digits, and a slender iron ladder on wheels was required to reach up to the higher levelsâŚhow was that not a bold-faced defiance of OSHA?
Lanterns hung from the ceiling, limning her in pale light as she stood on one of those ladders a few meters above me.Â
I was engrossed by the sight of her, and I will not pretend like Iâm a man of decencyâŚI dared an errant peek under her skirt and felt my breath hitch at the sight of that bright purple thong gracing her hips; I could see the swell of her sex pressed against the fabric, the shape of bulbous labia beneath.Â
Quickly shifting my attention from between her thighs to something less obviously perverse, I cleared my throat to get her attention.
Grab the bull by the horns.
The garden of my woes overflowed with problems, spilling forth unattended into the orderly, if barren estate of my life.Â
Lasciviously pink purslane danced in bands across the courtyard of my mind, as Tessa waltzed gracefully through my thoughtsâŚI could practically taste her, right on the tip of my tongue.
A black bramble of fear spiderwebbed outward from mildew-ringed puddles of rainwaterâŚmy stalkerâs blank visage stared up at me from the puddleâŚnot a reflection, but somehow omnipresent in the water.
A tangled, dead oak tree that had once flowered proudly among the pillars of my identity mouldered and turned stony. Once colorful Khamdoan prayer flags were stamped with black bile that read âPOSITION TERMINATEDâ.
As if those three blights werenât bad enough, there loomed a fourth complexity in my life Iâd yet to solve, one quite different from the other three. It was the Bascom Ridge Suspension Bridge problem; a conundrum that should not have kept me up as it did but it was just in the way; there was a poetic relevance to it.
Let me explain.
Professor Paz had randomly assigned a group project to the entire Control Systems class, and I ended up with Bohen Sautner and Milly Long; the former was singularly focused on his future career with the NBA (yeah good luck pal) and, due to his position on the collegeâs lucrative basketball team, he was generally allowed to coast by. Milly Long did her part of the project with a certain lackluster haste, so while it was done, Iâd probably have to make sure it wasnât garbage.
For my own part, I had to design a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller; in common English, thatâs a control device that responds to external change. In the case of the bridge, that means gusts of wind and the kinds of waves that we see in Dade CountyâŚOr that made traversing the different Abbacies perilous in Khamrungsa.Â
Didnât take a genius to see how that would have been useful for me.
There was always the temptation to give in to despair, cut my losses, drop out and go work in carpentryâŚbut how soulless that felt. That in turn makes me feel entitled; if I hadnât gotten lucky and had Rachel to help me get here, my choices would be scarce.Â
My best friend Aryn, for instance, wasnât so lucky; she was playing it safe with loans to go to the tech college and become a phlebotomist, just so she could have some income in this price gouge-singularity of a town.
Speaking of, my phone made a quiet blip as she pinged me; I was thankful for a distraction from Kp over Ki.
<blockquote> `Aryn: bruv are you still in the library designing a video game controller`</blockquote>
As was usually the case she found my plight amusing; sheâd heard me whining about it, interspersed with my own equivocations concerning TessaâŚshould I make a move? Should I wait for her to make a move? Would she even make a move? âWhy oh why did her pantherine form dance across the backs of my eyes as if seared there by a darkening flame?â I would ask Aryn, prompting her to gag.
<blockquote>`Ascher: yes I am, it doesnât have nearly enough buttons. whut do you want`
`Aryn: some of that kosher bussy, boi đđ ur gunna be ma strawberry đ`
`Ascher: đ`
</blockquote>
Christ. I didnât even know that word existed until she exposed me to it with herâŚeccentric taste in comics and pornography. I didnât even know how she got a hold of that stuff, the university system was strict about checking our online activities.
I knew what she was bothering me for, of courseâŚthe four of us - me, Aryn, Karl and Vicky - had a YouTube channel with a few thousand subscribers, hardcore fans of our âghost huntingâ show. I caught it all on camera when we went into abandoned factories, moldering houses and sealed-off university wings to catch paranormal activity.Â
Some of it was even real.
<blockquote>`Ascher: bro i canât come i know youâre going to ask me`
`Aryn: ascher can you not be a little bitch? We suck at this when you donât come, karlâs pantaloons are still brown cuz of possum-poltergeist`
`Ascher: đťđ is this just part of an elaborate plot to get me in your bed to lay some cable? All you gotta do is ask boo đ`
`Aryn: 𤎠why did i ever show you that episode, now youâre laying cable everywhere man; in bed, in your car. dude come on itâs our season finale, weâll stay up late and wait for your slowness`</blockquote>
It was a kind offer, but I intended to be here until midnight at least. I glanced at the corner of my laptopâs monitorâŚalready half past 9. I had a long way to go and found myself chained to the seemingly impossible conundrum of the derivative term in my equationâŚagain, in laymanâs terms, I have to build a mechanism that moves the suspension cables of a bridge to compensate for the environment so it doesnât collapse.Â
The derivative was the part that predicts what will happen in the future, so the cables donât overcompensate and snap like dental floss.
I was always a mediocre hand at math, and dealing with the added distortion of choppy wind, waves and simulated traffic gurgling over my bridge was making my life difficult. Differential calculus in particular was not my strong suit, even if Linear Algebra was.Â
All of it was abstract as a colorâs flavor.
I really didnât want to disappoint them but I had to wonderâŚwas this me being âincredibly weakâ, or just caring about my friendsâ safety and happiness?
<blockquote>`Ascher: if i finish by midnight ill tell you but donât go without me, youâll get possessed and it will get weird.`
`Aryn: what if the ghost is a hot chick? if you come back to my place itâll be like youâre with two chicks at once, or if the ghost is a hot dude itâll be awesome for me having two dudes inside me đĽľđśď¸`</blockquote>
Ah. That was one of the reasons she wanted me to come out tonight.Â
The exact texture of my friendship with Aryn was a complex tapestry that went back to when we were five years old in the same shitty foster care hovel. She and I have been through a lot together; I actually lost my v-card to her (she lost hers to that douchebag Kyle Burgmann with the Lamborghini) andâŚwe definitely mess around when neither of us is seeing anyone. Iâd recently broken up with Nieve Chen (a curious ache that lingered in spite of its bitter ending) and Aryn and I had already dallied a few times.
Sometimes I wondered why I didnât just date her, and remembered itâd beâŚweird.Â
Weirder than fucking her. I could use the relief and closeness, though.
<blockquote>`Ascher: if im done at midnight ill come with you guys and if im not i can still come over tonight and relieve you of your tension`
`Aryn: mmmm good đ I could use a nice deep massage, you get places most folks canât`</blockquote>
Flattery always worked, franklyâŚI could already feel a stirring in my loins as I pictured joining Aryn in her bed, her dark thighs smooth and mostly exposed in the shorts she slept in. She had a voracious appetite to match mine; there was that at least.Â
StillâŚshe wasnât the object of my desires. That person, in fact, was sitting three tables down, diligently working on her own project.
My thoughts drifted from Aryn like a flock of birds abandoning an electric pole, drawn toward the dawnâŚlaying eyes upon her felt like the sun cresting over the stormy horizon of my heart. How could I describe someone like Tessa? Everytime I tried it felt inadequate.Â
Sheâd strung little wildflowers on green tendrils amidst her horns; it made her appear as if drawn from a Bouguereau painting. The delicate lines of her face were relaxed, wearing a cupidâs bow smile as she bobbed her head to whatever was playing in her earbuds.
Tessa had been catching me staring more often, and when I felt the whiskey-warmth of her gaze track toward me I looked away lamely, pretending I was glancing at my phoneâŚand when I dared sneak a peek back I made contact with her eyes.Â
My breath caught, lips parting like I already had some excuse lined up.
She was wearing a lacy, low-cut black tank top that proudly displayed the ripe fullness of her bosom; I could see the impression of her nipple rings pressing against the fabric, infinitely tempting. A little necklace of pink and blue blossoms dangled around her shoulders, golden pinpricks of light rising from gently waving stamens. To my complete surprise Tessa smiled warmly at me, and -Â
- in my mind I was suddenly transported to a tan prominence of rock overlooking an unknown sea The Gulf of Antalya. Her curled dark tresses whipped against my face as we stared into each otherâs eyes. The heat was oppressive but dry, and her Aegean-tan skin was sheened with only a light gleam of perspiration. âNothing in all Seleukeia, in Thrakesia or Dyrrachion can match your radiance,â I tell her -
âŚthat didnât feel like my usual imaginative meanderings. What was thatâŚ?
While I was staring blankly at my computer screen, I heard the rhythmic thnk-thnk-thnk-thnk of Tessaâs hooves, and when I looked up she was sashaying away toward the back of the library. A shimmery, almost weightless skirt of silver drifted around her toned legs; her shins sported short brown fur and ended in cloven hooves.Â
She looked once more at me over her shoulder, as if to check that I was still staring.Â
Which I was.
I thought about Doctor al-Rashiâs advice, to âseize the bull by the hornsâ which had an uncomfortably suggestive air. StillâŚthe underlying meaning was significant.Â
That impulse you get when youâre about to do something really risky and crazy snuck up on me, you know? That sort of free-wind spirit that has your eyes blown wide open while youâre doing something insane like, jumping off a roof into a pool, or starting a fight you canât win, or chasing a girl who was WAY out of your league.
I got up and followed her.
There was something about the chase - no, not the chase, the totally-not-creepy approach - that already felt romantic. She wandered back toward the reference stacks, where the shadows drew long and illumination bloomed from dim 1980s desk lamps. I felt like I was following her through a place that was at once an enchanted forest, but also the school library.
I meant it quite literally.
Vines and ivy twisted among the bookshelves, disappearing up into the ceiling, curled around glowing blue stones. I saw bizarre, long-limbed figures crawling amidst them, little dibbuks or something with oversized noses and pointed ears on unknowable missions.Â
AâŚtroll? Was it a troll? Something big and brutal-jawed with beady black eyes and sloped shoulders leans forward to pick through painting catalogues, mumbling unintelligibly to the crow-feathered girl scanning a QR code.
I ignored them, following the gentle percussion of Tessaâs shod hooves around another stack. I reached one of those towering walls of tomes the library curates but few people seem to stumble across. Their age could be measured in triple digits, and a slender iron ladder on wheels was required to reach up to the higher levelsâŚhow was that not a bold-faced defiance of OSHA?
Lanterns hung from the ceiling, limning her in pale light as she stood on one of those ladders a few meters above me.Â
I was engrossed by the sight of her, and I will not pretend like Iâm a man of decencyâŚI dared an errant peek under her skirt and felt my breath hitch at the sight of that bright purple thong gracing her hips; I could see the swell of her sex pressed against the fabric, the shape of bulbous labia beneath.Â
Quickly shifting my attention from between her thighs to something less obviously perverse, I cleared my throat to get her attention.
Grab the bull by the horns.
She favored me a glance downward.
âHey Tessa. Hope Iâm notâŚcatching you at a bad time?â I hazarded; god that sounded lame.
To my surprise she smiled again and the sun blazed triumphant in my chest. âHi Ascher, not at all, I was justâŚoh it doesnât matter. Let me come down to you.â My eyes followed the side-to-side sway of her hips as she climbed down, of her callipygian perfectionâŚgod that ass.Â
Once sheâd come down to my league level, she seated herself on the fifth step easily, crossing her legs and leaning backward. âWhatâs on your mind, hm?â
That Hellenic accent of hers; a lilting roll of her ârâs, a rhythm foreign on this side of the pondâŚit did things to me, just as much as the valley of her cleavage.
âIâm actually having a pretty tough time with Pazâs assignment,â I chuckled self-consciouslyâŚwracking my mind for the right words. âYou know, the bridge thing.âÂ
The bridge thing, Ascher. Nice.
âYes, I know, the âbridge thingâ.â Her eyes gleamed golden-orange as her smile widened, stifling a little giggle like she found my outward stupidity endearing. âWhatâs getting you down?â Tessaâs fingers danced along the silver chain hanging around her neck, a nail tracing lightly over the shape of her collarbone.
I wondered what it would feel like against my lips.
âI got stuck with making the PID controller - â
â - ah, so they dumped the hard part on you, Ascher - â
â - precisely, and honestly I just canât get it right. Iâm using the formula Paz gave us but it just doesnât work. Every time I run the sim, the bridge starts oscillating and wobbles like aâŚI dunno, like a seizing horse. It overcompensates and goes down in the mud. Paz never taught us how to deal with the derivative.â
The last part was an excuse to try and banish my growing sense of dumbness, the feeling that I was just shaming myself in front of the most beautiful girl Iâd ever seen over some throwaway differential calc that anyone could do -
âThatâs the hardest part,â she pointed out.
Oh.
â...itâs like trying to use math to predict the future based on a panic attack. Everything just starts spiraling, it all gets jammed together and I canât make sense of it,â I continued, handing her my cellphone - Iâd taken a photo of my simulation. Everything she did was graceful, even the way her fingers closed one by one around my Samsung reminded me of a blooming rose viewed in reverse.
âGiving me your phone so freelyâŚwonder if there are some naughty pictures on here,â she mused. Normally this sort of thing wouldnât phase me but she had my cheeks brighter than a raspberry, and I knew she could see it.
âNone that youâll find.â I tried to sound real cool, and it must have worked; Tessa pushed a string of wildflowers back into her dark hair and pursed her lips with a little âoooâ. She handed my Samsung back and pushed off where she was seated, her smiling face inches from mine.
Butterflies and moths fluttered rampant in my belly; she hooked a finger in my belt loop - a shockingly erotic motion that made me bite the inside of my cheek - and tugged me after her. âCome on Ascher. Iâm gonna show you why Iâm a better teacher than Paz.â
âThatâs not hard,â I quipped, drawn along like a moon in her orbit.
I wasnât oblivious; it was clear as the light from one of those blue rocks that she was flirting with meâŚbut didnât she flirt with everyone? Had to remind myself that I saw her go home with Liam on Saturday, caught her making out with Jun on Sunday, and last night she and Tara were dancing up on each other at Crucible.Â
For her, flirtation was as natural as a sparrowâs flight, her lingua franca; it shouldnât have felt special because it wasnât, but it didâŚlike when a celebrity took notice of one of her fans for the first time.
Tessa touched everyone like that (so I presumed) - fingers dancing over chests, her laughter tickling their lips - but the way she did it with me made my heart pound. It made me feel special even though I knew I wasnât, and I found it as tantalizing as it was humiliating.
âSooo. We breaking into Pazâs classroom, hacking his computer and making off with an answer key?â I fell in at her side as we left the library; my fingers sought something to grab onto, unsure of what to do with themselves. They wanted to crawl around her waist and pull her closerâŚthey wanted to brush through her hairâŚthey wanted to brush along her jawline, her breath against my lips.
I shoved my hand in my pocket.
âNo, silly. Thatâs cheatingâŚthink of this as foreplay.â I almost bit the tip of my tongue off. Foreplay. How does she get this comfortable this fast?
Her hands were clasped behind her back as she strode at my sideâŚever accompanied by the quiet âclp-clop-clp-clopâ of her hooves. âBesides weâre going to Grafton Hall, I wanna show you something cool that gets my point across, yes?â Grafton was only a couple buildings down. The sun had already started its descent Californi-way, so our path was lit by black-hooded street lamps. A spider the size of a squirrel skittered out from under one, watching us peevishly; a tiny green tie hung around itsâŚwell, its neck-equivalent. â[Stay away from my lamp!]â it groused.Â
I noticed Tessa glance its way dismissively.
I couldnât find words at that moment, just because of that subtle motionâŚIâd seen the uh, the creatures interact with each other, like the fox with the blue dresser. Iâd never witnessed a person even respond to the things I saw all around me, constantly.Â
What did it mean? Was I just hallucinating? Certainly wouldnât be the first time Iâd made a bigger deal over something triflingâŚ
âAscher?â she asked after a bit - oh god Iâd just been staring off, walking silently at her side.
âI was just thinking, our passcards donât get us into Grafton after 5pm.â Phew, quick recovery.
âMmm, but I TA with Hunjadi, so I gotâŚâ She held up an empty hand, closed her fingers, and opened them again. A little brass key gleamed in her palm.
âThis. Just in case sheâs too lazy to close up after dinner.â
Impressive sleight-of-handâŚIâd seen a lot wilder shit in my time, but this floored me. Probably just the giggle-hots on my part.
âHowâd you do that? Where were you hiding it?â I had to ask.
She stopped at the ugly, rusty side door leading into the brick fortress that was Grafton Hall, her expression serious as stone. âI was hiding it in my ass.â She stared me down, unsmiling for a second before bursting out into laughter at her own joke.
What an incredible dichotomy of a woman.
Like a figure from a Gentileschi painting, given elegant life, all soft golds and bronzesâŚthen she cracked an ass-joke (no pun intended). Her laugh was a swaying song that reminded me of a wandering river; raw yet gentle, wild but dignified.Â
The two of us stood there, laughing like idiots - that kind where youâre bent forward, tears threatening at the corners of our eyes. Wasnât even a joke, justâŚa wildcard moment from Tessa.
Iâd never expected anything like that from her, and it only made me fall deeper into her golden spiral.
Then I remembered: I wasnât hers. She had many lovers to choose from, certainly higher caliber than me. That was what made me cling to the side of the gyre, kept me from drowning.
Even so, my imagination awakened uninvited, and painted a picture where I tugged the door shut behind with a squeaky-clang; in the dark Iâd press her against a wall and hear her gasping smile; our lips would meet, fierce and hungry, my hand would slide up her bare thigh to take her hip and press my arousal between her legs -
- the door made a k-thunk as I pulled it shut behind me, leaning my back against it and watching her clop ahead of meâŚwatched her ass sway with each step, which wasnât helping me control an unwelcome erection. My hands were firmly shoved in my pockets, holding it down against my thigh and trying to look chill as I followed her.
Graftonâs first floor had the characteristic 1970s ugliness of a proper university. The linoleum floorâs color reminded me of gruel mixed with caulk, and glass panels on the walls displayed student projects.Â
A pair of gnome-like creatures whose red flesh reminded me of lacquer were maneuvering a gurney through the hallway; a humanoid shape underneath a black tarp twitched, an arm falling to hang off the side of the gurney. Looked like it was made of porcelain; it waved at me as I went by.
We stopped at a door that looked like every other one, and when she cracked the lock we walked into a high-ceilinged room filled with machines I vaguely recognized. The reek of soldering flux hung cloying herein and a trio of big lathes squatted against the wall. Each one costâŚwell, probably as much as I was paying for my (now questionable) degree.Â
Lightbulbs set in grated hangings cast dim illumination from on high, buzzing like insects on a summer night.
âEver been in here?â she asked playfully, leaning against a bench with a five-axis vice connected to a power supply. Her fingers danced across it affectionately, like a favored musical instrument.
âNot before you invited me in, I donât think welding is a consideration for my major.â I couldnât help but pick up a rubber mallet, turning it in my hand idlyâŚjust so they could have something to do besides resisting reaching out to touch her.
âYou should come hang out sometime Ascher.â Tessa reached out and curled her fingers around the mallet, gently dragging her nails over my knuckles. âSeriously, we do more than just fuck around with blowtorches.â For me that moment was electrical; I wanted so badly to believe that she was showing interest in me but Iâve seen those eyes before, and they werenât just for me.
I was nothing special to her.
I think she saw the sadness in my smile. Iâm pretty shit at hiding my emotions, and there arose this questioning look in her eyes. She was going to ask me what the matter was, I could tell.Â
Master of evasion that I was, I turned my attention to the vice. âWhatâs this thing do?â I let her take the role of teacher again, slid it over her pretty, bared shoulders like a cardigan.
She was too smart to just be distracted, but she let me play my game and wore the professorâs role gracefully. âItâs a vibration testing viceâŚitâs more or less the real world version of the PIC sim. LookâŚâ there was something so surreal about watching a satyr work a vice like this - you only ever saw paintings of them cavorting, drinking, chasing nymphs.Â
Here was one, hallucinated into existence before me, selecting two bars of mild steel that she clamped in.
âThis one here on the left,â she began, tightening that section of the vice and adding some bolt-clamps, âis rigidly clenched.â Tessa pulled her lips back with a little smirk. âItâs never good if itâs too tight, is it.â She winked, swinging the mallet in her fingers to the beat of my throbbing heart. âThis oneâs got some give to it, nowâŚâ
She reached out, her fingers on my arm. âGo and ahead, oooâŚwow, you work out, donât youâŚâ Tessaâs attention seemed fully on my bicep, testing it with her strong fingers.Â
At the risk of sounding like an addle-brained jock, yes I went to the gym rather obsessively; Iâd had this silly vision in my head of arriving in Khamdo in peak condition. Now I just went to focus on something besides the gulf of my future.Â
Her attention made me want to giggle stupidly, but I restrained that impulse and grinned stupidly instead. She returned it, like the sun sparkling on a lake, her eyes almost glowing that amber lightâŚand I foolishly wondered if that was for me alone.
âHit them with the mallet,â she finally suggested, dragging her nails down amidst the crags and lines of definition in my arm before letting go.Â
I carefully tapped the steel bar bolted into the machine; it rang sweetly.
âSee how it sings? Pleasant, beautiful even, yes? Thatâs how it tricks youâŚnow.â She gestured at the other bar, almost giddy. That one I struck, and it gave a dull -clank-. âThis one tells the unappealing truth, youâll see.â
Tessa bent forward to plug the vice into the wall-outlet; I couldnât help myself, staring at the backs of her thighs, disappearing under that shimmery silver dressâŚthe shape of her comely ass was a fixture against my vision - I was literally unable to pull my eyes from it - and she slowly straightened. All the muscles in her back, her legs, they moved under her skin, the flowers strung through her horns glinting like stars in the low-lit chamber.
âJust watchâŚit wonât take long.â She slid a finger along a black knob, turning it to the right so that the machine vibrated violently. The two metal rods became a blur.Â
For a bit we just watched; I sat on a three-leg stool, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. I was intensely aware of her presence at my side, radiating warmth and an unseen light that eroded my better judgment like a puddle draining into cracked earth.
I wanted to press her against the table behind me and kiss her with chaotic passion, lips crashing against each other without order.
I wanted to push her to sit in one of the stools, slide her skirt up, pull down her panties, and show her what I can do with my tongue.
I wanted to tell her that Iâve been into her from the very first time I saw her, that I loved her horns, her glowing eyes, her hooves. Iâd never told one of them - you know, theâŚOtherfolk, I guess - that I could see the horns, or the fire, or the tree-trunk arms.
I didnât do any of those things because I had propriety, and of course an unhealthy fear of rejection.Â
âSo. Whoâre those girls I see you with all the time?â Tessa asked casually, never taking her eyes from the noisy vice.
The question caught me off guard; anytime she showed any interest in me did, I didnât think Iâd ever get used to it. âAryn? Or Vicky?â Those were the first two that came to mind; I didnât really talk to or see Neave Chen anymoreâŚa sore spot in my heart I steadfastly ignored
âPorque no los dos?â she quipped, turning to gently brush some dust off my shoulder, fingers lingering for a moment, thumbing ash gently from my chinâŚthe gesture was so casual, like something Aryn would do yet utterly unlike her straightforward tomboy-energy.
âOh theyâre just buddies, Aryn has been my friend since we were little and Vicky lived in the room above me Freshman year, so we kinda cliqued up I guess. Get drunk together enough times and itâs kinda inevitable.â No need to tell her I was probably going to end up in Arynâs bed tonight.
âMmm. So. Youâre single?â
I was. At least, thatâs how Aryn and I saw it, our bedroom antics aside.
It would have been easy to just say âyep!â but me being me, I had to stop and overthink itâŚI knew I was staring at the vice, probably looked like I was ignoring her or hadnât caught the question like a dolt.
Was she just curious for curiosityâs sake?
Was she interested in making me part of her little man-harem?
OrâŚagainst all oddsâŚwas she actually interested in me? This stunning, otherworldly woman of my (clearly disturbed) dreams asking me something soâŚcasual.Â
I opened my mouth to answer -
-SNAP!-
I felt it like a thunderclap through my shoes.
I watched as the metal bar sheâd bolted down tightly broken down the middle, while its partner kept on trembling. âSee AscherâŚâ Tessa unplugged the vice, presenting the broken steel. âRigidity and too much control, youâll see how the steel snapsâŚbut this one didnât, did it.â She laid the solid ingot in my right hand, as if to assure me it was real.
I thought about it for a bit, relating it back to my simulation. It made me think of the bridge, of its struts and supports bolted tightly down, shearing in the wind just the broken steel bar.
All those little disturbances and oscillations, it felt like herding cats; eventually one would get free, then all the others would make their escape and the whole structure fell apart. âSoâŚI think what youâre saying is by trying to control all the variables, Iâm overcompensating.â
âYouâre overcompensating.â I was suddenly quite aware of her entering my space again, and my eyes met hers - a mistake, as the power of speech seemed to leave me. Her fingers found the hem of my T-shirt, tugging downward on it lightly. âYouâre being too careful.â She was close enough that I could feel her breath against my chin.
Seize the bull by the horns.
I watched her eyes flutter just a little as I drew close; I couldnât hear anything but her breathing, the scrape of her flats against the concrete. Her lips barely brushed mine and just like that a hundred million flowers bloomed in my heart.
Lightning raced from the tip of my tongue down through my chest, striking my loins.
Desire and wanton need clawed at me as my palm found the smooth, tan skin of her waist.
My thoughts became a jumble of simplistic impulse, of wordless erotic imagery. Unadulterated, simple joy.
Spring reigned eternal in my heart for those five seconds.

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the fact that the ADL had to create petitions doing each of the following:
"Please, Mr. Spotify sir, could you not stream the Nazi song? Please we are asking very politely and nicely, could you not give a platform to someone calling explicitly for our mass murder in song?"
and
"Good job Mr Soundcloud! Thank you so so so much for this giant gesture of taking down the song calling for our mass murder! We are endlessly grateful and wish more people were like you"
speaks volumes.
Kanye's newest song hails Hitler and romanticizes Nazism, yet Spotify continues to stream it despite SoundCloud already removing it. Ye's cr
Anyway, here's a link to the petition
I recommend making an account and checking back regularly to sign on to most, if not all, of the email campaigns.
Kanye West has more followers on X then there are Jews in the entire world.
âď¸ Kanye West blasted a song glorifying our genocide to an audience that outnumbers our global population
The Night Is Ours: Chapter 6 - To Kill a Rockstar
âYou think this shit is just fun and games, dontchu.â I tightened my fingers around the revolverâs handle. "Just think you can kick the door down, kill whatever you want. Shred, get drunk, fuck all over the corpse."
âNot like anyone took the trouble to write down the Laws of the Hunt. Even if they were, whoâd gonna be the cops? You miserable Apex fuckers?â He ashed his cigaretteâŚwasnât even talking harsh. No smugness, no mocking or judging me.
He pitied me.Â
Stillness hung between us.
I moved first.Â
Ferals used to control Penn's Point y'know...pft there's that pigeon-stare of disbelief. Yes you dumb pups, used to be Abathor and his slimy brood'd step from the edge of their turf in those swamps outside of West Dalton. They'd swim like sharks along a current of their making, crawl onto the shore, terrorize whoever their big daddy monster told 'em to...that's one reason the Point changed hands so many times â just a natural magnet for war I guess. Heh...give you three guesses what Vera was bringin' to the Point that night...
Doomed to be a killer
Since I came out the nutsac
I'm in a murderous mindstate
With a heart full of terror
I see the devil in the mirror
BUCK BUCK, Lights out...
I bobbed my head for a bit to Ice Cube barking rage into my ear. Dipped my finger in the jar of war paint.
Had to lean pretty close to the mirror to get the white jagged lines just right around my lips...never was much one for makeup, âcept maybe some eyeliner, bit of red on my lips when they werenât hot with blood. Tonight though...ivory jaguar fangs, stylized but simple along my jaws.
That shit spoke to me, Âżentiendes? Jaguar Knights were long dead, their heads stuck on pikes by CortĂŠs five centuries ago, but warâŚhell, long as there were Mortals, thereâd be war. Used to be, the Knights, they dragged doomed fools off the battlefield, got their hearts ripped out to keep the sun rising day by day.
That big cat still crept through conflict like a symbol; even a stupid fuckin' gringo like Yusuf Mizrah could understand what it meant when I came at him wearing fangs. I'd leave 'im alive...probably...but I wasn't rolling up on Pennâs Point to take prisoners tonight.
âCause your body is exposed to the midnight mist,
All you weak motherfuckers give my ring a kiss.
A black stripe under each eye. Hair tied back undera blood red bandana. I held up Big Ben â a burnished blue S&W Model 25. Loaded with fat .45 ACPs. I flicked the cylinder, gave him a spin...I loved that sound, a rapid click-clack that sang different when loaded up with six man-stoppers. If I had anything to say about it - and I had everything to say - at least one of these would bust open Yusuf Mizrah.
Head. Guts. Maybe Iâd blast his fuckinâ dick off, just to make a point. Didn't matter where, motherfucker would regrow it, but he'd get the message I shoulda given him the first time I walked up in his turf.Â
Yusuf Mizrah was that pea under my pillows, fuckinâ up my good nightâs sleep. Asshole thought he was special, like he could get away with shit. "Don't wanna take me seriously, pretty-boy puto? Last mistake you make." It wouldnât be, of course, he'd live to fuck up another day unless I decided to put more than two .45s through his skull -
I can't .
...the fuck ?Â
Like a voice in my head that was mine, but wasn't...like my conscience decided to choose the worst time to make her debut appearance.
Wasn't like me to hesitate before dropping bodies; nah, fuck that shit. If I needed, I'd shove the barrel right behind his teeth, kissin' up against the roof, pull the trigger and -
I can't.
"QuĂŠ chingados is that shit?!" I shouted, fangs ripping bloody from my gums. I screamed at the weak fuckin' bitch in my head who thought I was better than this. I wasn't better. There was no fuckinâ better, no worse â
This life was a zero sum game. You win, you live another day, you take home the prize.
You lose?
I slowly brought the pistol up, pressed the barrel to my temple, staring myself down in the mirror. "Buck buck. Lights out."
I was a bad fuckin' bitch with a big cat's killing grin, black ink-shadow around my eyes...looked good too. Navy blue sports bra, utilitarian and sleek, but it showed enough cleavage to keep Yusufâs eyes wandering. Levis faded from too many trips through the laundry, they rode low and tight on my hips.
Wanted him to see who he was messin' with â take a nice long look.
Cuz real talk, I liked when he looked. More than when Mateo, Jo or Diana checked me out. Couldnât admit it, not out loud, barely even in my brain-meat.
This bullshit contradiction rattled my skull â one minute I wanted him to smash me til I screamed, the next minute I wanted to blast him til he was dead â no doubt about it, some Enkindled curse. Got me all fucked up, hormonal catalysts werenât doing shit. Never been in this kinda dumbass situation, my heart screaming wide-jawed for blood and my lower belly tense and coiled like a snake, calling for him.
Only violence could unravel this kind of twisted shit.
Violence solved all problems; war was good for absolutely everything.
I snapped the safety, slid Big Ben into my waistbandâŚcold steel kept me on my toes. Civvies could gawp all scared but I didnât give a fuck. Uncle Sam himself gave me the go-ahead, Louisiana state law said I could open-carry all I wanted. Didn't need no clerkâs permit.
You'd be hard pressed to find someone in the Riviera who wasn't strapped or rolling with someone who was. It was just that kind of town. So was Penn's Point, but Mizrah? Galen? Too arrogant. Yusuf was from tulip-blue Chicago, wasn't used to how we did things down here in the Land of Traitors.
Out the door of my mama's house â passed down to me when the liver disease took her. Wasnât much to flex about, low-slung bungalow with a white picket fence and yard. Unlike other slobs in my neck of town who were lucky to score a family-dwelling home this deep in-town, I kept it clean. No vehicle-corpses bleeding oil on the grass. No overgrown, ratty-ass yard like a field of untrimmed pubes. Hell...I even kept up that rusty-eaten old jungle gym me and my hermanita beat to shit when we were kids.
I kept my ride at home â just a thirty minute walk through the neon-blazing streets, sidewalks thick with civvies getting lit and thieves taking their due. The Crimson glow colored my white hoody red as maraschino cherries, red as organ blood...made me think of the light in that bathroom at Temple Hall (not to mention it smelled a bit like piss out here too).
I popped a marb from a red box in my pocket, slid it between my lips...tonguing the filter slowly, rolling it between my sharp teeth and tasting the bitter war paint. My thoughts drifted back to when I first got a load of that prettyboy hijo de puta ...
Lotta Firstbloods couldn't tolerate big-ass, rowdy crowds of Mortals. Sensory overload or whatever â too much paranoia around Prey that could suddenly turn on us, wipe us all off the face of the Earth. Lucky me, us Night Howlers werenât so easily shook.
Yeah, I loved a room full of easily spooked mortals as much as the next Turnskin, but I wasnât chasing no 'undying glory' .
I threw down a quick but heavy imprecation â the Humans would see exactly who they expected to see â and I juked past security, Joâs 9mm hugging my hip. I wasnât exactly looking to start shit, cuz you didnât bring a Glock 17 if you were serious about dropping a Therid. Bleeding Yusuf out though, that wasnât the game plan when I followed him into that rank-as-sin bathroom.
Not gonna lie, thereâs something dirty about jumping a dude while heâs taking a piss. Honest as Iâm standing, I really considered it, watching him piss into that concrete ditch. Honorable, cool-headed thing to do would have been to just wait for him to finish, zip up, then have my words with him.Â
Thing is, Iâd heard about Yusuf Mizrah. A disciple of Celais Song wasnât gonna look at me seriously if he didnât know I could take him out. Iâd stick his ass in checkmate first, then we could hash it out.
I whispered that same imprecation against him and his brain cloaked me against his eyes. He glanced right past me, smirking all confident even he thought he was alone. He zipped up (and yeah, I had to resist the urge to check what he was workinâ with). I slid behind him while he was washing his hands, and good on âim. Iâd probably have just gunned him down on principle if he hadnât.
I stabbed the barrel up against his kidney. Squeezing off a bullet there meant he'd bleed like a stuck pig, fucked for his little showâŚnot to mention itâd hurt like a burning bitch to fix the pulped meat Iâd leave him with.Â
âJust take my wallet before you start to regret this," and ooo he sounded real pissy. Even all angry like that, I could feel its baritone thrum working its bullshit magic.
This wasn't the time to act like some fucking fool girl with a hard clit and a headful of jitters.
Nah like, I probably overcompensated when I snatched the back of his neck and slammed his princely face right against the bathroom countertop. Rattled his teeth, bruised his cheekbone. "Don't even think about trying shit, I'll cap you before your show. You wouldn't like that,â I warned him, a quiet threatâŚbit too close to a purr for my liking. I dug my fingers into a pressure point, real mean, just to remind him who was holding the cards.
Son of a bitch wasnât fazed for shit.Â
He cranked his head to look at me from where I had him bitch-bent on the sinkâmotherfucker was smirking. âYouâre Vera Estrada, arenât you.âÂ
I kept my mouth shut but the quiet was louder than any answer.Â
âHeard you had some balls on you, didn't think you'd just come kicking into my turf like this,â he chuckled in thisâŚdumb fuckinâ Yankee accent all cocksure.
Goddamn if I wasnât flattered.
I leaned my elbows up against the Baxter Bridge railing, watching yachts churn the oily water. Their wakes smeared rougey lights across the Red Rock River...looked like a river of gore, pouring into the Gulf's hungry maw. I bet there was some hidden meaning there, but fuck if I could figure it out.
My first big mistake? Not hitting him from the get go. Iâm not talking kissing his face against the countertop, I mean something real . Blowing his kidney out, for exampleâŚor at the least pistol whipping his teeth into his mouth. Wouldnât be smiling all cute and shit then. Yeah...that's what I'd do this time when I got to him. No words, just let the pistol do the talking.Â
"Can I do it?" I asked aloud, grinning at my distorted reflection like a fuckinâ lunatic...looked like some goofy bitch, neon-lit all red like I was blushing, smiling like a dumb-ass girl at one of his concerts. That's what his Enkindled bullshit did to me.Â
"Kinda the first question aint' it. Just how *deep* are those little bitch-claws of his sunk?"Â
My reflection mirrored my lips, like she was asking the question.Â
I wracked my brain, hunting for what he did to make me hesitate...
"Can I look at you?"
It wasnât like he came at me all hard like, 'bitch show your face if you're gonna roll up on me', or all 'look me in the eye'. His voice was soft, a bit husky like he was clowning around. Not like he had lead ready to punch through him.
âThe fuck â bro.â I moved my hand up his back to grab his hair, my traitor fingers wandering over the crags of his sinews threaded on his spine. He wasnât supposed to be acting all coy and shit. âIâm not here to play with you â â
âWell I wanna know what you look like, and then Iâll talk."
I balked just a bit, caught like a buzzard hovering in the thermal of his voice.Â
âCome on,â he purred all mischievous and unshaken, âweâre both just running through different parts of the JungleâŚleast you can do is look me eye-to-eye if youâre gonna roll up in my turf.âÂ
Damn him...even in this piss-and-shit stinkin' bathroom I could smell him, and he smelled good. Too good for his own good.
His voice wrapped around me like smoke, and I found myself wondering what the harm wasâŚyeah, you know, I wanted him to have a look, see just who the fuck he was messing with.Â
I thought heâd size me up, maybe sneer at me like a real tough guy.
Yusuf Mizrah, trouble maker, kin-killer, an annoyingly handsome threat (even if my own pack was too damn blind to see it)...
He drank me in like I was stunning. Even with the Glock staring down his belly, ready to rip holes in his guts, son of a bitch made me feel beautiful.
I hated that shit.Â
I fuckinâ rejected it.Â
I loved it , even as I was setting myself up for the hurt.
The male gaze wasnât exactly what got me off. Not most of the time anyway. Jo used to tell me my eyes were a sacred darkness; Mateo loved my hair, called it a âblack silk waterfallâ - only poetic thing he ever said. Diana was all about my tits, said they were nice and perkyâbut Yusufâs eyes crawled over my everything, hooked on all my best parts.
I stuck my lower lip out like I was getting bored, hooded my gaze to kill the light in my eyes. My belly did this flutter-kick when his stare dropped to the space between my neck and hips. It made me remember the slick heat between my thighsâMateo and I had gone at it earlier, he was still hot in me. Wasnât something Iâd normally even register.
This time I felt desired. Real sexy. I knew he could smell my packmate in me, didnât know heâd look at me like he wanted to push Mateoâs cum deeper inâŚI tried not to think of his own, mingling together in me. Fucker could tell I was thinkinâ something, grinning all snide like that at me. Something about his eyes on me, got my palms all sweaty.
Yusuf was a fine bastard and he knew it. He wasnât as big, not as thick in the chest as Mateo but those six feet still stacked like the protag of an action movie. Nice hair too. Looked like heâd gotten a fade and let it grow just enough for those black bristles curl a bit in the humidity. I remembered how it felt under my fingers, soft and sharp, springing back into place.
Had to say somethinâ, elsewise Iâd start gawping like a fangless groupie. "You tryinâ some Enkindled staring-contest shit to mesmerize me, bonitillo?â He didnât answerâŚcanât lie, I was staring at his abs, wondering if I could find a reason to throw hands with him, find an excuse to drag my nails over them.
Then he said it: âNahâŚpretty sure you already got me all spiral-eyed. Might wanna gun me down first before it gets complicated.â
It was a hokey fuckinâ line, and it made my heart's season change from slow-thawing winter to dew-slicked Spring.
Summer heat burned in my chest, putting steel in my step as I stalked across Baxter Bridge, keeping my eyes peeled for turf warnings.
Spotted one right from the get-goâŚmotherfuckers were serious. One of the red-painted cross struts on the bridge had been tagged with a pair of interlinked blue crowns. Decent graffiti. Werenât just a claim.
It was a challenge facing my own territory, like they were beckoning us to stroll into the Point and find out just who ran the show. If theyâd had their roots dug in here the bridge would have been warded; runes filled with Accursed Blood, emitting a psychic scream only we could hearâŚlike a dog whistle carved outta asphalt. Would made my ears bleed, and theyâd come running, loaded for bear.
None of that though. The only sound was traffic and Pennâs Point crumbling before meâŚplace was basically a shit-filled ditch compared to the Riviera. It was one of those districts you shunned unless you had business you couldnât avoid â like Ashlandâs outskirts, riddled with nothinâ but car dealerships and meth dens. Here across the bridge, it was all foundries and warehouses, stinking of soldering flux and sun-cooked tin roofs roasted the air.
Sweaty workers whose jobs hadnât been sent off to China, Mexico or New Sarmatia took their anemic paychecks into brownstone wannabes. Their facades were coal-stained and rain-worn.
I bet yaâll think Iâm paranoid about the so-called âKings of Midnightâ...just two of em, nothing against an established pack of four, right?
Well those two bastards had cleaned out the bratva , those unaligned perdedores squatting at that arcade â hell I heard they killed Big Belly, giant-ass Spider-Ogre living on top of the train station.
Two guys pulled that off in three nights.
You think a force like that was gonna just stop there?
Obviously not. They were more than just a danger to our pride; the Kings of Midnight were a pair of knives pointed at our throats and hearts. I wish Mateo would pull his skull outta his ass and take âem seriously.
Heâd been slipping, ever since he started cozying up with the Fangs. Probably had it in his hollow head that theyâd protect us.
It was like heâd forgotten how we took the Riviera by our own damned selves with nobody at our backs.
The faint stink of someone smoking a clove nearby brought Yusufâs visage flashing before my eyes - dragged my thoughts back to that bathroomâŚ
âLook at you. El rey de su pinche cuchitril. Bet you feel real big.â
YeahâŚlook at that bastard grin, you know he was feeling like he was nine feet tall. âBeen wondering since I crossed the bridge, started dodging trash, this got something to do with the shit you and your skinny-ass boyfriend stirred up in Baton Rouge? Dragginâ darkness to our doorstep?â
Saw how that pushed his buttons. Baton Rouge was a fuckinâ disaster. Itâd never been a paradise, even if itâd flown Apex colors.
Now the Jungle there was a moon-blasted ruin, packed with moon-blasted, freakshow Wolves. Black Banner fingerprints all over, caught silver-handed.
Shoulda been humiliating for âem, but nothing ever dented their confidence.
Sure enough â âNo, it doesnât.â Rolled right off his back, barely seemed to care. "But you know same as I do â there ain't a lotta people who could survive something like that. So...like you said."
He posed for me, cocky as hell like he was on camera. âHere we are.â
Made me feel like a background extra, not the queen-bitch of the Riviera whoâd spilled liters of blood from man and monsters claiming this place.
âFor now,â I agreed, invading his space and jamming the tip of Joâs Glock under his chinâhad him looking serious for a hot second, 9mm would blow out his brainstem and even we didnât recover easily from that.Â
âBut I want you to understand something, fuckinâ pendejo. If you fuck with my people, if you so much as hum your little songs up in my territory, we'll take everything you have. All of it."
âThink you can take everything I'm bringing, huh?â Fucker didnât even blink.
Didnât even flinch.
Sounded like he was inviting me for a roll in his sheets, and I ainât gonna lie: it was pretty hot. Too hot.
Enough that I let him push the pistol away slow and easy, breaking down my last shield against him.
"Think you can take me?" he dared to ask.
This -fucking guy-. "Me cago en todo, cabrĂłnâŚ" I hissed through my teeth, like I was exhaling burning propane. âThey said you were a fucking talker, didnât know you for a playful fool.â
Then again, I was the one holding the pistol slack by my sideâŚso you tell me:
Who was the fuckinâ fool here exactly?
At that point I'd lost.Â
Tried to sound tough, like I wasn't bitinâ what he was sellinâ but he'd hooked me through the lip. I coulda salvaged it by leaving right there. Coulda saved my pride.Â
But I was just a blue bottle by then, buzzinâ loud and talking trash while his poison melted me from the inside.
That night the killing blow came from three angles at once.
First â he invited me to stay and watch him and Galen and play. Simple thing, like he was needling a knifepoint between my ribs.
Second â he did thisâŚthing. Strode past me all confident, absent fear, brushed his shoulder against mineâŚfelt his hip pass against my own. Didnât even look at me, casual as Saturday. I knew it was a calculated move, bastardo probably overlaid a dweomer to make sure I wouldnât forget how it made me hot and bothered.
Third â the actual killing blow itself, it came from that stage.
God. Fucking. Damn.
Iâve been to a hundred shows - from boy bands with my sister to badasses spittinâ bars, DJs famous and obscure. Iâve ever had guys serenading me at my window, and Iâm telling you nothing coulda prepped me for that.
They werenât just kings.
They were fuckinâ Tyrants.
They roared their edicts into a mic; shredded an apocalypse from bass and guitar; that drum was a thousand grenades blowing the world to bits.Â
Galen and Mizrah were the tyrants of our hearts, and nobody in that audience could resist them.
I dipped after the third song. Played like I was bored and had better shit to do, but the truth of it? If I stayed under Yusufâs fiery stare, Galenâs razored grin, Iâd be doomed.Â
Worse than I was now.
âIâm ripping that little snare of yours apart with my teeth,â I growled at the river, as if Yusuf was sneering up at me from the water. "Gonna make you beg me not to kill you this time...gonna make you *cry* like a scared little bitch."
Cuz there was no way I'd want him after that. Right?Â
I could do this.Â
Iâd break him.Â
Iâd free myself.Â
I'd click him off like a light-switch when I pulled the trigger, and just like that I'd be back in the dark.
Alone among my pack.
Walking blind in the dark where nobody could watch me fall.
That was better.
âŚright?
I crossed the bridgeâŚimmediately the change hit me, like stepping off the plane in another country (Iâd never actually left the States but a girl could imagine).Â
The skyscrapers of the Riviera, clawing at the clouds for more , ever more, tumbled down into coal-stained brick carcassesâŚgrungy warehouses with tin-roofs that heated up in the sun like a flat ironâŚ
The air weighed more here.
It was thick with the final breaths of the murdered; whether they got stabbed in alleyway muggings gone wrong, or bled out slow in the jaws of industry, ghost-echoes of their death-screams polluted the smoggy air.
It didnât fit Mizrah, didnât fit Galen.Â
They were joy-drunk intruders â laughing, rocking out on stage â in a place made for hard-nosed bastards raised on a diet of gravel and disappointment.Â
That was part of why I clocked them as a threat from the get-go; they were dynamic in the bustling dust-stasis of Pennâs Point. The Red Crows? Blind.Â
Too busy squabbling with each other, puttinâ on this useless show of strength.
We were wounded lions arguing over who got the prettiest spot at the watering hole â the Midnight Kings were jackals. Already circling. Waitinâ for us to fall asleep.
I shoved my hands deep in my pockets and walked to DoomKnightâs.
About thirty minutes later.
"It's nothin' personal ese...nothin' you did." I explained myself, cool as steel as I shoved him into the alleyway.Â
He stumbled over his own feet, arms flailing like a baby bird tossed from its nest. Slammed hard into the pavement with a wet âsmackâ. Watched him with neutral disgustâŚweak Mortal prey.Â
He didnât deserve this.
I ripped his pink and black tie-dye shirt at the collar hauling him around, and his jeans shorts were slipping down his waist. Briefs and buttcrack for all to see. Didnât know his name, didnât need to.
Didnât matter. Wasnât like I kept a list of all the people Iâd mugged, back when that was my game. Fatass rolled over on his knees. "Wait wait PLEASE! Stop, here!" he held his thin wallet out in front of himself like a shield as much as an offering.Â
Under the surface, beneath the snarling beast Iâd become years ago, I felt a twinge of regret. Reflexive, like reacting to a punch.
Donât engage it. Donât think about it.
Just do it.
I dug my fingers into his ripped collar, hauling back with a clenched fistâ
âCRACKâ
"NgghgHAAAAAGGGGH!â
The sound of his nose breaking was louder than it should have been. He covered his mouth as blood gushed down his chin. My middle knuckle ached as I drew back again.
Donât think about it, Vera.
Punched him again. Right eye. Hard enough to make it swell shut, if not break his orbit.
A second punch, to the other eye, tears mixing with blood and snot. It smelled coppery and hot against the ashen air. He flailed and babbled, scrambling back and begging for mercy.
Donât think.
He never hit me back once, never even tried. Just screamed. Bled. Sobbed. Tried to crawl away.
It's just business.
I hauled him up onto his knee, and this time he struggled; not enough to stop me wrenchinâ his arm behind his back.
I twisted, the joint popped free from socket and he made an animal sound of agony; his head shot back, hitting my sternum. Yeah it hurt, but heâd be fine, just pop it back into socket, werenât like it was broken. I dared to look down at this man I was brutalizing.
Thinning hair yanked back in a greasy ponytailâŚdidnât look a day past 30. Fat and weak from a life of indolence and shitty food.
Couldnât help but wonder who he wasâŚwho was I tormenting? Was he lonely? Did he have people depending on him? Anyone waiting at home?
*If Yusuf hadn't fucked with me, I wouldn't be making this guy pay for it.*
⌠Liar.
I spent a good minute boxing him on the ground, kicking him in the ribs. âWhy?! What did I do?!â he begged through the tears, the blood, the mucous. I didnât have a good answer for him, so I just kept swinging.
Didnât pop no organs. Didnât crack no bones â pretty sure I bruised his ribs though.
By the time I was finished with him, he was bent forward over himself on his knees. Holding his guts, his chestâŚcrying like a little bitch. Normally Iâd spit in disgust, watching a grown man bawl his eyes out.
Now though? I just hated myself.
Shit I mean, look at that. I was glad he couldnât see my face when I bent down and undid my bandana, wiping the blood from his eyes. He crunched in on himself, inhaling wetly, bracing for more.
âShh. Iâm almost done, I promise man. This ainât your fault,â I assured him. I lifted the back of his shirt, slid a sharpie from my pocket and wrote in thick, jagged letters:
MEET ME AT THE TALLEST SPOT IN YOUR TURF CABRĂNÂ
WEAR SOMETHING YOU DON'T MIND BLEEDING ON
Finished it up, quick and clean. Then I hauled his broken ass to the doorway of DoomKnightâs. âBrace your headâŚchin against your chest,â I instructed in a softer voice than anyone ever heard, and threw him down the stairs like a swollen bag of trash.
Didnât want no broken neck. Wasnât that kind of monster yet.
I even slid a hundy in his back pocket before I tossed him.
Later.
I was sitting on the edge of DeFleur Tower. Hardly a tower â just an ugly brick shithole that stood a bit taller than its busted-ass siblings. My elbow was propped on my knee. In my head I was flipping through how this would go down, over and over.
Would he try to fight me? Show me the muscle heâd used on the wolves whoâd owned that arcade?
No way heâd ambush me. Wasnât his self-righteous, big bullshit style.
Bet heâd try talkinâ.
Bet heâd try softeninâ me up with that silver tongued bullshit.
Wasnât gonna be like last time, no no. I was gonna lay it out for him, straight and simple, let him in on how reality worked. Iâd bury it home in his body with a .45 ACP round, so deep heâd carry my words to the worms.
I slid the revolver into my palm, popped the cylinder, spun itâŚthat ratcheting click was a promise, and its rhythm cracked through me.
Reminded me of â
â Galen hammering the drums, fast as a machine gun, strobe lights flaring like muzzle flashes; saw him staring me down in the audience, hungry like a hawk leering at a rattlesnake. I hungered back, but to be taken into the sky and torn by him.
I felt...special.
Mizrah, a boot stomping down on a skull-shaped amp, fingers dancing across strings and fretboard till his guitar was screaming like a war-goddess, howling for moreâŚnever taking his eyes off of me.
Even when he screamed into the mic andâ
"Vera." His voice clove the air behind meâŚbaritone sharp as a skinning knife.
I slid my tongue over the ivory sharpness of my fangs. Snapped the cylinder home with a âCLACKâ of threat.
Hereâs where we end whatever the fuck you did to me, cabrĂłn.
"Real shit hole you got here, Mizrah. Can't say it brings me joy beinâ back." I rose slowly, iron dangling in my hand as I turned to face him. Steeling my heart against his...fucking radiance.
It was starting to rain again, made that bristle-black hair of his shine.Â
He'd stopped about twenty feet away; close enough that I could get lost in the details, far enough I couldn't just claw them away.Â
He had this white wife beater straininâ against his carved chest, leather jacket hanging open against the evening warmth. Had his hands in his pockets, like he didnât even give a fuck what I was doing.Â
âPretty sure I know what brought you here.â His smirk buried itself in his words.Â
Motherfucker.
"Coulda just called. Didn't need to get medieval with Randy. Poor bastard," the music of his voice dropping into a rough growl.
"You know fuckinâ well why I did," I countered, closing the space between us. Slow, deliberate.
The Night Howler in me was thirsty for his fear, but he offered none.Â
Not even a drop.
"Why?" He asked, tipping his chin upward at me, easy challenge.
Shoulda been pissed, acting like I hadnât just kicked down his door and dragged his guy through hell. That shit shoulda been humiliating.
"Three reasons." I ticked them off with the barrel of the gun, circling him like fresh Prey.Â
"First, y'all just parked your Therid asses in my backyard, didn't even invite us over for a barbeque. Poor fuckinâ form." He turned with me, never let me get at his back. Smart boy.Â
"Second, you got a rep. You're Black Banner, War's the only language you assholes speak."
"Guilty on both fronts I guess,â Yusuf slid a box of cloves from his jacket, bit one between his teeth, âbut you know the rules of the game, baby."
Baby. What. The. Fuck.
"Third," my voice softened against my will, betraying me, "cuz of whatever trick you pulled on me."Â
I completed my circuit, popping the cylinder again - had to fight to keep my hands from going âround his neck, or trailing down his chest.
I watched the cherry of his clove glow like a hot pearl, reflected by his eyes. Smoke curled around him, ghostly. Watching me, glancing at the gun like it meant nothing.Â
Lazy.
Cool.
Dangerous.
âDunno what you're talking about. All I did was talk you outta making a mess of my show and got you to watch us.â Bastard winked at me. âYou liked it too, don't lie."Â
Winking at me now? Shit, winking at me?! Hijo de puta .
âYou think this shit is just fun and games, dontchu.â I tightened my fingers around the revolverâs handle. "Just think you can kick the door down, kill whatever you want. Shred, get drunk, fuck all over the corpse."
âNot like anyone took the trouble to write down the Laws of the Hunt. Even if they were, whoâd gonna be the cops? You miserable Apex fuckers?â He ashed his cigaretteâŚwasnât even talking harsh. No smugness, no mocking or judging me.
He pitied me.Â
Stillness hung between us.
I moved first.Â
Slammed my knee up into his gut, bent him double with a grunt.Â
Flipped the pistol â came swinging down with the grip to dent his skull, but Mizrah shot in and slammed me against the brick roof access.Â
He got his hands around my wrists, pinning them above my head against the brick. We bared our fangs, growling like beasts, ready to tear flesh.
" FUCK you," I snapped my teeth, barely missing his lips. "You think the Jungle's just some fuckin' stage for prettyboys like you and Galen play your little songs, swing your fuckinâ dicks?"
"Better Jungle than yours,â he snapped back, voice raw with anger for the first time, âyou think it's a fuckin' cage . Youâre like a coyote in a zoo.âÂ
I wanted to bite his lips off / to kiss him, so fucking badly.
My claws dug into his wrist, hooked a heel behind his; tripped him hard, cracked his skull against the roof.Â
I straddled him before he could recover â the revolverâs barrel stabbed against his forehead. "It ain't about fun and games,â I spat in his face, âit's about what we gotta do!"
"And how the fuck is that workinâ out for you, huh?!" he shouted at me, pretty even when he was bleeding.
It was terrible. I was broken. Isolated.
"The Riviera is ours,â I barked back but it sounded weak. I drilled the barrel harder against his skull, like itâd give truth to my words. âBest turf in all Ashland.âÂ
I bent forward, sneering and scenting him. âI smell the sweat soaked into your skin...stink like you been sleeping on couches and beds that weren't yours. You playin' somebody's hoe before you got a hold of the Point, Mizrah?"
Didnât expect to hurt him, but it did. Clear as fuckinâ dayâŚhis eye twitched. Teeth clenched, like he was battling the breaking impulse.
No.
Don't look at me like that.Â
You're supposed to look pissed.
"I liked you being there."Â
No.Â
There it was, the fuckin' trick again â when he said that I started feeling .Â
Not the usual anger, the old jealousy you canât taste after months of eating it. Inside my chest a tightening pressure grew, and that jaguar-grimace flowed away like oil down a gutter.Â
"Shut the fuck up," I tried to snarl at him, but it was fragile. Small.
"After you left in the middle of Operation Thunderfist - "
"Yusuf thatâs such a stupid fuckinâ name - "
"Galen's idea, donât tell him. Look, after you left, G didn't stop asking about you...'who was that bad hottie in the audience?' and like, 'you get her number you pig?' and I had to endure him getting up my ass about it 'til I told him who you were...gave me an even harder time after."Â
Prettyboy was an actor, clearly - I refused to believe any of it. Not even when his rough voice got all quiet, made me feel warm in the night rain.
I jerked his collar, jostling him roughly. "Don't you fuck with me man," I pleaded, more than I demanded.
"You came at me from that stinking darkness,â he rasped, âlike a stiletto with my name burned across the blade. You didn't cut me yet, but I'm still bleeding. Right here." He tapped at his heart twice.
Who...the fuck said shit like this?Â
Was he following a script ? Was that just how musicians rolled?Â
It was so...lame. Just this uncreative tripe.
It melted me like whipped cream on a summer day.
"If you're gonna do me, just do it," he dared.Â
Yusuf closed his eyes and let his arms fall down to his side.
I wanted to shoot him in the head, end it here / I wanted to kiss him, tumble down the spiral.
I let go of his collar.Â
My hand grew a mind of its own, traced my fingertips along the stubble of his cheek...beautiful bastard. Something forbidden.
"I oughta," I clapped low-pitch chains around my words, hauling back at the emotions threatening to carve free of my chest.Â
"You've gone and ruined things for me...think I'm the one who crawled from the dark to stab you, hijo de puta . Whatever imprecation you pulled on me...you've made it so I can't think straight. Fucked up my humours."Â
Dug your teeth into my heart.
" Thatâs what you think is going on? That your juices are outta whack?" I didn't even realize I'd pulled the gun from his forehead until he was dragging the barrel down to point at his heart...calling my bluff, damn psycho.Â
Then he dropped a nuke on me.
"I've been on fire for you since you came to Temple Hall."Â
Who the fuck said shit like that? What kind of kumbaya singinâ, granola-munchinâ dipshit was open like that?Â
I hated it / I loved it.
I couldn't even put words to what was happening to me.Â
The emotional intensity was likeâŚa twenty-car pileup behind my ribs. A solar flare arcing behind my eyes. The gush of hot blood in my mouth from a jugular bite.Â
"You're a liar ." The accusation sounded more like I was begging for him to stop. Tendrils of my hair brushed his jawline.Â
"You're talkin' like you've got something loving and kind in your heart, but Firstbloods ain't like that. Black Banners ain't like that, you're bringing war to my doorstep. I know you are."
"The irony is that you don't even think peace is real .â I donât think Iâd ever seen a man speak so earnest. âEvery step you take, every word outta your mouth since you first saw me has been an invitation to fight. Here we are, though. You've had this gun trained on me cuz you're waiting for me to say it first."Â
His fingers crawled over the back of my hand, holding the revolver.
No, no, NO .
"Vera," he began, his fire-ringed eyes so black I could drown in them. "I know you got Pack. I know Mateo is your man.âÂ
âBut I want you."
"No," I prayed. I shook my head, like I could somehow rattle his words back out my ears like Iâd never heard them.
I ignored the fact that I was straddling him against the rooftop, that Iâd stopped fighting him, was leaning into him. He was winning again.
I shoulda pulled the trigger.
"I want you badly ," he repeated, a whispered promise of sin.Â
And when he pressed his palm against my side, slid it up my ribs...I arced into it. The sound that escaped my throat wasnât right - a sound of surrender as my body went slack for him. I was needy.
I was weak .
I didn't stop him, couldn't as he pushed up into a sitting position, my knees on either side of his hips.
I hated him.Â
I adored him.
He made me feel good and he wasnât supposed to. He was seeing me, fighting him and pushing back, and he only ever came back with open arms.
What did he even see past the threats, past the ugly thing of concrete and steel that these streets, that the Jungle had made me?
I knew Iâd lost when hope took root in my heart.
"Damn you," I cursed him as our lips crashed together.
I broke open.Â
Shattered like a discarded liquor bottle.
And all the light and rage and hate streamed out from my chest, leaving me an empty vessel to be filled with...
Joy.
Serenity.
The feeling of being wanted .
His lips were softâŚthey shouldnât have been. Not on a war-hardened prince of the stage like Yusuf Mizrah. His tongue tasted like that clove Iâd knocked from his mouth after I tripped him and what the holy hell â
There was a little steel stud through the tip of his tongue.
A slick, dirty thought wormed in: how that metal would feel against my breasts, between my thighs.
He wasn't supposed to make me feel this.
I felt his other hand, nails dragging down my back, finding the flare of my waistâI gyrated against him without even thinking, felt his cock hardening.
The want came like one of them Hurricanes with the lady names; its howling moan drowned out Mateo's grousing, Jo's doubt, Diana's barbs.
He wasn't supposed to drown out the sadness.
My hands werenât mine no more; my nails snagged in the cotton of his wife beater as I gave in and traced the shape of his torsoâŚlike one of them Greek muscle breastplates. He smelled like leather, sweat, need . Too good for this world, too good for me.
My fingers were already working to undo his fly.
He wasn't supposed to make me want him like nobody before.
I broke the kiss reluctantly, breathing against his mouth, desperate. "Yusuf Mizrah..."
"Vera Estrada," he breathed back, his gaze stripped clean of cock-ass arrogance...just a beautiful phoenix of a man, burning me alive in the dark.
No.
I grabbed the gun.
Pressed it against his throat.
Pulled the trigger.
BLAM
The muzzle flash seared my vision for a moment. When it clearedâŚhe was staring up at meâwide eyed with disbelief.Â
A great gory hole smoked where his jugular was blasted open. His life was gushing out over the rooftop. Yusuf choked.Â
Gasped in his own blood.Â
He reached a shaking hand up to claw my eyes out ...it reached my mouth, stroked my lips feather soft. It fell away.
I stayed straddling him, knelt over the ruination of this beautiful man.
Watching the red flow of his pulse grow weaker, his tawny skin get pale.
I did it.
âŚI felt...
Nothing.
No satisfaction, triumph or liberation.
There was just a space in my chest, torn open and emptied of him, of a weak little fucking girlâs nameless hope.
And you know what the fuck I did?
I kissed him one last time. Tasted his blood.
I left him there.Â
This time I didn't cry like I did with my back turned to Mateo. This time though, felt like I'd killed something beautiful before it'd even had a chance to breathe.
The Night Was Mine.Â
But it felt so terribly empty now.
ââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââ
Not every victory is sweet. I've had my share of bitter wins that leave your tongue swollen and your belly empty; the reward is putting one foot ahead of the other one for another day...losing ain't a choice we have. Yusuf thought he could win her over but Vera? Too strong for that. Too weak for that. Ain't that a kicker? Yeah you try and put that together in your heads you lil' dumbasses.
Fic list
Going to start reblogging other posts on this account so thought I'd keep a fic list pinned (and also cause it's cute to see them all organized!)
Harlivy âŚď¸đż
she breaks (out, down, through) // 24k, complete // Everything Harley breaks. Pre-series // Canon compliant. Going from Arkham to frenemies to besties. UST. Pining. Ivy POV. And Love Is Holding Back // 4.8k, complete // Harley through season 2, reflecting on pre-series moments // Canon compliant. Harley realizing her feelings (she's down bad). Harley POV. Couldn't Wait Till Morning // 11k, WIP 2/3 // Ivy, Harley, and the nights they've shared in Arkham // Canon divergent. Doctor to friend to lover. Fluff and smut. Switches POV.
ATLA đĽđ
Where The Hot Springs Flow // 1.5k, complete. // Azula after the finale // Canon compliant snippets. Azula rekindling her inner fire. Azula POV. Show You What All the Howling Is For // 63k, WIP 14/18 // June and Azula take a trip, 12 years after the finale // Toxic yuri road trip story. Think âThelma & Louiseâ meets âBlack Swan.â Bounty hunters & treason. June POV (mostly).
Arcane đâď¸
Digging Like You Can Bury Something That Cannot Die // 2.5k, complete // Caitlyn goes hunting // Post-finale, intercutting scenes of young Caitlyn hunting. Angst. Caitlyn POV. You and I, We Are The Only Heirs // 3.3k, complete // Vi attends a funeral // Post-finale, intercutting scenes of young Vi. Angst. Grief. Vi POV. When Am I Gonna Lose You? // 5.8k, complete // Vi & Caitlyn after the funeral // Post-finale, funeral. Angst. Grief. Bittersweet ending. Vi & Caitlyn POV. Off Balance // 1.3k, complete // Caitlyn & Jinx. Target practice // Set in some indeterminate slightly happier future. Girls bonding over guns. Caitlyn POV.
Bubbline đŹđŚ
There's No Spark On A Dampened Floor // 2.3k, complete // After 'Sky Witch' Bubblegum gets back to routine. Well⌠her idea of routine // Canon compliant gap filler. Pining. Bubblegum POV. Inches Above The Dust On The Ground // 3.6k, complete // Marceline spots Bubblegum on a date. References 'The Suitor' // Canon compliant gap filler. Pining. Marceline POV. my last days on earth, eating you // 1.3k, complete // Marceline and Bonnie at the end of days. References 'The Star' // Doomed girlfriends from Fionna & Cake Vampworld episode. Toxic yuri. UST. Marceline POV.
Chaggie đđŞ˝
Believer, Took Me Over Like a Fever // 2.4k, WIP 2/3 // Vaggie & Charlie, pre-series // Snippets before and after meeting. Angst. Switches POV.
Where the Shadows Lie: Chapter 1 - Incredible Weakness
The fox looked at me once again, narrowed its eyes and cocked its head. â[Carpe noctum, frater,]â it rumbled at me in a voice as deep as a sousaphone, before it stepped through the dresser doors. They slammed shut, catapulting the azure furniture back into the water.
Huh.
"So...you're not going to stick me in an institution, or tell the school I'm not fit for study, right?"
"No. I'm not going to do those things unless you tell me you're going to hurt someone or yourself...don't go getting any ideas."
"I'm not going to hurt anyone," I assured him.
The university psychologist wasn't exactly the kind of person I pictured when I made the appointment. I thought Shams al-Rashi would be a tweedly little fellow with a bushy moustache and a balding pate, scribing my madness on a notepad and reclining in a very specific kind of red armchair. I was right about the moustache, totally spot on actually - glorious, if I was being perfectly honest. Black, striped with white, it curled up at the ends under his hawk-beak nose. Doctor al-Rashi's face reminded me of a tall, blunt crystal struck from the earth and given form, as well as a perpetual glower. He was wearing a dark green blazer, piped with red...cheaply made, but his vermilion tie looked like hand-woven silk.Â
His head was on fire; just the top, a nimbus of orange and white, replacing his hair.
"Then Mister Razansky I can promise you the whole point of this venture is to find constructive solutions that work for you and protect your academic performance." Instead of a little moleskine notebook or a boring notepad, a wafer-thin tablet glowed on the table before him. He twirled a stylus between his fingers. Shams wasn't sitting either, but instead standing at a podium while I reclined. I think some people would find it imposing or intimidating, but it felt like he was taking me seriously...no chance for him to zone out listening to my bullshit.Â
I appreciated that sort of focus; if youâre gonna do a job, you damn well oughta do it right. "So..." he gestured to me with white-hot fingertips (how did he keep from burning everything?), "let's start basic. Have you ever seen a counselor before?"
"No. I never thought I'd need one, I never thought there'd be much of a point," I admitted cautiously. This was a big step for me, the notion of talking to someone who wasnât Arryn was akin to joining a new religion. It was something you did with a quizzical heart, but a little apple-core of hope hidden away, all the same.
Movement outside the window was perpetually distracting for me; a few wild herons had landed outside at the edge of a green pond ringed with palm trees and ferns...glorious creatures. Beyond them, a trio of...women, I think, cavorted in the water; their skin was a mottled greenish color like a frog's, their hair like tendrils of swamp mandrake dangling down their spines. They looked to be quarreling over an eel.
Good lordâŚI still had no idea what they were. I glanced at Shams, at some girls on the basketball team passing by; were they seeing this shit?
The weirdness made my stomach twist. I remembered how one of those mandrake women had snatched a dog from its leashâŚjust pulled it down under the water, turned it all bubbling and red with froth. Did they ever snatch people like that?
He dutifully recorded notes on his tablet, holding the pen from the end like a priest scribing a text. "Mmm. As men we are often told by other men to seek solace in our own strength, but only a strength they approve of; women often tell us to express, but in many cases they mean to express what they want to hear."
"The lady who raised me was pretty good letting me say my piece, but yeah she works for the Army...'strength comes from within', that kind of person." I never told Rachel about stuff like Doctor al-Rashi's partial state of immolation, or the frog-women bickering over the eel. Or about Tessa. "I guess this is different from what other people come in for."
"You'd be surprised at what I've heard," he assured me with cool sobriety. I could feel his eyes, like two little pinpoints of heat, tracing the shape of my eyes, the set of my facial muscles; reflexively oppositional, I tightened the screws on my poker face. I was a perfectly controlled feelings-machine; heâd see what I wanted him to see.Â
Speaking of: "How would you describe your emotional state right now, sitting on that couch?"
Exhausted. Skittish. Low-scale aroused, almost all the timeâŚsomethingâs wrong with me.
"It's a comfortable couch," I demurred, patting the dark red cushion with a nod of approval. "I'm happy with the couch. I'm feeling stressed and unsure about my future, and tired." I swallowed dryly, watching him watching me; it felt like we were sizing each other up for a duel (and with what weapons, I wondered? He looked like a saber-and-shield type of guy, I was more of a pistols at dawn fellow).
"And...?" he gestured for me to continueâŚexperienced shrink like him knew Iâd be holding back.
"And, I'm...kinda scared, I guess. I feel like I'm being watched and followed." That part wasnât easy to admit; how do you tell a stranger youâre afraid of something?
Doctor al-Rashi paused his scrawling, an eyebrow cropping up dramatically - weren't shrinks supposed to mask their responses?
"Do you feel unsafe?" he queried, setting the stylus down.
"I'm not sure." The admission came with some reticence because it sounded dull. "I feel a little...transgressed." And I did. Ashland was the kind of place where people talked, and because people were all about themselves, that talk could come back and bite you real fast. Real city of jackals.
"Is that what's been weighing most on your mind, or is there something else?" When he moved it sort of reminded me of fire passing between torches; a gait that at-once flickered yet also seemed to float. He poured a pot of spicy smelling, earthy tea and offered it to me on a coaster...I took some and sipped it out of politeness; piping hot, enough to scald the roof of my mouth and make my eyes water. Good tea though.
"Nngh...well, I guess there's kind of a lot going on." I paused to take a fake sip...how much would I reveal? He assured me he wasn't going to recommend me for institutionalization or take action unless I was a threat to myself or others, but when would he make that judgment? We'd keep it mundane, for now. "So, if you follow the news, President Parker sent out that EO that the International Humanitarian Reconstruction Bureau is losing its funding."
"It sounds like his style of slash-and-burn, yes." Doctor al-Rashi's eyes tracked one of the custodial staff outside; Alvarez, I think was his name. He was pulling one of those mini-dumpsters on wheels, filled with broken-up pieces of wood and a shattered toilet. Did the Doctor see his tree-trunk arms, as I did? Literal columns of knotted wood, groaning as he worked?
"Yeah, so...I was on the IHRB Post-College Entry Program and just got confirmed to ship out to Khamrungsa next July." I hazarded another sip of this tea...perhaps the burning sensation heightened the bite of the spices. Physical pain and tribulation usually helped me ignore internal discord, part of my unhealthy exercise compulsion.
The school psychologist tugged gently on the tip of his moustache, nodding along for me to proceed. "I presume to withhold congratulations...?" Gosh what a characterâŚhe reminded me a bit of the guy who played Saladin in that Ridley Scott movie about the Crusade - all weathered and hawkish, no-nonsense as sandstone.
I liked his dry humor, it was soothing in a way. "Ssso yeah, International Humanitarian Response Bureau got all its funding wiped with that executive order, so..." StillâŚputting those words out there, even leaving them half formed, it was another slow thrust of the dagger-of-night into my chest. 99% of the country wouldnât have even heard of the IHRB, just another department lost to the Parker Purges. For me it was like my life had ended before itâd even begun.
"Ah. So a great elephant has stepped in your path." I blinked up at him and saw his lip curl upward in a wry smile.
The two of us shared a low chuckle...I liked the symbolism, Parker won thanks to GOP voters here in sunny Louisiana. This state was a caricature of itself in so many ways; I grew up in Seattle, a polar opposite of the Bayou State with its cross-clutching piety mingling with neon-pink debauchery.
"Yep. Don't really see a way around it.â Award for understatement of the century goes to Ascher Razansky. I was fucked, to put it bluntly.
My gaze drifted from the doctor back out the window, watching a stormfront rolling in from the South...it seemed like it'd been storming constantly, like Dade County was constantly under hurricane watch. The haze of near-summer heat lingered around ninety degrees daily, humid as a harlotâs palm. It was only the sterile zephyr of modern HVAC and the anticipation of nightfall that kept us out-of-staters in-state, otherwise this swamp wouldnât be liveable.
"Such are the wages of good will, Mister Razansky...but I'll spare you the philosophy unless you wish to get into it." Another jotting of notes; I watched a fruit fly jump from a bowl of ripe bananas and mangos to float near his hair. It went up in a tiny puff of orange light and smoke.
So the fire is real - how the hell isnât he igniting everything around him?
"I dunno Doctor, I barely squeezed a B out of Zakin's intro class...so yeah, there's an elephant in my path. There's also..." I stopped and shifted uncomfortably, the armchair feeling oppressive quite suddenly. There it was, that survival instinct that knocked on my temple, reminding me: Donât air your dirty laundry, Ascher.
"Okay, you've probably heard this one before. Five guys walk with me into a bar. We all see this really hot girl I like, and I ask them if she's single. They all answer 'yeah, she's Andrew's / Liam's / Jun's / Tara's / Vahn's girl'." I gazed at him flatly, expecting another wry chuckle but he instead gives me a look that hovers between patriarchal disapproval and avuncular pity.
"How does that affect your perception of yourself as a man, Ascher? Do you pine for her, or is she out of your reach?" he went straight for the throat on that one; yowch. I actually felt it, like a hot blade prodding against my jugular. Mean son of a bitch. I struggled for a moment to keep my cool at the directness of his questioning, reminding myself this was his job.
"It's not great,â I understated my sense of smallness. âI don't know. I think she sees me...I've caught her staring at me a couple of times, but she's always with someone else."Â
That was only half of it of course. This girl I was heart throbbing over, what would he say if I told him she had graceful, curling horns like a ram? What if I told him those long legs of hers, sleek as satin, ended in a goatâs cloven hooves? Would he walk back on his promise not to institutionalize me if I told him her eyes glowed heliotrope at night?Â
"Hmm. A Triple Alliance of Troubles," he notes, adjusting a pair of brass wire glasses on his bent nose...how did they not melt? "Pursuit by an unknown dread...uncertain future...complex desire."
"Oh my," I quipped. We both shared an understated chuckle at that.
"Let us return to this sensation you have of being watched or chased, Mister Razansky." He sipped from his own mug of scalding tea; I watched with fascination as steam rose from the place where his moustache made contact with the liquid, hissing like a subdued adder. "When do you feel like this? Is there a particular environment? Is it when you're alone, or..."
I usually consider what I say before I say it, and I know to some people that's given the impression that I can be a little slow...not true of course, I'm as sharp as the next mattock. Doctor al-Rashi appears patient on the outside, but he has a few tells that signal to me that he's chomping at the bit; that must be a challenge in this job. He plucks the edge of his teacup with a fingernail, worrying a small crack; his gaze continually flits out to the stormfront rolling in from the shoreline, like he's checking for something in the clouds; the halo of flame standing in for his hair flickers between orange and blue.
I know he didnât mean it, but these questions reminded me of that uncomfortable time when I was eight years old. The doctor explained just why he was going to ask me to turn my head and cough; it took about two hours for me to do so, I was a pretty stubborn kid. âI guess like, when IâmâŚyâknow. Having sex, or like, taking care of myself.â At least he didnât make it any weirder by keeping his eyes on his tablet, clinical and detached as a bunsen burner.
"I got some friends who are like...y'know, they're into urban exploration and ghost wrangling - "
"Ghost wrangling," he repeats, glancing at me from above his frames like he wasn't sure I'd actually used those words...not the first time I've gotten that kind of response. I donât blame him, even I think itâs rather silly.
Even if I do see some stuff that scars the backs of my eyes; Iâm thankful my friends donât notice.
"Yeah like, hunting for paranormal activity." I palm my Samsung and play a video I took from March. It shows Vicky and Karl (two of my fellow wranglers) walking ahead down an ugly, bare concrete maintenance tunnel. Itâs barely lit by guttering bulbs hanging from the ceiling, puddles of dirty water disturbed by Vicky's converses.Â
The bushy braids on either side of her head sweep voluminously as she swivels her neck side to side, thrusting the EVP box in front of her like a holy talisman. She was dramatically interrogating the spirit of Jack Croix, who was supposedly lynched here back in the 1800s - are you angry at our intrusion? Give us a sign!
"I see...do you feel like you are being stalked when you areâŚwrangling ghosts with your friends?" Ahh there it is. Right, Mr. Shams you think Iâm a crazy person. Iâm not crazy. Iâm not crazy.
Iâm not crazy.
"Not just then...it depends on the neighborhood, and the building I think...like the old bomb factory on Krome, or the Sunset Mall." Were things like him aware of how they looked? Nobody else Iâd met would have noticed the massive, avian shapes battling with thunder strikes in the approaching clouds. Did the doctor know he was on fire? Would he be like this tomorrow? Would he see the strange, yellowed doorways that slid up from the ground in the Mall, opening to cavernous spaces that couldn't exist in Dade County?Â
A smirk crosses his face as he takes his notes - no...just a lick of plasma playing over his facial hair. "Have you ever gotten a glimpse of your pursuer?"
The question prompts a shivering chill to run up my spine, as if one of those mandrake-women from the pond had slid their claws up the back of my neckâŚno. Well, not entirely ânoâ. "I think so," I volunteer, always cautious and deliberate in speech. "Usually I don't see anything, but like...a couple times I caught something at my periphery, but it just kinda slithered behind a wall andâŚ" I make an effusive gesture with my fingers and mouth poof.Â
"Sometimes I feel like there's someone right behind me, like they could reach out and poke me between the ribs but when I turn around there's nothing there, just this smell."
He glances up from his notes, clearly waiting for me to proceed. His eyes are devoid of judgment. "When I was little there was this old Chinese guy I lived next to, and he'd use linseed oil to treat these big panes of dark silk...apparently it made it waterproof, don't ask me. He'd hang them up on lines and I could smell them whenever I passed, not a loud smell. Sometimes when I'm feeling watched I can smell tamarind, maybe like...something kinda musky, like the stuff Miss Vang wears in her hair."
"You do not seem overly concerned for your safety," he points out; the statement makes me bristle, because suddenly heâs starting to hit close to home again, like with that question about my view of my manhood or whatever.
"What makes you say that?" I ask diplomatically, reminding myself that, asshole or no, I came into this office willingly and he was doing his job like he saw fit.
"You have not expressed fear. Unease perhaps, but you seem more preoccupied by the object of your affections than your little voyeur." The way he stood there, tall and straight as a torch...his gaze rarely left me, and he rarely smiled; it brought back memories of Temple services with Rachel. Rabbi Krovil had watched me like that, and they almost looked alike but for the fact that Krovil's head wasn't perpetually aflame.
Krovil's lower body had been that of a snake, I recalled. Nobody ever commented.
I wonder why he called it a âlittle voyeurâ.
"Ascher," his voice yanked me back from my musings. "Do you feel as if you understand your place in this world?"
Alright, now I was starting to really regret coming here, he was getting into personal questions that didnât really have any bearing on the issue at hand - handling my stress, which we hadnât even gotten to, and it had already been fifteen damn minutes of this pressure cooker interrogation. To make matters worse, for this to be of any purpose, I have to answer honestly:
âNo," I admit. "Ever since my program got cut I feel like I don't know what I'm doing with myself, or if this major is even useful...it's not like anyone's putting up anything of use."
"There's always need for civil engineers," he pointed out, but it felt more like a test, like he was prodding me forward to see how Iâd respond.
"Any guy with a CEM can put up wiring for new condos on Alton," I countered, unable to keep the irritation from our voice as we circled around the gaping void of purpose in my life, a basket in which I'd thrown all my eggs only to find the bottom sheared away. "Those will be bought up by people with too much money, they don't need me. Nobody needs me here, Shams."
"You put too little stock in the depth of your own character, Mister Razansky," the doctor stated sharply - it felt like a particularly loud crackle from a campfire. "There is more to you than whatever you saw yourself doing in Khamrungsa; a man is not a tool shaped for one purpose, but an evolving force that shapes itself and the world around it...and if you truly feel your destiny can only be found in the Kham Mountains, there's more than one way to scale a cliff. You are as a man standing at a gorge with only a rickety rope bridge to see you across." He drew my attention to a picture ofâŚa tropical canyon, green with a rushing river, spanned by what could barely be called a bridge. âI crossed that thing everyday to go to school, boy. I know what itâs like. If thereâs a way across you take it.â
I didn't bother to hide my skepticism. Khamdo was a tropical mountain basin, choked with jungles and impassable rock-faces. It had never been governed by a single entity until the disastrous 1st Republic, and there was almost no modern transit infrastructure. The few forms of entry were jealously protected by any number of militias and rebel groups...and my own character? Shams may have been a psychologist but he didn't know who I was.Â
He didn't know how useless I was without this direction in life.
"Let's circle back around," he tapped a few times on his tablet which made a curious -whirrup- sound, and pulled a stool up to sit before me, steepling his smoldering fingers. "I want to address these things first with the remaining time we have, and make sure we have somewhere to jump off from the next time you see me - I already scheduled you to meet with me Monday after Control Systems."
He what? But before I could press him on invading my schedule he bowled over me.
"Mister Razansky, you are being a leaf in the wind...a salmon swept out to sea." He took his glasses off, and his irises quite literally ignited, burning out of their sockets as he polished his lenses. "A mouse in a maze, one might even say."
I weathered the animal metaphors with stony quiet, trying my best not to bristle like a hedgehog - dammit, no I was doing it now. "...are you saying - "
"Yes. I am. You are being incredibly weak."
---
âMother-FUCKER.â The rock skipped across the water, slashing the scummy surface three times before disappearing beneath the pondâs mucky depths. One of the Mandrake women glanced up from where she was busily braiding her sisterâs hair and sniffed at me as if Iâd disturbed her peace.
Would she even understand me if I talked to her, or was she just another dumb animal?
Childish outbursts like that were usually beneath me, but Doctor al-Rashi had given me the fourth degree - here I thought I was going to get some professional advice, not to get flayed like a heretic in a dungeon. What would Tessa think if she saw me get worked over like that?
I sat down heavily at the edge of the pond and huffed through my teeth, feeling the last rays of the sunâs vengeful stare disappearing behind tonightâs thunderstorm. In the midst of Shamsâ excoriation of my character in the guise of counseling was one truth that was justâŚpainfully dismaying. The fact that it pissed me off proved how accurately his critique struck.
I could have just got home to get ready for tonight - we were going to check out the Villa Romana in Boca Raton later, heard some chilling stuff about it - but I stayed for a bitâŚone thing Iâd learned at age seventeen, people see anger from a tall man and feel a reflexive fear. I needed to work it out first, it wouldnât be considerate to go dragging it through a crowd.
A fox emerged from a patch of cinnamon ferns walking on its hind-legs, its glossy red coat patched in places by what looked like thatch. It held a mason jar filled with glowing worms in its paws, clutching it without concern for anatomical possibility. It wore a lime-green chiffon around its throat, three rings pierced through its right ear.
What the fuck, came the initial reaction to the weirdness of it all; Iâd been seeing things like this for over fourteen years and it never felt normal. There was always some grotesque, otherworldly pageantry to it, and I always asked myself: am I really seeing this shit?
âYou know the worst part of it,â I began, looking directly at the fox and catching it off guard as it unscrewed the top of the mason jar, nearly dropping it from its scabbling paws, âheâs right about everything, and even though thatâs not what makes him an asshole, itâs his delivery that makes him an asshole.â
The little red canid gawped at me, like it couldnât believe I was speaking to it. It quickly drew its eyes away from me, as if by ignoring me Iâd somehow be unable to see it, but I wasnât deterred from venting - what did it matter? Most people would just see an imposing dark haired man ranting to himself at the waterâs edge and leave me be, and if the fox was a figment of my imagination thenâŚwhat did it matter?
âSo apparently Iâm the coward because Iâm not just turning and throwing my chest out at whateverâs creeping on me and saying âhey you, fuck off!â, cuz thatâs what you do with a potential ax murderer, right?â I scoffed, watching the fox carefully fasten the glowing worm on a slender line and hook - it give a quiet âskreee!â of pain. âAnd you know what he had the audacity to tell me? Here, and I quote: âyou are an almost two meters tall man and a compulsive exerciser, surely you can stand before some scuttling shadow.ââ I made sure to frame the last two words in air-quotes that the fox regarded with dry disbelief, as if to ask why on earth are you talking to me?
ââMy boy if you keep behaving like a ferret in flight youâll eventually be prey for hawks.â Iâve never heard so many animal metaphors in forty five minutesâŚsorry.â That was rude of me, I glanced apologetically at the fox who was watching me warily from the corner of its eyes. It wrinkled its nose at my gaze, like it didnât want to be seen.
âThen, okay, hereâs where he gets real audacious. Just bear with me here - get it?â I smirked wryly, leaning back on my palms and staring up at the rapidly darkening sky. âBear? Cuz youâre a fox - ahâŚprobably notâŚso, he said about Tessa, this guy clearly thinks heâs some sort of Cassanova who wrote the 1950s Punjab version of How to Not Die Alone. He was like, âa woman like that does not reveal herself to you, does not allow you to witness her heavy gaze without intent. That gaze hooks you, it gives her power over you - why do you let it? Why do you not seize the bull by the horns and take charge?ââ
I sighed with the sort of weighty drama I reserved for Arryn. The fox had dropped the line in the water, waiting with fraying patience and weathering my venting admirably; it must have been a figment of my imagination in that case. âHe asked if I really desired her, since I hadnât yet made a move and the answer is god yesâŚâÂ
I fell back onto the grass and let my thoughts wander to her. Tess Diyonis was the most enchanting woman Iâd ever seen in my whole life, beyond what I could have imagined. Her hair was the same red as copper warmed by the sun, as the outer edges of a bonfire in whose light I basked. âShe has these cheeks that get really round and rosy when she laughs, and when she laughs itâs likeâŚthe opening lines of a jazz show, all smoky and honey flavored.â It made my chest thrum, it made my loins ache. The fox scoffed, rolling its eyes as I waxed poetic; I didnât give a damn.
âHer bodyâŚfffuckâŚsorry if this is TMI but I donât think I have ever seen a nicer pair of breasts in my whole life, I kid you not my friend, theyâre solid 10s. Furthermore,â I held a finger up, covering the last corona-edge of the sun, âshe has gold rings through her nipples.â That fact aloneâŚit made my eyes roll backward. So fucking hot. Iâd never been with a girl that had those, and they wereâŚtempting, to put it mildly.
I glanced at my vulpine companion, watching him haul backward, as if heâd hooked something, clenching his sharp little teeth and straining hard. âShe also has horns. And goat legs. Letâs not forget that part, and you know that shouldnât be sexy, it should be weird but itâs not. Sheâs actually in my Control Systems class so I have no choice but to check her out at all possible opportunities.â She was intensely distracting; I had to record the lectures since I zoned out watching her move through the lab, dancing between equipment like a whirlwind of self-contained, exultant chaos.
âThat,â I punctuated the word dramatically by slapping my fist into my palm, âis why I canât just waltz up to her and sayâŚâ a flippant gesture, watching the fox struggle with its catch, âhey babe, you wanna grab a drink? Who says that kind of thing and just makes it work?â
I knew she wasnât just some dumb Panhandler whoâd ended up at Ashland-UâŚTessa was the kind of girl whoâd end up going places. I didnât really know much about her, I already felt kind of likeâŚoutclassed, like she was a girl far outside my league.
I watched the fox growl and struggle, digging its heels into the grassy banks of the pond and slide toward the water. Feeling only briefly foolish and hoping nobody was watching, I moved to grab the line as well, pulling the catch toward the surfaceâŚweird, it didnât seem to struggle so much as simply weigh a great deal.
âHe makes everything sound so easy, like âhey just get up and go do itâ,â I continued to complain as the fox barked first in outrage as my intrusion, then gave a low chortle of appreciation as we made progress hauling something large and oblong to the surfaceâŚhow deep was this pond? âSo, I had a job lined up that got cancelled, basically screwed up my post-grad plans, and heâs all âAscher, Khamrungsa sits upon a mountain range. It is not going anywhere because it is incapable of movement, it is simply waiting for you to scale itâŚyou lost your easy way in is all, is that enough to unman you?â
Unman me. What. The. Hell. That word had slid between my ribs like a stiletto, twisting and tearingâŚbrutal. Insulting.
Iâd actually gotten up to storm from his office at that point, but heâd been brazen enough to put his hand on the doorknob, pinning me in the heat of his gaze again - and that close, I could definitely feel the heat. âHe made one good point thoughâŚâ I had to admit, watching with some curiosity as we dragged what appeared to be an antique, bright blue dresser from the water. It stood up on its own accordâŚstrikingly blue. Hypnotically, potently sky blue, the blue of liberation.
Huh. It looked familiar; vertigo and deja vu danced at the edge of my senses, like they always did when I encountered the Otherworld, or whatever this was.
Why did that color blue hit so hard, like a message?
âIf I donât make my own purpose, someone is going to make it for me, and itâll be for their benefit.â I watched the fox sidle past me and test the drawers and handles; it was sealed with a combination lock, one which the little canine with its ostentatious scarf was expertly spinning. âDonât you think?â
-click-
The padlock fell away. I should have looked away, but as was so often the case with the Otherworld, it was like an exquisite catastrophe I couldnât look away from.
The dresserâs doors sprung open with a violent clatter, revealing a vast, sylvan landscape beyond, filled with flowers of strange colors I couldnât put words to. Mountains that looked as if theyâd been melted up from the ground stabbed upward in the distance, clawing at a sky dotted with floating islands of mossy rock and crystal. A massive crater stood in the center of it all, smouldering with sinuous blue light.
The fox looked at me once again, narrowed its eyes and cocked its head. â[Carpe noctum, frater,]â it rumbled at me in a voice as deep as a sousaphone, before it stepped through the dresser doors. They slammed shut, catapulting the azure furniture back into the water.
Huh.

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The Night is Ours: Chapter 5 - Sedition at the Jumbotron
âThese streets are mine . The blood flowinâ through all those veins out there, all those millions of pound of meat, theyâre mine .â
âIt ainât yours if youâre alone,â the Rabid threatened, the wolfâs growl overlaying his voice, but I wasnât afraid of him. I wasnât afraid of anybody but myself.
âThe Night is Mine,â I punctuated the statement with a snap of my fangs, close to his lips.
I left him there, watching me go.
Kept hoping heâd follow, show me cared. Never did, not once.
At the bottom of the hill I stood at the glowing crimson archway on Baxter and DubrovnikâŚfelt like a gateway to another world; if I crossed it, Iâd be truly alone, even if they never kicked me out.
I crossed it.
I walked down my streets, hands in my pockets, queen of all I surveyed.
And I cried.
âDunno how you fuckinâ weirdo kids do things, but for most of us normal monsters, Pack is everything. Ainât nobody I love more, nobody I hate more. Some packs keep their bonds through shared greed; some through a Conspiracy like the Apex or those whacky Moon Reclaimers. Some of âem fall back on romance, and thoseâre the tightest packsâŚbut theyâre also the ones most like to rip apart when things donât go rightâŚâ
______________________________________________________________
High noon in hell.
Four irons all leveled my way. Four dead men staring down their doomâŚif that was my goal. Wished it was.Â
Not a brave among them. I watched them go through three stages of âoh shitâ: first, gawping disbelief. Then scarlet-cheeked outrage. Finally their choler fizzled, turned to fear and settled in their bellies like mercury. Three of âem got that look like they just realized they were Prey; one of âem looked like heâs keeping his nerve.
That one. Thatâs the one to watch.
Their fear was like a shot of adrenaline to the jugular; I wanted nothing more than to take the form of dread and destruction, paint their den with crimson glory . But that wasnât the play here; I was ripping open the belly of the beast for the Red Crows.
Snagging stacks of cash I couldnât care less about. Blood money we couldnât even wash clean.Â
Might as well have some fun with it.
âDid knocking fall out of style, Vera? Maybe calling , I dunno, just throwinâ it out there.â Gotta give it to Zhang Wei. For staring down the literal wolf at his threshold, he sure kept his cool. He had this blocky party-boss look, meaty face and red jowls. Shitty combover to hide a bald spot. Seated under a tacky gold statue of the Buddha gordito, they were juxtaposed like polar opposites.
Serenity and self-denial looming large over violence and avarice. One a fairy tale. One all too real.
âAinât no reason Iâd knock when Iâm cominâ into my house,â I reminded him casually. Same venom Iâd spat in Mizrahâs face; worked like a charm on these Mortals. Patched a guitar-shaped hole in my ego. âGo on. Take a guess why Iâm here - hell, make it a hundred and fifty thousand guesses. Youâll get it eventually.â
Zhang Ping, Weiâs cousin, looked like one of those Peking opera masks my girl Neave Li from high school kept hanging in her dadâs house. All crimson and dramatic, like someone spat in his tea. Stank of fear. Heâd gelled his hair into a stiff plateau of a bleached blonde. âYou never came to pick up!â
âThe fuck? You think Iâm some Kegtown landlord barkingâ at you for the motherfuckinâ rent?â I grabbed the right side of the table, flipped it into the air so it sailed end on end and landed with a crash of scattered cash and guns, broken glass against an aquarium built into the wall.
Aw shitâŚhadnât thought about the fishies.
My bad little guys.
Zhang Yao, bedraggled like a scarecrow in an ill-fitted suit, was staring between us in disbelief. Probly never seen anyone outside the Triads smacktalk them before. â LÇobÇn, nÇ mĂŠi jiÄole bÇohĂš fèi? â
â DÄngrĂĄn jiÄole, wÇ zĂ i jiÄo, bĂŹ zuÇ â Wei barked back. âYao,â he shifted like someone lifting a boulder, pulling a key from his back pocket. âGet down to the safe, grab a hundred and fifty large - â
âHundred eighty,â I cut him off casually.
âBut we agreed on - â
âCharginâ your disrespectful ass $10k more each day you let go by without paying up.â I laid it out for them like it was common practice, checking my nails casuallyâŚwishing they were wet with blood. Like getting a manicure in your Preyâs pulsing meat.Â
I was watchinâ the oneâŚyâknow, the one who was barely fazed. Didnât react beyond a little smirk as he gazed at the ground near my feet. I didnât like that one bit.
Yao scampered away out a red-painted door like he couldnât wait to be gone.
âAinât like you to miss a payday WeiâŚhell that could be your nickname. Payday Wei.â He was sitting on this office chair with wheels; for all the 20th century glamour around me, his seat looked like it was rescued from a dumpster.Â
I stomped my right foot between his thighs, inches from his jewels; he blanched like a tomato tossed in a pot of boiling water. âCare to tell the class why you done fucked up?â Gave a push, sent his chair rolling back toward the VIP bar.
His authority was tarred with these guysâŚI loved breaking these kinds of men. Without their goons, they were just like any other meat.
Then came unexpected defiance, right from where it shoulda been expected.
âItâs cuz we ainât payinâ you no more,â that unafraid prick buzzed at me in a low and unpleasant voice.Â
Felt my jaw twitch and for a blessed moment forget all about the mission, all about Mizrah or Mateo. Werenât just about the dollar now.
Kept my mouth shut for a bit. I sized up the guy who wasn't cowed. Kinda skinny like Yao but didnât cringe like a beaten coyote; younger punk, probably just made it to 20. Thin little âstache under his nose, messy hairâŚlooked a bit like Stephen Chow. His suit had that cheap-but-still-expensive look and actually fit him.Â
I wanted to stain it red.
Youâre not here to kill. Youâre to collect. Cool down.
That internal-compass voice was getting real quiet lately.
Breath in through my noseâŚout all careful-like. âCoulda sworn you just said you werenât payinâ us no more.â Hadnât raised my voice this whole timeâŚdidnât need to, wouldnât do nothinâ if I did. All of us had dads that hollered at us when we were little, soâŚI just walked past him, hopping the bar and perusing their top shelf. âThatâs what you said, right?â
âItâs what I saidâŚsurprised you didnât get the memo from Diana.â I wonât lie, it set me off the way he name dropped my packmate while lighting a menthol. I could splatterhouse all of âem, throw their bodies all ripped apart like piĂąatas among the casino-goers.
Collect. Not kill.
âMemo doesnât mean shit if it werenât written and signed by me,â I pulled down a bottle from their top shelfâŚsomething all gaudy and yellow, couldn't read the brand.Â
âWritten and signed by Mateo,â he shrugged, plucking his menthol from his lips. Smiling at me, fearless.
âFang, quit starting shit - â Wei began but at this point I'd heard enough and cut him off with a sharp motion. Forgot the mission, might as well have never existed with this revelation.
Didn't show it but inside Iâd already snapped like a rubber band stretched between two mountain peaks. âMm-hmm.â I feigned disinterest and poured a finger of baijiu , swirling it around in the shot glass to disinfect itâŚcourtesy in recognition of his fool bravery. âDon't change the fact that you're late on your payment.â
Fang leaned his head back and spread his lips over yellowing teeth. âWell then, whichever one of his girls your boss ends up sending next, guess she better come collect on time.â
Aww damn that was cute.
Real cute.Â
Fuck the mission, fuck Mateo and Diana and Yusuf.
Gonna paint them teeth red boy.
âWho'd you say this guy was, Wei?â I queried, tossing the liquor on the floor dismissively; never unlocked my eyes from the cute-talker.
âXiao-Fang is my daughterâs - â
âI'm just a humble scholar of reality,â Xiao-Fang breathed among a cloud of cigarette smoke, utterly unafraidâŚmaybe instinct-deaf. âAnd reality asked me a good question, and that was âwhy are you paying out the nose to this two-bit two-man op?ââ
Two-man. Not four man, not two man two woman. That sorta shit didn't set me off like it did the girls on University Row.Â
Normally.Â
âGood question.â I stared him downâŚfuck the mission, fuck Mateo, fuck Yusuf. âWhy indeed?â
White noise filled my head, keeping rhythm with my pulse.
3.
I heard Zhang Yao scrabbling from the back with his jangling keysâŚsaw him trying to close the door real quiet behind him, holding a duffel bag that stank of ill-gotten gains.
2.
Wei and Ping were standing, one of âem shouting something about standing down, âbout not letting the blood rush to our heads.
1.
Yusuf's face pressed behind my eyes, his voice against my throat before disappearing into the haze of red: do it. Â
I clenched my fist around the shot glass just right, broke it into long shards that fell from my bleeding fingersâŚâcept for one.Â
I stabbed it forward under Fangâs navel, red blooming from the wound and staining his shirt as the cigarette fell from his lips.Â
Grabbed his hair to keep him from bending forward, ripped the shard upward with a sound of splitting cloth and skin. He screamed his teeth crimson, eyes scrunching shut in the expression of ultimate pain.
â Glh-YAAAAAAGGGHHH!â And I let him go to fall forward on his knees as his suit bulged holding in his gutsâŚlooked like a fucked up pregnant guy, stinking of coppery offal. The sight made me laugh mirthlessly, squatting on my heels next to him.
âWas gonna say you got some guts man.â I tossed the shard against his forehead with a -tnk-.
âFANG! SHIT, FANG!â Wei wailed and ran over to where his comrade was quivering and broken, trying not to move. He reached out for the wounded man, hesitating and unsure what to doâŚhell what could you do for something like that but let âem bleed out or get an ambulance?
âThatâs why you pay.â I felt satisfaction unfurl itself within my chest, like floating on a magic serotonin carpet. The way they submitted, their piss-stank fear, the weight of the duffel bag I plucked from Yaoâs fingers as he gaped in horror.
Zhang Wei looked up at me with an expression reminiscent of a defeated toadâŚhatred seethed behind his eyes, almost halted my carpet ride.
Those were the eyes of someone who was chastised for now but wouldn't forget this. Those were eyes that quietly promise comeuppance that may not have been worth the $180k in my hand; what a fuckinâ buzz kill.
Felt Weiâs eyes on my back as I walked free, a wolf slinking among the casino crowds. They were none the wiser, sweating their gold into the Triadsâ bloody mouth.
It was only later on, back on my turf, that I learned Fang was Zhang Wei's sister's boyfriendâŚand in their world that may as well have meant son-in-law.
Lemme set the scene for youâŚoffer a little snapshot into the fucked up dysfunction of the Red Crows.Â
Picture me standing at the base of our tithe altar - we keep ours in a Jumbotron. The Corsairs still played out of Fenmoore Stadium; its âofficialâ name is something dumb-as-shit like âAmerican Mutual Home Insurance Stadiumâ...Nobody called it that unless they wanted to get shanked. The altar was hidden yet in plain sight, hanging from the stadiumâs ceiling.Â
Yeah yeah, symbolismâs clumsy, but I thought it was pretty badass.
âThe fuck was I supposed to do? The fuck would any y'all have done in my position?â Explaining myself like thatâŚnot badass.
âYou were supposed to come with us to the Pelican,â groused Mateo, like someone had pissed in his soup. Heâd somehow squeezed his frame into this navy blue blazer that looked absurd across those bulwark shoulders.
âThis shit couldâve worked itself out or, yâknow, waited a day for one of us to come.â Joaquin, rail-thin stick of a man in contrast to Mateo, was busily draping a gold silk ribbon at the base of the altarâŚsymbol of their - sorry, our - newfound bond with the Fangs. I hated it, all gaudy and out of place, like trussing up a side of beef in a pretty dress.
âNow, even assuming Sanjiao don't try to gun us down on sight,â Jo continued, snubbing the tip of his long nose with a thumb, âthey're gonna be looking for ways to save face with your skin.â
âSo if they do, I'll kick down Kuangâs door and put a hole in his head,â I waved it off dismissively as I opened the duffel bag, carefully splitting the cash into four stacks; one for each of us. âProbably end up doing it alone anyway.â
It was a pathetic deflection. Joaquin was right of course.
âCoulda handled it cleanly if youâd just it chill another three days.â Diana sounded bored, always sounded bored, like she was counting teeth on the trophy rack. Wish she would take somethinâ seriously that werenât one of her little games.
âIf you'd told me you were going after Zhang I could have sent someone with you,â Mateo complained as he shook out his hair. He'd gelled it up, like someone trying to style a lion's mane. âVera we built this as a unit; youâre gonna stop fucking off out there and starting shit.â
I didn't say anything, stacking the greenbacks around our nameplates, joining the other millions and millions just sitting here, useless as tinsel. Fucker was making me seethe, and just after I'd gotten the red rage under control.
Mateo was still saying something but I tuned him out, keeping my eyes on the tithe altar. Every pack thatâs worth anythingâs got one; seeing it as a trophy rack is like seeing the house for the hood, you know what I mean? Itâs a place where our duality looms large.
Public, in that you showed it off so bloods in the next turf know youâre bad; private, cuz you didnât wanna let nobody too close. Joaquin had hooked all these cameras up to the mega-stack of screens so we could show off the tithe on the Jumbotron itselfâŚreal clutch.
A locus of joy, where the best Hunts were preserved so you could almost relive them; a graveyard, a memorial, a stack of cenotaphs. Weâve all lost something.
The flag of our unity; but here and now, the banner of our divisions.
âVera? Yo, Earth to Vera,â Jo called to me. I pretended not to notice, zipping closed the empty duffel.
âYou remember when Diana shot that raggedy-ass lion-skin in the head?â I pointed a black painted nail at a monstrous felid skull, mounted on the central pole that looked like a giant coat rack.
That broke their momentum; whatever Mateo was bitching about, however Jo planned to pull me back in.Â
Dianaâs gaze followed where I pointed; she smirked with this wan vibe, girl almost never smiled. None of us did anymore. âJo doesnât, do you. Fucker blinded you good.âÂ
âI guess,â the skinny chymist conceded. He looked all suspicious toward Mateo. âGot me on a cheap shot, you were distracting me, swinging your pistol around and scarinâ them to shit.â
For a second there was the tension of a laugh, snaking its way through the pack but it was stillborn on arrival. Felt like they were watching me now, not just taking swings at me at least.
At the right part of the altar stood a small pillar, and on top Mateo had affixed a greenstone bowl. It was piled with pure gold coins, and I dug my fingers into them to lift out twin handfuls. âJoaquin you scored thisâŚprobly the best trade you ever came up with. Seized that moment good, thought you were full of shit when you insisted on caging that Myrmidon.â
Wrestling that Scarab-Shifter into submission had been a nightmare; big fuckinâ monster impaled me on its horn, flew with me right off the groundâŚjust kept me up close so I could fuck it up at least, âtil it went down.
âWe only knew about those nomads cuz you caught on to âem Vera. Only knew they were carrying a fucking chest of gold cuz you somehow got one of âem drunk.â Mateoâs voice was softer than I could remember; he was praising me. Shit, that wouldâve made my day a few months ago, now it justâŚdunno. Like rain rolling down a windshield.Â
Still, he helped prove my point.
I pinched a coin, clenched it between my teeth, let my tongue work over the ridged edge. Gold blocked Selenosis and Black Choler uptakeâŚhelped us keep our cool.
âIâm guessing youâre steering us toward a point,â Diana sounded bored like she always didâŚwish sheâd just show some interest.
âI am,â I barked, louder than I meant; fuck, thought I had that under control, didnât like watching Diana shrink back. âMy point is when weâre working as a unit then weâre taking skulls, roping in el oro , weâre fuckinâ Apex. Now weâre all flung the fuck apart.â
âThatâs cuz youâre not with us when we do something you donât wanna, you wonât even meet us halfway,â Mateo fucking whined - noâŚno he wasnât whining, shit I was looking at him that way again. âYou were the only one who was AWOL tonight, and donât think the others didnât notice.â
âIâm a quarter of this pack Mateo, does my opinion not count for shit?â I kept a tight rein on my voiceâŚcouldnât let the storm show, couldnât let the tears running down the back of my throat crack me. âIâm out there keeping these lowlife fuckinâ pimps, these coke dealers and organ-thieves in lineâŚAnd look at you,â I gestured with a flick of my wrist at Dianaâs little black dress. âDressed up like youâre the pack hoe, hanginâ on their arms like their bitch trophy.â
Her eyes flashed white-hot, locked on me, never leftâŚexpected her to get pissed but she was just staring. âSay it again. Iâll eat your fucking teeth.â
âJesus you two, CHILL,â Mateo barkedâŚwe still stared each other down.
Joaquin approached, holding a conciliatory hand out for my shoulder. Felt like it was made of termites, made my fuckinâ skin crawl like never before. âVera, babe, that ainât at all what heâs trying to say, youâre putting words in his mouth - â
âIâm tellinâ you, you canât spend none of this shit if the whole neighborhoodâs shaking its chains,â I pressed, pushing his touch away. âThem Kapuae keep it in line cuz Iâm the one who killed that mutation they were spreading. The Sanjiao - cabrĂłn you werenât there, you didnât hear âem.â
Mateoâs eyes hooded in irritation. âZhang talks a bit game - â
âThat little pendejito I gutted, he said they werenât paying our âtwo-bit two-manâ crew no more.â I let the gold coins slip through the fingers to make a point, clinking back into the bowl.Â
Mateo and Jo didnât look at me, tight with tension like something was up, but DianaâŚ
âWasnât your job anymore Vera. Thought you got the memo.â
It was like someone had slipped dry ice in my blood. Smoke floated behind my eyes, froze my heart.
âDiana what the fuck?!â Mateo hissed as Joaquin groaned, pressing his fingers to his temples.
Thatâs how I knew. Their shock wasnât at what she said; it was that sheâd said it out loud.
Like theyâd been in on it the whole time.
That sedition was the sort of thing that made a girl like me - the sort of bitch who dissected a hardened criminal for looking at me wrong - stop outta tune like a busted piano.
I saw red through the dry smoke.
3.
I moved across the floor toward her; Mateo got in my way but I kicked out his heel, sending him down with a -THUD-.
2.
Jo said something, tryied to call me back; couldnât even hear him through the noise in my head, could only see Dianaâs smirk.
1.
Do it, she mouthed at me, a smirk tugging her lips upwardâŚ
Yusufâs fanged smile spread charming and white in my imagination.
I really shoulda just marched back to Pennâs Point and shot him.Â
Funny thing, thinking âbout his face made me not wanna pull Dianaâs larynx out her neck, cuz with the anger redirected at Yusuf?
There was just sadness at what the Red Crows had become.
So I didnât spill her all over the Jumbotronâs floor, even though I coulda. I just walked outta there with their eyes on my back, silence heavy as a crypt door slamming shut.
I climbed down to ground level, hoofed it out of the stadium. When I was sure nobody could hear - or more like when I couldnât keep it in - I bit down on my sleeve and howled my rage. My betrayal. The sorrow carved my heart out, worse than anything I coulda done to Fang.Â
By the time I was done I was bent forward, hands on my knees. Tears were hot in the corners of my eyes, stinging something hard.
I angrily ground my forearm against them, sniffing and stalking out the stadium door into the hot dark. I actually canât remember the last time I felt so alone. Just like the last time Iâd stormed out, none of them came after meâŚjust let me back out there into the into the night like I was off the fucking wall.
Took a moment to get control of my breathingâŚfound that pillar of steel Iâd built my identity around. Iâm strong. Iâm brave. I donât cry. I rule this place.
I climbed a hill, stadium at my back, overlooking the downward slope toward the Red Rock River. Rose-bright, heliotrope hot. Curved neon lighting shot up the sides of wanna-be skyscrapers like glowing varicose veins. The Rivieria sang its urban cacophony like a whore drunk on her own magnificence; bulging around the edges with depravity and gold, teetering on quivering legs, she laughingly insisted she could take more, ever more.
She was beautiful. Our territory, I mean - weâd fought for her, and against the odds weâd taken the Riviera from a deeply-embedded coven of our kind. Theyâd been all addle-fucked by something they called Asmodeus - I donât believe for a second demons are real, but if you were gonna find people who did, itâd be in this den of sin. Father Carlos used to get real stormy about the Riviera back when my folks made me go to church, thatâs how me and my boy Pesca knew it was the place to be.
Rest in peace, Pesca.
It used to feel like it was mine - like how I used to look at my popâs backyard, or my abuelaâs spare bedroom, justâŚa whole district. Everyone knew you didnât fuck with the Red Crows, not unless you wanted your door kicked open and your insides on the outside. Like so many outfits though, now we were goinâ big, felt like we were losing this place.Â
My home.
My family.
I loved them so muchâŚDiana, shit I couldnât believe weâd come to this. She and I used to hang around her place, lazy mornings spent on her balcony, surveying and shit-talking all we saw. Used to paint her nails, brush her hair. I kissed her all open and shameless on the streets so people could see and be jealous.
JoâŚwe used to do a lot of drugs together but I never let that shit take over my life - he was a functional addict, still meant he fucked up a lot though. Looking back on the partying we got in, all the crazy drunk-stoned-blitzed sex we had in the back of the SUV (the one heâd slung off for meth-precursors)...all that was gone.
Mateo. Oh MateoâŚonce that man had been el rey de mi corazĂłn . That crown had rusted away, flaking onto his shoulders and leaving him nothing more than an angry, self-conscious fool. He and I Hunted and killed long before Jo and Diana. God-damn, we punched above our weight. Now we justâŚpunched each other.
I used to really believe, back last Spring, that we could get past this. Any relationship has ups and downs. Whether friends from when your moms got together to gossip, soldiers you fought alongside, or Pack you loved more than anyone. More than anything. Now though, I wonderedâŚcould it even be fixed, or was our operation doomed?
I found myself turning my eyes Southward where the river flowed out into the Gulf. That was where Baxter Avenue crossed into Pennâs Point. It was an unbeautiful little place, lust-soaked-light giving way to grimy dark broken by the occasional patch of illuminationâŚthe place had never even been worth my attention, not until Yusuf and Galen.Â
This time I didnât fight it, I let the thoughts run on their own accord. Their visages sprang into my head, clearer than my grannyâs faceâŚI pictured them palling around like stupid guys in that way I actually loved to watch. I wondered if they were partying, if they were chasing Prey, or if theyâd taken someone lucky to bed. Maybe that betrayal, the one festering in my heart, had led me to my own packâs deception.
My brain lingered on Galen and Yusuf, much as I wanted to ignore them. No lyingâŚI knew Iâd be thinking about one (or even both) of âem next time (if) I fucked Mateo or Jo, soâŚthe idea of taking one of âem between the sheets didnât hold the same relish as it used to. Even Diana, I justâŚ
âWhat the fuck is wrong with me?â I wondered out loud.Â
âNothingâs wrong with you Vera,â Mateo guttered. No cap: I almost jumped out of my skin at his unexpected appearance. I wheeled on him, reaching by instinct for an iron I hadnât brought; didnât relax when my thoughts caught up with my reflexes.
âThe hell you know,â I grumbled, dropping my eyes down to his feet so I didnât have to look him in the eyeâŚso he wouldnât catch the flash of my own treasonous thoughts. Started a brushfire in my mind, burning the Kings of Midnightsâ icons away.
âI know things are changing.â Heâd changed out of his suit and was wearing little more than a wife beater and slacksâŚlumbering toward me like the Hulk.
A pelt of black chest hair disappeared beneath it; I dully recalled once how I loved running my fingers through it. Used to be that Iâd slide my palm up that chestâŚnot this time. I was pissed; mostly hurt though. How could he?Â
âI know theyâre changing. Theyâre changing for the worse, Mateo.â I felt like a hypocrite for being mad at him, even though all that treason was locked up in my head; nobody knew but Yusuf, probably Galen by this point. âWhy the hellâd you do this to me? Why couldnât you even have the balls to tell me?â Never yelled at him, not my pack, even if I was wounded worse than I could remember.
âWe meant to.â Mateo sounded sheepish like a twelve year old whoâd got caught in some bullshit. âDidnât think youâd go after the Sanjiao like you didâŚdidnât think Diana would shoot her mouth off like that. Donât know why she did other than being pissed off at you for calling her a hoe.â
He was trying to be funny; probably nothing could make me laugh right now. âSo you let Diana take the wheel of the bus you threw me under. Like itâd make it clean or somethinâ. Guess you think youâre spot on cuz of what I did to Fang.â
âYou gutted him like a pig, you want a medal for that?â Mateo scoffed.
âThe motherfucker called me your girl . He acted completely unafraid of us - Mateo, how the hell did someone like that make it past Jo?â Joaquin vetted the Sanjiaoâs new membership; I did the same for the Eagles, Mateo had his claws sunk into the Bratva. âThis is what Iâm talking about man, all of yaâll are so focused on trying to climb up the Fangsâ collective ass, shitâs falling apart down here. Man you sawâŚI canât do this shit alone.â My voice softened as I watched the tangle in his eyes grow sad.
âJust be with us.â Mateo never said please, not like he really meant it, but I could see this was as close to him asking me nice as he could getâŚfuck he was trying. âLet this shit go for just a bit. Help us gain some real glory.âÂ
He almost had me hooked, and then:
âJust get over yourself a bit.â
He had to fuck it up like he always does. Get over myself a bit? What. The FUCK.
âMateo Cardenza,â I began real calm, pinching the bridge of my nose. âLet me get real crystal clear witchuâŚyou listening?â I asked to make sure he was listening, and I could already see the impatience, the annoyance in his eyes like he thought I was the irrational one. Only drove me forward.
âVera just quit - â but I cut him off with a sharp motion, like I was chopping sinew.
âFirst, yaâll can go ahead and keep doing your thing with the Fangs, with the Pentacle, but Iâm not kowtowing to another pack, Apex be damned. Second, Iâm gonna whip this territory together while youâre fuckinâ off; the rats, the bats, the gators, Iâll keep âem in line. Iâll collect fees from the Eagles, the Sanjiao, the Bratva since you fuckinâ that up too I bet.â
âThatâs not how this works,â Mateo growled, and for the first time I saw the threat of violence in his eyes as I defied an authority Iâd never truly accepted. âIâm Alpha. You either challenge me for it, or you do what youâre told.â
âThird.â I held up three fingers and got real close, my voice seething like magma in a caldera. âThese streets are mine . The blood flowinâ through all those veins out there, all those millions of pound of meat, theyâre mine .â
âIt ainât yours if youâre alone,â the Rabid threatened, the wolfâs growl overlaying his voice, but I wasnât afraid of him. I wasnât afraid of anybody but myself.
âThe Night is Mine,â I punctuated the statement with a snap of my fangs, close to his lips.
I left him there, watching me go.
Kept hoping heâd follow, show me cared. Never did, not once.
At the bottom of the hill I stood at the glowing crimson archway on Baxter and DubrovnikâŚfelt like a gateway to another world; if I crossed it, Iâd be truly alone, even if they never kicked me out.
I crossed it.
I walked down my streets, hands in my pockets, queen of all I surveyed.
And I cried.
______________________________________________________________
âAinât nothinâ sadder than a lone wolfâŚâcept you lame little fucking bullies, bet yaâllâd stab each otherâs kidneys for a Bubblr - okay, okay, you can put the gun down. A lone wolf, thatâs someone just askinâ to lose that freedom we Unchained bleed and die for; thereâs all sorts of awful things out there thatâd love to stab some puppet strings into those little brains of yoursâŚleast they would if you little fucks had brains - â
The sounds of uncompromising violence fill the alleyway for a third time.
Last line challenge.
Rules: in a new post, share the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like).
Tagged by @annaofthenorthernlights
From my draft of Chapter 41 of CALL SIGNS, which has had me tied in knots since November of last year, and hopefully is finally progressing.
Swatch slid off the bed to get one of their other sketchbooks, while Spamton fumbled for his glasses and put them on with one hand.
For anyone who's reading this and wants to play along, consider yourself tagged.
Stolen from @sylphidine, tagging @rivnedell @chaotickimchi @jetalveran
From the end of chapter 2 of The Sluagh's Tongue, a Fae(s) x Human love triangle romance:
-----
I watched her eyes flutter just a little as I drew close; I couldnât hear anything but her breathing, the scrape of her flats against the concrete. Her lips barely brushed mine and just like that a hundred million flowers bloomed in my heart.
Lightning raced from the tip of my tongue down through my heart, striking my loins.
Desire and wanton need clawed at me as my palm found the smooth, tan skin of her waist.
My thoughts became a jumble of simplistic impulse, of wordless erotic imagery. Unadulterated, simple joy.
Spring reigned eternal in my heart for those five seconds.

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A Snippet from The Night is Ours, Chapter 5
âThese streets are mine. The blood flowinâ through all those veins out there, all those millions of pound of meat, theyâre mine.â
âIt ainât yours if youâre alone,â the Rabid threatened, the wolfâs growl overlaying his voice, but I wasnât afraid of him. I wasnât afraid of anybody but myself.
âThe Night is Mine,â I punctuated the statement with a snap of my fangs, close to his lips.
I left him there, watching me go.
Kept hoping heâd follow, show me cared. Never did, not once.
At the bottom of the hill I stood at the glowing crimson archway on Baxter and DubrovnikâŚfelt like a gateway to another world; if I crossed it, Iâd be truly alone, even if they never kicked me out.
I crossed it.
I walked down my streets, hands in my pockets, queen of all I surveyed.
And I cried.
The Sluagh's Tongue: Chapter One - Incredible Weakness
The dresserâs doors sprung open with a violent clatter, revealing a vast, sylvan landscape beyond, filled with flowers of strange colors I couldnât put words to. Mountains that looked as if theyâd been melted up from the ground stabbed upward in the distance, clawing at a sky dotted with floating islands of mossy rock and crystal. A massive crater stood in the center of it all, smouldering with sinuous blue light. The fox looked at me once again, narrowing its eyes and cocking its head. â[Carpe noctum, frater,]â it rumbled at me in a voice as deep as a sousaphone, before it stepped through the dresser doors. They slammed shut, catapulting the azure furniture back into the water.
Chapter 1: Incredible Weakness
"So...you're not going to stick me in an institution, or tell the school I'm not fit for study, right?"
"No. I'm not going to do those things unless you tell me you're going to hurt someone or yourself...don't go getting any ideas."
"I'm not going to hurt anyone," I assured him.
The university psychologist wasn't exactly the kind of person I pictured when I made the appointment. I thought Shams al-Rashi would be a tweedly little fellow with a bushy moustache and a balding pate, scribing my madness on a notepad and reclining in a very specific kind of red armchair. I was right about the moustache, totally spot on actually - glorious, if I was being perfectly honest. Black, striped with white, it curled up at the ends under his hawk-beak nose. Doctor al-Rashi's face reminded me of a tall, blunt crystal struck from the earth and given form, as well as a perpetual glower. He was wearing a dark green blazer, piped with red...cheaply made, but his vermilion tie looked like hand-woven silk.Â
His head was on fire; just the top, a nimbus of orange and white, replacing his hair.
"Then Mister Razansky I can promise you the whole point of this venture is to find constructive solutions that work for you and protect your academic performance." Instead of a little moleskine notebook or a boring notepad, a wafer-thin tablet glowed on the table before him. He twirled a stylus between his fingers. Shams wasn't sitting either, but instead standing at a podium while I reclined. I think some people would find it imposing or intimidating, but it felt like he was taking me seriously...no chance for him to zone out listening to my bullshit.Â
I appreciated that sort of focus; if youâre gonna do a job, you damn well oughta do it right.. "So..." he gestured to me with white-hot fingertips (how did he keep from burning everything?), "let's start basic. Have you ever seen a counselor before?"
"No. I never thought I'd need one, I never thought there'd be much of a point," I admitted cautiously. This was a big step for me, the notion of talking to someone who wasnât Arryn was akin to joining a new religion. It was something you did with a quizzical heart, but a little apple-core of hope hidden away, all the same.
Movement outside the window was perpetually distracting for me; a few wild herons had landed outside at the edge of a green pond ringed with palm trees and ferns...glorious creatures. Beyond them, a trio of...women, I think, cavorted in the water; their skin was a mottled greenish color like a frog's, their hair like tendrils of swamp mandrake dangling down their spines. They looked to be quarreling over an eel.
Good lordâŚI still had no idea what they were. I glanced at Shams, at some girls on the basketball team passing by; were they seeing this shit?
The weirdness made my stomach twist. I remembered how one of those mandrake women had snatched a dog from its leashâŚjust pulled it down under the water, turned it all bubbling and red with froth. Did they ever snatch people like that?
He dutifully recorded notes on his tablet, holding the pen from the end like a priest scribing a text. "Mmm. As men we are often told by other men to seek solace in our own strength, but only a strength they approve of; women often tell us to express, but in many cases they mean to express what they want to hear."
"The lady who raised me was pretty good letting me say my piece, but yeah she works for the Army...'strength comes from within', that kind of person." I never told Rachel about stuff like Doctor al-Rashi's partial state of immolation, or the frog-women bickering over the eel. Or about Tessa. "I guess this is different from what other people come in for."
"You'd be surprised at what I've heard," he assured me with cool sobriety. I could feel his eyes, like two little pinpoints of heat, tracing the shape of my eyes, the set of my facial muscles; reflexively oppositional, I tightened the screws on my poker face. I was a perfectly controlled feelings-machine; heâd see what I wanted him to see.Â
Speaking of: "How would you describe your emotional state right now, sitting on that couch?"
Exhausted. Skittish. Low-scale aroused, almost all the timeâŚsomethingâs wrong with me.
"It's a comfortable couch," I demured, patting the dark red cushion with a nod of approval. "I'm happy with the couch. I'm feeling stressed and unsure about my future, and tired." I swallowed dryly, watching him watching me; it felt like we were sizing each other up for a duel (and with what weapons, I wondered? He looked like a saber-and-shield type of guy, I was more of a pistols at dawn fellow).
"And...?" he gestured for me to continueâŚexperienced shrink like him knew Iâd be holding back.
"And, I'm...kinda scared, I guess. I feel like I'm being watched and followed." That part wasnât easy to admit; how do you tell a stranger youâre afraid of something?
Doctor al-Rashi paused his scrawling, an eyebrow cropping up dramatically - weren't shrinks supposed to mask their responses?
"Do you feel unsafe?" he queried, setting the stylus down.
"I'm not sure." The admission came with some reticence because it sounded dull. "I feel a little...transgressed." And I did. Miami was the kind of place where people talked, and because people were all about themselves, that talk could come back and bite you real fast. Real city of jackals.
"Is that what's been weighing most on your mind, or is there something else?" When he moved it sort of reminded me of fire passing between torches; a gait that at-once flickered yet also seemed to float. He poured a pot of spicy smelling, earthy tea and offered it to me on a coaster...I took some and sipped it out of politeness; piping hot, enough to scald the roof of my mouth and make my eyes water. Good tea though.
"Nngh...well, I guess there's kind of a lot going on." I paused to take a fake sip...how much would I reveal? He assured me he wasn't going to recommend me for institutionalization or take action unless I was a threat to myself or others, but when would he make that judgment? We'd keep it mundane, for now. "So, if you follow the news, President Parker sent out that EO that the International Humanitarian Reconstruction Bureau is losing its funding."
"It sounds like his style of slash-and-burn, yes." Doctor al-Rashi's eyes tracked one of the custodial staff outside; Alvarez, I think was his name. He was pulling one of those mini-dumpsters on wheels, filled with broken-up pieces of wood and a shattered toilet. Did the Doctor see his tree-trunk arms, as I did? Literal columns of knotted wood, groaning as he pulled his load?
"Yeah so...I was on the IHRB Post-College Entry Program and just got confirmed to ship out to Khamrungsa next July." I hazarded another sip of this tea...perhaps the burning sensation heightened the bite of the spices. Physical pain and tribulation usually helped me ignore internal discord, part of my unhealthy exercise compulsion.
The school psychologist tugged gently on the tip of his moustache, nodding along for me to proceed. "I presume to withhold congratulations...?" Gosh what a characterâŚhe reminded me a bit of the guy who played Saladin in that Ridley Scott movie about the Crusade - all weathered and hawkish, no-nonsense as sandstone.
I liked his dry humor, it was soothing in a way. "Ssso yeah, International Humanitarian Response Bureau got all its funding wiped with that executive order, so..." StillâŚputting those words out there, even leaving them half formed, it was another slow thrust of the dagger-of-night into my chest. 99% of the country wouldnât have even heard of the IHRB, just another department lost to the Parker Purges. For me it was like my life had ended before itâd even begun.
"Ah. So a great elephant has stepped in your path." I blinked up at him and saw his lip curl upward in a wry smile.
The two of us shared a low chuckle...I liked the symbolism, Parker won thanks to GOP voters here in sunny Florida. This state was a caricature of itself in so many ways; I grew up in Seattle, a polar opposite of the Sunshine State with its cross-clutching piety mingling with neon-pink debauchery.
"Yep. Don't really see a way around it.â Award for understatement of the century goes to Ascher Razansky. I was fucked, to put it bluntly.
My gaze drifted from the doctor back out the window, watching a stormfront rolling in from the South...it seemed like it'd been storming constantly, like Dade County was constantly under hurricane watch. The haze of near-summer heat lingered around ninety degrees daily, humid as a harlotâs palm. It was only the sterile zephyr of modern HVAC and the anticipation of nightfall that kept us out-of-staters in-state, otherwise this swamp wouldnât be liveable.
"Such are the wages of good will, Mister Razansky...but I'll spare you the philosophy unless you wish to get into it." Another jotting of notes; I watched a fruit fly jump from a bowl of ripe bananas and mangos to float near his hair. It went up in a tiny puff of orange light and smoke.
So the fire is real - how the hell isnât he igniting everything around him?
"I dunno Doctor, I barely squeezed a B out of Zakin's intro class...so yeah, there's an elephant in my path. There's also..." I stopped and shifted uncomfortably, the armchair feeling oppressive quite suddenly. There it was, that survival instinct that knocked on my temple, reminding me: Donât air your dirty laundry, Ascher.
"Okay, you've probably heard this one before. Five guys walk with me into a bar. We all see this really hot girl I like, and I ask them if she's single. They all answer 'yeah, she's Andrew's / Liam's / Jun's / Tara's / Vahn's girl'." I gazed at him flatly, expecting another wry chuckle but he instead gives me a look that hovers between patriarchal disapproval and avuncular pity.
"How does that affect your perception of yourself as a man, Ascher? Do you pine for her, or is she out of your reach?" he went straight for the throat on that one; yowch. I actually felt it, like a hot blade prodding against my jugular. Mean son of a bitch. I struggled for a moment to keep my cool at the directness of his questioning, reminding myself this was his job.
"It's not great,â I understated my sense of smallness. âI don't know. I think she sees me...I've caught her staring at me a couple of times, but she's always with someone else."Â
That was only half of it of course. This girl I was heart throbbing over, what would he say if I told him she had graceful, curling horns like a ram? What if I told him those long legs of hers, sleek as satin, ended in a goatâs cloven hooves? Would he walk back on his promise not to institutionalize me if I told him her eyes glowed heliotrope at night?Â
"Hmm. A Triple Alliance of Troubles," he notes, adjusting a pair of brass wire glasses on his bent nose...how did they not melt? "Pursuit by an unknown dread...uncertain future...complex desire."
"Oh my," I quipped. We both shared an understated chuckle at that.
"Let us return to this sensation you have of being watched or chased, Mister Razansky." He sipped from his own mug of scalding tea; I watched with fascination as steam rose from the place where his moustache made contact with the liquid, hissing like a subdued adder. "When do you feel like this? Is there a particular environment? Is it when you're alone, or..."
I usually consider what I say before I say it, and I know to some people that's given the impression that I can be a little slow...not true of course, I'm as sharp as the next mattock. Doctor al-Rashi appears patient on the outside, but he has a few tells that signal to me that he's chomping at the bit; that must be a challenge in this job. He plucks the edge of his teacup with a fingernail, worrying a small crack; his gaze continually flits out to the stormfront rolling in from the shoreline, like he's checking for something in the clouds; the halo of flame standing in for his hair flickers between orange and blue.
I know he didnât mean it, but these questions reminded me of that uncomfortable time when I was eight years old. The doctor explained just why he was going to ask me to turn my head and cough; it took about two hours for me to do so, I was a pretty stubborn kid. âI guess like, when IâmâŚyâknow. Having sex, or like, taking care of myself.â At least he didnât make it any weirder by keeping his eyes on his tablet, clinical and detached as a bunsen burner.
"I got some friends who are like...y'know, they're into urban exploration and ghost wrangling - "
"Ghost wrangling," he repeats, glancing at me from above his frames like he wasn't sure I'd actually used those words...not the first time I've gotten that kind of response. I donât blame him, even I think itâs rather silly.
Even if I do see some stuff that scars the backs of my eyes; Iâm thankful my friends donât notice.
"Yeah like, hunting for paranormal activity." I palm my Samsung and play a video I took from March. It shows Vicky and Karl (two of my fellow wranglers) walking ahead down an ugly, bare concrete maintenance tunnel. Itâs barely lit by guttering bulbs hanging from the ceiling, puddles of dirty water disturbed by Vicky's converses.Â
The bushy braids on either side of her head sweep voluminously as she swivels her neck side to side, thrusting the EVP box in front of her like a holy talisman. She was dramatically interrogating the spirit of Jack Croix, who was supposedly lynched here back in the 1800s - are you angry at our intrusion? Give us a sign!
"I see...do you feel like you are being stalked when you areâŚwrangling ghosts with your friends?" Ahh there it isâŚright, Mr. Shams you think Iâm a crazy person. Iâm not crazy. Iâm not crazy.
Iâm not crazy.
"Not just then...it depends on the neighborhood, and the building I think...like the old bomb factory on Krome, or the Sunset Mall." Were things like him aware of how they looked? Nobody else Iâd met would have noticed the massive, avian shapes battling with thunder strikes in the approaching clouds. Did the doctor know he was on fire? Would he be like this tomorrow? Would he see the strange, yellowed doorways that slid up from the ground in the Mall, opening to cavernous spaces that couldn't exist in Dade County?Â
A smirk crosses his face as he takes his notes - no...just a lick of plasma playing over his facial hair. "Have you ever gotten a glimpse of your pursuer?"
The question prompts a shivering chill to run up my spine, as if one of those mandrake-women from the pond had slid their claws up the back of my neckâŚno. Well, not entirely ânoâ. "I think so," I volunteer, always cautious and deliberate in speech. "Usually I don't see anything, but like...a couple times I caught something at my periphery, but it just kinda slithered behind a wall andâŚ" I make an effusive gesture with my fingers and mouth poof.Â
"Sometimes I feel like there's someone right behind me, like they could reach out and poke me between the ribs but when I turn around there's nothing there, just this smell."
He glances up from his notes, clearly waiting for me to proceed. His eyes are devoid of judgment. "When I was little there was this old Chinese guy I lived next to, and he'd use linseed oil to treat these big panes of dark silk...apparently it made it waterproof, don't ask me. He'd hang them up on lines and I could smell them whenever I passed, not a loud smell. Sometimes when I'm feeling watched I can smell tamarind, maybe like...something kinda musky, like the stuff Miss Vang wears in her hair."
"You do not seem overly concerned for your safety," he points out; the statement makes me bristle, because suddenly heâs starting to hit close to home again, like with that question about my view of my manhood or whatever.
"What makes you say that?" I ask diplomatically, reminding myself that, asshole or no, I came into this office willingly and he was doing his job like he saw fit.
"You have not expressed fear. Unease perhaps, but you seem more preoccupied by the object of your affections than your little voyeur." The way he stood there, tall and straight as a torch...his gaze rarely left me, and he rarely smiled; it brought back memories of Temple services with Rachel. Rabbi Krovil had watched me like that, and they almost looked alike but for the fact that Krovil's head wasn't perpetually aflame.
Krovil's lower body had been that of a snake, I recalled. Nobody ever commented.
I wonder why he called it a âlittle voyeurâ.
"Ascher," his voice yanked me back from my musings. "Do you feel as if you understand your place in this world?"
Alright, now I was starting to really regret coming here, he was getting into personal questions that didnât really have any bearing on the issue at hand - handling my stress, which we hadnât even gotten to, and it had already been fifteen damn minutes of this pressure cooker interrogation. To make matters worse, for this to be of any purpose, I have to answer honestly:
âNo," I admit. "Ever since my program got cut I feel like I don't know what I'm doing with myself, or if this major is even useful...it's not like anyone's putting up anything of use."
"There's always need for civil engineers," he pointed out, but it felt more like a test, like he was prodding me forward to see how Iâd respond.
"Any guy with a CEM can put up wiring for new condos on Alton," I countered, unable to keep the irritation from our voice as we circled around the gaping void of purpose in my life, a basket in which I'd thrown all my eggs only to find the bottom sheared away. "Those will be bought up by people with too much money, they don't need me. Nobody needs me here, Shams."
"You put too little stock in the depth of your own character, Mister Razansky," the doctor stated sharply - it felt like a particularly loud crackle from a campfire. "There is more to you than whatever you saw yourself doing in Khamrungsa; a man is not a tool shaped for one purpose, but an evolving force that shapes itself and the world around it...and if you truly feel your destiny can only be found in the Kham Mountains, there's more than one way to scale a cliff. You are as a man standing at a gorge with only a rickety rope bridge to see you across." He drew my attention to a picture ofâŚa tropical canyon, green with a rushing river, spanned by what could barely be called a bridge. âI crossed that thing everyday to go to school, boy. I know what itâs like. If thereâs a way across you take it.â
I didn't bother to hide my skepticism. Khamdo was a tropical mountain basin, choked with jungles and impassable rock-faces. It had never been governed by a single entity until the disastrous 1st Republic, and there was almost no modern transit infrastructure. The few forms of entry were jealously protected by any number of militias and rebel groups...and my own character? Shams may have been a psychologist but he didn't know who I was.Â
He didn't know how useless I was without this direction in life.
"Let's circle back around," he tapped a few times on his tablet which made a curious -whirrup- sound, and pulled a stool up to sit before me, steepling his smoldering fingers. "I want to address these things first with the remaining time we have, and make sure we have somewhere to jump off from the next time you see me - I already scheduled you to meet with me Monday after Control Systems."
He what? But before I could press him on invading my schedule he bowled over me.
"Mister Razansky, you are being a leaf in the wind...a salmon swept out to sea." He took his glasses off, and his irises quite literally ignited, burning out of their sockets as he polished his lenses. "A mouse in a maze, one might even say."
I weathered the animal metaphors with stony quiet, trying my best not to bristle like a hedgehog - dammit, no I was doing it now. "...are you saying - "
"Yes. I am. You are being incredibly weak."
---
âMother-FUCKER.â The rock skipped across the water, slashing the scummy surface three times before disappearing beneath the pondâs mucky depths. One of the Mandrake women glanced up from where she was busily braiding her sisterâs hair and sniffed at me as if Iâd disturbed her peace.
Would she even understand me if I talked to her, or was she just another dumb animal?
Childish outbursts like that were usually beneath me, but Doctor al-Rashi had given me the fourth degree - here I thought I was going to get some professional advice, not to get flayed like a heretic in a dungeon. What would Tessa think if she saw me get worked over like that?
I sat down heavily at the edge of the pond and huffed through my teeth, feeling the last rays of the sunâs vengeful stare disappearing behind tonightâs thunderstorm. In the midst of Shamsâ excoriation of my character in the guise of counseling was one truth that was justâŚpainfully dismaying. The fact that it pissed me off proved how accurately his critique struck.
I could have just got home to get ready for tonight - we were going to check out the Villa Romana in Boca Raton later, heard some chilling stuff about it - but I stayed for a bitâŚone thing Iâd learned at age seventeen, people see anger from a tall man and feel a reflexive fear. I needed to work it out first, it wouldnât be considerate to go dragging it through a crowd.
A fox emerged from a patch of cinnamon ferns walking on its hind-legs, its glossy red coat patched in places by what looked like thatch. It held a mason jar filled with glowing worms in its paws, clutching it without concern for anatomical possibility. It wore a lime-green chiffon around its throat, three rings pierced through its right ear.
What the fuck, came the initial reaction to the weirdness of it all; Iâd been seeing things like this for over fourteen years and it never felt normal. There was always some grotesque, otherworldly pageantry to it, and I always asked myself: am I really seeing this shit?
âYou know the worst part of it,â I began, looking directly at the fox and catching it off guard as it unscrewed the top of the mason jar, nearly dropping it from its scabbling paws, âheâs right about everything, and even though thatâs not what makes him an asshole, itâs his delivery that makes him an asshole.â
The little red canid gawped at me, like it couldnât believe I was speaking to it. It quickly drew its eyes away from me, as if by ignoring me Iâd somehow be unable to see it, but I wasnât deterred from venting - what did it matter? Most people would just see an imposing dark haired man ranting to himself at the waterâs edge and leave me be, and if the fox was a figment of my imagination thenâŚwhat did it matter?
âSo apparently Iâm the coward because Iâm not just turning and throwing my chest out at whateverâs creeping on me and saying âhey you, fuck off!â, cuz thatâs what you do with a potential ax murderer, right?â I scoffed, watching the fox carefully fasten the glowing worm on a slender line and hook - it give a quiet âskreee!â of pain. âAnd you know what he had the audacity to tell me? Here, and I quote: âyou are an almost two meters tall man and a compulsive exerciser, surely you can stand before some scuttling shadow.ââ I made sure to frame the last two words in air-quotes that the fox regarded with dry disbelief, as if to ask why on earth are you talking to me?
ââMy boy if you keep behaving like a ferret in flight youâll eventually be prey for hawks.â Iâve never heard so many animal metaphors in forty five minutesâŚsorry.â That was rude of me, I glanced apologetically at the fox who was watching me warily from the corner of its eyes. It wrinkled its nose at my gaze, like it didnât want to be seen.
âThen, okay, hereâs where he gets real audacious. Just bear with me here - get it?â I smirked wryly, leaning back on my palms and staring up at the rapidly darkening sky. âBear? Cuz youâre a fox - ahâŚprobably notâŚso, he said about Tessa, this guy clearly thinks heâs some sort of Cassanova who wrote the 1950s Punjab version of How to Not Die Alone. He was like, âa woman like that does not reveal herself to you, does not allow you to witness her heavy gaze without intent. That gaze hooks you, it gives her power over you - why do you let it? Why do you not seize the bull by the horns and take charge?ââ
I sighed with the sort of weighty drama I reserved for Arryn. The fox had dropped the line in the water, waiting with fraying patience and weathering my venting admirably; it must have been a figment of my imagination in that case. âHe asked if I really desired her, since I hadnât yet made a move and the answer is god yesâŚâÂ
I fell back onto the grass and let my thoughts wander to her. Tess Diyonis was the most enchanting woman Iâd ever seen in my whole life, beyond what I could have imagined. Her hair was the same red as copper warmed by the sun, as the outer edges of a bonfire in whose light I basked. âShe has these cheeks that get really round and rosy when she laughs, and when she laughs itâs likeâŚthe opening lines of a jazz show, all smoky and honey flavored.â It made my chest thrum, it made my loins ache. The fox scoffed, rolling its eyes as I waxed poetic; I didnât give a damn.
âHer bodyâŚfffuckâŚsorry if this is TMI but I donât think I have ever seen a nicer pair of breasts in my whole life, I kid you not my friend, theyâre solid 10s. Furthermore,â I held a finger up, covering the last corona-edge of the sun, âshe has gold rings through her nipples.â That fact aloneâŚit made my eyes roll backward. So fucking hot. Iâd never been with a girl that had those, and they wereâŚtempting, to put it mildly.
I glanced at my vulpine companion, watching him haul backward, as if heâd hooked something, clenching his sharp little teeth and straining hard. âShe also has horns. And goat legs. Letâs not forget that part, and you know that shouldnât be sexy, it should be weird but itâs not. Sheâs actually in my Control Systems class so I have no choice but to check her out at all possible opportunities.â She was intensely distracting; I had to record the lectures since I zoned out watching her move through the lab, dancing between equipment like a whirlwind of self-contained, exultant chaos.
âThat,â I punctuated the word dramatically by slapping my fist into my palm, âis why I canât just waltz up to her and sayâŚâ a flippant gesture, watching the fox struggle with its catch, âhey babe, you wanna grab a drink? Who says that kind of thing and just makes it work?â
I knew she wasnât just some dumb Panhandler whoâd ended up at Miami-UâŚTessa was the kind of girl whoâd end up going places. I didnât really know much about her, I already felt kind of likeâŚoutclassed, like she was a girl far outside my league.
I watched the fox growl and struggle, digging its heels into the grassy banks of the pond and slide toward the water. Feeling only briefly foolish and hoping nobody was watching, I moved to grab the line as well, pulling the catch toward the surfaceâŚweird, it didnât seem to struggle so much as simply weigh a great deal.
âHe makes everything sound so easy, like âhey just get up and go do itâ,â I continued to complain as the fox barked first in outrage as my intrusion, then gave a low chortle of appreciation as we made progress hauling something large and oblong to the surfaceâŚhow deep was this pond? âSo, I had a job lined up that got cancelled, basically screwed up my post-grad plans, and heâs all âAscher, Khamrungsa sits upon a mountain range. It is not going anywhere because it is incapable of movement, it is simply waiting for you to scale itâŚyou lost your easy way in is all, is that enough to unman you?â
Unman me. What. The. Hell. That word had slid between my ribs like a stiletto, twisting and tearingâŚbrutal. Insulting.
Iâd actually gotten up to storm from his office at that point, but heâd been brazen enough to put his hand on the doorknob, pinning me in the heat of his gaze again - and that close, I could definitely feel the heat. âHe made one good point thoughâŚâ I had to admit, watching with some curiosity as we dragged what appeared to be an antique, bright blue dresser from the water. It stood up on its own accordâŚstrikingly blue. Hypnotically, potently sky blue, the blue of liberation.
Huh. It looked familiar; vertigo and deja vu danced at the edge of my senses, like they always did when I encountered the Otherworld, or whatever this was.
Why did that color blue hit so hard, like a message?
âIf I donât make my own purpose, someone is going to make it for me, and itâll be for their benefit.â I watched the fox sidle past me and test the drawers and handles; it was sealed with a combination lock, one which the little canine with its ostentatious scarf was expertly spinning. âDonât you think?â
-click-
The padlock fell away. I should have looked away, but as was so often the case with the Otherworld, it was like an exquisite catastrophe I couldnât look away from.
The dresserâs doors sprung open with a violent clatter, revealing a vast, sylvan landscape beyond, filled with flowers of strange colors I couldnât put words to. Mountains that looked as if theyâd been melted up from the ground stabbed upward in the distance, clawing at a sky dotted with floating islands of mossy rock and crystal. A massive crater stood in the center of it all, smouldering with sinuous blue light.
The fox looked at me once again, narrowing its eyes and cocking its head. â[Carpe noctum, frater,]â it rumbled at me in a voice as deep as a sousaphone, before it stepped through the dresser doors. They slammed shut, catapulting the azure furniture back into the water.
Huh.


