Skin

by Christian Baines

  “Is it so hard, little boy?” the thing snarled. “This man’s life for the life of your love. No more, no less. Any other is not your prey. Of this, I warn you above all. Do not compound his crime with sins of your own, lest you become the very monster you seek.”

  “I…” Kyle choked, looking at the knife as he turned it over in his hand. “I get it, but what if…”

  “Swear to me that you will honor Ghede’s law, little one,” the voice snapped, now possessing a rough, jagged edge. “Else he wastes no more time on you.”

  He felt the weight of the knife in his hand. Blood for blood. “All right. All right, I swear, damn it. Now what? I’m s’posed to cut my hand or something?”

  An unseen force gripped his wrist, bringing the knife back up to his chest and cutting a deep gash into it. He screamed, trying to free his fingers, but the knife continued its vicious dance over his skin, cutting each line of his tattoo’s intricate design until it was a mess of red gashes, streaming blood muddled with ink and tears down his chest. When the blade at last slipped from his fingers, he stared, slack-jawed at the dark image staring down at him, finally collapsing to the floor. It took every scrap of energy he had to breathe. Just breathe. In, out, in, out. Ignore the searing pain in his chest or the ebbing blood now running away into the old man’s rug.

  “Son?” a voice called as the door started rattling again. “Goddamn it, boy. Open this door or I’m calling the police.”

  He silently mewled an indistinct response before the room went dark.

  MARC

  The heat and humidity had spread across the city like some fat-assed tourist across a tiny bar stool. They saw the type every day this time of year. Former frat boys grown old, but not grown up, hiding from the sun in stinking bars on Bourbon, too wasted to realize it was noon.

  Staying inside was probably the one smart decision still within reach of their Hurricane-soaked brains, but it had driven Marc and Ash’s chances of a decent take down to almost zero. The crowds were thinner. Fewer and fewer johns were coming to the bar, and Marc lacked the pickpocketing skills some other guys used to pick up the slack. He also had no great desire to use them. He had no problem stripping or dancing. Even hustling. The johns got their money’s worth, and he got paid. It was all good. But he wasn’t a thief. He’d snatched a guy’s wallet right out of his hand on the riverfront once, before losing the guy in a crowd watching a second line on Decatur. His one attempt had been a success, but it had felt alien, like it was beneath him. It hadn’t impressed Ash either.

  “Eighty bucks? You want cops on your ass for eighty lousy bucks?”

  And Ash was right. It’d be the last time. Maybe the heat had sent him a little crazy, like it sometimes did to Ash.

  This time, Ash had gone fucking mental.

  It had taken just one night, after Dan had lifted the ban Marc’s performance had earned them from the bar. Marc had tried to play by the rules. No fancy flesh-work or stray hard-ons, no matter how much the johns whooped and hollered for a repeat performance. They remembered him, all right. “Fire hose in the house,” one of them had called out, to the loud amusement of several others.

  Sure enough, while Marc had been gratefully tucking away his singles and fives, Ash had picked up some European john in town for Decadence. One who was more than willing to take the local talent back to the apartment he’d rented somewhere off Esplanade. At least, that was where he’d led them. The guy’s accent hadn’t much helped communication. Had he also misunderstood them? Or had Ash been his usual, slippery-ass self about their oh-so-negotiable terms? It didn’t much matter. Not now that the man was on the ground, bleeding, cowering to protect himself.

  “What do you mean ‘no money’?” Ash screamed.

  When the guy didn’t answer, Ash kicked him again.

  “Stop! I not know you were—”

  “Ash, calm the fuck down, man!” Marc said.

  This was bad. What if the guy went to the cops? Fuck, he surely would. And the cops knew Dan, and Dan knew their faces and phone numbers. The names they tricked under. Hell, half the queers in the Quarter could probably recognize them.

  “Didn’t know I was what?” Ash’s anger simmered as he caught his breath.

  “Ash, come on man. Leave him. We’ve got his face. If he starts any shit, we’ll find him.” Marc only wished he could feel as brave as his words as he hissed at their victim. “You hear that? You say nothing, nothing to anyone. Not the cops, not the fucking hospital. You got yourself wasted and got in a fight on your way home. You got that?”

  It was the truth, technically. The guy just glowered, his face still bleeding from where Ash had pummeled him down.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Marc,” Ash interrupted, his voice low. “Come on, Eurotrash. Didn’t know I was what?”

  The man’s busted lip curled up into a snarl, his hand balled into a fist. “Stupid fucking Americans!”

  “What the fuck are you—?”

  “You think I pay for you, dumb ass? You want money? In Holland, you fucking say so. But here.” The Dutchman jerkily clawed a slim wallet out of his jeans and threw it at them. It was nearly empty. Of course it fucking was. Any cash he’d had at the start of the night had already been tucked into Marc’s jock. Or Ash’s. Or…hell, they were damn fools, all three of them. “Take all the money you want. Stupid, dumb faggot whore.”

  “Ash!”

  It was too late. Ash had already slammed his boot into the guy’s stomach. The next one crashed through his teeth, sending one flying into the darkness. With that, the Dutch guy was perfectly still. Trickles of blood flowed steadily from where his head lay.

  “Ash,” Marc said. “He’s not moving.”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Ash started to kick the man again and again, sending his boot into the still body with a steady thud. “Get up. Come on, get up you bastard. Call me a—”

  “Ash” Marc’s wide eyed gaze darted around the darkened houses. “We gotta go.”

  “He...is...no, he’s not. Get up, you faggot cunt!” Ash screamed at the man’s still, breathless body.

  Marc grabbed Ash’s arm and ran, not stopping or even slowing down until they’d left the lights, tourists, and cops of the Quarter far behind. They passed through the lights and music of Frenchman Street, heading deep into the warehouses behind the Marigny, far from where anyone would find the body of a dead Dutch tourist. No, he wouldn’t think like that. Someone would find the guy and help him out. Somebody had to. Shit!

  Ash broke from his grip and rested his hands on his knees, catching his breath. There was blood on his boot.

  “What’d you do?” Marc asked. “Fuck! What is wrong with you, man? Why’d you—”

  “What? You heard that prick. Call me a—”

  Marc was on Ash like a daemon, grabbing his shoulders and shoving him against the wall. “That’s not a goddamn reason!” he screamed. “He’s gone Ash! You fucking kil—”

  Ash’s hand shot up and grabbed Marc’s throat before he could stop it. There were no words. Just those cold, blue eyes that, in that moment, didn’t know him. Didn’t care one bit about him.

  Marc choked as Ash released him, stumbling as he regained his feet and breath.

  “You heard him,” Ash hissed, seething. “You think he’s right? You think I’m a faggot?”

  “Ash—”

  “Do you?”

  “You shake your ass for them and suck their dicks for money!” Marc flinched as Ash grabbed him again, by his shoulders this time. The strength in those hands terrified him, and yet feeling it pinned against his arms felt...steady, somehow. Ash’s hands were strong, powerful and unchanging. Marc felt his breath slow as he relaxed into their grip. If Ash had meant to beat him, he’d be on the ground already.

  Fuck! They’d…yeah, they, together, had just killed a man. A man who’d be found first thing come morning. A man who’d been seen, hell, probably caught on tape leaving the bar with Ash. And Marc had been a part of it.
He could dress it up any way he wanted, but he’d done nothing to help. He’d just stood back, tossing out useless words while Ash had beaten the life out of the guy.

  “We…” Marc stammered. “We need to get that guy an ambulance. We could go to a bar on Frenchman. Somewhere crowded. You distract some drunk dude, while I get his phone. The guy gets help… Hell, he’s not gonna say nothing. We scared the shit out of him. What do you say?”

  Ash’s face hadn’t changed. “Is he right?” he asked quietly. “Am I a faggot, Marc?”

  Marc could only swallow.

  “Fine. You show me.”

  He gasped as Ash shoved him down onto his knees. “Show me what a faggot you think I am.”

  Marc’s stomach turned over as his gaze rose from the blood on Ash’s boots to the swollen erection that now filled Ash’s jeans. He must have shaken his head, since the next thing he felt was Ash’s hand across his face.

  “Jesus, Ash,” he whimpered, nursing his cheek. “Not now.”

  “Show me what a faggot I am, you little bitch.”

  His hands shaking, Marc slowly rolled open Ash’s fly and freed his cock, wrapping his lips around it before he could decide if Ash actually was a faggot or if his hard-on was from the gruesome rush of killing the Dutch guy.

  “I can’t,” he choked, trying to spit it out.

  Ash pushed his cock deeper into Marc’s lips. Marc tried not to think about his own manhood as it started to swell. It didn’t matter if Ash was a fag or bisexual or into him or just winding him up or using him or whatever the fuck he was doing. The guy’s body, his scent, the weight and taste of his cock, the salt of his precum, and the unmatched feeling of it all pushing hard into him, turned Marc on for real. He thought about it all, about how Ash’s touch had made him shiver, sent that welcome coolness right through him, cutting right through the humidity of the summer night.

  He hated all of it now.

  He tried to focus on Ash’s cock. Cold and uninvolved, like he was just another john, but it was no use. Ash was moaning the way he always did when he wanted Marc to know he was pleasing him. But while Marc knew it was a gross mockery of appreciation, the smooth, satisfied voice was too familiar to ignore. The skull above the guy’s groin mocked him too, grinning at Marc from under the thin cloth of Ash’s tank top. It taunted him. Marc remembered how he’d kissed that skull. How he’d tried to be so soft and gentle, stroking the blonde hairs of Ash’s leg as he’d flicked his tongue over his navel.

  He hated everything that had ever drawn him to Ash.

  Marc grabbed a fistful of Ash’s tank and yanked it up. He closed his eyes, focused on keeping up his steady rhythm around Ash’s cock. Instead, it was like fireworks going off beneath his eyelids. Sudden, bright flashes of greens, reds, and blues fired across the darkness he’d hoped would relax him. It hurt too much to keep his eyes shut, just as Ash was hurting the back of his throat, pushing his cock as deep as it would go.

  Harder. Faster. Smoother. Anything to get it over with soon.

  He was already on the verge of choking when he opened his eyes to see the face staring back at him from Ash’s stomach. It was no longer a skull, but the grinning, dark visage of a handsome young man. One whose mascara accentuated long black lashes, and whose lips popped a shade of purple as seductive as it was sickening. Against logic or reason, Marc knew it. He knew its name. Felt it so close to the tip of his tongue. He tried to spit out Ash’s cock again, but the shaft refused to budge from inside his throat. Like the spirit had pinned it there for its own cruel amusement.

  “Oh, fearful child,” the face purred in a voice neither fearsome nor loving. It wasn’t even remotely human. It sounded like the last high pitched, nasal breaths of a man getting sucked down into a swamp. A low growl that broke over the hiss of snakes.

  Marc closed his eyes again, trying to will the image away.

  “Look at me when I talk to you, cocksucker!”

  A sudden wind chilled Marc’s shoulders. Ash tasted different. Wrong somehow, like...

  He jumped with a start, looking up to see the wicked face of the spirit grinning down at him where Ash had been not a moment before, its great cock wedged firmly inside his mouth. The smooth planes of its body were laid bare between the lapels of a long pink coat, under which it wore matching lace panties, tucked under two swollen, dark balls. And at the base of its stomach...

  Marc tried to push away, tried to free himself from the creature, whose appendage now held him by the throat. With one final hard push against its body, he freed himself, but he could still feel the swollen presence against his throat, filling his mouth as he grasped at the air with futility. Marc felt the cold, reptilian scales slide under his fingers as he finally latched onto it. Its head whipped around to face him, but instead of a serpent’s eyes and flicking tongue, he found himself eye to eye with the grinning head of the strange being, its dark features vivid with eye shadow, lipstick, and rouge. Marc tried to speak, but the snake’s tail was too far swollen inside his throat to allow him to form words.

  “What is this?” the face asked. The voice was the same, except now it had taken on the exaggerated Caribbean tones of one of the con men who screwed tourists into getting their bones read or whatever. “Did you forget me, fucking ungrateful faggot? That’s no good. That’s no fucking good at all.” The last word became a high nasal wail as the serpent thing’s head tilted back to fix Ash with its upside-down gaze.

  Marc tore his eyes away. Off to his right, he saw a drawn and shriveled body, pale and utterly still. Ash? It couldn’t be. The body’s fingers were marked by a sickening tinge of blue at the tips, and what was left of its lips seemed purple to the point of blackness. It looked ghoulish against the blond hair faded almost white, and the now anemic look of its tattoos.

  There was no mistaking it. Ash.

  “Remember now, little faggot?” the creature’s voice whined again, rising to face Marc. “Remember what I promised you?

  This time, it wasn’t the apparition’s face but another, gently dark and so beautiful, with soft lips and dark, wide eyes. Almost comforting in its familiarity and yet so frightened.

  “A…Ash?”

  “Noooooo.” The spirit’s voice resumed its wailing pitch.

  “Who… I don’t—”

  “DO YOU REMEMBER???”

  Marc jumped back as the face lurched toward him, teeth bared, eyes wide, filled with righteous anger. Marc felt the soft flesh break between his teeth as he snapped his jaw shut in fright and tasted blood.

  A great scream erupted with full force into the night. It was very, very human.

  The black scales of the serpent god thing were no more. In their place, he saw only Ash’s pasty white skin. His friend’s face contorted with agony, frozen with the scream that had pierced the night and broken whatever spell had left Marc so deluded he’d seen snakes with the heads of ancient Voodoo spirits. No. Loa. That was the word. He remembered now.

  Fuck! He could taste the blood on his lips. Ash was clutching himself where Marc’s mouth had just been. His mind had picked a hell of a time to be dreaming up nightmares.

  “You dumb redneck cunt!” Ash cracked a fist across Marc’s jaw.

  The world spun around Marc like he’d been drinking. He’d only just made out the white shape of Ash bearing down on him when another fist slammed into his gut. Then another. He felt Ash grab his shoulder.

  “What’s wrong with you, bitch?” Ash snarled, voice reaching a shrill, nerve jarring crescendo. “You fucking crazy now? Crazy ass faggot?”

  “Ash, stop! I was...”

  Even if he’d been able to right his thoughts, how did he explain this? He’d just bitten the cock of a man he’d watched murder a guy in a blazing rage. It was sure as fuck not something he could pin on Voodoo spirits and snakes.

  “Ash! I can’t—”

  Another fist landed across his jaw, setting his head spinning again. A mad panic seized his insides, some fierce, protective instinct that made his c
hest burn beneath its scars.

  “Fuck off!” Marc twisted free and shoved Ash sprawling to the ground. He drove a strong boot into Ash’s wounded manhood, ignoring his scream as Marc ran in the direction of the Bywater, around another corner and over two chain fences. It wasn’t long before he was lost. He could feel the blood running down his face. He wiped a trickle of it from his cheek, wincing as he touched a cut under his eye. Tears mingled with blood on the tips of his fingers. He should have felt more scared. He’d find his way back to the Quarter soon enough, if Ash didn’t find him first and leave him behind a dumpster as dead as they’d left the Dutch guy. Had Ash actually killed him? Shit! Had it been the first time? There was something about that face. The one he’d seen replace the spirit on the end of the snake. Strange, yet familiar as hell.

  “Bark!”

  He turned to face the furry intruder. The scrawny mutt grinned at him in the dim light. He ignored it, too focused on catching his breath and getting out of there. Out of the Bywater and away from any place Ash would look for him. Maybe even home. Could he go back ho...

  Where was home? Everything about it seemed hazy now. A few vague memories of a dirt road and boarded-up shop windows. Some place where you nodded with a fake smile at every white face you passed and hoped nobody knew you liked to suck dick. Would Mom and Dad even want to see him? Mom… Dad… He couldn’t even picture their faces any more than he could picture the town or remember its name. Ash had hit him hard.

  “Marc,” a voice whispered in his head. “Marc!”

  It came louder this time. The voice of his mother? His father? It was a man’s voice all right, but not his Dad’s.

  “Bark!”

  The dog’s bark was friendly and familiar, full of love without judgment. The dog knew him. That made no sense either.

  “Hey,” he whispered, squatting to his haunches, slow and controlled as he stared into the mutt’s eyes. What the hell? Couldn’t hurt, could it? “Come here. Come here, boy.”