by Elle Jasper
Christ, woman. You’re naked? In the shower? Why do you torment me so? Never mind. I can still see remnants of tonight’s events in your mind. You’re getting confused, aren’t you, love? It will only get worse. Trust me.
I am not confused, damn it. Now go away.
I continue to bathe—wash my hair, scrub my skin, rinse. I can still feel Victorian’s presence. How, I don’t know. But I do. What are you doing, Victorian?
After several seconds, he answers. You don’t want to know.
Yes I do. Why are you still here?
I can’t stop thinking of you naked; your skin wet, slick with soap. It easily places…images into my head. I can’t help myself when that happens, Riley. I—
Yeah, yeah, never mind Loverboy. Don’t wanna know. Later, Vic.
For a certainty, my love…
After drying off and pulling on a pair of soft sleep pants and a tank, I brush my teeth, hit the lights and climb into bed. Exhaustion makes my bones heavy, my skin ache, and just as I slip into sleep, Eli’s strong arms pull me against him.
“Rest,” he whispers against my temple, and despite my sleepiness, the feel of his lips moving across my skin makes me shiver. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Oh, God,” I mumble, sliding my arm over Eli’s chest and snuggling close. “Have we become that old couple that doesn’t have sex anymore?”
Eli’s chuckle rumbles against my ear. “We had sex this morning.”
“Okay,” I say, already being pulled into slumber. “Sorry if I was a bitch earlier. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Again, Eli’s lips brush my skin as he kisses me, and his arms tighten around me. “Everything’s going to be okay, Riley. I swear to God, it will be.”
That last part I barely hear, but it slips into my subconscious, where I keep it safe. Keep it all safe—Eli’s arms, his strength, the brush of his lips across my skin. Somehow, I know that I’ll need those reassuring words, those memories. Later. For now, I sleep.
It’s raining. Still dark outside. Streetlamps throw an amber hue over the wet cobbles. Close by, a tire hits a pothole and water splashes against the fender. Footsteps slap the sidewalk. A heartbeat echoes off the brick walls. Human. I blink and listen, then I look around. Why am I outside? Didn’t I just fall asleep, warm in my bed with Eli’s arms wrapped around me? I know I did. So why am I here? How did I manage to get away from Eli?
I look around, but see only a long shadow at the end of the lane. The shadow’s moving and it matches the footsteps I hear. They’re quick, sure—not like those of a stumbling drunk. More like…someone who is frightened. I hurry toward the sound, the long-moving shadow. The heartbeat grows louder, faster, and the pungent scent of fear clings to the brine of the Savannah River that perpetually hangs in the air. I am closer now, the heartbeat reverberating off the damp stone around me. Now, only that taunting beat sounds in my head. Nothing else. The human senses me. Hides. The scent of blood hovers like mist in the air.
A craving quickens inside me.
Silently, I edge along the shadows toward the hiding place. Closer. A whimper reaches me, then a strangled cry. Just as I ease around the corner of the alley, I see them. There are two. They’re young—one male, one female. Newlings. Suddenly, I’m confused. I react. I leap.
“Get her,” the male says. His voice is calm, hateful, determined.
The female newling lunges at me just as I leap at her, and with a growl, we clash and drop to the cobbles. I grab her by the throat and slam her into the wall. Immediately, she’s up and lunging at me again. I duck. She hits the opposite wall and I follow her. I have her arm jacked upward behind her. I have the strength to tear it from her body, and I almost do. Until I hear a cry, and I glance down.
“Help me, Riley!”
My blood runs cold at the familiar Filipino Dagala dialect.
The male, fangs dropped, is biting the human. Only then do I notice the short black bob, small stature, wide, frightened brown eyes rimmed by a pair of glasses. It’s my neighbor, Bhing, who owns a chic clothing boutique next door to Inksomnia called SoHo. I throw the female newling several feet away and she crashes against the steps. I lunge at the male and yank him off of Bhing. She scrambles backward.
“Bitch,” he grinds out, and with more strength than I credited him for, grabs my throat and lifts me. Eyes opaque, one small red pupil in each center, he glares. No mercy. No pity. Only rage and hunger. “Don’t fuck with my kills, freak,” he says. The streetlamp light shines off his jagged fangs.
With lightning reflexes, I wrap my legs around his waist and jam the heel of my palm into his throat. He turns me loose, and as he drops to the ground, I crawl toward him, yank the silver blade strapped to my lower back, and plunge it into his heart. He seizes, and I jump off him. I glance up; the female is running toward me. In one fluid motion I pull the blade from his heart and fling it at the female. It embeds to the hilt. She drops and begins to seize.
The craving returns. I turn for the human.
But the alley is empty now; Bhing has disappeared. Out in the street, I search. Empty, all except for a stray cat perusing the trash cans. Bhing’s gone. It’s only then that I realize why I killed the newlings.
I wanted their hunt. Their prey.
I wanted Bhing’s blood.
With both hands, I grasp my head and stumble back into the alley. What’s happening to me? Dizziness swamps me, and I drop to my knees, gulping in large breaths. Nausea crashes over me, and I fight to keep whatever was trying to come up down. With hazy vision, I notice two piles of ash on the ground. The only thing that can kill vampires is pure silver. Or another vampire.
I’d killed them with my silver blade. But had I done so to get to Bhing—or to save her? My head spins, and I push myself against the wall. Confusion grabs me by the throat, squeezes, chokes. Blackness crashes over me, and I see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing…
“Hey, sleepyhead,” a graveled, slightly French accent whispers in my ear. “Wake up.”
My eyes flutter open. Uncertainty and disorder web their way through my memory. Where am I? The room is hazy, with the barely there early-morning light filtering in through the gauzy curtains. My bedroom. I fix my gaze on the figure leaning over me, weight supported by one elbow, chiseled face staring down at me. Eli. I’m in my room, with Eli.
His eyes bespeak volumes. I know he immediately senses my confusion. He frowns. “What’s wrong?”
Pushing up on my elbows, I sit up. “Had a bad dream,” I said, trying to recount how I’d gotten from the alley to my bed without Eli or Seth knowing I’d left the apartment—if I’d left at all. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure. I look at Eli. “Have I been here all night?”
Eli’s eyes narrow. “Why would you ask that?”
Frustrated, I jump out of bed. “Damn it Eli, stop answering my questions with more questions.” Pulling the curtains back, I stare out over River Street. “Have I been in bed with you all night?”
“Yes,” he says, and moves behind me. Wrapping his arms around me, he pulls me against him. “Tell me.”
I relax. “Damn, it was so realistic. I…was out in the street, at night, and I saw Bhing from next door getting attacked by two newlings. I killed them. Bhing got away.” I turn and stare up at his concerned expression. “Then I felt, I don’t know. Sick. Dizzy.” I shrug. “Next thing I know, you’re waking me up.”
“Want me to go check on Bhing?” he asks.
I sigh and move out of Eli’s arms. “No. I will. If it really happened last night I’m sure I freaked her out. Besides, I want to go visit Preacher and Estelle before I get ready for work anyway.” Preacher and Estelle keep a store, Da Plat Eye—a Gullah herbs and concoctions parlor—right next door. They live upstairs, just like I live above Inksomnia.
“They’re not there,” Eli says. “Ri, they left Monday morning to go visit Estelle’s sister in Charleston. Don’t you remember?”
Slowly, I turn and look at Eli. My insides
turn cold. “Today is Monday.”
Eli’s face is drawn, worried. “Today is Wednesday.”
I close my eyes, push my fingertips against the sockets. What’s happening to me? I’m now losing chunks of time? I scramble in my memory, trying to remember. I recall going to bed, then suddenly being outside, fighting two newlings over Bhing’s blood. The last thing I want to do though is freak Eli out. The very last thing. I chuckle, shake my head. “God, I’m getting old. Dream must’ve sucked the life out of me.” I glance at Eli. “No pun intended.” Glancing at the clock on my bedside table, I stretch. “I’m starved. Think I’ll go grab some Kremes and coffee. Wanna go with?”
“Absolutely,” Eli says.
I don’t think he plans on letting me out of his sight anytime soon. It already pisses him off to no end that he can’t read my mind like he used to. The Arcoses really did a number on my DNA. Since it keeps changing, I have no idea where I’ll end up. Me. Riley Poe. What’s left of me, anyway. I can’t bullshit Eli for long about my loss of time. Don’t want to. It scares the shit out of me, truth be told. I’ll try to handle it first. See what Victorian can tell me. Maybe I can learn to control it like I have my other tendencies? I hope to God so.
“Hey, bro, running to KK,” I say. “Want anything?”
Seth glances at me, his usually bright expression dull. “No thanks.”
“Something wrong?” I ask, perplexed.
Seth’s gaze lingers on mine for a second or two, almost as if he’s waiting on me to guess. “No,” he finally answers, and pulls on his jacket. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Where’re you going?” It’s not like Seth to be so sullen with me, but lately, we’ve both been through so much crap, we’ve learned to give each other a little space.
“School, Ri,” he answers. “Mrs. Dupré likes me there early.” Elise home-schools Seth and Josie.
I nod. “Okay. Later.”
Seth, silent, walks past me and out the door. I try to ignore the hurt I feel and look at Eli. I’m pretty sure the smile I paste on my face looks fake as hell. “Ready?”
“He just worries about you, you know?” he says quietly.
I grab the Jeep keys from the hook and head out. “Yeah. I know.”
The moment I step outside, I see Bhing at the Dumpster. She is heading back into her store and she spares me a single look and a wave. Her silky black hair, cut in a shoulder-length bob, swings with her every movement. She stares at me through her glasses. I wave back. So, she’s safe after all. I wonder what she’s thinking?
We make it to Krispy Kreme and back in thirty minutes. I eat four glazed doughnuts and sip my sugar-and-cream-loaded coffee while going over a few ink designs I have scheduled for the day. I can tell my head isn’t in the game, or in the food, and both tick me off. What’s more frustrating is that I don’t know what to do about it. Sometimes it’s worse than others. These feelings are relatively new. Eli knows my irritation; he watches intently as I dress for work in a pair of ripped, faded low-rider jeans, a black Inksomnia long-sleeved tee and a pair of worn boots. Pulling my hair into a high ponytail, I brush my teeth and head downstairs to open shop. I feel anxious. Unsettled. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen Preacher and Estelle. I just can’t figure it all out.
I hear Nyx a full three minutes before she enters the shop.
Rather, I hear her heart beating.
For a split second, just before Nyx opens the front door, my vision blurs. The sound of Nyx’s heart thumping inside its cage reverberates inside of me. Her blood whooshes through the vessels as it races to and from the organ. I can friggin’ hear its resonance. I shake my head a few times, take some breaths, close my eyes, clear my head. Rid my brain of it. Goddamn it! What the hell?
“Riley.” Eli stands next to me, his hand on my shoulder, his voice stern, steady. Almost as if he knows my inner turmoil. I glance briefly at him. My mind begins to clear.
“Riley! Good morning!” Nyx greets as she steps inside, and I turn my attention to her. Luc is right behind her. Gene, the Welcome Raven—appropriately named after Gene Simmons—crows above the door. For some reason, both sounds annoy me. Nyx drops her oversized pink handbag with black skull and crossbones at her station and crosses over to me. She pulls me into a tight hug. In the span of a few seconds, she assesses me. “You didn’t get much sleep, huh? Poor thing. You look tired.”
“Gee, thanks,” I say, and move to the iPod station. “Isn’t that the same thing as saying I look like shit?”
Nyx yanked my ponytail. “Yeah, pretty much. So get some more sleep. I know you don’t need as much anymore, but a little more couldn’t hurt. You have dark circles under your eyes, Ri. You’ve lost all the color that you got from Da Island when you were rehabilitating and between your pale skin and dark circle eyes, you actually look like a, um. You know.”
I glance over my shoulder at Nyx, who passes a single look to first Eli, then Luc.
“What? You mean a vampire?” I ask. I almost laugh.
“Yes! But more like a Hollywood version. Dracula. You know?” she replies.
Luc approaches and grasps my chin with his hand, turning my face left and right. His eyes, the same shade of cerulean blue as all the Duprés, study me with intensity. “Damn, Poe. You do look like shit.”
I jerk away. “I gotta get busy.” Feeling like some Freddie Mercury, I select “Killer Queen” and start work. I tune out Eli, Luc, and Nyx, as well as my own bad mood as I sift through my designs. Without looking up, I feel all of their eyes on me. Eli’s gaze is burning into me like a branding iron. This morning I simply don’t care.
My first appointment arrives. I’m freehand outlining a fairly large spider over the ribcage of a lanky young dude. Not an ounce of body fat on him. “Take off your shirt and get comfortable,” I say, and point in the direction of my table. “You okay with an audience?”
The guy shrugs. “Sure, no prob.”
I nod and flip the switch to the Widow, my beloved tattooing machine. Or, as Estelle calls it, the Black Engine. As I’m setting up the ink pots, I glance at him. “How’s your pain tolerance?”
Again, he shrugs. “I’m good.”
I again nod. “If you need a break just let me know.” I thumped his ribs. He didn’t even budge, which was a good sign. “You have zero body fat. It’s not gonna feel great over those bones, dude. Promise.”
“I’m cool, I’m cool,” he assures. “I can take it.”
“All right then,” I say, shaking my head. I’m not in any mood for a crybaby today. I scrub his side with antiseptic. “Lie with your arm resting above your head on the pillow and let’s get going.”
The kid’s good. He doesn’t even flinch as my needle moves over his bumpy ribs. The hum of the Widow mixes with Freddie Mercury’s unique pitch and blessedly pulls me into the zone. All is going pretty well for a handful of minutes. I feel like my old self. I sense my old life, before vampires, newlings, and tendencies. Before the Arcoses. I’m in there, barely hanging on by a thread.
I lean close over the kid’s ribs, freehand sketching the body of the spider that is approximately eight inches in length, six inches in width. I move with my needle, wiping the blood with a four-by-four-inch piece of gauze. I wipe. Blood. Wipe. Blood.
Blood.
Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” is now fading away in the background, and becomes muffled until it is nothing more than a soft hum. Nyx’s happy chatter fades. Luc’s constant flirting fades. Eli’s totally silent. Only one thing remains.
This kid’s heartbeat.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I take a deep breath, shake my head, and continue.
The needle penetrates the skin in rapid-fire shots as I move along, creating the outline of the spider. My gaze fixes on the beads of blood, and I wipe with the gauze. I continue. More blood. Not a lot. Just beads. But there are a lot of them. The more I stare, the more I concentrate. What was a line of ink with whelps of blood turns into filleted skin as my ne
edle plunges three inches into the kid’s side. Blood pours out. I jerk back in horror.
“What?” the kid says. His voice is shallow, as though it’s calling from a deep tunnel. He peers over his ribs at where I’m working.
I glance at him, and his face is concerned, but nothing more. When I look back at his side, it’s perfectly normal. I blink, shake my head. Sweat breaks out across my forehead and I wipe it with my forearm. “Nothing. My needle jammed is all,” I lie. “I’ll change it fast. Just relax.”
“No prob,” he says, and lies back.
I turn to change the perfectly good needle, and Eli’s at my ear. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks quietly. Even his voice sounds muffled, and I know he’s mostly speaking inside my head. He sounds far, far away.
The whole while, I hear that kid’s heart beating.
I draw another deep breath. “Needle jammed,” I say. “Everything’s fine.”
I glance at Eli’s face to reassure him. He’s not reassured at all. His face is pulled into lines and sharp planes of worry. He says nothing. Only watches. Behind him, Luc does the same. Both irritate me. But Eli’s constant presence seriously annoys me. I try to block him out.
I continue with the spider and the kid.
Focusing on my work, I try to block the thumping of his heart. It takes such strength to manipulate the sounds around me that sweat again breaks out across my forehead. It’s almost what drug or alcohol withdrawals feel like, and I can speak from experience on that one. Your body craves, and turns itself inside out to fight off that craving. It feels like a thousand ants are crawling inside your skin, trying to break free. I try to ignore the feeling, try not to rush, take my time, making the legs of the spider design angled, defined, and structured. I’m almost finished. Thank God. Just a little more.
