It came quickly.
“Run, Nhuwi!”
But the boy was already off, and Upendra didn’t have time to even face his audience before the first blow was struck. The bull-necked man was in quick, and once he was there, five more furious people followed. And then there was no stopping the tide.
* * *
The fires were low, many of them simply embers in braziers. They lit the room in a soft warm red. It was like being inside a womb.
But his body ached. Upendra was certain he had broken bones; maybe even parts of his face were fractured. He tried to sit up, but couldn’t. There was talking, a deep voice, something not natural. Something he’d been looking for.
He could smell a barbecue cooking. He was salivating. His body longed for sustenance, to heal itself.
He let his head roll to one side.
He’d been brought to what looked like a church. Or a hall. There was a creature standing against the light, silhouetted, huge wings folded against its nakedness. And beyond it, the townspeople.
“It’s real,” he whispered, more to himself than anything. But he was heard. The intonations ceased.
The creature turned, and came toward him. It leaned over him, its golden face now in the glow cast by the embers behind him. The creature looked cruel, looked damaged. But Upendra knew its face. He actually recognized it.
“Vauiel.”
The creature, Vauiel, cocked his head.
“You know me, my name?”
“Yes,” Upendra whispered. “I knew you when we had sanctuary. You were Peloquin’s friend.”
The creature’s big black eyes went wide and its mouth opened in a silent gasp.
The townspeople were restless. They began to murmur, and someone shouted that Upendra’s throat should be cut now.
Vauiel turned on the crowd, and a roar came from him that was deafening.
The people went quiet, and fell back, gathering at the far end of the hall. In fear, noted Upendra. Not in anger, as he had always encountered.
When Vauiel faced Upendra again, his cruelty had softened. Upendra was in too much pain to care if this was a good thing or not.
“Come with me,” Upendra whispered. “Leave these people to their useless lives, and come with me.”
Vauiel frowned. “I don’t remember you.”
“You won’t,” confessed Upendra. “We were not friends, you and I. But I travel where I can, and my plays bring the Breed to me. We are lost, but I am reuniting some of us. We have a gathering here, in Australia. We are waiting for Cabal’s call.”
Vauiel scoffed.
“What call? He is no Cabal. And our god is as lost as we.”
“But we can build a new home, to replace Midian.”
“Upendra, you fool.” Vauiel brushed the hair from Upendra’s forehead. “You would hide away from the Natural world again? And they would find you and hurt you again? No, you must reclaim your place in the world.”
“Like you? Like this pathetic angel cult in the middle of nowhere?”
“I have my reasons,” said Vauiel quietly.
“There are no reasons for this.”
Vauiel motioned to someone, and one of the townspeople stepped forward, carrying a bowl. The aroma of cooked fat and meat came from it.
“Here,” said Vauiel in a soothing voice. He scooped some of the food from the bowl and pressed it to Upendra’s lips, and Upendra ate of it greedily. Vauiel scooped him out some more.
“You went to the visitors’ center?” asked Vauiel. When Upendra didn’t answer, Vauiel asked again.
“What of it?” Upendra’s voice was sour.
“The skull, the malformed crocodile skull hanging in there. They say it’s a new species of crocodile found in this area alone.”
“And?”
“It’s my son, Upendra.”
Upendra was stupefied. He looked at Vauiel, saw that the angel’s eyes were deeply pained. There was such suffering in those eyes.
“What is the meaning of it?”
Vauiel rolled his head from side to side, some kind of soothing gesture. He placed the bowl of meat onto the table that Upendra lay upon.
“I lived in these lands before settlement. I lived here with my wife and then with my child. They were shape-shifters, crocodilians. But my son hadn’t mastered the skill fully. His name…”
Vauiel faltered. He was crying, Upendra saw, but he made no sign of having noticed.
“His name was Kambara, and he was the pride and absolute joy of Kena and me. We lived in harmony with the local aboriginal people, the Malintji, and they even would call my son Ginga, after one of their own legends.”
“What happened to your family? Why were they not with you in Midian?”
Vauiel stretched himself, his wings slowly spreading wide and then closing again. He sighed.
“The people of Isisford, the new settlers, they became aware of us living nearby. My family was killed. My boy, Kambara, he was chased down by boys riding on goats. They chased him down and finished him. But I escaped … only I. I flew into the air, where they could not follow. They thought me an Angel of their Lord, and that I was a sign that some evil had been vanquished. It’s why they named their streets after saints: I am their own legacy. And I went to Midian, and when the Men of Hate came again, I felt something in me find itself. My resolve. I heard Cabal’s words, and I rejected them. I knew Baphomet’s laws, and I rejected them. And I came here, and I took my revenge on these people. And they praise me for it. I am their god now.”
There was something in Vauiel’s words that didn’t sound right to Upendra. He was struggling to hold on to it, through the pain of his injuries and the revelations of the angel.
The doors of the enclave burst open, and John staggered in. He had been beaten. His face was swollen and bloodied, and barely recognizable. He fell to his knees inside the doorway, and struggled to get to his feet again.
Upendra was horrified.
“What have you done?”
“It was my followers,” admitted Vauiel. There was little remorse.
One of the congregation spoke up, shouting gently across the room: “He was consorting with the outsiders, my lord.”
“You let these people go,” demanded John. His voice slurred, and blood dribbled down his chin.
“What does he mean?” Upendra searched Vauiel’s face for answers.
Nhuwi steeped into Upendra’s vision.
“I don’t want to go anywhere, Upendra,” Nhuwi said softly. He looked up at Vauiel. “I want to be like him. To fly. To see the land with my own eyes.” The boy approached a brazier, his back to Upendra, and held something over the flames there. “No more Dreaming.”
John continued his demands. “Let them go. The man and the boy. They haven’t done anything to you.”
Someone kicked one of John’s legs from under him and he fell heavily onto his side, crying out from pain.
“Fuck you!” he yelled through clenched teeth. “Fuck you all for what you did to my wife!”
A large woman stepped forward and stomped on John’s face.
“No!” screamed Upendra.
Nhuwi screwed his face up at the violence. He looked distressed. Gone was the happy child staring at the sky.
Upendra banged his head hard against the table, again and again. A knot in his stomach formed. His body craved more food, more of the meat that cooked and blistered nearby. He groaned.
“Upendra,” said Vauiel. “Upendra, listen to me. Stay here, with me. Give up this foolish quest of yours. Stay, and eat. You must eat. You’re weak.”
Upendra eyed Vauiel suspiciously. The angel smiled, the cruelty from before edging back into his features.
“You’re weak, Upendra. Eat.”
Nhuwi stepped closer to the table.
Upendra looked at the child. There was something else here, too. Something he hadn’t noticed before. He looked past Nhuwi to the congregation in the room. At all those bullish faces and fumbling limbs. Thos
e feverish, frightened people, cowering before their angel. But something was not right.
“There’s no children.”
Upendra thought back to the puppet show in the park. Where were the children of this town. He hadn’t seen any since arriving.
Nhuwi was mewling. He looked ill. Sweat beads were forming on his forehead and starting to run.
“Nhuwi, what’s wrong?” asked Upendra.
Vauiel’s voice was insistent. “Eat.”
“Yes, eat,” agreed Nhuwi weakly. He offered his arm up to Upendra, and it was burnt and blistered and more than that: there were bits of the flesh missing. “I saw this. It’s okay.”
“Eat some more,” said Vauiel dispassionately. “Join me, brother.”
A roaring noise was filling Upendra’s head. The horror was overwhelming, and his body was aching. He was trembling, and everybody in the hall was watching fearfully, as little Nhuwi proffered his own arm for Upendra to eat some more from.
“They ate my child, Upendra,” said Vauiel, his dark eyes sparkling in the glow from the embers. “They caught him, those boys on goats, and the people ate him.”
Upendra groaned, and the smell of cooked meat was strong in his nostrils. Vauiel shoved Nhuwi closer, and the temptation overcame Upendra, and he began to eat of his little friend, his companion of the road.
“It is why I returned to this place,” continued Vauiel. “As they ate of my child, so I eat of their children. Never again will they see their children grow, and have children of their own. And soon, their lineages will die out, and my revenge will be complete.”
Upendra had stopped listening. His head was all noise, and his mouth was clamped to Nhuwi’s arm.
PRIDE
Amber Benson
They were parked along the side of the bridge where the wind was most fierce, backs against the ticking steel of the red VW bus as they watched the last rays of burnt orange sunlight filter through the cloud-strewn sky. Sun-bleached, blond hair whipping frothy against their handsome faces, they stood on their perch high above the water, physiques chiseled as stone, the illicit hunger that swelled inside each of them—which had, in fact, brought them together—sated for the moment.
They’d cut a long slit in the girl’s abdomen, filling her belly with limestone and quartz pebbles from the beach; then they’d wrapped her up in a cheap Mexican woven rug and pitched her off the side of the bridge. There was no splash as the body hit the water, just the lonely banshee-scream of the sea as it lashed itself, again and again, against the craggy rocks wreathing the pilings of the bridge like a sharp-toothed maw.
They were dressed in ripped, light blue acid-washed jean shorts with neon orange and yellow and lime tank tops, golden honey skin even richer against the garish colors. They didn’t shiver as the chilled ocean air bit into their exposed skin, tearing into ripped torsos and muscular legs, and calling up gooseflesh that made the pale blond hair dappling their hard bodies stand on end, but they weren’t impervious to the cold. They were just unmoved by it—as unmoved as they were by all the death they’d wrought.
Cal was the leader. Jeb was second-in-command. Sal and Dix were fraternal twins six years younger than the other two—though you’d never have known it from the look of them. In the glow of the late-afternoon magic hour, the four men stood out like a pride of lions—glorious to behold, but wildly unpredictable; four mercurial gods so bronzed and well formed it was hard to rip your eyes away from the sight of them.
“Sun’s almost set,” one of the twins said, raising his tawny head and yawning.
The others nodded. The deed done, it was time to ride.
* * *
Abra looked forever young. She could pass for human until she opened her mouth, but, after that, all bets were off. Not that she wanted to be human. Humans had taken away her sense of safety and burned her beloved Midian to a crisp, forcing her to flee the only home she’d ever known. Since then there’d been many wayward places—but it was the laid-back beach town of Solara, California, that’d finally stolen her heart, and it was here she’d stayed the longest.
It might seem counterintuitive that someone whose death was tied to the touch of the sun would seek refuge by the Pacific Ocean—especially in a town where everything was so ripe with sun and summer and surf—but one should never forget that even the sparkling places have their dark side and without the light, there would be no shadow.
Abra was not alone in her fascination for Solara. The tourists arrived in droves, flooding the little beach community year-round. They were an infinite tide of humanity washing up on Solara’s shores, ready to spend their money and time then disappear, maybe never to return again. Of course, this suited Abra perfectly. She joined the crowds of tourists at night and burrowed in with the unwashed masses living under the Boardwalk during the day.
The underbelly of the Boardwalk seemed fashioned expressly for the homeless and disenfranchised. There were dozens of bolt-holes for Abra to hide in, recesses tucked away within the concrete girders holding up the wooden structure of the Boardwalk, disused entrances leading to cavernous rooms containing the massive electrical system that supplied power to the amusement rides and vendors.
The discarded detritus from the topside pleased Abra, and she spent much of her time playing with the trashed remains of summers past, the garbage sparking her childlike imagination like tinder. Anyone else would’ve found the place sad, but Abra liked living among the discarded lawn chairs; the old mechanical shark that lay on its side, half rusted through; the busted plastic cups smashed like flattened Chinese lanterns; the rotting flyers in a rainbow hue of colors; and the robin’s-egg-blue tent whose canvas body had been tattered into ribbons by an unseen hand.
It was a burial ground of sorts and Abra was just another dead thing taking up residence there.
* * *
Night fell fast, dropping a heavy, black velvet curtain over the Boardwalk—not that anyone seemed to care. Like a herd of antelope on a grassy African savannah, the tourists were ripe for the picking, too wrapped up—in eating corn dogs and popcorn, in hooking shiny metal rings over milk bottles, in wriggling with delighted terror as the roller coaster inched up its first incline—to notice anything was wrong.
The four of them stood on the periphery, watching and waiting. Theirs was a mission of quality not quantity. Unlike a real pride of lions, they were not interested in picking off the weak or infirm. They were looking for something special, a glorious female with perfect, angelic features and a disposition to match. Once found, they’d catch her then share her body among them—and when they’d finally used her up, their prize would be discarded in a shallow grave, or the eternal depths of the ocean, forever theirs, marked and mated with for eternity.
“What about the girl over there?” one of the twins said, pointing to a tall brunette with skin the color of slightly burnt marshmallow. She was on a bench by the cotton-candy stall, texting someone on her phone, fingers flying over the screen, oblivious to everything and everyone around her.
Cal and Jeb shook their heads. As if she’d heard them talking about her, the girl looked in their direction, left eye drifting lazily within the confines of its socket. She didn’t try and catch their gaze, or flirt with them like a real lioness would, but quickly returned to her phone.
Something about the intensity of their stares must’ve spooked her, because a moment later she stood up and wrapped her red sweater tightly around her shoulders before moving off into the crowd, unaware of just how close she’d come to an unhappy ending.
Sometimes it took only a few moments to lock on a target. Other nights they skulked back to the red VW bus empty-handed. The longer between kills, the more ferocious the hunt and capture of the next victim would be; the more titillating. They’d learned from experience it was better to wait for the right specimen than to take down substandard fare just because they could.
They waited now for the right woman to cross their path.
* * *
Abra smelled them before she saw them. She doubted if any of the humans noticed, but, to her, their scent was palpable: rank, animal musk that screamed danger. Then she saw them and knew her nose hadn’t steered her wrong. These were human monsters and they were on the hunt.
Abra watched them, curious and strangely drawn to their raw masculinity, as they lounged against the Boardwalk’s protective wooden railing, backs to the sea. One of them was sitting on the handrail, bare feet swinging, while the others stood, bodies relaxed, hands casually at their sides or in the pockets of their jean shorts. Abra wanted to laugh at their studied postures, an affect cultivated in order to appear nonthreatening.
With their tawny, tousled hair and ruggedly handsome faces, they looked like models. Many of the women who saw them did a double take, stared openly at them, or smiled so broadly it looked as though their faces might split in half. For the most part, these women were ignored. Once or twice, the one sitting on the handrail would hold a woman’s gaze, but never for long—and never so one of the others could see.
Abra wanted to go to them, to see if they could sense in her some of the things she sensed in them, but she was shy. She’d been alone for so long that she felt awkward and tongue-tied. Instead, she watched them from afar, biding her time.
* * *
Jeb saw her first.
Still as a large cat, he flicked his lazy caramel-brown gaze in her direction, drinking her in. She was small and slim, but beneath her clothes he could see the gentle curve of hip and thigh, the fullness of pert, young breasts straining against the sheer, black fabric of her thin dress. She had tiny wrists and a delicate neck, the pale white skin at her throat throbbing with bruise-blue veins. She was angelic and beautiful.
He got hard, watching her breathe, and imagining the short yelps she’d make as he entered her, drove himself inside her over and over again until he’d covered her with his scent and seed. He wanted her badly and he knew the others would feel the same.
She had a striking face, symmetrical features in a sharp, heart-shaped frame. She tilted her head, a sheet of straight, honey-blond hair falling across one dark violet eye, causing her to appear aloof and mysterious. He didn’t think she’d noticed him yet, which was good. No one wanted to tip off the prey too soon in the game.
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