I’m truly sorry to be so forward, but I must speak to you alone. Please forgive me. I beg of you. But they’re coming for you both, very soon. I have to make you able to provide, as you promised to do in return for our protection. Even if you don’t understand how yet. You must know. Now. Before they begin to come. There are many, and you will be fully ready to provide when they come for you next. But this time. And I am truly sorry. I must ask you to trust me and allow me to work through you. But we must be alone. Just the two of us. It’s inappropriate, I know, to appear to be keeping company with anyone other than my beloved, but there is no time.
David turned and looked over at Cadence. Her back was still facing them all. No one else showed any indication they had heard her voice.
Cadence turned around slightly and tugged at Brent. He excused himself as she brought her mouth to his ear and whispered something Juno and David couldn’t hear.
“I’m so embarrassed.” Juno giggled and blushed as she ran to David. “I can’t believe I woke the whole neighbourhood on my second day here.” She hugged him tightly and whispered to him, joking. “Thank God I wasn’t screaming for Mr. Strange, which I’m going to have to try not to do when we settle our bet. I don’t want to fluster Cadence any more than she already is.” She whispered heavy and warm into his ear. “But your cock is going to get a good teasing, Mr. Strange. I can’t wait to see you cry from frustration.”
David whispered back, angrily. “I told you I’m done with playing that game. You said we’re over. You got your wish. So knock it off.” Juno’s face turned sour, but she looked strangely resolute. Then again, she’d been a professional. Getting men to do what she wanted had been her job when they met. And she’d been good at it. Better than most.
Brent tapped Juno on the shoulder and spoke to David. “Do you mind if I borrow Junie for a bit?” David looked back at him quizzically, noting Juno hadn’t been joking about Brent’s hands riding a little low on her backside. “I need to catch her up on what we talked about last night.” Juno’s eyes lit up as he said that. All the information she’d been dying to know the previous evening, before they’d begun savagely humping the life out of each other. The insane sexual interlude she seemed to have completely forgotten.
Juno suggested she was okay with being alone with Brent, which didn’t come as a shock. David motioned with his eyes toward Cadence. Juno’s eyes said she was also okay with David being alone with the woman she’d begun almost exclusively referring to as his new girlfriend.
“Yeah, sure. Just don’t scare her, Brent.” David laughed, even as he felt himself starting to gag on the smell of the blood. “You heard her scream about whatever she was dreaming about last night. You tell her too much about those rumours and you may never get a decent night’s sleep ever again.”
“Got it,” Brent said.
“It’ll be okay, baby.” Juno gave David a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “I trust you.”
David blushed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I trust you, too.” Brent chuckled, looking at both David and Cadence. “You two kids behave yourselves.” Brent opened the front door, his elbow awkwardly grazing the bottom of Juno’s left breast as she exited, waving goodbye. “Don’t let Cadence worry you, Davey. Pretty soon this will all make sense.”
Juno giggled, and apologised effusively again, as she took Brent’s hand, the door closed and they went back across the street to the Strange household.
Richard woke up and picked the phone up off the warehouse floor. Looking at it with wonder as it continued to ring with the receiver off the hook.
“Ricky?” a voice yelled from the receiver as he stared at it and it ceased ringing, “you have to put the speaker part up to your ear and the microphone part up to your big fuckin’ mouth.”
“Who is this?” he asked as he held the phone properly and noticed he’d ripped the cable out of the wall jack.
“Who the fuck do you think it is? It’s your mother.” The voice sounded less than amused. “I’m calling you back from last night.”
“What?” Richard looked around at the muscle, who all muttered to themselves and backed off. Scared to death of the phone.
“What what? Check your watch, asshole,” the voice replied. “Do it now.” Richard took a look at the clock. “What does the clock say, Ricky? You really don’t know the difference between a clock and a watch?”
“No... I mean, yes. I mean, how the fuck are you doing this Davey, you sneaky little—?”
“How am I doing what? This ain’t Davey, all right. Trust me. He’s in the middle of doing some really freaky, fucked up shit I’m thinking he’s going to feel extra specially conflicted about later. And I ask again: What time is it?”
Richard looked at the clock again. Then at his watch. “It’s eleven past ten. Why? Who the fuck is this?”
“You just insist on asking the wrong questions, don’t you?”
“I’m hanging up, Davey,” Richard barked. I don’t know how you’re doing this, but I’m not falling for it and you can bet—”
“What is there for me to bet on? Think outside the box, dipshit. Maybe I’m not on the phone. Maybe I’m in your head. But that’s not important. Are you listening to a word I say, Ricky?”
“Yes.”
The voice paused for a moment and, as Richard began to continue speaking, It interrupted. “Still there? Good. A little over Seven hours, twenty four minutes and twenty five seconds ago, I made you a proposition. Well, to be correct, I made you a promise.”
“What the fuck are you—?”
“Why do you always assume that what you have to say is important to anyone else but you? Shut the fuck up,” the voice commanded. “This is just a courtesy call to let you know I know you’re sending some talent out to wax my nephew. They’re going to die horribly. That’s a given. But, since you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants, I’ll be seeing you within seven days.”
“You’re something else, Davey.” Richard laughed. “For a second there, you had me worried.” Richard plugged the phone cable back into the wall as he brushed the sweat from his brow and tried to hide the fear in his voice. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go fuck yourself. If you do manage to live through the day, the next crew I send will bring you back to me. And I’m going to do everything I promised I’d do to your neighbours, to you. Sound good?”
“What does the quality of sound have to do with anything? Look, whatever you say, fuck-face. But I’d be nicer to my nephew if I were you. Because you’re going to die within the week. You already made sure of that. But he might let you die quick.” Richard sat down, clutching Paul’s desk. “If he hands you over to me, the fun and games you have planned for his neighbours? They’ll be exposed for the amateur hour bullshit they are from minute one. And I’ll be keeping you suffering for longer than your monkey brain can imagine possible.”
“Listen—” Richard said, as Paul walked in through the back.
“Wouldn’t you rather I hear? See you soon, mother fucker.” The voice on the other end laughed. “You’ll recognise me when you see me. You won’t remember me, but you’ll know who I am. And, if Davey’s good to his uncle, he’ll toss me your balls as a thank you for all I’ve done to keep pieces of shit like you from ruining everything.” Then the voice roared. “I have plans here, you simian imbecile. I want to go Home. And your stupid ass is not going to fuck that up for me.” The line went dead.
Sounds and visions flooded Richard’s head: A closet door opening in a dark room. An unforgettable, yet unintelligible, voice calling to him as he covered his young body with his bed sheet. Something his father claimed didn’t exist coming to get him, and take him away forever, in the middle of the night.
“Who was that?” Paul asked and Richard jumped up, grabbing his chest. “Calm down, Ricky. You get any sleep last night?”
“Yeah,” Richard replied. “That was... That was Davey, again. Fuckin’ with us.”
“Since when did
his punk ass start owning you?”
Richard wiped his face and explained, feeling foolish. “It’s not that... Just, the phone was disconnected and off the hook and then—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Paul said. “Congratulations, you did a great job troubleshooting and fixing that issue. The phone’s all better now?”
“Yeah, no, it’s just—”
Paul slammed his hands down on his desk. “What the fuck is with you, Ricky? You know that rat fuck is up to some shit, always. Take three seconds, find your fuckin’ stones and take them for a walk. Everything’s fine.” He paused. “The muscle’s on their way, yeah?”
“Yeah, they already headed out.”
“There you go. The Davey problem will be resolved very shortly.” Paul patted Richard on the back. “But, seriously, Ricky. You either have to stop doing whatever drugs you’re doing or get more sleep. I can’t have you jumping at shadows, all right?”
“Sure, Paulie... Just Davey calling me all night fucking with me. He’ll be sorry soon enough.”
Paul smiled and waited a minute for Richard to get out of his chair before he smacked him on the back of the head.
Richard fumed and got up. “I’m going to fix his ass, but good.”
Paul grumbled as he sat down. “Sounds like the start of a plan. Just work it out somewhere else until you calm the fuck down.”
David stood and watched the front door close, listening to Brent and Juno talk as they walked away. Both of them sounding as if all was right with the world. As if the blood he stood ankle deep in wasn’t there. Or never had been.
Cadence turned around, her light purple shawl wrapped tightly around her slender, yet full, figure. She walked toward David with her eyes looking down at the red river that washed over the carpet.
“You see it?” Her eyes continued to scan the floor.
“Yes.” He noticed she was extending her hand toward him. He took it in his, and she pulled it back violently. “Why do you keep offering me your hand? I don’t mean any disrespect, but I wasn’t raised like you and I was under the impression, from when we first met... Why do you always offer it to me if you’re going to yank it away? Or is that the point? You can touch me but I can’t touch you? I don’t understand, but I got the message the first time.”
She looked at his hand, shaking and batting her eyelashes ever so slowly. “It’s... No. I don’t mean any disrespect to you, either. Or to Juno. I just... I would normally never. I mean. This isn’t like me at all. To be so direct. But...” She looked into the blood, perhaps hoping to see the words she was searching for floating by. “I know you can see what I see. I know you don’t wish to see it. Like Juno didn’t wish to. Like no one wishes to. I took the sight back from Juno, David. And I took away her memory of your intimacy last night. I do beg your forgiveness. Truly.”
“No apology necessary,” he said. “Honestly, she was about to go completely insane. And that’s one less talk I’ll have to have with her about our relationship. If there’s one to talk about.” He paused. “Could you do that for me?”
“Take away the memory of the beauty?” she asked, confused.
“No. I mean the blood. Everywhere. I don’t want to see it either. I’ve seen my fair share, I suppose, but this is too much. And what? Are you saying Junie doesn’t remember anything about what happened last night?”
Cadence’s features stiffened. “No. She remembers only coming home and falling asleep. And she remembers her waking hours today, to the point when I removed her sight, vaguely. As a nightmare. It may cause her confusion later.”
“How?” he asked. “How is any of what’s happening possible? And you. The blood. Can you make it disappear for me like you did for her?”
She moved to him quickly then, folding her head down and pressing her forehead against his chest. “Can you forgive me if I ask you to suffer this for a bit longer? May I ask that of you? Would you think badly of me if I made that request? I don’t wish to offend you.”
“Look,” he said, starting to feel queasy. “I don’t...”
She closed her eyes and began crying.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was improper of me. It’s just that we don’t have much time. I shouldn’t have done that. It was presumptuous of me. To gift you and Juno with that. Without your consent. But...” She reached out and touched his lips, pulling her hand back immediately as she felt the warmth. “I wanted you to know something of the good, before you began providing, as you agreed to. Please don’t be angry with me. It wasn’t fair, what I did to you. I feel terribly ashamed.” Tears streamed from her eyes. “You agreed to bring us such a great gift, and I treated you like a child. Can you forgive me? Will you let me work through you? To provide for the first time? I’m afraid we won’t have time to fully prepare you to provide without assistance. Not before it comes for you today.” She sniffed at him, smelling around his chest. “It’s coming for you so very soon.”
“Are you talking about this?” He looked around at the walls and ceiling, that may as well have been painted red, and the rising river of blood beneath them.
“No.” She began to tighten up. “I gave you and Juno... It’s not proper for me to speak of it.”
“It’s okay,” he said, not understanding. Just wanting the blood to go away. “As you noted. Time is of the essence. You don’t have to be ashamed of anything. You were so beautiful to me—” He stopped, wondering what made him say that, as he saw her cheeks flush red with anger. “You’re also the only one who seems to know what’s going on here, so please. I don’t mean to be offensive, either. But you can do what you have to do. Say what you have to say.” He paused as she shuddered. “Do you know we’re in danger?”
“You’re in no danger. Not anymore. Not since you said yes. You’re protected, but...” She stopped again, trying to keep herself from crying. Her lips trembling violently as the tears fell anyway.
“Look, Cadence. Whatever you say to me. However improper you may think it is, or however improper it actually is, you can say it. I can virtually guarantee I’ve heard worse.”
She looked at his feet, masking the guilt in her eyes.
David’s face screwed up in frustration, as Cadence continued her low moan of sorrow. As she began to let out a deep sigh, he tipped her chin up with his finger. Her breath blew heavy into his eyes and their lids fluttered.
“I’m so sorry.” She covered her mouth with her hands. “I didn’t mean to do that. You moved my head. I didn’t mean to breathe on you there. Not so strongly. Not so directly. I would never—”
“It’s fine.” He held his finger to her lips. As he felt her heavy, delicious breath lingering on him, the blood began erasing itself from the walls. And, though he pushed it from his mind without thought or hesitation, he saw a vision of a dark room in an abandoned house. “You smell wonderful. Oh thank God.”
“What?” Her eyes filled with fear. “Is it vanishing? Is it leaving you? The sight?”
“Yeah. If that’s what you want to call it. Yes, the blood is leaving.”
“No,” she said. “It can’t. Not yet.”
He looked at her and noticed her shawl was hanging open slightly. The opening was pinched off above her waist, but he could see, beneath it, she appeared to be nude.
“You must see it. For a bit longer. For this to work. Oh. I’ve ruined this for us all. Please allow me to fix it?”
He nodded. Not knowing, again, what he was agreeing to, but figuring the morning couldn’t get much more bizarre. And thinking Cadence kept company with a man with an extremely appropriate surname.
She took his right hand and placed it inside her shawl, below the collar bone, at the top of her naked left breast. She took his left hand into her right and chewed on the palm. Kissing and licking it softly. Breathing out her nose as her eyelids blinked rapidly. Warmth and wet building in intensity. “Do you see it?” Her eyes had a look of hope. A look of worry.
The blood was still removing itself from the walls, the carpe
t was drinking it back up, and Cadence’s body flickered in and out of view. So quickly it was barely noticeable, but unsettling, nonetheless. “Yes, but it’s still leaving.”
“No,” she said. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have let you touch me. I should have stayed farther away. I should have been more careful with my breath.” She looked at the floor. “Will you promise me you will say nothing of what happens here?”
“Sure. But, as you said, we should do whatever we have to do soon. There are men coming to kill us. They’ll be here soon. They’re coming for us and—”
“I know,” she said. “I can see them. All their blood is on these walls. The rare things that come to you and follow you. What you see is what you will provide. So much. We are thankful. I am also grateful for... But it will all be lost. Do you promise you won’t say anything? No matter what I do?”
“So, I’ll be providing blood?”
Cadence continued, oblivious to David’s question. “It will bring great shame upon me if you break this oath. I will have to leave my home.”
“What?” he asked, remembering. “Wait. Back up. What exactly am I going to be providing for you in exchange for your protection? Does it have to do with why you bit into me last night?”
Cadence’s eyes grew wide with panic as she ignored his question. “Do you promise to say nothing? If you don’t truly promise, I won’t be able to show my face in this town. Ever again.” Then she began moving his right hand lightly across her breasts, directing his fingertips to experience every inch of them, and she kissed his chin and then the tip of his nose. Waiting patiently for his body to relax. “Do you understand?”
“No,” he said, trying to remember what he’d just forgotten again. “I, honestly, don’t understand almost everything that’s happened since I met you. But, in exactly the same way I mean that, I promise. Yes. I will not allow any shame to come to you. Your secret. Whatever you have to do here to protect us. To help me provide, as you say I will. Whatever that means... Whatever you have to do, I promise not to speak a word of it to anyone. Ever.”
fiX - A ParaBnormal Fairy Tale Page 18
