Scarlet Night (Limited Edition)

by Megan Parker

  A cautious step is taken back as the therion's lip pulls back in a bestial sneer, “Nice trick, freak show! Might get yo' blood-clot suckin' ass mo' quarters if ya pull that circus tent shit on the meat-sacks, though!”

  “It might…” I chuckle, rolling my shoulders and then my neck to prepare for what's about to happen, “… but, like I said: this is your money now!”

  The first wave of pain hits me like a kick to the nuts as I tighten my grip on the stein's handle and bring it around in a left hook. Before he can register the motion, the glass smashes into the side of his face and explodes into shards. The wad of donated bills—now free of their confinement—make a run for freedom; piggy-backing on a gentle breeze down the sidewalk as the therion howls out and slams to the sidewalk.

  “Fuckin' cocksucker!”

  I open my mouth to retort, but the second wave rolls in—starting at the base of my spine and ripping its way up each vertebrae until it reaches my brain and sets fire to my core—and all I can offer is a gargled whine. I feel something shift in my mind and suddenly the world is my circus and I can't stop laughing. Gazing down at the now wide-eyed therion, I see a trail of blood starting down his jaw; a few shards of my glass still embedded in his cheek and a lonely fiver clinging like a desperate lover on his heaving chest. I laugh harder.

  And then my shoulder jumps free from the socket and my cackles are cut short as an agonized sob takes their place.

  Fuck!

  I'd forgotten how much this hurts!

  My left knee starts to twitch and then suddenly melts into molten lead and I drop down to one side, trying to hold myself upright with my right leg as the left begins to tear apart from the inside.

  Another shift in my mind and suddenly we're laughing again, though we're not sure what's so funny about our pain!

  My pain?

  Something screams inside our skull and begins to claw free behind our left eye and the night goes bright and forces us to clutch our eyes. Only then do we remember that the light is inside our eyes!

  And the shrieking beast in our brain wants our heart…

  We pitch back as the curse claws its way down; thrashing in our throat and digging through our chest until it finds its target and takes its first bite.

  We laugh.

  We cry.

  We curse the heavens and praise the freedom and claw at the burning agony as it spreads through our veins.

  Our hands pop and shift and warp—every joint howling to our blackening mind that we're dying; that we'll never live through this change—but find strength enough to clutch at our shirt and begin struggling against the material to free ourselves from its confines!

  How DARE it try to hold us!

  We are FREE!

  And, knowing we are free, our cackles erupt from our scorching core once again.

  The therion's rage from our punch slips away, and we watch through stinging eyes as they shift into the next spectrum and allow us to see what lies beyond the flesh. Like a mirage coming into focus, we see his shit-brown aura whip and writhe into view around him; every terrified spike giving away just how he really feels about us!

  “H-hey! Look, mah man! I… uh, I can see that yer comin' down from some serious shit, an' I KNOW yer too fucked up ta see the mistake yer 'bout ta make, but y'all better ease-the-fuck-up, or shit's gonna get real fucked up real fuckin' quick!”

  The funny fucker's joke hits our funny bone just as it shatters and our arm falls limp to the pavement and begins to shake and writhe like a dying snake. The pain is excruciating, but—oh!—how that funny fucker's gotten to us. We can feel our throat rip open to make room for more oxygen and we eagerly gulp down as much as we can before the pained shrieks and tickled cackles roll forth from our warped vocal cords in a simultaneous roar.

  “Don't act—GAHFFfuck!!—like y-you're n-n-n—AH! God-fucking-DAMMIT!!—n-nno-ot immmprressssed!” we drop to all fours as each limb joins in exploding with muscle and growing longer; every fraction of every inch wracking our already overloaded brain in pain. We twitch then as all the ribs in our left side fracture and warp—at least one puncturing a lung before re-setting and allowing the torn organ to expand before knitting itself shut again. Our eyes swirl as over-oxygenated blood floods our brain and turns it into a well-tuned and calculating machine with one function…

  Murder; slay; slaughter; disembowel; destroy.

  In a word: maim.

  With new purpose and motivation burning in every nerve ending, we lock our gaze on our target, “We're n-no-not even on the c-court—crrAH! FUCKER!— you crotch-sniffing f-f-fuck!”

  “Are ya fer real?” the therion jumps to his feet and yanks off his wife-beater in a single motion and his aura starts to bubble and rise, “Yer trippin', motherfucker! You ain't nuthin'! Shit's 'bout to get real, motherfucker!”

  He's bold.

  We'll give him that!

  But the mutt's struggle to contain his full bladder gives him away.

  The knowledge that we're so close to making him piss on himself makes the monster in us that much more eager!

  “You… you fucking IDIOT!” our voice is broken glass hiding in wait within a baby's bottle, and we howl as our skull finally splinters and begins to re-shape itself. We cackle again as our body becomes numb enough to stand against the agony, “We're going to rip your goddam head off and skull-fuck the prize!”—our teeth begin to ache in our gums and begin to shift and realign to fit in our new head—”That REAL enough for you?”

  The therion's eyes widen, “Who in the fuck is 'we', ya crazy asshole?”

  We pause, narrowing our eyes at him. We? Who is… fuck! We're doing it again! Thought we'd gotten over that whe—

  Something pops in our mind and flares before dying down again.

  Where were we?

  Ah, yes…

  Our eyes focus and take in every detail of the street—the shattered glass beneath us shimmering with hidden shades from spectrums no species will ever fathom and our senses drawing in a symphony of tales from a myriad of sources…

  And we want to kill them all!

  Our body becomes our own and no longer a slave to the tortures of emerging from wherever it is we come from. Joints that were once molten or shattered now flex with the realization that they've never been stronger.

  We have never been stronger!

  And the therion must be shown this!

  His aura starts in the opposite direction before he does, but he does finally turn to run.

  The always run from us!

  Always!

  “Crazy! Ya hear me, motherfucker? Ya fuckin' NUTS! Yer gonna bring a clan on our asses! That what ya want, asshole; the fuckin' law comin' down on ya?”

  Our appreciation of his humor isn't lost as we start after him. “Dumbass! We are with the clan! We are the law! And we're coming down on you!”

  We're hot on his heels before either of us are aware we've even started the chase. Somewhere in our core there's a fire burning, relishing in the traces of fear that we sense as we begin to close in on him. His aura spikes and swirls as his mind tries to work out a solution to his predicament until the only one he's got left takes the spotlight and starts shrieking.

  He has to transform!

  He has to try and meet us on our level!

  His body, unlike ours, is built to accommodate the change—made to shift and change shape at the drop of a pin—and, without pausing or slowing, he begins to will the creature within him to show itself. As his own transformation begins, we can see the fucker's shit-colored aura go batshit-crazy as he struggles to sprint on rapidly changing legs. That his body isn't wracked in the pain that we're forced to endure every fucking time this happens makes us all the more furious and we launch ourselves forward on springboard legs and sink our claws into the cold stone of the apartment building and begin to scurry across its surface; sending chunks of concrete and shattered glass from demolished windows raining to the sidewalk in our wake.

  Spider-Man, eat
your heart out!

  Better yet, let us eat it FOR you!

  Trying to evade our approach, the mutt takes a hard right onto the next street—his still-misshapen legs fighting to make the turn and throwing his left shoulder into a parking meter that cries under the force and keels over like a tired drunk; an eruption of coins spilling out into the street with a metallic clamor that hurts our ears and makes us lose our grip on the wall. Before we hit the ground, something dark and nimble buried deep down inside of us writhes free of a crevice in our mind long enough to twist and rotate our cursed body in unholy ways, and somewhere in between the three meter drop and we land on all fours. Then, as fast as it had emerged, the nimble thing crawls back into hiding and lets the out the hunter; the part of us that craves the satisfaction of seeing the therion bound within his own insides for insulting us!

  We scramble around the corner, moving like a bat out of hell and tearing chunks of the sidewalk up as the claws on our hands and feet dig through it to gain traction. Finally stable, we watch as the therion finishes his transformation and, seeing all the confidence in his aura replaced by blind desperation, hurls his new form into the air and reaches with dark talons for the bottom rung of the rusted fire escape above his head.

  We snarl and, tightening our grip on the coin-belching parking meter, rip it from the ground.

  It won't be that easy, sheep-fucker!

  The now nine foot tall monster lets out a startled yelp as our free hand finds its ankle and yanks him back to earth. We draw in the briefest satisfaction as we watch its outstretched claws clenching shut on air as they're denied escape. The satisfaction only grows as a face that now looks like a pitch-black, mutant pit bull meets the pavement and a wet, gurgled whimper follows.

  Yea. Bet he wishes he'd walked away when we'd given him the chance.

  Now we have to kill him.

  The perks of being us!

  We're reminded that premature celebration is a carnal sin as the foot we're still gripping—bursting through the mangled remains of a pair of sneakers—twists free and kicks out, connecting with our jaw and knocking us back as he scrambles to his feet. The world spins for a moment—long enough—and we can't find the control to stop him again as he leaps up and begins to climb the fire escape.

  We roar!

  “NO!! WE WILL NOT BE DENIED!!”

  His lower torso, ripping through the tortured seams of his shredded pants, dangle for a moment and we hurl the warped parking meter at the swaying target. His left leg finds the rung then, pulling the rest of him up and out of the twisted metal's trajectory and embeds itself in the side of a Corvette parked on the side of the street. A car alarm wails and the lights begin to flash a strobe warning; the piercing rays assaulting our eyes and making the monster that much angrier.

  He's getting away!

  We're losing him!

  We can't have that!

  Our claws find the concrete on their own as parts of us that choose to remain hidden give the orders and soon we're scaling the wall. Before long we spot the therion's aura three levels up as he struggles to guide his massive frame over a platform meant for somebody half his size and weight. His delay is our invitation, and we cackle euphorically as we grasp the platform below him in our determined claws and begin to rip the iron from the wall. Metal shrieks as once secure bolts begin to relinquish their hold and finally succumb entirely to our demands and fall free; the platform groaning as it begins to fall away.

  The therion whimpers through his broken and bloodied jaw as he clutches the railing of the collapsing platform. Before long, the groaning ladder securing it to the next takes hold and the chaos is halted. Seeing his chance and wasting no time in assessing it, my prey hurls himself up the rungs that have, for the moment, saved his life and once again starts for the roof.

  “Fool!” we chuckle and continue to scale, quickly reaching the rooftop mere seconds after he does. “We aren't finished with you!”

  Shaking in fear, the therion takes several broad steps back, too petrified to take his eyes off of us. We're like nothing he's ever seen, and with good goddam reason! Our situation—our curse—is a last resort; a punishment concocted to be so severe that those cast with it would have an eternity to regret the decision that warranted its use.

  And we do!

  Every.

  Fucking.

  Night!

  But right now—right here—it's his time to regret!

  It's his time to suffer.

  He's shed the last of his confidence and we sneer at the sight as he continues to shiver and slink back like a beaten animal. The gesture triggers something within him and the last ounce of control holding in his dignity shatters and he begins to piss on himself.

  We cackle again.

  Our laughter rolls forward with the fury and malice this wretched mutt has come to know us for in the little time we've known him and we take him in our sights—still roaring with exuberance—and let our eyes tell him just how much we want to see him suffer.

  His bladder finds more fuel at that moment.

  Whimpering and whining, he steps back once more and finds…

  Us!

  We smirk as he spins and finds us standing behind him; realizing then that our vampire capacity for moving faster than the eye can see has not been lost on our new body.

  And then he sees the truth…

  We've been playing with him! Fucking with him from the very start!

  The chase. The struggle. The effort.

  Nothing more than our own game of cat and mouse.

  “Game over, motherfuc—GAHH!!”

  “Let him go.” A voice from behind resounds both in our ears and echoes in our skull and a tremor spreads through our body. Somehow, through the struggle within us, we keep the writhing mutt in our grasp. I SAID PUT HIM DOWN, ZANE!

  The roaring voice in our head stirs something deep within us; something we distantly recognize…

  We put him down.

  He's on the ground for less than ten seconds, staring intermittently between us and his savior, before she tells him to get lost. Realizing this is the only chance he's going to get, he does just that.

  “What are you doing here?” we snarl, watching as our quarry hightails it over the roof; leaving only his canine stink and a trail of urine to remember him by. “You getting a wet spot for mongrels all of a sudden?”

  “What I've got a wet spot for is hardly your concern, you asshole!” Zoey steps around—her short, bluish-black hair sweeping through the darkness like a shark's fin in dark water—and locks on us with a pair of angry blue eyes brighter than the moon. Despite being more than four feet shorter than us, she crosses her arms over her chest and lets a moment of silence waft between us with a static pause as a disapproving mother would a reckless child. “Would you care to try to explain?”

  We snarl at her, “WE DO NOT ANSWER TO YO—”

  “Enough, Zane,” she holds up a small hand and rolls her eyes at us.

  At US! How dare she—

  “Pardon me? How dare I what? You think being a jerk to a therion who made you upset is making good use of your time; or, better yet, your life?” her hair shifts angrily as her sea-blue aura starts to slip free and tussle it and she stabs a finger towards the corner that the therion had made his escape, “Would you like to try that with me, Zane? You want to use this gift as a—”

  We roar in her face, “IT'S A CURSE!! WE ARE—”

  “Shut up.” Her aura whips forward at that moment and ensnares us by the throat with enough grip to hold us. We feel the rage build up within us—the dark thing darting about within our body and sinking its toxic fangs into any part it can find to drive us to fight—and we try to throw our own red aura at her to counter. She absently bats it away with an auric tendril and lifts us off the ground and holds us—swaying several feet over the rooftop—to force us to listen. “Always bottom of the bottle with you, isn't it? You can never reflect on how it got that way, or why you allowed it to get that
way, or even what you should do about it! It's just 'wah wah wah! My bottle's empty and my life sucks for it!' and I, for one, am tired of watching you masturbate your misery. You, yourself, have admitted that you earned those tattoos as a punishment and this thing that comes about from them, but you've outright refused to ask 'why'! You'd sooner put the blame on anybody—anything!—that could momentarily divert the responsibility that those symbols have placed squarely on you! But you don't have sense enough to recognize that it's your fault and you need to reign this in and use it for you rather than against the world!”

  Her eyes shift in the direction that the therion had run off in before narrowing on us again. “You'd likely argue that he had this coming, right? That him being mean to you had warranted this response, am I right? And don't bother denying it either, because we both know that I can see into your head plain as day and I don't even need my aura to do it! You're wrong, Zane—no buffers, no complexities, no sympathy; WRONG!!—and I'm tired of you moping around—taking this gift”—she paused long enough to let the word hang in the air to see if we'd try to challenge it again. We didn't—”and all the opportunities that Gregori spread out before you when no one else would even give you a crumpled bill for another drink—and wasting everything it is that the clan—your family!—sees in you!”

  We growl and drag our gaze away as best we can despite the auric binds, “He wanted us to forget him…”

  Zoey sighs and shakes her head, lowering us slowly to the rooftop and holding our body upright as we fall to our knees. “Is that what you think he wanted?” she steps over us and lays her fingertips on our heaving shoulders, “That he wanted you to forget?”

  “He asked us to—”

  “I know what he asked, and you, of course, had to see it as nothing more than the bottom of another bottle.” She kneels down and brings herself eye-to-eye with us, “But you're failing to see this for the uncorked bottle it really is. His death and his request do not represent the end of Vail's legacy; they represent a new start to something greater.” She frowned and stood, casting her gaze towards the sky and sighing. “Times are changing, Zane. Laws are falling through and those that would see our people carouse and rule in anarchy are getting stronger while we hold to protocols and codes that nobody else is willing to abide by.” She sighed again, the sadness breaking through as she did, “You remember what they did to the Odin Clan! And for what? So some boy—the innocent son of the Joseph Stryker: one of the greatest clan rulers and warriors this world has ever seen—might not get to where he was? They slaughtered them, Zane! They destroyed our brothers and sisters—their own kind—just to fight a potential risk to their plans to turn us into the monsters the humans already see us as! And through all that”—she looks back down at us—”the Stryker-boy still fights for The Council; with no clan and no path he still fights!” She shakes her head at us and crosses the rooftop to peer over the edge, “I hope you get to meet him someday, Zane…” We look up in time to see her glance back at us with an appalled look on her face, “… so that you can try to tell him to his face how much you've suffered.”