by L M Adams
He turns and looks at me. “For you, yes. Be cautioned, he will have felt me pulling that much power, Jaevia. I don’t know how helpful he will be. I would feel more comfortable if you would you permit me to lie about our relationship. I will only tell him that I am working with the Kindred, maybe use Tabari or Lucien’s name? It’s not about shame; it’s for your safety.”
“Whatever you think is best. Thank you, Jack.” I walk over to him squeezing myself between the front of his body and the sink. I wrap my arms around his waist holding him close. I feel such small tremors running thorough his body. He rubs my back lightly.
“You will need to hurt me tonight,” he says softly, sadly.
“Oh, Jack, no.”
So we are back to that. I’m no good for him. Because even though I’m acting like I don’t want to, my body pulses in pleasure at the thought of having him at my mercy tonight. He deserves so much better than me.
“Do not argue with me please, Jae. Not now, not over something I need.”
“Ok,” I respond tightly.
“Come, let’s eat.”
He pulls away and sets about making us both plates of spaghetti and slices of garlic bread. I grab him a beer; we go into the living room to eat.
We both sit down and eat quietly. It’s an awkward silence. I want to fill it but how can we do mindless chit chat when our hearts are so heavy? I finish eating the delicious spaghetti and sit back on the sofa to enjoy my beer. Jack only picks at his food and then gives up, sitting back on the sofa completely silent, folding into himself.
“Come here, Jack,” I say softly. He stretches out on the sofa resting his head on my lap. I run my fingers through his hair slowly. I just want to touch him.
“Tell me, Jae; tell me what happened. Explain what I saw inside of you.”
My hand freezes in his hair, my breath catches in my chest. Pain strikes through my heart. He wants to know about Sheba, about why my succubus lives as a separate entity in my psyche, he wants to know why I’m bat shit crazy.
“Oh Jack,” my voice breaks.
“Please Jae, I need to know, I need to know what happened to you.” He rises from my lap and turns on the sofa to face me head on. His eyes swirl with the blue magic of calm and peace. But I’m caught too far in my own horror to feel the beating coolness of his peace across my skin.
I blow out a breath, looking at him, he deserves to know. I realize that he deserves to know exactly what I am before he becomes any further entrenched in my life.
“I was on a hunt, my last training assignment before I was to be named a full Reaper.” I start slowly, I’m sure he’s heard some of this, most supernaturals have. He nods his head, urging me on.
“Reapers hunt in threes. Three heads, like the hellhounds of legend that guard the underworlds, the Cerberus. The three heads- past, present and future, or an enforcer, a strategist, and a master of magic. My team was Lucien as enforcer, me as strategist, and Tabari as our master of magic. Although no one can figure out why Tabari requested to be assigned to a Reaper team; his skill well beyond what a Reaper team is usually assigned.”
We would’ve been named easily the top Reaper team, our choice in assignments, we’d all agreed we’d come to the human’s Earth. We’d had it all planned out.
“We were hunting a murder of crows, you may know this being vampire.”
A particularly nasty pack of humans turned vampire. They were making too much of a spectacle, and we were sent to cleanse them, also known as kill them. The Kindred really doesn’t give warnings or second chances.
“We got a tip on where the murder was hiding. We’d agreed to hunt them down the next day. Except I decided to just go have a look, without telling Lucien or Tabari. They both believed that if we tried to take a look during the night, it would tip our hand. You have to understand, I was constantly having to prove myself. I always had to show people… make people believe that I was good enough to be a Reaper. That I wasn’t riding on the coattails of Lucien and Tabari. I thought I’d just go, just take a look. Come back with a plan. I am the strategist after all. But…. but I was spotted,” my voice is hoarse as I remember the beautifully dangerous crow, Adian, tall, pale, with jet black hair that seemed to shimmer with small diamonds.
I thought I was far enough away, far enough for him to not be able to tell I was trailing him. He was following a young girl, maybe in her early twenties. She was walking alone down a street after leaving her friends, just on her way home, still early enough in the night for her to believe she was safe.
“Before I could blink, he’d caught the girl and turned, looking right at me. The fear in her eyes…” I shake my head. “I’m a Reaper, I know how this will end. I know her chance of survival slim at best. There’s no way I can reach her before he kills her.”
My hands begin to shake lightly.
“He tells me to turn and walk away or he kills the girl. Maybe everything could have been forgiven, all of my mistakes up to that point. But I didn’t walk away. I didn’t want to run, I was no coward.”
I look away from Jack, not wanting to see the understanding in his eyes. Understanding and forgiveness I do not deserve.
“I drew my dagger and threw it straight towards his head. He didn’t seem that powerful, I honestly thought I was faster …” I trail off as tears gather in my eyes. I force them back, keeping from falling but I can’t keep my voice from breaking.
“I was so fucking foolish, young and eager. I didn’t care about the risk to her, only the hunt. He moved them both out of the path of my blade, and just as smoothly snaps the girl neck. All while staring at me, her eyes go lifeless in a fleeting moment, and she is gone. He bites her neck, drinking the power gathered by the release of her soul, all while staring me in my eyes.” I still remember the smell of her blood, the wet suckling sound as he quite literally lapped up her soul. The power a vampire gets when drinking down the Chi and spirit of a dead person is ridiculous.
“The rage in my heart blinded me to all else. I attacked him. It wasn’t hard to kill him, it wasn’t hard at all. With his blood still hot and sticky on my skin, I gathered her body in my arms, and knelt there in that alley. I held her lifeless body as if I could somehow undo it all. Maybe if I’d left, hidden the vampire body, my mistakes would’ve been forgiven. But I could not move. Kneeling, holding a dead body; that’s the way the humans found me. The cleanup effort was costly to the Kindred. I’d threatened everything, everything. Because my desire to prove myself overruled all of my training, all of my common sense.”
“If I hadn’t been caught, maybe Lucien and Tabari could’ve covered for me. But that’s not the way the cards fell. We were ordered back home. There was a trial, I was ordered to become an apprentice to the house of Peitho. That’s usually where a Kindred child that is part succubus or incubus goes. They are spies, seducing the powerful, persuading small changes that have larger repercussions in all of the worlds. I was given to Sheba, the head of the House; she is not born Kindred, she is a full blood succubus. I was given to her to be retrained to become what the Elders thought I should’ve been in the beginning. I’d given them the excuse to destroy me and my dreams on a silver platter. But did I not deserve it, Jack? Is that girl not dead because of me? Without me, Adian would’ve probably only fed, and she would still be alive.”
Jack opens his mouth, I’m sure to try and reassure me, or tell me it wasn’t my fault. But I don’t deserve his comfort so shake my head no.
I rush on wanting to get it over with.
“Sheba is a sadist through and through. She is the best at what she does. I don’t know why she took such a hatred towards me. But she tortured me heart and soul, day in day out, pouring the power of a succubus into me again and again. No end in sight. It was enough to drive any human crazy a million times over. The power carved out a hole in me, making a place to hold her magic, to keep it from burning through my synapses.”
“That’s when you psyche split?” Jack asks in a whisper.
> “No, because at the core I truly believe I deserve every scrap of pain she dealt me, every horror she made me commit to find release from her power. I felt I deserved it all. And my goddess was she creative in the ways she would torture me.”
I leave out the more detailed parts of the torture, and her asking me always what the Eventide was. I’m still not sure.
“The split happened after one pretty extreme bout of training. I was bloodied and broken and she offered me a choice. A way for it to stop. It was simple, either my days and nights would be filled with misery until the end of time, or I could become her apprentice. I would truly learn the arts, become her creature. I would become just like her.”
I sniff but the tears fall anyway and my voice cracks. “You have to understand Jack… as the Domina of Peitho, even when my year of training was up, she would’ve still been my Mistress. She promised to never give me peace. She gave me extreme details of the things…I couldn’t Jack… I just…”
“It’s okay….”
“No! You don’t understand. The girl she brought in, she looked exactly like the young girl that died in that alley. I don’t know how she knew what the girl looked like, down to the tearful, pleading eyes! All of it was just like it was that night. Sheba told me the young girl would be my first slave, and that I was to train her, use her and break her. That I would build her up again and break her again. In return, Sheba promised to only train me once a month. One night a month I would have to serve her, she promised even to be gentle. That she would from that day forward be a gentle and loving mistress to me. If I did not accept her deal, she would use me until I died from the torture, or from her driving me mad and me killing myself finally. I chose to die, Jack, I chose to take my life as soon as I got the chance. I would not touch that girl. I would not hurt that girl. Nothing in all the worlds would make me. I know in my mind it wasn’t the actual girl from the alley, she was dead. I owed this person nothing, but I couldn’t do it, I chose to die. But something inside of me chose to live. I found myself doing horrible things to that girl. Things that should not be said for they would birth new evil into the world.”
“Sheba giving me pleasure unending every time I hurt, or humiliated the girl in a particular way she enjoyed. Me, Jae… the real me…. was inside of myself, screaming for me to stop. But the succubus in me, she enjoyed it too much, and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop her or myself from doing these things.”
I blow out a breath, trying not to let the horrors of the memories take me. Not to control me, I need to be strong. I must carry the shame.
“I became exceptionally good at training Sheba’s slaves for her. As good as her promise the one night a month I had to spend with her… was wonderful. She was gentle, she made love to me, Jack. There was no pain or torture, she showed me how things could be if we were a team. I may, I may have fallen in love with her, with her power and glory.”
“My year and a day was up. Sheba lead me, her perfectly trained apprentice to the Elders. I then begged on my knees with all of my heart for their forgiveness. I told them that I would be happy to do whatever they saw fit. They congratulated Sheba on a job well done. I was given leave to visit my family and then I was to return to Sheba. She would decide my next assignment. Without such large amounts of power, my succubus would quiet. Away from Sheba I could think again. I knew with painful clarity that I would never be free of Sheba. I went to Tabari. I told him everything and begged him to smuggle me out. I made it plain that I would rather die than be returned to her. He helped me without thought to himself. I knew that he would. We’d sworn an oath of kinship when we were children to one another. There is nothing Tabari and I would not do for one another. I came to the human’s Earth, I made a life. I was starving myself of power to control my succubus, I was managing her, the evil things…”
“Then I decided to feed you directly from the conduit of Vayrá. Oh, god Jae, I did not know. I did not know.”
“It’s not your fault, Jack. I knew the risk, I forced you to do it. I thought it was worth the risk. Without so much power, I would’ve never been able to seduce the not-wolf’s seven. What is done is done. But now you know why I have to guard against the dark things in my heart. Because maybe one day she will gain enough power to take over completely, and then I do not know what I’ll be any longer.”
Jack wants to talk more. I’m sure about my feelings, but I’ve had enough for today. Now that he knows, he can do what he wants. I would leave if I was him.
I stand up and go to round up Peter and Tabari; running from the pity in Jack’s eyes. I don’t want anyone’s pity, never have, never will.
Chapter Forty
Down into the Rabbit hole
Lucien doesn’t like being left behind, but I put my foot down. Rabbit is a skittish creature, I need to gain his cooperation and Lucien is just an intimidating man. He can be no other way, and that won’t help me right now. He acquiesces when I promise to check in with him every hour on the hour. And if I carry a gun.
We pull up in front of Rabbit’s home; Peter drives us over in his car. Rabbit lives on the eastern edge of the fringe, there’s one main conduit from west to east, North Avenue, and most of the buildings that line the road have been burned, the charred remains have long ago crumbled to the ground. From what I can tell, it’s an improvement from what was here pre-com.
The Kindred has huge buildings of marble, the palace itself is more of a city rather than a building, but we’d made every effort to blend with nature rather than pave it over. That is one of the main differences between human world and Ra’suá.
Rabbit’s home is two stories and detached on either side, with a small yard in the back and a porch in the front. He does his best to blend in as much as possible. The man is running a very illegal, very dangerous business here. I can’t imagine what the CNAE would do if they found out.
“Peter, you need to forget whatever you see here,” I demand softly.
“Jae, I threw in my lot with you a long time ago. CNAE or not, my first loyalty will always lie with you.” Peter really is the best kind of friend.
I tell him what Rabbit did for me, explaining that he reprograms VRB chips. If there is someone that can help us with the laptop, it’s Rabbit. I had worried about taking Peter, but he easily put my concerns to rest.
“Thank you, Peter.” I smile to him as we get out of the car. I grab the laptop and walk up to Rabbit’s door, I knock lightly and take a deep breath, here goes nothing.
Rabbit is a young black man. He wears glasses, hair cut close with a shaved face. He’s about my height, five foot eight, with just a general nerdy feel about him. As if he’s completely detached from anything that doesn’t need electricity to work. His lips tighten as he opens his door, seeing me. I plaster my most pleasant smile on my face. See, innocent old Jae.
“Janice.” He says my fake name with barely leashed hostility.
“Sorry Rabbit, I need your help.” I hold out the laptop to him.
He takes it and looks at it closely. “Are these…”
“Yeah, bullet holes.”
He shoves the laptop back at me. “No, and don’t come back.” He slams the door in my face.
Plan B. I turn and look to Tabari. He leans over and passes his hand in front of the CNAE panel by the door. The lock disengages with a hiss. I push the door open to a shot gun in my face. Rabbit cocks it; maybe I should have brought Lucien.
“Rabbit, I just want to talk,” I hold both arms up gripping the laptop in my right hand.
A growl comes from behind me.
Damn it Peter, don’t go all wolfy on me now. I smell a wash of forest and fur. I don’t look away from Rabbit’s eyes.
“Listen, just hear me out. If you agree to help or you don’t, we’ll leave you in peace. We’ll pay you either way for your time. Tabari, hand him the bag, slowly.”
I’m deathly still as Tabari’s hand comes out to my left side with the black bag. I’d put two almost flawless rubies and
a handful of pure gold coins in it. There’s nothing stamped on them, just plain gold that’s been processed, it’s twenty-four karat pure gold. A small fortune to be sure. He takes the bag in one hand but his hand doesn’t move from the trigger of the shotgun. He weighs it with his hand and grunts feeling the size of the gems through the bag.
“Five minutes.” He pulls back the shotgun and points it at the ceiling. I take a deep breath.
“Thank you.” I put my hands down.
He turns and leads us through his sparingly furnished home to the basement. The man’s home definitely doesn’t look like he makes a small fortune in hacking VRB chips.
“Don’t touch anything,” Rabbit orders us as he leads us to his lair.
The shotgun is propped on his shoulder, bobbing in my face as I walk down the stairs behind him. I hope he at least took his finger off the trigger. I look, no such luck.
The basement isn’t finished, concrete floors and walls, with desks and computers everywhere. The far wall has two very large TVs mounted to the wall. It always smells like beef jerky down here. I wonder if the man ever eats anything else. He walks over to a chair with wheels on it and sits down, leveling the shotgun at us as we stand around him.
I mean, honestly.
“Can we do without the gun, Rabbit? If we wanted to hurt you, you’d be hurt,” I tell him reasonably.
“I have the gun, you don’t. I’m not so sure…” I lean forward, grabbing the gun by the barrel twisting it from his grip and pulling it towards me smoothly and quickly. I hold it out to Peter, he takes it from my grasp and just holds it, pointing to the floor.
“You were saying?” I look down to him with an eyebrow raised.
He sighs and reaches up, taking off his glasses.
Rabbit is a nice looking man, even if he is a bit thin. He doesn’t eat nearly enough.
“Fine Jae, what the fuck do you want and who are these two?”
I grin at him. “This is Tabari, and Peter.” I introduce them. “I need you to fix this and hack into it, it’s CNAE and needs a level five clearance VRB chip to unlock it.”
