by Amanda Jones
Keir sneered and stared defiantly into the shape shifter’s eyes. The patterns began to shift and merge like light refracting off of a multitude of tiny coloured mirrors. Keir began to feel a pull on his psyche, a hypnotic sense that he was falling deep into those multi-hued eyes. As a languor stole over him, the skin of the demon rippled and shifted. The creature’s scales were flipping over like falling dominoes, the scales changing in whorls that were quite beautiful in a disturbing sort of way. The rolling waves of movement finally settled, and the demon released Keir from his psychic hold, his prismatic eyes flashing several solid colors before settling on a glowing crimson.
As he looked the shape shifter up and down, Keir smiled his most evil smile and saw it reflected back at him. It was like staring into a mirror of malice, the shape shifter was now his doppelgänger…there was no evil twin here, just evil and eviler.
Chapter Thirteen
Bataryal
The shaking and shivering just wouldn’t stop. He’d curled up into a ball, pulled the covers up, and thrown them off as the sweats went from cold to hot. His teeth were chattering, his head was pounding, and it felt like his heart was alternately running a marathon or trying to hibernate for winter. As the latest round of quaking subsided, B stretched out his limbs, feeling each and every joint protest at the movement. He groaned as he flipped over slowly onto his back. The gems on the ceiling were sparkling away happily, mocking him in his pain and heartache. B slammed his head down into the pillow in frustration. Between detoxing from his salvia habit, suffering from nicotine withdrawal, and being an emotionally fucked-up basket case with Mara, he was definitely not on his A game.
He had to find her and apologize. B knew that he should probably be leaving things as they were. Being as far away from his emotional baggage as possible was probably in her best interest. He wanted to find her and beg her forgiveness, to make her understand…even though he knew he would never — could never — be able to fully explain what had happened. He was damaged and broken, but there was no reason for Mara to go through life thinking that his reaction was about her.
With a grimace, B flopped his feet over the side of the bed and dragged his torso upright. If he was going to go after Mara, he needed to stop the shakes. He wiped the sweat off his brow, his eyes stinging as the moisture ran in. Squinting, he peered around the room and saw a pile of folded clothes on the floor a few feet away from the bed. As soon as he dragged himself up to his feet, his joints gave out and he crashed to his hands and knees on the floor. The world spun as he breathed shakily through the pain radiating throughout his entire body. His joints ground together as he crawled slowly across the stone floor towards the jeans and hoodie that were his ticket to looking decent in the world outside of this little cave.
He struggled into the clothes, contorting his body into positions that were not friendly to a detoxing junkie. He slid himself up and leaned against the wall for balance. Taking a deep breath, B pushed off the wall and staggered over to the frozen pool on the other side of the cave. With no knife to draw blood, B took a deep breath and slammed his hand repeatedly into the sharpened gems on the wall. With the crimson liquid dripping down his arm, he turned back to the pool and let it flow freely onto the icy waters. As the blood seeped in, fissures and cracks broke up the frozen block, turning it into a bubbling cauldron. B stepped over the edge into the pool and began to slide through the portal. The push and pull of the changing gravitational fields was oddly soothing on his strained joints and muscles, giving him a few moments of relief from the pain of detox. As he began to emerge on the other side of the portal, his body seized and he stumbled across the room to lean up against the wall as he recovered his breath from the crushing return of the pain. As the stars dancing in front of his eyes receded and the ringing in his ears dissipated, he heard the faint pulsing sounds of the music drifting in from above. A faint rose-scented perfume drifted in, B closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, images of curling red hair and jade green eyes flitting through his brain. He felt his heart clench. Feelings of lust warred with confusion as he slid along the wall towards the curtained doorway. The closer he got to the doorway, the deeper the pull of the music and the distinct smell of Mara. There was no way she was just outside the door, but why did the entire space make him feel as though he were only inches away from the object of his most base desires.
Reaching out a shaking hand, B pulled the curtain open a few inches to peer out into the space beyond and realized he’d just gone to his own personal hell. Alcohol was flowing, drugs were being consumed, and a bevy of eerily familiar demon females were bumping and grinding on the dance floor. The hellish carousel of laughing female faces made an unwelcome reappearance as he made a mental count of the women in just this room that he’d managed to fuck over the last year alone. Bile rose as he came face-to-face with the visual evidence of his whoring in the same place that smelled so much like the woman that had captured his heart.
Reaching back, he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head, covering as much of his face as he could before moving out into the club. Keeping his head down, B glanced furtively around out the corners of his eyes as he made his way along the wall. Demons were snorting lines of salvia, dropping pills into their drinks, and partaking in a variety of sexual practices both vanilla and completely unorthodox.
All the laughing, high, drunk, and lust-filled faces seemed to be mocking him. They were all enjoying their time here and the escape from reality that this club seemed to offer. All B needed was a hit of salvia to join them in their disregard for reality; he too could escape into oblivion. If he could find one dealer, which shouldn’t be too hard in this place, he could stop caring about whether he was hurting Mara or not, whether he was a man-whore and a drug addict, and he could go back to being the good time guy who didn’t have a care in the world.
As he slid farther along the wall, he spied a demon he recognized. Alrik was a well-known dealer in the drug underworld. He’d made his life in the past as a warrior, and still bore the stance and bearing of his Viking background. B almost sighed in relief. He’d bought off of Alrik many times before, and he knew he’d be able to get back into his usual zone as long as he could come up with some kind of payment arrangement. It seemed as though he’d arrived at this mystery club without any of his own clothes and, the last he remembered, his wallet had been in his pants pocket.
As B neared Alrik, he slid the hood of his sweatshirt back from his face and caught his eye, giving him the buyer’s nod. Alrik finished a quick handoff with another customer before tilting his head in acknowledgement at B, motioning him over to a darkened corner curtained off from the rest of the main club. Stumbling slightly as his joints protested, B made his way over to the private area and collapsed onto the padded bench seat beside Alrik.
Leaning forward, Alrik shoved his cheek length blond hair back behind his ear, blinked his cat-shaped eyes, and gave B a sly smile.
“So, what can I do for you, my friend?”
B clasped his shaking hands on his knees. “Salvia. I need some. You holding?” He asked in a quaking voice.
Alrik nodded. “When have you ever known me not to be holding?”
B nodded shakily. “Good, I need a hit. There’s just the small problem…of payment.”
Chuckling, Alrik replied. “Well, yes, I’d say that would be a problem, though maybe not a small one.”
“I just,” B shivered from withdrawal. “I’ve been buying off you for ages. Is there anything we can work out? I can get you human cash or Sheolic ducats by tomorrow. I just really need a hit now to get my head straight.”
Alrik leaned back in the bench seat and propped his feet up on the circular table in front of him. “I’m not usually known for my charity work, but I’ll give this one to you on the house. Think of it as my version of a customer loyalty plan…like having a point’s card or something.”
B’s breath came out in a relieved whoosh. “Oh, thank fuck.”
Alrik
chuckled and reached into an inside pocket of his coat. He pulled out a clear plastic baggie of white pills. Dumping a few out on the table, he proceeded to crush them with a small black pestle he’d carried in his jeans pocket. Pulling out a credit card he separated the powder out into three perfectly parallel lines with a practiced flair. Alrik fished around in his wallet and pulled out a fiver that he proceeded to roll into a tube. Alrik smiled as he held the tube out for B to take.
B reached out and snatched the fiver with the desperation of a dying man. Alrik laughed out loud as he leaned back into his chair with a self-satisfied smile.
“Yet another happy customer.”
B ignored his dealer’s smugness as he snorted the lines of salvia at record speed. His sinuses burned and his nose began to feel familiarly numb as he sat up straight and swiped the back of his hand over his face. The massive amount of salvia he’d just inhaled took immediate effect. He felt the euphoria start to take hold and sighed with relief. Five minutes from now he would be feeling like his old self…well, his old self with a slowly-healing slice around his throat. He’d healed quite a bit in the last few hours, so he felt no imminent danger of losing his head. Five minutes until he would be good to go find Mara, apologize to her, and then head back to The Advocate. The guys must be chasing their tails trying to figure out what had happened to him. At least now he had some intel to share. Keir had to be neutralized or they would all be vulnerable.
“Better?” Alrik asked as he plopped his feet back down on the ground and leaned forward in his seat.
“Much.” B said with a smile.
He slid forward in his seat, getting ready to stand up when his smile began to falter. Something didn’t feel right. The world in front of him pitched and tilted with every movement of his body. B threw out his hand to steady himself on the tabletop, his face a mask of confusion.
“Something wrong friend?” Alrik asked with a smirk.
“I…what’s happening to me?” B stuttered as he slid down farther into the couch cushions. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his foggy vision; his limbs felt like they had been weighted down by cement blocks.
Alrik stood and slid around the table, sitting down beside B. He wrapped his arm around his confused companion, giving him a condescending pat on the shoulder.
“Well, that’s probably the little extra treat I had mixed into the salvia tablets. I can’t have you making a scene now, can I?”
“What?” B slurred, his tongue felt like a sponge in his mouth.
He looked into the eyes of his dealer and would have cried out in surprise if he could still feel his face. Alrik’s eyes were swimming with a kaleidoscope of colour. B was drawn in by Alrik’s gaze, unable to break away from the pull of whatever magic had taken hold. The skin on his face began to ripple, and tiny scales began to flip and fold as his appearance began to shift and reform. This was the worst trip of B’s life.
He thought back to the night he’d met Mara. He’d helped her out in a jam and had wound up having an anxiety attack of epic proportions that resulted in him putting his fist through the mirror in his bathroom. He remembered looking at his shattered reflection in the glass. The B he had seen in the mirror had been a twisted and perverted version of himself. This was so similar, but infinitely worse. There, sitting beside him was…himself. Alrik had morphed into his smirking evil twin. The end was most definitely nigh.
Unable to move, to defend himself, or to cry out, B felt himself being hoisted up and supported by Alrik’s arm around his waist. The hood on his sweatshirt was yanked over his face, obscuring his already-impaired vision, and covering his face from view. His head lolled forward, his drugged neck muscles unable to support it. All he could see was the floor rising and falling like the waves of the ocean as he was half-walked, half-dragged out of the club by his companion. The cool night air hit his face as they exited the building. Moments later he felt his feet leave the ground as he was tossed roughly into the trunk of a parked vehicle. The lights from the parking lot winked above him like stars in the night, then everything went black as the trunk was slammed shut, closing him up in silence and darkness like a coffin.
Chapter Fourteen
Mara
The lights of the city looked like a million fireflies in the night as the cool air whipped Mara’s long, red curls around her shoulders and into her eyes. She swiped them back behind her ears only to have them flying around her field of vision again two minutes later. With a weary sigh, Mara reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a hair tie, twisted her hair into a rough bun, and secured it firmly in place.
This had been her thinking spot since she’d moved to the city. The roof of the hospital was a calm oasis in a life of blood and trauma. Mara walked towards one of the waist-high walls that surrounded the flat surface. Smoke belched from a variety of vents and pipes that wound their way up from the bowels of the hospital. She leaned on the flat surface of the wall, resting her chin in the cradle of her arms. Instead of coming here for peace, this time she was here to berate herself for being an idiot. After three centuries, she was still making the same rookie mistakes. What was it that made her constantly lust after the wrong men? She’d felt something different with B, like they had some sort of otherworldly connection…not to mention he was dead sexy. Mara felt like such an idiot. At least she only made B sick; the last one wanted to kill her.
“I must be moving in the right direction.” She muttered to herself, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
Mara closed her eyes and let the cool night air waft over her face as she thought back to the last time she’d felt this primal connection to another being.
It had been 1709, and she’d been known as Lady Mara James. She had been the youngest daughter of a Baronet with family holdings located near York. Her family was well off and she had been the indulged apple of her father’s eye. Her mother died in childbirth, leaving behind the baby girl that would grow to look so like her mother that the Baronet was unable to deny her. Lady Mara was raised with all the trappings of the aristocracy — music lessons, dance lessons, the finest governesses money could buy, but she felt an overwhelming desire to explore the world beyond the bounds of her gilded cage. When not attending teas and hosting her father’s visitors, Mara had immersed herself in books…tales of adventure and intrigue, of love and loss.
At nineteen years of age, Mara was quite old to be unmarried. Her doting father had indulged her desire to seek out an elusive love match. With two elder brothers and a sister already married well and producing offspring, Mara was under no pressure to marry for status or money. She’d watched as the other young ladies of her acquaintance were married off to eligible bachelors of good standing in matches that more closely resembled business arrangements than anything else. Mara dreamed of meeting a man of the world, someone who would take her travelling, that would make her a partner in their adventures, someone who would sweep her away in passion.
On the night of her twentieth birthday ball, she met just such a man. Through the bustle of the dancers Mara noticed him and his brooding stare, his chiselled good looks, and his dashing attire. Thanking the Lord that her father had decked her out in a beautiful new gown and sparkling family gems, Mara snuck peeks at him throughout the evening. Her friends all twittered about the mysterious guest. He was supposedly a Marquis visiting from France, travelling through England in search of a wife. He was said to be rich as Croesus with a taste for travel and fine living.
At first she’d written him off as yet another wealthy, handsome, young lord that was looking for a pretty wife to dangle from his arm. Her thoughts changed radically when he cut a swath through the room towards her. He moved like a lion, predatory and dangerous, dark and sensual. Mara had never experienced anything of the sort, but she had a vivid imagination and had read stories of love and lust. His bow spoke of old world refinement, and when he took her hand, placing his lips lightly on her skin like a butterfly, she’d felt her heart leap and her pulse quicken. As they danced h
e moved a little too close, she felt the brush of his legs through her skirts against hers, the slight pressure of his hand on the small of her back as they passed each other in formation of the dance. With every touch and every look, she fell deeper under the erotic spell he wove. They didn’t speak that night and had just the one dance, but Mara felt his touch and dreamed of his eyes for days and nights after.
Unable to get her mystery man out of her mind, Mara’s dreams finally came true the following week when he called on her at her father’s house. His name was Philippe, and he told her tales of duels fought in the name of love, of travels to the Indies, and of his desire to find his match. Mara felt herself being drawn in by his accent, his chocolate brown eyes, and each stolen illicit touch of her hand. Throughout the following weeks, Philippe made regular visits to her home. He made her believe he loved her and that he was going to take her away from her boring life and introduce her to excitement and adventure.
Philippe asked her father and was granted her hand in marriage. Mara was thrilled when her father informed her of this and readily agreed to an evening meeting with her soon-to-be betrothed in the rose garden of her father’s manor house. She dressed with care, donning the new gown she’d worn the night they’d met at her ball. Her lady’s maid arranged her hair in intricate coils with tiny diamond-encrusted clips.
Mara waited alone in the gazebo. The moon shone full and bright; the stars twinkled. The world seemed full of promise. Her heart sped as her suitor approached. He looked so fine. Philippe swept her up in his arms and twirled her around. Mara’s heart soared as she held onto her betrothed, face buried in his neck, breathing in the scent of his cologne.
