by Sam Hall
The haze that has been so prevalent didn’t dissipate so much as sharpen. It had teeth, this fuzzy feeling—my teeth.
“I don’t ever want to go back, Jen. Nan, Mum, Dad, they’re nothing to me now. This is where I belong, this is my family.”
“And what about me?”
Her voice was so small and forlorn, I couldn’t help but sweep her up in my embrace.
“You’ve always loved me for what I am, rather than for what you think I should be. Our relationship will never change.”
She wanted to say something when I pulled back, I could see that, but she didn’t get a chance as a tall dark figure appeared at her elbow.
“Mind if I cut in?” Dave Rutherglen said. I didn’t much like it when she drew away, her expression indicating she wasn’t entirely happy with what was said, but her father, as always, stepped up and made himself everyone’s sole focus. This was where I was supposed to bow or some shit, acknowledge the power that radiated off him. I’d never felt another’s power in the way people described mine, but I felt his. But it didn’t scare or cow me. Somehow, deep inside I knew I was at the very least his match. I stepped up, met him toe for toe, and then held my hands up. An eyebrow jerked up at that, but he put his hand in mine as I put mine on his shoulder, and then off we went.
“You’ve cut quite the swathe, Kira,” he said as we careened around. Where it had been a light hearted, dizzying thing with Jen, this was so much more purposeful. My feet spun on the dancefloor, forcing his to match mine, working us around and around and around.
“Perhaps I have.”
He grinned at that, only the slight rush of his breath indicating that he was struggling a little.
“I look forward to seeing you come to your full powers. I believe it will be most illuminating.”
I shot him the look a million women employed behind the backs of their ‘betters.’ From toxic mother-in-laws to dickhead bosses, to fedora wearing mansplainers to fucksticks who just won’t shut up. I felt a legion of women at my back as I stared him down. I jerked us to a halt. If this was some kind of power play, then we may as well stop fucking about and throw down. This wasn’t Jane Austen or Gone with the Wind. I wasn’t ruled by archaic strictures to keep quiet and hide what I was.
“What do you fucking want?” I asked. I enjoyed watching him trying to pull his hands away and being unable to, the petty pleasure of holding someone against their will making sense of a whole lot of shitty experiences in my life.
“What do I want?” Dave gritted out. “The same thing everyone in your life is waiting for—for you to come into your full powers. They’ve been keeping you in the dark, Kira, feeding you breadcrumbs from the feast, as well as their cocks, stringing you along until—”
“So what do you want to feed me, aside from your cock?”
“The truth, I—”
“Oh, is that what it is? The Morgan Gallup polled, demographically tailored, PR talking pointed truth? What oh so strategic secrets do you want to share with me?”
“Can I cut in?”
There was that cocky little voice again, breaking into my consciousness. When I turned, Rhiannon stood there, hand on her hip, doing her most fashion forward, Regina George look ever. I spun Dave so that he floundered right into her arms, sending both of them tumbling into a heap. I gave that one satisfied look and then stalked away.
Suddenly, I didn’t want anything to do with any of them. A little warning squeaked in the background, that none of this was my normal behaviour, not sweet and compliant, not putting Dave in his place, but that was soon shoved to one side. Something big and hot rose within me, pissed with all the petty douchebaggery. I watched those who truly gave themselves up to the moment, in sexual pleasure or in dance, and saw the pure light that shone within them, but right alongside them were dickheads who just wanted to bring this all down.
People held too tight, forced light feet to slow, speared in too hard and too fast with no thought to their partner’s enjoyment. They used this bright, beautiful thing as yet another weapon against others. I charged through the crowd, the people parting automatically until I got to the very edge and a clumsy foot stomped down on the skirt of my dress. They skittered away quickly enough, but the offending fabric remained, the pretty scarlet somewhat bedraggled now.
Why am I wearing this? I asked myself, instantly met by an array of images of Marlow and his sweet, caring dominance. I felt a little bad when I transformed the dress into a flouncy red frock coat, replacing it with a corset and jeans, along with some bloody granny panties as I was sick of my flaps flying free right about then. I was admiring the sweep of my jacket when Lucas approached.
“So you worked out how to use your powers, then,” he said, looking me up and down. He wanted to touch me, I could feel that, smell that, his pine scent sharp in my nose, but he kept himself apart, arms crossed.
“Powers?” I looked down at the clothes that I’d apparently conjured from nowhere. “I guess I did.”
“I figured you wouldn’t be kept contained. Not quite the tame little girl they think you are. You should come with me.”
I felt his compulsion crackle over my skin like static electricity. It was kind of a turn on.
“Tell me what to do again,” I said, watching my corset.
“Come with me, Kira.”
The tone was more insistent, and I could see actual sparks skate along my skin, my nipples pulling up hard in response. I laughed at it before reaching out and collecting it in the palm of my hand, then letting the little cluster of writhing energy fly free. Lucas sighed, then snatched the ball out of the sky.
“Fine, I can’t make you, but will you please follow me?”
I was Alice, I remembered, and this was Wonderland, so I looked the big burly Knave of Hearts over, shrugged, and went where he directed.
20
“Ohhkay,” I said, looking around me
If I’d had any doubts that this was a magical place, they were demolished right now. I looked around me, front and back, and saw we stood within an open stand of trees, the leaves rustling in a light breeze, falling in gentle spirals, birds flitting between the thick trunks. It made a curious, rambling sort of soundtrack, one that was then punctuated by the sound of a guitar.
I looked back, behind me, expecting to see the dancers and court and the throne, but there were only more trees—that and Lucas.
“I wanted to hate you,” he said.
“Not the kind of words a woman wants to hear from a man in the middle of an empty forest,” I said but he just ignored me, those crackling blue eyes staring.
“I thought you’d be a bitch, be divisive or difficult, but…” He shook his head. “You made this so much harder.”
“If by this you mean killing me and disposing of the body, and by harder, you mean not doing that, then yeah, good call.”
“Don’t make jokes, we don’t have time. They’ll be here soon enough when they’ve worked out what I’ve done. You need to go to them, now, before it’s too late.”
Lightning rumbled in the background, despite the fact that it was a clear night. Lucas looked apprehensively over his shoulder.
“Who’s ‘them’?” I asked, feeling the irritation rise, but he just pointed.
It was the sound I heard first. I dunno if you’ve listened to a lot of blues music, but there’s some that is flashy and virtuoso. Like any musician in the world could compare themselves to some of the big names and find their skills wanting. But there’s another kind—softer, quieter, usually caught by someone in a studio between takes or something. It’s guitar only, no accompaniment to dilute the sound, played with a kind of lazy, indolent skill that masks so damn much.
Duke Franklin sat on an old wooden chair in the middle of the forest, where there had been no man before, bent over a battered acoustic guitar.
He’d been at court when people were invited to submit their candidates for preceptor. The blues musician had stepped forward, took a look at me, but end
ed up deciding not to pursue anything. He paid me no attention right now, focusing on the strings.
The song he played had a slow beat his foot was tapping out on a stomp box. You could barely see his fingers move on the strings, like it took no effort at all. It called to me, this sluggish song, and my feet moved with the same rhythm that his did.
I’d always wondered what the hell blues music was. Like for a genre that seemed to be used to communicate the pain of a people forced to endure a slow moving rape and attempted destruction by another culture, why this sound, why this kind of music? But when he looked up finally, when I stood before him and he cast an eye over me and then smiled, I think I saw it.
There was a tremendous power here. This was the slow build of a thunderstorm, the million drops of pain swelling its mass. At a distance, it seemed to be moving ponderously over the land, but really it was the result of a furious desire to survive, ready to rain down hell. He played with this kind of ease, this complete and utter confidence I’d never really seen before. There was no peacocking, no explosions, no frantic need for attention. This was the music of a man who’d been through fucking everything, who’d come up through shit that would have crushed most, and he stood on top, surveying what he’d conquered and smiled. Why else would the system work so hard to keep him down? I jumped when his fingers slammed down on the strings, and it seemed to please him.
“Well, look at you. All thrumming with power, yet everywhere held down in chains.” He shook his head and turned to his guitar, playing a little trill of notes before looking back at me from the side of his eye. “I thought you were going to be smarter than that.”
“Smarter than what? You play like a…god. Seriously, that’s amazing, but I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You think you’re just like us, but you’re not.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I said, but I took a step backwards when he put down the guitar and got to his feet in one smooth movement. I swallowed as that big, tall frame towered over me, reminding me of what exactly I was messing with.
But it was alluring too, wasn’t it? All that coiled power, that simmering strength. What would that feel like, a little voice in my mind asked, unleashed on you?
“Like a lot of people in my position, my power comes from truth, but I’m always surrounded by people who just don’t wanna fucking hear it. Let’s see if you’re any better.”
My heart crawled up through my chest and into my throat as I watched those big hands make an all too familiar shape. I’d traced it in the sand, on tabletops, in rings of condensation. A circle, bisected by several feathery lines. He nodded at me, then stepped back.
A ragged rip in the fabric of the forest emerged, and within it, I could see the court.
“So, things seem to be progressing satisfactorily. I didn’t think you’d be able to move that fast, but I guess when you’ve got a star struck little cunt on the hook, that’s what happens. I admit I thought your plan far fetched. The cost of paying to have her bloody photographs published bloody everywhere was prohibitive, but you’ve come through with the goods.”
Dave stood there with Rhiannon hanging off his arm. The two of them looked like the perfect couple, with his and hers matching sneers.
“What can I say?” Liam said with a shrug. “I told you to trust us with Kira. Billy got his claws into her early and opened up a whole lot of psychic holes for us to weasel on into. Once transition happened, it was kind of a done deal, with the exception of Marlow.”
“Yes, he has proved to be quite troublesome. I was willing to tolerate him for my daughter’s sake and give him a position to make him a suitable companion, but I think he’s come to the end of his usefulness.”
“Give him to me, my lord,” Rhiannon said. “For all of his meddling, he remains very skilled with his hands.”
“And what need have you for such hands?” Dave asked in a feline purr, and Rhiannon froze when his hand went to her jaw. “Your beauty is so radiant, you need no such enhancements.”
Her eyelashes fluttered at that, though I wasn’t sure if it was from fear or flattery.
“You’d be better off dumping him with us. She’s bonded with him now. If he’s the treat that keeps her sweet, I don’t mind. He can do all the softly, softly stuff I’ve got no fucking time for. The less she has to do with us, the better. Playing the loving consort or the domineering lord, and pushing her to do what she wanted to do all along is exhausting, frankly.”
“Until you refresh yourselves on all her lovely, lovely power.”
“Haven’t had a chance to dip my wick yet, have I? Figured I’d be the bad guy while Johnno bamboozles her with all his lovey dovey shit. This thing with Jake worked surprisingly well. He played the compliant little sub, letting her boss him around and play out all her repressed little fantasies. Not sure if getting a mouthful of Marlow’s cum was worth the trouble, but he’s a team player. He soldiered on. Samson’s been paid?”
“Richly. I’ll admit, I thought that you’d overplayed your hand there, but she came to court full of some of your quintet’s essence. Who’d have thought all that power could be made to come to heel over so little? Makes me wonder why I gave this task to you.”
“Because you tried your usual heavy-handed bullshit back at the estate with that dream and it didn’t fucking work. The bitch has got daddy issues, just not the kind that makes her want to fuck you.”
“But such that makes her want to fuck you. So your crew is on board with this? Who’s up next?”
When Dave looked over Liam’s shoulder, the view moved with it, showing Billy, Lucas, and Jake lounging behind him.
“That’d be me,” Billy said. “She’s starting to warm to me, thinking she sees past the beast to something else.” He laughed at that, and so did the other guys—that predatory sound men make when they’re tearing women apart. “She’s so fucking needy. Nobody loves her, nobody wanted her.” His laugh, his face was vicious. “There’s no real sport to be had, but I’m gonna drain her dry, and while that never-ending source of power starts to burble up to fill the void, I figure we pull a train and run through her. She’ll be so full of our cum by the time we arrive at the next venue, she won’t even remember her own name.” Billy’s eyes had bled completely black. “It’ll just be ‘yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir’ from then on. Johnno will keep filling her up, because he can’t stop being a soppy cunt, and the rest of us will just top her up when we need to. Fuck, we’ll just shove her in with the Concubines, get the lot of them partying with us on the regular again, then drag her out and bleed the power off her when needed.”
“And then bring her to me, as agreed.”
“Goes without saying, milord,” Liam said. “We swore in blood.”
“So you did. Be foresworn, and if I don’t get you, the bloody sentinels will. You five used the deep magics to create what you are, something they’ll never forgive. They’ll execute you and her, and I’ll use every one of my resources to help them.”
“Heard loud and clear, milord,” Liam said.
“Almost over.”
Duke’s voice was as soft as the hush of the wind in the trees, but I still flinched when his hand landed on my shoulder. I’d taken so many body blows in the last few minutes, every bit of contact felt like a strike of sorts. And they didn’t stop. Of course, they didn’t.
With a wave of his hand, the view in front of me shifted away from The Changelings and their CEO. It moved down the path and around the corner of a nearby building, where Mark and Paulie stood. His grey eyes burned in his pale white face, his mouth thinned down to a sharp line. He nodded to Paulie when the lot of them passed by, then the two of them slunk off down the other side of the building. He handed over his phone to the other man.
“You need to get this to head office right away,” Mark said in a terse whisper. “We’ve got a major situation. Tell them to activate the god protocols. You hear me?”
“Got it, boss.”
I guessed I wasn’t surprised to find my cheeks wet when Duke finally closed whatever portal he’d conjured. I wavered on my feet, the vision no longer there to anchor me, and his hand went to my back to stop me from falling, but I crumpled to the ground anyway.
I couldn’t stand, move, brush the tears from my cheek, or open my mouth to let the pain that was building in me out. I could do nothing. Because there was no point.
I’d read somewhere that people with anxiety and depression are often better judges of risk than mentally ‘healthy’ people are. It was because we knew deep down inside, something that everyone wanted to pretend wasn’t the case—that there was no escaping the pain. No matter what you did, said, had with another person, it would all be ripped away from you just like that.
“I don’t love you anymore.”
“We’re laying people off.”
“The stock markets changed.”
“People aren’t buying that anymore.”
Whatever we did, made, had, wanted, it was all sand in your hand, slipping through your fingers, no matter how hard you tightened your grip. But I hadn’t tightened my grip, I thought as my eyes fell closed, the matt of tears trapped in my lashes falling free in a great wash. I’d held those men in the palm of my hand, so lightly, so carefully, finding it hard to believe anything like this could actually happen, too scared to call it mine lest it be taken away.
