by ML Michaels
She rang the doorbell, then unaccustomed to waiting, rang again, before a boy in basketball shorts and a band tee answered the door, his mouth agape.
“You...you’re--you’re Maritza Eon!”
“I am,” Maritza giggled lightly, her hands twisting around the waistband of the trench coat. “Are you Blake Northcut?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Why?”
She grabbed his hand in hers, smiling seductively and feeling his heart’s pace quicken through their handhold. “You’ve been chosen as part of a secret contest for all my Twitter followers, Maritza said, reciting the script that Charon had made for her verbatim. “Congratulations! You’ve won a date with me. Can I come in?”
Blake stood there, eyes bulging, and an odd look on his face. Maritza Eon, the most beautiful and talented girl in the world to him, was standing in his doorway, laughing and smiling in the flesh, and actually asking him on a date. Just 10 minutes ago, he’d been scrolling through his laptop, trying to decide which massively multiplayer online game to play—and now he was face-to-face with a goddess. It all seemed too good to be true.
“A secret Twitter contest?” he questioned. E began to worry, knowing that the entire plan hinged on the hope that he would be too overjoyed to question the authenticity of it.
Blake Northcut was a sophomore in college, 20 years old, and still living in his parent’s house. He spent the vast majority of his time clocking-in hours improving his gaming level and downloading fake, poorly edited celebrity nudes. Things like this just didn’t happen to people like him.
“Wow!” He exclaimed happily, completely disregarding any doubts that he may have had. “I can’t believe it’s really you. You’re actually standing in front of me. Please, come in, come in.”
Maritza walked into the house, her heels clicking on the marble floors as Blake shut the door behind her. He turned, facing her with a large smile as if he still couldn’t believe it. “You can wait in here while I go and get dressed.”
She stopped him, grabbing the ends of the belt around her waist and undoing the knot, letting the loose coat fall from her soldiers. Maritza stood there, in his foyer, in only a scant red nightie, soft lace fabric offering him an almost unfiltered look at her taut stomach and perky breasts.
“Or,” she stepped closer to him as she spoke, her voice heavy with seduction. “I could come with you and we could both get undressed.”
Blake swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Yes. Definitely, that one.” He reached a hand out, tentatively grabbing her around the waist. She wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him, making him dizzy. The kiss, and the ensuing path of passion that followed it as they walked to his room, felt like it was happening to another person, he thought.
There he was, making out with Maritza Eon in the bedroom where he’d listened to her music millions of times. She pushed him onto the bed, straddling him, and becoming the first girl that he’d ever had. She moved like an expert, nibbling his earlobe gently, sending rolls of pleasure through him like he’d never felt. Her soft mouth continued its descent, passing his chest, his slender stomach, and only stopping when the waistband of his jeans halted her. In no time, her hands were at his buckle, and as she pulled his pants down and placed him at her entrance, he couldn’t believe that he was actually losing his virginity to a celebrity.
Perhaps because of his inexperience, or maybe because of how unbelievable the entire situation was, the whole ordeal was over in less than a minute. And Maritza, gathering her trench coat and leaving him, lying there spent and confused without a word, was gone just as quickly and inexplicably as she had arrived.
***
The constant low hum of the car’s engine was the only sound as Ethan and Ella drove, the radio in the small car on the fritz. Ella sat in the passenger seat, slurping a large drink from a fast food restaurant they’d stopped at a dozen miles back. She hadn’t said anything in some time, but Ethan could tell that there was something on her mind.
They’d been partners for the last six months, and though they hadn’t talked much about themselves or their past, he’d picked up on little things about her. Whenever she was worried about something or deep in thought, there would invariably be something in her mouth. Whether it was a straw, like she was chewing on now, or her fingernails, or even a lock of her long brown hair, it was always something.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Even before she held out her hand, he was fishing in his pockets for a coin. He was used to her taking the phrase literally and he knew firsthand that she wasn’t going to continue without it. “Here,” he said as he dropped a quarter in his palm. “Keep the change.”
Ella put the coin in her pocket and stared out the window, watching the scenery pass by in a blur. “I was thinking about Mary Ann. Her own husband is the one that killed her, and tried to make it look like a suicide. How can people be so evil?”
Ethan’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. He hated that Ella had to bear witness to all the gruesome and unspeakable things that happened beyond the curtain of the world. There were monsters and dark souls that had once been human all around, most people just didn’t know where to look or what to look for.
For Ethan, Ella and every other member of The Order, it was their job to know where supernatural evil would strike.
“Did I ever tell you that I once captured E before?” Ethan asked, as he produced his flask from the pocket of his leather jacket and took a healthy swig. Ella worried when about his drinking, sure that it would be his undoing, but he never drank when he drove until they were moments from their destination. For once, she didn’t chastise him about his drinking and quietly answered his question with a no.
“Yeah, it was about 30 years ago, and I’d just joined The Order. That was back before they partnered us up how they do now, you know—one of you, and one of us—my partner was a human by the name of Bigsby. He was about 40 or so, and the craziest son of a bitch I ever met. He once took on a whole nest of vampires, fought until dawn, and then came out completely unscathed with a pocketful of fangs as souvenirs.
“I tell you all that, to say, that when he got the assignment from HQ and he found out that E was his next target, he was literally shaking in his boots. There I was, fresh-faced and still unable to tell a ghost from a shade. Seeing the fear in his face I knew I had no hope of survival. He went out, got drunk as all get-out, and when he came back to the dormitory—because back then all of us used to stay in the same building—he told me something that I’ll never forget to this day.
“‘We are a select group of people who are able to see both sides, the natural and supernatural, the good and the evil, the beauty and chaos. Each of us has a destiny to fulfill and each of those destinies, no matter how great or trivial, ends in death.’ He looked right at me and said ‘Ethan, whether you die tomorrow or a thousand years from now doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is how you go—fighting to make the world a better place or just another slave to the chaos.
“The next day, he died. We’d tracked E to an abandoned warehouse where he and a cabal of entities had set up operations, dabbling their hands in everything from the drug trade to ritual sacrifice. As soon as we got out of the car they were waiting for us.
“Demons, vampires, werewolves, blood and carnage. But we didn’t give up, and we fought down to the very last second. They had us surrounded, all of them closing in on us, when Bigsby turns and tells me to run. Before I could even argue with him, he pulled back his jacket to show the incendiaries that he had strapped to his chest. They were outfitted with holy water and garlic, and he’d rigged it with enough explosives to blow the whole warehouse sky high.
“I ran. I still have no idea how I made it out of there alive, but I did, and I kept running. I don’t think I stopped until I was at least a mile or two away from the warehouse. Even with all the distance between me and Bigsby, I still saw the explosion from the street corner where I stood. It lit the sky up like a glowing sun. The sound of
it was thunderous, and I half expected it to start raining. It would have been better, at least something would have changed, and marked his death. Instead, the world just kept turning.
“There was nothing about it in the news, unless you counted the mysterious gas leak cover-up. And even though Bigsby had saved the world from countless horrors with his sacrifice, he never even got a funeral. The only good thing about the whole ordeal was the fact that he’d rid the world of a whole lot of scum like E.
“So, you can only imagine how I felt when I stopped into HQ for our next assignment and I got a card with E’s name on it. I have no idea how he came back, and I don’t know what drives these monsters to commit the unspeakable acts that they do, but I do know, that we’re going to stop them. No matter what happens.”
Ethan looked over at Ella, who was softly snoring, her hands still wrapped around the large drink. He smiled at her, reaching over and setting the drink in the cup holder, then continued driving with a renewed vigor. There were only a few more miles until California. His revenge grew closer by the second.
***
With all of their errands done and everything they needed in hand, the limo driver dropped the odd pair off in front of Maritza’s downtown loft just as the sun was setting. Charon went to the trunk and grabbed their luggage, while Maritza shared a few choice words that were sure to land her on TMZ with the paparazzi.
The constant flash and attention of the media and fans were one of the least enjoyable parts of being a celebrity. If one more sniveling teenage girl pushed their way through the crowd, bumped against her excitedly, and asked her for an autograph, E was surely going to start ripping humans apart left and right—whether he was in the form of a famous pop star or not.
Thankfully, they made it into the elevator and up to her spacious abode before that happened. “Charon,” Maritza said, wasting no time once they got through the door. “You should probably get to work if we hope to have everything ready for the show tomorrow. I’ll start working on the new song.”
Charon obliged silently, while Maritza retired to her bedroom, both of them hard at work for the culmination of their plan in only a few short hours. He unloaded all of the ingredients they’d collected, and the still body of the real Maritza Eon from his duffel bag, and then he referred to the ancient black book that had led him down this path in the first place.
Charon Withers, up until about a week ago, had been a completely normal man. He hadn’t had any aspirations of world domination or mass destruction and he’d owed no allegiance to E, or any other supernatural entity for that matter. He’d been a completely average fourth-grade chemistry teacher.
And then, he’d found the book.
It’d been during a last-minute trip to the thrift store. He and his wife were planning a road trip and he realized that he had nothing new to read. As he stood in the bargain book aisle, from the second he saw the weathered cover and fading scarlet symbols of the book, he knew there was something special about it.
Unfortunately for him, he had no idea just how right he was.
From the second he touched it, unbeknownst to him, a bond was forged between him and the book. Although the words were scrawled in a different unreadable tongue, he found that he couldn’t put it down. The first night, he read the whole thing twice cover to cover, although he didn’t understand a word.
As he slept next to his wife, the two of them tired from driving all night and cuddled up in a local hotel, he was plagued by dreams of blood and looming shadows, overtaking his mind in darkness.
The next morning, he found he could understand a few parts of the book here and there. The illegible title on the cover had seemingly unveiled itself to him.
A Tome of Undeath and Other Spells.
If he had’ve been smart, he would have put the book down then and there. Perhaps it would have helped, or perhaps it would have been too late and the book already had its hold on him. Regardless, Charon didn’t put the book down.
Like so many other humans before him, he decided to keep digging further and further into something that he had no understanding of.
Only a week later, Charon could read the whole book. He wasn’t eating anymore, his wife was the only one doing any of the driving on the road trip, and he was plagued by increasingly horrid nightmares each night.
It didn’t matter to him though; he was right on the edge of something big. Something that transcended life and death. That night, as the book whispered to him of sacrifice and immortality, of death and The After, he listened.
The next morning, the officers found he and his wife, together in a bloodstained bed, their wrists slashed open. It was ruled a suicide and the bodies were carted off to the morgue.
Two days later, Charon got up and walked straight out in the middle of the night. Having sacrificed the blood of a loved one and having conquered death, he was no longer a human. He was something much more dark and twisted.
No one saw him rise and no one saw him leave. By the time he made it home, E, back from The After and hungry for chaos, was waiting for him.
Now, Charon thought, as he brewed a potion that would ensure that the two of them had an army large enough for their purposes, with their plan so close that he could taste it, nothing could stop them.
***
Ethan pulled into the cheap motel, and Ella didn’t even bother to read the sign. It didn’t matter if it was called the Quiet Inn Motel, the Slumber Softly Inn, or just Random City Motel, it all meant the same thing—uncomfortable sheets, ugly, dirty carpeting with cigarette holes, and another night of sleeping in the same room with Ethan.
Much to her surprise, when Ethan got back in the car after paying for their rooms, she got her very own room for the first time. Although it was an adjoining room, it still was a big deal for her, and Ella couldn’t help but skip during the whole walk to their accommodations.
“You’re acting silly—you know that right?” Ethan laughed.
“Shush. Not all of us can be old and jaded like you,” she shot back, still skipping down the hallway of the hotel.
“How can you be this excited over a motel room?”
“I’ve never had my own room before. We either always share a room or fall asleep in the car.”
“I know—but what about before all of this?”
“Nope. I had a big family, and I was far from the favorite. I actually didn’t even have a room. I just bounced around, sleeping on whatever couch or chair happened to be open that night.”
They reached their rooms, and Ethan scratched his head, not knowing what to say.
“It’s okay,” Ella continued for him. “I don’t mind. If I hadn’t gone through that, I’d have never met you.” She smiled at him, pulling an unruly strand of her long brunette hair from her face.
Ethan wanted to look away from her. He wanted not to notice how beautiful she looked with her hair tucked behind her ear. And more than anything else, he wanted to pull her to him and kiss her, finally tasting her soft lips. He didn’t do any of what he wanted, though. He just slid the keycard into his door, and wished her a goodnight.
Ella followed suit, entering her own room and closing it behind her, lightly beating her head against the wall for being stupid enough to say that. Ethan wasn’t some teenage dreamboat and this wasn’t a Disney movie. She knew that people in her line of work only ended up one way—dead. Hoping for anything else was just setting herself up for failure.
Right next door, Ethan was beating himself in a different manner as he raided the mini-bar. He emptied out all of the miniature bottles into a mug and downed it, collapsing onto the bed as he began to feel the buzz. He needed to get control of his feelings for Ella. He was older, smarter and more experienced at the life than she was. When they were out in the field, especially when they were chasing someone as elusive and dangerous as E, it was imperative that he be able to make the hard decisions.
Ella stayed up later than usual. At first it was fun, she could watch all the televi
sion she wanted without Ethan complaining about how dull and unrealistic it all was or trying to turn to the news, always on the lookout for supernatural activity. She thought about raiding the mini-bar, but she’d tried alcohol with Ethan once and hadn’t liked it. For a while, she lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling thinking about everything from heaven and hell to Ethan.
It was one o'clock in the morning when she softly knocked on the adjoining door. When she received no answer, she opened it, quietly stepping into the room, hearing the familiar cadence and rhythm of Ethan’s slumber. She sat in a chair by the bed, listening to him for a moment, taking in how peaceful he looked as he slept.
She wondered what he dreamed about. She found herself wondering what he looked like in his dreams. Did he have his scars? Or did he dream of a time before he’d become so broken and tarnished by his experiences? Did he even dream at all anymore? Or were there only nightmares once you got to a certain point?
She stood up, realizing how creepy it was that she was watching him sleep, and tried to tiptoe out of the room. As she passed the bed, the floor creaked, and he shot up, his hands reaching under the pillow for the gun that he always kept near him. In less than a second, his barrel was aimed at her head.
“Ella?” He lowered his weapon when he saw it was she. “What are you doing?”
She fingered the fraying edge of her nightshirt nervously, not knowing what to say. “I couldn’t sleep. It’s weird. Having your own room, I mean.”
“Seriously? After all that, you don’t even like being alone?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s too quiet. There’s no one snoring or murmuring crazy things in his sleep.”
He laughed at her. “For the last time, I don’t talk in my sleep.” He glanced over at the clock. “We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow if we plan on taking on E. You need to get some sleep.” He stood up, grabbing a pillow. “You can have the bed, I’ll sleep on the chair.”
