Shadow Boxing

by Girl, Breukelen

  He walked towards me and stopped just before me. “Demons are dealers. We make deals with people, beings, whatever because we can make things happen. We’re, how do I put this, wheelers and dealers, it’s our trade.” Dread began to fill me from my toes upwards. This was not what I expected him to say. This was something else entirely. I was in deep shit and getting deeper in it.

  “And we made a deal didn’t we?” I ghosted back at him feeling dry mouthed.

  “Yes, when you agreed to take on a job for me and agreed to it’s terms, and we consummated it in blood, that was the deal.”

  “Mother fucking demon. You tricked me.” I seethed feeling my anger override my dread. “You could’ve just hired me and fucked me and thrown me away you know.”

  I watched as Tarin did something utterly unexpected and knelt down before me on one knee. I frowned deeply at his action. “No I couldn’t. Once I was asked to hunt down the truth-sayer that was supposed to exist in Melbourne, then my focus was only on you. I was hired to seek you out because they knew they could use me, because of my past, ah, history with your kind.”

  “Past history?”

  Tarin paused and rested his hands on his knee that was still upright. “When that court of vampires captured me when I was fourteen,” He hesitated and I wondered if I should try and read him or if he was ready for that from me. Probably. “One of the torturous things they did to me was got me hooked on blood. They’re timing was perfect.”

  “Truth-sayer blood.” I muttered softly. “When you were at your most vulnerable coming into being with the fangs.” Tarin nodded his head.

  “If I felt mad beforehand, with trying to cope with the fangs melding with my demon abilities, then the blood, drove me closer to insanity. It was all I wanted, and it was all that got me through the things they did to me, while they held me. When Shaye got me out of there, I was a mess. I was no better than a junkie.”

  I tried to harden my heart and not feel for him even though now he was being utterly honest with me. At least I hoped he was since I wasn’t reading him even though I seriously wanted to. The trouble with Tarin was, I just couldn’t trust him until he let me read him and we both knew where he stood on that matter.

  “Once truth-sayer was mentioned, it was like being transported back to that time when I was fourteen. Problem was, I thought I could somehow keep you to myself this time instead of doing what they asked of me – bring you in.”

  “So you faked my death by apparently only attempting to kill me.”

  “Right.” Tarin agreed, holding my gaze.

  “So what was your intention? Just to keep me and use me and drink my blood at your pleasure?”

  Tarin nodded his head. “I’m not proud of it, but the urge, the drive, it’s like a living memory that just lingers somewhere in the back of me when I think about how amazing drinking blood felt inside me.”

  I frowned, something wasn’t right with what he wasn’t telling me and it had nothing to do with being able to read the truth in someone, it had to do with memory. Hadn’t he told me not a few days earlier that the vampire women we’d encountered in Laurndel had demanded he kill me, for her own nefarious purposes of trying to lure the elusive unicorn, Arlow out of hiding?

  “You’re a lying you piece of shit.” I seethed at him.

  “No, I’m not.” Tarin ground out at me.

  “You told me back at Larundel that vampire bitch ordered you to kill me, or she told me that to my face, so now what do you have to say for your self?”

  Tarin nodded his head and a curtain of loose sunshine yellow hair fellow in front of his pained expression. He brushed it back behind his ear.

  “She did want you dead to entrap Arlow. That was her whole game plan. She wanted to bring you and then kill you. I was just skipping one bit, it didn’t matter to her that much as long as in the end, your death brought forth Arlow. She threatened me with a past history of horror she’s heard about in her fucking vampire social circles about the demon who was played with by the vampires of yester fucking year. I’m like a story of warped entertainment to those fucking vamps. Your death was supposed to bring Arlow out into the open to mourn you or something. I’m not completely sure, but that was her not so grand plan.” He paused and looked away from me then.

  “And I just couldn’t let the idea of a truth-sayer in my home state, so close to me, go past me. It was like saying, here, have all the drugs you can handle, if you can find her.” He sighed and looked back up, there was no pride and joy in his expression. Tarin looked troubled, more troubled then I’d seem him look in all the time I’d known him. “So I came back for you after I’d ditched your body.”

  And there it was. My chest constricted and my jaw hardened. “I fucking hate you.” I scrambled back off the bed away from him. It was in the wrong direction to the door and getting out of the room. But right then and there that was the least of my concerns. Tarin’s betrayal ran deeper than locking me a room for an hour.

  He sighed heavily and stood up again. “Katelyn,”

  “Don’t. Fucking don’t say my name.” I said as tears sprang to my eyes. “I’ve never been used without intent before. Like I didn’t fucking matter in some sense.” I said as my voice cracked and the tears sprang down my face. “At least those men, paid me and we both knew it was something to them, physical use of my body for their want, their release, their need. I was needed by them, to get them something they couldn’t get elsewhere!” I screamed at him wiping at my face.

  Tarin stayed where he was eyeing me from the opposite side of the bed. “There’s more.”

  My mouth dropped open and I wiped at my face frantically. “Of course there fucking is, why hurt me once, when you can do it repeatedly? I mean you paid a high fucking price to have the right to do this to me, didn’t you?”

  “Katelyn it wasn’t, isn’t like that. I don’t want to see you cry, I don’t want you to feel this way.”

  The tears kept falling down my face. “Liar.”

  “Honestly I don’t.” He stepped around the bed and started walking towards me. I put a hand out and up, ready to keep him at a distance from me, even though he was putting me in a corner. He stopped short of my outstretched hand and lowered his hands to show his complacency.

  “What the vampire didn’t know was that I’d made a deal with you.”

  “And don’t you fucking say this is what saved me from being dead the first time you tried to kill me.”

  “I had to take you to the party to parade you around, incase Arlow was there. I just needed a ruse to convince you to go through with it. Once the unicorn showed himself, I was then free to do with you what a wanted.”

  My mouth gaped open in how callous he sounded. Tarin put up a hand. “I mean to say, the vampire woman had no idea what a truth-sayer really was, what you represent. Not many do. Like I said, she was only interested in the unicorn. But even I didn’t know that, I just knew there was someone else involved and that parading you was a way to bait them into public.”

  Tarin sighed and lowered his hand again. “I knew if it came to it, she might ask me to kill you in front of her. But that if I bound you in service to me, well, it was like a loop hole from death for you. I, like the vampire, didn’t understand, didn’t know about your Asha-Vishista abilities. That you didn’t need to be bound to me to survive death by demon. And she clearly doesn’t know all that much about what demons are capable of doing with human lives and souls.”

  “Souls?” The word slipped from my mouth. This just got worse and worse for me. Had he done something to my soul now too? Fuck! I wiped my face with the back of my hands as my tears appeared to stop of their own will. “What have you done to me?” I whispered back at him.

  11

  “I’d do anything for you to not look at me like that.” Tarin said softly stepping towards me and me stepping backwards and into the edge of chest of drawers. “You look horrified.”

  “I am.” I replied firmly dropping my hand. “Undo it, und
o what you’ve done and let me go.” I said quickly as he came within my personal space.

  “It’s not that easy.” Came another voice from the doorway entrance as Tarin reached out to touch my arms. We both looked over at the blonde vampire in the doorway and the Succubus brunette behind her.

  “Because now it’s out, what you are.” Tarin said softly looking back at me. “Word travels fast in our world Katelyn, when something big happens. And you are big news.”

  “But how? How’d they figure out what I was? No one knew, you said, no one understood what a truth-sayer was.” I asked him back glancing over at the two other women.

  Tarin frowned and we held a gaze for a moment. “Arlow.” We both said at the same time. “Arlow gave me up.” I finished. “Someone got to him and he gave me up as a bargaining chip.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Tarin muttered angrily.

  The two women stepped into the room. “Whatever, we don’t really care, except to deliver you both as requested.” The vampire said, clearly she was the muscle in this arrangement, which meant she was in charge of our capture.

  “Both of us?” Tarin muttered softly as if thinking out loud. But my brain started ticking over to.

  “Does that help narrow down who wants us or why?” I asked him softly, in a low enough voice that the vampire and succubus couldn’t make it out clearly.

  “Not exactly, I mean you’re kind has great potential for well, almost anything, but me, I’m just a common place demon. Demons are everywhere, there’s lots of species of us.”

  A new thought occurred to me and I hated myself for having it and for having to say it to him despite what he’d just told me. How completely fucked up was that? I felt sorry for the bastard who was breaking my heart. “Peyton.” I muttered.

  “What?” Tarin asked as the vampire and succubus talked together whilst glancing back at us quickly.

  “It might have something to do with you, specifically.” I tried for subtlety. Tarin frowned. “I mean, I think you’re a unique demon Tarin, maybe even a one of a kind for a shadow demon what with the fangs and all.” I replied hoping he’d get the hint and that I didn’t have to voice my theory on his origins out loud.

  Despite what he’d just put me through I didn’t want to hurt him back, not like this. Sure I wanted to lash out at him, angrily, but I didn’t want to tell him that I suspected what Peyton had half told me about her brother’s birthright, was true. That he wasn’t all, pure demon like her and Shaye.

  I saw the recognition of what I was skipping around, filter across his face as he looked away from me. And my heart broke well and truly wide open.

  12

  Tarin turned away from me to face the two women who’d come to collect us. “Can’t you just you know, Asha them?” He said dully, like he didn’t really care if we put up a fight or not to defeat the two of them. Not that I didn’t think Tarin couldn’t defeat them. But what did I know about fighting paranormals anyway? Not a great deal, after all, he’d had to save me from the blonde vampire woman before hand.

  “No I can’t just Asha them.” I hissed at him referring to the truth-sayer in them that should be a god damn well-spring of power to use at my will.

  “Why not?” He asked as we both faced off with the two women. It’d occurred to me what had happened to my god like being, Asha. She might have retired hurt within me, but I didn’t think that was it. Not when I took into account the changes, that seemed so drastic to me in Tarin.

  No. Asha was in hiding because she was siphoning from Tarin. She was getting her fill from him with all the contact I had with him. She took more and more of his conflict and ate it up. I’m not sure why, but I knew how. I’d only come to understand it when I’d thought about how his heightened emotions made Tarin vulnerable to me being able to read him so easily.

  The same could be said of me, in reverse, I guess. When I dropped all my barriers and allowed myself to feel, what Tarin made me feel, loved and consumed by his love, Asha got her fill of him, through me, without me even being aware of it. Without having to flip us around and her be the one who took over my body.

  “Because, Asha is digging into me. She’s holding on fucking tight so as not to let me surface her.” I replied.

  “Why would she do that? She loves playing center of attention.” Tarin said as the two women decided enough was enough and advanced on us.

  “How the fuck should I know?” I replied hastily standing my ground.

  There was one of two ways this confrontation could go down. We could be complacent and let them take us to whoever and wherever they intended for us to go. Or we could fight them because we didn’t want that shit to happen.

  I’d like to say we choose option two. But the reality was, we both wanted to get to the bottom of who was after us and why. So we went with the two paranormal bitches, who grabbed us under naturally, threat of our lives. How very typical and mean. Still at this point in time, both Tarin and I were so emotionally battered we might not have really had enough in us to put up a fight.

  I felt broken inside and Tarin appeared drained not by the emotional talk we’d had so much as by the impact of the words I’d delivered unto him. And I was the one left hating herself for that, when I should’ve felt more than fucking entitled to rip him apart on a fucking cellular level. But that just wasn’t me, that was Asha’s way of feeling, justified and righteous. Not mine.

  And I knew why. Because I had fallen truly, head over heals in love with the shadow demon before me. It wasn’t even like a conscious choice I made. I guess that was just how loved worked. You didn’t choose. It did.

  13

  “So,” I muttered to Tarin in the back of very plain van interior as I sat on the floor. “Any guesses on who we’re being served up to?”

  Tarin ignored me as he looked at the floor. “I mean, who manages to get two paranormals to work together on another paranormal.” I said referring to the succubus and vampire obviously having targeted Shaye Armadel with the express purpose of trying to get him to somehow connect them to Tarin. Only we’d clearly made it easier on them then that, buy turning up to Tarin’s place.

  Tarin shrugged his shoulders and his blonde hair curtain both sides of his face heavily. “So I guess it’s my turn to talk now huh?” I sighed as Tarin remained impassive and silent. “Seems like the fair thing to do, since you had you’re shot.” I crossed my ankles and put my hands in my lap and fell silent.

  I felt tired. I’d never felt so much emotion before in my life. Especially like what I’d encountered in the last half hour or so of my life. It was like taking a dose of life, in one big all awakening heap.

  “It’s funny isn’t how, we both had these life altering things happen to both of us when we were fourteen.” Tarin’s gaze remained fixed on the van floor before him. “You and Peyton got captured and tortured by a court of vampires. And I found out I had an truth-sayer in me, by massacring a room full of bad men.”

  Tarin lifted his head then and stared at me. “Oh, I didn’t tell you about that bit before did I? No, yeah, good times. Fourteen year old killer with no control over her killing urge. Which turns out isn’t her, it’s a fucking pissed of god inside her. Yeah, try explaining that to your parents or the cops. Can’t really.”

  Sniffing I wiped my hand under my nose. “If I could ask Asha why she did that, I would. But you know, it’s not like I can. What with the whole incorporeal bitch housing herself in my bloodstream.”

  “So you really don’t know much about Asha then do you?” He asked curiously.

  “I know jack squat about Asha. This past two weeks has been a god damn history lesson as well as life lesson in the way of the Asha Vahisita for me.” I replied.

  “It’s like we were fated to be together Katelyn. That’s got to be more than coincidence don’t you think?” Tarin said softly.

  I narrowed my eyes on him. “What like a fortunate mistake?” One car ride together and he thought I was just going to forgive all that hurt he’d
just exposed me to back there at the mansion?

  “So demons, shadow demons, you said you were built on conflict and you had a compulsion to do the wrong things, so you don’t go a little mad in your life. How often does the compulsion thing kick in?”

  Tarin shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, It’s not like I’ve documented it and noted it down when it happened. It just happens.”

  “What if it’s in stages?” Tarin straightened up a little then, looking directly at me.

  “Go on.”

  “What if it’s like a cycle, like I don’t know, puberty, but in stages, for certain times of your life? It happened to you when you were fourteen, that was why you lost your shit and got yourself into trouble in the first place with the vamps. And I’d hazard a guess that it’s happened a few more times since then and now. And now with me. You’re doing it again. Giving in, feeding that compulsion by putting me in this position, hurting me. ”

  “Katelyn please understand,”

  I put up a hand. “Hear me out. I mean, you’re hurting me, have hurt me, emotionally. Deeply. And up until now, I’ve never felt like this, never had to because I was never involved with the world at large. I skimmed through my life. And now, I’m scarred because of our interactions. You’ve left imprints all over me and how can not take that as part of my life?”

  “Maybe Asha is manipulating you and you don’t know it.”

  “I think, we’re both being targeted for a very specific reason. And in order for that reason to happen, things, had to happen to us.” Tarin frowned at me and brushed his hair back off his face roughly.

  “What, so I’m a vessel like you?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe in a sense you are, if these compulsions to give in to your demon nature happen in cycles maybe it’s to ready you for the next stage, to change you.” Tarin sat back against the van wall opposite me.

  “No, I am who you see. No excuses needed. I just, need to deal with being a demon, like every other demon who had to live with being a demon.” I glared back at him and brushed my hair off my face as the van went over what appeared to be a speed hump.