Forcing herself to smile as she entered the building where her lover for the night lived, Crystal did not notice the man who was watching her from the shadow of the sidewalk opposite.
Hidden in the angle formed by the roof over the garage entrance, he was dressed in a strange blood-red tunic. His face was half burned and he was missing an eye, a souvenir of a fight with Prince Dimitri. The man belonged to the Dark Clan, a group of rebel Damned Ones who gloomily competed with the Order of Hell. The All Powerful and the Empress had not sent the Paladines to New York for no reason. The city had become one of the main centers of activity for the evil Damned Ones. This evening the Clan had decided to get the jump on Dimitri and to temporarily assign some of its warriors to murder Crystal and so put an end to the bloodline of the All Powerful.
Crystal emerged from her lover’s building at around four o’clock in the morning. She proceeded unhurriedly through the empty streets, savoring the marvelous feeling of lightness that this night of stolen freedom had brought her. The apartment that she shared with the girls wasn’t far now. She would be in bed well before the others woke up. Mission accomplished !
Just as she was getting ready to congratulate herself for pure genius, she caught sight of red shapes materializing from the shadows and blocking the exit of the street she had started down.
She groaned. Obviously this had to happen to her now.
Opposite her stood six men, all in blood-colored tunics. The warriors of the Dark Clan. Without giving her time to think, one of the men advanced toward her.
“Your Paladines haven’t taught you that it’s dangerous to go out walking alone ?”
Crystal felt her heartbeat speed up. No time to dematerialize, and now things were getting real, as Glory and Cornelia had so often repeated to her.
She prayed for a quarter of a second for the girls to be with her. A voice kept repeating incoherently in her head, I’m not ready to fight yet ; I’m not ready, not ready….
A punch in the face brought her back to reality.
Forgetting her panic, she let her instincts as a Damned One take over. Or rather, she tried to. Succeeding more or less in driving back her first assailant, she only narrowly managed to avoid three Dark Clan warriors who hurled themselves at her. She leaped over them and fell back to the ground, facing the two remaining men. She grabbed one by the throat and violently threw him against one of his accomplices. But when she turned around, she banged into the others. Two of them grabbed her by the arms while the third one took her by the back of the neck.
Crystal drove her elbows into the sides of the two men holding her and smacked her head against the forehead of the third one who was behind her. She had hoped that they would collapse but they hardly moved. They were too strong.
“Poor little darling. Not so tough without your Paladines, are you ? And to think – you’re the one that kept them from saving your skin. And you can’t imagine how your pretty skin is going to look when we’re done with you. Oh, you’re already quivering….”
“Who wouldn’t quiver in the face of fear ?” came a glacial voice from the street.
The Damned One who was threatening Crystal turned around sharply. At the same time, she felt the pressure of the warriors who were holding her instantly relax.
A man slowly emerged from the darkness. He moved forward with a fearsome calmness. Around her, the young woman sensed the panic overtaking her assailants. They let go of her completely and tried to flee.
In vain. The unknown man raised one hand in their direction and the warriors of the Dark Clan stopped short, held by invisible bonds. In the pupils of the man’s eyes, flames appeared. The warriors caught fire. Human torches. Alive. Screaming.
Crystal widened her eyes, short of breath as the new arrival confronted her. She looked at him, hypnotized.
“Who are you ?”
“Who do you want me to be ?”
The unknown man stood before her, in the privacy of the street. The bodies continued to burn briskly and the flames seemed to radiate over his cold face. Crystal was struck by the wild cut of his features, by his gaze, dark and deep as an abyss.
“Say good evening to Prince Dimitri, your savior and future assassin,” the man swaggered.
She froze, a lump in her throat. Ever since she had been in the sect, the name Dimitri had haunted her worst nightmares.
She watched him approach her, step by step, the noise of his shoes resounding on the ground. She swallowed with difficulty, submerged under an uncontrollable wave of dread. The Dark Prince stopped a few inches away from her. Around them, the world seemed to freeze.
Crystal raised her eyes to him.
His all-consuming gaze met hers and everything else ceased to exist.
Dimitri paced around her. A lion circling his prey. Finally, he had her. Helpless, terrified. Twenty-two years of waiting to arrive here. Twenty-two years of fantasizing about this encounter. A simple girl that he was going to smash like a toy.
With a firm hand, he seized the dagger jammed in the leather belt at the small of his back and skimmed her golden hair with its tip, feeling the oh-so-fragile neck under the blade. Crystal merely trembled, waiting for her defeat without resisting. He continued to circle, sliding the metal into her angelic hair, and finally touched the soft skin of her neck. She closed her eyes as a tear rolled down her cheek.
“Look at me,” the Prince of the Underworld ordered in a hard voice. “You are hoping that your Paladines will be able to save you. But who is protecting you this evening, my darling ? Where are those who claim to love you and defend you ? There is no one in the world for you. Do you believe that your people will weep for you, or will they be relieved ? To them, you are a burden ; to me, an obstacle. You are nothing. I confess, I’m disappointed, you’re so miserable that your murder won’t even give me any pleasure.”
With a brutal gesture, he grabbed her by the throat and raised her off the ground like a puppet, his victim’s feet scraping the wet sidewalk. She did not cry out, her eyes wide with terror, petrified. Almost delicately, Dimitri traced the contour of the proffered neck with his dagger and slid it up the length of her cheek.
“Your death could be excruciating,” he whispered.
Crystal closed her eyes again, by reflex, trying to push away the fear that was crushing her. The Prince rested the tip of the dagger on her face, near the corner of her eye. The blade ran along the tender skin and tore it, leaving a bloody streak.
The pain felt like an electrical shock to the young woman ; she opened her eyes and tried to struggle. With a furious motion, Dimitri threw her to the ground a few yards away and moved toward her.
Prostrate on the sidewalk, Crystal watched with despair as the Prince walked toward her, but suddenly he stopped. Turning his head abruptly, he inhaled the air, on the lookout.
“This is just the beginning,” he growled at her before uttering a phrase and vanishing, trailing a screen of black smoke.
Dimitri had dematerialized. A miracle.
Crystal stayed slumped over for a moment, trembling like a leaf, then got up with difficulty, hearing the noise of heels on the asphalt. Glory, Cornelia, and Falada appeared. Glimpsing her, her cappuccino-colored friend ran to her and pulled her into her arms hard enough to suffocate her.
“All the fucked-up gods be praised, you’re alive.”
“Brilliant, sweetie,” Glory marveled, lowering her black glasses, “You wiped out all these Dark Clan brutes !”
Cornelia relaxed her embrace and looked around herself in turn, astounded. But, miserable, Crystal lost no time in setting them straight :
“Don’t go giving me any medals just yet. I didn’t do anything. Prince Dimitri burned them. And if you hadn’t arrived, I would already be dead. He sensed you coming and took off. I don’t know by what miracle you found me, but I can promise you that I thank heaven for it.”
“Yeah, you’d better, you crazy little pain in the neck ! Luckily we realized you had disappeared in time. Give u
s the slip again and I’m the one who’ll waste you !” Cornelia exclaimed in annoyance.
“Calm down, Corn,” Falada intervened, taking Crystal by the shoulder. “She’s already shook up enough.”
The girl snuggled up against the Paladin. He led her away, leaving Glory and Cornelia behind.
They moved slowly, Falada’s arm around her waist as she leaned her head against his shoulder. Behind them, they vaguely heard Cornelia grumbling to herself. She had been terribly afraid for the girl.
Crystal knew this perfectly well and, her own terror having passed, she was very angry with herself. But then, at the moment, she was cuddled against Falada and she felt too happy and relieved to feel guilty. In his arms she felt like she was home. Nice and warm and protected.
The Paladin decided to break the silence.
“I don’t want to lecture you, but don’t go out without warning us, please. If you need some air, let me know ; I’ll go with you. When I celebrated your birthday with you, that went well, didn’t it ?”
“And if I need to see boys ? You know, the kind that you sleep with,” the girl teased him, taking him by the hand. “Are you going to play bodyguard and wait in front of the door ?”
“No. I’ll send Cornelia ; that way I’ll be sure that the guy takes to his heels before he has the time to so much as touch you,” the Paladin shot back. Then, more seriously : “Why do you do it ? Why sleep with men you don’t love ? You’re polluting yourself, you know.”
“Maybe because the one that I do love isn’t sleeping with me ?” she replied mutinously.
Falada gently separated their hands.
“You should kind of stop chasing me, I think.”
“Are you that afraid that I’ll catch you ?”
The night was still dark, but dawn was approaching when they returned home. The apartment, a magnificent one, occupied the top floor of a luxurious old building. There were ten bedrooms with bathrooms, two living rooms, high ceilings decorated with gilding, heavy drapes and thick carpets, an impressive library, a room for training, and another one for meditation.
The three girls and Falada crossed the entry hall and followed a series of corridors to the library.
Helen was sitting there, lost in the middle of a pile of grimoires and other books that were strewn over the round table in the center of the room.
“You’re grinding away at this hour ? What, did you miss your calling as a librarian on the verge of a nervous breakdown ?” Cornelia attacked with her usual friendliness.
The historian Paladine put down the little mirror into which she had been gazing before the others arrived.
“No, I’m redoing my makeup while waiting for my beautician,” she grated with a touch of nervous irritation. “And you, why do you happen to be up at such an indecent hour ?”
“Crystal was amusing herself by going out in secret to have a party with the Dark Clan and Prince Dimitri,” Glory summarized, somewhat displeased.
The young woman tried to defend herself :
“I just wanted to have a normal sex life.”
“A normal sex life ?” Miranda asked, astonished. She had just entered the library, awakened by the noise her friends had made coming in. “No, don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know what you’ve subjected the poor girl to this time. Come over here, Crystal, I’ll treat your cheek before it gets infected,” said the red-headed sorceress, putting her hand on the wound.
Crystal felt her injury sealing up. A gentle heat emanated from the palm of the Paladine’s hand and healed her cheek. In her Care Bears pajamas, Miranda looked just a tad slow ; a little plump and totally inoffensive. And yet, her gift for white magic, which was exceptional, always left Crystal speechless. She loved Miranda immensely.
As was to be expected, Sybil, scrawny in her shapeless clothes, burst into the library in turn.
“You’re all up ? Why ? Are the evil Damned attacking us ? It’s open war, isn’t it ? I’m ready.”
“Calm down, Zorro,” Falada soothed her kindly. “Crystal tempted the Devil, but everything’s fine now. You can go back to bed, we’ll tell you about it tomorrow, at the meeting.”
“Oh ? In that case, would you happen to have a light ? I lost my lighter,” Sybil resigned herself to the situation in a surprisingly disappointed voice.
Cornelia tossed her a box of matches under Glory’s irritated gaze. Helen had furtively tucked her mirror into her pocket and started to leaf through her grimoires again. Miranda was inspecting Crystal from head to foot in order to be absolutely certain she did not have any other injuries. Seeing the Paladin wink a conspiratorial eye at the young woman, Glory felt her blood boil. A band of incompetents. Without me they would already be six feet under. In an energetic tone she decreed :
“Alright, I’ll stay with Crystal the rest of the night.”
“You’re sleeping together ? Unbelievable,” Miranda said.
Helen carefully washed her glasses.
“What is really unbelievable is your unfailing stupidity.”
“How could you be so stupid ?” Glory shouted, dragging Crystal into her room by force. “All that to screw a dirty human ! You really are dumber than you look, you little moron !”
“Stop yelling at me !” Crystal protested, slamming the door before throwing herself on the Paladine’s red, silky bed.
Glory paced back and forth in front of the bed, arms crossed across her chest, reprimands pouring out of her mouth in a continuous flood.
Her head buried in the soft pillows, the young woman pretended not to hear. She stopped up her ears, mocking her protector like a five-year-old child would. Glory, knowing perfectly well that Crystal heard her, said so in a dismissive tone.
Her protégée sat up savagely, her eyes filled with anger.
“You think I’m having fun ? I’m a prisoner in a life that I didn’t want ! You cannot shut me in. I am twenty-two years old ; I have the right to get laid. It’s the only thing I have to look forward to while I wait for the slaughter. In any case, you’re more interested in your precious career than you are in me,” she finished, tears in her eyes.
Her last words were like a cold shower on the Paladine. She calmed down.
“You’re wrong. I’m not like the others, I didn’t dream of being a Paladine, I wasn’t always one. I’m not even like you, Crystal ; I am not a chosen one. I fought to be unusual. Hearing you whine about your fate, seeing you scorn everything you have makes me sick to my stomach. You don’t deserve your position as the future All Powerful.”
“Do you hate me ?” the girl worried, horrified to discover a Glory that she did not know. “Would you want to be me ?”
“No, I love you, and I wouldn’t want to be anyone other than myself. I’m angry, that’s all. I’m trying to teach you but I’m failing. You are not worthy of your rank and I’m taking it as a personal failure.”
“That’s harsh,” Crystal sniffed. “But you’re right. I’m shit. If I feel good with you, it’s only because I’ve never felt that way anywhere. Before, I never felt like I had a real family. I’m trying to be what you all want me to be, but I’m just incapable of it,” she confessed in tears.
The Paladine felt the fury drain out of her. She put her arms around Crystal, settled her comfortably on the satin bed, stretched out beside her and tenderly caressed her hair.
“You are capable of it.”
Crystal let herself go, abandoning herself, clinging to Glory. Feeling her heart melt, the Paladine cuddled with her, like a mother. She had not expected to assume that role. Playing the big sister was more painful for her than anyone could have imagined. Her past was catching up with her, but maybe, thanks to Crystal, she had the opportunity to put it right. She no longer thought about anything, and simply reassured the young woman crying in her arms.
They ended up falling asleep holding onto to each other tightly.
5
The Taste of Blood
New York, Park Avenue apartment
; Crystal stood in the middle of the training hall, her eyes closed, concentrating.
She and Cornelia faced each other, both wearing form-fitting black leather workout clothes, and prepared to begin the lesson again.
Her eyes still closed, Crystal sensed the shift of the two long daggers that the Paladine pulled from her spike-heeled boots. Her muscles tightened as she seized her own knife.
Cornelia crossed the space that separated her from her pupil, striking at her. Crystal miraculously dodged the blow, then struck in turn but hit only empty space.
Crystal and the Damned - Possession Page 4
