by Deanna Chase
He licked his lips, pushed his glasses higher up his flat nose and gulped hard. No doubt he rarely had this happen to him, if at all. He reminded me of the classic nerd. Content to play with gizmos and gadgets on the weekends instead of girls, not because he didn’t like them, but because they rarely liked him. At least I’d give him a story to take back to his band of brothers, not that they’d believe him.
I touched the belt of my coat, untied it and slowly ran my hand across the mounds of my breast. His pupils dilated, zooming in to my chest, he was sweating profusely. I scented the air, he was clean. No STD’s, which meant no sick stick. It could have been worse I suppose.
“I was lookin’ for Belle St.,” I ran my fingers through my hair and shrugged.
He gawked at me, as if he couldn’t believe this was really happening. I wanted to growl at him, fist his white buttoned down shirt in my hands and drag him back to the alley and get it over with. But no sense in scaring the prey.
I grinned wider and gave my best air headed giggle, which nauseated me to no end. “Look, I really need help. A lone girl,” I rolled my eyes, planting my hands on my hips and cocked it out, “out alone in the city in the middle of the night, is not good. I’ll pay you anythin’ if you’ll just help me.” I licked my bottom lip in a slow, seductive motion, making my intentions very clear.
He shook his head as if to free himself from a thrall—no, I didn’t have him in one, but I’m really good at what I do—and said, “You’re not some two bit hooker are you? My friends sent you, didn’t they?” He narrowed his eyes and I could read the anger and humiliation in them.
I sauntered up, grabbed his tacky polyester brown tie between my fingers and gave it a gentle, but firm tug. No more games, I needed this and I wanted to go home. The sooner, the better.
“You caught me,” I simpered—gag—, “you’re friends did send me. You gonna send me away just ‘cause of that?” I leaned in, blew on his ear and trailed my finger up his chest, resting it at the hollow of his throat and gave it a little nudge, delighted to feel his Adam’s apple roll.
I stepped in as close as I possibly could, pressing my thighs against his, feeling a very hard, but average, lump against the front of his jeans.
He shuddered. “I...I guess not.”
I nipped his earlobe and every muscle in his body sagged against mine. He grabbed me by the waist, rested his head on my shoulder.
“I...I don’t even know your name.”
“Aww, that’s cute.” I wrinkled my nose, but didn’t give him my name. There’s power in a name, never give it away for nothing. And for a demon that was especially true.
I grabbed his hand, helped him close the car door and guided him slowly toward the alleyway.
In a day and age when STD’s are so rampant you’d think he’d have asked me about that, he hadn’t. He’d looked at me and said, “I’ve never done this before.”
I didn’t have to ask him to clarify. I smiled. “Well, Shug, this is gonna be the best night of your life.”
Exactly two minutes later—sigh—he was mumbling an apology.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know I’d be so close. I’m sorry.” He was bent over, big fat, pasty white butt poking up in the air as he gathered his discarded coat and tie from off the water slicked pavement. I shook my head, looking everywhere but at him. Not because I was embarrassed, no, rather I didn’t want the image of all that pasty flabbiness forever burned into my retinas.
“Goodnight, I’m humiliated,” he whispered so low, an average person wouldn’t have caught it. Thank goodness he’d pulled his pants up by the time I turned to look at him. His face was flaming red, his eyes wide and frantic as he tightened his belt.
I got up off the ground, he’d wanted me doggie style. Normally a position I loved, though tonight...I shuddered, those quick thrusts had felt like someone jabbing me with a stick. It was criminal the way he used that thing.
The second I straightened out, I knew I shouldn’t have. His eyes locked onto my still exposed breasts. I couldn’t find my friggin' shirt. He’d thrown it, heavens only knew where. Now, I’m not shy about nudity, but I’d be a sight if caught by the cops. Last thing I needed was to be thrown into the slammer for being a hooker. I could escape, but Luc would have a field day with it. So didn’t want to go there.
“So umm,” he shoved blunt fingers through his cropped hair, “can we ever...”
Sometimes it’s easier to kill them. “Look, kid,” I said, dropping the breezy twang, “get lost.”
He frowned, looking like I’d whipped the puppy. Lust stirred, in as foul a mood as I felt. Although Lust wasn’t being so nice, my head swam with visions of nerd sprawled on the ground, my claws digging at his penis until I ripped it free and could throw it away so no other girl had to suffer through that. Didn’t I tell you Lust was mean?
I however, didn’t want to play the demon’s game tonight. All I wanted now was to cut my losses, go home and sleep it off. This night had sucked the big one.
“But I thought...”
I rolled my eyes, anger buzzing through my veins like an angry hornet’s nest, and walked back toward the dumpster, scanning the ground for my missing shirt. “Listen, it was fun and all that, but I really gotta go. Don’t call me, I’ll call you and all that jazz.” I finger waved, dismissing him.
From the corner of my eye I saw him scuttle off and breathed a weary, bone deep sigh and shifted back to my normal form. I hated being mean, but to stay around me another second with a dissatisfied Lust was probably not a good idea.
I curled my lips, still not able to find my stupid shirt and decided it wasn’t even worth it. I wasn’t going to dig through the trash bin for it. Forget it. I turned, bent to retrieve my trench coat when I heard him return.
“What now?” I groaned. Then I felt the cold press of a blade against my spine a second before I smelled the familiar scent of sandalwood. I went still, not daring to breath or move.
“Was it good?” A hard voice whispered in my ear and then an even harder body pressed against my own, pinning me to the brick wall. The knife no longer between us.
I shivered, recognizing the voice I’d been dying to hear ever since the night he’d stepped into my crazy world. My heart twisted painfully in my chest, slid to my knees. I turned—half expecting him to try and punch me for my audacity—and stared into a pair of brown eyes, that were at the moment sparking with rage.
My breasts smashed against the hard muscle of his chest, my nipples tightened into painful peaks, stabbing him through the thin layer of cotton he wore.
His delectable mouth was turned into a tight sneer, disgust clear on his arrogant face. I licked my lips, his eyes glued to the movement. My skin tingled, flushed with need and desire so hard it was nearly pain.
Billy planted his hand over my head, his body moving off mine enough to give him room to study me. It was a long, slow perusal, whatever thoughts went on behind those lidded eyes of his I couldn’t tell. But wherever his gaze touched, it was like being branded with heat. He stopped for a second to study my zipper that was still unzipped, as if trying to determine if I was commando.
I was.
Then his eyes hit my navel, my breasts, and lingered, for a long, hot second. It didn’t take a neph possessed by Lust to figure out that look, then he glanced at my face and the heat was gone. All that remained was a killing frost.
In that moment, in that second, I didn’t care if Billy slapped me, screwed me, or gutted me, all I wanted was his hands on my body any way I could take it.
“You disgust me.” His voice was cool silk, deep and throaty. Made my knees weak and my temper flare, banking the fire spreading through my blood.
I shoved him. Hard. He leered that arrogant look of his that made me want to scream. I nearly ripped the sleeves off my coat as I shoved my arms through them, then belted it shut.
“Ohh, as if that hurts?” I snapped back at him. “Do you think I give a crap what you think?”
He bi
t his bottom lip and I swear, I almost came. I bit back a groan, hating him, hating myself and wishing like Dante's inferno there were some way I could reach into my boot, grab the ring, and stick it on him without alerting him to the fact.
“If you didn’t care, neph, then why throw the coat around yourself like it was a shield?”
I narrowed my eyes, planting my hands on my hips. “Don’t call me that.” Was all I could think to say.
The knife was back in his hands before I could even blink. What the hell? Where had it come from? It was like he was pulling stuff from air. He toyed with the tip, staring at it and not at me, for a long enough second that I debated whether or not to go for the ring.
“Why are you following me?” I should have gone for the ring, but my curiosity had, yet again, overridden any commonsense I had.
He looked at me then, letting me feel the full weight of all his anger. It pressed in on me like a tangible thing, made me feel like I couldn’t take a deep enough breathe to satisfy my need for oxygen. He said nothing.
I fisted my hands, taking a step closer. I’d expected him to back off, but he didn’t. Billy was an immovable wall of muscle and hard steel. Panic fluttered moth-like wings in my throat; I fought the need to retreat from the burning, deep chocolate gaze of his.
“If you think your little knife display is gonna scare me, think again. I’m not some blushing maiden who can’t handle her weapons.” Double entendre intended, thank you very much.
His lip curled and my breath caught. “I should kill you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yawn. I’ve heard that before, now haven’t I?”
He stepped into me and I couldn’t breathe. It was as if he’d taken up all the space around us, his presence the only thing I was aware of. His big hands were on my jacket, he shoved it open. I gasped the second the cold air touched my nipples. The pleasure of hot and cold played like a symphony on my sensitized flesh. Liquid heat crashed between my thighs and Lust didn’t simply wake up, she roared to life.
A rumble vibrated through his throat. Somehow, I wound up with my back pressed against the brick face again, my wrists pinned above my head by one of his large hands. “Is this what you like?” he snarled.
My heart pounded, my pulse thrummed with crystal resonance. I wanted to wrap one of my legs around his waist and beg him to take the fever away, but I couldn’t move. Every hard line of his body was pressed against mine. My head swam with visions of his beautiful lips working between my legs, my hands running through his hair. I whimpered. Lust was going to eat me alive. I writhed, which only made things worse. My whole body grew enflamed, engulfed by desire. My brain was muddied by thoughts of him, sex, and nothing else.
The man made me feel like a slut. What was worse, he was right. Lust loved it. “I hate you.” My words dripped like venom from my tongue, I wiggled my toes, trying to figure out a way to push him off me and get to the ring.
He laughed and the sound of it shivered down my spine in an erotic caress. I moaned, closed my eyes and arched into him, feeling the brush of something thick, long and hard against my thigh.
He traced his nose along the long length of my neck much like Luc does, except this wasn’t to scent out a lie, this touch burned. Made the demon slither and slink through my skin, crawl with malevolent intent to harm and possess.
“I hate you, Priest,” I snapped, my voice echoing with the sound of another. My fingers twitched as my nails grew long and longer still, extending out into claws as the anger gripped me. But his hold on my wrists was absolute and crushing. I couldn’t move them.
I jerked, but he slammed me back hard. “Don’t move,” he growled.
Power pulsed through my veins; my body bristled with the need to take action. But as mine grew, so did his.
Then the knife was in his hand again, this time it was a dagger. I’m not into knife play, but the way he trailed it down my throat and across my chest was almost as good as a caress. I twitched, every nerve ending raw and exposed. Then the knife traced the thick scar above my chest. I gasped and suddenly this wasn’t fun. This wasn’t good.
Billy stared at the scar, not with lust or pity, but with curiosity, as if he were trying to figure out what or who had made it, done it. I ground my molars until they ached, vulnerable and exposed.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper. His actions weren’t making any sense. He was a walking contradiction of lust and death and other things I couldn’t name.
He looked at me then. “My reasons are my own.” Sexual attraction was gone, replaced by cold hard and deadly intent.
I swallowed. “Let me go.”
His lips twitched. “You know I can’t do that.”
“I know that twice now I’ve seen you. I also know that both times you haven’t even tried to kill me.”
He narrowed his eyes and I felt the air charge, thicken with the promise of violence. My skin tingled, but I didn’t stop, too angry to care.
“You’ve been following me. Either A. you get some kind of sick jollies out of toying with me, or B. you have no intention of killing me. So which is it, Billy the Kid?” I spat, mocking the name I knew wasn’t really his. I heaved for air.
The second the words left my mouth I knew I’d pushed him too far. I felt the cold shiver of displaced air against my cheek a second before he stabbed me. I screamed as the blade sank deep between my collarbone, snapping it with a muffled pop. My stomach churned.
He shoved his face close, his nose pressed to mine. The mint of his breath tickled my lips as he said, “It would be a grave mistake for you to ever underestimate me again.”
Then he pulled the knife out and blood poured from the wound. He shoved away from me and I hissed as pain lanced through the left side of my chest. He stood there, bloody knife gripped in his hand, looking like some avenging angel of death. I had two choices, stand here and die, or do something about it.
He advanced.
I knelt and frantically yanked on the sack in my boot, my left arm was useless, my fingers numb and cold. I couldn’t get it. Panic nearly consumed me.
A shiver of parasite pulsed across my skin like magnetic flame. But this wasn’t a low buzz of frequency, this was off the charts haywire crazy. Billy blocked my view of whatever it was that had suddenly materialized behind us, all I could make out was a twirl of gray. My heart thumped. I shot to my feet, saw Billy turn, a look flashed across his face so fast I barely had time to register it. Then in a blink, he was gone. Vanished into the night.
What could make a priest run that way, was all I had time to think before I saw it too.
Chapter 11
I can’t describe the thing and hope to do it justice, but here’s my best attempt at it. It was gray. From head to foot. It was shadow, but wasn’t. It almost seemed to suck all light out of the night, and yet it didn’t glow. A dense mass of matter that’s separate but somehow connected to everything around it.
It moved with the careless grace of wind and thought. And even as I could feel the shivering pulse of para, I could also feel the immense power that dwarfed me by comparison. It was an oxymoron that totally and completely scared me.
It didn’t walk exactly, but glided with a strange, yet seductive allure. I blinked, fighting the thrall. What was this thing?
I didn’t want to find out. I ported. Or at least I tried to. But it was like the air had grown so dense it was an iron cage I couldn’t dematerialize through. I was stuck and contemplated attacking the thing to try and throw if off balance.
Adrenaline is such an amazing high. It can make people strong enough to lift cars, bend steel, and run like the wind. In my case however, it helped me focus and see what was really happening outside of my fear.
The gray blob—for lack of better word—was definitely a tangible presence, it was also somehow muted. I could feel the enormous power roll off it like hot mist, but it felt...wrong. Half substance and half...something else.
Though this mass hemmed me in
like a cornered rat in a science experiment, I didn’t actually sense threat of violence from it. I bit my bottom lip, stood my ground and hoped against hope I was right.
The closer it drew to me, the more it began to take shape. The mass tightened, pushed in some places, out in others, until I saw what resembled a head, arms, a long body and then it stood before me. A gray robed figure with two red dots staring out of a black void where a face should be.
“Peace, I bring you,” he said, ephemeral voice like a haunting melody echoing on the breeze.
My heart thudded violently. Call me dumb, but I wasn’t feeling exactly peaceful at the moment.
He—and I use that word loosely, since I really have no clue what it is—stood there, and I kind of got the sense that it really was trying to put me at ease. I put on a brave face, notched my chin and stepped away from the wall.
The scent of sandalwood still very strong around me. Billy hadn’t left, he was close. I could almost feel the sights of a gun trained on my skull. The thought covered me in goose bumps. I glanced up at the metal railings on the sides of the buildings trying to spot his shadow, while still keeping aware of the thing before me.
“Trust no one,” he said with that same lyrical quality.
“What?” I snapped, irritated and tired and rubbed my forehead. My wound had already begun sealing, but the bone still ached, not fully mended yet.
He shook his hooded head and this time I was able to glimpse something, a flash of orange colored haze. Like the glow that shines off flames, it flickered so fast I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it all. What freaked me out worse was that even through the glow, I could see no form. This was moving, breathing, thinking shadow.
“Who are you?” I asked. I’d never seen anything like this before. For that matter, what was it? It wasn’t human and though it pulsed like a parasite, I know for a fact it wasn’t one of those either. This...thing, was an entity unto itself.
“I am the Gray Man.”
When he said it, I swear the ground beneath my feet rumbled. “What are you?”
