Jovienne

by Linda Robertson

  A daring spirit surged close behind her. She swung the gladius wide.

  The blade’s daily swabbing with hallowed water caused the geist to fizz and bubble. It gave a shriek of pain, and then writhed free. Falling in on itself, the geist reformed as it swirled back into the melee.

  Her fingers twitched around the hilt of the dagger, sharpening her senses like fine-tuning a radio station, and re-discovered the position of that certain manifestation that felt fouler than the rest.

  Changing direction and moving with the dreadful mob, she aligned herself with the real demon. Tapping the fifth aspect of the quintanumin, a stream of glistening and powdery purple light radiated from her palm around the small hilt and flowed outward to mark her prey.

  Thunder boomed. Rain fell on the depository’s metal roofing like applause. Geist howled and retreated to the distant edges, but did not leave. The demon made a vicious show of grinding teeth that seemed to merge together.

  It looked solid, but that vaporous overlap revealed that this was a possessor.

  Shielded by the ghost arms, the threat of her being possessed was minimal. She needed to stab it, anchor it with a ring of blessed smaller blades—which it could neither touch nor pass over—and then splash it with hallowed water.

  She considered which attack to lead with, but the demon saved her the trouble and charged.

  She leapt, twisted mid-air, and landed behind the demon.

  It slithered to a stop and its face melted through the back of its head into the front.

  The demon lunged. Jovienne blocked. They traded attacks for a long minute, Jovienne dropping the blessed stars on the floor all the while. She’d laid a half-circle of steel when the demon dived to the right, giving her an opening. She swung with all her might.

  The dive was fake. The demon ducked under the sharpened steel and thrust itself toward her. She fought her own momentum to bring the weapon back into a defensive position, managing to bring the pommel down on its skull. The blow lacked enough force to stop the demon. It tackled her.

  Jovienne’s head cracked against the floor. Her ghost hands disappeared. Her lungs burned as though replaced with hot coals and tiny fireworks sparkled and trailed in her sight.

  The demon had tackled her! She thought back. Her pommel had slammed against a physical skull. Now, its weight crushed her. It restrained her forearms with what might as well have been vises in glistening black flesh. She couldn’t bend her wrist to raise the sword she still gripped. Worse, its lower form was coiling about her legs. She kicked to no avail. The geist gathered closer.

  Possessors should have no substance to bind her like this. It’s one focus should be getting inside her. This demon wasn’t a Class One, it was a Class Three.

  A changeling.

  The clues were all there: the real sound of clawing up and physical banging from below right before it broke through, the ‘snapping’ of its wings. Though they seemed so obvious now, she’d missed them.

  The rarest class, a changeling’s main attribute was altering its form at will, which made them the hardest to identify, but there was no solace in that detail now. Defeating a changeling meant altogether different tactics and cleaving its head… something she’d never do while her wrists were pinned.

  The demon yanked her arms up and slammed them down while stretching her as if it meant to break or dislocate her arms. Pain shot through her. Again, the demon repeated this assault until she was certain the impression of her was embedded in the tiles. When a dull clang followed the thump of her body against the floor, the demon finally stopped. Realizing her sword-hand was empty, a muffled cry escaped her throat.

  She struggled, but gained no leverage.

  “Yes. Fight me,” the demon said, letting its full weight immobilize her. “I prefer it violent. Bleeding.” Its voice was like smooth metal being scoured with steel wool, and its breath was Hell’s sulfur furnace. The stink made her eyes water. The heat blistered her skin. “Blood tastes better when you’re afraid.” Its boiling black tongue tasted her cheek.

  Fighting panic, she considered what weapons she might still access: a dagger in her left sleeve, the little jeweled one on her lapel, throwing stars in her pocket. No aspect of the quintanumin could aid her.

  She might as well have been weaponless.

  “You’re going to die,” it snarled into her ear. The tongue wagged out of its hot mouth again and licked a burn across her throat.

  For the first time in her life she understood the difference between fear and hopeless terror as the pit of her stomach erupted and an icy river coursed throughout her body. Thought failed her. She knew only coldness and trembling. Her eyes closed.

  “No. Look into me.” The demon’s growl garbled the words so she barely understood them. “Look while I savor your flesh.”

  She kept them shut. For her disobedience, it jerked her whole torso up and slammed her down. Her skull bounced. Stars winked through the darkness behind her eyelids.

  “Look at me!”

  She would not obey. She would not follow those grooves into its abysmal mind. Her aching head lolled to the side. She hoped it thought she’d blacked out.

  “You will beg me to stop. I know you will.”

  She felt the button of her jeans slip. Death would release her, but only after the most atrocious acts of brutality were inflicted upon her. She could not feign unconsciousness. She strained and wrestled, but like a child combating a bear, her desperate efforts achieved nothing.

  The demon laughed at her. “When you beg, I’m going to rip your eyelids off and eat them first.”

  Though her struggles continued, a deep quiet settled into her heart, mind, and soul. Within this strange serenity, she conceded that this had always been her fate. Her father had provided a hostile childhood void of sympathy. The recent years without him were a dream, a good dream of hope, but a dream nonetheless. He was her true pedagogue. Only his teachings mattered now because it was his lessons, “You’re a Goddamned, good-for-nothing freak and we’d all be better off if you were dead,” that prepared her for this inevitable failure.

  The changeling bit into the collar of her t-shirt and reared back, splitting the fabric completely.

  Her mind sat in that quiet place within, watching and separate from her body as the demon shredded her laces and tore the boots off her feet, as her jeans were thrust down her legs and her buttocks touched the cold grit of the floor.

  Jovienne gave up the fight.

  She called the ghost arms. She would keep them until her body was completely numb. She tapped the signaling energy and started releasing it without focus. She’d use it until her mind shut down. She would sink into a coma, and this time she wouldn’t ever wake up.

  She’d failed. She deserved to suffer an unspeakable death.

  “Unspeakable?”

  Jovienne’s eyes widened.

  The demon had touched her long enough to tap her soul and read her thoughts.

  “I can give you unspeakable.” The demon’s massive figure altered into something smaller. Something human sized. Something she shut her eyes to avoid seeing.

  Acceptance evaporated. Her mind wasn’t in that quiet spot separate from her body anymore. She was fully present and she knew what horror her eyes would behold if she dared to open her eyes.

  “Look at me when I talk to you.”

  Her breath seized up in her lungs. The scouring metallic voice was replaced by a familiar one.

  When she glimpsed his blue eyes and blond hair, the breath caught in her lungs burst forth in one haunted whisper: “Father?”

  He laughed. “You always wanted me to love you.” He kissed her cheek tenderly. He smelled like Brut and cigarettes. “You always wanted me to hold you and make you feel good.”

  She shook her head. Hot tears poured from her eyes unchecked. “No.”

  “You would have done anything for my approval. Even this.” His lips pressed against hers and his tongue slipped into her mouth.

  She
bit him.

  “C’mon, princess, that’s no way to be.”

  When he called her ‘princess,’ she sobbed.

  He kissed her cheek again, and then arched his body to keep hers pinned as he ran his tongue down her neck. To maintain his hold and continue, he pulled her arms a few inches lower.

  Fingers splaying, something moved under her finger. She couldn’t tell what it was, but it wasn’t gritty. Her attention latched onto that strange, unidentifiable item, desperate for anything to distract her. It was a black feather.

  He bit the mound of her breast. She screamed at both the pain and the fact that he would not let her mind escape the moment.

  “You don’t like it rough, honey? Your mother didn’t either. Not at first. But she learned to like what I did to her. So will you.” He bit another spot, bruising her, but not breaking the skin. “See? That’s not so terrible, is it?”

  Disgusted and humiliated by the desire shining in his eyes, nausea churned in her stomach and her sobs became dry heaves.

  “Don’t cry, princess.”

  “Princess? Princess?” She choked on the words. Her throat was so tight, making any sound hurt. “I’d have died to hear you call me that.”

  She despised the pitifulness of her own voice.

  “I know,” he said adoringly. “I know, honey. But Cali was my princess then. Now she’s dead.” His tone grew sharper and menacing. “Your mother’s dead too. That leaves you. Just you. You’ll be my pretty little fuck princess now. Won’t you?” With his feet and knees, he forced her legs open.

  She hated him. She hated everything he’d ever said, everything he’d ever done. She hated him for beating her mother. She hated him for keeping her mother from coddling her. She hated him for pushing her grandmother down the stairs. She wanted to make him suffer as he had made her suffer. She wanted him to feel pain and fear.

  But she could do none of that. All she could do was rob him of some tiny scrap of joy. Letting her head loll to the side, she prepared to summon and release all the quintanumin energy she could, ready to let the coma comfort her and steal his victory.

  But it would take minutes to have any effect. The acceleration aspect would drain her quicker, but until it did, every second would feel longer. Either way, she was going to suffer.

  His breath was hot on her ear as he said, “Are you ready, honey? You’ve waited a long, long time for my love. I promise it’ll be everything you hoped it’d be. And more.”

  The black feather fluttered against her hand. She grabbed it. As soon as she held the fibers, a mental curtain drew back and the language of years past surged from her throat: “‘Alala! Lohe ko’u ho’okalakupua kahea!”

  Chicago, Illinois

  SOMEONE ALWAYS THREW up on Saturday nights. Always.

  Nathan Marshall got to clean it up.

  The bar was small and, as he understood it, crowded from open to close, but he never patronized this place. He believed it was a sex ring front due to the copious amounts of used condoms in the garbage he emptied in the two ‘offices.’

  The syringes didn’t decrease that suspicion. Or the fact that the boss paid him in cash. Nathan didn’t ask questions. He just washed away the vomit, scrubbed the toilets, mopped the floors, and took out the trash.

  He wasn’t fond of the work, but he clung to the thread of hope that the unclean environment would tarnish him so much he would stop making his own messes. That wish hadn’t come true, yet. And, as the sensation began, like worms squirming all over his skin, he knew it wasn’t coming true tonight, either. He dropped the garbage bag and pushed up his sleeves. He kicked off one shoe as he reached for his belt, but he didn’t get it unfastened before his whole body went numb. He felt himself leave the ground and everything went white.

  Consciousness rushed back into him as he was falling. He remained numb, though, and couldn’t move even to keep his head from cracking against the bathroom tile floor. He laid in a pool of his own blood, wondering if it had lasted seconds or minutes or hours. Control of his body would return, and when it did, everything would hurt.

  Worse than that pain, however, was the knowledge that it would, without warning, happen again. This will never end.

  Twinkling lights burst before his eyes and his aching body became his own again. He’d promised himself that next time would be the last time. ‘Next time’ had arrived.

  Shaking fingers scrabbled under his pant leg and into his blood-soaked sock. The gun was small but loaded with .380s. It would be enough.

  He clicked the safety off as he shoved the cold steel between his teeth. The front sight tore the skin on the roof of his mouth. His tongue flicked along the muzzle. Gun oil made him gag. The unforgiving solidity of that barrel could end his torment, but he began to shake. There wasn’t enough air. Not enough strength in his finger to pull that small trigger.

  His ‘next time’ pledge proved to be another useless mental bargain discarded atop the shards of choices he would never get to make. He could not choose to stop being stigmata. Neither could he choose to die.

  This life isn’t yours to take.

  FOUR

  San Francisco, California

  Jovienne chanted stronger and louder with each syllable.

  “Shut up!” The illusion gone, the demon head-butted her.

  She turned away and the brunt force fell on the side of her jaw. Stars shot through her vision. Blood filled her mouth. Her chant stalled as she gathered the blood and saliva in her mouth and spat at the demon’s face. Lifting her head from the floor, she faced the demon’s rage-contorted face and shouted the weaver’s summoning faster.

  She heard the pop and crack of bones. The demon’s muscles stretched as a second set of arms sprouted up from the demon’s back. The arms grew longer and reached toward her throat.

  Above them, the filthy, broken windows began to rattle. Strange sounds ricocheted through the upper warehouse, coming from all sides at once. Glass shattered on the floor.

  Black birds flew in. Caws echoed through the emptiness like something much bigger and fiercer than crows.

  Jovienne called them to her, weaving them into a unified flying form just as Gramma had taught her, pleading and infusing the words with her desperate need.

  The demon’s second set of arms were long enough now that the fingers reached around her throat, ready to silence her for good.

  The birds descended as an enormous, screeching attacker from the dark. The flap and flutter of wings, the scratch of beaks and talons, forced the demon to roll, putting Jovienne on top to shield itself with her body.

  She threw one shoulder down and her lapel pin scraped across the demon’s chest, searing what flesh it touched.

  The changeling screamed and flung Jovienne high into the air. To buy time, or at least the sense of it, she called on the acceleration aspect of the quintanumin and the world slipped into slow motion. Using this power would bring on fatigue startlingly fast, so she planned to use it for only an instant.

  Rising into the midst of crows, their wings kissed her cheeks. Their talons combed through her hair. Their voices sang in her ears.

  Jovienne reached into her leather sleeve, drew the dagger, and threw it at the demon with all the speed and force of the quickening.

  Her momentum changed, and she slowly began falling.

  The demon rolled away from the dagger. The weapon’s tip thudded into the floor and hummed with metallic vibration.

  Jovienne landed nimbly on her bare feet. She released the quintanuminal speed, grabbed the dagger from the floor, and threw it at the demon. Her legs flexed to hurl herself the opposite direction – where her jeans lay. She rolled and scrambled up with the pants in her grip.

  Noting the charging demon and the throwing stars on the floor, she dropped the jeans and launched the sharp discs in quick succession.

  The dagger had nicked the demon’s upper arm and skittered away somewhere, but the stars sank into its chest, neck, and stomach. The changeling threw itself
backward, roaring in pain as magma, the Hellfire blood of all demons, seeped from the injuries.

  While the demon scratched and clawed at the stars, Jovienne tugged on the jeans and scanned for the gladius. Locating the one weapon that could cleave this Class Three’s head, she rushed toward it.

  The demon’s serpentine lower half swiped at the sword, screaming as it touched the blessed steel, but knocking it out of her reach. It slithered into position between her and the weapon. With a triumphant laugh, it whipped its tail around to swat at her.

  Jovienne dived away, rolled, and came up with two more stars. Blood rushed back into her hands, and though tingling pain came with it, her aim did not suffer. She put one into its throat and another into its left eye socket.

  The demon staggered back, tail flopping.

  Needing a burst of inhuman speed, Jovienne again called on the quickening. She charged past her enemy’s now-blind side and leapt high into the air over another swat from the tail. Above, the crows were free of the enchantment and searching for broken windows to flee through. Below, lay the dagger.

  She landed behind the demon and fell into a flip that propelled her toward the smaller weapon. Her fist closed around its hilt. In an instant, she aimed and let it fly into the demon’s back underneath one of the new arms.

  The force of the blow staggered the demon. Gurgling and hissing, the changeling stumbled forward.

  Jovienne released the quickening and ran for the sword at normal speed. Her legs felt heavy. The second use of the quintanuminal speed cost her. Even as she stared down at the gladius she desperately needed, her thoughts slipped away. What am I doing?

  Nearby, the demon groaned. The new arm twisted, breaking and mending as it reached toward the dagger in its back.

  This is my test. Right.

  Jovienne gripped the weapon with both hands and dragged it with her as she moved toward the demon. She knew that, with as weak as she felt, her wakizashi, sharp as it was, would have had trouble slicing through this demon’s neck. But the heavier gladius would power through.