And yet, I wondered, there is a familiarity about her...
I stopped, stared at the woman.
“Well, go on? Cat gotcher tongue, huh? Who? Who’s you lookin foh?”
She is a sign, I told myself. And if she’s here, then I sensed her here which is why I ran this way.
“Sh—Shira,” I said. “I’m looking for a lady called—”
“Shira. Mm-hmmm. I thought I heardja right. You a frien-uv hers?”
The woman’s tone had turned suspicious. I was suddenly afraid, so afraid.
I could leave the world. I knew that. I could simply...switch it off and leave.
And then what? Leave Shira...here?
And what if I can’t leave? What if this world—the world of her madness—plays by an entirely different set of rules?
“Well, are ya?” the plumpy prostitute asked.
“I—” I couldn’t deny it. She had been my friend. She had been. “Yes, yes, I am. I’m a friend of hers. Do you—do you know where she is?”
The woman took a long, slow drag of her cigarette.
Ratatatatatatatat.
“YOU NIGGA! FUCK YOU. I’LL KILL YOU!”
Ratatatatatatatat.
“Confess your sins, my friend. Confess for the end of days are nigh. Confess before”—Ratatatatatatatat—“Oh, GOD. Oh, GOD, you got—urgh—you got me—end of days! The Lord shall cometh”—Ratatatatatatatat—“Urgh...”
“C’mon,” said the prostitute. “We need to getchoo outta here.” She waved urgently for me to come to her. “C’mon! Or do ya wanna get smacked by wunna these flyin bullets out here?”
I approached the curb. The woman threw her cigarette on the ground. Its smoke dangled loosely in the air as she led me into an alley so tight she could barely fit in it herself. It became darker as we traversed through it, turned right, hitting a veritable maze of inner corridors between the buildings. The smells were of urine and ammonia and something worse, something thicker. Flies and ants gnawed away at one of the dog-sized rats.
“Come, dear, come, come, come!”
I followed the woman, down, down, down the alleyways. (And we really were going down. I could feel the slow decline as we headed lower and lower into the bowels of the city.) Down, down, down, down, down...
We got to a metal door in the wall, the only door I could see. There were torn posters on it, a solitary lamp shining bright white light on it. The only poster I could make out fully was one for a rock metal band, DEATH-HAZARD, KILLING IN A DANCECLUB NEAR YOU! There was a half-torn face of an ex-president, the words YES, YOU C— still showing. Someone had spraypainted —UNT! to the remaining part of it.
The prostitute took out a Camel, flipped open a lighter with the image of a dreamcatcher embossed on it. She flicked it, lit her cigarette. “Well,” she said, taking a puff, “go on then.” She gestured to the door while rising plumes of smoke veiled her face so that she looked like she was suddenly under water, the ripples distorting images of her, making her features move. Making her look like someone else, someone I once knew, not black—Eastern European...
She moved her forearm under the light—Did she do it on purpose?—and I saw the tattoo, an inscription of words whose meaning evaded me. Even the letters seemed to move, at first Latin, then Greek, hieroglyphics...
Sirvana?
I fought to keep standing on my legs. Jack.
I’m in the right place. No matter how afraid I am, Shira is here.
And so is he.
The man who started it all.
The one they call Jack.
“Go on. Open it.” She took another deep puff, blew the torrent out like a flame thrower. For a brief moment she didn’t look like the chubby black prostitute anymore. She looked like Sirvana Taikichec, Jack’s wife, the woman who had thrown a soda can at my head and missed on the day I’d fled Marfa.
I put my hand on the door handle, turned it. Pushed. I had almost hoped it had been locked.
“Go on, darlin. Open it up. She’s in there, your friend. She’s in there.” The woman’s voice had grown deeper, her eastern accent coming out.
I opened the door with a slow creak and was faced with blackness, not a single light on.
I heard breathing inside. Soft. And perhaps...a whimper?
“Go on then.” The prostitute’s voice echoed into the room I couldn’t see anything of. “Go on. She’s there.” And now, with a deathly man’s voice, the voice of a ghost, deep and rumbling like thunder over mountains: “Go...on!”
I stepped into the blackness and it swallowed me up like water. The air was cool, a breeze coming in from somewhere. There was a faint scent of old tobacco—I know this brand—and of oil and grease.
I took another step forward, heard the door creaking closed behind me, heard my footsteps echoing off distant walls. A big room, I realized.
The door creaked some more. I might have heard the prostitute’s final thought as she inched the metal door shut. I might have. Or maybe I thought it myself, sensing it deep within me. Last chance to turn back, baby. Last chance. But she’s in there. I promise you. I promise you...
...last chance...
One more creak of the hinges.
...last—
And the door shut with a soft bang which echoed mercilessly back and forth in a room that I was now beginning to understand with apprehension...was no room at all.
It was a warehouse.
~ Luke ~
-23-
The gathering was urgent. This is all I knew.
I jumped in the trolley and jogged the rest of the way home. I was drenched by the time I opened the door to my bedroom and was hit by ice-cold air conditioning.
Sleep, I somehow knew.
I lay on my bed and closed my eyes.
It wasn’t difficult. I was in the dreamworld within seconds...
...Probably it might be Arizona, or Death Valley. But I know this desert has no location in the real world.
The other hunters are here, Lorian and Harkan, a hundred or so others. But by the time I arrive, the briefing is almost over.
The Amazonian woman finishes talking and strides toward me at the end of it. The hunters part like the Red Sea for her as her long legs flow toward me like a Caesar’s.
Dania is at Aasiyah’s side, her thick locks of blond hair curled around her small shoulders. She’s in battle gear, an axe in one hand. An ornate metal mask around her face. The rest of her is almost naked, nothing but a sensual cream two-piece covering her.
I’m stunned suddenly by the beauty of the two women, the contrast of Dania’s gold to Aasiyah’s black mane and full-length dress.
The women call me over while the rest of the hunters step back and sharpen their knives, drink, talk. Just a regular ole bunch of friends.
I’m still the new guy to them. And I can feel the distrust of the group like nettles.
But I don’t feel distrust from Dania or Aasiyah.
I feel lust and anger respectively.
“Lucien,” Aasiyah says. I have to look up at her despite my own towering height. “Come, we must speak.”
I follow her and the scantily clad blonde to Aasiyah’s tent. Three servants hold up giant fans of feathers and keep the leader cool.
Aasiyah sits behind her desk. A relief, because I was getting neck pains.
Dania stretches her legs out on a chaise. I notice that the meager covering of her breasts is loose, and catch a glimpse of pink just beyond the healthy swell of her right breast. She’s making no effort to hide it from me, and is in fact leaning her body just right so I will see it.
I look away.
“You and the witch,” Aasiyah says. “It needs to stop.”
“Me and the witch?”
“Don’t play dumb, Lucien. It’s unnatural. It goes against our duties.”
I feel the pull inside me as she says the word Duties.
She’s right.
“But you are a man, and a man has needs. A man should be with his own ki
nd.”
I hear Dania heaving a deep breath, and catch the expansion of her chest from the corner of my eye.
I understand now.
“And?” I say, not wanting to seem like a fool if I have misunderstood the situation.
“If you weren’t the hunter you are,” Aasiyah says, “I would have taken more drastic measures.”
“Measures?”
“Yes.”
“You’d kill me.”
She scoffs. “We are driven by duty, and you have served yours. We are not animals, Lucien. No, not kill you, but you would be as good as dead in this world. You would lose all memory of it. And you would become a...normal...human being.”
I am a little stunned. “You can do that?”
“And more. I know you are new here. You have hunted for ten years, but there is much for you to learn. You are not, however, indispensable.” She takes a green grape from a platter held out by a servant in front of her, eats it. “And yet, you fascinate me.”
“If you get rid of me, you will have no access to Crystal. You told me Crystal is the key to destroying the demons.”
“A threat?” she says coolly.
“No threat, Aasiyah. It is logic.” I’m being honest.
“It is a risk I am willing to take. Your actions...put us all in danger.”
I notice Dania taking her mask off. She has a ravishing face, deep blue eyes, a soft nose and delicate mouth. She shakes her hair out behind her, sits up and puts her elbows on the back of the chaise, pushing her breasts out.
I grin at the obvious ploy. “So you’re trying to seduce me now.” I stifle a laugh.
“This is no light matter, Lucien.”
Out of respect for her position, I don’t jump down her throat for using my real name. Only my mother called me that name.
And Crystal.
“They are a different species, the witches. It is a simple matter of logic. Interbreeding with them would be like interbreeding with a horse or a cow or a—”
“Stop.”
Aasiyah cocks a long, slender eyebrow. “You overstep your place, young Lucien.”
I suppress my desire to react. Although I am indeed new here, I know of her authority, her past victories, her strength in leadership. I know it like all hunters know it, through our collective mind.
“With respect,” I say, “we are not different breeds. We are all human.”
She stiffens. “Humans.” It’s almost a question, but not quite.
“Yes,” I say.
“Out there, yes. But what is to say which is your real life, and which is the dream life?”
I cannot argue at first. I think it’s the basic conundrum every hunter feels. It’s the conundrum I felt—until yesterday, after the headache of all headaches.
“I can remember,” I say. “They’re both my life.”
Aasiyah’s mood darkens. “Re...member?”
“Y—yes.”
“Explain.”
Again, out of respect, I talk: “Out there, I remember. I remember all of it. All...of this.”
Aasiyah’s hands tighten on the desk. “Like a witch.”
I don’t respond. It’s an accusation.
“I asked you a question,” she says.
“Yes, perhaps.”
“Explain.”
I tell her more, how I can read minds now in the real world, how I remember the dreams, how I was able to give my location to a witch in the dream.
Her eyes flick over to the magnificent Dania.
Dania is frowning.
“Which is how you knew of the gathering,” she says.
“What?”
“You weren’t invited. So it was with some...distress...that I saw you appear. How did you know?”
“I felt it. While I was awake.”
“Hmmm, fascinating.” Pause. “Witches have no sense of duty,” Aasiyah says. “They have a little too much freedom of...choice, let us say.”
“And what is wrong with choice?” Oops. “Uhm...respectfully.”
“Choice. Hah. Just look at them. They’re...animals. Conniving. They cannot keep a group together. Cannot trust each other. They are useful, yes. They serve a purpose, yes. But alone they are dead. Without a relentless sense of duty, they are gone.”
“I have that sense.”
“You do not!” Her back stiffens. And then she relaxes again. “Duty commands that you do not get involved with a witch. They will corrupt us, eat us up from the inside.” A pause while she gathers herself. “Dania here, do you find her attractive?”
I don’t look at the blonde.
“Lucien, answer me.”
Out of deference, I answer. “I do.”
“She was once our finest hunter, until you came along. She has been attending gatherings for a year. She lives in Orlando. I can send her to you. You can have her here and in the other world. In fact, you could have her right now.”
Dania opens her legs slightly.
I confess, I’m aroused. “Thank you, Aasiyah. But no thanks.”
Aasiyah nods just slightly in Dania’s direction. And Dania takes off her bikini top. Her breasts spill out like ripe watermelons, her nipples large and pink and puckered.
She has the body of every man’s dreams.
“I will take your memory away,” Aasiyah threatens. “This is no choice. This is...duty.”
Duty.
Duty.
Duty.
The word knocks around in my head like an unstoppable impulse.
Duty.
“Take her, Lucien. Take her now, take her here and in that other world. Take her. Fuck her brains out. I can tell you want it. But even if you don’t—I command you. It is your obligation to me to do so.”
My skin breaks out in a sweat.
The blonde on the chaise heaves in a slow, seductive sigh.
She is a glorious sight, skin not too pale, unblemished.
And I know her as well. I know her feats as a huntress. Her capabilities.
And I know that she hasn’t been with another man before. Ever. Not in any world. She sits there almost naked out of her own sense of...duty.
The pull against me is unbearable. I notice the patch of moisture on her cream underwear.
Her breasts are swollen, her breaths coming in rapid succession.
“Do it!” Aasiyah commands.
My eyes lock on the blonde, feeling not only male desire, but a relentless urgency as if this is what I am supposed to do, as if everything depends on this one inane action. Not questioning. Not asking. Only doing, commanded by duty.
I feel my body inch toward the woman.
She slips two thumbs into the straps of her underwear, pushes down ever so gently.
Duty.
Command.
Obligation.
“Now!” Aasiyah shouts.
But Crystal.
The thought strikes me like a bullet.
I close my eyes, look away from the nearly naked woman. “Respectfully,” I say, “I must decline.”
I face Aasiyah.
Her bronze skin has gone pale with shock.
She’s too stunned to say or do anything. And I know from our collective mind that she has never had to deal with this sort of thing before.
“Why do you protect them?” I ask. “The witches. Why do you protect them if you hate them so much?”
She smiles slowly. Almost viciously. “We have our own powers,” she says. “And if there were no witches in the world, the demons would be left to feed on us next.”
Another bullet to the skull. “You protect them to save your own skin?”
“As do you, Lucien. As do all the hunters. What do you think the call of duty is? If all the witches get taken, we’re next on the ladder. Humans are last. We answer the call to help them much like you answer the call to eat or drink. Not doing so means you will die, and your kind will die.”
“How come I didn’t know this?”
She smiles again. “As I said, there i
s much you don’t know.”
“But the collective mind—”
“—is accessible to a degree. Think of it as...censorship.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And you never will, Lucien. You never will.”
Aasiyah raises a limp finger to Dania. The blonde stands, picks up her axe.
“You’re going to kill me?” I ask.
Aasiyah gives the slightest nod. “Yes. And then you’ll wake up, and this will all have been a dream.”
Dania swings for my neck.
~ Crystal ~
-24-
...Memories slammed me as understanding dawned:
BEWARE THE WAREHOUSE
WITCHES LIVE
Tommy’s final written words to the world before he hanged himself.
And, five months earlier, an overheard conversation between Jack and Sirvana:
“You do want her. Well—take her. Take her to the damn warehouse and just be done with it.”
“You foolish hag. You know they have to come by choice.”
I wasn’t in Shira’s world.
I was in Jack’s.
For some time all I heard were my breaths. They were becoming deeper, louder, harder. In-breath, out-breath, in-breath—slower now—out-breath, long and drawn out. In-breath—
Which is when the clapping started. A slow, mocking, shotgun slap-on-slap clapping.
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap!
My fists tightened next to me. I saw nothing. Nothing at all. Not an iota of light. No night-eyes, nothing.
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Always the same rhythm, slow and taunting.
A chair screeched, metal on concrete. And I swallowed my heart.
Clap. Clap. Pause, only the echo remaining. And the last one: Clap!
I heard hands rubbing against clothing. Sounds like jeans, I thought.
And then I heard his voice. A voice I had been running from for nearly half a year. A voice which had left my nightmares completely since I had met Shira. That Southern drawl. I could almost smell his breath on me he felt so close, could almost see the red of my lake, could even feel the sickening touch of his hands on my thigh as he had grabbed it in my dreamworld, giving me bruises in the real world. “Mighty fine job, Crystal deary. Mighty fine.”
Her Mind Games: A Dark and Erotic Paranormal Romance Page 10
