Stigmata

by L M Adams

  Jack drops to his knees in front of me. “Please Jae, please not here.” He throws himself at my waist, wrapping his arms around me tightly. “No limits, no limits, no limits. Just take it out on me.”

  I scream as my fangs snap down. The desire for blood and sex and darker things tastes of bitter fruit on my tongue. My vision blurs into colors all awash in dark shades of purple.

  The pressure in the air pops as Tabari tries to enclose me and my power in a shield. A wall of energy appears glittering with shades of blue and green. My power turns to a deep dark purple smoke as it hits the shield. I can feel the pressure of Tabari’s shield against my flesh as if I’m touching it.

  My power has never manifested as cloud before. It billows and rolls up the side of the shield that separates me from everything I want to hurt. The people on the other side of the shield back away slowly, fear covering their features… they should be running.

  “Jae please!” Jack screams standing.

  Still, I stare into the world without seeing anything – there is only me, and my power, and the will to see it all destroyed.

  “Fuck!” Jack roars and I feel the chilling power of Neoma pour into him and through him into me.

  The aching cold detaches me from the hurt, from the pain, from the emotion. It doesn’t make me any less dangerous, it just gives me a different perspective, it clears my thoughts except for the clear practicality of a psychopath.

  “No witnesses,” Jack whispers, and the psychopath agrees.

  Some evil should remain hidden and cloaked in the night.

  I cut my eyes at the king who would think he equal to me. “I expect a worthy sacrifice, Capaneus.”

  He bows his head, “You shall have it, my Queen.”

  I turn on my heel and walk away further into the center and towards the back door. The smell of pure evil and bloody sex drips from me with every step.

  8

  Jaevia

  I walk through the rest of the youth center without really seeing anything. They must have done something, perhaps cleared the entire building, because I don’t see another soul until I step back into the night where my black soul belongs.

  Harper and Némion are waiting for me at the back door with a house hummer at the ready, sitting at the curb. I’m not sure what Tabari, Lucien and Jack are doing. Probably trying to clean up my mess. I don’t know why they still care – let the world hate me, I don’t give a shit anymore.

  The rear of the youth center is a truck loading bay area. Where I assume goods for the stores in the mall were once dropped off.

  Némion, the crow, the human turned vampire – stands tall and proud. Dark skin, sharp cheek bones, eyes deep and dark that can turn the color of blood at the drop of a hat. Short hair, shaved on the sides, the top longer and died a deep red. A multitude of silver loops pierce her ears, burning her flesh constantly. She’s by far one of the scariest individuals I’ve ever known. She is my j’ira – my evil doer, as if I’ve ever needed someone else to do my evil for me.

  Everyone else is wearing a uniform, black BDUs with an eventide patch. Not Némion – she’s dripping in black leather with high heeled knee boots, the heels silver and pointed with spikes up the back.

  As I walk forward, she steps up behind me, our heels clicking in tandem on the concrete. In some ways Némion and I are creatures forged from the same heart and our tastes will always desire retribution in the most brutal of ways.

  Harper, Némion’s paramour, for lack of a better word, rushes forward to the waiting hummer and opens the rear door, holding it open. He hits his earpiece.

  “Copy, I have the Queen.”

  I’m shocked for a second how deep his voice is. When had the drugged-out kid turned into a man? He stands tall, a bit over six feet now, he has density – muscle, good weight on him. His eyes shine in the night a green-yellow mix with touches of brown. The half berserker man. He doesn’t turn into one of the beasties, but he does have some of their healing abilities, natural defenses against magic. The monster in him aches to get out, it wants to complete its transition, it wants to be free. But if Harper becomes a berserker, he has to submit to a Pax. It is the law now, a law I’d written.

  Némion can’t be a Pax. You have to have a soul, the ability to love to control a berserker. Her soul is long gone, and love is nothing but a distant memory to her.

  If Némion can’t be a Pax, then Harper won’t be a berserker. They are both less and more because of their love.

  I wonder if Jack and Lucien… even myself, are now less and more because of love.

  There will be no love in what happens next, there will be no grace. The world owes me, it owes me dearly and if Jack wishes to appease the queen, he will bring tribute to me this night.

  I slide into the luxurious hummer and Harper closes the door. I rub my fingertips along the deep stitching of the leather seats. I’ve never stitched a man’s mouth closed before. I’m filled with the desire to see that reporter moaning in pain, struggling to scream behind stitched lips as I destroy his asshole with my largest cock. I want to lick his tears as I grind into him, ruining him forever more.

  They think they know evil? Have seen my true face?

  It is almost laughable.

  Némion and Harper get into the truck. Harper is driving with Némion in the front passenger seat. Another one of the house hummers pulls up behind us before we can leave the parking lot of the shopping mall. I’m sure Frank and Carter are inside with orders to see me safe, as if I couldn’t end the world with a wish upon a star.

  Even away from Lucien and Jack, I feel them, their connection to the sun and moon is there for the taking. The moon is always stronger in me. I am Lilith reborn, a scion of Neoma, yet Jack acts my connection to that power. He was cursed with her aching coldness just so he could cope with the pain of being a vampire – I wonder if in part, it was so he could survive me.

  “The Kiss?” Harper whispers.

  Némion nods.

  They know they need to feed the dark queen. Kiss is a blood den. Privately owned by Némion of all people.

  She’d opened the vampire club for the express purpose of keeping a stable of human’s for drinking. With the monsters coming out into the light, making sure our evil doing remained private became a pressing issue. I’d also outlawed free range hunting. No more are vampires allowed to spill into the night and blood rape anyone that has the misfortune to cross their path.

  Even the Kindred hadn’t tried to outlaw the natural instincts of the monsters – they just had laws about getting caught while doing it.

  I’d made a lot of laws to try and protect mankind, to try and make sure they could live beside us, in the open, without fear – I’d done a lot of things back when I cared.

  Still, law is law, and my law still stands; with the monsters at least. At times we borrow help from Demetri, a pure blood that pretends to be a Blood Master. His crows can’t be expected to drive back to D.C. and their home clutch, Astrea, whenever they need a snack.

  With the silent war we have going with Valentine, we couldn’t use her facilities any longer and we simply don’t have enough room at the warehouse to keep a stable of blood whores… or apples, if you’re being polite about what to call the humans that volunteer to feed vampires.

  So Némion opened Kiss, a sort of sister club to Astrea. As far as I know Valentine took no exception, although, we’re clearly in her territory. I imagine more so because of the relationship Valentine and Némion still have rather than any kindness Valentine would show me.

  We’d left things ugly between us, really ugly. I hate that I miss her still.

  Another regret in a long list of regrets.

  I’ve only been to Kiss once. Jack took me on date night not long ago. We’d had a hell of a time… a blood orgy. I actually smile remembering the night.

  Before Azazael, before Hornigold, before the many betrayals – the things Jack and I did that bloody night would bother me. But that was before, and this is afte
r and I’d rather be the monster than the prey.

  “Demetri will be there tonight, my Queen.” Némion says, glancing back at me.

  I nod.

  Demetri may be Jack’s least favorite vampire and Lucien’s … neither of my men like him. Oddly enough, he’s grown on me. My dominant personality enjoys the taste of his lust, it has a robust flavor. My submissive personality enjoys his laughter and the ability to make her smile…. and well I? I enjoy the fact that I can be free around him, I’m comfortable with this eccentric vampire… I’m not completely sure why.

  He is not like my other friends. He’s not a soldier fighting an unwinnable war, or like Lucien – full of honor and depth. Even though Demetri is a vampire, he and Jack are painfully different. Demetri doesn’t have that sadness clinging to his soul… that ennui that follows Jack everywhere he goes. Dem, as I’ve come to call him, Dem lives his life as what he is, a sin filled vampire that’s more crow than pureblood and he doesn’t care to offer a single excuse for it.

  At first, I thought him to be bisexual at best, he and Jack did have an… encounter, under the loving tutelage of Némion. The more I get to know him, I would peg him as more of a pansexual, he doesn’t care if a person is trans, male to female, female to male, non-binary… he doesn’t care about a single gender identity… if you’re hot, damaged and willing to roll around in the sin with him… the willing part being optional – he’s all for adding you to his list of conquests.

  He also has a knack for survival. He’s not powerful himself, but he seems to always have powerful friends… including me now.

  Kiss is located in the Fringe, the area outside of Baltimore City Proper – not too far from the warehouse. Supernaturals tend to stick to the Fringe areas, away from the intrusive eyes of the CNAE. I may have brought us to the light, but most paranormals are distrustful of the humans, afraid of being judged for their oddities, afraid of not being understood. I can understand their concerns.

  Némion bought an old grist mill. The building is gorgeous, rustic. It has a nice lot of land around it for privacy and a grouping of houses close by that the humans and crows actually stay in rather than at the club like at the Secret or Astrea which are actual vampire clutches. Kiss in its entirety is for the pursuit of pleasure.

  Kiss isn’t a club open to the public, most don’t even know it exists. But that didn’t keep Némion from going all out. Slight hors d'oeuvres available after sundown, fine blood wines, and titillating human morsels all offered to be consumed.

  Harper drives me to the club that sits on the edge of the Jones Falls River, under the overpass and surrounded by trees.

  Even under the moonlight it’s easy to spot the waterwheel. The wood of the wheel is weather-aged but in good condition. I believe the building was preserved, at least before the fall, for historic reasons.

  The building is made of gray stone and muted white grout laid with expert craftsmanship. Black shingled roof, two stories with a basement. The windows are all blacked out with paint. If wasn’t for the line of expensive cars parked on the grassy knoll beside the building, the place would look abandoned.

  Harper parks the hummer at the front door. I sit in the car as Frank and Carter do their sweep of the premises.

  Némion gets out of the hummer and goes into the building, I’m sure to make preparations for my arrival. In the world of man I fell, and I fell hard – in the world of monsters I rose – my worthiness to be their queen is now uncontested. Odd the way that worked out.

  I gaze out into the tree line; the beating of my heart is slow and steady. From the outside I’m sure I look cool, collected – the slow rhythm of my heart means I’m at my most dangerous, my evil has a clear intent. Stalking, waiting for just the right moment to strike… all instinct.

  “Jae?” Harper stirs me from my mindless thoughts.

  “Yes?”

  “Use Carter tonight.” That actually clears my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Not sex, but a good flogging should do the trick.”

  “What are you talking about, Harper?” My voice, a few moments ago cool and collected, is now notably strained.

  Harper sighs, “He’s asked the Captain to reassign him. Rotate him off the Queen’s Guard. He’ll stay if you want him to stay.”

  I sigh, “Carter has issues and a night with me isn’t going to solve them.”

  “It will, all of his issues begin and end with you being unwilling to forgive him.”

  “He doesn’t want to forgive himself.”

  “How can he even begin to when his Queen won’t give him an ounce of grace?”

  “Harper…”

  “Our world revolves around you, our entire world. When we eat, when we sleep, where we live, who we date, who we love – it all revolves around you. His life is falling apart, the woman he loves is in a coma and his queen won’t even look at him without disgust or at best disappointment.”

  “He made his choices.”

  “He made a mistake…”

  “Why should I care?!”

  “Because…” he sighs, “because we need you to care, we need you to love us back.”

  “Being with me isn’t love.” I whisper.

  “It is to a monster.”

  9

  Jaevia

  Of course Carter is the one to open my door. Tall, blonde, drop dead handsome. He and Brianna would have made a dashing couple. Instead, she’s laying in a bed at a private care facility hooked up to IVs and being fed intravenously. Her mind completely ravaged by magic and by Azazael.

  There was nothing Tabari or even Kitty could do to bring her back.

  Brianna was a victim of Hornigold, one of the survivors from Camp Haven. She was scarred and on the edge; I should have done a better job of protecting her… helping her. Another name written in red on the pages of my blood ledger.

  Carter was hurting, looking for love in the wrong places. He’s just as damaged as Bri and as much of a monster as Hornigold. Damaged plus damaged doesn’t often work well. Lucien, Jack, and I simply beat the odds.

  After one night with Carter, Brianna tried to use magic to go back in time and undo what was done with her, just so she could love Carter. She was only trying to fix herself. She tried to eliminate Hornigold from the timeline, tried to unmake him, instead she released cataclysm. I lost people cleaning up that mess. My sins were exposed because of that mess. I made war with one of my closest friends because of that mess.

  Not to mention Big Mike. It was Carter that decided to tackle me, push me out of the way of the assassin instead of going after the man hell-bent on ending my life. In a split second he didn’t attack the threat, he saved me and let one of my best friends in either world… die. Everyone else thinks that’s what makes him a good bodyguard. His purpose wasn’t to save Big Mike, it was to save me – he just didn’t understand that I’m the kind of person that is always willing to die for their friends, and my life now is missing a piece because of his choice.

  My rational mind knows Carter needs to learn how to just move on. I know it’s time to move forward because once you get stuck you die. If you get stuck in the horror of your own memory, you flirt with insanity. I’m ready to move on, I’m ready to not care about the past anymore. But not caring and forgiving are two completely different beasts, Carter needs a forgiveness and that’s one thing I don’t have to give. All I have is pain and perhaps that will allow him to call the debt paid in his own heart and move on.

  I owe him, I owe all the berserkers, at least that much; because when the time comes, I know they’ll die for me.

  “My Queen.” He murmurs, eyes scanning the tree line beyond as I step from the hummer.

  I reach up and cup his face gently, his crystal blue eyes snap to me, filled with shock.

  “Do you want this to happen?”

  He closes his eyes as a light whimper escapes the back of his throat. The sound isn’t human, it’s canine. Some odd change in his vocal chords.

  “I
will do anything for it, please my Goddess, please.” His body begins trembling.

  “It would be only pain… no sex.”

  “Yes, my Goddess, I would never be worthy of your body. Please punish me, please just punish me.” His bottom lip trembles as a tear rolls down the side of his face.

  “Three paces behind me, head bowed.”

  “Yes, my Goddess.”

  I turn away from him and catch Harper’s look, he actually mouths ‘thank you’. What a crazy fucking world I live in now.

  Frank looks on from the bottom of the stairs with a face molded in stone. He’s good at that, hiding what he’s actually thinking.

  Once upon a time I would’ve cared about his opinion. These days, loyalty is the only requirement I have. And Frank is loyal to a fault.

  I stop at the foot of the stairs, “Carter will be at my personal disposal for the evening, call in a replacement guard.”

  He nods, “My Queen.”

  Someone, I’m not sure who, opens the door as I walk up the stairs to the mill. I step into a fog of magic, and sex, and death, and still know I’m the fucking party.

  The inside of the club is awash in red light. Semi-sheer dark curtains hanging down from ceiling around small seating areas. The space is actually wide open, the curtains give it an air of privacy when in actuality, you can stand at the front and see to the back.

  The dark stone walls glitter in the red light like the stars of the universe. The wood floors gleam a dark red, polished to a high shine. The smell is deep and filled with the scent of vampire – dark chocolate. All crows, no purebloods other than Jack and Demetri come here… this is a place for the turned.

  Behind the curtains I see bodies moving, fucking or feeding I’m not sure which, knowing Kiss, probably both.

  I don’t bother exploring this floor. To the left is the open stair to the second floor. The second floor will be cleared for my pleasure. I’m not sure if Némion will be joining me tonight, but she is always welcomed to ply her skills beside me. Torture is more fun with a friend.