by Fox Lancet
There was a couch in the front room where Saliea found herself finally settling at four in the morning. She slid into sleep quickly and found herself waking to Sam and the owner, Van, just as quickly.
“That’s a new one, Saliea. Couldn’t find your way home last night?” Van barely regarded her as he wandered through the lobby, flipping on lights and computers. He was an all-around large guy: six foot-four inches accompanied with a thickness that was a combination of muscle and fat. His arms were sleeved in tattoos and he wore long shorts that revealed tattoo-covered shins and calves.
“Nah.” Saliea yawned and stretched. “Just didn’t feel like going home last night.” She and Sam met each other with aloof glances. Van looked from one to the other, aware of their living situation. He didn’t note any evident hostility or tension between the two so he ignored the statement and flipped through a calendar of appointments.
“Well, you’re not gone, so I take it your walk didn’t get you anywhere,” Sam mentioned when Van vanished into his studio. Saliea stood, straightening her skirt. She didn’t answer him. “Don’t worry, I’m sure they didn’t abandon you.” Sam set himself in front of a computer to start meddling on the internet. Saliea sneered at his back.
“I’m not worried. But you can tone the jealousy down about ten notches.”
“Why are you even here?”
“To pass the time.” She fingered through a magazine on the coffee table that supported all the resident artists’ portfolios. “You gotta be such a dick the last day you might see me?”
“It might help if you acted somewhat regretful, like you might actually miss me, that I might actually mean something to you.”
“So that’s what this is about?”
Sam turned in the chair after closing the browser window.
“You have to understand I have to detach myself. I sort of have been since Hunter and Syler found me, if you hadn’t noticed.”
He rolled his eyes at her, the casual use of their names rousing contempt in him.
“I did. But you have to understand I’m not going anywhere. My life is staying the same it will just be devoid of you.”
“That’s a good point.” Saliea had pushed the magazine away and was considering Sam sternly. “I’m not sure if there is much we can do in this opposing position.” Sam wetted his bottom lip and rubbed his hand over the gruff of his jaw and chin.
“A hard-core make-out session would be pretty sweet.” He ran a hand down his black and white shirt, smoothing the wrinkles momentarily before they curled back in place in the wake of the passing pressure. Saliea gave him a relieved smile, refreshed by his humor.
“I don’t think so, Sam,” she denied him verbally when she knew he hadn’t meant it to be serious because she also knew if she consented even as a joke he would have executed the idea in a heartbeat.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m like your brother or some shit. Well, we have a little while and I think I have an idea you won’t say ‘no’ to.” He stood and meandered to his studio with Saliea trailing somewhat begrudgingly.
She exited the building a couple of hours later, wearing a new tattoo. It was small, under the curve of her breast on her left rib cage. Sam had wanted to leave his mark—men and their desire to piss on their territory even when it wasn’t theirs. Saliea had consented because she had valued his friendship and didn’t mind the reminder of him. It was merely his initials, made to look like they were bleeding as if freshly cut wounds. Fortunately it was small and would heal quickly without much irritation.
Normally Sam would have joined her at the show, but he had declined casually, claiming to have a lucrative piece to work on that night. She knew he was lying, he just didn’t want to be tempted to thwart her new prospects.
With the few hours left before the show, Saliea went home to eat and lounge in front of the TV. Her anxiety came and went in small waves. It was almost more excitement mixed with a little nervousness, worried no one would show up for her.
As she ambled up to the Gothic after parking a few blocks away, she didn’t bother to survey the crowd. One of the reasons she liked shows was to people-watch. But there was only one reason she was there now, and she knew her sight would not assist her in finding it.
The show had not begun and the crowd was still thin, but filling quickly. Once inside she set herself up close to the stage, under the balcony. She braced a shoulder against the support beam and rested one of her booted feet across the top of the other. And she waited. She did not have to wait long.
A pall seemed to suddenly shroud the room in some strange darkness. Everything was still clear and visible but an ominous shadow overcast the already subtle light. No one noticed save for Saliea. She recognized the familiar sensation instantly, anxiousness claiming her. It wasn’t strong enough to be Nefarion, but that didn’t matter, one of them had found her and that was all that she had wanted.
Saliea swallowed, keeping her eyes forward, waiting to receive the subsequent feeling once he was closer: desperate familiarity. She closed her eyes, imagining the visage of the man who would accompany it, the man who would be too attractive and too dark to house a human soul. A fact Saliea knew wholeheartedly. She wondered if he would snatch her up without reserve like last time or if he would opt for stealth because of the notoriety that he must have expelled from their last encounter.
Finally the desperate feeling warmed her back and began seeping into her. She inhaled deeply and turned her head slowly to look over her shoulder. When her eyes came to rest on the tall, insidious figure moving through the crowd, he halted. His glossy obsidian eyes bore into her.
This time she took a moment to examine him thoroughly while a smirk seemed to naturally bask across his face. Fine black hair dangled brokenly in front of his eyes, more thickly down his Roman nose. A slim patch of hair grew below his bottom lip and followed the center of his chin before ending shortly after the edge of his chin. His lips were an even medium and though the entirety of his features looked mischievous, his lips alone looked seductive. Last she had seen him, he had been shirtless. Now he wore a sleeveless navy button up that sat open, revealing dog tags and the crossed tips of his AK-47 tattoos.
He was slightly obscured by the crowd and she could not identify any more tattoos, but he had many visible face piercings. His hair was shaved high on his head and she could make out spikes protruding from the cartilage at the top of both ears like tiny horns. Both lobes were gauged small and his bottom lip had a snake-bite piercing, as well as both cheeks adorned with two small silver balls, feigning dimples.
After just a brief moment, he finished his approach. He pressed part of his chest and arm into her back and looked down at her, his smile growing. No one around them took the contact as out of the ordinary as the crowd thickened.
“You remember me.” His voice was deep and resonant. It had an unnatural sound. The thoughts of their first encounter rattled through her mind.
“How could I forget?” Saliea stretched her shoulders, reaching her arms out slightly without touching anyone, to try and relieve some of the tension between her shoulders. Oddly, she was finding it difficult to make eye contact. A suddenly broad smile pulled her attention back to his face.
“Yet, you have returned.” The question was more of a statement. “We should not be disrupted this time.” His demeanor turned very austere and his massive grip wrapped around her small upper arm. He leaned down to put his mouth close to her ear. “You have no choice but to come with me.” A thoughtful pause followed the statement. “No, there is one choice: if you prefer I can take you by force like I did the first time.” The memory filled her chest with excitement, but not the same excitement that the mere nearness of Nefarion put in her so she frowned.
“Hunter, I’ve been waiting patiently for you. Will you take me to Nefarion now?” She finally fought off some of her unease and looked into his eyes as he straightened. A smile wavered on his mouth.
“He has found you.” He regarded her ponderously.
“He found you, yet you are not with him. Why is this?”
“Kaleb,” her response was clipped. This killed his smile. Hunter glowered.
“What has happened?” She attempted to push past him, but it was like pressing up against a stone wall. With a huff, she rolled her eyes and pushed past the crowd next to him instead. He followed closely, practically walking on top of her. “Tell me, woman. What has happened? Is the Lord well?” They had come to the top of the ramp near the bar, before the lobby.
“He’s fine, of course, Hunter. As far as I know. You can’t tell me you ever doubt his well-being?”
“Kaleb is here?” He ignored her question as Saliea began attempting to sift through the crowd that grew off the bar like layers of maggots on filth. Her effort kept her from responding in a timely manner and Hunter grabbed her arm again and shoved carelessly through the mass, dragging Saliea in his wake. Many people grunted or cursed, but none retaliated. However, their hasty exit drew negative attention and Saliea watched security guards and police officers swarm through the crowd toward them.
“Hunter,” was all she could manage as they exited and stepped onto the sidewalk before chaos broke out.
“Don’t move. Freeze. Hold it.” Several overlapping voices commanded, guns drawn. There were sharp gasps and shrieks from the crowds smoking outside in designated areas. A semi-circle of six police officers formed around Saliea and Hunter. Saliea gaped at the ends of the barrels pointed in her direction, her thoughts flickering through her memory for the placement of her knives. Three in her bra, one in each boot. Before she could even imagine retrieving them, there was a sudden shout of surprise and Saliea glanced in its direction.
A police officer had depleted to a knee, his gun clattering to the concrete. He groaned in torment as he stared with glossy eyes at the hilt of a small dagger protruding between the knuckles of his trigger finger and middle finger. The attention of all of the officers had momentarily detracted to their injured comrade.
Saliea glanced at Hunter. A red glow that had not been there before was seething in the depths of his black eyes and he was already in the process of making his next move.
He snagged her around the waist and pulled her into his side as he twirled his large-linked wallet chain in his free hand. There was no wallet on the other end, but a six-inch blade. Just as the officers were returning their attention, Hunter loosened his grip to let the slack of his chain follow its spinning length. The weapon made a wide circle past two officers’ outstretched arms. When the chain had made a full rotation, Hunter tightened his grip and pulled back. The loop constricted and took the officers by surprise, their arms smashed together, choked by the chain. One of the guns jolted from their hands. The other officer held fast to his fire-arm, but lost control and hit the trigger.
Hunter cursed when he saw that one of the guns still remained and spun on his heel with Saliea still in his clutch. When the gun went off, Saliea felt his body jerk against hers.
“Fuck,” Hunter roared.
“Hunter,” she breathed and caught a bright flash of red out of her peripheral vision when she tried to look at him. He threw her away and she stumbled on her feet, coming to a crouch at the foot of one of the officers.
Eyes ablaze, Hunter twisted back toward the ensnared officers and yanked the chain again, dragging them toward him. Another pistol barked and Hunter snarled as a bullet slammed into the back of his right shoulder. The wound did not slow him as he released his weapon and grabbed the nearest officer in the chain. His weapon jangled to the sidewalk and he gave the second nearby officer a treacherous stomp to the side of his knee. The officer screamed in agony as his knee snapped sideways, sending him crumbling to the ground. With hardly a second in between, Hunter conjured another blade and slit the throat of the officer in his grasp, pushing him softly away afterward, then kicking him viciously and sending him reeling into another police officer. The latter’s gun went off, this time up into the air.
At this point, the crowd had been barred inside the venue, security herding their curious eyes away from the glass doors.
Two officers remained standing in the short moments that had ensued, but sirens were wailing in the near distance. Saliea was still at the foot of one who had made no attempt to assist her, keeping his gun fixed on Hunter and shouting empty threats.
Saliea heard his pistol go off above her head followed shortly by Hunter’s growl of disapproval. She scowled and relieved one of the larger blades from her boot then reached around the officer’s ankle, slicing the Achilles tendon of his right leg. To her surprise, he made no exclamation but merely cursed an insult under his breath. As he fell to his knees, he pistol-whipped Saliea.
Her vision went black, but when she came to, Hunter was pulling her from the sidewalk. The officer who had assailed her was lying behind her, a pool of rich blood expanding around his head like a black halo. Hunter lifted her off her feet to carry her.
“I can walk, I’m fine,” she resisted him testily.
“Silence, it will be faster this way. We must retreat immediately.” Hunter carried her in both his arms and began sprinting from the scene. Saliea surveyed the area over his shoulder as it shrunk away. Six lifeless police officers were sprawled across the sidewalk before the doors of the Gothic Theatre. The bright marquee’s flashing lights mocked the contorted, bloodied corpses, illuminating the deaths into an irreverent spectacle. He had used their pistols to execute all of the officers while she had been out, which had not been for long. She sneered.
“Now tell me, Kaleb is here and he and Nefarion had some sort of dealing?” Hunter was running them into the neighborhood east of Broadway; a neighborhood full of small, dimly lit homes with chain-link fences and green yards. The sirens did not escalate, but they did not diminish either.
“Yeah, but it was short-lived. Now where are we going and when am I allowed to carry myself?” They had gone several blocks, the sight of Broadway long departed. Just as she asked, he turned onto an exceptionally dark street and stopped three houses down. He set her on her feet, but placed a strong hand on the back of her neck.
“That’s not really necessary.” Saliea attempted to wrest from the grip, but it only tightened. He opened the disheveled wooden gate and led her to the door, all the while glancing about, up and down the street, and at nearby windows, two red pinpoints resting in his eyes.
“I will not allow your escape a second time. I will not be made a fool,” Hunter said, shouldering through the heavy wooden door. There was no second screen or glass door and the knob of the entrance was a dingy, squeaky brass.
“Trust me. I’ll come with you willingly so long as you plan to take me to Nefarion.” Hunter flicked on a soothing, golden light. The red in his eyes vanished and he regarded her quizzically.
“Why is it that you would not come with Syler and me willingly before, but now that you have met Lord Nefarion you yield? What was his threat? A hideously slow dismemberment? Skinning you alive?” Hunter laughed deeply, his eyes closing for a moment.
She tried again to extract from his grip, anger building inside her.
“Nothing like that, but I can tell you if he saw the way you were treating me, he would probably perform one of those acts on you,” she spat, feeling the bruises forming under his fingertips the more she resisted. He began to lead her down a black hallway.
“I see. Well, I will believe you when he divulges his own affinity for you to me.”
Saliea relaxed, perturbed by his words. “You haven’t talked to him about it yet?”
He flicked on another light, this one pale white, and he looked down at her. “No, Syler and I have yet to be united with Lord Nefarion. I am vexed that he found you before he found his commanders.”
“I’m not.”
Without responding, Hunter led her to the single-size bed on an iron frame. A pair of handcuffs dangled from its headboard. He sat her down and connected her to the bars with the cuffs.
“God, this is ridiculous,” Sal
iea announced indignantly, her voice elevating. He continued to ignore her.
“So neither Kaleb nor Nefarion are dead, though you claim Kaleb to be the reason for your separation.”
Saliea rolled her eyes, leaning back and throwing her booted feet on the bed.
“Fuck you, Hunter. Until your start treating me with more respect, then I don’t need to tell you shit.” She crossed her arms as best she could against the restraint pinching the skin at her left wrist. Hunter sneered at her.
“Respect? You must be making a jest. What reason have I to give you respect?” Hunter propped himself against a white wall near the bed, out of kicking-range. Saliea’s chest expanded in an irritated breath.
“I know what I am to you and your…whatever you guys are. And I know I’m important. If you failed to catch me or I got killed, Nefarion would fucking kill you.” Hunter did not make any signs of surprise or interest, merely lifting a black brow.
“I nearly forgot about the mouth on you, woman.”
“My name is Saliea, you dick! Unlike you, my name was one of the first things your Lord asked me.” She emphasized the title Hunter used for Nefarion in a scornful manner and Hunter’s features crumbled with agitation.
“Your arrogance is inane. Now tell me of the fortunes that have fallen upon Nefarion while in your presence.” His stance had become rigid, his patience dwindling.
Saliea growled an insult and swiftly grabbed the bed-side lamp with her free hand, ripping its cord from the wall and lobbing it savagely at Hunter. The ceramic cylinder of the blue object glanced off his right shoulder as he went to dodge it. It bounced off his body and smashed into the wall behind him. The pulverized fragments surged violently in every direction, a dull dent where it had hit.
Hunter’s eyes went wide, the red glimmer from earlier returning. He growled, the force of the projectile rousing the pain of the bullet wound in the back of his shoulder. His jaw clenched and he glared at Saliea with acrimony.