by Drue M Scott
Noticing that her understanding was coming into focus, he continued. “Yes. It was so easy to spike your drink while you were off in thought or memory or whatever the hell it was.” His smile widened. “What do you say we have another go of it? If I recall correctly, you loved the taste of Jonathan’s cock.”
Turning as quickly as her fuzzy mind and coordination would allow, Haley attempted an exit from the room.
Moving with supernatural speed, he was off the bed and in front of the door before she could finish pivoting on her heels. “I’ve amassed some skills over the years, too, my dear.” He laughed at her surprise. “Watch this!” His words barely touched her ears when he had lifted them both from the floor and moved them speedily to the bed. It was a fluid and quick motion, but nothing like jumping; it was far smoother and almost pleasant. Levitating their bodies just inches from the soft sheets on his mattress, he almost appeared kind. His eyes were soft and caring; his touch gentle and arousing. “I’m going to make this last so much longer than it did before, my dear. You are far too good a fuck to waste on a quick pump and dump: the fuck of the century.” He laughed as he caught up his words with a single finger to his lips. “Literally, you are the fuck of the century.” The timbre of his laugh echoed in the half-circle room. “Get it? Cause it’s been 100 years since I…”
For all her strength and years of practice and all her hate filled revenge scenarios, Haley was more trapped now than she had ever felt, even more than on the first night they met. She could excuse a clueless unaware girl from making stupid mistakes with a guy, but she was not that girl anymore. Yet, somehow, she had ended up in the same situation. Her rage continued to swell, but his power over her was stronger than she could break free of. Whatever drug he had used to subdue her was enough to deaden her energy, so that she could do little else but accept her fate. He would tear from her all she had built over the years: her independence, her dignity, her self-esteem, and her joy. But the fact he would steal her chance for revenge, hurt the most. Everything was crashing down around her. Her feelings and emotions were overwhelmingly swirling around her brain leaving her little space to think about how to maneuver free. Her hate continued to well up, but it felt trapped within her and on the verge of exploding in a fire that would consume her completely. Her mentor’s words began echoing in her mind, Revenge only changes the future. Nothing felt real, and it all felt too real, compressing every fiber of her existence.
“By the way, my name is Jacob.” He laughed floating her down and resting her body gently on the bed. “I consumed your fuck-all of a boyfriend several months back.” Jacob twisted his face and shimmered. His whole existence shifted. He was far less like Jonathan in appearance now, but he still had the sick sense of self-humor. “His memories of you were quite vivid even after all these years.” Laughing he hovered just inches above Haley. “I knew I had to find you and taste that pussy for myself.”
His words sickened Haley and showered her with dread. Fighting she tried to manage the only energy she felt she had left.
“Oh dear,” Jacob paused grinning cynically, “I have far more power in my left nut than you have throughout your body right now.” Guiding his right hand to his dangling privates, Jacob fondled his softening member. Instantly, he was fully clothed again. “Oh yeah and that blowjob you tried giving me… I stole your energy.” He descended closer to her but still remained suspended in the air. “Enough to make sure you would be defenseless, but not so much as to kill your physical form.” Tracing his finger across her breasts and circling it down to her hips he giggled. “I like this body; it gives me pleasure.”
Hailey felt her senses were deadening at the onslaught of uncontrolled emotional upheaval and from the amount of life-force Jacob had stolen from her. Her long years and youthful appearance were a gift from her mentor she learned many years ago. She understood that it was this energy, the ethereal essence of life, which he had stolen. It was exactly the thing she was meant to avoid. Revenge only changes the future. Had she not sought this out, it wouldn’t have pursued her in return. She knew only moments remained in her ability to maintain a conscious thought. Sadly, this would be her last recollection, her last sight, her last memory, again.
“GODDAMNIT!” Her mind screamed under the frustration of her unreleased anger. She could muster little else from her weakening body. “Help me, Kyna.” The last of her words fell as a whisper from her lips. The smallest amount of hope struggled to remain that her mentor might possibly hear the call and come to her rescue.
“Wait. I’ve heard that name before?” Jacob quipped as Haley fell limp in his arms. Shaking her violently trying to wake her, he questioned again. “Seriously, who the fuck is Kyna?”
Chapter V
Entanglement
Convergence; Dispersion
Her name rang out hard on his mind. Stewart leapt Mikale’s body up from the small two-person table across from the bar.
Stunned at the sudden uninitiated movement of his body, Mikale blurted out loudly in the crowded dive. “What the hell, Stewart!” As soon as the words passed his lips, he realized what an odd sight it must have been. Quickly attempting a recovery, he smiled while looking at those who had taken note. “Sorry. I dropped my food.” His awkward fumbling of words did nothing to curb the disapproving stares of the other patrons. Returning to his seat, Mikale could feel Stewart’s pull on his body attempting to remove them from the uncomfortable wooden chair. The small, rather foul-smelling bar just a block from the hotel was full of locals enjoying an evening beer—or whatever the locals around here enjoyed—and though it was not the sort of place Mikael would have ventured into of his own accord, they did have a pretty damn good slice of pepperoni. The walls were adorned with pictures of various hikers and different rivers in the area. At least, Mikale assumed they were from the area. The whole place felt like it was meant for a reality TV show about living in the outer reaches of Alaska. Wood shavings on the floor, carved driftwood bar stools, and dim lighting lent a wilderness feel to the small rectangular bar.
“Did you not feel that?” Stewart chimed in over Mikale’s worries about what the folks in the bar must have been thinking. “It was her name.”
“I felt something.” Mikale quipped. “But I heard no name. What are you talking about?”
“Someone is calling out to Kyna. There is a pull in my energy that is begging for an audience.” Stewart was struggling with words to describe the sensation. There would be no way he could clearly convey what he felt. The call was clearly meant for his love, but in its desperation, the energy was reaching out to anyone in tune enough to hear/feel it.
“You seriously need to work on your language skills.” Mikale, not understanding the urgency of what Stewart felt, responded in jest. Though he could sense what Stewart felt most times, the current sensation was unfamiliar.
“Mikale!” His worry stuck hard against them both.
“Ok, Ok. Just let me pay.” Rising up from his seat and reaching for his wallet, Mikael noticed the people were still staring at him, at them. He knew though his words passed undetected in this plane, the concentration upon his face must have been apparent. Figuring it best to leave as quickly as possible, he threw down a twenty for the $13.50 bill and bee lined it for the exit with a faint “thank you” on his lips. With a shrug, the bartender placed his right hand flat to the bill on the counter and, with his left, gestured something resembling a wave. Almost immediately, the half-full room went back to their drinks and conversations.
The cold outside was harsh and bit at Mikale’s skin, reminding him why he had never really liked the north that much. It felt like the short distance to their—his—hotel room was going to take forever.
“Would you mind explaining to me again just what you are talking about?”
“I’m afraid, my dearest friend, there isn’t time.” The anxiety in his tone felt frighteningly urgent. “We must use what energy we have and go to this call. It is imperative.” Mikale knew the seriousness
with which Stewart spoke and that he would never ask such a demanding task had it not been of real importance. Finally making it back to the privacy of their small hotel room, which more and more reminded Mikale of a scene from some indie film about a serial killer traveling the country, Stewart reiterated. “We must go.”
“I get it,” Mikale, sounding out of breath, spoke audibly. It was much easier for him to simply speak rather than always using his thoughts to convey his words. It felt far less sci-fi to him. “Take us where we need to go, Stewart. You have whatever energy I can spare.”
Stewart didn’t hesitate. Upon consent, he pulsed their intermeshed beings in and out of phase.
No matter how many times they had traveled using life-force and how easily it was achieved, Mikale still felt like it was the last time he would experience reality, and somehow, he would be stuck in a great void between this plane and the next. The air around him pulled inward as though his very physical form had become a black-hole absorbing all which existed near it. With a bright flash and a reverberation of lighted rings echoing away from his body, Mikale was suddenly standing at the entry way into a bedroom with a single bed set at its center. The whole room before him was a vista of trees and brush that he could see through the floor to ceiling windows. There upon the low placed mattress was a man grasping the limp body of a woman. They were both naked. It was difficult to understand what the man spoke, but Mikale could make out the name Stewart had said he distinctly heard—the name, which instantly brought sorrow to them both.
Dismissing his attention from the naked woman as a two-year-old would drop a toy when he was done abusing it, the man turned his attention to the stranger in the doorway. In less than a second, he was standing directly in front of Mikale.
Clearly, there was some use of power that allowed such rapid movement. Mikale, through knowledge gained by having Stewart share his body, had only known Kyna to use such mastery of skill. The controlled burst of life-force was much more easily achieved over distances. In such close proximity, the sheer will of starting and stopping such a show of power would require expert timing. All of this amazed Mikale, but his mild admiration for the skill displayed was turned to uneasiness at the man’s nakedness and ever-present angst as he stepped inward towards him even closer. Their proximity was such that Mikale could feel the man’s breath on his lips.
“Uh, I could use some help here,” The nervous words Mikale thought fell weak upon his mind, but his friend, his soul sharer, was not there. “Stewart?” A sudden empty feeling washed over him. Mikale could barely remember what it felt like to not have someone, Stewart or Brennan, intertwined within him. It was the most vacant feeling he could ever imagine having. Somehow, his soul companion had done well at holding back the flood of emotions related to Jason. Mikale longed for his lost love, and he mourned regularly because of his absence, but now it felt like the whole world, its moon, and the neighboring planets that circled the sun rested upon his heart. His shoulders dropped in a defeated slump at the sudden weight he could not bear. In equal parts, Mikale felt awe and sorrow. The amount of energy Stewart must have been exerting in order to dam up his emotions and maintain a trickle-in effect of his grief must have been immense. He could barely conjure a full thought, but the idea that he had not appreciated Stewart’s efforts enough pounded hard against his mind. Feeling the warmth of the naked man’s breath, Mikale tried to take a step back from the menacing confronter. His hands shook in time with his quivering lips. He realized with great horror that he was alone.
A loud, piercing shriek filled the room: the highest pitched noise Mikale had ever heard. It was deafening and painful. He could still feel the breath of his confronter upon his face as he fell to his knees. A stark and frightening realization crashed upon him equal to the pain the sound caused; he was in a situation he would have to face alone. How could I possibly stand a chance against such power? The question tore at his gut, sickening him at the knowledge he was no real match for the unclothed man, or whatever caused the screeching sound. Where his soul companion had gone to, he was unsure, but the certainty of Stewart’s absence was apparent. The lingering sensation of his presence hung near, but his life-energy was not there. With an abrupt thunderous stop, the sound was gone. Mikale found himself flat on his back lying on the floor. Jacob was hovering over him just close enough for parts of his body to touch Mikale; the parts Mikale would have rather not been touching him. The man grinned with malicious intent.
“I believe, my friend, you have dropped yourself into the middle of a situation that… well… that you should not have.” Holding back a chuckle of laughter, he began to pull at Mikale’s shirt, lifting it to reveal his lower torso. “I’ve things I could do with this body before killing you, but my attention is presently drawn in a different direction.” Jacob sneered looking at the attractive body of his captive. “Sad for you, though.” He paused.
The piercing sound returned, but with it, a bright blue hue of refracted light shot through the room. It was a lightning bolt of sound and light without the fire damage.
“Though it’d be no love loss for me really, I’m going to have to insist that you not kill him just, yet.” Brennan spoke with a booming voice, demanding and authoritative. His words felt like hammers pounding against an anvil.
“Excuse me,” Jacob spoke and was cast up into the air nearly hitting the ceiling before flying across the room and landing upon the bed almost crashing down upon Haley. Jacob felt the air in the room become heavier. An unseen weight forced itself upon his chest, and he could not move.
“Yes. Excuse you.” Brennan began speaking normally. “Excuse you, indeed.” Lifting Mikale from the floor, Brennan attempted a smile.
Surprised he had used his hands and not his powerful mastery of energy, Mikale peered directly into his rescuer’s eyes. Ignoring all else, he desperately searched for any sign that Ken was still there, in some way. Brennan turned away quickly as if he knew what Mikale was searching for and he didn’t want to satisfy the curiosity.
“Someone here sent out a truly powerful energy burst.” He paused surveying each of the presences in the room. “I could not help but explore its origin.” His fluid movements from the doorway where Mikale still stood to the bed appeared ethereal and unnatural. “I sense your hate, and I certainly felt its call, but I doubt that hate would ever consider calling her name.”
Mikale’s expression dropped, and a hollow feeling swelled up within him. He understood that Brennan had felt the same thing—heard the same thing—that Stewart had. “Kyna.” Her name felt like love could take the form of words as he said it aloud. “Stewart heard her name, too. I felt something but it was Stewart, he… he knew it was her name.” Mikale tried to interject, but his words felt like whispers in a room of shouting masses.
“That’s nice, lover boy.” Brennan paused looking back to his once friend. “I’m glad that your ‘soul-mate’ was able to hear his lost lover’s name.” The disgust in Brennan’s eyes frightened Mikale. He had never seen such animosity conveyed with a single glare. “Could you kindly shut the fuck up while I finish questioning Mr. Soft Cock over here?”
Turning his attention squarely on Jacob, light flared up around Brennan’s corporeal form, and he was instantly sitting on the bed just behind his unclothed captive. With legs crossed and hands on his knees, Brennan appeared as a man about to drop into deep meditation. Haley’s bare body lay just to the side of Jacob and very near Brennan’s feet. Though she was still unconscious, everyone present could feel her energy beginning to return. Leaning in over his crossed legs appearing almost playful, Brennan breathed heavy words into Jacob’s ear.
“I admire your hate and lust, but I cannot allow you to steal the lives of either of the two lambs present. One holds some special meaning to a part of my energy that I’ve yet to purge myself of, and well… the other, she spoke the name of someone very important to me.” Brennan paused briefly lifting his eyes from Jacob to see Mikale still motionless in the doorway. T
he eyes of his previous soul-sharer were welling up with tears. He knew his words would hold a wellspring of emotion for Mikale. His motivation for seeing that emotion distort the young man’s face, however, was curiously cruel and yet not fully known. “So, I am left with a decision to make.” Directing his attention once again to Jacob, “One, do I kill you and take your energy, or two, do I find some other creative way to rid myself of your peskiness?”
“May I offer up a third option?” Jacob’s question, hesitant and hopeful, piqued his captor’s interest.
“Proceed.”
“I think I understand who Kyna is to you; as well as who you are, and this poor sad creature in the doorway. But the other man, the one I sense you have a great deal of hate towards is missing.”
“You’re testing my patience” Brennan quickly interrupted. “I could give a fuck less that you know who I am or that you know who Kyna is. Get to your point”
“Devin!” Jacob blurted out quickly and much louder than he had intended. “I was Devin’s plan to kill all of you… well, your physical forms at least.” Trying to move himself upward, Brennan forced his energy down upon Jacob keeping him in his place. “Devin taught me skills to absorb fractured souls, use their energy to strength myself immensely, and he hoped to have me release that energy against you.” His words began tickling a resting monster within Brennan.
“Continue.”
“I didn’t follow through. I love the high. I love all this power, all this darkness that I can act upon with little to no consequence.” Clearing his throat, he moved to a seated position on the bed. Brennan did not stop his movement. “Clearly, you are very powerful and to this I aspire. But couldn’t you use someone such as me to act on your behalf in things you find less deserving of your time?”
“Though you have amassed a fair amount of skill with your stolen energy and can clearly bend it to your will, the questions it poses are inconsequential. So, what is it you believe you can do for me that I cannot do for myself?” The curiosity in Brennan’s voice slid softly into impatience.