by Quil Carter
He’s underdeveloped, foolish, a naïve creature in need of breaking, but that is the enjoyable part. The training, the pain, the submission… so much wonderful work, until I hold in my hands another loyal nightcrawler; one that will follow in my shadow beside my first protégé.
And it’s not only the thirst to break that will be satiated, the power I will be able to harvest from his body will make us all more powerful. Another resource to derive the fluid we need to keep our minds from trying to destroy themselves.
“Keluva?” Kheva whispered, his hushed voice cold.
Kel didn’t answer. Although he was no longer whining or clutching his head, Kheva was unsure if he was still in any pain.
The migraine headaches… one of the unfortunate by-products of being as powerful as they were. At first, they started out as momentary bursts of pain, ones that could easily be ignored, but gradually they became stronger, until they were debilitating to the point of inducing insanity.
They were the first signs of a maturing mind, and once these unique abilities started to develop and grow, the nightcrawler’s mind set off what could only be called a homing beacon. It was like a lighthouse in the middle of a black ocean, a single sun in the overwhelming darkness of space…
But in all honesty, it was a desperate cry for help.
The body fluid got rid of the headaches. Whether it be blood, semen, or even saliva, it was one of only a handful of ways to quiet the mind down.
But, as Kheva had learned in the beginning of his own personal training, it had to be from another nightcrawler. There was something about the raw power that emanated from their bodies that made the fluid so effective to one another.
No other cure had been found. When the migraines came, they needed a supply.
And now Sasha had made himself known. His mind had declared him ready for the next step, and the beacon had been lit.
Now it was up to the master to train him.
Body, mind, and spirit.
Like I did my Keluva Swift.
“Kel?” Kheva called to him again.
Kel’s brow knitted, and the hand that was resting against his head moved. He ran it down his black hair, picking up bits of blood and stray strands, before he held it out in front of him.
“I…” Kel inhaled a deep breath, then he opened his eyes and looked up at his master.
Then he smiled, small at first, before it grew wide. “I feel fine.”
The corners of Kheva’s mouth rose, and he watched with a glint in his eye as his student rose to his feet. Kel kept his sunny smile, and when he saw the expression on his master’s face, an energetic giggle spilled from pulled tight lips.
“He’s ours, isn’t he?” Kel asked, his tone dropped but still vibrating with excitement. “Sashy is one of us?”
Kheva’s smirk gave way to a faint smile, and one of his dark eyebrows rose.
“Yes, Keluva,” Kheva said contently, before he turned to look back out the dark window. “Sasha is ours.”
CHAPTER 5
Sasha stretched out on Lex’s couch and patted his stomach as Lex’s cat Friskie sauntered by. The overweight tabby cat looked at him with a twitch of his whiskers, before accepting the invitation and hopping onto Sasha’s stomach.
“Missed your chance, asshole,” Sasha said to Lex’s second cat, a black and white, more aloof cat named Jockster. He was supposed to have been named after the Xena character Joxer, but without close captioning, and the internet unavailable at the time, the spelling had gotten lost in translation.
Jockster looked up from his grooming, his back leg sticking straight up in the air, he stared at Sasha for a moment, before he went back to his licking.
It was dinner time at Uncle Lex’s, just the two of them. Jobe was working tonight, and in truth, Sasha was looking forward to having some time with just him and his uncle. He loved Jobe more than anything, but he missed the days when it was just him and Uncle Lex. They’d practically grown up together since Lex had gotten custody of him at such a young age, but over the years, and with Sasha’s abundance of problems, they had become more distant.
Sasha looked up when he heard a loud clatter come from the kitchen, followed by a string of curse words. “Do you need help?” Sasha called, holding back the chuckle.
“No, I just always forget that steam is just waiting to rise up from the spaghetti noodle water to boil my damn hand alive when I go to drain it,” Lex called back. Sasha snorted at this and petted Friskie on the head.
Lex’s house was a world different from Sasha’s small apartment. It was open concept with light grey walls, mahogany floors and fluffy shag rugs that seemed to massage your feet. The furniture was real leather, the electronics all updated, including a huge plasma TV, and there were walls of bookshelves holding everything from medical and psychology books, to horror and fantasy.
Everything was clean, and Sasha was to thank for that. Once a week he came and cleaned his uncle’s house for three hours and he got fifty bucks cash to do it. During his low points, it was sometimes difficult to get it done, but it was good exercise and it helped keep his mind off of whatever was bothering him that day.
“Okay, bug,” Lex said from the kitchen, bug being a nickname Sasha had acquired from his uncle when he was little. “Dig in, the garlic bread is in the oven so hurry before it burns.”
Sasha gently picked up Friskie and put him down beside him, and as he rose to his feet, he was greeted by the enticing smells of spaghetti, garlic bread, and caesar salad. Amongst many other things, Alexandir Zakharin was an excellent cook.
Sasha walked into the kitchen––off-grey walls with black and white granite countertops complete with a checkered backsplash––and beelined towards the plates laid out on the center island.
“It smells fucking awesome,” Sasha said. He picked up a plate and drooled over the sauce he could see boiling in a large metal pot. “Beats the hell out of pizza, that’s for sure.” He stepped past Lex and started scooping up the noodles.
“But after twelve hour shifts pizza does have its charm,” Lex replied. “You can have all the leftovers as usual. You’re starting to lose more weight. How have you been eating?” Just to show how unimpressed he was with Sasha’s figure, he dove a fork into the spaghetti noodles and added another forkful to Sasha’s plate.
Sasha was used to this though. Lex had been complaining about how skinny and scrawny he was since he was young. Lex blamed it on their Russian heritage and Lex’s own father’s paranoia about starving since he had lived through the Second World War.
They both dished up their plates, and with Friskie and Jockster weaving around their legs, no doubt trying to kill them by tripping so they could eat the leftover meat––and eventually their faces too most likely––they sat down on the leather couch and turned on the TV.
Zakharin family dinners were a lot more lax. There was a dinner table and even a nice little eating area in front of the large windows, but its use was apparent with it being cluttered with papers, Lex’s jacket, and other odds and ends.
“So, then the jack-shit comes in the next day and it’s fucking obvious he’s in detox,” Lex said, a spoonful of noodles halfway to his mouth. “But can I say anything? Nope, or London Drugs will have me castrated and my balls put on display to warn all the other pharmacists.” Lex ate the forkful and quickly chewed. “He tells me again… Please, man. I lost the bottle and I’m in pain. And I tell him there is literally nothing I can do, you need to get the script replaced by your doctor. Of course, he whines and says it’s Sunday and blah blah, and in the back of my head I’m just wanting to tell him I’ll sell him some OxyContin for three bucks a milligram, which is three times the price of street, but knowing him, he’d get my ass fired just because he’d know I was ripping him off.” Lex chuckled and shook his head, his fork winding around more noodles. “I went and told Pate, and he ended up having to get the security guy on the strip to escort him out. How the fuck he thought it would work was beyond me. I hope h
is doctor cuts him off.” As he said this Lex reached over into his pocket and pulled out three small blue pills. “I swiped these after just to be a jackass, wrote them off as being dropped. I know you’ve been really stressed out and the Xanax might not be cutting it.”
Sasha held out his hand and took the pills. “Are these different than the pain killers? Those ones just make me throw up and fall asleep. I never got what people loved about them.”
“Yeah, I’d shoot you in the face if you ever got hooked on those,” Lex said. “I’ve dealt with too many loser addicts and I’ll be damned if my nephew turns into one of them. That’s Valium and the milligram is high so take half of one whenever you’re feeling antsy. It’ll calm you down and knock you out…” Lex paused and his lower lip tightened like he was biting it. “How have you been anyway?”
Sasha held up a hand. “I don’t want to talk about this stuff tonight. Can’t we just hang out?” He let out a long and drawn out breath and pushed a chunk of ground beef around his plate. “It’s always you guys hovering over me… worrying and stuff. Let’s just… have it be like it used to be.” His voice dropped in tone as he said the last part. It wasn’t until he voiced it out loud that he was reminded how much he missed the years before the headaches, and the angry voice.
To his surprise, Lex just stared at him, before looking back down at his plate of food. “Sure,” he said, but there was more than enough hesitation in his voice to have Sasha’s hackles become raised. “We’re just… really worried about you, Sash.”
Sasha looked down at his half-eaten spaghetti, then busied himself with a mouthful of food. “So… any other crazy work stories?” he asked once he’d swallowed the noodles. “Didn’t you have a date too, a few days ago? How did that go?”
Lex was quiet, and the room around them fell into silence. Sasha kept eating, but his eyes never left his plate. It was like this for more than a comfortable amount of time, until it seemed like the awkward silence had successfully eaten Sasha alive.
“Do you want to play James Bond?” Sasha asked finally. He looked up, the last of his spaghetti on a piece of thick crust garlic bread. “Two player? I have some weed too… want to smoke up?”
Lex, also clearing his plate, glanced up with a smile. “Yes to the Bond, but I’m going to hold off on the weed. You should hold off too with the Xanax in your system.” He got up and took Sasha’s plate from him and disappeared into the kitchen.
When Lex came back, he had a plate of Oreo cookies in his hand, and in the other, two bottles of Diet Pepsi. He plopped the plate down on the coffee table and gave one of the bottles to Sasha. “I put some rum in the Pepsi. That’ll be my middle ground so we don’t have to be too stone-cold sober.” Lex flicked on the electric fireplace, then the N64, and sat down on the couch beside Sasha.
Upon hearing that the Pepsi had rum in it, Sasha took a big drink. He picked up the N64 remote and settled in for some gaming.
This, this right here was what he missed. No stupid questions about his head, or Lex and Jobe hovering over him and worrying. Even the Xanax was blowing away all of the fears and questions he had about what had happened on that road… and what had been happening with his life in general.
Sasha winced when his head gave another twinge. He ignored it though and continued. There was no way it would be happening again this quickly, after he drank his blood he was usually free of it for four to five days, though it was less if something particularly stressful happened. Either way, it was too soon.
And when another spring of pain, this one coming from the knife injury on his arm, came forth, he ignored it too. Nothing was going to stop him from enjoying this evening with his uncle. The first nice night he’d had in months.
“Fucker!” Lex yelled. He slammed a hand down on the couch’s arm rest and ground his teeth. He’d just re-spawned in a location that Sasha had been in, and had received a well-aimed headshot. “That’s a fucking dirty move, you little bitch.”
Sasha cackled and gave Lex a rather shiteater grin. “Want me to close my eyes and give you a head start?”
“Oh, fuck you,” Lex hissed. He picked up a cookie and demolished it like his mouth had become a bear trap. “I’ve been playing video games since Pac Man on Atari, and–”
“I keep forgetting how fucking ancient you are.”
Lex’s eyes widened before narrowing. He turned away from Sasha, his nose in the air. “I’m only fourteen years older than you, whelp.” Lex opened his mouth to say more, when there was a bang on the television screen. He looked just in time to see a curtain of blood cover his partition of the screen, followed by his character falling down dead.
Sasha watched as Lex turned a fascinating shade of crimson, and when his uncle slowly turned back to him, a look of fury on his face… Sasha smiled again.
“I love you, Uncle,” he said through his grin.
“This is why animals eat their young,” Lex said bitterly. He reached over and picked up his third bottle of rum Pepsi and took a generous gulp.
Sasha kept smiling and leaned back on the couch. He rested the game controller on his stomach before rubbing his cheek. It was aching, and as Sasha massaged it, he realized it was because he’d been smiling for so long.
“Can we… do this more?” Sasha found himself asking. Maybe it was the Xanax and the small shot of alcohol he’d had, but his lips had become looser, and he was feeling kind of… talkative. It felt good to talk to Lex about things, like he could speak to him about anything and everything and have him understand.
Lex put the bottle down and wiped his mouth. Sasha was expecting a smile back, but instead he saw a flicker of… what was that, guilt?
“Yeah…” Lex said. He took in a deep breath, and strangely his eyes glanced over to the phone resting beside Sasha’s arm. “I’d really love that.” He got up. “I just gotta make a call… hold tight for–”
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Sasha jumped, his heart lurching to his throat, but Lex only closed his eyes and swore. He got an alarmed look for that, then Sasha’s gaze flew towards the entrance door.
Then the anxiety hit him, busting through his good mood like it was a battering ram against crumbling brick. All at once, Sasha was overcome with fear, fear that when Lex opened that door… those two men would be standing there.
Who else could it be? Sasha’s attention shot towards the clock above the electric fireplace. It was nine-thirty… Lex wasn’t expecting anyone and Jobe was working. There was no one else it could be… it was fucking them. It was Kel and Kheva.
Sasha’s chest turned cold and he grasped it. His heart was thrashing in his chest, creating a whirlwind that was stealing the breath inside of his lungs. What had been such a calm, happy night had been turned upside-down so quickly Sasha could feel his head spin.
Lex turned and started walking towards the door. “No!” Sasha cried, his voice becoming strangled. “Don’t answer it!” He got up but found his knees becoming weak, and as Lex turned around to see what was happening to his nephew, Sasha sunk down.
“Sasha…” Lex ran over to him. He put his hands on Sasha’s shoulders. “What’s… what’s wrong with you? It’s only Tom Daniels, my friend. You know him…”
“No!” Sasha cried. He put a hand over his mouth and shook his head. He looked up at Lex, terror in his eyes. “It’s them… it’s them…”
“Them…?” Lex whispered. “The… men who jumped you?” Lex’s eyes closed and his grip on Sasha’s shoulders loosened. “Bug, there… there were never any men.”
“There were!” Sasha yelled back. Desperation began to mix in with the fear, creating a fetid soup inside of his stomach, like a carcass had been dropped into it to rot. The feeling was so noxious Sasha gagged, before keeling over, his head shaking back and forth.
Not this again… Lex doesn’t believe me? They have to believe me… those two… they’re fucking after me.
“They’re after my blood…” Sasha whimpered. He looked up, just in time to se
e Lex turn around with his shoulders slumped, and his legs taking him towards the door. “They’re… they’re after my fucking blood!”
The door opened before Lex could take a second step, and in walked a clean-cut man Lex’s age with short brown hair and an oval-shaped face. As he swept past Lex, their gazes locked, and Sasha could see the two of them exchange looks of deep concern.
Tom. It was Tom? The damn psychiatrist? What was he doing here?
Sasha had seen Tom in passing, but whenever Lex had friends over Sasha made sure his door to Lex’s side of the house was locked. He’d hide in his apartment, refusing to come out or even make a noise to alert them that he was home. Lex respected Sasha’s wishes to be left alone and that was that. It wasn’t like the friends were there for Sasha anyway. Everyone got what they fucking wanted.
But over the past few months Tom’s name had been mentioned more and more, but it was nothing said in passing, it was uttered like a swear word around Sasha. He was who Lex had threatened to bring Sasha to after his problems had gotten worse.
What was he doing here?
“Sasha…” Tom’s calm voice suddenly broke through the anxious turmoil that was currently cannibalizing everything inside of Sasha, consumable or not. It was like a ringing bell against a tornado, but the noise was still assaulting and unwelcome. “Tell me why you’re upset.”
“Get the hell away from me!” Sasha screamed, the tone of it making Lex’s face drop. “Get away from me! I don’t fucking know you and I don’t want to know you.” Sasha scrambled backwards.
Tom held out both of his hands in a calm down gesture. “Sasha, take a deep breath,” he said calmly. “Nothing is going to be achieved by working yourself up.” The psychiatrist’s voice was controlled and it held an odd strength to it that cracked through the stone barriers preventing Sasha from calming himself down.
Sasha’s eyes travelled up to Tom’s face, and when they made eye contact, Tom took in a slow deep breath, and Sasha followed.