Even as I lay sprawled naked on the floor of the now stationary limousine, dying by his doing, I concentrate on reading him. I pick up on bits and pieces of it. He loves the taste of my blood. It’s like a fix of some kind for him.
I close my eyes, no longer wanting to see the top of his head or anything else since I have no choice but to continue to feel him, take my life from me. To feel him inside of me. My legs slacken and my eyes grow heavier, and blackness becomes my friend and I silently thank it.
17
My eyes feel like they are glued with dirt and my body is heavy and lacks any sort of impulse for strength. I feel arms under my arm pits
“It’s a shame Katelyn. I liked you, I thought we could’ve done quite well together. And you tasted so damn light and sweet.” He mutters dragging me backwards towards him. “But you’re too big a threat, even if you didn’t know it. You would’ve eventually. I knew it the minute I saw you.”
The sound of something clicking is obvious to me. I process it as the door handle moving. Presumably the limo car door is being opened and I am being dumped somewhere obscure. There are plenty of places within forty minutes’ drive of Melbourne to do a body dump. Criminals do it all the time. Commit the crime itself in Melbourne and then by the time police had turned up to search the initial area, the criminal is already in their secondary location, with no police or anyone around to stop them.
My fate is sealed and I know it. “Get her feet.” Tarin says, presumably to Rick. Seconds tick by and my body feels lighter, like it is floating. Probably because they are carrying me. Where I have no idea, but it is probably better to just play dead anyway, given Tarin’s intention to kill me is now, rather clear.
“Are you sure she’s dead?” Rick asks Tarin.
“If she isn’t she’s camping out on its door step. The night, elements and animals will finish her off if we leave her out for them.” I have lost feeling and sense of time. There is just an abyss taking me further down into nothingness, taking me away from everything as Tarin and Rick’s voices, sounds, fade away again.
18
The thing about truth-sayers is, that’s what we’re called now. The modern day version of what I am considered to be. But it’s not really all that accurate a description of me. My bloodline isn’t mine and it’s strong. It’s been around for over 40,000 years. That’s before the birth and foundation of Australia. It is built on a time when time was beginning. When paranormals were far more prevalent on this red earth than they are now. That’s why I’m so fucking hard to kill.
Not that Tarin clearly knew that. If he knew anything about me, he would have known not to try and kill me. He would have known that by attempting to kill me, all he’d done was unleash me. The real me from it’s mortal coil that is Katelyn Phoenix’s body.
I felt her rise and push at me. Push at my insides, at my skin. She kept my heart pumping when it should have stopped. She kept my body warm enough to cope with the night chill when the drop in temperature should have killed what little my weakened body could cope with. She made me open my eyes hours later when light flooded the land around me and I saw through the shrubs, twigs and leaves that covered me. She helped me remember what had happened to me.
She helped me remember how to move my limbs and crawl onto my side. She made me taste the dirt and grass that greeted my mouth as I tried again to move from the shallow grave I’d been put into.
She helped keep me breathing and keep breathing and moving. After what seemed like a small eternity I got my arms flat to the ground, my elbows bent and push pulled myself along the ground. Pulled myself from my own grave. She knew exactly how to do that, all I had to do was give myself over to her, completely. Let her out of her Katelyn cage.
There was usually a reason I didn’t let this side of myself out. Because bad things tended to happen. Very bad things. “Okay,” I uttered hoarsely to the sound of silence around me. “You win. Tarin fucking deserves what he gets.”
I collapsed down on the ground again and felt my lineage rise up through every fibre in me. Her strength flooded me with her anger and we were both pissed.
19
It took forever to get back to civilization. One car drove by eventually. Taking in the appearance of the naked female, covered only by a dinner jacket, dried blood on me, dirt and twigs all over, they took me straight to the hospital and called the police.
I worked myself out of Katelyn’s mute state using her knowledge I told the police her story.
A story about how I’d been out on a date with a guy I’d only just started to see and how he had a vampire fetish and during sex he’d gone total Dracula on me and I couldn’t fight back. It wasn’t so far from the truth and given the scaring they found on my neck and blood on me and the rest of my dishevelled, traumatic looking state, they bought it.
My police escort saw me home. Pulled up into the alleyway and stopped the car. We both stared out the front window, there was a male figure sitting in the doorway of my warehouse entrance. On an upside down, green, plastic milk crate.
“That him?” The female police officer called Murphy asked me.
She killed the engine and we both got out. Murphy hadn’t been in on the interview, she’d just been given instructions on me to get me home safely. Looking down the alleyway the male drumming the green plastic milk crate he’d been sitting on, stopped and stood up. I searched through Katelyn’s memory banks.
“No. Not him.”
“Katelyn?” Shaye Aramadel greeted me with as police officer Murphy stood in front like a territorial guard, her hand resting over her side arm. I wondered if he could tell if it was Katelyn or not or if it was just some sort of generic, general, human greeting he was giving me.
“Can we help you?” The officer asked him as we walked up.
Given the lack of dress Katelyn’s body had been found in, the hospital had donated hospital scrubs to wear home. The blue pants and square top were about as unflattering as it got. The police had taken Tarin’s dinner jacket and the bracelet, I’d been wearing and were keeping them as possible evidence.
“What’s your name?”
Shaye Armadel looked past the officer back at me. I knew I had to get rid of the police officer if I was to ever go about rampaging all over Tarin Armadel. I flicked through Katelyn’s memories. “Oh it’s okay officer, I know him.” I hoped he would take the universal silent code for shut the fuck up and follow my lead. “This is my friend Shane.”
Shaye broke into a big, warm, smile. I’d seen one like that before, on his brother. On Tarin. “Shane.” He said sticking out a hand to shake to the police officer who ignored it and continued to eyeball Shaye suspiciously.
“Got some ID?”
Shaye looked from me to her. He looked a little tired, like he’d been waiting out there for quite some time, maybe all night. Except he wasn’t in his suit as Katelyn last remembered him, so maybe not all night and I seriously doubted he could top the night that had been for me and Katelyn, so I really didn’t give a shit.
“Uh, I don’t have anything on me, it’s why I came around to see Katelyn. I lost it last night at the party. Wondered if you got my messages and had my wallet?” Shaye said looking from the officer to me again. I walked past her and went to unlock the padlock folding screen door and realised I couldn’t.
“Son of a bitch.”
“What is it?” Officer Murphy asked me.
“No keys.” Katelyn’s purse and shoes were probably with Tarin.
“You’re probably going to have to call a locksmith.” Murphy said to me. Shaye looked at me again from head to toe. He looked like he wanted to ask what was going on.
Instead he produced his mobile phone. Looking at the outstretched hand with it and back up at him, expectantly, his face faltered. His brother had tried to kill us, granted he was probably only aiming for Katelyn, but…the least he could do was call the fucking locksmith himself. He took the phone back. “I’ll uh, look up a locksmith in the area.” He repl
ied trying to escape the hostile look I threw at him.
“I’m going to stay with you until I can check out inside your place. We want to make sure the perp isn’t inside or hasn’t ripped you off.” Murphy said looking serious beside me. “If he has access to your place, you’re going to need to change your locks anyway.”
“Perp?” Shaye said unable to stop himself. “What happened to you?” He said in a low voice.
He actually sounded surprised, looked surprised at Katelyn’s state of appearance. But then again, maybe he wasn’t expecting her to be alive either. I had to wonder if he was in on what Tarin had planned for her. But it was possible he didn’t know about Tarin trying to kill Katelyn. It was a slim shot, but it was possible. As soon as officer Murphy left us alone, I was going to find out, first hand.
20
Officer Murphy checked out the warehouse, there really wasn’t all that much to see. There was clearly a reason my host, Katelyn lived alone and coveted space. Shaye Armadel was looking at that reason right now, at me, only he didn’t know it.
The warehouse had partially fitted out was a split level dwelling. Kitchen, bathroom and along with a lot of space. There was a boxing bag hanging down in the far corner of the room and upstairs, a bedroom and space for whatever upstairs. Simple. Officer Murphy left once she was happy the warehouse was perp free, but not before throwing Shaye another suspicious look.
Shaye stood opposite looking at me. “What’s going on?” He asked me. “Are you alright Katelyn?” I could see him trying to see behind my eyes. Maybe he was more clued in that I’d given him credit for.
“Why do you ask?”
“You’re in hospital scrubs, a police officer escorted you here, and you called me Shane, need I go on?”
“Sure you don’t know Shaye? Haven’t you spoken to your brother lately?” I watched his eyes narrow on me. He was definitely trying to figure something out about me.
“Not since I said goodbye to you two last night. What did Tarin do?” He asked softly. “Jesus, did he hurt you?” It looked like real concern mixed with anger in his expression. I laughed at him then. “Why, does he try to do that often to women? To his dates? To his business partners?”
“Oh shit, you were doing business with Tarin? Not just dating him.”
“We were never dating. It was a ruse, for our business dealings, only Tarin, double crossed me.”
“Shit.” Shaye muttered his hands going to his hips. “What did he do? Please, tell me Katelyn. I want to help.”
“He tried to kill me.” I pulled back the scrub top to show him the scar tissue of the bite marks he’d left Katelyn’s body with. Unlike the apparent first time he’d bitten her, I thought as I riffled through Katelyn’s memories, Tarin hadn’t thought to seal the bites with saliva, or hadn’t meant to. So this time, the bite remained visible for all to see, healing at a substantially slower rate.
Shaye was silent for a moment. “Did you come here to finish the job off? Is that the plan? Or where you just clean-up crew, get what you could before someone else found my place and settled in? Because if he’s after the money he paid me, it’s already been moved.”
“No, of course not. Katelyn I’m so sorry. Are you sure, he was trying to kill you? I mean he might have gotten lost in the blood lust. Maybe he took it further than he meant to.”
Tilting my head to the side I studied him. “He drank till he thought he’d drained. Then he and his driver buried me in a shallow grave in the country side. Pretty sure he tried to kill me.”
Shaye sighed heavily. “It’s his demon nature, it’s to seduce and deceive, it’s what he’s driven to do. I was hoping to warn you off him today.” He waved a hand at me.
I froze on the spot. “Demon?”
“You didn’t know, he was a demon?”
“He said shadow. Forgot to mention the demon part.”
I don’t like hurt. Who does? Especially the emotional kind of hurt. It does something to the body. Leaves marks on your soul. It weighs on you and damages part of who you are, in tiny fragments that sometimes heal, but forever leave a scar. It doesn’t feel good and it takes too long to make sense of and get over. Even when you have forever. Who needs a lifetime of that luggage to deal with?
Shaye frowned at me. “Yeah, shadow demon.”
The thing is, some people, are brilliant at emotional hurt. They can manipulate and deceive and impact that thing on you that will cripple you badly. They’re the ones who like hurt, hurting others.
Humans can never wrap their head around the logic of that motive. But the reality is, it’s like a sensation, a high, a good feeling, a normal impulse for them to hurt others.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to be wrapped in cotton wool. I’ve never really lead a charmed life. It’s been rough all over and if all you know is rough, then all you know to do is roll with it, survive it. Which is what Katelyn’s been doing for thirty years. She’s been doing the best she can. Anyway she could. Anyway that suited her and helped me and got me what I wanted out of this life.
Hurting a truth-sayer, who’s talent, gift, ability whatever you want to call it, it’s more than hurtful. It’s more than a passing thing if it’s done right. It’s damaging. Blindingly damaging. It’s like taking all your feelings, and perceptions and everything you have at your disposal and putting them off line. It changes your insides and remakes you. But it’s a slow change. Like a creeping poison.
It’s why she’s always been a loner. She learned long ago, that she couldn’t do her thing, use me, to read people, get their truth, if they ruined parts of mine. It’s why she’s never had a real relationship. Never allowed herself to feel all those things, that so many people take for granted in being human. Love, passion, desire, want and need, trust and companionship. She’s a smart girl, Katelyn, which is probably why she’s so damn strong at containing me.
Those sins, desires are the downfall of someone like me. They counter more than they feed. I don’t want to lose a part of myself to that, because it happened once before when I was young and it wasn’t good, it was bad, very bad, and not just for me. The truth can hurt, and it can set you free, but at what expense?
People don’t know where that saying came from and it’s probably a very good thing, because if they saw what I could be set free, from within her, from my truth, they’d be beyond scared. They’d be cowering before me.
Katelyn knows what lies inside her and it’s me and I’m not good. Not by her definition of the word. Nobody can see it, because nobody knows to look for it. To think of it. Because the truth is, what you make of it and nobody makes much of her, because that’s the way I like it. Guess that’s a form of deception, an odd thing for a truth sayer to do. Maybe I’m not as pure as my abilities might make me seem. After all, Katelyn uses them by giving them to the person who’s willing to pay the right price. Does that make her or me an honest soul?
I open my eyes and stare back at him. “You’re right, you’re too late.” I said glowering at him, I felt the power of my blood line seep out of me and I controlled it so it is slow. I shove Shaye in the chest and watch him fly backwards.
“Katelyn?” He couches his back hitting a wall. That wasn’t even a finger nail of my raw power I’ve used on him. That was me just being pissy.
I saw the moment he recognised, I wasn’t all there. That he got a glimpse of the real me. He takes an intake a breath and puts a hand to his mouth before dropping it away and continuing to play cool.
“Katelyn?” He asks again.
“You keep calling me that.” I mutter at him walking over towards him as he pulls himself up to a sitting position against the wall.
“What should I call you then?” He asks wincing a little.
“Like you demon, have a right to call me anything, it’s impressive that I’ve let you be in my presence, let alone allow you to talk to me and look upon me.” I reply back at him as Shaye gets to one knee, with a hand on the ground. I squat down in front of him.
> “What do you normally call gods?” His eyes flicked up to me and I see him take look for differences in Katelyn’s appearance.
“Oh shit.” He kneels on both knees before me then. But he is not filled with fear, not yet. But I get the sense that Shaye Armadel understands the hierarchy of power and those more powerful than himself, so maybe bowing and scraping are more a survival instinct than anything else. “You’re an Asha Vahishta.”
“Tarin thinks of me as merely a truth-sayer. Clearly doesn’t know his paranormal history or believe in doing background checks on those he plans to screw over and kill.” I say back at him. “But your smarter than you’re brother. You know not to go toe to toe with a god, don’t you Shaye? Or are we going to have a problem here, shadow demon?”
“No problem. Asha.” He mutters softly his head still bowed so his blonde hair hides his eyes from me.
“Asha, I like that. Which is good, because I’m going after your brother.”
Shaye looks up into my face then. “I’ll help you.”
“I know you will. Because I know you’re nature demon.” I say smiling back down at him. He looks a little stunned at my words. “If you hurt Katelyn, all bets are off, are we clear?”
“Yes, my goddess.”
I stand back up straight. “You have no idea, shadow demon, how strong a person Katelyn Phoenix is. Of how strong she has had to be mentally, spiritually, emotionally. If you come at me you will have to deal with her and if you come at her, you will have to deal with me, are we clear?”
“Yes.” Shaye says softly still kneeling reverently before my feet.
“Good, cause I need to clean up and get out of these paper thin rags. They’re really not very becoming of someone of my stature.”
“May I be of assistance to my goddess?” Shaye asks looking up at me his head still bowed down. I can see the desire emitting from him. He is as bad as his brother when it came to truth-sayer’s.
I smirk. “Pretty sure I can find a use for you.”
More of Tarin, Katelyn and Shaye in Shadow Games: Book 2
Shadow Aspect Page 11