Psycho Candy

by Steven Hunter

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MEPHINIE’S SKIN BEGINS TO CRAWL – “FUCK ME! FUCK YOU!”

  The ablath appeared in Mephinie’s right hand as The Skin Walker walked into the silver cell, her own private room in the near infinite lodgings

  of the Rubiconeteka. She turned lazily in her chair and levelled the ablath at The Skin Walker, who regarded her with a smile, which made her want to drive the spherical device through his left eye.

  “Whatever it is, I’m really not interested,” said Mephinie.

  The Skin Walker smiled lazily. “Let us not be too hasty. Wouldn’t you like to know what daddy has to say?”

  Mephinie wavered the ablath in slow circles. “Don’t call yourself daddy, it’s fucking sick, you creepy fuck. What are you doing here anyway? I thought you’d be hanging out with that obese soul stuffing pig Ka and that gimp Blismasatakk or however you pronounce it,” replied Mephinie with a grin.

  “Do you like… candy?”

  Mephinie froze. She let her grip loosen on the ablath and it hovered gently in the air. “Yes Skin Man, I like candy very much indeed. I have a lot of faith in candy.”

  She wondered how much he knew. She decided to ask. “What is this all about Skin Walker? You obviously know something, but I’m wondering if I should really care. Still what with the precarious position of politics around here, perhaps you should indulge me into your confidence.”

  The skin walker walked up to the reflective neon red armchair, which sat opposite Mephinie and took a seat opposite her. “You see my dear, by a happy coincidence, an... ahem... friend of a friend of yours wanted to be a wolf. And guess whose rite he chose to become one?”

  Mephinie rolled her eyes with a look of disinterest but inside her mind was churning; how the fuck had this happened? And, depending on how much he knew, how did this affect everything?

  She finally fixed her gaze on him. “I dunno, let me think? Was it perhaps... someone else’s?”

  The Skin Walker shook his massive head.

  “Huh! Go figure. Okay, listen cut the crap, and tell me what you know, and we’ll work something out, okay?”

  The Skin Walker leaned back in Mephinie’s chair, and she made a mental note to dispose of it after he had left.

  There was a look that had come into the Skin Walkers red dead eyes, that creeped Mephinie out; made her thing that she didn’t want to hear what he said next. She was right.

  “Mephinie, my dear lesbian cunt. What a price you pay to be one and I wonder how much yours would cost?” the Skin Walker held up a hand for vocal restraint as Mephinie opened her mouth to speak. “You know I know something and the fact that you are taking the slightest bit of interest in this fact makes me wonder how far you go to know what I know.”

  Mephinie regarded him with her hardest stare and was gratified to see him flinch slightly. “So what are you suggesting, because it had better not be what I think you are suggesting?”

  “I want to FUCK YOU!” screamed the Skin Walker, ferocious teeth covering lips that had formed into the smile of a rapist who has just found a drunk woman and a bottle of GHB.

  Mephinie decided that it was really time to get rid of the chair.

  By the time the dull neon red had faded, Mephinie was already towering over the Skin Walker who had fallen unexpectedly on his ass, the ablath spinning with careful balance on his scrotum. “FUCK ME? FUCK YOU! You think you can come in here and blackmail me? Does Shub know you’re doing deals? Huh? You slimy prick? You used to be a nice guy you know, well not nice and you’re not a guy, exactly, but we used to eat together! What the hell happened? Okay, I get the political angle in this, but did you really think that I’d let you sleep with me, that Shub wouldn’t tear you apart with Horus and her crew for trying to fuck her, along with me, and Xcetral?”

  The Skin Walker shrugged carefully; he knew how sharp the ablath was, and didn’t want the hassle of pain – plus he wasn’t really sure how much damage it could do, or if he could heal from it.

  “You forget that I have Sownd Ka and Blismasatakk…” there was a waiver of hesitation to his confident tone and it took Mephinie only a moment to figure out why.

  “This is fucking personal? You’ve gotta be kidding me? What the fuck do you… what do you owe him?” Mephinie looked down on the Skin Walker with genuine curiosity.

  “Who says I owe him anything?”

  Mephinie laughed at this. “What is he your friend? That gimp got what he deserved; he fucking touched me!”

  Red eyes flared up at Mephinie. “Partly, I suppose… it’s personal to him; to me it is as you said a coup de tat. Ka and I that is. Not that we all haven’t dreamed about taking turns on you… with your sexy purple eyes; and you especially should know how real we can make our dreams, after all we dream reality itself and-“

  The ablath was now at his left eye, its sharpened point glaring red around its tip, like a heating spike in an optical furnace of hate. Mephinie drove the point softly against the Skin Walker’s pupil.

  “What about now, huh? You into a little S&M? A little bit of PAIN!”

  It happened so quickly she didn’t notice. Her own face looked back at her.

  Mephinie stared down at her corporeal reflection. “Get the fuck out of my skin, you fucker!”

  The Skin Walker smiled back with Mephinie’s purple lips, only the redness of his eyes betraying any other difference.

  Yet it was with his own voice that he spoke. “I’m not in your skin, Mephinie dear; not yet anyway. I’m in mine.”

  “But you’re wearing my fucking style,” said Mephinie casually.

  The Skin Walker’s laugh turned to a low pitched scream as the ablath drove through the glowing red, and Mephinie felt a slight twinge in the purple glow of her own left eye, yet nothing more; then a sudden shiver passed through her and she was left staring at nothing more than her silver reflective carpet. It was stained with a bluish fluid, and she wondered if the stain would come out. She turned around and the Skin Walker was behind her now, his left eye leaking thick blue blood, yet the redness behind it now emanated so strongly her instinct turned her head and in the moment it took her to look back, for there was a draw to that light, the same draw that had caught Marcus not so long ago, his eye had healed and she felt glad. Dead red eyes. She shivered.

  “That wasn’t very nice, Mephie.”

  “Yeah, well now it’s fucking Mephinie to you, and who said anything about nice?”

  “You force my hand; I will speak to Shub immediately with all I know, and then –“

  Mephinie cut him off with a wave of the hand. “Rivvells; don’t forget Rivvells. We got Rivvells, and that’s one scaly soul-sucking vacuum you don’t want to mess with. Remember trying to hold him back after Blismasatakk touched me? Of course you fucking don’t because you didn’t. It was me who held him back, and to be honest I don’t think I could have restrained him if he hadn’t let me. And don’t get any ideas about that either, because if he let me it’s because it was what I wanted. So tell your gimp friend that I spared his fucking eternal life from eternal fucking misery and tell Shub whatever the fuck you want… You want to take on that crazy goat fuck then that’s up to you. Just remember she don’t deal the cards fair, and that’s fair warning.”

  The skin walker nodded. “So be it. I’m sure you will find out what I decide to do soon enough; in the mean time can you tell your friend Xcetral that Bliss wants his gimp suit back. See you around.”

  The Skin Walker turned his eyes to the ceiling, the redness shining a different, duller hue. Then he was gone.

  Mephinie shook her head. Not if I see you first! She thought. Then she turned her attention back to the stain on the carpet. She decided to leave it where was for the time being. It brought back strange memories at every glance; memories of violence inflicted on an enemy mingled with the illusion of self-harm.

  Plus, she kinda liked the colour.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CANDY DOES SOME RESEARCH

 
The man slammed into the ground with force. Candy cut his throat and drank deeply from the wound before leaning on a parked car and fishing for her pipe. She smoked a rock and laughed.

  She had another six to kill before the day was up.

  Months had gone past and it was tomorrow that she was to take on the legendary Reckwick. She had been planning the day for a while and it was with some reluctance that it had finally appeared. She tapped the pipe and put it back in her pack. She would have complete victory of her goals, of that she was sure; yet she worried for her friends and their fates. To keep them as far away as possible was the surest most protective solution she could think of. She entered the library, the fallen corpse just meters away under a parked car. She would not worry about this now. She had reading to do. She approached the desk. "Esoteric, please."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I want a book on magic."

  "Research no doubt," the man said though Candy caught the thought, bloody witches, probably going to screw in the alchemy isle.

  "No, I’m a witch. I was planning on meeting someone later. In the alchemy isle."

  The man looked horrified, yet Candy was high and didn’t give one fuck.

  "Second floor, room two," the man said, and then turned his back. Candy caught herself before the knife made full contact. She had... something... to save, and although vengeance played a part in this vagueness she felt she might in fact be going a bit mad. Whatever they had done at the hospital obviously hadn’t worked. Unless all of this was just a mad delusion? Like traffic wardens, she thought. Candy began to climb the stairs.

  She was looking for something from the thirteenth century she thought. Around the same time of the evil Rubiconeteka had made an appearance, there had been opposition. Jack had said as much. The planet had not given up without a fight. Well, maybe things had slowed down in a bit in the last two thousand years or so but then them were the breaks with organised religion. She drew a book from a shelf. It had been published in 1911, yet there were spells ways back into the 1300’s. She looked for protection first. It was so simple.

  Gods clearly existed. Goddesses too.

  So why not try to ask for a bit of help. Candy turned a few pages then came to clear markings and designs. She had empathy, the ability to channel emotion, and she picked up the entire libraries as she sent her waves out to the Great Spirit that John had told her about. Every little helped and apparently the Great Spirit liked to feel the feelings of humans and she needed as many power players on her side as she knew possible.

  She sat. And read.

  Four hours had passed and she had been through the literature of ceremonial magic, the rituals of transcendental magic, composite rituals and a section that had interested her greatly; the rituals of black magic and the mysteries of Goeitc Theurgy.

  The title of this section was The Grimoire.

  Here she found that she could summon... well, she wasn't sure if they were angels of demons... it actually stated that one had once belonged to the choir during the estate of the first fallen angels. His name was Agares and by the looks of it he was one mean mother fucker, although she had not thought so by her first impression of his description, which was of a duke ruling in the east, who appeared in the form of a comely old man, ambling along upon a crocodile and carrying a goshawk on his wrist. Candy assumed a goshawk was a bird. However it was his powers that impressed her, namely that he taught all languages which would be handy for her thought-voice whilst in the Covenant, but most of all he destroyed all spiritual and temporal dignities which kinda summed up the Rubiconeteka.

  Still she wasn't having the guy going in without back up.

  The second was named Vassago. Candy read over the words again and saw he is good by nature. Her instinct told her that she needed some good on their side, and this guy could declare past, present or future as well as find things that had been lost or hidden; namely her soul.

  The third was just another mean bastard, Glasyabolas, who came in the form of a dog but winged like a griffin. Candy read again - He teaches all arts and sciences instantaneously, incites to bloodshed, is the leader of all homicide, discerns past present and future and makes men invisible - She thought about how full the covenant would be that night, and if the creatures could be turned against themselves as old Glasyabolas incited them all to bloodshed, as the rest of the riders made themselves invisible, then that would be enough she thought. One to take out the Rubiconeteka, and another to help her find recover her soul, to find out where it was hidden. Then that other one, Glasyabolas, to start a riot.

  She had what she wanted.

  Now all she needed was the sacrifices to summon these creatures and the talismans to protect her. For that she needed specific symbols engraved on the rings and for that she needed gold. There was a jeweller further in town and so she decided she would take a trip there after a final word with the librarian. She descended the staircase, the Book of Spells in her inside pocket. The librarian was at his desk, sorting through papers when she arrived.

  "Hi again, sorry about earlier. I was only kidding. You must think me a terrible person. It's just I hear of that sort of thing going on up there all the time and well you know I couldn't help but tease you…" Candy let the sentence trail off, easing her smile to the right side of lame apology.

  The librarian was in his forties, on the skinny side and he smiled kindly this time. Before he had a chance to speak Candy got in there first.

  She had an idea.

  "Say, listen what time do you get off. I'd love to maybe go for a drink with you. You must know so much about books?”

  "Well," the librarian answered, "I do have a degree in this field, been at it twenty three years, no doubt before you were born."

  Candy faked a laugh and fingered her blade.

  "Yes I'd be delighted to take you up on that offer. There is a place across the road. I finish in fifteen minutes. Will you be waiting I take it; outside that is?"

  "You can count on it. I have something to attend to further down the road then I'll be right back. But instead of meeting me here, why don't you meet me in the bar two streets across; the Black Bullet? Just in case one of us is early. Its cold you know," Candy faked a giggle again and the man nodded and she turned and walked away.

  At the door she winked at him and smiled.

  Oh my good lord, she likes you, she really likes you David, thought the librarian.

  The door shut with a thud.

  Candy walked down the street. It was near closing for all the shops and the streets were quiet, it was a quiet part of town. She noticed a customer in the jewellery shop and withdrew her knife. She stabbed the man in the neck then moved across to the second woman and slit her throat then stuck the knife in her mouth and slammed the blade up into her brain. That done she took the keys and loaded a brown paper back with as much gold as was in the store. There turned out to be a surprising amount. She put the lot in her knapsack and left the shop in time to meet David in the bar.

  He was standing with a beer, looking slightly lost.

  "Hi," said Candy. "I'm afraid I can't stay long tonight, my sister just called and needs me to baby sit. But I'll have a G&T if that's okay?"

  "Sure thing," said David. "Coming right up."

  He ordered from the bar and they took a seat on a leather couch, a caramel colour, which reminded Candy of her few times with smack. Wanda had given her it to see if she liked it.

  She had but now she didn't see Wanda any more. Still, she could always get some smack. She had come to like Wanda although felt guilty for Wanda's habit. She had put Wanda around drugs and Wanda had started smuggling home ampoules of Lorazepam and Diazepam suspension to inject too. Candy had done a few injections of the Lorazepam. She could have been walking to her death that night on the way down the corridor to bed. It was apathy at its most pleasurable.

  "So anyway, I was thinking, if you're free tomorrow then we could meet again here, then go for a walk? What do you say?"

  "
That sounds great. Just... marvellous," said David the librarian, with no idea whatsoever of what he was getting himself into. Candy leaned across the table and stuck her tongue in his mouth and rubbed his crotch. It wasn't long before it was hard. "There will be more of this tomorrow, back at mine. Just make sure you're on time. And bring money yeah, you're paying for dinner," Candy winked at the librarian who blushed. She kept her hand on his cock and it stood upright and she rubbed some more and she felt the hot rush of cum stain his cotton trousers at the crotch. He grew red with embarrassment. "Oops. Looks like we had a little accident, huh?"

  "It's actually been a while and-"

  "Candy held up her hand to silence him.”I understand fully. Come on, It's a natural process. I'm sure after the first couple of times tomorrow night you'll have your durability back."

  "Well thank you for understanding; I must admit it was rather enjoyable."

  Candy looked at her watch and made a face. "Shit. I really gotta go. See you tomorrow. I'll pick you up here at eight o'clock"

  Before the man could say a word Candy left the table and hurried out the pub without a backwards glance.

  The Native American was sitting in the Black Rose with a red head. The darkness had started. Candy walked in, she knew this was one of his various haunts and had been the closest in her search for him. She approached him and took a look at the red head, then at John. His eyes looked different and when he looked at her it was as if he didn't see her, didn't recognise her.

  "Hello, earth calling John."

  John shook his head a couple of times then swore under his breath. He looked at the red head. “Fuck off! Now!" The red head looked as if she was about to burst into tears, but instead picked up her drink and threw it over him, then walked out the bar.

  Candy looked at John shrewdly then decided to ask. "What the hell was that all about?"