Dissension

by Adrienne Monson

How could Leisha explain the truth? How could she make him understand? The memory of her first kill flooded her mind. She had fought off The Hunger long enough to run away from her daughter and father so they would not fall victim to her. But she’d had nowhere to run—

  Leisha fell to her knees, panting more from mental strain than physical exertion. She didn’t know what to do or where to go. The thought of going back to Ptah made her stomach reel even more.

  She began to sway. The Hunger was crippling.

  She couldn’t begin to describe or understand the pain it caused. Her head was splitting to the point that she could hardly think. She was shaking and weak. Too weak.

  Her stomach rumbled, but she couldn’t hear it. She only felt the pain; her core was acid, and a demon was clawing at her brain.

  Then she heard a heartbeat. There were footsteps approaching and her nostrils filled with the scent of sweet, young flesh. Musky with male spice and a hint of saltiness. She salivated uncontrollably.

  “Are you all right?”

  She couldn’t answer, couldn’t think past that appetizing blood flowing through his veins. She wanted so much to fight, but there was no more energy. She had no strength to run away and could not escape from this temptation that was leaning over her.

  He gently touched her arm, and that was all it took. She didn’t remember much of what happened next; just that primal creature taking over. It was as if she had blacked out and some vile instinct had taken control over her body.

  When Leisha became aware of herself, she was sitting in the middle of the scattered remains of bones and viscera. It was such a gruesome sight, one could hardly tell if they were of a human.

  Leisha didn’t feel sick at all anymore. In fact, she felt great. All the pain that she had experienced only moments before was a distant memory.

  Yet, even the euphoria of how she felt could not shield her mind from the crushing guilt of what she had just done. Not only had Leisha killed a man, she had torn him to shreds and devoured him. She hadn’t even seen what he looked like, didn’t know his name. It seemed so . . . cold.

  Then another thought dawned. Ptah had known The Hunger would take over. That was why he let her bid one last goodbye to her daughter and her father. He was setting her up to kill her family.

  She said a small prayer of thanks to the gods—she’d managed to control herself long enough to spare them.

  But what should she do now? She stood and looked around. Leisha froze when she saw the last person in the world she’d wanted to see at that moment.

  Tafari wasn’t moving; he just stood down the path and stared at the sight before him. His face was a mixture of grief and revulsion. Yet, his eyes were glazed as if he couldn’t quite understand the scene before him.

  “Tafari.” Voice shaking, she reached a bloody hand toward him.

  “You are one of them,” he whispered through tears that were threatening to come.

  Her tears flowed down her face, leaving red streaks on her cheeks. “Yes,” she whispered back. “I am sorry, my love. I truly did not want this.”

  He doubled over as if in great pain. “I have to kill you, then.” It was barely a whisper—she wouldn’t have heard it if it hadn’t been for her heightened senses.

  She stepped forward with her hand still reaching for him. “Please, you do not understa—”

  “You are one of them!” he screamed. The sorrow had left his face, but the rage remained.

  The torment in his expression seared into her brain. “I am sorry,” Leisha said again.

  Taking one step toward her, Tafari pulled a machete from its sheath on his back. Leisha didn’t wait to see what he would do. Instead, she ran away as fast as she could to the only place she would be accepted. To the one being she loathed more than anything else. She had made her choice, and now she would have to find some way to live with it . . . even if it meant becoming the monster that she feared.

  The memory had resurfaced, and talking about it was almost too painful. But she had to try. “Tafari, it’s still me.” She paused to search for the right words. “You don’t understand what it is like when The Hunger takes over. I have no control. What you saw . . .” She stopped when she saw his jaw clench. “I’m different now.” Leisha wanted to shoot herself for her lack of eloquence. She’d had this conversation in her head dozens of times, but she couldn’t seem to grasp any of what she’d wanted to say.

  Tafari scoffed. “Different?” He gestured to the dead man lying at her feet. “Just because you are not tearing up the bodies when you eat them does not make it any better.”

  “This man,” she said heatedly, “was planning to rape and murder me. He’s a serial killer! I did humanity a favor by killing him, and you have no right to judge!”

  Tafari narrowed his eyes. “How could you know that about him? From what I saw, you just met him inside the club thirty minutes ago.”

  “I have the ability to read minds.”

  A black eyebrow arched. “That ability is a myth. None of the immortals can do it, and both sides have developed the same psychic abilities over the years.”

  Leisha kept her gaze level. “It’s not a myth. I can do it.”

  “Really?” he mocked. “What am I thinking right now?”

  Leisha shook her head. “It wouldn’t work on you. It’s a limited power and doesn’t work on the strong-willed unless they’re drunk or somehow impaired.”

  As if he had been expecting that explanation, he nodded smugly.

  “Look,” Leisha’s tolerance was thinning considerably, “you came and sought me out. So don’t try to criticize me for how I live my life.”

  “Life? You call this a life? Look at yourself, Leisha. You justify killing because they are murderers themselves? Who are you to play God, deciding who lives and dies?”

  Leisha leaned forward slightly. “Are you really so much better? I once saw an immortal shoot a human so that a vampire would not be able to drink their blood and restore the vampire’s energy.”

  Tafari nodded wearily. “Sometimes we have to sacrifice for the greater good.” It sounded forced though, detracting a bit from her anger. “Besides, I have never taken a human life.”

  Her spine straightened. “And that would somehow make it all right for you to judge me for it? You don’t know anything about me, Tafari.”

  It would be pointless to tell him about how she was barely surviving by merely snacking, about how she would go to the clubs and dance with men, and when they thought she was kissing them roughly, she was really sneaking a couple swallows of blood. But it wasn’t enough to sustain her, and every so often she had to make a kill. She decided if she tried to explain, she would only sound more pathetic.

  “That is for the better, Leisha. The more I know of you, the more repulsed I become.”Leisha ground her teeth. “Thank you for the warning, Tafari. As for your request, I see no reason to grant it to you. I suggest you rejoin your own kind before you say something that will really piss me off.”

  Leisha didn’t wait for a response. She turned and leaped onto the rooftop of the dance club, running and bounding from one building to another until she was on the same block as her car, all the while denying her pain, trying not to feel the hurt from Tafari’s words.

  CHAPTER 2

  Leisha pulled into the garage, her movements mechanical as she pushed the remote to close the garage door behind her. She sat in the car for a while, staring at nothing.

  She didn’t blame Tafari for hating her; she wished she could have told him long ago why things turned out the way they did. The few times she had seen Tafari over the last two thousand years had never been private. This was the first opportunity she managed to talk to him alone, and she had permitted herself to take offense at his insults.

  Leisha pushed her shoulders back, got out of her Dodge Viper and walked to the door that led into her kitchen. This place had been her home for almost a year, which was a long time for her.

  Her kitchen was of simple décor
, her cupboards stocked with barely enough food just in case she had company, or if she was in the mood to eat something herself.

  The living room was connected to the kitchen and dining room with wide open doorways. Leisha could see the flat screen television from the kitchen if she wanted to, though she usually enjoyed watching TV relaxing on her plush sofa.

  As Leisha entered the dining room, the hair on the back of her neck prickled. She was not alone in the house. There was a presence here, and she could not identify exactly what it was.

  Fully alert, she crept cautiously into the unlit living room, her hands poised at her sides, ready for attack. As she walked through the doorway, she sensed more than saw a shadow move toward her from the left. Before she could turn and confront her intruder, he grabbed the nape of her neck in a steel grip and pushed her down. She lost her balance and felt her forehead slam into the hardwood floor.

  Before her attacker could move, she swept out her leg and knocked his feet out from under him. He landed with his face less than five inches from hers.

  She was about to strike out when recognition bloomed; she made a sound of annoyance in the back of her throat as she took her time to stand and walk over to the light switch. When the corner lamp came on, Ptah was still in the shadows.

  Standing, he took his time studying her. His long, silky black hair was tied back at the nape of his neck, as usual. Even though his eyes were black, they stood out even among the darkness, absorbing what little light was left in the shadows around them.

  Ptah smiled. “I enjoy so much to look at you, Leisha.” His voice was just as she remembered it; silky smooth with a razor sharp hardness lying in wait under the surface. He could convince anyone that the sky was really green with that voice, and with the steel that waited beneath it, he could make the toughest man lose control of his bladder. “It truly has been too long.”

  He was wearing a black button-up shirt and khaki slacks over his lean, toned frame. The last time she had seen him was a hundred years ago, wearing more sophisticated, high class attire. Yet he still had a presence that filled the room, even with his modern, ordinary clothes. He could wear fig leaves and still dominate the room with his powerful aura.

  “I thought we had an agreement, Ptah.” Leisha continued to look into his eyes. It was like looking into a bottomless pit, causing her to feel queasy. But she was used to it.

  “Yes, we did. In which you agreed to come back should my need for your aid arise.”

  “The vampires,” she clarified. “I would come back if the vampires needed me. If this is a personal favor to you, then you can forget it.”

  Ptah smiled ruefully. He stepped closer until they were half a step apart and lightly traced his fingers along her clavicle and up her neck. “Do not worry, beautiful Leisha, I know what the arrangement is. However, I would not object if you wanted to give me some personal . . . attention while you are back home.”

  Shivering, as lewd images from the past assaulted her vision, Leisha took a step back. “This is my home. Any place you live in will never be my home again.”

  Ptah chuckled at her reaction. “I shall not argue with you on that matter,” he said pleasantly. “With the condition that you remember to treat me with the proper respect, most particularly when you are among us.” His voice hardened. “I will not have any of the other vampires following after your pathetic example of striving to hold on to your humanity.”

  Leisha leaned a shoulder against the wall. “What’s the matter, Ptah? Are you worried that I might sway some of those village idiots to my way of life?”

  Ptah was unaffected by her mockery. “At least those village idiots, as you refer to them, know how to live in the present. They actually enjoy what they are. Something you have yet to learn for yourself.”

  Leisha shrugged. “That means nothing to me. I’ve enjoyed my life for the past century without you.” She sighed. “Regardless, I promise to treat you properly . . . in public,” she added in a too-sweet voice.

  The master vampire ignored yet another jab. “You will return with me tonight. I have a private jet that will fly us directly there.”

  “No, that won’t work for me.” She hurried on before Ptah could reply to her protest. “I have to do a lot of paperwork and tie up loose ends before I can leave. I need to get this house sold and make sure no one who knows me wonders what happened to me. You wouldn’t want the police to have my picture as a missing person, would you?”

  Ptah’s soulless eyes roamed over her intently. The memories they brought back she would rather keep suppressed. Instead, she focused on his smooth olive complexion, his straight nose on his soft, boyishly charming face.

  “Agreed. I must return tonight to meet with Victor and the captains on our strategies against the immortals.”

  Too fast for her to react, he grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned down until their noses were touching. “You will come as soon as you can. It should not take you more than a day or two.” His grip on her shoulders became painful. “Do not even think of running, because I will find you. And when I do, I will make sure you live a most derisory and contemptible existence. I will punish you worse than ever before.”

  She knew by his tone he was referring to the time she had rescued one of his victims. Ptah had managed to find the victim again and tortured her to death in front of Leisha. Then he caged Leisha in the sewers below his lair, where all the vampires were directed to dump their victims’ corpses in the cage with her. She had been stuck in the darkness, sitting in refuse and rotting bodies for an entire month, gnawing on her own arms to keep herself from attempting to eat the poisonous, decaying flesh around her. And that was only the beginning of that particular punishment.

  “I understand,” Leisha said, refusing to be affected by the intimidation.

  Ptah hesitated a moment before releasing her. He walked back to the couch and sat down, making himself comfortable. “Besides,” he said softly, “I think coming home and living amongst your own kind again will be rewarding. The last time I saw you, you were conflicted inside. I could almost feel the hate that you had for yourself.” He looked her up and down appreciatively. “You are so lovely, my sweet, yet I can feel that same self-loathing in you now. I had hoped that being independent would have helped you to move beyond that.”

  His voice carried a trace of sympathy and concern. It wasn’t truly genuine, though she knew Ptah had always wanted her. He’d treated her specially after Tafari shunned her—she remembered it as well as she remembered Ptah was also the one who’d forced her to betray her family in the first place.

  Leisha crossed her arms. “You didn’t allow me to leave because you wanted to help me, and we both know that.”

  He shrugged. “It does not change the fact that you need to move past this selfishness.”

  Leisha blinked, taken aback by the bald comment.

  Ptah sighed as if he was irritated, and without warning, shot off the couch at incredible speed and grabbed Leisha by the wrist, forcing her to turn her back toward him, pulling both her arms behind her at a painful angle, before walking her to a mirror on the wall next to her front door.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, but didn’t bother to fight him off.

  He put her wrists in one hand and pulled her hair with the other, impelling her to look in the mirror. “You are a lovely creature, and you know it as well as I,” he said. “But you are so focused on yourself and your petty little depression that you are wasting all of your potential.” He tugged on her hair. “You are not the pathetic creature you pretend yourself to be. Once you can get past this juvenile concept of good and evil you’re stubbornly holding on to, you and I will do wonders together.”

  She struggled against his grip and Ptah pulled her wrists higher. A cracking sound came from her right shoulder as it dislocated, excruciating pain shot up her neck. Leisha grunted and kicked her leg back hard enough to make his knee snap in the wrong direction.

  Ptah did not react, but leaned
on his good leg and released his hold on her.

  Leisha spun around and worked her arm back into the socket, gritting her teeth against the burning, throbbing sensation. “You are still not concerned for me or upset over my ‘waste of potential.’ You’re just angry because you never got what you expected when you forced me to join you.” She flipped him off.

  Ptah growled and lunged at her, knocking her to the floor. Locking his feet over her legs, he held her arms above her head with one hand while squeezing her neck with the other. Leaning close to her ear, he whispered, “You know nothing. You have been with me from the beginning and you still have no comprehension.” He leaned back and looked into her eyes. “It amazes me when I contemplate how talented you are—you learning new skills and adapting to new eras—yet your mind is so obtuse when looking at yourself.”

  Again, Leisha was speechless. Ptah had never spoken to her like this. It took her completely off guard and made her feel strangely vulnerable to him in a way she’d never experienced before.

  Ptah had abused her in every way imaginable, had forced her to warm his bed and cater to his sadistic sexual appetites. He had manipulated her and beaten her more times than she could remember, and yet she had never felt as exposed to him as she did in that moment. And she had no idea why.

  As if sensing her confusion and her newfound sense of vulnerability, Ptah gently rolled off of her, picked her up and carried her to the couch, his knee having healed by that time. After settling himself, he turned to her and lightly stroked her hair, the way he’d done in the past when he wanted something from her. She knew it was just another ploy, yet it soothed nonetheless. She didn’t want to think about Ptah and his effect on her; it was unnerving.

  “Tell me, Leisha,” Ptah said gently. “Why do you hate yourself so much?”

  “Because I’m a monster,” she whispered. She didn’t mean to answer; it came out of its own volition.

  “That is part of it,” he agreed. “But there is more essence to it at your core. While you think what we are is wrong and unnatural, there is something else I know you’re feeling. Do you want to tell me what that is?”