by Emjay Soren
“I meant no harm.” I whispered, and kept my gaze down on the floor like I had been taught.
“What did you mean then Chica by breaking into our store?” Asked one of the tattooed men that had locked me in this room. I knew they were vampires, and as a human, I wished like hell I didn’t. I was attacked by a fresh turned vampire…
My thoughts faltered when I looked at the man before me. I had seen him before. Maybe he had come into Bliss and I was forced to service him? I didn’t think that was it though. He didn’t strike me as the type to get off on forcing a woman to fuck him or suck his dick. Those were the only men I knew anymore, and it reminded me like a bitch slap to not trust a single one of these vampires. “I didn’t choose this.” I snapped to the tattooed guy who'd asked me why. “I didn’t ask to be a drug-addled whore, a plaything for your kind. I needed a fix because I’m gonna die without one!” I didn’t know I was screaming until I saw the beautiful vamp before me flinch.
“What made you think we would have what you need mamacita?” The same guy asked, his friend just continued to glare at me.
“B-b-b-because only vampires know where to get it. I wasn’t stealing anything and I wasn’t trying to vandalize. I just need it. I’m sorry!” I screamed and then dropped my gaze, terrified that I had just signed my death warrant. They'd taught me to bow and never speak unless asked a question directly. I didn’t know what they would do for that little fit of rage. I hoped that the vampire before me, the soft and sexy one, wouldn’t hurt me. “I got confused when I saw the sign said Inked. That guy told me it was here.”
“Fix ‘o what Bird, Bliss? If so, I hate to burden ya with bad news, but the drug has been destroyed. You’ll have to go searchin’ for X or some new thing you bleedin’ heartbeats thrive on.” His accent tripped like a broken record. Some words came through with a natural inflection, but others were beating the hell out of his vowels.
“That’s rich! I don’t want any drug asshole, I need Bliss to survive.” My voice broke and I curled into myself even more. I felt like I was crazy, completely certifiable. I don’t remember this morning, hell I don’t remember anything since that vamp girl fed on me. I woke up in a dumpster in these blood stained clothes and knew I needed my fix. All day, every day, my life is a broken record. Survive and find that fucking drug, kill the urge to fuck even the most repulsive men. That has been my life for the last…forever it seems. I could remember the three men, one so earth shattering beautiful that I felt like if I looked at him directly I would burn. The other was a punk reject from the eighties, and the third scared the fuck right out of me. They told me what I needed, said I’d die without it. “They said I’d die.” I mumbled to myself and started picking at the chipped nail polish on my toes, seeing for the first time that my feet were filthy. I hated the shell of a woman I had become. I had dreams dammit!
“Who said that little Bird?” The beautiful one asked again, replacing his Mariners cap and placing a hand rolled cigarette between his perfect cupids bow lips.
“A guy… his name was weird, Draken or Delcan.” I looked at him again, unable to look away. He was terrifying sure, but his pale blue eyes wrapped me in warmth and he made me feel safe. That was of course, until I saw his face when I spoke.
“Darcallion?” He asked pointedly, the grip on my shoulder tightening to the point of pain.
I cringed when my shoulder started going numb. “Please stop, you're hurting me.” I sounded so small and fragile. I had never been fragile a day in my life, but now........drugs had reduced me to a quivering ball of nothingness.
“Sorry.” He said, and dropped his hand. Standing, he removed the ball cap again and rolled it in half, stuffing it in his pocket. Jesus, even the most mundane tasks made me want to get deep within him. I was functioning on my basic needs here, and I wanted him, hard and hot and deep inside me.
“Answer me now little Bird. Was the mans name Darcallion?” Gosh, the way he rolled his R’s made me wonder exactly what he could do with that tongue.
“Yes, Darcallion, but I don’t think I had met him before that night he dosed me for the first time. He said from then on I needed the drug to survive.” I just wanted this interrogation over with. I was suddenly needy for more than a drug. I wanted the beautiful vamp and it was clouding all my other thoughts. It was the first time in what felt like forever (though my memory was fried) that I could think of nothing else but wanting a man.
“Bleedin’ hell.” He said and then turned to look at the one with silver eyes. “Mind telling me what the hell we're supposed to do with her? Any fucking clue how, or why she's alive?” It was the first time I heard him sound nervous, or frightened perhaps, and that look in his eye said I knew him somehow.
“Yeah, but I’ll explain later. She's why we cannot let London in here.” The silver eyed guy said, and looked to the blonde beside him. The blonde was twice the size of the beautiful one, hair just as long but strait. He was a menacing presence, and he commanded respect by merely standing with his arms folded. He nodded in agreement and the black haired one with spikes growled.
The silver eyes guy was much thinner but just as attractive. His hair shaggy and messy and his clothes looked like they came from an A&F catalog, all of them did, even the spike guy. Silver eyes was young, but obviously in control. They all seemed to turn to him for answers, and they all spoke with respect when addressing him. The one who growled didn’t look forgiving by any means, he did look guilty though. He wasn’t happy that I was here and seemed to have a personal issue with me in general. His hair was jet black and styled in three inch spikes down the center of his head in mohawk fashion. Tattoos scrolled along each side of his skull, and his eyes were midnight blue and strangely cold. He scared me the most because I seemed to make him uncomfortable and he didn’t appear to like it.
Score one for me. Too bad there were still three others capable of taking this dudes side.
“Ya think?” Spike said and looked to silver eyes and cursed. “It’s going to take me a month to calm her down.”
“Hi, remember me?” I said getting frantic for some answers. I was tired, confused and annoyed by the fact that I was desperate for my fix, but that was running a distant second to my carnal needs. I just wanted to go home and not need drugs and sex. I wanted to forget about vampires, sex, drugs and rapes in whorehouses. I wanted my friend Jezzi and my non-fat decaf soy latte, and for her to tell me I wasn’t crazy, that it was all a dream. I wanted to forget about beautiful men who scared the piss out of me. I wanted my dorm room, and my friends, and to wake up from this nightmare. “I would like to know what is going on as well.” I felt the tears burning my eyes, and hated them as much as every touch I received in that dank whorehouse.
The only one I felt safe with, the one I wanted with unnatural need, looked at me with softened features. I wasn't falling for that. “Take a seat little Bird and let us figure this out.” He turned to leave and a deep, all consuming fear took hold. I leaped for his arm, and gripped with all my might.
“Please don’t leave me here.” I wailed and fell to my knees wrapping my frame around his leg.
He crouched low again and cupped my face in his giant palm. “It’ll be ok. You're gonna be fine.”
But he didn’t say that he would be back.
He was trying to reassure me, but it didn’t sound natural. He was forcing himself to be calm, and it made me want to weep. He stood from beside me and pried my fingers one by one from his leg and left the room. The others followed him out and I was left alone with thoughts of fear, drugs and sex.
Chapter Three
Preacher
I couldn’t get my head strait. There were so many jumbled thoughts in my mind that I couldn’t tell right from left, and so many immediate reactions to seeing her again. I turned to Leushus with only one question., “How is she alive?”
As if he already knew where my thoughts were, he immediately shook his head. “My guess,” he shrugged his shoulders indifferently, "is that she
’s tied to London.”
It made sense. She was the girl, the human that Conlin and Darcallion forced London to kill to save my life. Kill being the operative word here. Whether or not she was tied to London didn’t matter right now. “So what you’re telling me is that she is the walking dead.”
Again he shook his head no. “No. London drank from her until she was bone dry. I know, because I saw the girl. The only assumption I can make off the top of my head without proof, is that when I gifted London, this girl received the gift too.”
“How?” Cash asked, and I was right there with him in wonderment.
“I fed London my blood before Conlin got her. I protected her life force when they attempted to make her Nex. My blood saved her, and when she drank from this girl, it was both the girl's blood and mine in Londons’ system. When I took her life back, I’m thinking that this girl was collateral damage.”
“How do you call that girl collateral damage?” I couldn't hide the contempt in my voice.
“Dude, London said that she wasn’t a saint. She was with some drug dealing human piece of shit and willingly gave herself to Conlin and Bliss. She chose that life. She is the epitome of collateral damage.” Cash didn’t sound happy about the girl being back either, but I felt like he was more concerned about what it would do to his Princess. Bliss was the reason behind it all. London’s father was Walter Chase, the Chase behind Chase Pharmaceuticals. He had used London’s blood pattern and her high levels of serotonin to create the drug. The platelets in her blood combined with the naturally occurring virus in a vampires blood created a drug similar to X, otherwise known as Ecstasy, but Bliss was far more dangerous. Like all drugs, it could kill you, but more importantly it took away all desire to fight. It made women victims in the worst way, had them begging to be raped, removing any compulsion to defend themselves. Bring a vampire with Infatuation into the mix, and it was a weapon of deadly proportions.
Many women who had been raped on the drug had committed suicide. Some were hooked just like this Bird. Some were killed. And it appeared that the Bird inside had chosen this life because of the drug. Her life prior to Bliss didn’t matter to me. No woman deserved this.
“People aren’t collateral damage Cash. Fucking Nex made her into that thing we just met. People make mistakes and it doesn’t mean they have to die.”
“She chose to be a whore Preach.” Cash snapped. Before he could see where I was coming from, or what his words implied, I snapped right back.
I charge at him with blinding speed. I grip him in my killing fist, my hand tight against his throat. My fangs drop and throb, anticipating a fight… a kill. Snarling, I look at him, the father of my blood, and I am completely disgusted. “And I have met a few whores in my time, and I can assure you that they weren’t all bad!” Realization struck, and I could see the regret on his face knowing that my beloved had been a whore as well. I felt some satisfaction knowing he felt like a fuck. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Leush heard enough.
“Enough!” Leushus yelled in frustration cutting his hand through the air to silence us. I pull back but I know my point was made. “She is back and obviously still experiencing effects from Bliss, because she is looking to get laid and high, probably in that order.”
“So what can we do about it?” Cash asks. He isn’t seeing the bigger picture. This isn’t about his Princess. I know Cookie will be delighted knowing her conscience is clear, that the girl is alive.
“What can we do? I would say bring her with us, feed her, let her shower and try our best to get as much information out of her as we can.” Leushus looked at Bastian and nodded to meet him away from us.
He walked to Bastian and they spoke quietly enough that Cash and I couldn’t hear. Bastian turned and nodded at me and Cash, then left.
“What’s up?” I ask, not at all ok with the secrecy.
Leushus looked at Cash. “I sent him to take London home. I don’t think she needs to witness the woman she murdered, back from the grave, covered in grime and blood, and no better off than the night she killed her.”
“I have to tell her Leush.” Cash spoke softly and I could see how bad this was affecting him. The whore comment included. “She's just barely started talking about it without having a panic attack. She needs to know the girl’s alive.”
Ok, so call me a prick, but he just wasn’t fucking getting it. “Bloody hell Cash. I love Cookie, I do. She is the biggest pain in my arse, but is still my ‘bestie’ as she so openly calls me. Even so, this isn’t about her. That girl in there can’t be more’en twenty give or take a year. Do you really think that she has, or had the life experience to understand all this nonsense of vampires and Cado? Why not toss her bloody damn murderer in the nightmare as well. How can she deal with all’a that and then learn the drug she’s hooked on has been eradicated, and that her days as a sexual junkie are best spent sober?” I couldn’t help the sarcasm, he was being dumb as a post. “Yeah, I bet she’ll be thrilled to know she eased Cookie’s conscience. Bet it’s at the top of 'er list o' things to be happy ‘bout!”
Cash’s eyes went black as his hair, and I knew I'd set him off. Wasn’t the first time, and the way things were looking it wouldn’t be the last. “I don’t know that girl in there from any other junkie on the street. I love London, and I know you do too. So I don’t get this whole avenging angel thing you’re trying on.” His brow was drawn, and his voice was pitching in full blown anger. We both were headed for bloodlust, and this argument was speeding it right along. “You've been so God damned absent the last three months that I didn’t even know where the Preacher we all know went. You don’t send souls off in peace, you don’t offer compassion to anyone, and you’re higher than a fuckin' kite constantly.” He stormed away and kicked a chair, the metal leg snapping in half and rolling across the ground. “Jesus, I don’t even know who you are anymore. You start sleeping with random women after being celibate for eighty some odd fucking years. You start drinking along with the smoke…” He stalks back to me and gets in my face, seething anger evident, “I am all for the changes, because honestly, you were turning into a wet fucking blanket before, but now, you’re just a prick!”
“You're right mate, I am a prick. My changes are simple. I lost any fight I could have had when I saw just how nasty the Nex are getting. We aren’t making a difference. Were you not there watching as they came in droves to kill your woman?” I beat my hand on my chest, “I was. I was there when you were on a slab of granite, with liquid silver rushing through your veins. I was there when Cookie sat begging for your life.” I stepped close, nose to nose with him, making sure he heard me loud and clear, “I was fucking there when she killed that girl in there to save my life.” I spat.
“Well this is the world we live in Preacher. We fight night after night, and do what we can. I found a small piece of happy in all the hate and bullshit, and I will protect it to my dying night. This is about London as far as I'm concerned. You can go baby that piece of shit in there all you want.”
“Do you hear yourself? Even at your worst you’d never have called a lady a piece of shit.”
“I would if I knew she was in with the enemy. Don’t you remember the last human we trusted? That cute little waitress that sold us out? She was in with the bad guys Preacher, just like this girl is.” He had a point, I knew he did, but I was functioning on the idea that she was in need of help.
“I know where you’re coming from, but I just don’t think it’s the case. Let's get her clean and fed and see what she has to say before we throw her to the wolves.” I went for compromise in the end, hoping he could grasp the concept. It had been ages since I'd seen him so upset where Cookie wasn’t involved.
“Your naïve.”
I shrugged my shoulders in indifference. “Might be, and I’ll take the blame and snuff her light out if you're right. But after everything I've seen over the last six months, I cannot in good conscience leave her out to pasture.”
I could see the
anger, could feel it. It radiated off him and peaked the energy in the room. “Answer me this Preacher. How the hell did she end up in Seattle, where we are? How did that happen, hmm? I know the Cado want revenge for London’s life. Now this girl pops up in our district looking for Bliss?” He pulled on his spikes and scrubbed his face with his hands, a move that was very telling. Cash was bothered by this.
“I’ll find out, I promise. I’m not saying that she's innocent, but I need to try. My soul's a tattered fucking mess Cash. I'm hangin’ on by a thread, and need to see this through. I am just as responsible for her as I am for London. She killed her for me. I cannot in good faith walk away from this second chance.”
“Even if the second chance is lined with failure and death?”
“Even then. I’ll take full responsibility.”
I waited for him to say something but he just looked at me, stared me down hoping I would bend. I would not. I could see the defeat in his eyes. He wasn’t hiding his disappointment. “I wish like hell I’d watched my mouth earlier, but now I think I get it.”
I didn’t know what he meant and I didn’t care to find out. That was the most I would get from his acquiescence, I’d take it. I turned and made my way back to the little Bird with all the answers.
I didn’t expect Cash to understand, and I didn’t really care either. He was looking out for Cookie and I understood that, was thankful for it, but he wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe I wasn’t either, but I realized that I had a little compassion left, and with that came some of my faith.
I walked back in the room realizing that there wasn’t a door just a partition and she had heard it all. She was on her feet and pacing, riled up from what she heard.
“Let me get this strait!” She laughs but she doesn’t think its funny. “Spike out there is in love with my murderer. A murderer that killed me in order to save your life? And now somehow, me and my murderer are connected?” She was hysterical by this point.