“What are you, little girl?” he asked, crouching to her level.
She reached out, and Raven expected her hand to go through him, but a warmth of pure life infected and burned in Raven’s veins as she cupped his cheek. “Not yet,” she said in a voice as eternal as time and space. She smiled, “Soon, Mr. Raven. Soon.”
A gash of air blew over his face as she disappeared. Raven wrinkled his nose, she was no ghost—her touch was far too warm for that.
He peered down the hallway, Lidia’s eyes were large as she gaped at him. Raven glanced at the corpses by his feet. “They were useless anyway.” He stood, walked towards her and past her, sneered as the woman’s fear drove her back, pressing against the wall.
He stepped into a laboratory of some sort, saw the operating table in the center, walked over and laid down. Bubbles sizzled in tubes warmed by Bunsen burners, light bounced off stainless steel trays, holding a variety of different medical implements. A saw and scalpels made Raven squeal with excitement. Now, if he could do something about the ammoniac stench of disinfectant souring the room, this would be a very joyous adventure.
A man entered, dressed in white scrubs and purple latex gloves with no mask covering his face. Instead, his lips were sewn shut, dark red still seeping from the stitches.
Raven White closed his eyes, feeling that miserable thing he once was, scream from deep down in the darkness of his belly, trying to claw free.
He laughed silently, his mouth stretching wide.
“Come, Doctor. I wish to see what my insides look like.”
THE MONOGAMY OF DEATH
“Please!” Jessy stared at him, gun raised, her finger shaking on the trigger, knowing the pieces of gilded metal, copper and lead would do nothing against him. “Don’t do this, we need to be rational about it.”
He took a step forward, his dress shirt bridging tightly over his pecs. She knew he was large, but as more time ticked away, he seemed to grow bigger.
“I have been rational about too many things!” His nostrils flared while a dense pink mist jetted from them, his skin cracking and peeling, little bits of rubicund flesh peeking through.
“I’m just as worried about Raven as you are.” Jessy lowered the gun, squeezing her eyelids shut. “I want to help him just as much—”
A snarl ripped through the air. Jessy flicked her eyes open, only to see Chetlér grip the console table and tear the wood as if it was a single sheet of paper. He spun and, with a violent roar, flung the pieces down the hallway. Antique Chinese porcelain vases shattered on the hardwood floor. He pressed his hands to the wall, talons burrowing into the plaster, causing the wall to bleed a white, thick wax-like substance. Jessy shivered when a shrill voice, one she could not hear, but definitely feel on her skin, moved through the house’s structure, as if the very building was in pain.
“I should never have been patient with Raven.” The demon slumped against the gouged wall, defeated, his shoulders hunched. “I should have claimed him that first night, then this would never have transpired. He would have been safe! Protected!”
“We can still save him.”
The demon spun, chthonic glower piercing Jessy’s humanity with its pulsating rubies afire in the dim hallway. “How can you be so certain, Enforcer?” His baritone voice made the air between them vibrate. Like a heat shimmer, his demonic presence—an icy stalactite being forced into Jessy’s soul, bone-chillingly cold—seemed as if it was cooking the very air in front of her.
Jessy straightened her shoulders and glared back at him. “‘I can’t, but I have to believe. It is the only thing keeping me from tearing this earth apart to find him’. Those were your exact words, Chetlér.”
The demon huffed and sagged, plucking at the strands of white goo stuck to his fingernails. He slid down the wall to his ass, knocking his head on the plaster, like a sulking child.
“I tried so hard to be good for—”
“Get the fuck off the floor,” Jessy snapped. “Sitting there and feeling hopeless is not going to solve this! Having a ‘Oh, little poor fuck me’ moment is not gonna save Raven! You are a demon, act like one. My God, you have been to Hell for fuck sakes!”
Chetlér glowered at her, his jaw elongating, a sick sound of snapping bone, while razor fangs gleamed in the little light that was present. He stood, his clothes peeling away like flesh falling off a decayed carcass. Several inches taller, and twice the density in muscle, he towered over Jessy. The hallway now seemed too small for him. He thrust out his chest, flexing while pressing up onto the balls of his feet. Jessy could hear the bones pop under the tissue, see his vexed muscles tight, ripped and sculpted, where the light cut over them.
His voice surprised her. She expected it to be different, yet it remained the same deep, rumbling baritone Chetlér held in his human form.
“I’ve seen Hell. I’ve witnessed it in all its raw bleeding and burning darkness, I’ve tasted its carnal torment, kissed its venomous pain, fucked and made love to its acidic anguish.”
As Chetlér approached, the wood groaned under his feet, she glanced up, even more startled at his massive appearance.
“This timidity I portray is my own curtailment. Trapped in the earth realm to comply with its restrictions.”
He stepped forward, fully washed in a shaft of light, allowing Jessy an unobstructed view of his demon anatomy. She stumbled backwards at the sight between his legs. Amongst a dense patch of crow-black hair as thick as fur, dangled three pistons of fat, meaty flesh.
“The legions who don’t are sent to Purgatory, because nothing can come in nor out of Hell as long as the gates remain sealed.”
His blond mane was gone, and in its place were thick strands of hair that hung to one side. Black and glossy, like an inky lake at the peak of midnight, yet they held an untamed wildness as archaic as his eyes. The beard threw her off, or was it the scar that grazed the right side of his upper lip?
A vile, blue tongue licked over his lips. His blood-red skin shimmered in the light as if dusted with powdered gold. Scars marked every inch of him; face, chest—the parts not hidden by hair—legs, even his cocks. But it was the white horns that coiled outward from his head that were the most striking. White gold, they held a radiance that Jessy could not fathom. This demonic face clashed against the Nordic features he held in his human form. This mien—his true face—held a closer resemblance to that of the male Celtic deities.
“I was also being careful, little bird,” the demon sneered. “First,”—he held up a thick finger, brandishing a long black talon— “I was banished from Hell to this earth realm, and I honestly prefer not to return. I have greatly enjoyed my two-hundred years spent here. With the King of Hell locked out of his own kingdom, I do not want to be caught down in the carnival of carnage, so ripe for the taking, currently trending in both Purgatory and the kingdom of flames. However, that was before my Raven was stolen.”
“I n-need you for this,” Jessy stuttered, her voice brittle as she stared back at the demon, trying to meet his gaze with confidence, but knew she was failing. “I d-don’t know what or who I’m up against, and to have a demon on our side along with the members of your pack—”
He snagged her neck in his hot hand, and even though she felt his grip tightening, she knew Chetlér was tempering his strength. It was another testament of the power he held in this form.
“Why do you care so much about him when you hardly know him?”
His words threw her. It was a valid question anyone would ask, yet it ripped at her heart, a blade slicing into her skin, past her ribcage. Jessy hadn’t even known Raven for a month. But how could he, Chetlér, above all, ask her that, especially when his own feelings went far beyond hers for Raven?
Jessy shifted her gaze away from his and trained it on the torn wall, still seeping its white gore. She bit her lip when he released her throat. “Because I know how he handles the supers and paras, and I know how other enforcers handle them.” She took a steady breath, a shiver rolle
d down her spine, thinking back on the cruel memory.
“When this whole thing came about, I wanted to be a good Enforcer, don’t get me wrong, I know sometimes as officers of the law, we make difficult decisions that don’t always make sense to the public, but I wanted to be a good Enforcer. Throughout my training, all I saw was scum handling supernaturals and paranormals like lesser shit.”
Jessy hugged her arms around herself, trying to warm her inside. The house resembled a morgue. “To see a mother crying, rocking her body in a chair, begging an Enforcer to look for her stolen child. Meanwhile that Enforcer stares at her as if her situation doesn’t matter, as if her problem is less significant than a human mother’s missing child. It hurts, it scares, and it makes me ask—who are the real monsters in this world? The humans? Or the ones hiding in the dark? The thing is, the supernatural and paranormal never asked to be in the dark, they were forced there.”
She finally met Chetlér’s gaze, clenching her hand into a fist over her heart. “I place myself in that mother’s shoes every day. I ask myself every morning how would I feel if those who are appointed to help, laugh at you for requesting their assistance because you are different. Then I met Raven…” She stepped forward. “Do you know the other Para-Super Tact Divisions throughout the States know about him? They make jokes behind his back. Call him a traitor, call him pussy-face and make a mockery of his career because he brings himself down to that level and actually gives a damn about another living being other than humans.”
Small embers flickered in Chetlér’s eyes, pain and sadness at her words, as she continued. “This world needs people like him, and to see what has happened to him. To know, to even hope there is slight chance he can make it through this… I’ll do anything to make it happen. Because if I was that mother, sitting in that chair, it would be an Enforcer like Raven White I’d want to be looking back at me.” Jessy heaved heavily for breath when she was done, didn’t even care that tears wet her cheeks and dripped onto her blazer.
She meant every word.
Lidia stared over the mauled flesh. The demon smelled of sweat, sulfur and semen. Kalal was a sight to see in his true form—an ugly pile of chewed demon jerky; nonetheless, his death would grant her the final key she needed to obtain flawless immortality, without its crippling side effects.
Lidia fisted her hand, glaring at Kalal’s blood as it oozed between her fingers like liquid platinum. It was glossy, almost a soapy matter that held a pearlescent presence and shimmered against her skin. To think that Kalal’s blood had created the very thing he would die for was ironically perfect. Not that she cared.
A whine rent the air as the fresh demon blood permeating the air currents. Lidia focused her attention back at the restrained creature, with its gaping mouth below her hand. She opened her clenched palm, allowing the silky plasma to drip into the salivating orifice. Some of it fell on the thing’s skin, creating a tear track under one of its inky-black eyes which glared upwards.
She couldn’t be sure what its gaze was focused on because she couldn’t see the pupils. Black consumed the entire surface of the sclera. Lidia frowned at the droplet of plasma, irritation rippling through her because she had to concentrate to distinguish between Kalal’s blood and the vampiric mutation’s skin, as both held the same pearl-like luster. The experiment snarled when she pulled her hand away, and she smiled at it before hungrily running her fingers across its cheek. It was a beautiful thing: the flesh so soft, so pure, handsome too, a little pearl in this sea of darkness.
Unfortunately, once she had started cutting him open, his black-blue blood had drained, sending it into this primitive, volatile, almost zombie-like state.
“Such a good parasite,” she crooned in a sultry voice, grazing her red nails along its naked, defined chest. The muscles were exquisitely sculpted, big round nipples, the areolas a silvery-gray with small buds protruding stiffly. It was a ravishing specimen of the male form: striking, divergent beauty, imprisoned in immortality. “Such a pity you will have to die. Again.” She grasped its thick, straining erection and twisted it, while spearing her nails into column of flesh. The experiment spat and hissed at her, muscles tight as it fought against its bounds.
She knew him, of course—the respected and honored Detective Raven White. He was one of the investigators who had tried to link Lidia and her company to the experiments they had done on homeless teens several years back.
“But I have been in this game far too long to be snared in the slippery palms of two rookies, and look at you now...nothing but a mindless parasitic slave to blood.” She moistened her red lips and pulled away, noting that its skin was slowly turning transparent.
Interesting. She wondered how long she needed to starve it before it succumbed to the comatose slumber Strigoi resorted to when they went into hibernation, or whether the mutation even would. It was unlike any other vampire she had seen or created before—a result spawned from a failure. A beauty truly birthed from darkness.
She stepped over to where Kalal lay, withering within the binding circle as the dialysis unit sucked his blood out. Lidia had messed with the three machines. While blood was being drawn out and pumped into blood bags for later use on the vampire experiment, she was replenishing the lost plasma with diluted holy water. The opportunity was too great to pass up and her sadistic desire had overruled her scientific thirst for knowledge. Of course, it wouldn’t kill the demon, but she was fascinated as she watched his skin form boils and blisters. She’d squealed with delight each time they popped and burst, then bubbled, as the holy water coursed through his veins. Lidia was not stupid, she knew once she had gained enough blood from Kalal, she would need to kill him, or he would end her.
She turned away, ready to replace one of the blood bags, when his voice made her jump.
“Having fun, human.” Kalal sat up, ripping the tubes from his arms, then proceeded to yank out the ones in his neck. Lidia stumbled back as the precious blood spilled onto the floor, and the machines screeched their annoyance. “Did you think I am this naive to trust a wretched piece of meat like you with my true name?”
Her back met the cold wall of the laboratory, and she trembled, more so when the vertical slit along the demon’s head rippled and split to show teeth. They moved individually, wiggled as if they were small maggots then—like a zipper interlocking—closing the slit again. The demon smiled as it approached. “I allowed you to play this fucked-up game for some time, never really intending for you to achieve your goal. Besides, the souls lost here by your hand are all marked by me, to hand over to my Master.”
“Your m-master?” Lidia pressed herself against the steel, her breath erratic, choking her, heart pounding as fear sliced through her veins.
“Yes, bitch!” Two tentacles ripped through the air. With the speed of bullets, Lidia was plucked from the wall before her scream even reached her lips.
“We are all working for the Master. Did you think we legions would just comply and adhere to the laws of little flesh monkeys?” The demon snarled. “Know your place, meat!” The roar was the last thing Lidia heard as pain burst down the center of her chest, a force so violent, slicing from her head to her sex, before she split in two.
Kalal-yagh turned, a smile cracking his face. His vile gray tongue pushed out to lick over his left eye, cheek and jaw, then to the right, up over the cheek and other eye again. He stopped before the squealing Enforcer, gave one glance at the straining erection covered in sticky blood and grinned.
Kalal-yagh mounted himself over the Enforcer’s lap, impaled himself on the man’s cock and groaned as he was filled. “Now the fun begins,” He ripped into his own throat, leaned forward, and offered his neck to Raven White to gorge on… Well, the little that was left of the Detective anyway…
Jessy rested against the wall, her breath racing past her lips, gun held in both hands, raised next to her face. There was a stillness in the air, a darkness that clung to this place as thick as the blanket of ice around their steel-
toed boots. The buildings were rotted, covered in snow, some had already crumbled in on themselves, others barely holding the fibers of their existence together. A black mold gripped the bricks and wood, windows—those that still remained—were stained murky by the elements. The old mining town was a forgotten ghost, leaving only the wind to visit as it whispered through the cracks and creaks of the stone and lumber skeletons.
The snow had been a dense river of white swallowing their boots, leaving Jessy winded and panting from the trip up. A simple police car just couldn’t cut it. She’d been aware of Chetlér radiating heat like a porcelain oven, but it wasn’t like the Lycans, whose bodies were constantly warm. Chetlér’s came from pure anger, needing to be quenched with vengeance, but she could trust him. At least, she hoped she could.
The large blond Lycan with them worried Jessy. He hadn’t grunted with exertion, rather snarled and growled the closer they had come to the forgotten buildings. His bare chest had pulsated against the icy air when he had stood next to her. His voice, a deep, black pit of malice, a darkness that had its hands around Jessy’s throat, threatening to suffocate her. A primeval presence emanated from him, a ferocious force that seemed to manifest itself in the vapors that had streamed off his sweat-glistening flesh. The veins in his forearms, biceps, shoulders and thick neck had bloated angrily. But what startled her more: the veins were black. Even for a Lycan that was not normal.
The beast, now fully shifted into his lupine form, was currently ripping two unknown guards to shreds, despite the blood spilling from the bullet wound in his right shoulder, staining his silver, salt-and-pepper fur.
A shiver bolted along Jessy’s spine when one of the guards let out a bone-splitting scream, which mutated to a gurgle when the beast latched its massive jaws around his throat and tore the man’s head clean off. The head plopped to the floor and rolled to the side, bumping against the inner steel frame of the underground bunker for good measure. The guard’s body had barely hit the concrete when a midnight-black blur zipped past Jessy and jumped a third guard. The black Lycan shook the man’s body between his teeth as if he was a chew toy, tearing flesh, and shattering bone.
Neon White Season One: A Tooth, Claw and Horns Chronicle Page 22