Scratch (Feral Aliens)

by Loki Renard

  “You are not on drugs. You are a common, petty thief.”

  “I may be a thief, but there is nothing common about me.”

  The beast man smiles. It is not a pleasant expression. There is a great deal of tooth and fang about his expression. The phrase all the better to eat you with flashes into my mind. “Perhaps that is true. I hope so, for your sake. You are the chosen one.”

  “The chosen one?”

  “You have come through the wall, following your curiosity. You have made yourself available to destiny.”

  “Is this some kind of religious thing? Because that’s cool if it’s your jam, but….”

  “It’s not a religious thing. It’s a fate thing. A destiny thing. Any human could have walked through this door. But you are the one who did. A pretty, attractive, young human female. You are perfect.”

  “Okay, well, unless you have money, I’m not going to suck your…”

  “What I want you to do doesn’t require sucking anything.”

  “That would be a first for me.”

  “I am sure it would be,” he smiles.

  I kind of have a thing for older guys, and this guy has the older guy vibe all the way down. His mane thing is silver streaked over black. The rest of his body is comprised of thick, black fur, as far as I can see. He’s wearing very fancy robes which are also black with a great deal of gold ornamentation.

  “Are you a judge or a drag queen?”

  I like drag queens. I don’t like judges.

  “My name is Archon. I am king.”

  “Oh, a drag king?”

  “There’s no drag, human…”

  “You’re absolutely wrong about that. Those robes are all drag.”

  “I think Shanti will enjoy you,” he says.

  “Who is Shanti?”

  I don’t remember anything after that. I remember blackness and a flash of light and then I remember a forest and a lot of pain.

  “We need to take her to Shanti,” Skoll is saying.

  The name is familiar, and yet, also not.

  And then everything since then happened. These memories have not surfaced before. It was like they were locked away behind a sliding door.

  “Huh,” I say to a dinner party full of eyes staring at me with seriously suspicious glares. Even Scratch is looking at me in a way I don’t like.

  “What?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Pixie?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “You didn’t tell me you were in Skoll’s place on Earth.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “What else haven’t I asked?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrug. I feel guilty, though I’m not sure why. Have I really done anything wrong?

  Feeling guilty upsets me, especially because I do not understand it, so I lash out.

  “None of you ever asked anything. I was nothing to you. I was meat to be traded, lusted after, just like back on Earth. Even right down to this meal. I didn’t want to come, but I had to come. Don’t get upset at not knowing me when all you’ve ever done is make assumptions.”

  Scratch

  “Take your hands off my mate,” I tell Skoll.

  He releases her, but she doesn’t come to me. She stumbles toward the door, her face streaming with tears. She’s upset. She’s scared. And she’s guilty. I’ve seen that expression on her face before. In the mirror.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “We will have to do this another time. Excellent cheese, Kitty. Your hospitality is exemplary. Excuse me.”

  I run after Pixie, who is dashing up into the hills as fast as her legs will take her, which is not very fast. It does not take much to overtake her, but she will not stop, and I have to grab her by the waist and whip her up off her feet.

  “Let me go!”

  “Calm down,” I say, keeping a firm hold on her. “It’s okay.”

  “How is it okay? Skoll is going to be running to Shanti and telling her everything. Shanti’s going to want to see the chip.”

  “Do you remember it being put in?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me what you do remember.”

  “I was in Skoll’s apartment. I went through the shining door in the wall and I talked to a guy like you who told me destiny had chosen me. Next thing I knew, I was here. I didn’t even remember any of this until Skoll grabbed me. You have to believe me.”

  “I don’t have to believe you, but I do,” I tell her. “That portal should have been closed the moment Skoll returned with Kitty and me. It was left open for a reason. They wanted another human.”

  “Who is they?”

  “That’s a good question,” he says. “What did the guy look like?”

  “He was tall and old, and his mane was kinda grey and he was wearing a really fancy dressing gown with all gold sleeves and along the hem. He mentioned his name was Archie or…”

  “Archon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Incredible. You have met the king of the city. Even I haven't met the king of the city.”

  “He said he was a king. I thought he was some kind of performer. He was so unnecessarily fancy.”

  “Kings have a tendency toward being fancy.”

  She gives a little half smile. “What am I going to do? I didn’t remember until Skoll touched that thing inside me.”

  “You weren’t supposed to remember at all,” I tell her. “The city has ways and means of playing with minds. The technology of our world is incredible, and you have been used as a pawn in a game of chess so vast we may never be able to see the battleground clearly.”

  “You’re not angry at me?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you would be angry,” she says in a small voice. “I thought you’d think I’d betrayed you.”

  “You didn’t remember, Pixie. You were caught up in something bigger than yourself. And, you were right. I didn’t ask you about how you came to be here. I was thinking about myself the whole time. Evading Skoll and then claiming you. I took your presence for granted.”

  A slow smile creeps over her face. “Thank you. You’re the best.”

  "Come on. Let’s go talk to Shanti about this before Skoll starts some kind of crusade against us.”

  When we come back down the hill, it is as Pixie imagined. Skoll, Falkri, Fenrir, and Dwight are all waiting for us in the center of the village. I think they were preparing to come after us, but that won't be necessary. Pixie and I are both done running. I will stay by her side, no matter what.

  “No need to assemble the boy group,” I tell Skoll. “We’re coming to see Shanti.”

  “I thought you might have fled,” Skoll says. “The pair of you seem to be cut from the same cloth.”

  “You’re cut from penis cloth, dickhead,” Pixie snaps. I’ve been trying to get her to calm down and behave more politely, but I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Skoll thinks he is better than me, and better than Pixie by association. He knows us to both be criminals and thieves, but what he does not know is that there is great honor among thieves. She’s not going anywhere. Neither am I.

  “It would seem that there are no quiet nights anymore,” Shanti says, appearing in the doorway of her home. “What has you all milling about out here while my girls try to sleep?”

  “The human has a tracking chip inside her,” Skoll says. “Someone is watching her. Maybe even listening in.”

  “Come into the back,” Shanti says with what sounds like a half-sigh. “Try not to wake everybody up.”

  We all proceed to the back of the great house where Shanti has her private rooms off the main round. Shanti stops outside the rear door, reluctant to let a half dozen of us into her home.

  “We know the city knows where we are,” Shanti says calmly. “They don’t need to send a human here to track us. They set up one of their shining doors here.”

  “True. But I don’t think they came to attack the village, Shanti. I think they came to plant this human here,” Skoll says.
/>   “Why?”

  That, I think I can answer.

  “Archon the city king sent her, Shanti. He, or someone claiming to be him, met her when she first arrived from Earth.”

  Shanti’s eyes flash with emotion. “Archon. Now that is a name I have not heard in a long time.”

  “Who is he to you?”

  She answers with a thin smile. “He was once my mate.”

  “Our father,” Falkri says, grimly

  “How did his family end up living in the wilds, while he remained king of the city?”

  “That is a long story,” Shanti says. “And not one I care to share at this time. I am sorry you were brought into this, Pixie. It does not concern you in any way, and you have suffered a great deal for it.”

  Pixie

  “Maybe you owe me an explanation, then,” I suggest.

  “I owe you forgiveness, and I owe you some means of rectification, but I cannot explain this to you," Shanti says. “Pixie, come with me. Your mate can wait outside. The rest of you should return to your homes and refrain from any gossip on this subject. The last thing we need is more upset. The girls are already afraid. There is talk about moving from this place, fleeing ever deeper into the wild.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

  “This is our home. This is the place I founded with my sons and daughters. This is as far from any part of the city as it is possible to get. That place is spread out like a net across our planet. I picked this place, these hills, these wilds, because this is where I want my progeny to call home.”

  “So Archon’s your ex,” I say. “And he’s not letting go.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Shanti says.

  People always say things are complicated when they’re not. This is a story as old as time. A jealous estranged husband keeping an eye on his lost family, using whatever means necessary to keep in touch, even at a great distance. It’s kind of romantic if you think a crazed stalker king is romantic.

  She is right about one thing, though. I do not have a part in this. It’s like Scratch says. I am a pawn.

  “Cut it out of me,” I say. “Get it out of me. Whatever is going on, I don’t want to be a tool in the middle of it.”

  “I can do that,” Shanti says. “Sit down on the bed. I will need some supplies, and a little time.”

  I sit down and I wait. I don’t know how to feel. Violated, mostly. But also relieved. It makes sense now, my presence here. Everything I went through, and everything that has happened. I've been used. Just like always.

  The only one who hasn’t used me is Scratch.

  “Drink this,” Shanti says, handling me a little cup full to the brim with something which smells as though it should not be drunk. “It will numb the pain.”

  “So you have had something trippy all this time.”

  “It’s a sedative. You won’t enjoy it, but it will stop you from feeling pain when I cut into your skin and remove that piece of the city.”

  I lift the drink to my lips, and I’m about to take a sip, when a thought occurs to me. Something Skoll said comes back. It’s bigger than a language chip, he said…

  “Wait…”

  “What?”

  “What would be the point of a transmitter, you said it yourself. He knows where you are. So why would he send me here to transmit?”

  Shanti stands, thinking. She crouches down in front of me and looks me in the eyes. I find myself in her stare, trapped, and somewhat confused.

  “Don't move,” she says, putting her hands on either side of my face. “Hold still…”

  I don’t really have any choice.

  She looks deep inside me. I feel myself being probed in some intangible way, known in a manner which makes me frankly uncomfortable.

  “I thought you looked familiar," she says finally. “Something about you. Something in the eyes. It tries to hide, but it can’t escape completely.”

  I feel all my hair standing erect on the back of my neck. What the fuck is going on?

  She stands up and walks to the door.

  “Scratch, come here.”

  Scratch walks in. His eyes go straight to me. “Are you okay?”

  “As okay as I can be,” I shrug.

  “Look in her eyes and tell me who you see,” she says.

  “What the fuck is…”

  I fall silent again when Scratch does much the same thing as Shanti.

  “Huh,” he says. “I never noticed that before.”

  “Have you dealt with the spy?” Skoll comes in without being asked, because he thinks he is important. Falkri and Fenrir are more obedient and responsible than he is. They stay outside, guarding us against god knows what.

  “Go away,” I growl.

  “She's not a spy,” Shanti says. “And your presence is surplus to requirements…”

  “Actually, I think we could use him,” Scratch says. “He might have met… actually, I won’t say. Skoll, come look in her eyes.”

  For a third time, a grimalkin stares into my fucking soul, and then behind it.

  “Hm,” Skoll says. “It’s hard to tell, but I think I caught a flicker.”

  “Who the fuck is inside me? What the fuck is going on?”

  I’m asking out of convenience, because really I know exactly what’s going on. They think some entity is hitching a ride with me, the same way Scratch was inside Mr Tiddles for three years.

  “Get this freeloading hitchhiker out of me,” I say. “Cut the fucking chip out, rip my arm off if you have to.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Shanti says. “Do not worry, you are not in any danger.”

  “No, I’m just inhabited.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” Scratch says with a reassuring smile.

  “You better exorcise the shit out of me, I swear.”

  But it’s not that simple, of course.

  “We need a vessel for the hitchhiker to leapfrog to once she or he leaves Pixie. If somebody were dying, the hitchhiker would be forced to leave her body, but there is nobody in such a condition.”

  “Mr Tiddles doesn’t seem to mind?” Scratch suggests.

  “Even if Kitty allowed that, which I do not think she would, we want the hitchhiker to be able to speak when it comes out. It needs to go into someone with vocal cords and the ability to control a rogue entity inside them.”

  “Me,” Falkri says. “Put it in me.”

  “You are the chief of the tribe. You cannot take on a rogue hitchhiker.”

  “Me,” Dwight says. “I can take the interloper. I will crush it in my cerebellum and make it beg for mercy in the intensity of my white matter.”

  Nobody has any objection to Dwight taking whoever is inside me, so the matter is settled. Dwight flexes in anticipation of what will happen, as if rippling muscles will make any difference to whatever is living inside me.

  “Drink the brew,” Shanti encourages me. “I’ll cut the chip out of you and suture your wounds. You will be free of the hitchhiker very soon.”

  I have to trust them. They’re trusting me.

  “Shanti…”

  “Yes?”

  “When you take the chip out. Can you take the other thing out too?”

  “What other…” she pauses and her eyes flash with memory. “I don’t know how to remove those. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “There’s strings inside. You pull them gently and it should come out. I’d do it myself, but the angles are all wrong.”

  “Are you sure, Pixie?”

  I look over at Scratch. I don’t want anything between him and me anymore. And I don’t want anything foreign inside me, dictating and changing my nature. The IUD served its purpose when I was having sex with men who thought intimacy was nothing more than a transaction. But I don’t need it now. What I need now is to be open to the world, and to my mate. I want what Kitty has. As messy and tiring as her life looks, it’s real.

  Or maybe it’s not what I want. I don’t
know. Scratch and I will figure it out. I have always enjoyed anal sex, after all.

  He gives me a shrug. Not high romance, but have we ever been highly romantic? No. Our relationship started with a hate mouth-fuck and has spiraled from there. Spiraled. Is that the word? Usually the romance books would call it blossoming, but our relationship has never been flowery. It has been messy and confusing and filthy, and I know it will keep being that way.

  “I can try,” she says. “Drink the brew.”

  I drink the brew. It tastes like dirt and berries, but I drink it all down. I’ve never been hesitant to try something new. It’s just like she says. I start to feel very sedate, very sleepy, and then there's nothing at all.

  Scratch

  I watch her slip into sleep. When Pixie is thoroughly under, Shanti moves down between her thighs.

  “Look away,” she says, addressing the males in the room. “The next part of this is not for your eyes.”

  “Why? We’ve seen her in much more compromising situations,” Dwight says. I almost forgot he was here. He has a tendency to blend. And to snoop.

  “Look. Away,” Shanti insists.

  He looks away.

  I watch as Shanti reaches in between Pixie’s thighs and carefully removes the small piece of plastic which once stood guard between her most private place and the rest of the world. She is making herself vulnerable to me, and to my seed. I do not know if we will mate and produce an infant. After all, this body I inhabit is not my own. My body died three years ago. If we were to mate and she were to take the seed I generate, it would be the spawn of another dead warrior which emerged from between those perfect caramel cream thighs.

  But what is blood really? We are not even of the same species and yet we love one another. Whatever we make in this lifetime, I will love.

  More importantly, I swear I will never let her be used again. The presence of the chip may not have caused her any real pain, but the stress of being violated in such a way will not come without consequence. I wish I could have protected her, but this evil befell her before I met her.

  I can’t stop what happened from having happened. But I can make damn sure nothing else like this ever happens again. She’s safe. She’s going to be safe for as long as I live.