by Marie Hall
It didn’t hurt this time, and with that thought came a wave of relief.
Her tree shivered, becoming shrouded in a dense heat wave. It rippled off the bark like asphalt under a hot desert sun. The leaves exploded, snapping with crimson sparks and fire burned. With a cry of joy, Sable jumped into the air and right before her feet touched ground she shifted, powerful wings flapping and finding a current to ride. She shot up, a graceful dancer surveying her land and then with a glass shattering call, dived in a tight spiral into the heart of fire.
The phoenix had returned.
Chapter 8: Betrayal in the dreaming
Eyes scanning, scenting the air and smelling no others about, the phoenix dropped to the rocky cliff’s ledge and shifted back to her alter form. She was several miles above ground, surveying an endless expanse of hot jungle below. The earthy richness mingled with the fire smoke burning in the distance. Though it was well past midnight the people’s steady chanting continued. A superstitious lot. The sight of the blood moon had immediately demanded worship and sacrifice. A god was about.
She snorted. He’d like to think so anyway. But a god wouldn’t hide in a cave like a coward. He was here. After all these years, finally, finally she tasted victory.
She ignored the nagging suspicion that it had been too easy. All the near misses and battles and this was how it would end?
She turned and entered the impossibly dark and yawning stony mouth. She hugged the rock as she walked along, tiptoeing, making no noise. She was a predator in any form. Killing was what she did and she did it well.
A constant drip of water echoed like a hammer striking a nail. The acoustics were amazing in this place. She couldn’t smell him. Couldn’t see any light, but she heard the scratchy skip of a record player dragging along vinyl. The almost diabolical energy of Beethoven’s symphony pulsed with low frequency waves even she couldn’t hear, but could feel rush electric along her skin. Pebbles skipped and bounced in tandem.
She took a breath every five steps, keeping to her pace. Not rushing herself, knowing one wrong move and he’d vanish.
She was so close.
Hunter had told her to wait for back-up. But how could he even ask her that? She was a hunter, a killer that was not only good, but loved what she did. Watching blood spill for her was like being given diamonds to another. It was her high. Her obsession. She would take him down. Then maybe Hunter would finally see how powerful she really was. Maybe then she’d finally earn his respect. But then again...maybe she no longer wanted his validation.
After twenty years of near misses, finally they knew Dragden’s location. Excitement welled up inside her, making her skin tingle. All she kept picturing was sinking her curved dagger into his neck and watching with glee as he gave up the ghost and her phoenix bathed in his blood. Her fingers curled just thinking about it.
What felt like a thousand breaths later, she finally saw a faint blue glow creep along the rock face. Heart pounding and adrenaline pumping so high she could almost taste it; she rounded the final bend and saw him.
His back was to her and he was kneeling, head bowed. He wore all black; black so deep it seemed to absorb the light around him, shrouding him in an inky well of semi-transparent shadow.
Blonde hair hung long and free down his back. But to only call it blonde would be an understatement. The stuff gleamed in differing shades of it—from buttery soft yellow, to a burnished golden hue, and everything in between.
Even a good fifty paces away from him her sensitive nostrils picked up his faint scent of sweat mixed with an earthy musk all his own. It was appealing and right then a conflict began to brew deep inside her soul. A worm of doubt that maybe she should have waited. She brushed it aside; nothing would stop her from claiming victory.
“Looked your fill yet?” His voice, ah gods his voice. Deep and full bodied with a hint of whiskey. Her knees felt weak. She was confused by her unexpected need to curl up at his feet and let him pet her. Touch her. Fill her.
She squeezed her skull, shame spread poison inside her. She loved another. Always had. Always would.
“I’ve been expecting you, golden one.”
Her skin broke out in goose bumps and the fire that always simmered bright and hot just below the surface, threatened to curl outwards. She hadn’t even seen his face yet, but her body was singing and coming alive with a desperation that bordered on madness.
Fear ripped through her heart, twisting her up in knots. What was happening to her?
“What have you done to me?” she hissed, disgust at her reaction dripped from her words.
He laughed a deep rumble that wrapped her up in a dark velvet embrace. Then he turned and she forgot it all. Thick, perfectly shaped brows rested upon a pair of rich cinnamon eyes, they twinkled, studying her as she studied him.
His face was expressive and open. High cheeks bones that tapered into a square cut jaw. Lips, verging on almost too full, but on him they were perfect. Smooth and pink and she couldn’t stop wondering what they’d feel like sliding along her bare flesh. A Grecian nose that added an air of importance and power.
An angel. That’s what he looked like. But the fallen looked like that too. A beauty so tempting, so alluring, that it made you forget it was little more than a façade that hid a an evil so great you’d be consumed by it.
She shook herself, whatever compulsion he had on her it was intense, but she was strong and could tap into places he never could. Even at this great a distance she drew strength from her tree, urged it to feed her, to cleanse her of the evil hooking itself into her. Gentle warmth flooded her mind, like a broom sweeping away at webs, it scattered her volatile reaction to him enough to give focus to her task.
“Death demands its due, Dragden.” Her words were tipped in steel.
The music hit a piercing crescendo and she smirked, feeling the blood lust begin to take her. Her body wavered, becoming cocooned in a clear wave of heat. She drew her power to her as she reached inside the breast of her jacket and withdrew the lethal, curved blade.
He bit his bottom lip, lifting his chin. Desire coiled in his hot gaze like a sling and it only added fuel to her fire. Blood lust, desire...merely two sides of the same coin.
“Is that what you think, little bird? Are you my reaper then?”
She ran her finger down the sharpened edge of her knife. Her skin split open, leaking a small trail of blood down its silver face.
Then he was on her. One second they’d had yards between them, the next his heat invaded hers. And it was a heat that rivaled that of her flame. It was intense and made her curl into it. She purred like a cat. He’d backed her up against the stone face. The cold rocks bit into her sensitized flesh and she groaned. His hands rested above her head, imprisoning her. She pushed her hands into his chest, the muscles flexed and the tensile strength of it was impressive. He was a tempting package. Far more than she’d ever anticipated. But if he thought this would be enough to stop her, he was wrong.
Slowly, watching his eyes the entire time she did it, she turned her wrist and planted the tip of her dagger above the spot of his heart.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t turn or try to protect himself at all. Dragden ran his thumb across the seam of her lip, his face so close to hers they shared the same air.
“Kill me then, phoenix,” he said, lips a hair’s breadth from hers she swore she felt the feathery weight of them.
Steeling her resolve, her hand gripped the handle tight, but she couldn’t move. Every time she tried, it was like the neurons in her brain misfired and wouldn’t signal her arm to lift and stab. She couldn’t end him. Something in her wouldn’t allow it.
His mouth curled and she knew he knew. “Did you honestly think you were strong enough?” He chuckled, observing her now like one would a child who’d been caught acting naughty.
His look did one thing for her, and that was to kill the desire instantly. Hate took her in its cold familiar arms and she narrowed her eyes, finally free of his com
pulsion.
Noticing her transformation, the smile on his face slipped and revealed the true mask beneath. The warm cinnamon eyes were now a flickering black reptilian stare—devoid of soul or kindness.
Not once had he touched the dagger, but it flew from her hands by some invisible, powerful force. It clattered on the stones behind him.
His smile now was pure evil. Teeth that before had been white and even, were now filed points that could easily saw through flesh.
Fear hammered a tattoo in her skull. The air between them reeked of the fetid decayed stench of his breath. She wheezed.
“Never think, golden one, that I do not have a plan. Never think you can win. Ever.” Then his nose was pressed to the side of her neck and he was inhaling her, his leg shoving forcefully between hers and she wanted to crawl inside herself and die. Impotent rage suffused her limbs, but she was frozen in her fear.
He released her, returning instantly to an extremely virile man who oozed sexuality and charm. Against her will, her body responded. Her limbs went limp and she arched her back, shoving her chest up and out. But though her body moved, her mind screamed.
“You are mine. Forever. And forever for us,” he tipped up her chin, she panted—skin tingling from his touch—“is a very long time.”
“I belong to no one,” she snapped, drawing off the last vestige of her strength.
He grinned and the sight was impossibly beautiful, stealing the very breath from her lungs. “Before this is over I will possess you body and soul and you will cry out for more.”
Each step he took back from her released her from the compulsion that had scrambled her brains and made her feel like a woman raped. He’d made her act and think things she’d never forgive herself for. She spit at his feet and he laughed, the sound shivered down her spine.
“See you around, little bird.” Shadows moved in on him, drawing from every corner of the cave, engulfing him and he vanished in a silk screen of blackness.
Chapter 9: All in
Hunter glanced at Sable. Her hair was even rattier than he remembered, and the skin under her eyes was now a purple so deep they appeared black. She looked like crap.
“Did you figure out how to sleep last night?” he asked, wondering if maybe she’d never called the phoenix sleep to her.
Her steps were lethargic and heavy. She glanced at him and the look in her eyes were empty. This was not the way he’d left her yesterday. “What happened to you, Sable?”
They were walking past a truck stop on Route 66 somewhere in the middle of nowhere. A big billboard proudly proclaimed a shower, hot food, and gas. Way he figured it; she was long overdue for two of the three.
“I slept,” she mumbled and huddled down into her brown, worn scrubs. But it was like trying to gain warmth from one piece of coal. He felt ashamed of himself; he should be taking better care of her. She wasn’t strong enough for any of this yet.
“C’mon.” He jerked his head in the direction of the large white building. The parking lot only held three trucks; the two-lane highway was devoid of traffic. It was as good a place as any to start talking strategy, hopefully over a hot bowl of chili or soup.
She didn’t even look up; she seemed resigned to her fate. Following like an obedient puppy, she didn’t say a word, and it wasn’t lost on him that she hadn’t answered his question. Probably the dreams again. He knew so little of the alien force that lived within her. Sable was the Phoenix, but the Phoenix was not Sable. The Phoenix was time itself, the beginning and the end.
Best guess, she was dreaming about the future he’d come from. A theoretical nightmare, because how can someone from the past dream of a future they haven’t yet walked? But from what Sable had explained to him before, whatever mysteries she needed to know the entity would provide. Though the providing of it was a torture all its own.
The bell tinkled above the door when they entered. An immediate rush of hot air blasted them in the face from the vent above them. Her lips turned up a fraction and already he could see her melancholy lifting.
The place was practically empty. A trucker with an orange ball cap walked down the snack food aisle with the air of a man exhausted but resigned to another seven hours of driving before he could call it a night. Further back Hunter spotted a small arcade and next to it the type of greasy spoon that gave you an awful case of heartburn but tasted good going down. The air was thick with the smell of fries and grilled meat.
“Shower’s over there,” he pointed to the ladies sign.
Her head whipped up, desire snapped violent through her gray eyes. Then the light died and she shook her head. “I don’t have anything to shower with and,” she curled her nose, staring down at her filth and mud crusted scrubs, “I don’t want to put this back on once I’m clean.”
“Wait a second.” He held up his finger and walked back out. She followed him.
“Where are you going?” she asked, sounding perplexed and not a little wistful as she glanced over her shoulder. No doubt thinking the chance for a hot shower was quickly sliding through her fingers.
“I can’t jump in front of others,” he said, walking around the back of the store, relieved to note the expanse of trees that cut off about a hundred yards back into a sheer drop off. “What size do you wear?”
She frowned, glancing down at herself. “I used to be a six, but I’ve lost weight. I’m not sure.”
“Good enough.” Hunter jumped, going to a place he’d passed once before. A place he suspected might appeal to her. At least the style had to her other incarnation.
A rocker clothing boutique in the Hollywood hills. He made sure to drop down behind a thick cover of buildings and surveyed the concrete jungle before stepping out.
He ran inside. A girl with a purple Mohawk and nose ring glanced up when he entered. A little on the pudgy side and with a battle hardened look in her eyes, she eyed him like a hawk. And somehow he knew by the look she shot him that an innate sixth sense warned her he was up to no good. He didn’t have any money, but these were desperate times. He’d pay her back. Later. Hunter kept his head down, looking at the purple leopard spotted carpet and walked toward the racks furthest back.
She walked around the counter, military style boots strapped up to her knees with laces and buckles made her a striking figure. Meant to intimidate, this wasn’t the safest part of L.A., but he had one purpose. Get in, get out.
“’Sup?” she asked with the gravelly voice of a smoker with a pack a day habit.
“Hey,” he nodded and started browsing through the racks, finding a cream tank covered in black bows and colorful glitter. He wouldn’t normally grab it, he wasn’t sure Sable was the girly type, but it was the Dia de los Muertos skull on it that made him think she might like it.
“Somethin’ I can help you with, man?” Her top lip was curled up, purple dyed brows peaked. She was definitely on to him.
“I got it.”
“Mmhmm. I’m watchin’ you, dude. Cameras everywhere. Don’t try nothing.” The words were sharp.
He licked his lips, she had moxy and he liked that, but she needed to go. Before she knew what he was doing, he gripped her wrist in a tight hold, forcing her to look in his eyes. A moment of panic flared in her blue contact colored eyes before they went glazed. There were many ways to bend time other than travel, he sent a signal—a tiny mind pulse like a spear through her brain—scrambling her memory receptors. Like a giant puzzle, he separated parts of her reality, extracting any piece of him from her mind.
He never did this lightly. The brain was a highly sensitive piece of equipment. And like dealing a virus to a computer, if he wasn’t careful he could completely disrupt her programming, killing her instantly.
Right now all he wanted was the time to do what he needed so that he could leave. Her life would go on as before without any consequences other than a few minutes she couldn’t quite remember.
“Go back to you register and watch the door,” he ordered once he’d finished.
“Back to the door,” she muttered under her breath and never looked back at him as he finished his shopping.
He grabbed a pair of acid washed jeans, some black motorcycle boots and a pleather jacket. He’d have gone for the leather fringe one, except that that probably cost a small fortune. A pair of black and pink hello kitty socks wrapped up his trip.
He walked to the changing area and jumped again, one last time. This time to a grocery store to pick up shampoo, deodorant, spray and a dark red book bag to carry it all in. In her other life she’d always been obsessed with smelling good. The way Sable continued to cringe at her clothing and hair made him think she was very similar in a lot of ways to The Phoenix he’d known.
He wasn’t sure what type of spray she’d like now, but before she’d always smelled of flowers. He picked the one nearest to what he remembered and then returned to her wondering, hoping, he’d gotten things right.
She was where he’d left her, shivering and rubbing her hands along her arms. “I didn’t think you were gonna come back,” she admitted softly.
“Here,” he thrust the bag at her, “go get cleaned. I’ll order us some food.”
She unzipped the book bag and sighed happily. “Clean clothes. Thanks, Hunter.”
He shrugged and shoved her back toward the store. She practically flew in her haste to shower. He smiled, feeling like he’d done at least one good thing today.
Almost twenty minutes later he sat at a booth as the waitress set two steaming plates of burgers and fries in front of him. He’d had to use another of his Jedi mind tricks to get her to buy their lunch for them. He was really going to have to figure out a better way to provide for them. He’d learned long ago the way to control his… baser side... was to do things by the book. Abusing his power led to darker paths. Paths he could no longer walk.