Shadow Boxing

by Girl, Breukelen

  I was a need. Because I had truth-sayer’s blood and my beautiful demon lover, was a junkie for my truth-sayer blood. More than that, he’d bought into whatever story this bitch before us had spun him about how he could have the truth sayer within, and the blood at the same time. At a price of killing me, the problem was the killing me part. That clearly required specifics. Hence the ruse to attract a Unicorn to assassinate it’s own sire, the god Asha who lived in my very mortal body.

  “You evil bitch.” I smarted at her. “The only way you can get what you want, is by manipulating him.”

  She clapped her hands together excitedly. “Now you’re on the same page as us.” She smirked. “Which is great, because now you understand.”

  I felt something flow in me, like a swirling mass of concentrated anger and hatred. I’d felt the same thing when I was fourteen. People had died from that feeling, at my hands. Asha was waiting just under the surface of me.

  “In order for that to happen, you have to die.”

  “Do your worst.” I threw back at her.

  Tarin and I stared at each other. I’d never given my life much thought before. I’d never been much of a fighter, but that seemed to change, being around Tarin. I had a need to be. The question was wether I was fighting for me or was I fighting for both of us, together.

  I slide my fingers into his, laced us together. I needed an answer before Asha came out. Because this time, if Asha came out, I might just let her stay out for good and do whatever the hell she wanted.

  The woman laughed back at me and sat up from the reclining position on the lounge. “Tempting. Do you know who I am?”

  “Someone with an ego if you’re asking that question.” I ground out trying to refocus on not touching the soft unmarked parts of Tarin. It was his scars that would be a path for me to my answer. He wanted to let me know something, that was why he was allowing me to read him. The truth inside Tarin was an ugly truth, every scar I touched. It was pure honest truth and it was horrid. There was no perception of disillusionment over it.

  I wanted to be sick, and puke. But I focused on splitting my attention on the bitch before us while I read Tarin as gently as I could.

  “Tarin love, why don’t you tell her who I am?” A twitch in Tarin jaw indicated how much he didn’t want to do that. I knew because I’d found it in Tarin, the scar that glowed with constant pain like a throbbing ember inside him.

  This was the other truth-sayer, the one that the vampires who’d tortured and abused him when hew as fourteen had force feed her blood to. So by all accounts we were due for a knock out drag ‘em out fight ahead. Cause I suddenly didn’t feel like sharing Tarin with her or letting him go through anymore torture at her hands.

  “My name is Andromeda, well, it wasn’t originally but after meeting Tarin for the first time, it became my name since it seemed to fit me at time.” She held a steely gaze with Tarin as she stood up and I noted she was no taller than me. “Do you know the story of Andromeda Ms Phoenix? She was a beautiful god, ravaged by a monster.”

  I saw Tarin’s eyes divert down off her face. He couldn’t stand to look at her. Every little scar around the one I’d found, seemed to sharpen in touch and glow brightly. There was so much of her and that time inside him. It had marked him, changed him and he’d carried the horror of it all with himself all this time as his own self-imposed punishment. And yet I still traversed those scars.

  “The vampires who captured him, merely did so not to get a wild animal to off the streets, and save the public, but to appease my people so we didn’t lay waste to them.”

  Her people? Since when did truth-sayers have people if they were incorporeal beings? Did she mean worshippers? I felt Asha pushing at my insides. There was something off about Andromeda. I thought Asha was trying to tell me it, I felt a stronger pull and press in searching Tarin’s scars out. He winced visibly on the outside and tried to not look at me.

  “I was meant to have my way with Tarin, but he and his sister got rescued.” There it was, an answer with a scar, buried deep, it was like touching a cool blue flame, but to read and get the information I needed, I had to keep my touch in there. Tarin shuffled on his feet momentarily trying to keep his composure. Reading someone was never this intrusive. But we were on a deadline here, literally, I was sure of it.

  “So what does that have to do with me? Or even Arlow here?” I said pointing at the weakened black male before us. He was practically double over in trying to remain upright and off the ground. With his hands down, holding him up.

  “You’re the fun part of all this.” Andromeda answered me with a bright smile. “And I suspect it won’t take you all that long to die, given I have the weapon of your destruction here with me.” Andromeda said pointing to Arlow.

  17

  “Do you know how much power and prominence I could get by taking down a truth-sayer like you?” So I was just a paranormal career move for her. How un-imaginative.

  When people think of the truth, they tend to think of the literal truth. They think of words and images, of what they see and hear. But the truth of any matter is present at all times, whether you see it, hear it, feel it or taste it. The body is a map of truth at all times. It houses so much information that we as humans, tended to render most of it as junk and only used a small percentage of our brains to accept and rationalise and decipher what we considered to be truth.

  I likened it to hair. When getting out of a bad situation, I often wanted to cut my hair, right back. Because I felt my hair retained a sensory recollection of my history. So if I could literally let go off all that past memory, I could move forward easier, and if that meant a short haircut, then so be it.

  Tarin didn’t know it, but his body was the same as that and whilst Tarin might have been told Andromeda was a truth-sayer, the reality was, she wasn’t. It’d been a lie. But Tarin had bought into the lie all the same. Because what else was a captured and sexually tortured demon coming into being, going to do to get a sense of satisfaction or release?

  “I see a problem with your plan though.” I said directly.

  “Enlighten me on what I’ve over looked.”

  “You’re not a truth-sayer.” I said out loud.

  “What?” Tarin asked shocked and looked back at me.

  Andromeda kept smiling at me. “You are very smart. You are in fact, the first person who’s ever figure that out about me.” She looked back at Tarin who was now looking utterly confused. Andromeda sighed and swayed her ball gown from side to side around her.

  “It has been a rather effective ruse over the years. I never said I was you know. I just well, implied, is probably the best word and the vampires, well, turns out they fear what they don’t understand especially if it’s more powerful than them in the scheme of things.” Andromeda answered Tarin with.

  “And if you’d known better back then Tarin, you’d have known, we were both more powerful than any of those vampires. Still, turns out, it was an opportunity for me to exploit some serious long term service out of them, which has come in handy over the years.”

  “You’re a demon?” Tarin asked Andromeda and I felt a lightness fill him, it was instant. All this time he thought he defiled a god.

  “Well, kind of. I guess technically that’s what I am.” Andromeda replied. “I’m a guardian.”

  “Of the underworld and the dead that go to it.” I finished for her. “That’s why Birnie Seacombe was here because only he and a handful of paranormals know where the underworld is and he was your guide up here. You’re no better than us. You’re a fucking half-breed.” I said feeling Asha feeding me the information I needed to attack her with.

  We didn’t normally operate like this, Asha and I. But now we were double teaming because it was time we worked as one useful purposeful being. “You’re old, you come from an ancient line of demons.” I continued on looking at her holding her attention now.

  She might know I was a truth-sayer and know how to kill me, or profess to know what
killed me, but she didn’t know how I did what I did and now I had a complete read on her. Her pride was her own downfall, much like Tarin’s heightened emotions made him vulnerable to me reading him, Andromeda’s pride left her open to me. Because she became so distracted by her own ego.

  “It's not often you come to the surface. But every once in a while, you do and it’s to do your job.”

  “Is this what you do truth-sayer? You spew out information about people to others?” Andromeda said trying to cut me off.

  “Go on Katelyn.” Tarin urged me.

  “There’s a reason you don’t surface often. Because of your class of demon. It affects other demons in a very specific way. You’re like a god damn amphetamine.”

  “Well now you’re just boring me.” Andromeda said trying to look nonchalant as she stepped towards me.

  “You affect demons, male demons in particular, those that don’t know they’re either demons or those hitting demon puberty as it were. You drive they’re hormones, emotions, thoughts, to a crescendo of crazy that no one else is capable of doing so effectively in one hit.”

  Andromeda stopped moving and put a hand to her chest. “You flatter me, truth-sayer.”

  “Rumblings of a truth-sayer amongst the paranormal world have been slowly surfacing for some time. When you found out a vampire in your service was after a unicorn, you saw an opportunity to try and come good on the elusive truth-sayer to benefit yourself and your cause. Just like you had always intended to when you targeted Tarin to ensure you could deceive the vampires into servitude for you.”

  “You set me up.” Tarin interjected and I watched Andromeda’s eyes shift to Tarin’s and focus sharply on him. “Peyton and I were tortured and raped because you had some need to force the vampires to work for you.”

  “Well, yes. It is what I do for the demon cause Tarin. Just like you wheel and deal in an effort to drag others to our side of the underworld.”

  “I’m nothing like you.” Tarin commented.

  18

  Arlow slumped completely to the ground and I knelt down beside him quickly. He’d been doing his best to be in the fight, what he thought would be a fight, at least for himself.

  “How is he?” Tarin asked me, still standing beside me.

  “Alive but his breathing is shallow and he has a weak pulse. He needs his horn.” It was only then that I realized, Tarin and I were still in possession of Arlow’s horn. At least I thought we still were, we’d taken it from the scene of our last fight with Arlow, but I’d completely forgotten about it and lost track of it since then.

  I looked up at Tarin, in time for him to reach behind his back, into the back band of his jeans to pull out Arlow’s sheathed ornate knife. The unicorns horn when he was in human form. Where his power came from. He threw it down to me, while he kept his eyes firmly on Andromeda.

  I heard the gasp from her as I put Arlow’s hands on the knife. “I did wonder why the unicorn was so sickly and easy to beat up. I had heard they were made of tougher being than this one presented with.” Andromeda said walking up to Tarin. “Never the less, you’ve done my job for me. So I should thank you.” Andromeda said, grabbing Tarin’s face in her hand tightly.

  I sprang to my feet, and pushed her backwards with some of my pent up anger. I had plenty to go around and if she was going to touch Tarin then she was going to feel it.

  Andromeda laughed at me. “You don’t get to touch him, ever again you evil fucking bitch.”

  She kept laughing and clapping her hands. “It’s so sweet that you’re playing jealous girlfriend truth-sayer.”

  “I’m not jealous and I’m not playing. But I am his girlfriend, so you want him, you come through me.” I said standing directly in front of Tarin.

  I would never allow him to carry any more horror from Andromeda’s doing. He’d suffered his whole life because of her. She didn’t get to be in his life anymore than she was already. “If you can.”

  I saw the happiness slip from Andromeda’s face then and she snarled back at me. “You arrogant little bitch, I’m going to school you in manners to your superiors.” She said brushing her hands down her ball gown as she stormed back towards me.

  “You’re not my superior, nothing tops a real, honest to goodness, god Andromeda. Not a cheap fake like you” Her expression again faltered to one of utter surprise and the world dropped away and I felt blackness seep into me. Asha was forming like a swirling power of righteousness. Andromeda stopped short of me as my eyes filled with the midnight coloring of the Asha Vahisita.

  “You are so, very dead.” Tarin muttered stepping back from us. “Go team Asha.”

  We glared her down, Katelyn and I together. There was some part of Katelyn that I kept conscious during our normal transitional period. We both deserved to end this. No one got to use me, I was the Asha Vahisita a god dam terrifying god. That Andromeda, an upstart demon had used the name of a god, in vein, should tremble before.

  I felt for Katelyn. Everything she experienced, I experienced. Our connection over the past two weeks was stronger than ever and I’d felt her true love for Tarin over that time, even if she was in denial over it most of the time and I’d tried to help her understand Tarin. I’d taken on his confusion, his darkness, his deceptions and lies. I’d wanted her to be happy with him.

  It was weird, wanting something for someone else other than myself. But I found benevolence in it and I remember what that used to feel like, before I used to crave malevolence all the time.

  Being housed in a human as an eternal punishment was bound to alter my make up some what and I refused to give in to it, just like Katelyn refused to give into me. That was why I liked my vessel of corporeal being so much. I had a lot of respect for Katelyn and I had no problem helping her kick some upstart demon’s ass back to the underworld.

  Andromeda and I were eyeing each other off, readying for the inevitable, which is why no one was focused on anyone else, until the sound of a horses’ snort caught both our attention.

  I turned to look the same time, Andromeda looked wide eyed past me, Arlow in his unicorn form was lethally beautiful. He was black and glistening and perfect and he stomped his foot once before charging in our direction. I felt Katelyn push her body, pulling at me to move with her, out of the way, diving and rolling and scampering into a nearby church pew.

  Andromeda just didn’t know what to expect and she froze, giving Arlow enough time to run at her and spear his horn into her chest. Lifting the guardian demon high in the air as he raised up on his back legs.

  Katelyn and I peer out from behind the pew as Arlow throws Andromeda off his horn and to the ground where he proceeds to stomp her to death. Once he is pleased with crushing Andromeda underfoot his focus returns to us.

  But it was Tarin who slid across the floor, putting himself in harm’s way. Putting his hands up. “Arlow, stop. You can’t kill Asha. Because if you do, then you kill Katelyn. I’m in love with her. You owe her, she returned your horn to you. It was Katelyn that wanted to save you here today. I would’ve let you rot rather than continue to be a threat that hangs over her head.”

  Arlow snorted and stomped his foot. Asha dropped back so suddenly in me I staggered where I stood, falling into Tarin. He turned wrapping his arms around me, studying my face.

  “Katelyn?” His eyes darted over my face, looking for tell tale signs of Asha.

  “Yes, Tarin it’s me. The woman you love.” I smiled causing him to smile fully at me.

  The stomping hooves of the black unicorn opposite us however, got our attention again rather quickly. Tarin and I remained in our embrace, arms around each other, watching Arlow. Waiting to see what his move would be. Arlow snorted out loud at us and raised his horned head before turning and running down the middle of the room between the pews. To the door Tarin and I had first walked in.

  We found ourselves alone, together again, well with a dead demon a few feet away from us, in what appeared to be a chapel of some kind.

  “
I don’t know what to do now. Now there are no bad guys after us. Now that I don’t have to run, hide or fight.”

  “I do.” Tarin replied before his fangs popped out between his teeth quickly

  “Seriously Tarin is sex all you ever think about?” He looked at me like I was daft.

  “I need some of your blood to break the binding.” He replied.

  “Oh.” I suddenly felt tired and very stupid.

  “I don’t have anything sharp enough to draw your blood other than these, so give me your wrist.” He looks expectantly at my arm. I drop it away from him.

  “I’d rather you took it from my neck.” Tarin looked at my neck and brushed my dark hair back.

  “I’d like that too. But it’s more inclined to make me hard and to want to fuck you in the process and I’m trying to be clear headed here.” He offered picking up my hand and pushing the cardigan back down my arm to reveal skin. “I’d say our work here together is done, wouldn’t you Katelyn?” Tarin raised my wrist to his mouth.

  I knew what I had to say, but I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say it, just yet. “Just agree with me Katelyn and the binding is undone by mutual agreement and blood just like it was bound by.”

  “What happens to us then?” There was the true question I didn’t want to address.

  “I guess that depends,” Tarin replied softly cupping the side of my face with his free hand.

  “On what?”

  He looked into my eyes, raised my wrist to his lips. His fangs tips poised against my skin. I could feel the tip of them waiting to sink into me again and my want for them to just that, giving way.

  “You.”

  Breukelen Girl novels:

  The Shadow Series:

  Shadow Aspect – Book 1

  Shadow Games – Book 2