by M. Leighton
It was Brady who seemed to snap out of his stupor first. With a shake of his head and a look of confused disgust on his face, he looked from me to Trace and back again.
“What is going on?”
There was a pregnant period of silence before I could speak, a silence during which all eyes were focused on me.
“Something has happened to the three of us,” I answered.
“Well duh,” Brady snapped sarcastically. “Thank you for stating the obvious. Care to tell me something I don’t know?”
Brady’s tone was a testament to his level of upset. He was the consummate prankster slash jokester slash happy-go-lucky kind of guy. He rarely ever got hateful like that. Obviously, tonight was an exception.
“Um, it’s kind of obvious. Didn’t you see him?” I asked, jacking my thumb over my shoulder in Trace’s direction.
Brady just looked at me as though he had no clue what I was talking about.
“See him what? Sneak into your room in the middle of the night? Try to kiss you against your will? Stab his best friend in the back by hitting on his sister? Yeah, I saw that,” Brady said, finishing his thought through tightly gritted teeth. It was readily apparent that he was getting himself all worked up again.
“No, I meant the way he looked. Couldn’t you see him change?”
“Change? Change what? From my best friend into a total douche? Yeah, I saw that, too.”
“All right, Brady,” Trace said, the warning clear in his tone. “Cool it before you end up making me mad.”
“Don’t you tell me wh—”
“Enough!” I shouted, thoroughly surprising Brady if the look on his face was any indication. When I glanced at Trace, his face was wreathed in a smug smile. “Both of you,” I added.
“What?” Trace asked, holding his hands up in surrender. He looked genuinely puzzled. “I didn’t do anything.”
“But you’re not helping matters either.”
Although I hoped my glare would be somewhat withering, it seemed to have no effect on Trace. He was still grinning from ear to ear.
“So neither of you saw anything strange?”
Brady and Trace looked at me, to each other and then back to me. They both shook their heads.
For a moment, I questioned what I’d seen, reminded myself that things like that didn’t happen in real life, that creatures like that didn’t exist in real life. But still, deep down, I knew what I saw. And my heart, alive with the new and profound knowledge of things beyond my normal life, knew it, too.
Without thought to consequences or the wisdom of such an action, I jumped in head first trying to explain what I’d seen.
“Brady, you’re a vampire and Trace,” I said, turning to him. “You’re a werewolf. The three of us were born during an eclipse and something about tonight and this eclipse was very significant.”
Both Brady and Trace were staring at me as if I’d completely taken leave of my senses. And then they both started to laugh.
“Is that all you got? Some crazy babble that’s supposed to be cute and funny?”
“Brady, I’m serious!”
“No,” he said, shaking his head skeptically, “you’re not.”
“Then how do you explain what happened tonight? Don’t you think it’s strange that all of a sudden you hate your best friend? How do you explain that?”
“I didn’t realize that my best friend,” he sneered, “was stupid enough to put the moves on my little sister.”
“Stop calling me your little sister!” I snapped.
“Fine then, my ‘sister’.”
“Brady, something is happening to us and you can’t let it destroy your relationship with Trace. It’s important that you two stick together. It might mean our survival.”
“Survival? What are you talking about, woman?”
“It’s hard to explain, but somehow all sorts of information keeps getting sort of…imparted to me,” I said, finding no better way to explain what I felt was happening to me. “I don’t have all the answers yet, but I know they’re coming. But what little I do know right now is that you two are changing, but you have to fight together, not fight each other.”
“Fight? Why would we be fighting? Who would we be fighting?”
I searched my mind for reasons, for explanations, for understanding, but I found none. There was nothing more than a blank where the answers should’ve been.
“I don’t know.”
Brady snorted derisively and rolled his eyes.
“You’re terrible at pranks. Always have been.”
“This is not a prank, Brady! How is this funny? Any of it? And how does me playing a joke explain what happened between you and Trace tonight?”
“It doesn’t. Him pawing all over you does, though.”
I could see Brady’s temper start to rise again by the flash of anger in his blue eyes.
“And that doesn’t strike you as odd? That all of a sudden, he’d take an interest in me? Why? Why now? Why after all this time?”
“I don’t know, but it’s gonna stop,” he spat through his firmly gritted teeth.
Having been listening quietly up to that point, Trace finally spoke up. “Look, man, I already told you there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I will be with your sister if she’ll have me. I hope we can still be friends, but if not, it’ll be your choice. I’ve already made mine.” Trace broke his eye contact with Brady and glanced at me. His eyes burned into mine as he declared softly, “It’s her. It will always be her.”
My heart jumped in my chest and I felt my face flush with pleasure. His feelings for me were so surreal, so much to get used to that my brain thought I must be dreaming. But another part of me, something soul deep and certain, knew what he was experiencing and that it was real. I felt it, too. There was something important and intense between us. And there always would be. Whether we were together or apart, it would never go away. I also knew that, together or apart, it would very nearly kill us and that we’d never be the same.
“Brady, something has happened to us. You have to believe me.”
I searched desperately through the new information in my mind for something, anything that I could use to help him believe, to make him believe. But there was nothing. I closed my eyes, concentrating even harder, when hazy images began to flit through my head, creatures of varieties I’d never seen or heard tell of, not even in the movies. Their visages were diverse, some hideous and some beautiful. But something about each was terrifying, as if there was a darkness inside them that was rising to the surface to take over all that which was good and light.
As I struggled to wrap my mind around what I was seeing, a raspy, feminine voice whispered in my ear, “See,” and then it was gone. And so was the light. And sound. And consciousness.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sundays were church days. Although Julia had never made Brady and me attend church, we’d decided long ago that it was something we needed to do, so we did. Simple as that. When I woke, as memories from the night before began to rush back into my mind, the need to get myself onto holy ground was nearly overwhelming.
I was lying in bed pondering the increasing urgency of that need when Brady burst into my room.
“Get up, sleepy head! We’ve got to clean the house before the party,” he said, walking to the bed to fling back the covers just as he’d done the day before. He took me by one wrist and one ankle and hauled me from the bed to deposit me in the floor where he left me while he began stripping the sheets off my mattress. “I’ll do laundry if you’ll clean the bathrooms.”
Stunned and confused, I sat in the floor watching my brother ball up my sheets and head toward the door with them. It was exactly what he’d said and done the day before. Saturday, the morning of our party.
Yesterday.
“The party?” I asked, struggling to understand what was happening.
Brady stopped in the doorway and turned to look at me as though I was a small, silly child. “I know that, desp
ite your ridiculous ability to tune things out, there is no possible way you could’ve forgotten that we are having one monster blowout birthday bash tonight. Not possible.”
His words claimed it wasn’t possible, but his expression showed an exasperation that said he was pretty sure it was entirely possible. I really did have a tendency to not pay attention sometimes.
“The party was last night. Remember?”
“What are you babbling about, woman? The party’s tonight. And it’s gonna be epic!”
“Brady, stop screwing around. I’m not in the mood.”
Brady frowned at me for several seconds before his face broke into a smile. “Oh, I see. You’re still trying to punk me. How many times do I have to tell you that you’ll never get me? I’m too good, P. Give it up.”
“But Brady, I’m not—”
“Not gonna happen. And if this is your way of getting out of cleaning the bathrooms, nice try. Now get moving!”
With that, Brady turned and left my bedroom, my pale yellow sheets tucked up under his arm.
Pale yellow?
I thought back through my memories of the previous morning and realized that my sheets had been pale yellow when Brady had carried them from my room the first time. And, if memory served, he would come back in a few minutes and replace them with my favorite light green ones, saying that it was my turn to use them.
Still more than a little confused, I sat in the floor, exactly where he’d left me, and I watched the door and waited for Brady to return. Sure enough, he burst through the door about four minutes later carrying the neatly folded mint green sheets that I expected. Cold chills spread down my arms when he spoke.
“It’s your turn for the green sheets. I know what a baby you are about having the softest ones to sleep on,” he teased.
I was speechless. Had it all been a dream? Was it possible for nothing more than a dream to feel so vivid, so real, so true? Considering the upsetting things I’d seen, I hoped with all my soul that it had, in fact, only taken place inside my head.
But something told me that it hadn’t, that it wasn’t just a dream.
I’d experienced déjà vu before—that vague sensation that I’d seen or heard or done something already—but never had it felt like I was literally reliving something—word for word, action for action—a second time. It was as troubling as it was disconcerting.
I was still sitting in the floor, stupefied, when Brady turned to me as he pushed my pillow into a green pillow case.
“Are you gonna make me come down there? Snap out of it, lazy! This party’s gonna be stellar, but those bathrooms aren’t gonna clean themselves for it.”
I felt the frown crease my brow, as Brady hadn’t said that in my strangely fresh recollection. Of course, I hadn’t still been sitting in the floor reliving the entire scenario the day before either. I’d already gotten up. This particular part was only happening for the first time.
Feeling as though I was chasing my tail, I shook my head to clear the sensation then pushed myself to my feet to go and start on the main bathroom. Minutes later, as I squirted toilet bowl cleaner around the rim of the commode, I heard the phone ring. Without even needing to see the caller ID, I knew who it was.
I paused, toilet brush in hand, and waited for Brady to yell out and inform me that my best friend was on the phone.
And then he did. Right on cue.
“Peyton, it’s Lacey!”
********
Reliving the same day with an entirely new and quite expansive knowledge data base inside my head turned out to be an enlightening experience. Nearly everything that happened took on a new significance. I quickly began thinking of what I was seeing in terms of “day before” and “day after.” My day-after eyes were able to observe and identify myriad things that my day-before eyes had never even noticed. There were innumerable differences and inconsistencies within the people all around me, things I didn’t take note of the day before. Then again, I hadn’t known that strange creatures lurked beneath seemingly normal surfaces the day before either. Turns out that was the case with Lacey, too.
I was just finishing up cleaning the main bathroom when she arrived, just as she had the day before. She would use any excuse for a chance to spend a little time close to Brady, even if that excuse was to help me clean before the party. And it was simply an excuse, because she spent her time chatting, playing with her gloves and keeping an eye on Brady rather than scrubbing anything. It was during Brady’s first interaction with Lacey that I really started to see with my day-after eyes.
He’d come to the bathroom door to tell me that Trace was going to come over to help him move furniture. That’s when I first saw the changes in Lacey.
We were in the second bathroom, a much smaller room that barely accommodated Lacey and me, much less my larger brother. Lacey was leaning up against the door jamb fiddling with a roll of paper towels when he appeared. She straightened.
“Hey, Trace is gonna—” Brady began, stopping abruptly.
I was in the middle of cleaning the sink when his pause caused me to stop and look up to find his reflection in the mirror. What I saw startled me.
Brady had stopped mid-sentence and was staring at Lacey as if he’d never seen her before. Lacey, as always, was smiling broadly, very obviously thrilled with Brady’s attention. But as I watched, her smile faded and an odd trance-like look dropped down over her face and eyes as if a mask were falling into place.
And then I saw her change.
It was as though Lacey sprouted plumage like a peacock. Dozens of nearly-translucent feather-like appendages arose from her shoulders, stretching out to either side and high above her head. They twitched and fluttered, bending lazily toward Brady and waving their delicate tips hypnotically in his direction.
I wondered if maybe that was why Brady was looking at her so oddly. But when I saw him take a step closer to Lacey, I realized that he was merely seeing Lacey, as if for the first time. Although in a way I think he was dazzled by it, I was convinced that Lacey’s bizarre plumage was invisible to him.
Taking yet another step toward Lacey, I heard Brady inhale sharply and then I began to see a hazy fog-like substance emerge from the pores of his skin. It drifted through the air just above the surface of his body, rising toward his head, to collect around his face and mouth. It hovered there for an instant before it shot out in a dense stream to bridge the short distance between his body and Lacey’s. It exploded into a fine mist that surrounded Lacey’s upper body. The plethora of pastel feathers at her back danced and writhed as they seemed to absorb the substance that Brady was donating.
The longer they stood that way, the heavier and thicker the material that was emanating from my brother became. Within seconds, his skin began to turn pale and waxy. As I watched the two of them, I noticed a direct correlation in the deterioration of my brother’s condition and the increase in vibrancy of Lacey’s feathers. Slowly, he very visibly waned as the soft swirling pastels of Lacey’s plumage brightened to beautiful jewel tones that appeared to pulse with life and vitality.
It was then that I realized what was going on, that I listened to the knowledge that had been given to me. My best friend was a creature, too, just not a vampire or a werewolf. She was a succubus.
The longer I stood watching, the more involved I became in what was transpiring. My heart pounded heavily in my chest and I could feel a strange and intensely pleasurable energy invade my body. My breath began to come in short, shallow pants and I felt my eyes drift closed as I was temporarily overcome by the exchange. It was when I heard Lacey’s respirations change that I realized we were breathing with the same rhythm. It was as though I could feel what she was feeling as she was feeling it. I couldn’t help but wonder if delightful yet deadly feathers waved behind my head as well.
Brady’s first gasp for air broke into the moment, tearing me from the grip of pleasure just in time to see that he was succumbing to Lacey in a truly physical way. And she was happily,
greedily taking all that he had to give.
When I realized what was happening, I spun around and leapt between Lacey and Brady, a reflexive effort to stop the process that seemed to be draining my brother of life. Facing Lacey, I reached forward, placing my hands on her arms as if to shake her back to reality. I could feel that my grip was weak and that I was nowhere near as strong as I had been moments before, but still I had to try to stop her.
Lacey’s eyes met mine, but it was obvious that she wasn’t really seeing me. It seemed as though she was looking through me, her entire mind and body still focused on Brady, who stood just behind me, fading by the moment.
I racked my brain trying to figure out what I had done the night before to stop both Trace and Brady from doing…whatever it was that they were doing, but I had no idea how I’d done it. I glanced back over my shoulder at Brady, but seeing his pale, sweaty face didn’t help me at all. It served only to make me a little more frantic, desperate to find a way to stop Lacey.
“Lacey, stop it! You’re hurting him,” I plead, shaking her lightly. Still, she was practically oblivious to my presence.
Spinning, I thought to just remove Brady from harm’s way. Roughly, I pushed at his chest.
“Get out of here, Brady! Go!”
As puny as he looked, I would’ve thought that he’d be easy to maneuver out of the small bathroom, but pushing against him was like pushing against a brick wall. It was as though he were rooted to the spot.
Panic beginning to scramble my brain, I stood between Lacey and my brother, completely at a loss, until I began to feel the same intoxicating sensation from Lacey overwhelming me again. I fought against it, instinctively aware that I needed to, that I must. It was in the midst of that struggle when Trace arrived.
Movement teased my peripheral vision, although I had no need of visual confirmation to know that it was Trace who stood behind Brady in the doorway. I felt his presence like a cool, calming breeze on a hot day. It blew quickly and peacefully through me, eradicating the last crippling effects of Lacey’s mutation. It was as though he gave me the strength I needed to resist being overtaken, as if he centered me, tied me to myself, to my humanity. Even in my own mind, I didn’t know how to explain it. But I felt it and I knew that it was real and it was essential, and that I would not have survived without it. Lacey would have inadvertently killed Brady and me.