But I felt no fear, no dread, no revulsion. Instead, all I felt was instant recognition. Almost the same feeling I got when another witch was around.
I can’t describe the feeling to you, ’cause I barely understood myself; it was something I just knew. I’d asked my sister once if she ever felt the same. She’d just assumed I was nuts, so I’d never mentioned it to anyone again.
Only this feeling was slightly more intense.
I was face to face with an absolutely beautiful man. That was the only word I could use to describe him, not that he looked feminine in any way. He was just absolute perfection. Pale, flawless skin, jet-black hair slicked back into a ponytail, full pink lips. And his eyes were utter blackness with a hint of a silver gleam. I could almost feel a pull from the way he was glaring at me. But I refused to look away or even blink, though it felt as if he were challenging me to do so.
And before I could dare to blink, he was standing right behind me. Before I could turn around, he was right in my face, then to my right side, then my left, and in front of me again. I didn’t know if he was flashing or if he was simply moving that fast.
I knew he was going to be at my back again. I suddenly spun around, and we were facing each other, eye to eye. He reached up as if to touch my hair. But just as quickly as he reached out to touch me, I grabbed his wrist. I hadn’t even realized I’d made a move. He just stared at me with what looked like approval in his eyes.
While I was distracted, trying to figure out what the hell that was all about, I heard hissing sounds coming from behind me. He twisted his wrist out of my grasp to take my hand, raise it to his lips, and lay a gentle kiss on the back of my hand, deeply inhaling my scent.
“My lady,” he breathed in a thick accent, “I smell not even the faintest whiff of fear on your lovely skin.”
“Probably because I don’t see a damn thing I should be afraid of.” I scowled at him while bringing fire to my hand. “Now kindly let go of my fucking hand.”
He let go before I so much as singed his skin.
He gave a subtle bow. “I beg your forgiveness, for you have taken me by surprise. You are the first being I’ve encountered unaffected by my…gaze,” he said with a sly smile.
“That means absolutely nothing to me.”
“Maybe you’re just losing your touch,” hissed one of the three females who were now at his back. In the blink of an eye, two burly looking, leather-clad males were flanking his sides.
“Well isn’t this quaint? The fucking cast of Grease. Are you going to break into a song and dance now?” I couldn’t have stopped the sly remark from parting my lips if I had tried.
“Do not dare insult us by comparing us to mere frolicking…humans.” The blonde female visibly shuddered.
She was slightly taller, but just as pale as the others. Long legs underneath a pink leather micro-mini, arms folded under barely-there breasts covered by a pink leather halter top. Long, straight blonde hair falling loosely over her shoulders.
“Mira, you will show some respect.”
“Darvyn, dear,” she drawled, “just because she was able to hold your gaze? That means nothing.”
“Very well; perhaps she will accept a challenge,” Darvyn replied with an evil little grin.
“Look, I don’t know what games you people are trying to play, but I’m out.”
I turned to walk away, and the Spanish-looking female was all up in my grill.
“I like this little puta, Darvyn, she’s got some spice in her,” she purred.
She was tall—they were all roughly six feet. Petite breasts—must be a vamp thing. Thick hips, all legs, long slick wavy black hair going down her back. Clad in pink leather just like the other two females. Pink leather midriff halter dress, fuchsia pink stiletto hooker boots coming to mid-thigh.
“Let me have a little taste, por favor, mi corazon.”
She reached out as if to caress my face, and I whirled away from her, only to have her right in my face again. Staring at me as if looking for something.
“Oh, love,” Darvyn called from somewhere behind me, “you look like just the perfect candidate to play a lil’ carnie game of ours. A test of mystical prowess, nothing more. Just as the shifters have their games, so do we mere vamps.”
While still engaged in yet another strange staring contest, I asked, “If I play this little game of yours, will you step the fuck up off me?” Where the hell was Bran?
“But of course, m’lady,” he answered in what I was sure was supposed to be a seductive tone.
“What’s the name of this game?”
What the hell am I doing?
“The Wall of Death.”
4
The Wall Of Death
Against my better judgment, I found myself playing follow-the-leader with a group of vampires. So smart on my part, right? Yeah, not. But my curiosity was getting the better of me. Think about it—wouldn’t you be the same way? All my life I’d been told such nonsense about vampires, yet now that I was face to face with them, so far, none of it had been true. And the skinny little bitch talking shit kind of had my hackles rising.
Some date this was turning out to be. What kind of bathroom break was Bran taking anyway? Had he fallen in the damn thing? It wasn’t like I could just pick up one of those devices humans have to communicate with each other and ask him what the fuck was going on. I had no idea where the restrooms were, and didn’t really want to be on this damn date in the first place. So what else was I going to do, stand around and twiddle my thumbs?
If Grimm were there, he wouldn’t have left my side. We would have been enjoying this evening, together. Probably dancing by now at the Harlequin Dance Theater under the two full moons. My goddess, just imagining his strong, massive arms wrapped around me brought unwanted tears to the backs of my eyes and sent a sharp spike through my heart.
Guessed I might as well get used to that feeling, seeing as how my nights with Grimm were now officially in the past. Nights of feeling complete, loved, wanted above all others, a thing of the past. But trying to picture my life without Grimm…
We walked along a torch-lit pathway at least fifty or so yards behind their booth. The two moons glowed brightly, giving off almost as much light as the fire from the torches, maybe even more. Yet it was still eerily darker out there than in the rest of the carnival, as if there were something sucking up all the light. The murky shadows gave off the feel of someone out there lurking, watching.
Upon reaching our destination, I fully understood how the game had gotten its name. Hanging from a crumbling, gray concrete wall were three thoroughly decayed corpses. Ragged scraps of clothing covered sagging, grayish skin. Thin, lifeless, scraggly hair, and barely enough skin left to even attempt to make out any facial features. Bodies so misshapen there was no way to distinguish what gender they had been in life.
And as crazy as this sounds, even to my own ears, I felt myself being pulled towards one of those bodies. Something tugged at my awareness, pulled me, called to me.
As if reading my mind, Darvyn came up behind me, making me flinch just a little. “The one you feel has some life force left within it. You must kiss.”
“I have to what?” I barely got the words out around the bile that rose in my throat.
Okay, I was dealing with vamps. So I really shouldn’t have been surprised by what they considered fun and games. But excuse me if the thought of putting my mouth on one of those…things made me cringe and want to say fuck face value and high-tail it outta there. But I couldn’t ignore that incessant pull.
“Out of the three corpses you see before you, one is actually still very much alive.” Darvyn went on to explain. “In order to win the game, you must determine which one that is. You will have one shot only, so choose wisely.”
And on that note, he stepped back with the others to watch the show. At some point, I probably should have asked why I was the only one back there to play this game. At the time, for whatever admittedly dumb reason, it just
didn’t seem to cross my mind.
Slowly, I began walking towards the corpse I kept feeling drawn towards. Trust me, I was in no hurry to do it. Come on, would you be in a hurry to do it?
As I walked up, I started wondering about the only group of beings I had heard of that could pull this decaying corpse thing off. Of course it was a group of vampires, though a rare one; they had been made, not born. Legend had it that Hekate’s children, necromancers, and Nyx’s children, vampires, had conducted a small experiment to see what would happen if they took a dying day-walker (human), some vampire’s blood and a necro’s ability to reanimate. The result, a true vampire of folklore: an undead. These vampires were said to have the ability to appear corpselike at will, their true state. And that group had gone on to have children of their own, though not many, something about their reanimated state making it a very rare, nigh impossible thing.
Their reasons for doing this? You’re asking the wrong person that question. See, true vampires are just another race, not a result of a curse or a bite. So for them to go out of their way to create something from scary stories told to human children had always been a conundrum.
“Come on, puta, what is taking you so long? What are you, afraid? Thinking you’ll choose the wrong one?”
I was really getting sick of that chick. Her voice was grating on my nerves more than anything; it sounded like that chick from that human show, Modern Family. Matter of fact, they even had the same hair and lips; only thing missing was the big-ass boobs.
I picked up my pace and walked the last ten feet. Lifting my chin and lowering my eyelids, I raised my lips to what was left of the thing’s mouth, placed a chaste kiss and stepped back.
Nothing happened.
At first I thought maybe I had been wrong after all, then a thought struck me. When dealing with vampires, what’s usually the key ingredient?
I bit down on my lower lip, hard enough to draw a drop of my own blood. Closing my eyes, I once again raised my lips to meet that decaying mouth, and this time something did happen.
Lips, warm and very much alive, began to form beneath my own. A tongue, soft, wet and moist, darted out to catch the drop of blood from my lip. I could hear popping and stretching as skin and organs began to mend and retake shape. And though, as the creature began to delve its tongue into my mouth, the very thought of what it had looked like prior to shutting my eyes should have disgusted me, it didn’t. I was too lost in the kiss.
I heard the chains being yanked free of the wall just before skeletal fingers grabbed my arms, taking shape into strong, firm hands, pulling me in to a body that turned out to be very much male.
As soon as I felt myself being pulled so deep into the kiss that the entire world was slipping away, another set of hands yanked me away so hard and fast I landed on my ass.
“What the hell?!” I asked, more to myself than anyone else, seeing as no one was paying me any attention anyway.
Everyone seemed to be focused on the scene taking place where I had just been thrown from. Darvyn was standing ramrod-stiff with his back to me. It was he who had yanked me away, and his fists were clenched so tightly at his sides I was sure he must have drawn blood.
“That is more than enough,” Darvyn seethed at the creature who used to be a corpse. Because the male he was standing toe to toe with now was anything but a corpse. He had spiked salt-and-pepper hair—literally; equal parts white and black on either side, split right down the middle. High cheekbones, full, kissable lips, cleft chin—though I normally hated that, he seemed not only to pull it off, but to make it look sexy as hell. Facial features that were understated yet captivating all the same, gunmetal-gray eyes that seemed to pull me in even from a distance…the only things still ragged were the clothes.
“Don’t you think I should be the one to decide when enough is enough? I have abided by the rules your father has laid down long enough,” the male seethed right back at Darvyn. “I don’t plan on waiting—”
“Waiting is exactly what you are going to do. This was nothing more than a test we all agreed upon to be certain she was—”
“Well, now we know, and I think it’s beyond time that she did too.” That came out as a snarl. His eyes were no longer just gunmetal gray, but glowing a bright, liquid silver.
“Hey!” I shouted, “if I’m the ‘she’ you’re talking about, I’m standing…well, maybe not exactly standing, but I am right here!”
They just continued to go back and forth as though they hadn’t even heard me. As intensely as they were arguing, they probably hadn’t. I picked myself up off the ground and dusted off my now grass-covered ass. I decided that I might as well go looking for Bran, or at the very least go to the dance theater on my own and attempt to enjoy the rest of my night. Screw them and their games.
“Damn it,” I muttered to myself, “can this night get any worse?”
5
JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE
The worst thing about doing things by yourself? It gives you too much time to think about all your most recently made dumbass decisions. You know, things like kissing a rotten corpse. Granted, that corpse hadn’t been completely dead, but ever since I’d turned and walked away, my gums had been itching like mad.
The best part? Being able to just enjoy all the sights and attractions without anyone else worrying you about where you needed to be. Just being able to take your time and enjoy the getting there.
So I strolled along doing just that; enjoying all the smells of the different foods, though some did make me want to gag. People-watching along the way; the small clusters of groups laughing, playing and just plain enjoying themselves. Admittedly, every couple I saw walking hand in hand did bring on a pang of hurt and a whole load of jealousy. I didn’t think people truly realized how lucky they were just being able to be with the person they chose, not forced to be with someone chosen for them. Able to fall in and out of love over and again until they met their fated one, or for the rest or their existence, depending on their species.
As they say, you never appreciate the little things until they’re no longer there. This whole betrothal and prophecy crap made me feel as though I was just a piece of property, or better yet, a bargaining chip. I wondered if either of my parents had ever stopped to think about how I felt about any of this mess.
Finally, I stood before the Harlequin Nights Dance Theater. Yes, it was just as exotic as it sounded, maybe even more so. The outside of the building alone seemed to have some type of vibe that made you just plain feel. It was the tallest building in the entire fair, with a brilliantly bright sign in an elegant script atop a beautiful gothic-style cathedral. No need for a bouncer at the door; a magical spell kept all minors out, literally bouncing them off an invisible wall and alerting their parents to their mischief.
All sorts of smells assaulted my nostrils when I entered the building, but not overwhelmingly so. A hint of lilac, a touch of primrose, the masculine smell of musk mixed with a dangerously sexy pang of leather. All those different fragrances coming together as they were should have been appalling, but instead they were alluring, as though their very combination created an aphrodisiac so strong that I had no choice but to just stand there for a moment and allow myself to take it all in, closing my eyes and tilting my head back ever so slightly to just appreciate it. And that was exactly what I did. For the briefest of moments, I felt nothing but utter tranquility. A feeling I didn’t think I’d ever had the chance of experiencing before.
The multiple dance floors? Such an incredible thing for the eyes to behold, and a truly exotic sight. It was no wonder they bounced kids right back out on their asses rather than letting them catch so much as a glance. On the center stage was a scene that was so exquisitely erotic it made me feel as though I were an intruder looking in on an intimate moment between two lovers. Yet if I were to look away, I felt like I would be cheapening their love affair.
They were two traditional-lookin
g Harlequin dancers, but by the unmistakable pull, one instantly knew them for the sirens they were. Even though they were standing, their graceful movements made them seem as though they were making love with their clothing still on. The way they moved together, touched each other, without losing eye-contact for even the slightest of moments. The longer I stood there watching them, the less I could tell where one ended and the other began, with the most sensual music playing in the background.
All around were scenes such as that, with all different types and variations of couples; male to male, female to female, two males to one female, two females to one male. Each variation with its very own love story to tell from different platforms all around; some within crystal cages hanging from the ceiling, some on mezzanines, others on small stages interspersed across the dance floor. Each with its very own soundtrack that fitted with its intensity yet did not distract from the others’ tales. Some were rough and violent, as though trying to fight the painfully obvious love they shared before giving in to the inevitable. Others were soft, sweet and intense. Some fought to be the one shown all the affection, and others tried to fight themselves for needing more than one lover.
Some gave in completely, making love right there on their own not-so-private stage. Instead of feeling dirty for looking, I felt warmed for being allowed to watch their love unfold.
The performers who had my complete attention at the moment were the ménage of two females and one male. The song they shared was “Broken Pieces” by Apocalyptica. Yes, we get human music over here—we do have wizards. One of the females was in the center; you could see the struggle in her eyes as to which lover she should choose. As she continued to look from one of them to the other, they decided for her. As one, they ripped away the slip of a dress that was hanging from her body, exposing the fact that she was completely bare underneath. Then the other female knelt down, and taking her slender leg, she placed her tiny bare foot on her shoulder, and began to lick and kiss while working her with three fingers as the male took her from behind.
Witch Wars: The Underlayes, Book One Page 3