by Jayde Brooks
“Hello?” Joe called out apprehensively. Maybe the man was lost or needed help. Joe swallowed, hoping that’s all it was. “You need help out there?” Joe asked, and waited for the man to respond, but he didn’t say a word. Suddenly, he began to move, slowly, toward Joe’s truck. Joe resisted the instinct to panic. “What do you want?” No answer.
Joe moved over to the driver’s side door and tried to pull it open and then realized it was locked. He frantically searched his pockets for the keys, but then he looked inside and saw them dangling from the ignition. The man in the field had started to run. Joe grabbed his tire iron and ran in the opposite direction, disappearing into the thick wooded area on the other side of the road. Branches slapped him across the face, and he tripped several times and stumbled forward at full speed, refusing to let himself fall. He didn’t have to see the man to know that he wasn’t far behind. Joe could feel him, and he felt the ground echo with the heavy pounding of the man’s footsteps, taking one for every two of Joe’s.
The space between them pushed hard against Joe’s back as the man drew closer. Joe’s lungs burned from running faster and longer than he had in years. His heart banged hard in his chest, and a merciless cramp coursed his side. But in his hand, he held on tight to that tire iron. Joe gripped it, knowing that this was the only weapon he had and that he was going to have to hit that fucker upside the head with it.
Joe’s legs began to give out on him, and the man was closing in fast. In desperation, Joe Huey stopped, reared back that tire iron, and, as he turned, swung it hard at the man’s head, half a step behind him. His eyes widened with astonishment and his arm froze in midair as the beast, at least two feet taller than he was, towered over him, caught him by the wrist, and with a twist of his own, snapped the bones in Joe’s arm. His fingers loosened their grip on the tire iron from the agonizing pain surging through his arm, and it fell to the ground at his feet with a thud. Joe yelled and was forced to his knees on the ground by the giant, who reached down and grabbed hold of Joe’s bottom jaw and pulled.
* * *
One man’s glassy-eyed gaze fixed unblinking up at the black sky. The other stood there amazed by the fact that life in the Pennsylvania woods went on like it always did, without so much as a hiccup or a cough. A man’s soul was gone from this world, and the world didn’t seem to give it much thought. Toads croaked and crickets chirped uninterrupted. A light breeze passed by calm and soothing, and he couldn’t help inhaling deeply to take in as much of it as he could.
Chapman rose up from the ground like a spirit and then closed his eyes and let his head fall back. He spread his massive shoulders and moaned, satisfied at the fullness in his belly. Blood soaked into his hair and skin and filled his nostrils. His jaw ached from tearing flesh from tendons and bones, but he felt more energized and renewed than he’d felt in a long time, ready to pursue his mission with an invigorated purpose. He had promised his master that he would find the reborn, and he would.
The best he could figure, Sakarabru was some sort of demon or fallen angel, or someone who talked in riddles about things that didn’t make any sense, but Paul listened and he watched, and soon he came to understand that nothing in this world was as it appeared.
Most people didn’t like the looks of him, and when he walked down the streets, they ran from him. He was a big man. Bigger than he was before he was remade. Paul now stood close to seven feet tall, and weighed maybe 350 pounds of solid muscle. Paul’s heavy shoulders were as big and round as bowling balls, damn near, with a massive head and neck that reminded him of a big tree stump. It was all in there together, packed tight. His chest was broad, his back strong, but all that narrowed down into the kind of torso most men would envy. He looked odd, even to himself, but it suited him.
Paul was a bloodhound. He was a general and now he was a hunter. There was nothing or no one he couldn’t find when he went looking for them. Well, Sakarabru wanted him to find the Redeemer, and Paul had set out to do just that.
“I want her dead.”
Paul had to find her to kill her. The Djinn led him. Djinn were sort of like Genies, but they didn’t live in a bottle and they didn’t wear cute pink harem-girl outfits. Most of them looked like shadows, whispering directions to him that would lead him to her.
“Go South,” one of them had whispered to him moments before he’d come across the guy with the flat tire.
Others had warned him: “Beware the Guardian.”
Paul had no idea who or what a Guardian was, but he pushed on without hesitation because the Demon had commanded him. Paul no longer had a will of his own. He lived for Sakarabru and blindly obeyed his every word. Pleasing him was the only thing that mattered to Paul. Proclaiming Sakarabru as the sovereign had taken away his pain. Swearing loyalty to him had given Paul unimaginable pleasure, which he looked forward to every time he laid down his head to rest.
Lilith was her name. And to have her, all Paul had to do was make a wish.
DREAM WEAVER
Andromeda was like a thread weaving her way through time and space, connecting aspects of each to the other. It was said that no one could be in two places at once, but that was false and a lie. At any given moment, she could be in five: the past, present, future, and someone’s idea of heaven and of hell. Her sense of being transversed in confusion and chaos, and it played out where her screams should have been.
“We shall overcome. Like my page and Khale hid her good. Too—save us God of hosts! Aye! He who is and was and all and all!”
Sakarabru was beautiful to look at. His shocking green eyes shone like gemstones; ink-black tresses of hair fell in waves past his shoulders broad and strong. Even in her agony she couldn’t help admiring his regal stature and be entranced by the deep, seductive rumblings of his voice. Even in his threats, he was intoxicating.
“It is said that you hold the secrets to the ages, Seer,” he said, stalking circles around her.
His naked chest and torso ripped with sinewy muscles that carved him into the magnificent creature he was and had always been. Sakarabru stopped behind Andromeda, hanging by her wrists from chains suspended from the ceiling. Some things were out of her control. Some things were just her fate and she couldn’t stop them no matter how much she wanted to.
The glamour of the Troll Seer Sisters was legendary, and with a single thought, they could transform into the most beautiful female creatures alive, irresistible to any male who saw them. Andromeda’s beauty morphed constantly as her thoughts and maybe even her form transcended all times and places at once.
Blue eyes changed to green and then to brown. Red hair turned ink-black, to brown, to blond. Her clothes changed from fitted jeans and tank tops to elegant ball gowns, and then every once in awhile the troll in her revealed itself, too, and those beautiful brown eyes would widen farther apart on her face, spread by a thick, mushroomlike nose, and turn a putrid yellow color that Sakarabru obviously didn’t find appealing. Slim, delicate hands would momentarily turn into clubs with thick, fat fingers covered in warts and thickened gray fingernails.
“It is said that you have discovered the secret to defeating me,” he said in her ear, his hot breath washing over her naked, ever-changing form.
The heat of skin being peeled from her bones far exceeded the tortuous sounds of it being ripped away. He held up part of her flesh between two fingers in front of her face and then let it fall to the ground like spoiled meat.
“You will tell me your secrets, Andromeda,” he murmured again. “Tell me, and I will take away your pain,” he promised. “I will stop your suffering and I will comfort you, Seer. I will save you.”
In one moment, she was in two places. Or maybe she was several moments in all places. Andromeda was never sure, but while the Demon tortured her there, Andromeda also sat here, in the electronics section of an abandoned department store, watching Sakarabru on television, as fascinated by him as every other creature was who had ever laid eyes on him. The looters hadn’t made it to this S
ears store yet, probably because people didn’t shop at Sears like they used to anymore and they’d all but forgotten about it.
She’d found an abandoned sandwich shop too, made herself a couple of sandwiches, one for now, and one for later, grabbed a few cans of pop, and crouched low in the electronics section of the store, watching the news of this Sakarabru and his crimes against the people of this world.
It was hard not to think of what he was doing to her now in another time, another space. Andromeda believed that it was happening behind her, in the past. That’s what most folks called the behind. They called it the past. She couldn’t be sure, but if she let her mind stay there, then her body would stay there, too, and the pain would come back again, and the fear would come back again.
“Do you think Khale will save you? Are you waiting for her to come to your rescue, Seer?” He laughed at her.
Andromeda lay crumpled on the floor, raw and bleeding. He stood over her, staring down at the open wound that he had made on her, and he laughed.
“They call me the monster, but the Shifter is her own special brand of monster.” He knelt before her. “She lies to you all, Seer. You know what I am saying is true, Andromeda. You know that Khale is an imposter and a liar. You know that she is false.”
He placed his hand underneath her chin, and Andromeda cried out unintelligibly at the agony of having exposed muscle touched by another.
“You have seen all, Andromeda, and you know how this all ends.”
“Our love has come along,” she said. “Marc Anthony does not love.… Li’l Wayne is the best rapper.… Ssssssss, said the beast! Reborn! Heed our call!”
He stared curiously at her. “Marc Anthony? Li’l Wayne?” he laughed again and shook his head. “You are such a fascinating creature, Seer. Redeemer? Who is the Redeemer, Andromeda?”
All of a sudden, her surroundings changed again. Andromeda was no longer with the Demon or even at the Sears store. She was where she was happiest. She was home.
The sun shone warmly on her face through her kitchen window. Andromeda was happy here. If she could stop the momentum of her life and make it stop at any one place, it would be here in this small cottage, where she would spend her days sipping tea, eating chocolates, and petting the cat purring in her lap.
The Redeemer should be awake now. She stood up so abruptly that the cat fell out of her lap, landing on all fours on the linoleum floor and hissing angrily at her. Eden was awake, but she would need some tea. Andromeda hurried to fill her cup and carried it steaming to the small bedroom on the other side of the living room.
The young Eden was so lovely, but tormented. The bond was complete. Eden and the Omens were one, and it was only a matter of time before …
“I grow weary of your impudence, Andromeda!” Sakarabru shouted.
He had lifted her off the floor again by her shackled wrists. Andromeda’s body hovered over the open flame burning below her, its heat rising and torturing the fragile and delicate tissue he’d left exposed. Andromeda wished for death, she willed it, but it seemed to stand off in the far reaches of her mind somewhere, mocking her.
“Or is everything I’ve heard about you a lie?” he asked, stopping to glare at her. “Perhaps you are not the visionary you claim to be.”
She had never claimed any such thing.
“Perhaps Khale and her kind have a false god in you.”
Andromeda was no god.
“It is only time that is on the side of Khale and her army now, Seer. This legend of their Redeemer is nothing more than that. A legend. A myth. They have no savior who is powerful enough to stand against me.”
He was such a fool. The savior, the Redeemer, had been born. Her name was Mkombozi, and she was the daughter of the Great Shifter, Khale née Khale, and of the Demon, Sakarabru, conceived before the two of them decided to become enemies.
“All of a sudden,” he said, wearily, “you are of no use to me, Seer.”
Sakarabru waved his hand in the air and turned to walk away as Andromeda’s body fell into the flames. She may have been of no use to him, but he had been of use to her and Andromeda now had the last element she needed to complete the final Omen. In his quest for answers to the question of his end, Andromeda had suffered greatly, but her suffering had not been in vain. As she managed to roll off of the fire, screaming, and fall onto the floor, she found it—a bead of sweat from the beautiful Demon’s brow. She collected it and saved it on her tongue.
Andromeda rummaged through bags scattered on the floor in that Sears store, tossing aside napkins and condiments. Pickles. Damn! She’d forgotten to put pickles on her sandwich.
THIS LOVE
Hours had passed since they’d spoken to each other. Eden found him, sitting alone in the dark in the room he called his library, filled with books, old maps, even a record player and a collection of LPs gathering dust in one corner of the room. That old leather chair had seen better days, but he looked comfortable in it. After he’d turned off the television in the bedroom, Eden had turned it back on and watched channel after channel of news covering stories from all around the world of the drastic turn of events that had unfolded in the last week. It was painful to watch but even more painful not to.
He was sleeping but stirred awake when she stopped and stood in front of him.
“What is it?” he asked, confused and running his hand down his face. “You all right?”
She couldn’t help smiling. “I’m all right, Prophet.”
Eden had spent the last few hours coming to an emotional place of resolve. Maybe it was that Omen inside her, or maybe it was watching her world fall apart right in front of her eyes. Whatever it was, she felt a sense of purpose.
“Are you still mad at me?” she asked softly.
He leaned back and looked at her. “I was never mad at you.”
Prophet’s silver eyes glowed softly in the dark. He held out his hand to her. Eden took it and he pulled her onto his lap. Prophet held the power of touch over her. Whatever savage, immature, sobbing, self-pitying beast that decided to rear its ugly head in her at any given moment, he could calm it just by touching her. She wondered if he had had the same effect on Mkombozi. She wondered if he knew how much power he really held over her.
“So you told me to tell you everything,” she began.
He waited.
“I had never been so scared then when that bond happened, Prophet. I felt like I’d been pulled into a vacuum of darkness and fear that was suffocating, and all I wanted to do was die. I think that for a moment, I did die.”
Prophet stroked her bare thigh with his thumb, but still, he sat quietly and waited for her to continue.
“My world’s gone to shit,” she said, tearfully. “And I mean that in more ways than one. I’m sitting there watching it all fall apart on television; watching people being killed and losing everything, every aspect of their lives changed forever, and then the question came to me: If I had the power to stop this madness, would I?”
For as long as she could remember, Eden had been enveloped in a blanket of self-absorption.
“It’s not about me anymore,” she finally admitted. “And I need to stop acting like it is. As much as I hate to think about it, we have to leave this place. I have to make the second bond.”
Saying it out loud sounded even more terrifying than thinking about it. The first one nearly killed her, and Eden could only imagine what the second Omen would do to her. No. She didn’t even want to imagine what it would do. Her first step was getting out of this house and back out into the world. That was going to be a big enough challenge by itself.
He thought for a few minutes before finally responding. “We’ll leave in the morning.”
Prophet put his arm under her knees and braced her back with his other arm, placed her on the floor, and nestled between her thighs as he lay on top of her, balancing on his elbows so as not to crush her.
“Tonight,” he said, kissing her softly, “you can bond with me.”
>
Eden locked onto the silver reflective pools of his eyes as he kissed her, praying that he wouldn’t close them. She lost herself in those eyes of his and rode the wave of his kisses as they carried her away, far away from the burdens of this life with him, just the two of them, alone.
Prophet was a patient lover. Maybe the fact that he was more than four thousand years old had something to do with that, but he took his time, making love to every inch of her. He inhaled her as he kissed her neck, between her breasts, her stomach. She moaned when he dipped his tongue into her. Eden arched her back and pressed her palms down flat on the floor on either side of her, succumbing to the delicious pleasure he gave her with his mouth. Eden gasped and held her breath, building to the inevitable climax she knew would come if he kept going.
“I want you,” he whispered, raising his body over her and then slowly easing his thick, throbbing cock into her, pulsing gently until he’d worked himself into her as far as he could.
Eden cried out and locked her legs at the ankles around his waist, then rolled her hips and squeezed her body around his. He thrust into her, forgetting that she was still not fully acclimated to his size yet. Prophet looked lost. He’d been so careful with her, so in control of himself with her, but now he was hurting her.
Make him stop. No. She wanted this. She wanted him and she needed him. Eden reached up and grabbed him around the neck, raised her knees higher, and pulled his face to hers. The pain was excruciating and lovely because it was all of him and all of her, meeting together in the middle of this explosion that was inevitable. Their mouths met, locked, and stifled her cries.
Waves of pain and pleasure washed over her body. Tears slid down the sides of her face as the two of them branded each other’s bodies with their own.