by Alana Melos
I turned and wrapped my arms around him, looking ever so slightly up. “You can live without me one night,” I whispered against his lips, teasing him with the barest of kisses. When he moved against me, he was still hard and the sensations the friction between us created tempted me. “I’ll stop by again, later on in the week.”
Kissing me hard and thoroughly, Gerard left me wanting more. For a second, I entertained the idea of a quickie… but it was never quick between us. We wanted too much, craved more and more. Once was never enough.
“Don’t leave me waiting long,” he whispered, then brushed his lips over mine.
“How can I stay away?” I smiled at him, and then turned and grabbed my long trench coat as proof against the winter weather outside. Gerard didn’t want me leaving via flight from his place, lest some other metahuman thought to check out the new guy’s place and see what he was up to. In his world view, the less attention he got, the better. As a result, when I left I rode down the elevator like all the normies. After that, I walked down the street a few blocks in a different direction every time. I didn’t blame him for his paranoia. He’d been on the run for too long to change now. A leopard couldn’t change his spots, and a psycho couldn’t change his personality disorder.
When I arrived home, I stripped down and showered. I really wasn’t lying to Ger when I said I had something to do. Tonight was the anniversary of the Fall of Uptown, which we villains (and the youth) liked to call “FU Night”. For most people it was a mourning ceremony, to grieve for all the lives lost when the big floating platform formerly known as Uptown crashed onto half of New York City. It had been a great victory--the last great victory for us black hats--as it heralded the collapse of the world government which had been forming. Everything fractured with the Fall, and it left people scrambling for a sense of order, grabbing after anything so long as it promised stability.
What fools these mortals were.
Even though my parents were instrumental in it, I’d never taken part in the festivities. I didn’t want people to know who they were and thus, who I was. It would change everything, and I’d be judged as being their progeny instead of my own person. With the realization I needed to go out and do… other things to make what would pass in my world for friends--contacts or allies would be closer to the mark--I thought I’d give it a try. Black hats came out in droves to party in the Underground. Sometimes it’d spill over into a crime spree, generally petty vandalism and theft, but mostly they just laughed about the white hats and how ineffectual they were. You know… boasting and bragging with lots of alcohol and a few fights… just like any other family gathering.
I thought I’d get some opinions on a new professional outfit I was working on as well as nose around and try to make some different contacts. If it sucked, I’d take Gerard up on his offer of sex. I knew he wouldn’t be at the celebration, even though no one would recognize his face now. He’d made too many enemies, burned too many bridges, even among other black hats. I thought I’d probably see Nosferatu there and I was looking forward to it. I hadn’t seen him since the night on my balcony when he’d left me standing there. I hadn’t even sensed him around, lurking in the shadows. It was strange how much I missed him, mystical compulsion aside. There were few things in my life I took for granted as always being there and he had been one of them.
After I showered and styled my hair to fall down my back in wild waves, I went to the closet and started picking out my outfit. I wasn’t going to go full armor tonight since I wasn’t actually working. I picked out the long dark red leather trench coat I’d had made special. It had armored sections in it, but still flowed pretty well despite the extra weight. Not complete protection, but some at least. The rest of the ‘uniform’ I’d been trying to design was actually based loosely off the Schattenkraft one I’d brought back from Axis, the lines of it anyway. The shirt was black and button up, though I left the top few undone since I was going out to party. I paired a skirt with it that came down to about mid thigh, but narrowed. There was a slit up the side so I could walk easily, but when I stood still it hugged my legs, making them look long and streamlined. To finish the look, I had a pair of thigh high dark red leather boots which stopped just short of the skirt. If I was working, I’d wear pants instead of the skirt. The boots, like the coat, had armor plates at strategic points. Protection which still allowed mobility.
I admired myself in the full length mirror, thinking that it wasn’t quite there yet, but it was coming along nicely. Maybe I’d add another color accent, or change the top to a different style of shirt. I liked the button up though. Even though I kept it undone, it gave me an air of professionalism and if I really wanted to, I could pair a tie with it either loose around my neck like in the eighties, or buttoned up and tight like the Schattenkraft officers. The trench made it easy to hide my sword and mask both. A deep pocket lay on the inside left of the coat to secure the mask. Starting on the low right side and going up my back lay the hidden sheath built into the coat. This way, the length of the coat hid the sheath and I had no tell tale belt across my front. The handle was held in place with a leather strap, easy to flick open to draw my sword from below. I had yet to fight in it, and I worried the long coat would trip me up. Decisions, decisions.
The doorbell rang just as I was finishing up the last of my make up. Frowning, I finished my mascara then found my sword. I didn’t have many visitors. It could be Gerard come to test my resolve. Nosferatu would come in through the balcony. I supposed it could be a door to door salesman. Even in a high rise, I got them every once in awhile… them and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I stretched my telepathic senses out before I got to the door and didn’t find anyone. However, when I checked the camera--because no, I was not going to look through the peep hole; I’d seen too many movies to know how unwise that was--someone was standing there, fidgeting nervously. Once I saw her, I knew why I didn’t sense anyone: it was the Nacht Sirene.
Chapter Two
The Nacht Sirene--or Night Siren, but I actually preferred a combination and called her the Nacht Siren most of the time--stood there, waiting for me to open the door. Rebekah was, like her father Gerard, a refugee from Axis Earth. She still dressed like it, refusing to give up her enchanted clothing which granted her a measure of armored protection. As a result, she ran around in her black hat guise almost all the time… which was fine, since she spent half of that time as smoky darkness anyway.
I opened the door and she looked up, her blue-green eyes wide and relief evident on her pixie-like features. “Oh, good, you’re home,” she said, rushing in across the threshold.
“Not for long,” I said as I closed the door. “What did you need? Is it a job?”
“I need someone to talk to,” she said and I frowned, looking at her. Rebekah, which was her real name, had always been a little twitchy except when she was on the job. She had this exuberance which was hard to stamp down, more so because everything in this dimension was new to her. Hell, freedom to move around where and when she liked was new to her. When she was agitated, it came out all in a rush of words and picking at her clothing nervously.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked.
“It’s about my father…” she started and plucked at the edge of her black leather coat. I looked her up and down, taking in the dark green jeans, knee high leather boots, her hat, the gas mask which hung around her neck, and the green lensed goggles around her hat band. She looked the same as she always had to me. It was only the tone of her voice and her mannerisms which told me she was upset over something. I wasn’t the best at reading body language. Usually my telepathy told me what people were thinking. Unfortunately, Rebekah was psychic negative. She gave off no trace of a psychic presence. For me, it was like talking to a doll or the television. I could see her and hear her, but she wasn’t really real.
“What about Ger?” I asked.
“He… can I sit down?” she said as she wrung her hands.
“Yeah on the couch,” I said, pointing. When she sat, I took a seat opposite her. Since she was so upset, this was going to be something big.
“I went over there, just to, uh, hang out,” she said in her German accented English. “And he started to be all… nice, but… uh… you know….”
I raised a brow, putting the pieces together. As much as I might like Gerard, he was sicker than I was and far more cavalier about using his mind control to get what he wanted. The instant Rebekah had told us she was his daughter, he’d been consumed with the idea of fucking her… which was disgusting. I plotted to murder my mother, but I wouldn’t toy… oh, alright, I would toy with her if I could, but I wouldn’t because it wouldn’t be smart. Matricide and murder was one thing, the taking away of choices and complete domination was another. He’d already tried with me and failed. I’d warned him if he did it around me again, I’d kill him.
“He wanted to… uhm… you know,” she stammered.
“I get the picture,” I said, not wanting to make her say it. “So you poofed. It’s not like he can mind control you.”
“I didn’t,” she replied, taking off her hat to let her platinum blonde hair stick out every which way. “We sat down and he, uhm, had a gift for me, he said.” She fidgeted with her hand for a moment, “And I thought it was something to make up for not, uhm, being there, as a father.”
“I’m not quite tracking,” I said. “He gave you a gift. That’s not… he’s been known to do that from time to time.” Usually when he was manipulating something, but still. Sometimes the thought was nice enough, if you didn’t examine it too closely.
“He opened the box and took it out, and then put it on my wrist,” she said, frowning deeply. “When… when it closed, I felt adrift… floating… disconnected.” She raised up her hand to show a wide silver bracelet. I examined the bracelet and shrugged. It was a nice gift, obviously custom made. It contained subtle references to the Reich with some imagery of eagles, without being too overt about it. All in all, it was a pretty thing.
With what she said though, I reached over and peeled the edge up as far as it could go without cutting into her skin with the other side. The back of it was black and smooth and familiar to me. “It’s the inhibitor,” I said. “He… what, put it on you and then tried…?”
She ducked her head in a nod as she retracted her hand from me. “I told him no, very firmly, and he said I would have to, or go.” Rebekah rubbed the back of her neck in a gesture eerily familiar to me. It was the same one her father would do when uncertain of what to say. “I told him to take it off of me, and then he… he…” She took a deep breath, “He looked surprised, then… I don’t know. Angry. Upset. Then he grabbed me, and he tried…”
“You don’t have to give me the gory details,” I said, wanting her to just get on with it.
Rebekah flushed a little. “We struggled,” she said, her voice soft. “I could not shadowstep, so--”
“Wait,” I said interrupting her. “He didn’t mind control you? With that on?” I glanced at her wrist again, then looked up into her big blue eyes. I stretched forth my mental senses, and sure enough… it still was like talking to the couch. I couldn’t see her at all, psychically speaking. “Then it’s… your brain chemistry… structure… something’s different about the way your brain works… that’s what prevents people reading you. That’s really interesting.” I could think of about a dozen places to sell that information to, or her head, but I pushed those thoughts away for now. This was the kindler, gentler me. One who was trying to make allies outside of work. I had to keep repeating that. “The rest of your powers are gone, though, right?”
Rebekah nodded, wiping her eyes. I frowned to myself, trying to evoke some feeling of sympathy, but struggled with it. The best I could do was to remember the one time I had cried and how it felt. Of course, it had to do with her father too. He was not a nice man. A good ally and partner, but not nice.
“He tried to force himself on you, and then what?” I asked.
“I punched him in the face, and then blew his knee out,” she said, her voice matter of fact if a bit subdued.
I smiled at that. “That’s my girl,” I said. “Good for you.” Gerard was a knife fighter and used to close combat, but Rebekah had perfected the art of hand to hand unarmed combat. Usually she had her enhanced strength and speed to help, but it came as no surprise to me she kicked his ass.
“No, no, it’s not good,” she said as a tear slipped down her cheek. “What am I to do now? I have nowhere to go, he pays for my apartment… and I have no powers.”
With that, she began weeping. I sat there, trying to think of what to do. With no experience of being comforted myself in recent memory--except sexually which was completely inappropriate here--I threw my mind back to what my father would do when I got upset.
To that end, I got up and sat down next to her. I patted her on the back awkwardly and said, “There, there.” My memories were a little dim, but I seemed to recall he’d say something else to fit the situation. “If you want, I’ll stab him for you?” It would suck losing a mentor, but it wasn’t like I could actually learn right now anyway, not until this stupid compulsion lifted.
She leaned into me at the same time her head jerked up, “No! No, I don’t want that.”
“I told you he’s a psychopath,” I said, racking my brain. “I guess I could have warned you more. It was going to happen sooner or later.”
“No, I want him to be a father,” she said, her voice thick, but insistent. “I was taken away from my mother when I was so young. They executed her. In front of me. I remember this. They said she was a traitor to the Reich, and I… I held my doll and I tried not to cry.” I sat there and kept patting her back in the same motion, letting her speak at her own pace as I resisted the urge to check to see what time it was.
“I was too afraid,” she said, wiping away her scant tears. Even now, it looked like she had trouble crying and that I understood, at least. I wasn’t a crier either, but for different reasons. “They took me away, and would have killed me too, but… then the Schattenkraft could not read me, and they realized I had powers. When they ran a genescan, they saw I was part of Übermensch, and I was spared.”
“You know, I have a thing I need to get to…” I said, trying to ease my arm back. This had gotten too intense and personal for me. I didn’t need to know these things, and I didn’t want to know them.
“I’ve been alone, and I just want a family, I want my family,” she said, looking me in the eye and staring intently at me. Gerard wasn’t the only one in that family tree with obsessions it appeared.
“You can’t choose your relations,” I said slowly, leaning back away from her intense gaze. “But you can choose your family. Find someone else to watch your back.”
“I only know you, Reece,” she said. “And Fa… Gerard.”
“What about the wolves and vamps from Axis?” I asked, scooting away from her ever so slightly. She was leaking again, and I didn’t want to get any of that on my clothing.
“They hate me,” Rebekah said, exhaling the words in a soft breath. “It’s not my fault.” She tugged at the bracelet, “If they saw me now, they would laugh. And then rip me to pieces for having a part of their pack in me.”
I saw her point. The other refugees from Axis were all supernatural creatures, forged into a single unit by their old leader, the Axis version of Nosferatu. In some experiment or another, the Siren had been given the powers of one of their numbers at the cost of that vampire’s life. Probably wouldn’t make for good allies for her, come to think of it.
“I don’t know what else to tell you,” I said honest as I always was. I’d run out of things.
Rebekah sighed and leaned back on the couch, looking up at the ceiling with eyes empty of all emotion. “The worst part,” she said, “was after… even after I beat him, he said he wouldn’t take it off unless… unless I did. He said those were my only choices: to submit, or to flee.” She
shook her head, “I was a coward. I fled. I ran so fast I almost knocked over a couple in the hallway.”
Stirrings of real anger began to bloom in my chest. With some effort, I pushed away the impulse to march over there right now and wring his neck. She’d resisted his advances and that deserved respect. That he held it over her head didn’t surprise me. What did was the depth of emotion I felt about it. I wanted him, true, but my want was always mingled with a bit of fear and repulsion. I won’t lie and say it didn’t make it hotter. It did. But it wasn’t me we were talking about it. It was… family, and family who had done wrong to her, just like mine had to me.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stab him? He tried to rape you,” I said, and she winced. “What? Want me to sugar coat it? I’m not going to.”
“Put like that, it’s…”
“Vile,” I said. “He tried with me too. He’s got this control thing.” I would like to say I’d kill anyone who tried that with me, but I hadn’t. I won, so I let it be. I’d win again. He knew better than to try, and I wanted to tell her that he’d know better than with her too… but I could tell that wouldn’t be comforting.
“I just want to forget about it,” she said, her lip quivering for a moment, then stilling. “But I can’t.”
“You shouldn’t,” I said. “Remember what he is next time, and be ready… though it sounds like you kept him in check handily.”
“You’re so… so… matter of fact about it!” she exclaimed, frustrated. “I can’t be that way. I don’t want to be that way anymore.” She blew out her cheeks, her face flushed an ugly red with frustration. “You know what they do to criminals like that in Axis? Castration on first offense, death on second.”
“Ouch,” I winced. Even though I hadn’t grown up in America, I was still used to American law by now and there were constant debates about the death penalty even though it wasn’t in vogue currently. Give it another decade and it would be again. Still, we had lawyers and appeals and if you played it just right, you could get off with a fine or probation even though you’d committed murder. “Is that what you want to do? Castrate him?”