by Stec, Susan
"I assume the real slut is still in Europe?" Mom presses.
It used to be, fledglings were left to fend for themselves, and killing was a personal preference by the darkest of our breed. But in today's world, it's almost impossible to pass off the sudden appearance of other-halves. I get it. So far I've been lucky, but if I mess up...
"Yes," I hiss.
Complete consumption of the Identical be damned. If they think they can turn me into a more hideous mythological creature with a tenth as much freedom by threatening me with extinction, so be it. I would rather be consumed by my brethren and Become No Longer, than take another's life for the mere amusement of it. I won't stop doubling up.
"At least she still smells fresh," Mother pokes.
"There you go," Sucky whispers in my ear. "She sounds like the proper one to assist you with your little sexual dilemma."
"In A Midsummer Night's Dream!" I hiss.
"Oh, now that's Mommy's little girl." Sucky laughs.
"Do your customers like the cold side of you?" I spit.
"I have no cold side, sweetie. You, on the other hand, are sounding quite vendetta-ish."
Our bartender slaps two coasters on the bar in front of me and Mother and sets down our drinks, covering the bar logo: a picture of a black hole painted between a pearly gate and bonfire, PURGATORY stenciled in red over the dark hole.
Mom hammers her shot and sucks down half the bubbly. "So, honey, tell Mother what's tormenting you."
I glare at the succubus.
She laughs. "Not enough hours in the day, huh, Luv?" Sucky slowly drains her shot, rises, straightens a black skirt so short I can see her naked butt cheeks, and wiggles her fingers as she saunters toward the door.
Mother watches as the werewolf and troll toss two berserkers out the front door. Sucky jumps back when a splash is followed by a spray of sewer water. I'm a tad bit disappointed the succubus doesn't get wet.
"I don't like your friends, dear." Mother's form billows and wavers beside me as she sips the brew. "So, what happened above the diner with the half-breed? You did not look . . . pleased when you left."
I stare hate at my guardian/mother/warden, and even though the first thing I want to scream is 'what the hell do you mean, half-breed?' right before I scream 'you were following me . . . again?' I calmly say, "I personally don't care what you think of my friends, Mother. Sucky serves a purpose. I am well-tutored in the art of seduction." Body still trembling anger, I add, "And I like sex. It's a nice high. Feeds the hunger, ya know?"
Mom's hypnotic red eyes are doing an arc across the bar from me to the door. They linger on the entrance with each pass, as though she is expecting someone. When six vampires—four male and two female—walk in all white skin and black clothing, Mom's gaze passes right over them and to the cages where a round of fights has come to a finish and payment is being exchanged.
Two words—half-breed—tag my inner thoughts like a repeating catch in a sound bite. I watch a segmented reflection of CeCe in a mirror behind bottles of intoxicating fluids on the other side of the bar. CeCe's image calmly signals for another green steam, and I count the seconds before I can continue without the fear of looking anxious.
"Did you say Gaire is a half-breed?" I ask, eyes still on púca, like I could care less. But my darkside is quivering, uneasy, fearful enough to raise prickles along CeCe's arms. I gaze at the fine brown hairs lifting in their follicles.
Mom puts up two sooty fingers and lets our bartender know she'll take another shot as well. "Yes, a half-breed. I felt it. So what is he?"
CeCe's eyes blink several times before I can reign in the human side. My mother snags the tell and runs with it. "You didn't catch it, did you? Well, it's nothing to be ashamed about. It's hard to read half-breeds," she says as we both pretend to watch the púca fly toward us, an eagle now, and two drinks clutched in the bird's talons. Not a drop of green steam hits the floor. "Anyway, what happened over the diner?"
The fanged-immortals secure a table on the side of the room farthest from the cages. Another púca, with the dark-skinned face, arms, and bare torso of a human, but the lower body and legs of a horse, trots over to the immortals with a laminated menu. I catch images of young men and women as the waiter lays the menu on the center of the table.
Three of the vamps—two females and one male—shake heads in a no thank you gesture, and with a show of fangs, order type-O processed. The waiter nods and while the other three immortals study pictures on the menu of non-processed beverages, the centaur púca prances to the bar with the drink order.
"We didn't do much," I tell Mother, and smile at the eagle. It hovers with massive wings fanning, coaster's flying about, and places our drinks in front of us. "He cooked me breakfast, we talked, and I left."
"What? None of that well-educated art of seduction?" Mother looks amused.
I push a laugh over CeCe's lips—weak attempt since Mother saw me spin gravel all the way out of the parking lot in CeCe's car.
"Actually, that's all it was. I'm baiting this one," I lie. "He's reluctant. I think it's the age thing." I laugh again. "Humans have way too many hang-ups. Anyway, it's more fun to see how long it takes. And I have a few weeks before I have to give up this body." I lift my shot glass in a toast, and she clinks the base of her glass against mine. "Why not have a bit of fun with it?"
We both chug the shot before she answers. "Well, I do hope you will be discarding this outfit soon. I'm quite bored with it. And be careful, alert. Half-breeds can be tricky."
"Doesn't matter," I flippantly say, although it does. "Nothing can kill us but our own breed, and a doppelganger isn't a shifter. So I'm in for the thrill, right?"
For the first time, ever, my guardian says nothing. She faces forward. Her smoky form absorbs the stool beside me as she settles. I glance up. Her bright red orbs are piercing, and even though I'm watching her through a reflection in the mirror behind the bar, they penetrate mine. I can tell her body has stiffened. Mother averts her gaze and still she says nothing.
I don't say anything, either, but my mind is roiling with thoughts of what Gaire is and what he could possibly do to me.
SIX
Gaire
I followed CeCe tonight, directly to the sewers and Purgatory, Down Under. I've been hiding by a metal ladder leading up to a storm-drain exit. I have a good view of the entrance to the bar. Nothing exciting has happened since she went in. The time seems to move like a slug on dry pavement.
It's blessedly dark down here, only a dim ray of light pours from Purgatory's small window above the door. A gloomy, luminous stream melts into the area around and below the entrance. It adds a surreal atmosphere to the dank and murky scurrility of the sewer where creatures slice darkness, a flickering stream burbles by, and street noises from above add reality.
The fetid air is deeply spiced with all things moldy and decomposing; the smell of death. I feel at home, but not safe. Most of the underworld knows what I am, what my kind is capable of, the threat we bring Down Under. But even worse, some of the older creatures may know my clan, my intimate family—they may know of me because of the reward.
My family has promised a Lifecard to the creature who aids in my capture, dead or alive. It entitles the barer freedom from an attack by way of retribution. There are very few Down Under stupid enough to challenge me without the reward. That's why I run. They will kill me when they find me.
The southern states, especially here in the sewers, and places like Purgatory are no-kill zones; our kind is not allowed here—as written by Them who watch over the underworld—mainly because we cannot control our lust for flesh. In a one-on-one confrontation we always win, and little is left of the body afterward.
The best of the best of us are called south—infrequently—to extinguish those inextinguishable by any other course of action. The summons always arrives on the monster of fatal unpredictability, and this is why I choose to hide in the southern states. To control my thirst for flesh would be conside
red impossible, yet I have done so for thirteen years.
I'm pulled from my thoughts by the arrival of a berserker who goes by the name of Vicen. He comes down the sewer south of me, head turning this way and that. I slide farther behind the stairs and watch as he enters Purgatory. Vicen deals in human trafficking. Sells some, uses others. I'd watched him stop CeCe on the street above ground earlier. She'd sloughed him off. I'd approached him. He knew what I was immediately, but not who I was, so I let him live. I asked him if he knew CeCe, he said through friends. I didn't want to bring more attention to myself and asked no more questions. He'd promised to stay away from her, and me.
The only reason CeCe would know him is if she's one of the humans he prostitutes, unless she's not who she wears. But I would know it, sense it if she were a shape-shifter—any shape-shifter. I need to find out for sure. I should just walk away, move on like the other times when things felt wrong, but I can't this time.
Can't or won't? My father's voice invades my conscious thoughts.
Can't, I mentally respond. What if she's the one? What if she's a possible mate? But I'm fooling myself. She's not a shifter. I've sensed them before—she smells different. Damn it, she's captured my curiosity. The need and lust I feel are overpowering. I have to find out what she is. The only way to do that is to bed her. If she's otherworldly, she'll feel my darkness and show herself.
And if she doesn't, you'll kill her, my father's voice warns.
CeCe
A berserker I know struts in, all muscle, murky eyes, and albino features. Vicen's presence is formidable. Heads turn, and an atmosphere of anticipation falls over the bar as he goes straight for the cages.
All eyes follow Vicen. Mumbles burble like the sewer stream outside the door, undefined and volatile. The smell of blood, sweat, and demon tears are thick in an atmosphere rattled with tension-packed pheromones. A surrealistic light pulses, and multicolored beings exude a lust for the unknown.
Purgatory crackles excitement as lycanthropes, berserkers and other creatures group around cages and wagering becomes physical, oral, and unruly.
An Indian with cold black eyes, set jaw, and long, jet hair breaks from the pack and strips down to a hairless, beautifully sculpted body; light reflects off his dark skin. His face contorts, skin rolls over bones that pop and reshape. The Indian heaves with the effort this change brings on. Usually it's a quick process, but this one is drawn out. Long tresses of hair fall damp around his pain-contorted face and almost touch the ground as he bends at the waist, reaching for the floor with one hand, the other wrapped around his midsection. Arms lengthen—noise in the room melts around the spectators like candle wax—and large paws replace fingers; claws the size of dinner plates dig into concrete as a black wolf, four times its human weight, shakes from head to tail and clears the betting floor.
I have never seen a wolf this large, and I'm mesmerized by the impressive creature.
On padded paws, the beast paces, gazes at his opponent's supporters, and intimidation rumbles in his chest. The crowd splits, and the wolf's black eyes shoot daggers at the blond berserker. Slowly, words of encouragement rise in volume until they rush from the patrons for both parties.
Saliva drips from the wolf's maw as he kicks up dirt on a damp floor with its hind quarter. The air becomes cloudy around the wolf's paws, but I am staring at the animal's distracting eyes. They look like lightening bottled up within a black night.
The wolf's opponent hoods steel-gray eyes and spreads a grin at the animal's exhibition. The berserker's sharp, pointy, metal teeth catch and reflect light from a fixture over the cages.
The wolf raises its head and howls a retort. The lycanthrope shifters join in with human bellows of threat-driven support.
I know the berserker. In fact, I'd had a confrontation with him earlier right before dropping Down Under. Berserkers are a nasty bunch, but this one is wicked cruel and gets off on the pain of others.
He'd approached me several times, trying to work out a business deal for the human bodies I double up on. Evidently, sex with a human pays very well among the otherworld creatures, especially if the human is less . . . breakable. I'd told him several times I wanted no part of it, and then he started following me. Every time I go Down Under he shows up and gives me a sales pitch, like he did earlier topside.
I'd pushed him off with a threat to bring the matter before the doppelganger elders. He'd laughed, right before telling me half the board was on his books. Then he sauntered down a manmade street above the sewer, taunting, "You'll come around."
But tonight he walks into Purgatory, barely acknowledges me and quickly turns away—probably interested in the fight, but still, so not like him to use a good audience to make a point. With Mom beside me, it's even weirder. She's one of the board members on his books. She even encourages me to take him up on his offers, said it would build relationships Down Under. I still refuse, mainly because I double up. I don't kill my hosts. Don't want to pimp out their doubles, either. It doesn't seem right.
The black wolf breaks my train of thought as it leaps into the cage and whips around all savage snarls, glaring eyes, and pinned back ears. Vicen hands off his sword, but his eyes never leave the cage as the wolf lowers his front quarter and waits.
Vicen heads for the cage. The bar becomes so quiet I can hear water dripping outside the door to Purgatory. Even the vamps are sitting on the edge of their chairs—four chugging blood from heated mugs, two looking sated after returning from the back rooms.
The bartender, in full púca-fairy regalia, is covered in the dark, matted fur of a sloth. Its movements are incredibly slow as it climbs onto the bar beside us.
The opponent's faceoff as one of the bouncers, the ogre, stands ready to close the metal door when the sloth announces the start of the contest. They are waiting for Vicen to climb into the cage.
As Vicen moves forward, every creature that needs oxygen to survive sucks in a breath and holds it for what seems like forever.
Three things happen at once: The sloth slurs, "Begin." The front door of Purgatory opens; it's as loud as a prayer book slapping the floor in the middle of a church service, and Vicen—one leg in the cage, one following—freezes mid-step.
Mouth open, I grip the barstool under me. The fight that was about to begin is forgotten, as everyone stares fear at the creature that enters. It's a wendigo. Seeing the demon in a southern state is unheard of, and a main reason for otherworld creatures to gravitate south. Wendigo are the most intimidating creatures Down Under, large alien-like canine beasts, malevolent and cannibalistic by nature. It eats what it kills.
It struts in on two hind legs, hair billowing behind like white fire. Its skeletal body is all bone, muscle, and sinew. Long sharp claws on hands and feet are lethal weapons, as are sharp, poisonous teeth. A bizarre, wolf-like face wears a set of manic eyes and a protruding jaw. Teeth don't quite fit into the wendigo's mouth and drip the musky smelling saliva that renders its prey a painful, slow death. The saliva sizzles as it hits the concrete.
I have never seen a wendigo, and below CeCe's skin, I'm vibrating with adrenaline pumping curiosity. I've heard my species is the only creature Down Under not affected by its poison. Probably because we're nothing but a dream until we walk in another's body.
The spell in the room turns from awe to fear the minute the wendigo speaks. "Vicen," it hisses, "we had an arrangement. Yet here you are breaking it, mere hours after making it."
Vicen turns white under his blond hair. "Hey, gi'me a break! Like I'm supposed to know when she—"
"Before you utter another syllable—" The wendigo's burly, human voice ricochets off everything in the room like a pinball in a colorful machine game. "—think about what you're doing, because if you dare to disobey me further, I will surely devour your flesh until nothing is left but bone, teeth and fingernails." The wendigo rocks back on springy hind legs. "And I detest fingernails."
"I don't give a rat's ass what you—" Vicen starts, but before he
can say more, the sharp teeth of the wendigo are buried in the berserker's throat, and everyone in Purgatory looks like taxidermy art along the walls of the bar.
I don't even see the wendigo move. One minute the creature is standing on thin long hind legs, the next on all fours over Vicen, teeth embedded in his throat.
As I try to wrap my head around what had just happened, the wendigo rears back with the berserker in its maw. Vicen is pain seasoned screams, arms and legs swinging.
On the balls of its hind legs, the wendigo prances lightly, almost delicately, to the front door and out into the darkness of the sewer. Purgatory is quiet and still, like a freeze-framed horror on a 3D movie screen.
SEVEN
CeCe
I'm walking Down Under, aimless, no destination in mind, with the event at Purgatory heavy on my host's heart. Just knowing a wendigo is living in the area makes me uneasy. I don't know why, because they can't kill my kind, only ravage the human flesh we wear. And it's not like I give a crap what happens to the other creatures. Yet, if the demon runs rampant, there will be nothing Down Under but bloody, fleshless bones. I might miss knowing there's a place to go where I can be the real me.
Thing is, from what I've heard, once the frenzy of killing and feasting begins, a wendigo is out of control and never fully sated. They often go topside and start feeding on human flesh until they're hunted by their own kind and put down. They're a big threat to our anonymity. I know that's why the wendigo are exiled to countries surrounding the North Pole; frigid weather calms the beast in them. That, and there are no doppelgangers that far north. Even though they aren't a threat to doppelgangers, it's said, wendigo feeding off the human flesh we wear is what pushes 'the horror' above ground in their search for more.
Spying an exit, I climb into the night and head home. Well, not home, but CeCe's house. I've never felt more lonely—singularly-alone. I want to be needed, languish in the warm touch of a human, and be a part of something bigger than myself.