Gleaming, reflective surface, transparent and flawless.
A crystal ball.
“You’ve been waiting for this moment since that night you first realized how lost she was. How lost you both were. Staring at the cracked red paint of that room, little tummy aching for the food she was too high to provide you with. Four-years-old and so smart. Smart enough to ask yourself: ‘How could she give me life and not help me sustain it?’”
I . . . but how . . .
I’m cracked wide open from the memory; one she should have no way of being privy to. The logical desire to ask how she knows this is overridden by that crystal ball—the scenes coming to life within it.
My entire pathetic, miserable life on replay.
“You can be saved from this,” the priestess—or whatever otherworldly thing she is—intones, those bottomless eyes sparkling like the crystal ball. “Here. Tonight.”
I believe her. Don’t know why—oh, who am I kidding? She’s power, mysticism. The snakes, a legion of them now, sway behind her. The candle lights dance to the same chanting beat.
She smiles that toothless grin again.
I feel no horror upon re-witnessing it. The entirety of my dread is reserved for the scenes I can now see in the depths of that crystal ball.
The gutter-trash highlight reel of my pointless existence. Every wrong moment, each scrap of humiliation and despair. The interminable instances that left me questioning the idea of God and ultimately robbed me of my faith.
I’m lulled by it, as much as I’m wrecked by it, and that rhythmic chanting surrounding us compounds the effect.
That victorious expression returns to her lined face, as if she knows she’s got me.
And she does. I’m trapped in a sick thrall.
“I can make it all go away.” Her hand waves above the ball and the images shift, transforming into something akin to glory.
My glory.
“Look at it. The end of your misery.”
She’s right. It is. It’s me at my best, a “best” I would’ve never been crazy enough to imagine was possible. Me in shining triumph, surrounded by success, money, accolades . . . security. Safety. The assurance that the poverty-stricken life I was cursed to is finally over and done with.
My heart cracks wide open again, this time with a yearning so acute that it makes my soul hurt.
“It’s yours. That amazing life you pray for . . .” She holds the crystal ball closer, cupped lovingly between her hands. “It’s already yours.”
I scoff at such a ridiculous claim. “Yeah right.” Jerking my chin down, I motion the length of my chest in my ratty t-shirt, which is covered by grime and blood. “Look at me. Does this look amazing to you?” As amazing as the illusions she’s showing me in that ball.
Illusions that can never be, no matter how much I’d sell my very soul to have them.
A life where I’m somebody, where people care about me and appreciate me.
Most importantly . . . the vision shifts into the form of a woman; one I’ve never seen before.
The sight of her pierces me through the gut.
Obliterates everything that makes me a man, leaving behind a being of pure impulse.
An entity of destructive hunger.
Her golden skin is flushed with anger, her light blue eyes framed with thick lashes, and lights reflect off her glossy brown hair.
Not lights—flames.
She’s fucking beautiful, in a way far removed from the magazines. An exotic beauty created to destroy the minds of men.
And the fact that she’s in that image within the crystal ball means . . . what? That I can have her?
No way.
Fuck. Please let it mean I can.
I want her.
Want her more than the money.
More than the success.
I have no clue who the fuck she is but I want her more than I want to redeem my worthless name.
The ball disintegrates into a million incandescent pieces that slide like shimmering sand through the priestess’ fingers. In their wake, something else takes shape. I squint at the paper—no, the parchment she’s now offering me, its words illegible to my gaze.
“That life was always meant to be yours. You know it deep inside. It’s why you’ve never accepted your fate. Why you’ve railed against the gods for failing you.”
The gods?
Before the inquiry leaves my lips, she leans into my space, pointing with the end of her grotesque nail at the only clear spot on that parchment—a signature line at the bottom. “All you have to do, my love, is agree by leaving your print right here.”
My “print”, not my signature. That should’ve been my main clue that something wasn’t right.
As if everything else about this twisted scenario wasn’t clue enough, huh?
I eye that line, pushing aside my revulsion at her distorted nail, and seriously consider giving her my print.
Whatever that means.
Surely a mythical creature such as her can deliver on that promise and lead me to that beauty with murderous intent in her eyes.
No sooner than the thought finishes crossing my mind and the world behind her—what seems to be a basement, my subconscious provides—explodes in a burst of color. It settles down almost as fast as it started. In its wake, small sparks of rainbow-like shades remain, and the candles have died out.
We’re also no longer alone, and I’m not talking about the snakes.
In the corner of the basement, where the whirlwind of color is the brightest, stand six figures.
They’re unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.
Dressed in all-black, they’re a mix-mosh that’s straight out of some psychedelic trip.
Man, those pills I took had to be laced.
There’s a female mummy in the front in black wrapping from head-to-toe.
They’re all wearing black.
To her side, a man in a suit and tie rubs his gloved hands together, face also covered by linings.
There’s a thin, slightly bent over man with the spiky face mask that covers his features entirely. His long-sleeve shirt has a deep open V that leads to the leather pants encasing his legs.
Another facing the wall, face hidden, hands held behind his back, German soldier helmet gleaming in the polychromatic sparks of light surrounding them.
And then we have the last two.
I don’t know if the guy off to the left is wearing some sort of modified knight helmet or what the fuck is that, but it covers his entire face, the mouthpiece curved like a protective beak around his jaw. On top of the helmet, there’s a giant black poof, honest to God don’t know what else to call it, and it looks like a perfect bun. He’s also in a military-style uniform, except his cape is made of black feathers, and the broach holding it together would make my dead great-Aunt Edna proud.
The pièce de résistance is the last guy, the most flamboyant of them all. His face is covered in black linen like most of them, and on top of that he’s wearing these small, round sunglasses, but based on the angle of his head and body, it’s clear he’s staring right at me.
His leather jacket is awesome, something straight out of 80s pop-culture, and the satin gloves are fine, I guess, but what the fuck is up with that top hat? And the gossamer black veil beneath it? Or the dramatic black feather pinned to one side of it?
Forget that. The tiny black bird perched on the other side of that hat is what I really want to discuss with him. Just how did he get it trained enough to stay up there?
My chest bounces and it takes me a second to realize laughter is bubbling up, tinged with escalating hysteria. I choke on it as I try to force words through, until I finally manage to get out, “Nice bird, bro.”
His response? He nods this sage nod and somehow manages to take a drag of his cigarette although his mouth is covered by linen.
I fall sideways, almost hitting the floor, tears streaming down my face from laughter.
No fucking doubt about
it. Those pills were some really good shit.
The priestess waves her hand and I’m lifted to an upright sitting position by her will alone.
Which, of course, pushes me to a level of hysterics I’ve never experienced prior to this.
Can’t tell if I’m still laughing or possibly crying at this point.
She holds the parchment to my face and murmurs, “It can be yours. Do as I ask, and everything you’ve ever desired will be yours to have for a time.”
I wipe a tear off my cheek. “Oh really? And what do you get out of it?”
“What I need. Just like you. You’ll get everything you’ve ever wanted, and when it’s over, we’ll send the collector to get our due.”
“Your ‘due’?”
“You get the life you desire . . . and then your life will be ours.”
If I remember this tomorrow when I wake up from this bender, I need to make damn sure I write this crazy trip down. It’ll be a heck of an ad for my dealer, won’t it? Shit he’s selling is so fucking good, your brain goes off into another realm entirely.
Can’t believe I even thought this was real for a bit.
Screw it, though. Might as well play along, right? “You know what? Sure. Fuck it. Where do I sig—” She snatches my hand, extends my thumb, and slices across the pad with her mutated nail—her sharp as a fucking knife nail. “Argh!” My hand is left extended in the air near the parchment, my thumb bleeding like crazy.
“The next part is all up to you. You need to make the choice. Press your thumb to this line and your life will change . . . forever.”
Ahhhhh. That’s what she meant by my “print”.
I don’t get to watch much TV, and don’t remember watching too much trippy crap as a kid when we did have some cable running from time to time, but, hell, my imagination is on some shit right now.
Shrugging to myself, I hold out my thumb, aiming for the space she indicated, and place the digit right on the paper.
There’s a loud bang, everything shaking around us, the six silent figures the only thing that remains steady as the world appears to be racked by a huge earthquake . . .
And the world goes black.
That is, until the next morning, when I wake up, no hangover, no lingering effects, back in the bed at the shelter I could’ve sworn I’d never be allowed to return to.
CHAPTER 3
Present Day
- Ritz Carlton, French Quarter, New Orleans, LA (USA)
Flames surround her, a tempest of hellfire that encompasses her entire form.
I’m not burning as she approaches; I’m frozen down to the depths of my damaged soul.
“I know you,” I say, just like in the dream.
Holy hell, this is identical to the recurring dream I’ve had for years now. All of it.
The only thing I ever missed was the gore surrounding me and the fact that I’m naked as the day I was born, covered in it.
“We all recognize death when it finally arrives at our door.” Her outline flickers as she appears inches from my body.
The chains from the dream are missing; another difference I vaguely pick up on.
I’m plastered to this couch just the same, glued to it by the shock of what’s happening.
I tilt my head back to take in her mind-bending glory, one that I have memorized by now. Not only because I’ve dreamt it countless times, but because I’ve been obsessed with the recollection of it during my waking hours as well.
Her black coat flares out into a skirt and each step she takes parts the folds, exposing the straps of a garter belt connected to black, silk-edged thigh highs.
Her hair falls in brown waves down her shoulders—a cacophony of different shades that’s highlighted by the fire trickling along her silhouette. Her skin is a golden tan and my befuddled mind muses how apt that is; after all, a woman of flames would be kissed by its glow.
Ice-blue eyes asses me in the coldest of ways.
My soul freezes even more.
My heart nearly disappears in a burst of molten ashes fanned by her presence.
She scares me to the core.
Fascinates me like the quintessential abyss calling my name.
I’m sure I’m not the first man to get aroused by the cause of his demise.
“It’s you. You’re the one here to collect.” I should be free to move now without the chains, but I’m sluggish.
Broken by what’s happened and by the sight of her.
I killed all these people, didn’t I? I’m the reason they’re torn to pieces, why organs are scattered throughout the space.
Oh God, what have I done?
She tilts her head, staring at the pitiful fool by her feet. “You gave them your soul and you’ve become the abomination you’re meant to be. Now you shall burn for your greed.”
Greed? Can she not see how wrong she is, this glorious creature of myth. She calls me the abomination, yet she’s the embodiment of all that shouldn’t exist. Proof that what happened a decade ago—me selling my soul to that bedraggled woman—was real.
Proof that there’s a world beyond human pettiness, poverty and glitz, desires and strife.
I knew this. For a decade, the dream was there, as well as that thought, a reality I ignored as I continued to bask in my accomplishment.
As I continued to amass money, prestige.
Continued to chase after everything that’s wrong in life because it helped me deal with the trauma of my early years.
She’s right. I do deserve to burn for my greed, as much as for what I did to the people in this room.
Except, I won’t burn.
Not in the way she and her kind intend for me to, anyway.
I jerk my head, unblinking, drunk on the sight of my intended executioner. Not that she’ll have the chance to become that. She’s here for something much worse. “They sent you here to kill me, but that’s not what you’re here to do. You’re here to own me . . .”
An undeniable truth.
A damming one.
A punishment far worse than my death.
I don’t know her, yet my molecules recognize the danger she poses.
Her expression flashes; fire-framed fingers twitch at her sides. Every inch of her is in denial of my claim—ready to destroy the lowly being that would dare to utter such a claim. She’s a vision of incoming disaster.
A symphony of bad intentions.
I know what comes next, have lived this moment a thousand times in my dreams.
She’s going to try to kill me.
She’s going to fail.
Damn us both.
“The only thing I own, foul creature, is the life still coursing through your veins. And I shall be taking that now.” She lifts her hand, the flames bursting into an even more blinding whirl—
Last thing I see is that fire coming for me.
The disgust in her gaze.
My own limbs shifting, overcome with . . . fur?
Someone’s haunting howl is the last thing I hear.
And I’m pretty sure that sound came from me.
My vision is gone for maybe a second, perhaps even less, then it snaps back with a fury, overwhelming me.
It’s enhanced.
Sharper than my mind can handle.
I see everything like I’ve never seen it before, almost down to the molecules it’s all made of.
That’s not all. Now that my vision’s returned, I realize that in that single second it was gone, I also managed to do the impossible.
I manage to somehow jump across the room, away from that burst of flames she aimed at me.
The settee I’d been on is covered by fire, almost nothing but ashes left behind.
She whirls in my direction, gorgeous face twisted by disbelief and fury. With my vision enhanced like this, the sight of her strikes me straight in the heart, stealing my breath and every ounce of self-preservation I possess.
“How . . . you’re even faster than most of your kind, foul creature.” Holding
up another fire-framed hand, she aims in my direction again. “But I’m even faster. There’s no escape for you.”
My kind? No time to think about it. Merciless, she sends another blast my way. There’s no thinking about it, I simply move by pure instinct, escaping it by a hairsbreadth.
Literally.
That fire is hot enough to burn the air and it rushes over the hair on my back.
Wait. Hair? Back?
My arm was sprouting what looked like fur as she sent that first volley toward me.
I land on the floor across the living room—on the completely opposite side from where I started—and it quickly becomes obvious that I just moved at what seems to be hyper-fucking-velocity.
A blast goes off from where I just ran from, and a look over my shoulder shows me that an entire side of the penthouse is now being consumed by fire.
Unnatural fire.
It has to be. Never heard of a blaze spreading that quick.
As quick as I just ran across the room.
Or maybe I flew? Who the hell knows?
The goddess sent to kill me spins my way, the ends of her coat flaring around her legs, her hair sweeping in the wind.
It’d be easier to escape her if I wasn’t so damned enraptured by her.
“What the fuck?” she cries, aghast, her fires rising around her as her emotions play out on her face. “You’re the quickest werewolf I’ve ever come across. Impossible. You just turned!”
Werewolf?
Just turned?
What the hell is she going on about?
She clenches a fist, fire pulsing in her grip like lightning about to strike, and I don’t waste time waiting around.
My next step is in the direction of the doors she stepped through, there’s just one problem:
It’s not only a step. It’s four near simultaneous ones and the reason for that becomes obvious—
I’m on all fours.
Werewolf. Fur. Carnage around us, blood dripping from my mouth.
What that means—what I’ve somehow become—slams into me and steals my next breath. I dodge another stream of fire and skid into the grand piano in the middle of the room. The impact forces my head down and I see the truth I’d love to deny.
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