Her Mind Games: A Dark and Erotic Paranormal Romance

by Dunning, Rachel

  As if to emphasize it, a lighter flashed on like a cannon in front of his face, showing me his aged features, the lines around his eyes and lips, his black eyes, his hard white stubble. He lit his cigarette, the tip went red, and he flicked the lighter off.

  Now there wasn’t only black, but a moving target of white-red light as the impressions of the flame replayed themselves on my retinas. I felt even blinder because of the fire, blinder than when it had been only dark. Maybe this was his plan.

  Only the red glow of his cigarette remained as he inhaled repeatedly on it. I saw sections of the smoke where the soft red glow lit it up, and then it disappeared into the darkness with everything else.

  And what else is there in this room? Lavoya? Talya? A dead body? A lake of blood that he wants to take me for a swim in?

  I was protecting my thoughts with all my might. If any of those people were here, I wouldn’t let them know my fears. And neither will he.

  Shira had taught me well.

  And so the almost-silence continued—the crackle of tobacco burning, the soft hush of his exhalation, and my breaths; my constant, deepening breaths. And my heartbeat. Slow down, little heart. Slow down or your sound will start reverberating off the walls.

  Tha-bump, da-boomp, tha-bump, da-boomp—getting faster each time, rising to my throat.

  “Mighty fine job, Crystal darlin,” he repeated. “Surprised to see me?”

  “Where is she?” My voice betrayed my fear. I had wanted to sound firm, in control, powerful.

  I came out sounding like a mouse in a trap. Which, factually, is what I was.

  “She? And who is she?” he crooned.

  “You know damn well who she is. Now where is she?”

  He started to laugh slowly, a tiny rumble of pleasure. The laugh grew harder, building up as if he were having the finest time of his life in this dark room. Dark like your soul, the blackest soul I know.

  “You witches—I love all of you. So...eccentric, so...frail when you find a weakness. So...deliciously tempting.” The cherry of his cigarette went red, then dimmed.

  “Where. Is. She?”

  “Is that all you wanna know, darlin? A half a year you been gone from me, and this is the hello I get? Oh, and did you like Sirvy’s getup outside? The bitch was always a goddamn slut. Suits her damn well, if I do say so myself.”

  And then I heard it. After all I had seen, all the horror, the spilled guts, the boy’s head blown off, the smell of decay—this was the worst.

  I heard: “Oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm.”

  I screamed her name in response. “Shira. Shira! Where are you, Shira? Answer me, baby. Please. PLEASE.”

  The laughing became louder, a sick man and his pleasures.

  “SHIRA. PLEASE. PLEASE ANSWER ME.”

  I was trapped, unable to move. So dark. So dark!

  And the male laughter: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.”

  There were a few more hand claps by him, another slap on his jeans.

  “Oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm.”

  “Like an omelet, ain’t she, darlin? Just...splat. Drugs and witches. Gets em every time.”

  “Oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm—”

  “SHIR—”

  There was a sudden whoosh as an overhanging light went on, spilling white light everywhere.

  I had fought my lunch down when I’d seen the man holding his innards on the wheelchair.

  I had fought it down when I’d seen that rat being devoured by ants.

  I didn’t fight it down now.

  What I saw sent the food coming out of me in a violent spurt, and rocked me to my knees. The world crashed upwards against me as I landed.

  What I saw was this:

  Jack—right hand side, legs crossed, smoking his cigarette dandily.

  Behind him and to the left, looking like a car model, dressed in nothing but a skimpy two-piece lace set that might as well be off; tumbling curls of black hair, boobs so big she could be a Playboy model. And her eyes were on Shira’s toes.

  Shira’s toes...

  Oh gods...

  Karloyna held a whip, long and blood-stained. And what she was looking at, above us all, dangling there like a sacrifice to man—Luke’s vision. He saw it. He saw it!—was what had brought my lunch out of me:

  The crucifix. Hanging from the ceiling.

  “Bring her down. Bring her down!” I screamed.

  I was defenseless. My walls came crashing down around me and all my thoughts came out like vomit. How much I loved her, how much of a friend she was. Everything. No protection. Nothing at all.

  “Bring her down!” I wept, looking up at the cross to which she had been nailed. “Please, please. I’ll do... I’ll do...anything.”

  “Oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm.” Her head was lolled to the side, blood dripping from her ragged white clothes, over her hip, down her leg and...

  ...onto her toes.

  CRACK!

  Karolyna flicked the whip against the side of Shira’s battered body. The stained white shirt—a man’s dress shirt—which was already in tatters, tore even further where the whip hit. Soft blood oozed out of the wound, down Shira’s leg. I felt Karolyna’s excitement like fire as the trickle of blood reached Shira’s big toe and then bulged, waiting to fall into the puddle that lay below her.

  You’re mad, I accused in my mind. I knew Karolyna heard me, but she made no sign that she had.

  The woman smiled sardonically, licked her lips. She wants to lick the blood on the floor, I understood. She wants to lie down under the crucified woman and let the droplets of blood from her toes fall into her mouth like rainwater.

  “I’m an expert, you know?” Karolyna said. “She’ll live a very long time in this state. I never strike her too hard. Just...enough. Just...enough...to satisfy my...needs.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Hmpf. Why not? But it’s not her we want, little child. It’s not her.”

  “It’s me,” I said.

  She smiled quietly. “You’ve overstayed your welcome. Shira was ours. She was under control. Her...idealistic dreams had faded. We were all happy. And then you came along...”

  “You’re in on it,” I said.

  “It?”

  “The war. The demon war. It makes no sense. Why would you want to destroy your kind?”

  She cackled like a hag. “Your little hunter boyfriend has been feeding you lies, child. There is no war. But I can’t blame him. They have such simple minds, those hunters. It’s all black and white for them. Right and wrong. No shades of gray. They see demons as bad and witches as good. No in-between. Do not forget, little child, that a witch chooses to be a demon. It is a choice.”

  “By force,” I cried.

  She laughed again. “You’ve felt it yourself, little girl—the yearning for the power. How far have you gone down that Well? How far? You know you want it, you hunger for it, the rush in your veins. What’s to say the witch who allows herself to be ‘forced,’ as you put it, didn’t trick the demon herself?”

  “You’re brainwashed,” I said.

  “There are two ways to reach the power—the hard way, as you are doing it. And the easy way. Becoming a demon is the easy way.”

  “Demons have no power,” I spurted. “They’re parasites.”

  “What’s the difference? A parasite has the power of anything it sucks on.”

  “So you’re a demon now?”

  She laughed again coolly. “Not yet,” she said. “Someday. Jack and I here made...an arrangement.”

  “I thought you wanted the power,” I said. “Why don’t you just take it? Become a demon.”

  Her eyes flashed with irritation. “You ask too many questions, little child.” She cracked her whip in the air, but hit nobody.

  She’s brainwashed. He’s weakened her and used her to get to me, and she doesn’t even know it. “He’s playing mind games with you,” I told her.

  “Enough!” Jack’s voice boomed around the empty warehouse. He grinned pleasan
tly. “Karolyna, watch the prisoner. I’ll do the talking from now on.”

  “You’ve brainwashed her, haven’t you?” I said to him.

  He didn’t respond with words. But he sent the thought into my head using my and Shira’s channel, a channel he now clearly controlled. I’m good, aren’t I? The woman thinks I’m the next buttered bread or something. Now hush, beautiful Crystal. Let’s leave the slaves to their own ideas, and you and I talk. You, the most resistant witch of all, and me. Good ole Jack.

  “Where are the others?” I asked him. “Talya, Lavoya. Where are they?”

  They were not as easy to convince as this sack of gems with the whip, he whispered into my mind. Toes—can you believe that is her goddamn weakness? Toes! It was too easy. Too easy. This slut was the weakest of them all. But I guarantee you, Crystal. She is completely under my control. And you see that whip? She’s an expert at its use. If you want to see your friend live through this, you’ll stop your questions now.

  “Where are they?” I demanded. I wasn’t interested in threats.

  Jack stiffened. “In that goddamn bedroom you saw them in today. They’re all still there. Even this crack-of-whips is there still. But her mind is here. Which means she is here. The others? Not so easy to...corrupt, let us say. But they’re harmless enough. Nothing like a little blow and a little weed to dull the most sensitive minds. Talya didn’t fucken know half the shit she was saying to ya when you spoke to her in the bedroom. I truly was hoping you would have availed yourself of the substance as well. But, alas, nuthin’s perfect. And this way is always a little more...fun.”

  I felt Karolyna’s hatred seep off her like waves of doom.

  She was gone. There was no point trying to reach her. Jack would turn her into a demon after this. She was too weak to resist him anymore.

  Cracked windows behind Shira’s crucifix let in cold air from the outside, but no sound. It was as if the warehouse itself had invisible protective walls around it. “Like what I’ve done with the place?” he said. “It wasn’t this rundown before, of course. When I had Tommy in here, for example—there were only three broken windows. Oh, he was a blast, honey, I gotta tell you. Sucks cock like an animal when you get in his head—”

  “I’ll kill you,” I said, seething.

  This sent Jack into fits of laughter so strong that he had to hit his chest to stop the ensuing coughing fit. There were tears in his eyes when he was done.

  “You’re a monster,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said blithely. “But this is no time for compliments.”

  “Why him?” I said. “He had no power for you.”

  He waited a second before answering. “All it takes to catch a witch is to find her weakness, dear Crystal. It’s so easy.” He looked over at Karolyna. Her mouth was watering. She stuck her massive tits out. Her head was full of toes, just utterly locked on the crimson dripping from Shira’s feet.

  Loony. Totally...fuckin...loony. I protected that thought.

  “See?” he said to me, gesturing to the woman with the whip. “A weakness. I had considered that your weakness was love. I had. And so I went for Tommy. But that didn’t bring you on your knees to me. On your knees—nice turn of phrase, no? But, ahhh. Alas. Love it is! And who would have thought that it would have been a sisterly love? Took me a long time to figure that out, Crystal. A long time. I’m a little upset about that. I don’t like waiting, you know. And my cock has been dying to taste your lips around it for almost a year. Better make it a good one. What was that you said—that you’d do...anything...to free her?”

  I did a mental check of my powers. I didn’t feel weaker. But I had been wrong before about that with Jack.

  “So you went to all this effort to get me to...suck your cock? Why don’t you just make me a demon and be done with it?”

  He chuckled condescendingly. “Oh, Crystal. It doesn’t quite work like that. You need to be broken down. Your will needs to be shattered. The Dark Gift is just that—Dark. It’s bitter, an acquired taste. When I show it to you—and I will show it to you—you will repudiate it, feel a certain revulsion for it. It takes a fair amount of...persuasion to bring the gift to a witch. Tough work, but somebody’s gotta do it.

  “Now, we have exhibit A up here on the crucifix. That’s step one. But we need more, much more to tear you down. Oh, the cocksucking will be only the first step. There will be more—so much more. And Sirvana will get involved. The woman is a hag, literally, but she has her uses. Oh, we have plans—lots of plans for you. Bars, whips, all sorts of sharp objects. Yummy. Just the mere thought of the defilement excites me. And, besides, witches give better head than demons. Much better head. It’s the only drawback to makin y’all demons afterwards. And this fact of becoming male as well. Sorry business. And demon cocksuckers are a little...draining. Haha. What a pun. Draining!” He stopped laughing, got angry. “Now come on!”

  “Make me,” I said.

  Again, a laugh. “You witches are all the same. All the same. If I had a dollar for every time a hag used the words, Make me, I’d own all the seven hells. No problem, Crystal. I’ll make you. I know your weakness, after all.”

  He looked back at Karolyna, then up at Shira.

  “Oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm,” Shira said.

  And then, out of nowhere: CRACK! A lash of the whip against Shira’s body.

  I screamed.

  CRACK!

  “No, stop it. Stop it!”

  CRACK!

  “STOP IT!”

  Shira hardly flinched. Only said: “Oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm.”

  Jack moved his hand up slowly. Karolyna brought the whip down.

  I saw Jack’s smile from the corner of my eye, a wicked grin, his gold-tooth sparkling. The smile grew until it damn near reached his ears. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, slow. Then another.

  He dropped it on the floor, crushed it with his foot. There were other butts there. At least half a pack. How long have you been waiting for me here?

  “Well,” he said, looking back at Karolyna, then up at Shira. He moved his hands to the snap of his jeans, undid it. “You know, deary, you coulda saved yer frien’ here a lohhhhhhhtta trouble if you’d just given me what I wanted in the first place.” He unzipped his pants. He had on white boxers. And he was hard. The thought was sickening.

  I had my defenses back up. My walls.

  “Well, c’mon then, darlin. We ain’t got all...night? Day? Eternity? You know what I love most about these inner worlds of yours, is this goddamn time factor. I can wage entire wars in here while I sit for a smoke outside on the porch. Damn, I got a blowjob once from a whore—sick fuckin bitch, ugly as, well, a hag—but it lasted an entire lifetime. Can you imagine having your cock sucked for an entire lifetime? I did that during the Superbowl. Fuckin hate the goddamn sport, at least not when Texas ain’t playin. But that lifetime-long suck-job, hotdamn that was some good shit. Get goin, Crystal slut! I want you to suck my fuckin cock in case you hadn’t got the point yet. And I’m gonna talk yer goddamn ear off. I’m gonna talk until yer fuckin brains come out yer nose, and I’m gonna make you taste my fuckin balls until you ain’t got no fuckin saliva left in yer mouth. And then maybe, maybe, I’ll consider lettin yer friend go here. C’mon, honey, c’mon!”

  His long speech had given me time to gather my wits. An imagination within an imagination. Could I do it here, as I had done with Loquacious Rob?

  “She’s doing that thing, Jack. That thing I told you about. That...thing...this bitch”—CRACK! Karolyna’s whip flicked sharply against Shira’s waist—“taught her! The...imagination-memory thing!”

  “Oh, shut up, wench,” Jack bellowed over at the woman with the whip. “Now, Crystal, cumma over here and suck my goddamn lollipop. I been waitin for this for a year. You know how fuckin badly my goddamn wife gives head. COME OVER HERE!”

  I got up off my knees—CRACK!

  “STOP HITTING HER!” I cried out. “JUST STOP IT!”

  “Suck him!” K
arolyna cried out at me, as if she would gain pleasure herself from having me forced into sex by this demon. “Suckim and I’m gonna watch you suffer.”

  CRACK!

  “STOP HITTING HER!”

  CRACK!

  Enough.

  Enough!

  I couldn’t bear it anymore.

  I couldn’t stand around and watch my friend be whipped to a pulp in front of me.

  I reacted.

  I sprinted toward Karolyna, ready to tackle the bitch down. “Oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm, oh, mmmm.” I felt the surge of strength in my thighs like lightning ready to strike, the rush of adrenaline.

  I wasn’t thinking—scaling the ten-foot wall—only running, hatred in my lungs as I screamed, “YOU BI—”

  But I didn’t finish.

  KA-RACK!

  I spun around in the air and hit the floor with a crash.

  As I lay on the ground, suddenly dazed, the ceiling spinning, I heard Jack break into a satisfied chuckle, a deep roar of hilarity.

  Something hit me. Not a whip. Something else. Something...electric.

  My mind spun, my vision went hazy.

  “Witches,” he said. “Such entertaining characters.”

  They left me there for what felt like hours, but it was only seconds. I felt a dull ache on my head, a sudden swell on my eye. And I smelled...the faint scent of ozone. It took me another moment or two to hear the dying crackle. Sparks. Lightning.

  I remembered the desk Karolyna had shattered in Shira’s office, and the lightning that had surged from her fingertips.

  Jack laughed and laughed and laughed, the sound of it bouncing off the walls and throwing me into a whirlpool of dismay.

  I was on my back and tried to get up again but I fell back down.

  And then Karolyna’s laugh started, a high-pitched yackle that screamed like nymphs being raped by satyrs.

  I tried to get up once more. Fell again. My head hit the concrete floor. My entire body sparkled and shook with weakness. Now it begins, the energy drain.

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.” Jack’s laugh.

  And, high-pitched and mad, Karolyna: “HEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE-SCREECH.”

  “You’re outnumbered sweetcheeks,” Jack said. “Oh, I had wanted you badly in Marfa. We coulda had ourselves a nice time in that lake of yours. How is it now, by the way? Ever been back to it? I went many times, but you weren’t there.”