by Azure Boone
The pull turned into a spike of terror slashing through his gut and Troy ran after the woman. He might get his ass kicked, but a sixth sense insisted she needed help and he couldn't turn away. He entered the alley as the echo of a stifled scream somewhere ahead died away.
Eyes finally adjusted to the darker shadows, he bolted into a sprint. Troy skidded to a stop by two bodies writhing on the ground against the back of a loading platform. Shock froze him in place as he recognized the poor woman from the strip club struggling beneath an ox of a man.
Rage blinded Troy, and his Jui-Jitsu training kicked in. With a growl, he grabbed a handful of T-shirt and yanked. The large guy flew several feet and landed hard on his front. Incapacitate the disgusting bastard. The thought launched him onto the fallen man's back, and Troy locked the creep's head in his arms until the raspy grunting and flailing gave in to his crushing choke hold. The guy went limp and Troy gave one last squeeze and growl for extra measure before climbing off the still body. He stared at it for several seconds in amazement. He'd never done that. Trained for it, but hadn't needed to use it.
At first he didn't recognize the new sound. Turning, he realized the woman was sobbing--huddled in the corner against the building, arms covering her head.
He hurried to her and crouched down, not sure what to say or do. "You've suffered a trauma." God, he sounded like Robocop. He reached a hand out to reassure her, but she flailed blindly at him, eyes squeezed tight. He'd studied the signs to be expected in someone who'd been beaten or abused, and even though he'd never seen them in real life, she displayed severe ones. Someone had damaged this woman terribly.
The rage from earlier returned and Troy glanced back at the guy on the ground, fighting the urge to kill him. One less piece of filth to hurt innocent people. His breathing accelerated with the thought of what that creep had planned for her. I could do it. Easily. I could kill that man. The realization stunned him.
He turned back to the woman, shocked to find her standing. He stood too, examining her face for marks. There didn't seem to be any obvious injuries, but it was dark.
"Did he hurt you? Are you okay?" Troy pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. He turned and eyed the guy while he spoke to the dispatcher. The man lay unmoving, exactly as Troy had left him. Had he killed the bastard after all? He finished the call and turned.
She was gone. He searched the empty alley.
Dammit.
****
Troy flipped on the bathroom light, ready to wash the smell of that nasty man off of him. He peeled off his shirt, aware for the first time of the huge scrape on his elbow. Thank God he knew how to defend himself or it could've been a lot worse. Thank God for her sake. He emptied his back pockets and something red fell to the floor.
What in the world? He stooped down and picked up the odd piece of material. "Oh shit!" He threw the fabric in the sink like it'd burned him. Thong panties?
The odd feeling of another presence hit him and he peered out the bathroom door. He released a shaky breath and regarded the red thing in the sink. Where the hell did it come from? Who would've shoved underwear in his back pocket while he was on the corner? Could it have been the woman?
Not possible. He would've felt something like that, surely. The man in the alley? He stood there, thinking, nothing making sense. He finally opened the medicine cabinet and got his razor then used it to pick up the sorry excuse of feminine clothing. His upper lip crawled up as he made his way to the kitchen trash and tossed them in. As far as he was concerned, that scrap of material was the epitome of that woman's sad life.
He stared at them in the trash for a few seconds and was hit with the disgusting urge to smell them! He slammed the lid down and stepped back. Get behind me Satan.
He spun to the sink and pounded on the soap pump. One, two, three. He speed-washed his hands the standard three times; in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and one last time in the name of the Holy Spirit.
Fully prepared to do the habitual cleansing of his entire body, he headed to the shower, snatching his toothpaste from the medicine cabinet as he turned the water to a purifying temperature. He got under the scorching spray and began cleansing his spirit space with the first hymn he could think of, loudly singing around the lather of toothpaste and toothbrush in his mouth. "Will the circle...be unbroken...by and by Lord, by and by."
Thirty minutes later, he climbed in bed, ashamed that he'd fallen back into the compulsive cleansing habit he'd worked so hard to kick. Well, not entirely ashamed. If ever there was a logical reason for the OCD behavior, it was those red panties.
He got his Bible out and let it open where it would. The woman weighed on his heart so heavily. Lead me, Father. Show me your will. What should I do?
His gaze zeroed in on the passage of the woman caught in adultery. He read through it and paused at the end, repeating the words, feeling something stirring inside him.
Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus said. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
He shut his eyes and his Bible. Exhaustion hit him and he put the beloved worn Book on the bedside table. An hour later, he finally slept. And dreamt.
But the things he dreamt were like a sweet, tormenting, nightmare. He dreamt of her. Of doing things with her. Sexual things. Things he had never known how to do, or even imagined were possible. But he knew in that dream. Like a sixth sense, he knew every pleasure the body could experience and performed them with an exquisite rhythm. Her ecstasy was the most arousing thing he'd ever known. The sound of her voice, the way she moved under his touch, the way she moaned his name, all combined into the most powerful intoxicant.
He woke in a sweat, his entire body literally aching with need from the vivid dream. He groaned, clenching his eyes, wanting so badly to touch his erection, relieve it.
What was wrong with him? How could he have such a blasphemous dream? That by itself was damning enough, but for it to be about a poor destitute woman in need of salvation?
Troy growled through the agony as he turned on his side and gazed at the empty pillow next to him.
He bolted upright and stared down. The air around him became supercharged with a strange energy until his head felt light.
"Jesus," he breathed, backing out of the bed and away. Away from red panties lying neatly on the pillow.
What in the hell was happening?
The low light at the rear of the bus made keeping an eye on all the other passengers nearly impossible, but Devyn gave it a good effort. Maybe the job would've been easier if her body didn't keep threatening to shake itself to bits. Every time the wracking tremors submitted a little to her control, someone would move in her peripheral vision, and start it all over again. If she wasn't careful, she'd spray an innocent person right in their goddamn eyes with the pepper spray she held in a death grip. She didn't care who saw it or what they thought, she just cared that people stayed the fuck away from her.
At some point, all the passengers wore the face of that son-of-a-bitch from the alley, at least in her imagination. The bus moaned through its familiar gear-down, hopping and skipping over a pattern of potholes, alerting Devyn to the stop she normally welcomed. For the first time ever, she almost wished the cross-town bus took longer. Once off, half a block separated her from the safety of her apartment. Of course, every inch would feel like a mile.
The need to run all the way to the six-story building that had seen better days in the 1970s nearly overwhelmed her. In that neighborhood, a running woman flipped the predator switch for some men, especially in the middle of the night. She'd already had her fill of being viewed as prey for one night. Pepper spray ready to blind the first threat, she forced herself to walk with confidence.
All the trying in the world didn't keep her from taking the last level of stairs leading to the fo
urth floor two at a time, though. Inside, with the door's locks securely engaged, her knees collapsed, dropping her to the floor in a quivering heap. Earth-shattering sobs wracked her body, echoing through the small, sparsely furnished apartment.
Three full sobs later, Devyn swallowed it. Cold. To give full vent to so much fear and horror would risk revisiting the nightmare that came so close to ending her life four years earlier. Forcing the emotions into a bag and tossing it, she dragged herself to her feet.
Deeper in the apartment, the shower shut off, signaling Devyn to head to the kitchenette. By the time her best friend/roommate, Karly, padded into the room wearing her rolled down boys' boxers and cut off wife beater, Devyn had the bread and packaged lunch meat on the spindly little table. Turning away, she poured the iced sweet tea into their mismatched glasses while Karly scavenged further in the nearly bare fridge.
Devyn sat in her usual chair, careful not to lean back and get dumped on her ass by the flimsy back rest. How long would it take Karly to notice something had happened? Probably not long. She'd been more attentive the past few months, since she got clean, as if aware the positions Devyn put herself into to keep a roof over their heads.
"How did the end of shift go?" Karly opened a crumpled white paper bag and sat, mindful of her chair's tendency to topple if a sitter put too much weight on the left.
"The usual, too many jerks wanting lap dances." Devyn pulled her hair free of the ponytail holder and let if fall free around her face. Maybe that would disguise any marks left from the encounter enough to get past her friend's sharp gaze. Devyn turned her attention on the white bag in Karly's lap. "What's that?"
Karly glanced up. "Mrs. Jordan stopped me on my way up. Her daughter brought her some pumpkin pie. And Mrs. Jordan hates pumpkin pie." She held her prize up with a triumphant grin. Karly set the tray on the table abruptly, her grin gone. "What the fuck happened to you?"
Shit. Of course she couldn't hide anything from Karly. She'd never tried, until recently. "Nothing. Just an asshole that got touchy-feely. Carlos bounced him, no problem." Devyn rushed to assemble a sandwich and take a bite so she could legitimately stop talking.
"Bullshit." Karly took Devyn's sandwich right out of her hand. "Don't try to lie to me, girl. I know you too well. Now what happened?"
Devyn hardened her mind and jaw with the sudden surge of emotions. Quick confession, no break downs. "Okay. So after the guy was bounced, he waited in the alley."
Karly went to the fridge, took out one of their ancient metal ice cube trays and hurried back. "How did you get away?" She pried cubes from between the separators. "And don't tell me Carlos got rid of him, 'cause we both know he's perfectly happy to toss someone out of the club, but Helena would have his hide if he left the premises. Even to rescue the headliner."
She couldn't argue with that. "Well, believe it or not, some guy out front, trying to save all the poor exploited whores, rescued me. He must have been on his way back to his Sunday School class, because he dragged the jerk off me, and knocked him out, or something."
Karly put the ice in a threadbare dishtowel and pressed it against the tender spot on Devyn's jaw. "Did the Good Samaritan give you that?" She nodded at Devyn's throat.
Conscious of a slightly unfamiliar sensation, Devyn lifted her right hand to her throat, as if by habit, only to jerk her head down in surprise. What the hell?
Warm metal met her fingertips. A smooth chain with broad, open links circled her neck, looping to just below the notch between her collar bones. Following the chain, her fingertips encountered a heavy pendant, a cross, dangling against her skin.
"Well? Where'd you get it?"
"Oh, I just found it." At least that much was true. She left out the part about finding it right that instant. Where had it come from?
The Sunday School teacher must have put it on her while she was so upset after the attack. Odd, though. She couldn't imagine allowing him, or anyone else, that close to her after such an attack. Vaguely she remembered swatting his hand away when he tried to help her stand.
She reached to unclasp the chain but her fingers refused to obey the order. Some part of her scarred mind insisted, Don't take it off. The warmth of the pendant penetrated her chest, loosening it. Devyn wanted to be afraid of the odd sensation, but her body clearly hungered for the soothing comfort. How could a piece of jewelry do that?
****
Kassern sat on the chair in the corner of the living room, watching Devyn toss and turn with nightmares on the narrow couch. How long since Kassern had been so close to humans? They hadn't known about electricity, and internal combustion engines had yet to be dreamed up. The only thing really familiar was the urge to smack them upside their heads. He'd never quite mastered the virtue of patience, so he was chosen to be a warrior and not a humanitarian wiener.
He went to her makeshift bed and rested one finger on her sweaty forehead. "Be still, girl."
He watched her mind grasp for the life preserver and two seconds later, Kassern had a ruby fingernail embedded into the demon tormenting her. Before the black fiend could struggle and whine, Kassern blew a breath of thin ruby mist, sealing the demon's disgusting pores, especially that abyss of a mouth. Kassern sliced a slit in the air with his finger tip and chucked the thing into a holding cell.
He angled his head at the sleeping female, watching her breathing calm and her hand move to the crucifix he'd planted there. So far his little matchmaking scheme was a success. His male human was a little eccentric to the point of being entertaining, but he had solid qualities. His female had some hang-ups, but no humans were untainted in this realm. These two were perfectly incompatible and that would make it easier for Kassern to strengthen their weaknesses.
If he could just get them to answer his call. And then get them to fall in love. He snorted at the second task - unfamiliar territory for him. What did he know of human love? Well, other than how unpredictable and flaky it could be, zero.
A disturbance on the metaphysical level caught his attention and Kassern tuned his ear to the angel guarding the human named Karly. What was he going on about? He formed a spirit link and gave a rhetorical knock on the angel's armor. The angel immediately let him in without words, and Kassern looked at the girl sitting on the bedside and saw the source of the guard's concern. She held a razor blade between trembling fingers. She was tired on every level. Ready to make it all go away. Her second serious attempt. No one knew about all the dozens of times she backed out at the thinking or planning stages.
He didn't get it. She believed in Heaven and Hell and she was sure the latter was her deserved destiny. Why would she hunger for death?
Kassern created a second circuit and connected directly to her, annoyed with the illogic of her need. Annoyed that he didn't know and especially annoyed that her guard didn't allow him access to the information. But then Kassern hadn't asked. Didn't plan on it, either.
Forming a finger with the ruby tendril of power, he began at the source. His power spiked when he entered her heart, reacting to the evil clinging there and wounding her soul-deep. From her subconscious past to her present.
Looking closely, Kassern paused. She'd not let it change her. She'd resisted the evil's persuasion to become like the monsters that hurt her. From her cruel mother and sexually abusive father, to the jerk that hurt her in every way imaginable. The one she called boyfriend. Their evil covered her, often hiding the real her, but it hadn't yet possessed her. Astounding.
Poking around, Kassern finally beheld the life source of the demonic power over her. She saw herself as filthy. Not worthy of Heaven, deserving of Hell. It had been beaten into her, over and over, throughout her life by the very people who should have protected her. The emotion was so strong, it drove her to kill herself and give in to the punishment. And though it was a lie, the fact that she believed it with all her scarred heart, made it a power even her guard could not legally expel.
Kassern's anger bristled further w
ith the discovery that no one prayed for her. That alone would give her guard an opening to act, to at least place a buffer between her and the poison pouring into her from every quarter.
The human sobbed and placed the blade on her vein. She was ready. No demons hovered near to press her on. They didn't need to. They had put some of their best work into her, she was a finished product, operating her own destruction now. All their wicked persistence paid off.
Strictly speaking, he shouldn't interfere, since she wasn't directly related to his mission. The suicide of her best friend would have a bad effect on Devyn, though, and might change her to such a degree she would no longer be suitable. Saving the girl may prevent him from losing the world.
Time to cash in on one of the perks that came with wooing his humans. Kassern created a third circuit to Devyn and channeled the desperate girl's pain right into to her peaceful mind.
Devyn woke with a gasp and flew off the couch, heading straight to Karly's room. Kassern broke the connection and the ruby tendrils of power returned to him, syphoning back through his open palm.
He listened to the sobbing girls, satisfied. Deed accomplished. For now. It would take more than one call down from the ledge for that one. He'd have to make sure his male met her. Troy's prayers would buy passage for her watchman to work. Speaking of which. Time to go see how his nerdy male was handling the returning demonic, toxic red panties.
Religious little nut.
Troy paced up and down the sides of the bed, contemplating the Satanic panties oh so neatly on the pillow and not in the trash can.
What could it mean? Maybe his subconscious was behind it and he'd taken the panties from the trash while he slept. But what sort of message could he be trying to give himself?