Sin's Dark Caress

by Tracey O'Hara

  But tonight he’d slipped a note begging her to forgive him and give him another chance. He’d asked her to meet him by the restrooms for a surprise. A birthday surprise, and she just loved surprises.

  Chi-Chi yipped in her sleep. Tiffany smiled and reached into the purpose-built pet bag and rubbed the silky cheek of the sleeping Chihuahua pup. Her tiny birthday present groaned, stretched, and rolled over, but remained asleep.

  Tiffany adjusted the top of the three-quarter-length red satin fingerless gloves then ran her fingertips over the black lace choker around her throat, the crimson-painted fingernails gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights. With a single thought, she made the cosmetics fly into the open purse lying beside the handbag. Her reflection returned a saucy wink as she patted the complex raven-black coiffure—jangling the gold bangles on her wrists. With a devilish smile, she ran her little finger along the free lock of hair at the front, turning it the exact shade as her lips.

  A simple glimmer spell was much easier than dyeing her hair. She dragged her fingers down the other side, turning the lock purple. Thank the Goddess she’d bonded with Chi-Chi this morning. The little puppy twitched and yapped in her sleep again.

  This magic stuff is such a buzz.

  Today was one of the most important days in a young witch’s life—the day she came of age and inherited her powers. Tiffany giggled and hugged herself, barely able to contain the excitement. With one final twirl she craned a look over her shoulder at her reflection to check how good her ass looked in the clingy red velvet skirt under the black leather and lace corset. Every bit the well-dressed witch.

  If this doesn’t get the poor boy panting . . .

  She picked up her bag, slid the makeup purse in the side pocket, and checked in on the darling little Chi-Chi before leaving the bathroom, almost colliding with Greg. He leaned against the wall in his busboy uniform, his arms crossed against his chest and a sulky frown creasing his brow.

  He grabbed her roughly by the wrist. “ ’Bout time.”

  “Hey,” she complained. How dare he manhandle her this way?

  Music and laughter thumped down the corridor from the main ballroom behind her.

  “Hurry up,” he growled, sounding strange. He was also nowhere near as astounded by her awesomeness as he should be. In fact, he’d barely seemed to notice.

  “Don’t be angry with me,” she said, dropping her bottom lip in the way that always reduced him to putty in her hands. “Not on my birthday.”

  “I don’t have time for these games,” he said, dragging her toward the kitchen.

  The music grew louder as someone opened the door at the far end of the corridor. She glanced over her shoulder at the party, her party, going on in the ballroom. It wasn’t easy keeping up with his long basketball player’s legs in her brand new stilettos and tight floorlength evening dress. She almost tripped several times.

  “Slow down!” she cried. “Where’re you taking me?”

  “Somewhere a little more private,” he murmured, looking around cagily as he headed for the exit into the back alley.

  Tiffany screwed up her nose. “But it’s smelly and dirty out there. Can’t you just give me my present inside?”

  “No!”

  What was wrong with him? Why was he acting so strange? Usually she had him ready to sit, roll over, and beg on command. Chi-Chi whined, as if even she sensed Greg’s weird behavior.

  All around them the kitchen bustled. People rushed around, preparing food, washing dishes, and shouting orders. No one seemed to notice them leaving through the back door.

  “Greg, let go,” she demanded, trying to pull her hand loose from his iron grip as they passed into the alley.

  The bag was jostled and the tiny pup complained with a faint little yip from inside.

  “We don’t have much time,” Greg said, pulling her farther along the semidarkened alleyway.

  Tiffany finally yanked her hand free and turned her back on him to face the wall, crossing her arms. He hated it when she did that, but she was too mad to care. “Then maybe we should just call this all off right now. And maybe I don’t want your present.”

  “Don’t be so childish,” he said, his voice growing strangely raspy.

  The light seemed to change in the alley, becoming softer and more subdued, as if some weird sepia tone had covered all the lamps. A mist flowed out of the walls and poured onto the ground. As she stepped back away from it, her heel snagged and she fell, landing on a soft bulk, losing her familiar carry bag. The puppy yelped as she toppled out onto the filthy pavement, then scooted back into the safety of the bag. Tiffany climbed to her feet with disgust, germs all over her hand like minuscule bugs; she could feel them crawling and burrowing into her skin as she glanced down at the drunk passed out on the ground.

  Except . . .

  The bum didn’t move. He hadn’t even flinched when she landed on top of him.

  She tilted her head for a closer look, squinting in the darkness. He wore a similar busboy uniform to Greg’s. She looked closer. He was also roughly the same size . . . the same build . . . and even had the same hair color—

  Greg?

  “I think there’s something wrong—” She looked up as the Greg she left the kitchens with advanced toward her, his eyes shining with a strange disturbing glow as he closed the gap.

  Suddenly, his features blurred and wavered until “Greg” imploded with a pop.

  A glimmer or doppelganger spell?

  The fog became thicker—swirling and solidifying into a figure dressed in a white robe that dropped to the ground to become part of the mist. A cowl covered the face, obscuring any features, which made it hard to tell if the figure was male or female within the shapeless folds.

  Chi-Chi whined and cowered, backing farther into the overturned bag as the moon emerged from behind the cloud cover, making the weird glow a little easier to see by. But even that didn’t help determine the stranger’s identity or sex. Whether a he or a she remained a mystery as the figure stayed shrouded in smoke and shadow, shifting and swirling to obscure it from the naked eye.

  She raised her hands. A black stickiness covered her fingers, but the scent was unmistakable.

  Blood!

  The scream built from the pit of her stomach as she shook her head, trying to deny what she knew was true. Terror swelled in her chest, pushing the scream up her throat, but before it could leave her lips an invisible force smashed into her, forcing her mouth shut, silencing the cry as her body slammed against the wall behind. Her eyes darted to the body on the ground.

  Oh God! Greg!

  Help me, someone please help me. But she somehow knew her silent plea would go unanswered.

  The ghostly stranger floated in the mist over Greg’s body without so much as a downward glance. Tears of terror squeezed from the corners of Tiffany’s eyes. The hooded stranger pulled a small glass vial from the folds of the robe. Fear burned the back of her throat as she tried to wrench her head away, but a dark unseen force pushed her arms out farther against the wall, the strain making it hard to breathe as she remained vertically immobilized, spread-eagled against the grimy bricks. Evil power crackled in the air around her, the fine hairs on her arms standing on end. The shrouded figure scooped the teardrops rolling down her cheeks into the thin tube and sealed it with a rubber stopper before concealing it again within the folds of the robe.

  Her expensive birthday dinner churned in her stomach and rose quickly, burning her esophagus. The stranger deftly stepped sideways, avoiding the projectile vomit as it burst from her mouth. Some hit the pavement with a filthy wet splat, and the rest dribbled down the front of her brand new dress.

  The harder Tiffany struggled, the tighter the invisible grip grew. She couldn’t break free, couldn’t call for help, and couldn’t even use her own newly acquired powers.

  Then the spell-weaver
began to chant. Multiple voices spewed from within the cowl, male and female, all intoning old, dark, and powerful words in perfect synchronicity. The stranger wove the sinister spell, and an abominable black mist floated in the air around her, swirling, touching her hair, her skin, and pushing past her lips and into her nostrils. The black enchantment forced its way down her throat and twisted her insides like shards of broken glass.

  The perspiration on her body turned to ice as one by one the hooks down the front of her corset popped open. The satin and leather garment fell away and the heavy velvet of her dress split open from hem to waist.

  Tiffany’s eyes widened.

  Terror coursed through her veins.

  Tears flowed, blurring her vision and burning her eyes.

  And the chanting continued.

  This couldn’t be happening. Not today. Not on my sixteenth birthday.

  She had looks, money, power, and talent, not to mention position. Her grandmother had practically promised her from birth that she’d be the future Domina of the New York covens.

  This sort of thing just didn’t happen to people like her.

  The vile spell-weaver dipped a ghostly hand in Greg’s blood and approached. She was helpless to get away as he . . . she . . . it . . . placed a bloody palm against her lower abdomen. She squirmed to get free of the loathsome evil touch, but all for nothing. The black magic held her fast.

  The chant rose in tempo. The words chilled her blood. The figure pulled back and Tiffany glanced down, watching the bloody hand imprint disappear, absorbed into her body along with the dark words.

  A heaviness started in the pit of her stomach and grew, becoming more solid as it filled her. The rate of evil words accelerated to an unintelligible babble—not that she understood any of it in the first place. The language sounded ancient and far beyond her comprehension, but she recognized their dark power.

  Inside, something moved.

  Turning and twisting and alive.

  Her abdomen swelled with amazing speed. The stranger, still chanting, pointed a finger toward her stretched, distended stomach. A ripple ran across the surface, a bulge pushed out the side. Then again. It wasn’t unpleasant. Actually it felt kind of nice . . . kind of natural. The bulge appeared again and she almost got an impression of a tiny foot.

  A baby. My baby.

  The knowledge was sudden and absolute.

  Somehow, a child grew in her womb. A girl child. An innocent, untouched by the vile evil that created it. Tiffany could feel a connection to her daughter and a strong maternal instinct kicked in. She wanted—no, needed—to protect her unborn child, whatever its origin.

  Tiffany closed her eyes and reached down deep inside herself, drawing on all her strength to call on her familiar. Chi-Chi still cowered in the bag, shaking in terror. With a sweep of the hooded figure’s hand, the zipper closed, locking the tiny puppy inside. If only the Chihuahua pup could’ve run, raised the alarm, maybe someone would’ve come to save her. But now all hope died as the bag skittered across the ground, taking her terrified familiar with it.

  The baby flipped and dropped heavily into her pelvis. The dark magician shifted the pointed finger downward. The skin just under her ribs at the top of her rounded abdomen opened with a small split. There was no blood, just pain that bit deep and sharp as the finger moved down, extending the split in her skin. Then the muscle and flesh split, exposing her insides.

  The fiery pain ripped through her, a pain so unbearable she longed for the oblivion of unconsciousness, yet she remained totally aware. A scream silently tore from her lungs, as if her very voice had been stolen. Then the child—her child—slipped free of the gaping wound with a sucking pop and a shower of warmth down her legs. Her daughter’s large eyes squinted, blinked, and opened—appearing black in the strangely muted full moon light as the babe floated in the air between Tiffany and the dark magic wielder.

  The tiny girl blinked again and looked around before her little face screwed up, filling the night air with a newborn cry. The stranger plucked the floating child out of the air before severing the umbilical cord and wrapping her within the folds of its robe.

  The figure slashed the finger sideways opening a cross cut and the law of gravity suddenly reinforced itself. Tiffany’s viscera dropped from the gaping abdominal wound with a wet splat and she fell to the filthy alley into a pool of quickly cooling blood, intestines, and amniotic fluid.

  She couldn’t make her eyes focus no matter how much she tried. The cold numbness of her extremities crawled toward the center of her chest; even the pain of her eviscerated stomach had dulled to an icy nothingness. With one last ditch effort she reached out to catch the bottom of the robe with bloody fingers, but they just slipped through the incorporeal mist.

  The last thing Tiffany saw were Greg’s cold dead eyes staring at her as the stranger floated back into the fog, crooning a multivoice lullaby to the newborn snuffle of her baby daughter.

  Then even Greg’s face dulled as the final vestiges of life bled from her body.

  7

  Babes in the Wilderness

  Bianca gripped the steering wheel and accelerated as the light changed from red to green. All she wanted was to get home and check on the little dragon. The creature had been playing on her mind all day. And it’d been a very long day.

  The tinkling ring tone of her phone ripped her out of autopilot, and she glanced at the caller ID before answering on her hands-free. “Hey McManus, what’s up?”

  “Where are you?” The detective’s voice had a familiar urgency.

  “On my way home,” she replied, looking around to get her bearings. “Is there another one?”

  “Could be. Meet me at the Langford Plaza on East 53rd.” There was a pause. “Officer Jones rang me direct and hasn’t even called in yet. How soon can you get there?”

  She glanced in her rearview mirror for traffic. “I’m not that far. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” She hit the end button and merged right to find somewhere to turn the car around.

  Bianca pulled into the drive of the ritzy hotel. The valet in a Langford Hotel staff vest approached, and McManus stepped forward, holding up his badge as he opened her door. The valet turned to help a beautiful young woman climb from a flashy black sports car instead.

  “So where’s the body?” Bianca asked in a low voice. No use starting a panic.

  “This way,” he said solemnly.

  “Let me grab my case first.” She popped her trunk and took out her forensic thaumaturgy bag.

  He took her past the hotel to an alley where a squad car was parked, blocking any entry.

  “Thanks for letting me know first,” McManus said to Adam Barnes, who stood beside the black and white car. “Have you called it in yet?”

  “Not yet.” Barnes crossed his arms, leaned against the squad car and nodded over his shoulder. “Jones is waiting for you with the kid who found the bodies.”

  “Thanks,” McManus said, slapping the uniform on the shoulder as he passed. “You call it in now while we take a look.”

  “You got it.” Barnes gave Bianca a friendly wink as he leaned in to grab the radio.

  An oppressive darkness gripped her insides and twisted as she followed McManus down the service lane. She closed her eyes and swallowed, concentrating on pushing back the sick black sensation.

  It worked.

  She could feel Kedrax’s presence. With a little more concentration, she kept the corruption at bay. It was amazing how all the theory of spellcraft she’d learned as a teenager came flooding back now that she was able to put it into practice.

  They found Jones on a cement loading platform outside the building’s side door, his thumbs hooked into his police utility belt, the universal stance of a cop. A young man in an apron sat on the bottom of four steps with his head in his hands.

  “Jones,” McManus said, cli
mbing the steps to the small loading dock.

  The two cops talked in hushed tones as Bianca sat down beside the young man and extended her hand. “Hi! My name’s Bianca Sin. What’s yours?”

  He just looked at her hand for a moment, and then shook it weakly. “Mickey.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously.

  She noticed that the clothes he wore were similar to those on the nearest body. “Do you know this guy?”

  Mickey glanced over and shrugged. “Bit hard to tell without seeing his face.”

  Good point. “You work here in the kitchen, don’t you? Did you notice anyone missing?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” The boy tilted his head. “There’s a big function going on. Do you know how crazy it gets in there?”

  “I can imagine.” Her smile seemed to relax him a little.

  “It’s a madhouse. In fact my boss is probably screaming for me right now.” He ran a hand through greasy hair and tossed a glance over his shoulder at the cops. “I hope I don’t get fired.”

  She glanced in the same direction. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  McManus was on the phone, frowning in concentration. He put the cell back in his pocket and approached.

  Bianca placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is Detective McManus,” she said, and then to McManus: “Mickey here is a little nervous about getting fired.”

  The detective gave her a slight nod. “Everything’s going to be okay, Mickey,” he said. “I’ll square it. Someone will be along soon to take your formal statement, but I just want you to run me through what happened.”

  “I didn’t do nothin’,” he said, holding up his hands, terror masking his face. “I just found them like that.”

  “I know that, Mickey.” McManus used the boy’s name again, keeping his tone soft and consolatory. “I want you to tell me about how you found them.”

  The kitchen worker’s shoulders relaxed a little. “Oh. Right.” He rubbed his open palms hands along his thighs and stood up. “I came out the door to throw the trash away over there.” He pointed to the Dumpster just beside the loading platform. “I didn’t see nothin’ at first. It was dark, like the lights weren’t working properly, they was kinda dim. When I looked at them, they got all bright again and then I looked down to see . . .” He waved his hands at the bodies.