Murdering Her Light

by Michael Clement

  It felt nice just to float here.

  Then, a leg broke the surface, followed by a naked female body.

  The woman sank down to me and inspected my skin. She had black hair and startling green eyes. Her body was thin, and she was lanky, but for some reason, the Good Lord had bequeathed her breasts of a much larger woman. I was instantly jealous. My little girls were barely a handful.

  Strange tattoos covered her entire body. They were an almost a continual flow of creatures, landscapes, and monsters.

  I smiled at her, but I’m not sure why. Maybe it was her Greek features. Her nose was a little too big, but instead of making her ugly, it gave her character.

  Seeing that I was awake, she slipped her hands under me and then pulled my body to the surface. We breached together, and I took in a lungful of air. The fluid in my lungs just dissolved into smoke that seeped into me.

  She dragged me to the edge of the small pool and pulled me onto a rock shelf that was smooth and worn with age. We were in some sort of cave. I could see stalactites hanging down from above me. The air was humid and warm, and I could see the glow of a fire behind us.

  I just lay there and breathed, stoned out of my mind, as sleep stole me away.

  -- M --

  I woke up several times during the night. My body was lying on top of a warm fur rug, with another fur over me. The other woman was laying next to me, with her arm over me.

  It should have creeped me out, her breasts were pushed up against my arm; her head was lying on my shoulder. I could feel her heartbeat, through my skin.

  But, instead, after the monsters outside, I felt comforted.

  It's not like she was feeling me up or anything, after all.

  Stirring, I realized that I needed to pee… badly.

  Slowly, I sat up, waking the other woman.

  “Are you alright?” she asked in a French accent that accented her words in all the wrong places.

  “I need to pee,” I explained, looking around the cave.

  “Let me help you,” she insisted, as she climbed out from under the fur blankets.

  I didn’t need any help, I almost declared, until I tried to stand up.

  Dizziness roared over me, and I almost lost control of my bladder in her blankets.

  “Crap,” I cursed, as I hunched over, clenching my bladder muscles firmly.

  She took my arm and helped me stagger to a small side cavern. On the floor were a few dozen clay pots of different sizes, some quite large, while others were tiny, the size of a small turtle.

  Helping me stumble over to a large one, she removed the cover and helped me squat. Apparently, indoor plumbing didn’t exist in this cave.

  I had never peed next to someone else. It wasn’t like a public bathroom, where there was the illusion of privacy.

  Nope, she was holding me so that I didn’t fall in. Her body was pressed up against me, as I leaned into her. If I didn’t, I was probably going to fall in. My right arm was wrapped around her for balance.

  Suddenly, I caught a strong scent from the pot. It was filled with pee.

  Trying not to gag, I let loose of my internal grip on my bladder.

  God, it felt strange pissing while she held me so close.

  It didn’t help that she was naked, and pressed up against me. I had never been this close to another woman before.

  I leaned into her further, to escape the smell from the urn. My pee was stirring the contents, causing their smell to waft up towards my nose.

  She smelled fresh, and I smelled something else. Pine trees and forests my brain wondered. Her scent was familiar, like I had bathed in it before.

  A memory was right on the tip of my tongue. It was twisted into that smell.

  I leaned in closer and breathed in deeper.

  I knew that smell... but from where?

  Try as I might, I couldn’t remember. Frustrated, I just hung onto her while I peed.

  I shivered when I was done, making her laugh.

  It was a musical tone that made me smile.

  From this close, I could see the tattoos clearer. They flowed with a gracefulness, like the tattoos on an Asian woman who I had seen in a picture once. There was a balance and a symmetry to them.

  Suddenly, I realized that they reminded me of the ones on my arm, chest, and back.

  She handed me some toilet paper, to wipe with.

  Where the hell had she gotten that?

  Drying myself off, with another girl holding me felt… strangely personal.

  “Drop it in the pot,” she told me.

  Her accent made me smile again.

  When I was done, she covered the pot back up and helped me back to the furs.

  As I lay there, I watched as she took a gray cloth and wrapped it around her like panties. She started on her left hip, wrapped it under herself, around her right, back under, then she touched it to her right hip.

  And, somehow, it stayed there.

  Then, she did the same with her breasts. Now, she looked even more like the woman in the painting that I had seen, with a Yakuza bodysuit of tattoos. They covered everything except for her face, hands, and feet.

  Suddenly, I was the only person naked in the room. Something about that thought made me flush uncomfortably.

  She held up two pieces of the same gray silk cloth.

  “I could help you,” she said, holding them towards me.

  I sat up and nodded.

  Dropping the fur blanket down and exposing my own much larger breasts was difficult, even after sleeping with her. It felt… private.

  Ignoring my discomfort, she knelt and began wrapping them around my breasts. After she finished she sat back on her heels and said, “How does that feel?”

  I was surprised. It felt great. I didn’t feel restrained or confined.

  “Nice,” I said, smiling.

  I really wasn’t excited about the next part.

  Without asking, she pulled off the rug, baring my feminine hair to the firelight.

  “Lift up,” she instructed, “and spread your legs.”

  My face blushed, but I followed her instructions.

  Her fingers were long and warm, as she wrapped the cloth around me .

  Around, under, around, under.

  Her fingers brushed my brown hair, and I shivered.

  Something about her touch reminded me of something.

  When she was finished, I lay down, breathing heavily, and not from just holding myself up.

  Those fingers.

  What did they remind me of?

  She lay down next to me and covered up the both of us.

  “How did you heal me?” I asked, trying to shake off the thought of her fingertips and the smell of pine that emanated from her skin.

  “The pool heals,” she answered. When she said pool, it sounded like poooool .

  “Where does the liquid come from?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I replied. “What is your name?”

  She flinched.

  Then, she answered, “You may call me… Tori.”

  - 6 -

  Silence filled the air, as she waited for a response. It was almost like she expected me to recognize her... and her name.

  But, nothing rang any bells in my head. My memories were as silent as always.

  “Thank you, Tori,” I said.

  Nodding, she opened a little clay pot and removed what looked like beef jerky.

  She handed it to me and took one for herself. Then, she leaned back against a furred pillow as she ate.

  It tasted like teriyaki chicken. Sitting up made it easier to eat.

  My stomach rumbled loudly, making Tori laugh again.

  “I like your tats,” she said, as I ate. “Who made them?”

  “I don’t know where I got them,” I replied.

  She looked at me funny.

  I shrugged. “I kept disappearing as a child. When I returned to my parents e
ach time, I was dressed differently and once I had my tattoos.”

  Tori reached out and ran her fingers over the tattoo on my shoulder, making me shiver. I could feel a touch of electricity flow from her and into me.

  “They are spell patterns,” she murmured.

  I couldn’t breathe. Goosebumps erupted on my body, as her fingers continued to trace the metal under my skin.

  The metal that only I could feel.

  “You have a pattern on your back,” she murmured.

  Her fingers traced the lines under my skin. “Two more on your arm and one on your chest,” she finished.

  Heat radiated from my skin, where she had touched it.

  “Do you have metal under your skin also?” I asked, afraid to hear her answer.

  “Of course,” she replied. “I’m a Gray Walker .”

  She said it like I should know what a Gray Walker was.

  “What's that?” I asked.

  “It’s what I thought you were, when I rescued you,” she responded, looking at me funny.

  “I thought that you were a lost apprentice or a very young journeyman,” she mused, staring at me with dark eyes. “But, you aren’t any of those things, are you?”

  She stroked my back again, tracing the pattern there.

  It warmed to her touch, making me shiver.

  “This one is protection from monsters,” she said. “They won’t see you or be able to track you.”

  Moving to my upper right arm, she murmured as she stroked the pattern. “This one helps you heal.”

  Turning my arm, she caressed the inner arm, above my elbow. “This one helps with directions.”

  Moving to the skin above my right breast, she murmured to herself, almost humming, as she traced it.

  “I don’t know what this one does,” she finally muttered.

  Tori pressed a little harder, and I felt the metal tremble within me.

  Shaking, I lay back as she continued to touch my skin.

  It had been a long time since someone had touched me so intimately.

  Shrugging, she sat back, looking a little frustrated.

  I looked up at her, scared out of my mind. “Why did the hyena creatures attack me, if I am protected?”

  Tori pulled off the fur.

  “Turn onto your side,” she instructed.

  Nervously, I turned and lay on my right side.

  I gasped when she touched the scar over my appendix. Her hands went right to it, without me even telling her about it.

  She began to hum again and this time…

  I shivered as the monster beneath that scar hummed back at her.

  I could feel a thrumming noise within me, as the creature excitedly talked to her.

  It felt like I was sitting in a room with a teenage girl who suddenly could talk to all of her friends, after being separated from them for days.

  Finally, Tori looked at me. “You are a Traveler.” She said the last word like tra - val -or.

  It made want to kiss her.

  What the fuck, my brain hissed. I didn’t like girls.

  I hadn’t even had a one-time girl crush in the past.

  “What is that?” I asked, to distract myself.

  “You walk between the worlds, your companion tells me,” she replied.

  “My companion?” I asked.

  “The creature that lives within all Gray Walkers ,” she answered.

  Turning, she showed me her scar.

  Reaching out I touched it.

  Fuck, it was exactly where mine was.

  “Why didn’t the pattern on my back protect me,” I said, focusing on my initial question.

  “The world that you were in was exhausting to your companion,” she replied. “It needs time to heal before it can power up your matrices.”

  I must have looked confused.

  “The metal beneath your skin is in a pattern called a matrix,” she answered. “Your companion creates energy that powers the matrices.”

  She was talking about magic, I realized.

  “I can disrupt electronics,” I said.

  “What are electronics?” Tori asked.

  “Machines that use electricity,” I answered.

  “What is e - lec - treesity ?” she asked.

  “Bottled lightning,” I answered.

  “I have heard of that... in the domed cities of the north,” she said. Tori leaned back and thought about my answers quietly.

  “When will I be protected again?” I asked, buying into her explanation completely. It was easy to believe her. She had healed me from catastrophic burns and my chest had been impaled. Plus, she knew about my scar and the fact that I twisted.

  “Within a few days,” she answered, still looking at the ceiling.

  “What's bothering you?” I asked.

  “Every Gray Walker has a teacher, the person that gave them their companion and tattoos,” she said.

  “And?” I asked.

  “Your teacher was named Katurah Sing,” she answered. “The problem is, she died about twenty years ago.”

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  “First,” she replied. “That’s what your companion told me.”

  Touching my ink, she said, “And, second every Walker has a tattoo style. Yours screams... Katurah.”

  “Is that a problem?” I asked.

  She looked at me, weighing her words in her mind. Finally, she said, “No, it’s not a problem.”

  I left it at that. My grandmother had always said, “Don’t stir the shit, let it sit.” Whatever Tori’s problem was with Katurah Sing, I wasn’t going to mess with it.

  “Where are we?” I finally asked to break the ice.

  “In a Walker safe house,” she replied.

  What should I do now?

  I really wanted to learn more about the creature inside of me and if I could really do magic. I knew that electronics hated me, but that wasn’t really a good magical talent in a world that might not have them anymore.

  Suddenly, Tori stood up.

  “I was traveling to a village today,” she said. “Would you like to come with?”

  “Is it safe?” I asked.

  “Would you rather stay here… alone?” she asked me.

  “No,” I complained.

  “Good,” she said. Then, she turned and walked over to a backpack that looked made for hiking. Tori pawed her way through it until she pulled out a long rolled up gray cloth.

  “Here is my backup uniform,” she said, handing it to me. “You can use it until we get you one of your own.”

  I looked at the rolled up cloth. I had no idea how the ones that covered my private areas were staying on, or how to put on this one.

  Seeing my distress, Tori smiled. “Let me help you.”

  Then, she unwound the long gray cloth a little at a time. Somehow, she convinced it to wrap around my arms, legs, and chest. It should have been impossible, but she did it.

  My face blushed a little, as she dressed me. I hadn’t been dressed by someone else since I was a child. It was nice... but weird at the same time.

  And, dammit if her fingers made my skin warm. Everywhere they touched, I felt goosebumps. I had to lean on her the whole time that she dressed me.

  Next, she took out a thick black sash with golden bangles on it.

  When she came towards me with a black headscarf with more golden bangles on it, I flinched.

  “It will protect your face from the sun and sand,” she insisted.

  I let her put it onto me, but it felt weird.

  Next was a pair of black leather boots that slid up almost to my knees. They were made out of some sort of lizard skin.

  Lastly was a gray cloak with the medallion on it with a black rune. The top of the cloak went over my mask.