By DarkWolf
(14003 words)
Karen stood in the open doorway, hand raised to repeat her knock. Her hair had once been piled on top of her head, long brown waves forced into curls, but it had clearly been escaping all night… Her face was flush with exertion. He suspected that she had run to get here. He could hear it raining outside. Her face was damp, tracks of rain smearing her makeup. Someone had tried to kiss her, and poorly. Her lipstick was smeared all along her cheek. He took in the clothes as an after thought. The top was thin and shimmery. The skirt was far too short. It was the type of outfit older girls wore to the clubs. No. He looked at her face again, doing the math. Not that much older. Seventeen. How in the nine hells had she become seventeen without him noticing?
Her face lit up when she saw him. “You’re home! Thank god, I don’t know what I would have done if you’d been out…”
Lived, he thought, but tried to focus on what she was saying. She was pushing past him into the apartment. Why wouldn’t she? She had been here hundred of times before. There had never been a time when she wasn’t welcome in his living room. Was she welcome? What was he going to do now? Now that his time was up? She was still taking.
“I had the most horrid night, Alan.” She threw herself down on the cushiest chair, the worn leather piece in the center, tossing her purse on the coffee table.
He stared at her, transfixed, grateful that she was too lost in her thoughts to remark on his silence. She was beautiful now. Long brown hair. Eyes so rich a blue that they almost rivaled his sibling’s. Her figure had developed, hidden under the jeans and t-shirt she had always worn. Without them it was obvious. So obvious he could almost feel himself being pulled toward her, toward what she unknowingly promised. Instead he stepped away into the kitchen, to mix her a drink. His voice was steady, though it took great effort, when he asked, “You had a date?”
She sighed. He could hear the frustration rippling in the air. Slowly he took down the jar of herbs he kept to the very back of the cabinet. “Yeah. Bobby Arnolds. I should have known the jerk just wanted to feel me up…”
He nearly dropped the canister.
She continued without notice. “It’s not like anyone else at school ever noticed me. Honestly, I think half the school thinks I’m a freak and the other half doesn’t know I’m there.”
He had heard this before. He poured boiling water over the leaves. She was so alone. It was part of why he spent so much time with her. He knew what it was to never fit in, though he could not understand why her peers would not like her. She had always seemed warm and approachable to him. They had first met when she was five and she had insisted on being his friend. She had somehow known how alone he was. This was how he was repaying that? He took a deep breath to calm his nerves and with an air of nonchalance that he did not feel, brought her tea and set it in front of her. Then he sat across from her, on the couch.
“Thanks,” she said, radiating true warmth as she reached down to pick up the cup. He wanted to scream at her to stop, to run. He wanted to forgo all pretense of friendship and pin her beneath him in the chair where she sat. He watched her take a sip, then swallow. Any second now… They would never watch movies together again. Never bake cookies. Never stroll through the park. She had taught him to jump rope when she was eight…
“This isn’t the mix you normally use. Is it new?”
His jaw nearly dropped. Nearly. But this was his game now. That fact that she did not yet know they were playing was secondary. “Not really. But I only bring it out rarely. You seem stressed.”
She nodded, talking another sip. And another.
He watched in stunned silence as she finished the cup.
“It’s good. Thanks.” She sighed.
His mind raced, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. She should have passed out after the first sip. If he had expected her to stand a chance of being conscious long enough for a third sip, he would have brewed in much weaker. Why was she still wake?
Finally calm enough to notice the mood around her, Karen turned to her friend. “Are you alright, Alan? I’m really glad you let me.” She must have caught him at a bad time. She knew he was almost always wake, but that didn’t mean he was always willing to deal with people. He always seemed so much more relaxed around her than with strangers. She remembered well the first time she had seen him smile. Mr. Onyx, she had just called him, and he had said she was being too formal. She so she had called him Alan, a shorter version of a first name she couldn’t even remember now… And he had smiled, making his whole face glow. But now he looked worried. “I know it’s late. I don’t know what I had been thinking. I…” She grabbed her stomach and doubled over, nausea hitting in waves.
He had the bowl positioned for her before she even saw him stand, much less reach the kitchen. As she retched into the bowl, she heard him saying above her, “Well, that’s one mystery solved. Your body just didn’t want anything to do with it.”
She looked down into the bowl, trying to make sense of his words. Thick tarry globs had come up, black and green, like the worse phlegm imaginable. “What…” She retched again, then swallowed, trying to make her throat work. “What is it?”
He had a hand on her back, comforting her, helping keep her hair clean. He could feel her shivering, Her mind only just beginning to realize something was wrong. “I’m not sure what herbalist call it now. Once it was called sleeproot. Another time it was deadweed. There’s some growing in the window box over there.” He motioned with his chin, even knowing she could not see. She had taught him things like that. How superfluous motions were sometime as much for the executer as the witness. “When you dry the leaves just right, it seeps into a tea that can knock a grown man out with the mere scent. Or kill him if you get the dosage wrong.”
She tried to speak, swallowed, and tried again. “You’re growing something called deadweed in your window box?”
“You’ve helped me water it before.”
She turned, looking him in the eyes. Alan was always an odd one. Dark dark hair. Pale skin. Jet black eyes. He always wore black, but he made it look elligant, not goth, despite his coloring. She supposed some folks might have called him menacing, but she never saw it. She had grown up around him. He was the dearest friend she had. She sometimes thought he was the only real friend she had. But he was odd, no denying it. Suddenly the rest of what he said registered. Seeps into a tea… She sat up suddenly, shaking free of his aid.
“You tried to drug me!”
He let her back away, settling back into the couch, waiting for her thoughts to finish.
“You tried to drug me with something that can easily kill someone twice my size!”
He raised a finger, interrupting her next comment. “To my credit, I would like to say I am very used to mixing doses of that drug. If mixed wrong, or seeped wrong, it can easily be deadly. I know what I am doing.” He then motioned for her to continue.
She paused, taken aback by his words. Letting them sink in. It didn’t make any sense.
“You tried to drug me!”
He leaned forward in his seat. “You said that already.”
“Why did you try to drug me?” Tears were beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t know why, she didn’t want to think. When Alan leaned forward and took her chin in his hand, tilting her head so that she was looking him full in the face, she hardly registered it.
“Ah,” he said, gripping her chin. “That would be because I thought it would be simpler than this.” She collapsed on the chair, unconscious.
Shaking his head, Alan lifted her limp form and gently cared it across to his room, to the stairs. He hated doing that. It was so wasteful. It meant using magic directly, which meant needing to feed more, which meant killing faster. It seemed a waste to use magic to catch food when it only meant there was less to go around. But Karen was special. He really didn’t want to bruise her just yet. Not yet.
Karen woke with her mind in a fog. She was sitting on the floor, still in her party clothes. Desperately, she tried to get her memory to tell her why. Nothing. So she tried for where. Where was she? Still no luck. She was indoors, she could tell that much. It was a large room, easily thirty feet across. The floor looked to be marble, but didn’t feel as cold as she would have expected of stone. There were four walls, and no obvious doors, but one of the walls was a curtain, so she assumed the door was behind that. A brilliant red curtain that hung from ceiling to floor, stretching the full length of the room. Of the remaining walls, the opposite one was stone, much like the floor, but pocked with wall decorations. She wasn’t close enough to clearly see what they were, nor did she give it her full attention. There were things sticking out of the walls. So? The remaining two were mirrors. Karen stared at her self reflecting back in multiples of the thousands. Then she stood and walked over to the curtain. She was just reaching out to touch it when she heard him clear his throat. Spinning around she saw Alan, clear as day, in the center of the room.
He had not been there. She had looked in the mirrors and he had not been there. She had not heard him come it. She had been staring at the curtain and had not seen it move. How did he get in here? Where was she? She stared up at him, cursing him his extra six inches in height, willing him to tell her what was going on.
“You’re awake. Good.”
She remembered then. Remembered being drugged, or nearly drugged. Remembered looking into his eyes and… nothing. She took a step away from him, bringing her back up against the curtain. Rough under her skin, she suddenly realized it was not a curtain. It was the most realistic faux curtain she had ever seen. A perfect painting. “What did you do? Where am I?”
She watched the smile bloom across his face. Watched it reach his eyes. His solid black eyes. Not the normal ones. The ones that had no whites at all. The eyes she only ever saw when he didn’t think she was watching. When he was very angry or, she suspected, very pleased with himself. He had worn those eyes when she was fourteen, when she had been following him. She didn’t think he had ever realized that he had been being followed, that that was why she was in that neighborhood. But when she saw him step out of the PurringKitty Club, his eyes had been that black. And later, that same night, when he saw what trouble she had gotten herself into, just before he pulled her out of it… that same black. She had known he was odd.
“You’re in my basement. What do you think of it?” He spread his hands with a flourish, then began slowly stalking toward her. She looked around because that was what she had been instructed to do. Really looked and felt her breath catch in her throat. The wall decorations. All along the wall behind him, the wall decorations were shackles. Different heights, different styles, different sizes. But all meant to hold a person still. Now that she knew what she was seeing, she saw the same hanging from the ceiling, and in places anchored to the floor. She felt a blush creeping up her face as she realized she was trying to imaging how exactly one would fit into a particularly convoluted set. Distracted by her blush, she did not realize that Alan was practically on top off her until he ran his hand along her arm, fingers tracing upward until he had her face tilted to look at him. “What do you think?” His voice was velvet.
She tried to think, tried to keep her world from turning on its head, despite evidence to the contrary. “Why did you bring me here?” She could hear the tremble in her voice, and hated herself for it. This was Alan. She could trust Alan. Couldn’t she trust Alan?
“Guess.”
He leaned in then, leaned over her, as though about to kiss her cheek. Instead he, very gently, bit her earlobe.
Karen leapt away from him with a yelp. “Alan!” Her voice shook. She stared at him like he was a stranger. “Stop it. You’re scaring me.”
Undiscouraged, he continued to stalk toward her, forcing her to back up the length of the room. “No,” he corrected. “I am making you slightly uncomfortable.” He grew closer with every word until finally he had her trapped, pinned in the corner with his arms to either side of her head. “When I scare you, you’ll know.”
She stared up at him, into the eyes of a stranger, and fought to keep from shaking as she demanded, “This isn’t funny, Alan. Let me out of here.” She didn’t really expect him to listen at this point, but she needed to ask. “Please let me go home.”
He seemed to ignore the question, leaning in over her until his lips were pressing against her forehead, transferring is weight momentarily to that unwanted kiss. She felt him lift his hands from the walls around her and instead sink them into her hair, forcing it to finally pull free of her styling attempt. Felt him run his fingers through her hair as he breathed in the scent of her. Felt herself begin to cry. Heard her own voice ask, “What are you going to do to me?”
Felt Alan pull away, not far, just enough to see into her eyes as he said. “I am going to kill you, Karen. Now,” he paused as though thinking, “remove your clothes.”
She felt her knees fold under her. Felt herself slip down onto the floor, curling into a ball. Trying to envision a shell to keep her safe. To keep him out. To keep the nightmare away. She began shaking, throwing her head from side to side. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She was trapped and she was alone and the world was insane and…
Alan caught her head between his palms, holding her still. Staring, lost, into his eyes she realized that he must have knelt down in front of her. That he was at eye level with her. That his eyes were normal, human eyes again. Staring into them she slowly realized that he was talking. “…In. Breath out. Breath in…” And she was. She had been since before she ever realized he was talking. The rhythmic breathing did help calm the hysteria. Why does he care? She felt the shaking try to return with that thought, but she forced it down. Forced her body to be under her control. There had to be a reason. There had to be.
Nodding her head, she forced out the words, “I’m better now. I think I’m better.”
“Can you stand?” He offered his hand, lifting her to her feet.
She stared at her hand, stared up at him. He looked so normal, so much like the Alan she knew. It was all so insane. He was joking… “You were joking?” But the tea…
He shook his head. “Sorry, but no. I was quite serious.”
She tried to pull her hand away. Felt him strengthen his grip, keeping his hold. She stared up at him, eyes wide. “Alan, this isn’t funny. Cut it out and take me home.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Karen.” He sounded almost sad.
“People will look for me. Mom knows I’m always coming by your place. She doesn’t know where it is, but she knows your name. People will find me.” She fought down the panic that was returning. She had known him all her life it seemed, but did her mom actually know where he lived? She knew that Karen came into the city all the time, to see “friends” but had she ever told her anything more?
“No one is looking for you, Karen. They pulled your body out of the river this morning. Some good Samaritan called the police with a tip that you and dear Bobby Arnolds had been seen fighting on the bridge last night.”
“I was never anywhere near the bridge last night!”
“Then if he has a good lawyer, he should be able to find a sound alibi. But the point remains. No one is looking for you.”
Your body. The words sunk in slowly. “You killed someone.”
“I’ve killed thousands. The trick was decorating the body so that any tests they do will show it to be you.”
She stopped trying to pull her hand away. She instead focused on breathing. “You’re serious.”
He nodded.
“My god.” Her free hand flew over her mouth. “I… my god.” She was going to be sick. She tried to sit down, but felt his tug on her arm keeping her on her feet. Felt his thumb stroking her knuckles. “Let me go.”
“Not an option, Karen.” He smiled at her then, and try as she might to deny it, a part of her heart turned over to see his smile. “For what it is worth, I am very glad to have known you.”
“You’re going to kill me?” She was very proud of how steadily the words came out.
He nodded.
“Why plant a body? Why not just dump mine in the river?”
He looked away from her then, slowly batting his eyes, as though thinking about the answer. “I suppose because I wanted to take my time.” Through her hand, he felt the shiver that ran up her spine. “I have waited a very long time for this. Much longer than I would have dreamed possible.” He turned his face back to her then, looking at her stricken face. “I suppose I wanted to savor it. No other reason.”
Her heart tried to stop. She was sure that was what this pain in her chest was. She was dying right here, while holding his hand. It’s a dream. It has to be a dream. That is the only reason you are taking this so calmly. That or you really are in shock. “You’re going to savor killing me?” Her voice sounded hollow, distant to her own ears.
Alan lost his smile. “Better to say I will savor the process.” He stroked her hand. “I will be saddened when you are gone.”
She tried to pull her hand away. This time he let her. She spun around, pacing in tight circles. “Then why?” She threw up her arms. “If you are going to miss me, why kill me at all? Why not just let me go?” She turned to him, to see him standing in the center of the room, just were she had left him. He looked lost. Hurt. Why the hell did he look hurt?
Staring down at his shoes, he said, “I can’t let you go, Karen. I cannot and I would not, if it were possible. As to killing you, if I had any choice, I would let you live. But I don’t have a choice. Therefore, neither do you. For what it is worth, I am sorry.” He looked up then, solid black eyes boring into her soul. “However, if we understand each other now…” He paused, taking a deep breath, more of a sigh. “I told you to take off your clothes.” As he expected, she was shaking her head. Walking over to the wall, the wall she was backed against, he reached his hand into it, behind the curtain, finding his target by touch alone. When he pulled his hand free, he was holding a knife. Karen’s jaw was dropped as open as skin would allow. Then she saw the knife and began backing up. He stared down at his prize, watching it slide through his fingers, over and around his knuckles. It was sharp enough to slice bone. He always made certain of that. Slowly he began stalking toward her, never bothering to look up as he spoke, knowing by sound where she was.
“I told you to undress.” Turning the blade. “If you don’t undress, I will cut the clothes off of you.” Stepping to the side to block her attempted dodge. “If you remove them yourself, you can pretend I might let you put them on again.” She had stopped moving now, back flat against a mirror wall. He continued to advance. “If I have to cut them away, you will have no such illusions.” Gently he laid the knife against her cheek, barely brushing the surface as he let it slide down over her pulse, her deliciously racing pulse, and then slip under the collar of her blouse. Leaning over her, he whispered into her ear, “There is also the chance I might slip and cut you. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” Deliberately, he tilted the knife, letting the edge lightly scrap her shoulder. Not enough to draw blood. Just enough to let her realize how sharp the blade was. How close.
Karen’s eyes where pinched as tightly as she could make them. She was pressed as hard against the cold glass of the mirror as her muscles would allow. She could feel her breath hitting her in the face, having reflected off of the smooth surface. She could feel Alan, not actually touching her, but so close that if she had actually thought she was capable of accommodating him, he would have had to back away. She could feel the knife. “Please,” she begged, and was not even certain what she wanted. Please don’t make me do this. Please let me go. Please let this all be a dream. Please don’t hurt me. There were so many things it might mean.
“If you insist.”
It was over in a matter of heartbeats. A dozen quick flicks of the wrist and her clothes were in rags around her. She stood there, revealed, shivering. Even removing her underclothes he had never come close to cutting her, though never so much as a finger had touched her. Only the blade had ever had contact. She tried to remember how to breathe.
“Look up at me, Karen.”
She looked, tilting her head upward, aiming for his voice. His chest was bare and she did not know when or how he had lost his shirt. She did not look down to see if he had lost anything else. She looked up, and watched in awe as his mouth descended down over hers, delivering a very warm, gentle kiss. She could feel it down to her toes. Felt the emotion enveloping her, making her want to float. Felt as his hands gripped her, starting at her shoulders and moving down her arms until he had her wrists locked tightly in his grip. Until he had her hands pinned in place on either side of her head. A gentle, yet needy, kiss that left her heart racing and tears streaming down her face. Then he pulled his face free and looked down at her, trapped against the wall, his hands serving as shackles.
Nothing else he did that night was gentle.
Karen sat on the floor, numb. The last few hours racing though her mind. She was sore. She was sore in muscles that she did not think where in any way related to what had just happened. She still was trying to make sense of what had just happened. Of why she was still alive.
There was blood caked on her leg, but he had never cut her, despite his taunts. He had bruised her. He had pushed her and prodded her, and twisted her to do things that she had not been sure a human body was capable of. But he had not actually cut her. Nor had he killed her. She didn’t know why.
It did not seem likely that he forgot. She did not think that he had changed his mind, either. Carefully, she replayed his conversations with her within her mind. There had to be an answer somewhere.
“You didn’t kill me.” They were sitting across from one another, on the floor of her cell. He had returned to her carrying a bowl of steaming water and a cloth. She was clean now, or at least as clean as that style of bath could make her.
He did not look up as he answered her. “You wish I had?”
She swallowed. “No.”
The silence stretched around them, smothering.
“You changed your mind?”
“No.”
Awkward.
“Why am I still alive, Alan?”
He looked at her then, lifting his eyes from the bowl of dirty water, still steaming. “I did not mean to imply that you wouldn’t be. I don’t want you to die any sooner than you have to. You likely have a week left, maybe more.”
A week. She kept her voice steady. She was very proud. “What happens in a week?”
He shrugged. “Most likely you will not wake up. Nothing too painful.” He was lying. Probably. Very few had died in their sleep. Most had died in his arms. But he did not want her to wait for the moment he would kill her every time he embraced her.
She swallowed. “Asleep.” He nodded. “And while I’m asleep you’ll smoother me, or strangle me, or something like that. And until then…” A shiver ran through her.
He sighed, and brought his hands up to his temples, running his fingers through his hair. “Karen, I…” He stopped, shaking his head. “Look, I don’t know how to explain this well. You’re the first person I’ve tried to explain this to. I’m surprised you want to talk about his at all. I’m not going to smoother you. I’m not going to… I’m not going to do anything to you while you are asleep. It is just going to happen.”
“That doesn’t sound likely.”
It isn’t. It’s only happen a dozen times since I built this room. He stared at her in silence.
“What makes me so special? Why explain it to me?” She sounded bitter, to her ears.
“You brought up the subject. Would you rather I not talk to you?”
“No.”
Another lull.
Pieces of conversation drifted through her mind. Pieces that spoke of victims before her. Of many before her. “How many?”
He looked at her, confused.
“How many… others…. before me?”
He nodded, tired. “You don’t like to pick pleasant conversations, do you?”
“You said you were practiced in mixing up the drugged tea.”
Ah. “I only started using the tea once I build this room. Even then, only for the ones I invited back to my home. If they were willing, or unconscious, it was pointless. So I’ve mixed… maybe three hundred doses of the herb? Believe me that I knew what I was doing now?”
Her heart was in her throat. Three hundred. Since this room? That would imply still more before then. And he didn’t tell her how many victims he killed, just how many he mixed tea for. “They’re all dead?”
“It is what I do.”
She tried to make her heart stabilize. Tried to calm her breathing. He wasn’t doing anything right now. Just sitting there. Just watching her. Just waiting. What would he do if she said the wrong thing? “Some hobby you have.” She flinched as she said it, wondering what had driven her to insult him. To her shock, he flinched under the words.
“It’s not a hobby. It’s a necessity.”
So sad. He sounded so sad she wanted to reach out to him. “What do you mean?”
He looked up at her then, eyes bled to their darkest form. “What do you think I mean? Look at me, Karen.”
It was her turn to flinch under his gaze. He was odd. She has known, known for so long that he was odd. But she had never put it all together. His eyes. His eccentric habits, even the harmless ones. His hypnotic voice. “You’re not human.”
He smiled. It looked strange under the darkened eyes. “Very good.”
He left it at that. Her mind raced. A necessity, he had said. And he wasn’t human. “You’re a vampire.”
“Did I take your blood last night, Karen?”
She swallowed. “No.” No, he had taken something much more intimate.
“I’m not a vampire.”
Fare enough. “But you were feeding off of me.”
He nodded.
“And that’s how you are going to kill me.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
She closed her eyes and sat there, too stunned to speak. “Were you ever human?”
“No.”
“Were you ever my friend?”
“Yes.” The pain in his voice made her look up. His expression was raw.
“Then why?” She could feel the tears starting again. She never cried. Not for years. But now it seemed like she couldn’t stop. “Why me? If you were my friend, couldn’t you have just let me go? Pretended I wasn’t on the menu?”
He looked away from her then, and she thought she heard regret in his voice. “I tried. When we first me… when you were so young… I used to tell myself that you would get away. That I would stop meeting you. That I would forget you and let you get on with your life. But I couldn’t.” He turned back to her, and his desperation was clear on his face. “I couldn’t walk away. And once you started getting older. Once you started to grow up, I knew it was only a matter of time. One day you were going to look at me, and you were going to see what everyone other human being who ever looked at me saw, and then it would be over.”
What was he talking about? “What do people see, Alan?”
He grinned, but it was not a happy expression. “On good days, a predator.” He shook his head. “On bad days, a monster. Someone to run from. Or someone to bask under. Or someone to hate.” He lowered his eyes back to his lap. She was not sure if she was meant to hear his last words. “Never someone to talk to. Or play games with. Or watch television.”
She reached out for him. She wasn’t thinking about what had happened, or about what he might be going to. He was hurt. He was so hurt and she didn’t want him to be hurt. He was going to kill her and she didn’t want him to be hurt. She wrapped her arms around him and held him and whispered that other people were idiots.
“What do you see when you look at me, Karen?”
It struck her then, what he expected her to say. He had been waiting for her to grow up. He thought that being a child was the only thing that let her think of him as a person. He had been waiting for her to hate him. Then she had shown up on his doorstep, and thrown his world for a loop. And now, now he was waiting again. “I see Alan. I see a friend that is tearing himself apart and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do to fix it.” I see a man that I loved like family who has turned my world inside out… but who I still want to call my friend.
“And last night?” There was bitterness in his voice, sheltered in her arms. “What did you see last night?”
She let out a long breath. He wasn’t a vampire, but he wasn’t human. Whatever he was might be able to smell if she was lying. “I don’t know what I saw last night. I know what I am seeing now.”
“You saw a monster, Karen. You saw what I really was. That is what I am.”
“Alan.” He was still staring at his lap. She shook him, forcing him to look up at her, to stare at her with his inhuman eyes. His teeth were bared in a snarl, and a growl was coming from deep in his throat. She shook him again.
“Damn it, Alan. Cut it out.”
He glared at her, confused.
“I don’t care what face you show me, you aren’t going to convince me you’re a monster.”
He lunged at her then, forcing her to back up, trapping her beneath the length of him. He stared down at her, lust and hate heavy in his mind, and readied himself to hurt her. He had already eaten his full. He didn’t need to hurt her. But he needed to make her understand. He needed…
“Why are you doing this?” Her voice cut through his anger like a razor. Calm, but annoyed. She should have been screaming and trying to push him away.
“I told you why.”
“No. You told me why you… why you were feeding off me. Why you are going to kill me. I want to know why you seem so dead set that I’m supposed to be afraid of you. Why you want me to hate you.”
He could hear the passion in her voice. The conviction. His own sounded lost, confused. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Do you want to?”
He let his forehead drop onto her chest. Let his breathing match her heartbeat. Why was she doing this? “You’ll still be dead.”
“Do you want to kill me?”
He looked up at her then, letting the lust he was feeling flood into his eyes. “I want to ravage you until there is nothing left of your soul. I want your last breath to be drawn while you are pinned under my weight. I want to be the last thing you are thinking of, whatever that thought might be.”
Karen was silent for a time, staring into his coal black eyes. Bottomless pits they seemed, and she wondered how she ever thought he was human. Finally, she said, “But do you want to kill me?”
He closed his eyes and sighed. Wasn’t she listening? “What do you think?”
“I think you need to kill me. I think you want to perform the actions that will result in killing me. But I think you don’t actually want me dead. And if you don’t actually want me dead, I refuse to see the point in being afraid of you, and I damn well want you to stop expecting me to hate you.”
When he opened his eyes they were human again. “I hurt you last night.”
She tried to laugh. It sounded forced. “I’ll heal. It wasn’t as bad as you seem to think, from the look you’re giving me.”
“I’ll do better next time.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Lying there under him, she became very aware of how clothed she wasn’t. Of how close he was. She didn’t think she wanted him, but last night had been… educational. She had not been lying when she said that it was not entirely unpleasant. She had been bruised. She had been stretched. But he had been amazing. So much more than any of the books she had snuck to bed with. So much more alive. And he needed her. Needed her in a way that no one ever had.
Then she realized he was gone.
She pulled herself upright, into a sitting position, about to demand to know what where he was going, when she saw it. Saw him step into the mirror and disappear. He took the bowl and towel with him.
Karen awoke suddenly, panic making her heart race. Knots were being tightened around her wrists and ankles. Her limbs were being pulled outward, taunt. A strip of cloth was tied as a gag around her head. She had been pulled into a reverse Y, legs spread, but arms together over her head. She stared around wildly for Alan. She heard him before she saw him.
“Do you know why I’m upset, Karen?”
She felt his fingertips, gently, slowly, stroking along her inner thigh. She tried to say something, anything, but it came out mumbles, muffled by the gag.
“Would you like me to tell you?”
Desperately, she nodded, feeling his hand roam higher, closer to her core.
“What did you do after I left?”
She thought, desperately. They had been arguing. He had thrown himself on top of her. She had been sure he was about to… And then her left… and then she… She felt herself beginning to blush.
He slid a finger inside of her, using a thumb to force her breathing to quicken. “And can you guess why that would make me upset?”
She could guess. He fed off sex. He fed off sex and she had went and masturbated without him even being in the room. That had to be why he said he was mad. But if he was mad, why was he doing… She could feel herself climbing with every stroke.
“We are going to play a little game, you and I. Let us call it practice.” A second finger, then a third joined the rhythm, forming at alternating thrusts a solid core and a dance that drove her nerves wild. “I am going to bring you to the very edge of an orgasm, as far as you can go without diving into one, and you, my dear, are going to NOT come.”
Nails dug into her, forcing her to buckle up, driving to pull away. She tried to scream, tried to pull herself away from the claw that had gripped her.
Slowly, almost tenderly, Alan relaxed his hand, removing it entirely from her crotch. Straining, she could just see him as he leaned his head downward, just over her core and breathed on her. She felt her pulse race, nerves fighting to decide if they were screaming from good sensation or bad. Then she felt his tongue and all thought that his grip had been unpleasant fled.
Her pulse raced as she felt his tongue stroke. She could hear her own breathing coming faster and faster. Just as she felt she was about to slide over the edge, Alan stopped, pulling himself upright to sit beside her again. There were tears in her eyes.
“You did not seem to be fighting very hard.”
She whined, trying to wave her hips at him. Just a little more…
“Perhaps I did not explain the costs of losing this game.”
Leaning over her he allowed his left arm to begin tracing tiny circles around her nipple. She closed her eyes and tried to loss herself in the sensation. Until she felt him pinch. Still gripping her tightly, between finger and thumb, he said, “If you ever reach climax without my permission again, it will be the last time you do so. Am I understood?”
Desperately she nodded. Her nipple throbbed under his continued grip.
“And have I given you my permission yet?”
Pinching her eyes shut, she shook her head. Impossibly, his grip tightened, until her eye flew open.
“Look at me when I am talking to you, Karen.”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to tell him, Anything! Anything just let go! But the gag held her.
“You know the rules now. I have not given you permission. If you come without permission, it will be the very last time you do so. I do not want to kill you right now, but I want to be clear on this. I will not be lenient on this point. You understand?”
She nodded. With all of her heart she nodded. Don’t come. Got it. I’m about as far from it as I can get right now anyway. Please let go.
He released her.
As she felt him lower his mouth down onto her breast she realized with a shudder exactly how wrong she had been. She was not nearly as far from orgasm as she had thought. It could easily be just around the corner.
In a dance of fingers and tongue, nails and teeth, he played with her nerves and her most tender regions until she thought she was going to go insane. No parcel of skin was left unstroked; no crevice unexplored. Dozens of times she felt herself slip near the edge, only to be drawn back by his voice, telling her “Not yet.” Never yet. She thought she would go insane fighting to keep her body from sliding into release. Then finally.
“Now.”
The waves that crashed over her were like nothing she had ever dreamed of. She was not sure if she had one orgasm that lasted minutes or a dozen orgasms that flowed one into the other. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Her world was enveloped by sensation the equal of which she had never dared imagine. Distantly she could feel Alan stroking her, keeping her at the peek of the wave, keeping it from slowing. She was not sure if she wanted to beg him to let her slide away, or beg him to never stop. She was kept from needing to decide when he stood up, removing his blessed touch.
“I am going to leave now.”
She stared up at him, eyes drowned in sensation.
“Not for long. I will bring you some food.”
How long since she had eaten? At the mention of food she felt how hollow her stomach was.
“You will stay were you are.”
Her eyes went wide. She pulled against her bonds, twisting and straining to show how little she liked this idea.
Alan bent down and stroked the side of her cheek. His hand was still damn from her juices. “Not for long. I will be back very soon. I don’t want you tempted to do anything else that might upset me.”
Then he left.
Alan stood outside the room for a dozen heartbeats, basking in awe of the situation. There was a satisfied smile on his lips that he never would have expected. She had been intoxicating. He had half suspected, from one of her comments last night that she might be receptive to this, but he had never dreamed… Those who could enjoy his style of attentions, not just the tender moments but the entirety of it, lasted easily twice as long as any others. He credited it to how he was created… He was made to harvest from those particular tastes and so gathered energy of that flavor most efficiently. This meant that she had at least doubled her life expectancy, from his perspective. But that was not why he was smiling.
He had not meant to feed from her. Not much. He had been angry and had wanted to teach her a lesson, but he had been full, so he had not meant to feed. He had thought he was full. One gentle sip of energy had lead to another until he had taken far more than he had ever intended. He was now packing more of a charge than he had in the last two centuries. But more than that, she was still breathing. She was still fighting. Twice now he had fed from her, both times taking more than he intended, and still she seemed as young, as vibrant as when he took his first sip. She was amazing.
That was why he was smiling, as he turned away to go collect her dinner.
Karen lay still, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to remember why that was important. She had never felt anything like that. She had never imagined anything like that. She was beginning to think that dying at the end might be worth it, if only the time in between was like that. But that wasn’t all.
She was not certain, not certain at all, but she thought… During the middle of it all, not during the orgasm, but during everything else, she had felt something. Something raw. Something alive. Something… not solid… stroke at a piece of her that was not physical. She was almost, but not completely, certain that she had felt Alan feed. And then, when he was leaving, she thought she saw the outline of his door.
Dinner was eclectic. Tomato soup with a side of chopped steak, medium well. A glass of orange juice, next to a glass of whole milk, next to a glass of filtered water. She was sure it was filtered water. She had been the one to get him to put the filter on the tap three years ago because his tap water tasted hideous. As side dishes there were steamed carrots and oatmeal cookies. All of it was laid out on a small blanket, like a picnic.
“How often do you cook?”
“Why?” His voice was guarded.
“Because you seriously need to watch the cooking channel, or flip through a magazine, or snoop in peoples windows, or something, because this in no way resembles a meal.”
“They are all things you like.” He sounded offended.
She tried not to laugh. She failed. “Not together…” Still, she picked up her spoon and bowl and started in on her soup. It was delicious, despite the side dishes… and she was very hungry. Before she knew it she had finished the whole setting, save the cookie, which she had saved for last. All the while she ate Alan had been silent.
“So what are you?” she asked, biting into the cookie.
Alan looked at her confused.
“You said you aren’t a vampire. You said you aren’t human. So what are you?”
He looked taken aback for a moment, then said, “Incubus.”
She blinked. “That’s some kind of demon, right?”
Alan shook his head. “Not at all. Scholars like to put labels on everything, and there was a time when, if a mage spoke to it, and it was not human, it must have been a demon. Most of the old gods were called demons at one time or another.”
“So you’re some kind of supernatural creature?” Her cookie was forgotten.
Again, he shook his head. “I’m a construct.”
“A what?”
“You paid attention in history class. You remember the old alchemists and their homunculi? A sentient creature made from material components?”
“A construct.” Her cookie dropped to the ground. Her jaw tried to follow. When her thoughts caught up, she said, “So you are a homunculus?”
“No. A homunculus is created to be in every way identical to a human, save that there was no way to give it a soul. I am an incubus. I was created to collected and store life essence, specifically essence harvested through sex. The fact that I resemble a human was a whim of the mage who crafted me.”
“Oh.” Karen picked up her cookie.
They sat in silence while she finished her cookie.
“So what do you do with the energy after you collect it.”
“I live.”
“Doesn’t the sorceress who made you want it?”
Alan’s expression darkened. “I was crafted by a male, not a female. And no. He died over a thousand years ago.”
She tried to think through that. Male. A male sorcerer had made Alan. Did that mean he was… well, he was currently feeding off a female, so did that mean he was bi? She pushed that thought to the back of her mind to be dealt with later. “Do you miss him? The guy who made you?”
Alan was silent for a time. Just as she thought he would not answer, he said, “It would be foolish to miss him. I was one of those who killed him.”
Karen swallowed, dry, “What? You mean like there was an accident?”
“Only if you count being torn limb from limb by the creatures you created then tortured for amusement an accident.”
“But he made you!”
“And so as he saw it he had the right to un-make us, at his whim. But while his magical defenses were immense, his physical defenses were very minor. And he had forgotten that we were each far stronger than normal human.”
Her eyes were wide as she asked, “What did he do?”
Alan took a deep breath. Why was he telling her this? Why was he telling her any of this? What did it matter? She had always been someone he could talk to, and yet this had always been a part of his life he could never share… “He killed her. He killed our little sister.”
The horror on Karen’s face was sufficient to prompt him to continue. “To make an incubus, or a succubus, requires certain quantities of base stone, in our cases, alabaster, certain quantities of precious stones, in my case onyx, and roughly one hundred souls per creature to be constructed. The mage who made me, and my siblings, made eight of us. Males and females. Two onyx, two sapphire, two ruby, two emerald. All but the rubies looked to be adults. The rubies were crafted to look like children. Children who always had haunted bloodshot eyes.”
Eight hundred people. He just said that his maker killed eight hundred people, like it was nothing…
“We were happy at first, I think because we did not truly know what we were. Then one day our master became bored. We became his knew toys. After five years of deprivations that would have killed any of his human amusements, or at least turned them mad, he made his final mistake. He killed the female ruby. In front of us. And he laughed.”
He is so cold. She wanted to reach out to him. To hold him. To tell him that it was over. That he was safe now. That no one could hurt him now.
“We broke the chains he had place on us like they were cheap cloth. Then we tore him limb from limb. Then, standing over the bloody ruins that used to be our only reason for living, we swore that we would destroy any other mage we ever found, so that the world would never be subjected to his like again.”
So you would never be hurt again. But he is still hurting you. If you hate this much he is still hurting you. But she did not know how to tell him that. Not in a way he would believe.
“One thousand years ago there were seven of us left. Now, there is me. And I don’t even know if the others died, or if they simply chose to stop contacting me. We had harsh words the last time we met, over whether there was a point in continuing looking for mages.” He sighed. “I don’t know if they stopped contacting me two hundred years ago because they think I’m obsessed, or if they stopped because a mage killed them. I know for certain that two others died mage hunting, and another two died because mages found them first.”
“What is a mage?”
He blinked. Oh. Yes, that would help, wouldn’t it? “Any human that can use magic. For the last thousand years I have been killing any human I find that can use magic.”
Karen felt her heart rate pick up. Stretching, she stood and went over to hug him. He felt awkward in her arms, as though uncertain what he was supposed to do. “You needed a hug,” she told him, willing him to relax.
“And you need to go to sleep,” he told her.
Her eyelids did feel heavy. Yawning, she said, “Maybe a little.”
“Go.” He pointed to the corner of the room she had first curled up in.
Curling up in the corner, Karen heard herself ask, “You said you wouldn’t do anything to me while I was asleep.”
Alan paused, mid lifting an empty bowl. “Yes?”
“You tied me up.” Again she yawned. Why do I care?
“No I didn’t. I moved you. You were not tied until the instant you woke up.”
“Oh.” Yawn. “Okay.” And she was asleep. Her last thought before she drifted away was gratitude that seeing magic and doing magic were two different things. She would hate for Alan to hate her.
Smiling, Alan carried his bundle out of the room. He had not meant to compel her to sleep, but she did need her rest. If he thought about the fact that compulsions seemed to be the only things that worked on her, and those better than expected, he did not think enough to cause him distress. She was his. She was here. He was happy.
Dreams came with sleep.
A courtyard. Rain pelted down around them, thunder drowning out all hope of sound. He could not see, but he could feel. He could feel her pain. Feel what they were doing to her. What they were forcing her to consume. She had been made to receive pain, but not in this magnitude. Not this much. She was screaming. He was screaming. He could not hear it, lightning flashing, but he could feel. He felt her screams.
The dream shifted.
He was on his knees, numb. The rain still fell. His hands were covered in blood. He thought it was a heart he was holding. Some organ. His father’s. He was on his knees, rain falling, holding his father’s heart. He wanted to cry, but knew that he could not. Tears were for humans.
Again.
He held her head in his hands, cradling it. A perfect sculpture, onyx eyes staring lifeless out of her face. It had been his idea. It had been his idea to hunt them, but she had been the first to die. Why hadn’t it been him? Why did she have to die?
Again.
An inn. Two faces staring at him. Ruby eyes with mud-blonde hair. Sapphire eyes with a fiery red mane. They had been fighting for some time.
“Why can’t you just let it go?” his blue eyed sister demanded of him.
“They will kill us!” It was the only defense he had.
“How many of us would they have found without your hunting?” This from his ruby eyed brother, perhaps ten years old in face, but ancient in tone. “If we had stayed hidden me might still be whole.”
“We have never been whole. Not since he killed your twin, brother.”
The room fell silent. It was an old argument.
“I want a normal life.” This from the boy.
“Is it so much to ask? We have not seen a mage in over a hundred years. You have not seen one in over fifty.” She sounded heartsore.
“We can have no life so long as one of them lives.” He glared at them. “You both should know that.”
“Do you?” The accusation was clear in Ruby’s voice, though it took him a moment to understand its source. “Do you KNOW it? Or do you simply insist on clinging to the past? What if they are all dead? What if we are all that is left? How long will you waste the eons, fighting a battle that has ended?” He threw his palms down, crashing them into the table. “I won’t. I won’t do it any more. I was never good in a fight, and I refuse. If you will continue this foolishness, it will be without me!”
He stormed out of the room.
And the dream shifted again.
It had been two hundred years. Two centuries since he had seen his brother or his sister. Her departure had been less dramatic, but still, awkward. Times had changed. People had changed. He had kept hunting for another century, but Ruby had been right. There were no more mages. And now he was alone. If they were still alive… if they were alive surely they would have sent him some word in all this time. He was the last, and he did not even have anyone to hate.
“Mister?”
The voice cut through his melancholy like a knife. A child. Younger than his missing brother. Much younger. Female. He looked down, to see her standing beside his bench.
“Mister, are you okay?”
He blinked. Surely she couldn’t be real. No sane human would willingly approach him. But she was still there. Perhaps five years old, dimpled, sticky, and forward.
“What’s your name, Mister?”
Still he blinked, the world rolled under him. He had not felt this disoriented in centuries and he did not know what caused it now. Why wasn’t she leaving? Why was she trying to talk to him?
“My name’s Karen.”
“Go away.”
“Oh good!” She climbed onto the bench beside him. “I thought you couldn’t hear me.”
“Go away.”
“Do you live near here? I just move here with my mom and dad.”
“Why won’t you go away?” He could hear his own voice cracking. He had never faced someone this stubborn.
“Would you be my friend? You looked lonely.”
He sat back, suddenly, too shocked to reply.
She was insane. The little girl had to be insane, walking up to a random stranger like this. He could not be her friend. He couldn’t. He would be the death of her. But she was right. He was lonely. He felt more alone now, sitting next to this pile of exuberance then he ever had, and yet she was offering him an anchor. More importantly, she was not afraid. He had had precious few encounters with humans that were not at least tinted with fear. Even those who lived mix fear with their pleasure. And those were few. She was not afraid at all. She did not know what to be afraid of.
“Why do you want to be my friend?” His voice was calm, though if he had a heart it would have been pounding.
“I’m lonely, too. No one wants to talk to me.” She looked up at him hopefully. “What’s your name?”
“I… Alabaster. Onyx.”
Karen woke with a start, covered in sweat, and tried to make sense of why she had been dreaming she was Alan.
“Do you ever have bad dreams?”
“I don’t dream.”
Karen coughed, covering her mouth suddenly to try and keep her food from escaping. Figured. It just figured.
“I don’t dream because I don’t sleep. I can’t sleep. I can’t cry. I can’t consume physical food.” He paused for breath. “My heart does not beat, unless I specifically tell it to. I am intrinsically incapable of forgetting anything I have ever learned. If you prick me, I do not bleed.” He looked up at her, see that she had stopped eating, was just staring at him. “Do you want any more proof that I am not human?”
Karen closed her mouth, swallowing, feeling her heart pound. What had set him off? “I had a couple nightmares last night. I guess they came from all of your soul delving, the last time we talked. It must have torn you up, what happened to your sister…”
He blinked, a slow confused motion. He swallowed. What he swallowed was anyone’s guess. It was just a motion, another human mannerism he had learned since knowing her. “I… I can… reminisce.” He searched her face for comprehension. “I can fall so deep into remembering something that I may as well be there. I stop feeling the world around me. I think it is similar to dreaming. What I reminisce is seldom pleasant.”
“Oh.”
They sat in silence for a time, while Karen ate. This meal was better structured. Scrabbled eggs. Bacon. Two bagels, one covered in butter, the other covered in cream cheese. A waffle. A bowl of melon balls. At least they were all breakfast foods.
“Should I assume it is morning?”
“Hmm?”
She motioned to the food.
Alan shrugged. “I had not thought about it.”
“Ah.” She took another bite. “It’s good.”
He smiled, and she felt her heart flip. Then his earlier word caught up with her. “You can’t eat anything?”
He straightened, taken aback for a moment. “I… consume energy.”
She swallowed. “During…”
“Yes.”
“Does it have flavor?” The question was out before the thought, past her lips before her brain registered the idea.
Alan stared at her, puzzled. After a time he said, “There are… textures. Scents. Yes. Yes, I think you would call them flavors.”
“How? I mean, is it like vegetables where the age of the plant does something to the flavor, or like milk where what the cow ate messes with it…”
“Emotions mostly. I suppose you would say biochemistry. A person’s mood during coupling affects the energy the most.”
“Oh.” Karen blushed. Why was she asking? Why did she want to know?
Alan wondered the same thing, staring at her like some strange apparition. “You are very strange.”
She turned her eyes on him, hurt clear on her face.
“Why aren’t you afraid?”
“Should I be?”
“Most people are.”
She closed her eyes, thinking about that, letting it settle around her. “Is that why you tried to scare me so much in the beginning? For the flavor? And I messed it up.”
He reached over, catching her chin in his palm, tilting her face to look at him. “You aren’t afraid to die. You aren’t suicidal, but you aren’t afraid to die.”
“Did I mess it up? I’m going to die in a couple days, and you won’t have even gotten a decent meal because I wasn’t scared?”
He stroked her cheek letting his hand roam until he was running his fingers through her hair. “You didn’t mess anything up. Fear is commonly part of my meals, but only because it is more appetizing that hatred or heartbreak. It is good at masking those flavors. I have never had a meal in any way similar to you, but it has not been unpleasant.”
“Oh.” Her breath caught in her throat, keeping her from thinking. Her own food was long forgotten. “So I should just let these next few days happen?”
Alan climbed to his feet, motioning for her to remain where she sat and circled around her, until he was sitting behind her. She felt his hands settle onto her shoulders, fingers gripping into muscles, forcing them to relax. She tried to let herself drift in the sensation, forget everything that happened before, that might happen after, when she heard him say, “Not days, Karen. Weeks.”
She sat up straighter, suddenly, trying to turn to look at him, but felt the force of his hands making her remain still, to accept the back rub. “You said…”
“I miscalculated.”
She thought about that. Let the thought settle. Weeks. She had weeks. Why? Was it something about her, or something else he had not foreseen? How much did it matter? Days or weeks what remained of her life would likely be much the same. It wasn’t like she could do anything to… “Are there any flavors you prefer?”
His hands stopped, just for a moment, then began again, slower. Kneading into the muscles, pulling the tension out of her. After a time he answered, “There are many emotions I am used to. Fear is the most common. But I would rather you not be afraid, if you do not need to be. Anticipation is something I have only tasted rarely. It is usually drowned out by the fear.”
Anticipation? She thought she could do that. It should not be too hard to… to what? She didn’t want to dread what would come next, but she was not sure what to expect of the next encounter either. She didn’t know…
“Would you like to know what is behind the curtain?”
Her eyes went wide. “You… you took a knife from there before.”
He nodded, though she could not see him. “I did. Would you like to see what else is back there?”
Her mind raced. Before it could settle into a coherent thought she felt him stand, stepping around her, and offering her a hand up. He led her, dazed over to the far wall, opposite the curtain, then turned her to face it. To face the wall which looked painted but wasn’t. “Stand here.”
He walked over to wall and placed his hand into it. She could think of no other way to describe it. One moment he was reaching for the wall. The next moment his hand had reached through the wall and an animated painting of his hand was moving along it, reaching to grab the painted curtain. It was like some disturbed cartoon. She was not sure why it did not make her sick to see his arm end so abruptly.
Then he was pulling back the curtain. Stepping from panel to panel. It was in four sections, dividing the wall. Behind each was a display case. She could not quite see what was in them, because they appeared painted. But she could see enough. Perhaps a third of each case was displayed vertically, obvious despite the lack of depth. The knives. The chains. The whips. Those were the only things she recognized. Others were too foreign. She though she saw the ends of candles. She might see a coil of rope. But the angle was wrong. She was guessing. But she could see enough. She could imagine what else was in the cases.
She never heard him move, she was so entranced by the sight. Suddenly he was behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, his mouth whispering into her ear. “We have weeks yet, Karen.”
She could feel her heart hammering in her chest. Weeks. Weeks of learning what was in the cases. Weeks of…
“I’ll leave you to think on it.”
Oh, yes. His next meal would definitely taste of anticipation.
The lash struck with the full force of his arm behind it. She wanted to cry out, but she knew, from the activities of the last hour, that if she made any noise the pain would only last longer. If she remained quiet he would move on. He would start the follow up. Just as she had hoped, she was rewarded for her silence. She felt his breath over top the welt, felt his tongue caressing her hypersensitive flesh. Then his hands began to roam. The shudders that ran through her were the most acute of the evening. Nerves raw from whip marks were now gently caressed, sending waves of sensation the like of which she never imagined.
It had started perhaps an hour ago. He had come into the room to find her still standing were he had left her. After telling her to sit down he had walked over to one of the manacled walls and drawn out the frame. It was taller than either of them, with leather ties to hold the person upright. It was the exact color of the wall, and so had been invisible. Looking at it gave her a headache. Were none of the walls solid? She had leaned on all of them, skinned her knuckles on a few spots, but he reached through them like empty air and emerged with things like this. It was crazy. Then he motioned for her to join him.
She was tied in place in a matter of seconds, hardly having time to wonder what would happen. When she saw him pick up the whip, her heart nearly sputtered. “What…?”
But he motioned for her to be quiet. And she was. Until the first stroke fell.
It had not been much. A simple lash across the back. But it hurt. It hurt so much compared to anything she had imagined. She screamed, a raw, angry noise. Then he struck again. And again. She thought her throat would go raw when she felt his hand on her shoulder, handle of the whip still clutched in his fist.
“Do you want me to keep going?” His voice was a velvety purr.
No. She shook her head. “No.” Her voice sounded like a plea.
“Then stop making noise.”
He struck again, across her rump this time. Again she screamed, but at the second stroke managed to hold the sound in. Bracing herself for a third stroke she yelped when she felt his tongue lick along previous marks. Slow, gentle movements, showing her in the simplest way how very tender her skin now was. She heard herself moan. Then he returned to the whip.
It had been that way for most of the hour, alternating between whip strokes that made her knees want to buckle and gentle caresses that drove her insane. No inch of flesh had been spared either type of attention. The only mercy that had been shown lay in the fact that caresses outnumber strokes… if she remained quiet.
It was after that first hour that she felt him begin to feed. She assumed that was what it was. Tiny wisps of electricity reached out like tendrils, caressing against her as she moaned. If she closed her eyes she could envision exactly where they were, reaching out from him to embrace her. A thousand arms reaching for her, but only barely brushing the surface. But where each tendril connected… oh, the sensation. She felt alive in those moments of contact. Alive and so aroused that she might go mad. Through it all she felt the whip, the fingers, the press of his body against hers, the feel of his tongue, of his teeth. She had no sense of time any more. No sense of place. She had become raw need. She needed him like nothing she had ever imagined needing in her life. She needed him, and so she reached for him. She reached, but her arms were bound, so she did not use her arms. She used her mind and she reached… and she fed.
The moment she touched him was like an explosion. She felt power flood into her, trying to drown her. She fought to stay in control, to stay above the torrent, but the flood was in her mind. How do you keep your soul from drowning? She fought, pulling herself up, pulling her mind to safety, but through it all she could feel him. Feel his terror. Taste it. She had no idea what she had done… but he did. He knew, and was terrified, and she had no way to stop it.
Karen woke lying on the floor. She felt like she had been struck by lightning. She felt like it was still coursing through her. Twisting and stretching as she rose, she walked to one of the mirrors. Something had happened. She knew something had happened, but she could not remember what. Her wrists were bruised, the skin torn, but not bleeding. Why were her wrists hurt? Then she looked at her reflection.
A maelstrom stared back at her. Red the color of blood, green more vivid than spring, blue of night, yellow as rich as gold, and black darker than shadow swirled in her eyes. Swirled and spiraled, each color trying and failing to swallow the others. Staring into those eyes, those far from human eyes, she remembered. Remembering, she looked at the rest of the room.
The frame still stood in the center, though it was bent. The ties had been torn loose from the metal. She remembered feeling like she was thrashing. Struggling to stay above the flood of power. Had she really been that strong? Then she looked further into the room. At Alan. At what was left of him. A life-size statue stood just behind the frame, styled to look like it was cringing, terrified of what was before it. It was not close enough to touch the frame, but rather looked like it had been thrown backward. Thrown, but robbed of the ability to flee any farther. Karen walked over to the statue and let her hand gently trace its face. A solid alabaster statue with onyx eyes. Collapsing to the floor, she cried.
It might have been days before she noticed it. It was probably only hours. The storm inside her had calmed. Her hair no longer stood on end. Her breathing was almost normal, save when she again began to cry. The marble beneath her feet felt cold and lifeless. As lifeless as the statue she leaned against to cry. She had yet to attempted leaving the room. It wasn’t important. Nothing was important any more. She had killed him. She loved him, and she thought he cared about her as well, and in return she had killed him. Not just killed him, but filled him with such terror the moment before he died that it must have been agony. And now she was all alone.
Then she felt it. A pulse. A tiny beating ball of energy deep within her. Not the storm, but something much more structured. Something made. Barely daring to breath, she looked inward, looked more closely at the spark. Studied it until she was certain. Then nearly screamed for joy.
He was alive! She was sure he was alive. He just wasn’t… in… anymore. She had pulled him free of whatever held him to his body. All she needed to do was put him back. All she needed to do… She felt her knees try to give way again. She had absolutely no idea how to put him back, and no idea what the consequences would be if she did it wrong.
She tried for hours. She tried moving the spark into her hands and placing it against his lips. She tried lower. She tried moving the spark to her mouth and trying to breath it into him. Trying to kiss the statue felt wrong, but also felt closer than anything else she had tried. She could only hope that when she found the right idea she would know it. She even tried opening herself to another storm, pulling all of the magic out of everything in the room, out of every wall and mirror, and tried to pour that into him, to try to give the spark soil to anchor in. All of it did nothing. In the end she lay on the floor, exhausted, terrified, and heartbroken. Somewhere in the storm she had lost him. She was almost certain that it would work… but he was obviously not alive again. She failed, and she lost him. Again. And now she truly was alone.
Now she could also see the exit.
Dragging herself to her feet, she forced herself to walk away. To walk up the stairs and into the life she left behind. If she had understood Alan correctly, this room must connect to his apartment. Somewhere in his apartment was a toilet, and she felt like being thoroughly sick.
Alan’s first thought was panic. Mage! How could he have been so stupid? Feeling what she was now, as she destroyed him, it was obviously that she had been a mage. If he had only been watching he would have seen. But it was too late. She was destroying him and…
His second thought was Why aren’t I dead? He remembered the feel of her contacting with him, of her beginning the drain that would rip him free from his husk. He remembered trying to throw himself away from her even as he felt his consciousness ripped loose. Then he was here. He knew there was a gap in time, but that made no sense. Just as his still being alive made no sense. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
The room was a mess. Every illusion that he had ever placed on it was gone. The walls were obvious, but now also the warmth was gone. The room was easily ten feet further across, now that it had its true depth. The mirrors were shown to be polished steel. The marble was treated concrete. The curtains were no longer matching rich red drapes, but tattered, faded, moth-eaten cloths hung from poles. They did not even match. It took him a moment to realize what the devastation meant. It meant she had not stopped at consuming him. She had kept going, draining the room dry. With that much power, with that much raw energy, she could do anything. She could… He didn’t want to think about what she could do. Refused to think what a mage would do. What the most powerful mage he had ever encountered would do. He had felt that when she killed him. Felt how powerful she was.
Why are you still alive? The thought echoed within him. He should be dead. By all rights, especially looking at this room, he should be dead. There was no way she should have had enough control to tear the room apart, but leave him untouched. But he had not been untouched. He had felt himself torn loose. The missing time. What could she have done with all that power? He cleared the stairs and was in his old bedroom before he realized that he had taken a step.
The bed was rumpled. Sheets thrown everywhere. He could smell her scent heavy in the air. He was almost certain that she was still in the apartment. But again, that made no sense. If she thought he was dead, she should have set out to pave her bloody path through the world straight away. If she thought he was still alive to hunt her, she should have run. She should not have lain on his bed crying. He could smell the hormones lingering in the air. He was certain she had been crying. Then he heard the tap turn on in the bathroom. He was in the doorway within the second, staring at her.
She was sitting on the side of the tub. She looked half dead. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, red rimmed all around. She was covered in sweat. Her hair was a single mass of tangle. When she turned her face to look at him, the dull, lost expression in her eyes tore at his heart.
“What are you doing?” he asked, desperately trying to make some sense of her expression. No surprise. No anger. No fear.
“I’m drawing a bath.” She blinked at him, expression hazy. “You’re dead. I left the body downstairs.”
So she knew she killed him. He was about to retort, when he suddenly understood. The glazed eyes. The lost expression. How many hallucinations had she been having since her first real casting? How many delusions? She didn’t think he was real… “Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t mean to!” She dropped her head into her hands, tears flowing again.
Alan took a step forward without think, reached for her, almost touching her before he remembered. If he was an illusion, he could not touch her. If she realized he was really there she… He did not know what she would do. He needed to find out. She sat down opposite her.
Karen took a deep breath, sobbing. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just wanted to taste… I wanted to taste… you. I wanted to feel what you were feeling. And then once it started I couldn’t turn it off! And then you were dead. And then I was so scared. I was so scared and so alone.
“Then I thought I felt you. And so I tried to put you back. I tried and I tried and I put everything I could find into it, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough and I failed. And I’m alone, and the spark in gone, and I can’t do this. I can’t face this… I can’t…”
The bath had nearly filled while Karen spoke, while Alan absorbed what she said. Slowly, he reached over and turned off the water. She didn’t notice. “What if you hadn’t lost the spark? What would you have done then?”
She lifted her head, staring into his eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. God, I’ve thought about it. Thought about what you said about how you were made. I can’t do it. Even if you were still here, I don’t think I could do it. I can’t kill anyone. Not like that. Not in cold blood. Not just to have you again.” She hiccupped, then let her gaze drift away. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You died. I lost the spark…”
“Karen.”
She looked up at him again, drawn to his eyes.
“Would you like to hear a story Karen?” He wove a compulsion into his voice. He had to pull her back, had to drag her away from wherever her mind was wondering. “Have you ever wondered why every story you read has wizards using incantations and rituals?”
She shook her head, in a trance.
“There are two reasons. The first is very simple. Patterns help to magnify power. By giving the spell a pattern you can caste the same spell using far less energy. The same goes for rituals. But there is another reason. Would you like to know what it is?”
Nod.
“Timing. Not just coordinating when you do things, but basic timing. Not every spell is instantaneous. If you cast a spell, and it will take two hours to complete, can you imagine how mad the person could drive themselves, wondering if it work? Better to have the spell take two hours to recite. Then you are distracted. You don’t have to think about the spell and whether or not it worked. All you need to do is perform the ritual.” He paused for breath, for the final part to sink in. “It takes a six hours to perform the ritual to create an incubus. Six hours from dawn until dusk, on the night when the moon rules the year. Six hours from the moment the spark is anchored in its home until it has sunken its roots deep enough to awaken.”
Karen eyes grew wide as all drowsiness left her. “You’re real.” The words were a whisper. A prayer.
“I’m real.” He reached out a hand and brushed a tear off her cheek.
“Do you hate me?”
A soft mirthless laugh escaped him. “I’m not sure that I’m any more capable of hating you than you are of hating me.”
“I killed you.”
“You brought me back.” He smiled. “And I tried to kill you first.”
“Now what?”
In answer, he opened his arms. Hesitantly she shifted, sliding into his lap, into his arms. As he held her, rocking her, letting his hand stroke reassuringly down her back, he was haunted by knowledge.
He had been right after all. There were still mages in the world. And he had been wrong. They were not all like his creator. They were not all monsters. Or at least one of them wasn’t. One of them was Karen.