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The First Evil Ch. 01

By: Oximoron



"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." -- Mal Pancoast

*

The sharp evergreen smell of the gloss medium I'd made fills my nose. Making painting medium using crystals to make varnish is ridiculously time consuming but nothing smells quite like fresh, pungent but with hints of pine. It was the way I'd learned to do it over sixty years ago and the process soothed me. The thick paint smooths over the canvas with a sigh. I love the sensuous stroke of the brush across the naked cotton. I looked at my model and hesitated.

Any artist will tell you that every flaw on a model's body is a decision, and not an easy one. I used to feel that you had to fall a little in love with everyone you drew or painted to truly capture them. I don't love the personality, but the graceful arching lines of them, the texture and shine of their skin that I alone can appreciate. I doubted any lover had ever paid as close attention as I did. Does any spouse know exactly how sunlight caresses the arch of a collar bone or how their fingers curl lying over a hip just so?

My present model is an interesting juxtaposition of unparalleled beauty and almost monstrous defect. Raven black hair falls in thick waves to her waist but is thinned in places that reveal angry blistered scalp in others. Skin like crushed pearls sprinkled over satin glows starkly next to patches of seeping blistered rashes. The body beneath the disgusting rash would be as perfect as any comic book heroine's but for the obvious signs of starvation and want. The proverbial "they" say you can never be too rich or too skinny, they wouldn't say that looking at the emaciated beauty being captured by oil and pigment on my canvas.

Most startling of all are her eyes, which are almost exactly the same shade as the Alizarin Crimson curling at the corner of my palette. They have highlights of a red color so pure that paint is doomed to fail to fully capture its clarity and depth. Those eyes are the subject of countless speculation. It's the reason I keep subjecting myself to this level of scrutiny by the scarlet hued orbs. Most people who saw my paintings assume I've taken artistic license to further the mood of the painting. 

When I had first captured those eyes on canvas, the body had been that of a child with only the barest blush of womanhood hinting at the luscious body that graced later canvases. Her eyes then had glowed with hate, anger and just a hint of vulnerability. Looking out from that tiny beautiful face while wearing a dirty first communion dress, the painting had been compelling. Even I could acknowledge that without ego. My career as an artist had begun with that painting, and still half a century later they came in droves to see the newest Aurora Sloane shows.

I just couldn't love this model as I had others despite what she has done for my career. I've tried for decades to relish the lines and curves, the smooth white skin, and the sultry curling hair, but I can't. The eyes staring back at me from the mirror reflect all the pain that fickle beauty has brought to my life. 

I've always thought it the height of irony that what was a horror to my personal life could be marketed into a success in my professional one. No one knows that it is me who is the model, that those red eyes are not artistic license and are really, only the tip of the ice-burg.

If they did they'd come in droves to stick me in a lab somewhere.

I spent most of my life ditching foster homes and orphanages to avoid people's notice. Evading authority had become my first mastery, well before the first teacher had corrected my hand holding a pencil. For all the current malady affecting me I looked to be about a quarter of my age and anyone who's ever watched five minutes of commercials in America knows how youth obsessed we all are. They all are. Whatever.

I don't know why I am the way I am, seeming to age about one year for every three that passes, since my parents are a total mystery. They could be dead for all I know about them. I used to have crazy recurring dreams about a beautiful blonde woman with long hair and bright eyes who called herself my mother, but the rest was nonsense with vampires and werewolves. When I'd told the sisters at my first orphanage they tried to "exorcise" the demons plaguing me. They called it exorcism. I called it getting the shit beat out of me for a week straight before I finally took off. It took me a few more years before I realized my dreams weren't the only reason why the nuns had feared me. I only wished they had spent more time fearing for me instead.

The relative innocence of my childhood shattered when I realized I wasn't growing up like everyone around me and that I was trapped as a child for three times as long. When you're in the foster care system, turning eighteen is like the golden ring at the end of a race through chummed, shark infested waters. I hadn't looked even close to eighteen until I was almost fifty. I'd learned early, not long after the nuns, to be hateful and unpleasant so people not only don't care when you leave, but they also don't think of you when you're gone. I'd become a master of blending in with the furniture and if anyone had the audacity to notice me or try any pleasantries I was good at discouraging that.

My freaky red eyes don't help so much with the blending thing but I'd "grown up" well before the time of colored contacts so just shunning people had been my choice. Some of my "families" saw my eyes and watched me too closely. They began putting some of the pieces together and figured out, at least, that I didn't want any special notice. I'd never had anyone discover my secrets who didn't take advantage in some way. I know from grim personal experience exactly how a child without the protection of caring family can be taken advantage of. My last foster father once said my eyes are exactly the color of blood splashed across a white floor. He'd been a butcher so I guess he'd know. When I'd stabbed him five years later after he had tied me to a bed so he and four of his best buddies could rape me, again, I'd sort of agreed with him.

I painted myself for the first time after that night, needing desperately to exorcise those demons in a real way. When the painting was finished, I felt better than I had in my whole shitty life before then. I had found my calling.

No one in the whole world was more shocked than I when my art teacher showed it to a gallery-owner friend who then sold it for five thousand dollars. That money changed my life. My paintings go for way more now of course, and they are far from my only income, but painting is my only solace; the only time the world truly sees me. Not that they know it, but I do and that means something. It has to.

I try and capture the maudlin look on my face with my brush and suddenly don't feel like painting. The drawback of the fickle artistic temperament, I guess. I want pensive, haunted eyes so I think of my fucked up life and now I don't want to paint; I want to drink. I clicked off the lights and grabbed the remote to turn on my stereo. I had to flip through four different channels until something with the right vibe came on. 

I stand and dance over to my discarded robe, moving to Eagle-Eye Cherry's "Save Tonight" as I slide the silky fabric over the red patches that are beginning to itch as they heal.

"'Fight the break of dawn, come tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be gone'," I sang. Badly. I can't carry a tune farther than the shower doors but when you spend seventy percent of your time alone you get to appreciate the sound of your own voice.

"Ugh," I said as I shook out my arms and legs, trying to dispel the persistent introspective gloom along with the pins and needles of blood rushing to muscles that had been held statue-still for too long; far longer than the twenty minutes a so-called professional model will permit.

I felt icky, like my memories had left a greasy residue under my skin. I don't think I'd left the house in at least three days. Being shut in too long with just the smell of turpentine and my thoughts circling like vultures makes Rory a dull girl, I think to myself. I suddenly need to be out among the teeming masses so I can forget about... everything, for a little while at least. Though Philadelphia at one in the morning doesn't exactly teem, I'll take what I can get.

Philly may be all "I can compete with New York and L.A. for culture and night life," but everyone who lives here knows that the city's not that far away from its puritanical roots. Or Quaker roots, if you want to be technical. In New York, you can eat a sit-down dinner or go to a movie at 2 am. In Philly, not so much. I swear our politicians see William Penn on top of City Hall and think he's going to come down and kick their asses personally for allowing the sale of alcohol after three in the morning or (gasp) on a Sunday. I say that if you want to drink after 3 am on a Sunday, the devil has already won. What more have you got to lose by not having to drive to another state to do it?

Still it's like no other city in the world. I'm sure everyone says that about the place that feels like home, and I can trot out more than my fair share of the guided tour. There's a huge amount of history and culture here plus the architecture that really sets it apart. But Philly has a clean homey feel that's just not present in the other top five big American cities. I've lived in them all for some period of time, but I keep coming back here. For the most part, the people are incredibly kind and caring here. I, of course, account for the instances of random douchebaggery that happen everywhere, but I truly feel that Philly has a good heart. It doesn't mean, however, that I'm about to go out by myself this late at night. The dim twisting cobbled streets around my house are like Rapes R' Us and I've shopped there at least one time too many.

I tuned my ear back to the radio; Kris Allen's "Live Like We're Dying" was playing and Nickelback's "If Today Was Your Last Day" had just been on. You'd think the radio was trying to tell me something, as if it's officially time to go out and seize some opportunity. I believe very strongly in listening to the subtle signs life sends your way. Now all I need is my phone.

"Hey chick, I have received a message from the radio gods who have decreed that tonight is for partying like it's twenty-ninety-nine," I say, completely ignoring the disgruntlement on the other end of the line.

"You know hearing imaginary voices is a sign of Schizophrenia; besides, I thought you said you were painting," the voice retorted. It still sounded groggy but almost ten years in an urban ER had trained Juliet Martin to be reasonably coherent even while trying to cling to sleep.

"I am painting, or I was before I got all introspective and gloomy so now I want to go out. We could hit Voyeur for an hour and then follow the bouncers to the after party?" I plead. Some might call it a whine but they would be mistaken, as I don't whine. I continued pleading, "I haven't left the house for three days I'm starting to regret living in the age of technology. If I couldn't sustain myself from my computer, I'd have to leave even if only to restock the essentials at least once every other day."

"I asked about your painting, not because I suddenly got amnesia about your defective personality or your questionable personal habits, but because I thought you were going out in the sun for this whole series. Some sort of artistic claptrap about the juxtaposition of blah, blah, blah, social commentary."

I looked down at my arms where my robe had fallen back.

"Haven't you been baking in the sun for the past couple of days to blister for the 'realism'?" I could picture her doing the air quotes to an empty room.

"I mean, what kind of artist can't use their imagination? And you know I'd rather go to Woody's or even Sisters than Voyeur."

"What kind of twenty-something still uses words like claptrap?" I said giving her snark for snark to camouflage not answering her question as the angry red marks faded before my eyes. I hadn't told her that I had been healing more quickly recently, because then she would assume that I might be getting better. I wasn't, my symptoms were just changing.

I didn't tell her that where it used to take the sun all day to give me blisters it now only took minutes of exposure to give me what, on a normal person, would require an emergency room visit. I was healing faster but I could handle less time in the sun before there were more severe consequences. I have an hour max before it feels like someone set me on fire. I only have to open my curtains for fifteen minutes to get the effect I needed for my paintings and I had to add low-level UV spots to maintain the affect after the sunset. If I tell her, she'll want to do whole battery of tests to see how my condition is changing and I'm just not really up for all that. More than that, I just don't want her to be optimistic about my chances right now.

We met when I got hauled unconscious into the ER during her residency. She looked me over and seemed to know something no other doctor I'd ever seen knew because she gave me a shot of something and a transfusion. Instead of dying like I was expecting, I'd felt better than I ever had. We've been friends ever since. We both still have our secrets: she doesn't know how old I am really and I don't know how she knew how to help me (or even what was in that first syringe), but we kept them while hanging out and having girl-time. Girl-time being the only time I have since I don't really like to be touched intentionally by men. I don't like being touched unintentionally, either, but I refrain from maiming those men. Barely.

She seemed to take my continued silence for hurt or anger because I could hear her scrambling out of bed as she said, "Look, you know I'll go out with you even if you do look like a rotten cherry tomato, but just remember how much you hate attention, and how gay men can spot a flaw at fifty paces." I could now hear the faint screech of wire hangers sliding over a metal closet bar and I knew I'd won.

"Yes, I do seem to recall something like that from that time you wore pleather," I joked, smothering laughter as she grumbled about misleading sales clerks. "I'm good, just make sure you don't slut it up too much. That draws attention too in case you haven't noticed."

I laughed when she called me a wench and we agreed to meet at her place in twenty. I wander over to my closet and flip past all of the too revealing clothes Jules had gotten for me in her quest to help me "reclaim my sexuality." As if I would ever wear a corset where anyone but me would ever see it thus defeating its entire purpose.

I always get dressed in front of the mirror I use for my paintings since it shows my entire standing body without having to be on the other side of the room. I need to make sure that there really are no marks or scars showing, though all the skin I could see was pink and healed. I pulled on pewter grey leather pants with a subtle metallic sheen and a black silk tee with horizontal slits climbing the entire back at one-inch intervals.

I really loved this shirt when I first bought it for the classy/sexy/punk vibe it has. Now that sexy part is coming back to bite me, because in the last few weeks I've probably lost about twenty pounds. I tug the shirt down over my thighs so it doesn't bunch too much around my waist. Trying for the perfect slouchy balance because if I pull it down too much it will cling to every new curve and hollow. The very last thing I need is for Jules to see me looking like one of those anorexic stick figures that are so trendy right now. I twist in the mirror, looking at my back peeking through the shirt. Nope, no marks there and not too unbearably skinny. 

I turn around and do a shimmy in front of the mirror to check the jiggle factor. I had been very blessed by the bosom fairy and this shirt wasn't exactly bra friendly. All the weight I've lost has brought my breasts down to an almost reasonable level. Now the profile. Ok, well at least out of the porn-star realm. The boys at the club will certainly still appreciate them.

Ok quick comment: I don't quite understand the gay male obsession with a perfect female form. Gay men will gush over a pretty woman or a stacked one sometimes even more than a straight guy. You'd think they wouldn't care either way, but most gay men seem to really appreciate a nicely feminine shape.

Non-sequitur aside, I need to assess not how I look but how my outfit conceals my flaws. I stared at the woman standing in the mirror and tried to see her like Jules would, and realized I looked like exactly what I was: a woman living her last days. My skin, normally pale, was now slightly grey and there were deep purple circles under my eyes. I could probably cover that with makeup but I still noticeably lost weight since she last saw me. I don't know exactly what's wrong with me. 

I'm just an assorted collection of random symptoms that add up to nothing but will probably lead to my death. Here's my disease in a nutshell. There's whatever is up with how I age and I'm extremely photosensitive, even more so now. I do seem to heal significantly faster than the average person, and only the worst wounds scar my skin. I have trouble processing certain organic proteins, which is basically a fancy way of saying that I can't eat a lot of different foods. I have a slightly enlarged heart but low blood pressure and some slight hardening to my bones which makes me feel my actual age most of the time with the stiffness it causes. 

A doctor more than fifty years ago had named it Achenbach Syndrome, after himself of course. I'd come to his notice through an orphanage and had let him run weeks of testing hoping for answers that had never come. When I realized he was far more interested in the progression of a disease he could make his career on than actually saving my life, I ran. Since then I've had four heart attacks with no warning signs. Only hope and modern technology kept me sort-of-alive long enough for help to revive me.

Now to add insult to injury, it's getting pretty hard to eat. I usually have to stick to a special diet but even that hasn't been staying down lately. The longer I go without any real intake of calories the weaker and thinner I get and the harder it is to eat. I've seen other people as sick as I am waste away simply due to lack of information but I won't risk being exploited again to learn anything new. I'm coming to the end of my run, which is fine, and has been since the second heart attack more than five years ago when I met Jules.

I've had a long and good life; at least it's been good recently. I'm somewhere near eighty years old, give or take a decade. The first dates I ever wrote were during the thirties and I was pretty coherent then, however, my life hasn't made it easy to plot a timeline. I don't know my birthday so I used to just celebrate New Years extra hard. Now I'm tired and achy most of the time. I have a few really good friends who'll care that I die and think of me from time to time when I'm gone and I've had a career that will ensure my immortality. It's more than most people have and far, far more than I ever expected.

I expertly cover the worst evidence of ill health with make-up. I glance at myself in the big mirror one last time, fluff my hair over some of the spots that are still a little thin and pause, noticing the orange pill bottle sitting on the night stand behind me. Shit, I hadn't taken a pill today. I haven't felt any need to but I'm still supposed to take one once a day, like an aspirin regimen for preventative care. But I want to go out and some times, more often lately, they make me feel woozy and weird. I don't want to waste my last days feeling like that or stuck in my house, not for the ambiguous promise of more time. More time for what? Exactly.

The First Evil Ch. 02



I look around the diner with its scarred, pealing beige linoleum and Formica, its clouded chrome edging and vinyl barstools. Normally, I love the faded vintage quality of this place. Normally, the three old ladies who gossip behind the fluted glass desert covers wrap me in nostalgic memories. Normally, the food is welcome and astonishingly good for such a small, forgotten location. 

Today is not normal.

The smell of generations of deep-fried food blended with the stiff smell of Aquanet surrounding the waitresses and the too-ripe body odor of the man sitting three tables over. All I could hear was a soft whooshing sound like the inside of a shell or waves sucking at the sand on the beach. I tried to focus on Juliet like she was my anchor to reality with little luck. The room was running in streamers of color that pulsed in time with my slowing heart beat.

I'd felt fine when I first left my house. I'd felt better than fine, actually. The night air had seemed to seep into me, refreshing and energizing me. The sweet, cool smell of the rainy air simply filled me with joy. Raindrops, still clinging to branches and eaves, christened my forehead, washing away the last of my lingering malaise. The full white face of the moon seemed to share a secret smile with me as if we alone knew the mystery of this magical night. I felt justified and more at not taking my medication. Tonight was the first time since Juliet handed me the first bottle that I'd ever missed a pill, and I remember having an unfair thought that maybe she had wanted to keep me sick for some reason.

I got to her place in record time. My heart beat steadily, evenly, more so than it had in a decade. I felt like I could run forever without ever even losing my breath. Jules looked great, her strawberry hair cut into a short, pixie style and her pert body barely covered in a brief, red bubble-dress, showcasing her short but fantastic legs. 

Jules took one look at my gaunt face and immediately herded me toward our favorite diner. I went readily, feeling hungry for the first time in days, weeks if I was honest. I tried to order a steak and was vetoed by the good doctor and gotten soup instead. I ate the whole bowl and then asked if I could have a piece of the six-inch-deep lemon meringue pie that we usually split after rough shifts and bad reviews. Before the waitress could lower the chipped plate to the table, I knew I was going to throw up.

I didn't even make it all the way to the stalls before I heaved into the sink closest to the door. My insides were on fire and, when I wiped my mouth, my hand came away smeared in blood. I stared in confusion at the blood slowly draining out of the sink. Juliet skidded into the bathroom after me, in time to see me tense and heave again. Her face was ashen as she looked at how much blood was in the sink. Then she gathered her composure and Dr. Martin took over.

The doctor felt my forehead and then took my pulse against a glowing Budweiser clock as Jules looked at me frantically from behind her deep brown eyes. I could barely feel her touch as she checked me over. I didn't know how I felt about dying like this, right now. I'd made peace with this possibility, but I had plans tonight. I thought, "'life is what happens when you're busy making other plans,' not death." At least, according to John Lennon, or not considering how I'd probably butchered the quote.

I staggered back over to the table, weakly swatting at Jules's grasp. I looked down at my pie; it'd toppled over in the waitresses haste to call for help after I'd bolted for the bathroom. I picked up my fork and scooped up a mouthful before Jules or Dr. Martin could think to stop me. If I was going to die tonight I wanted to taste that pie to once more let the sweet meringue and the tart lemon dance on my tongue. I looked over at Jules, who looked torn between being my doctor and my friend, and I summoned my absolutely best smile from way down deep inside me; the one that makes me shine and captivates others completely. 

Unfortunately for me, I'm unusually beautiful, eyes notwithstanding. It is a fact I hated for the attention it brought me, despite my best efforts, but now I wanted her to see me smile and know how much I loved and cherished her friendship. It was truly my most prized possession. How nice that I would get to take it with me. 

I couldn't even hear myself speak over the sound in my ears that I finally realized was my pounding heart slowing and struggling. I reached up with shaking hands and carefully removed the dark brown contacts from my eyes and really looked at the only person who mattered to me in this world for the first time. The contacts are specially designed for my eyes, not just to cover the red but also to give me the appearance of a pupil. I looked at her petite body and her softly curling hair without the fuzzy grey dots clouding my vision and let her see my eyes truly for the first time.

It was a jarring sight for most: a larger-than-normal iris with no pupil to interrupt the deep crimson color. It wasn't even the light, almost pink/red color that albinos have but truly, the color of well-oxygenated blood ringed by a slightly darker circle of almost black. Meeting my unobstructed, direct gaze had always unnerved people and made them uncomfortable around me afterward, but I risked it now to see her. To have her see me. Confusion and shock washed her face of all its other, more urgent feelings for a moment before determination and stubbornness charged to the front. I could see the questions Jules wanted to ask but Dr. Martin tried to put her off in favor of saving my life. I decided to answer her questions instead. She had earned true answers from me.

"I was born like this over," I paused, thinking, "well, seventy years ago, I guess. I've never known my parents nor did the nuns at the first orphanage where I was found. Really, it was a convent but since the school wasn't technically part of the convent they called it an orphanage."

I was starting to babble and tried to reign in my drifting thoughts, "You can imagine what nuns in the 1940's thought of this," I said while gesturing at my face and opening my eyes really wide. Some small part of me died when she flinched a little, though she still kept her fingers on my wrist checking my pulse. 

"I ran from place to place trying to avoid anyone seeing my eyes or noticing the extra-slow aging. And... other things." I looked deeply into her eyes and decided to confide my deepest shame. "Boots, you just can't imagine the horrible things people will do when they know no one can stop them," I said as tears filled my eyes. Her eyes had crinkled at the familiar nickname even as I saw her brace for the coming horror. "I've done awful things too. I guess I'm still not the woman the nuns tried to make me since I just don't regret them and I wouldn't take them back if I could."

A pervasive numbness began to steal throughout my body, starting at my furthest extremities and creeping inward. My heart was starting to noticeably stutter and I could feel another wave of nausea crashing over me. Dr. Martin must have seen it too because a plastic trashcan was suddenly thrust beneath my pale face and I was retching into it with help from her and the smelly man. I looked down and saw that it seemed to be mostly blood again and knew I didn't have much time left.

"Shit, the ambulance is on its way Rory. Please hold on. If we can just get to Jefferson, everything will be fine. I promise," she said, staring into my eyes as if she could will my death away from me.

"Stop. Saving my life isn't the most important thing. I want, need, to tell you something. I want you to know about me so you understand how hard it was to let you in, and how much you truly do mean to me."

I paused and took a strained, shuddering breath and continued, "When I was little I had to leave behind anyone who gave a shit about me so they wouldn't notice how abnormal I am." I saw Jules shake her head in disbelief so I grabbed her face sharply with my free hand so she would look at me.

"I. Am. Eighty. Years. Old. You have to know. I've been raped. More than once, I looked like a child and it tainted my soul to know that some actual child might have suffered what I did if not for me being there already." I fought with myself to maintain eye contact.

"I've killed people who hurt me, and not in self defense, not by the definition the law provides. I've only had one other person care about me and she died twenty years ago. You and Rachel are the only real friends I've ever had and."

I paused again, tensing against the bone deep pain that followed in the wake of the numbness and said, "I love you both, so much. My real name is Aurora Sloane, and if you look in any art history book that includes the sixties forward you'll see my work. More importantly, you'll see my face, this face in my work, it'll prove that I'm at least not lying about my age."

I saw a crack in the dam of her denial then but it wasn't love or friendship that dripped from behind her barriers it was an anger bordering on hate.

"You are a liar. No one could deny themselves for that long," she snarled at me and pain entered her eyes, a far deeper pain than even my death should cause. "It would mean you were infected as a child and that's impossible. Impossible!" she screamed, but there were tears streaking down her face in scalding sheets.

I was so shocked I didn't even feel the flames consuming my skin or the lightning racing through my blood for a moment while I processed the implications of her outburst. "It can't be true," she whispered as she leaned her head against mine and wrapped her small strong arms around me. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what she was talking about, but I realized our secrets might have had more in common than I had ever imagined.

The pain was starting to overwhelm and consume me. It left no part of me unscathed. I couldn't even scream for fear that the vibration of my vocal cords would somehow increase the agony. I could feel unconsciousness looming like a bloated black cloud and at this point any respite would be welcome. I think I felt it when my heart stopped. I know I felt my last breath puff from between my lips.

Jules's wrenching sobs filled my ears but I was still selfishly happy to have known her. I was glad to have shared in some part of her life even if it had only been a brief five years. Blackness wrapped me in comforting nothingness and I felt myself drift away.

# # #

I was a thought.

I was the wind blowing through the trees and the grass growing from the earth and even the water bubbling up through a fountain of reclining classical figures, but those things don't think "I" and I do and so I was separate from them. It made me sad that I could be sad.

I was many thoughts.

I was worry about feeding a small boy with bright brown hair and an understanding smile, elation at her yes in Love Park where we met when I fell off my skateboard trying to impress her; crushing blue despair that causes your bones to ache and exhaustion to steal your will, liquor-soaked anger at her unimagined betrayal after so long and so many shared hardships, innocent wonder at the bright orange and white goldfish swimming in the new tank that was a birthday present from earlier today, the rushing ecstasy of hands and tongues and thrusting bodies.

I stopped at that. I had never experienced that. It was unfathomable that I ever could. I was separated again, almost myself, because I had experiences that were just my own.

I'd had a life, but that life was ended now.

I was a broken woman, an artist, an abused child, a patient, a stranger, a runaway, a bitch, a freak, somehow a daughter, maybe a friend, and a mystery. For all my so-called deep self-knowledge, I still didn't know what I was, but I realized that I did know who I was, who I still want to be.

I was floating.

I continued to be connected enough to the collective subconscious to see emotions like sparks of different colored candles flickering throughout the entire city. There was still enough of nature in me to feel the pink-orange light of the dawn I was named after pressing against the night. I was no longer every leaf on every tree or every blade of grass. I was becoming myself again.

I had a name.

I was Aurora Sloane. But I was still everyone and everything else too. I felt like the energy of the city flowed through me and took pieces of me with it and left other things behind instead. It was an indescribable euphoria to feel so much belonging. All of it was precious, even those darker emotions we don't like to feel. I could see from where I was how I'd needed my pain to shape me into who I was and who I needed to be. I could also see that I wasn't done experiencing pain or becoming who I needed to be.

Finally, I was Rory.

I looked out over the city and saw all the people glittering with a kaleidoscope of different emotions. All the regular people were going about their daily lives, shining their hopes and fears to the heavens. I thought about what I might have looked like down there and suddenly my focus shifted; I wasn't seeing the same faint shine but steady stronger lights. Some were like the flame in a kerosene lantern while others were like bright spotlights shooting into the sky, illuminating the night like mini suns and moons. There seemed to be less of them the more brightly they shone.

I didn't know what this meant. It was like the information was on the tip of my tongue but every time I tried to grasp it, it disappeared. I almost knew the deeper meaning and the significance of the different levels of light but I was distracted by the absence of light looming beyond the horizon. 

A pervasive darkness that was growing and seemed to be seeping from below the earth, where the lights were weakest and dimmest. I was just seeing a pattern and realizing what my new purpose should be when I sensed a presence surrounding me. It wasn't the pure white light you hear people describe in their near-death-experiences, nor was it the creeping darkness below us. It was the kind of comfort you'd feel next to the boy you'd grown up with but who wasn't related to you. I felt sort of flustered but also happy and excited at the same time. A flare of amusement surrounded me and then the feeling of contentment filled me, reminding me how we'd always known each other, how we always would. I wanted to explore the familiarity. How could I know this being that was so much more than me? How did it know me?

Are you done here? The thought was in my head but it was not my thought. I knew he didn't mean here over the city but here on earth. I'd thought I was done and that the time of choice had ceased along with my heart beat. Now, I was being asked a question. Being offered a choice I'd never expected. I remembered my life: all the pain, degradation, and crushing loneliness. I weighed it against the joy of painting and the friendship I had with Jules and her partner Rachel. I felt Juliette's hot tears splash against my cheek as I died and knew there was really only one choice right .

Suddenly I was being pulled in a direction so that I was no longer floating aimlessly but with purpose. I was approaching one of the areas of darkness though I could still feel the presence with me. A woman who appeared to be about twenty was getting dragged into an alley near the club district. She sported pretty standard club wear, nothing too over the top for Philadelphia in the fall. Not that clothes should ever be misconstrued as an invitation for violence or violation. Her face turned toward me and I flinched from the familiar horror that I could see in her eyes. I'd been there, in that place where you realize no one is going to help and this horrible thing really is going to happen to you.

A shout echoed off the bricks and distracted her attacker. A young-ish man in a leather biker jacket grabbed the assailant's shoulder and the woman jerked away from the loosened grip. The would-be rapist tried to run after her; he almost grabbed a handful of her hair when the Good Samaritan punched him in the face. He spun and landed against the side of a dumpster leaking garbage. Biker-guy turned to leave and got ten steps before the bad guy came up behind him. It looked like he punched him in the back but the pain written across his face said it was much worse than a punch. It was the first good look I got at his face and I realized he was younger than I'd thought he was.

The bad guy pulled his hand back and blood covered the end of a serrated hunting knife, probably how he'd gotten the girl into the alley in the first place. He ran off but Biker-guy was still alive, still walking but much more slowly now. His steps were stumbling. Pity and anguish were like a weight in my chest; tears burned behind eyes I no longer possessed. I floated with him urging him on and wishing I could lift his feet for him. I wished I could do anything but be an impotent witness to this awfulness.

There was a gas station just ahead; its brightness shone like a beacon. I just knew if he reached it someone would help him. 

The darkness was thick here and my hope took on a desperate edge. Someone with a cell phone would call 911 and he would be safe. He would get the help he'd so gallantly offered to someone else. He was almost at the door of the convenience store when his knees buckled, like his strength was gone between one breath and the next. I silently willed someone to come, to see him. I screamed for help with no lungs and no mouth. His chest still rose with his breaths and I could see his fingers moving as if he tried to pull himself forward those last few feet to the door.

A group of girls about sixteen years old came out of the store. The door gave a cheerful little tinkle as it opened and relief filled me that they'd come in time. The man on the ground didn't look up or try to speak. I assumed that he must have finally fallen unconscious but breath still puffed weakly from his lips. Their conversation tapered off as they saw him and I felt my heart give a glad leap. He made it. These girls would certainly have phones. Unfortunately, whether they had phones or not was irrelevant because they just stepped around him and continued off into the night.

I don't understand. How could they just walk past him? My heart felt like it was breaking. I always believed in the inherent goodness of people, the people here in Philly especially. I felt anguished tears fall from eyes I no longer had. It's not supposed to be like this. How could anyone with even a sliver of decency not stop and help another person in such obvious distress. I couldn't process this level of malicious indifference.

I stayed there for an hour as person after person walked by the prone figure. I was no longer watching to see if he was still alive, almost sure that he wasn't but not strong enough to face it for certain. The darkness grew denser around the man as each person turned their eyes away and it clung to them, the ones that pretended not to see. He'd saved that girl and now he would die because no one wanted to get involved. I couldn't bear it. I tried to get someone's attention but I wasn't really there in any physical way. One person actually took out his cell phone and I'd felt treacherous optimism rise only to be brutally murdered when he snapped a picture and continued on. 

Black anger filled me and I could see the darkness try to rise and touch me.

The being with me stopped it from reaching me. Quickly, the anger faded some and I realized how that feeling might have grown, become something evil. I realized how not helping that man had changed all these people and they would never be the same again. They'd never believe that someone would help because they hadn't and they wouldn't want to think ill of themselves. This could have been an example of how strangers can rise to the occasion. He helped her, they help him and only the bad guy suffers. Instead, each indifferent witness was as culpable in his murder as if they had handed that other man the knife and offered instruction. 




The First Evil Ch. 03



It took me a moment to truly feel myself again, the weightless sense of floating felt like it had become part of my flesh. The power from the kiss still raced through my body making my muscles tingle and my bones burn. It was as if he'd blown the cobwebs from my mind with that kiss. A lifetime of accumulated dust and debris I hadn't been aware of gone in a rush of power. The same way I was feeling the missing part of myself, the part that I could still feel now even with him gone. The place at my side where he should have been felt tender like a fresh scar but not empty, more like we'd been built to fit together but could also stand alone. The distinctive places where we fit merely giving us our own individuality instead of blending us together.  

I could think more clearly now, with the clarity and perspective as if I were still above my life looking at it from every angle. More, my body felt fantastic. None of the aches and pains and discomfort that had been with me for my entire life were present now. 

The power still circling through me seemed to be growing with every revolution, becoming part of me, finding its match in me. I hadn't been aware of any latent power in my self until now, not that I'd been delusional enough to think I'm normal. Powerful just wouldn't have been an adjective I'd associate with myself. I couldn't help but feel it now. My senses were beginning to register information as my brain searched for a reference that explained the things I'd never been able to be aware of before. The sound of footsteps muffled by layers of concrete, the cadence of breath from another room, the smell of the linoleum tiling the halls and the briny smell of soapy water in a metal tub. 

I haven't even opened my eyes and I know exactly where I am and where everything around me is. A sparkling sense of awe filled me, almost exactly the same thing I'd felt earlier looking at the waving golden fins flutter in the water. Innocent wonder. I haven't felt innocent anything in at least a decade but now the world felt new and fresh. No, I feel new and freshly able to interpret the world. Effervescent bubbles of excitement and joy tingled through me and I could feel them more deeply. I felt like a shaken champagne bottle primed to explode and it was wonderful.

A familiar scent approached me and I rack my mind to figure out what it is. I know it's another one of those things I've never been able to really identify before. Unlike some of the other things around me, this is something I know intimately, just not as intricately as I could experience it now. It hit me. Juliet's perfume and Rachel's shampoo blending with the scents that were just a part of them. Overlaying those scents a sour smell I felt I should know but couldn't place. Voices began to filter to me in words instead of being relegated to the steady hum of background noise I'd been hearing and ignoring without thought. 

M"Baby you need to just chill out. Something ... horrible happened to you tonight and I know you need to deal with it how ever you ... do. But you're sounding really crazy and I would like for you to just sit and explain to me what you're thinking," Rachel's voice was overly calm and steady with an undertone of tension, the way you'd talk down a person standing on a ledge or holding up a convenience store. It was a cop voice, good thing Rachel's a cop I guess, but I'd never heard her use it on Jules. I'm actually having a hard time remembering Rachel ever speak in anything less than indulgent tones with Jules. We've all always joked that Rachel saves all her anger for the bad guys.

B"You don't know. You don't understand, you can't," her voice sounded shattered, like she'd cried and screamed for hours and still didn't know what emotion to feel. My heart broke at her tone, even as questions arose with her words. 

Our last "conversation" came to me and I remembered what she said about infection and controlling my self. What had she meant? Will she even be happy that I'm not dead? It hurt me to think it but I wouldn't bury my head in the sand about our friendship. It's real or it isn't, and I need to know either way, no pretending that everything's ok, even though that's exactly what I want to do. I need to know what the hell is going on here.

I quickly began to do reaction and reflex tests on myself, wiggling my toes, touching my thumb and fingers together simultaneously, rotating my feet and hands and head. Yup everything still works. I still hadn't opened my eyes. I knew what I'd see; I can smell the cotton and the too strong detergent the hospital used. The white sheet that had been pulled up over my face after I'd been declared dead. I probably would have been DOA except for Dr. Martin making them try and work on me. Try to get them to perform a miracle. I knew I had been dead, I'd understood that I would be coming back to that added complication when he had asked me. But somehow seeing the sheet pulled up over my face was simply one thing too much for me to process right now.

"Please just let me do this alone. I don't need you to come with me ... you just can't understand ... you shouldn't see," desperation crept into her already anguished sounding voice. "I need to do this alone."

"And I need to stay with you right now. You know Rory was my friend too, maybe I don't want to be alone right now," her voice did seem sad but it sounded more cajoling than anything and I wondered what must Juliet look like right now to bring out the crisis management training in Rachel. 

I reached up and pulled the sheet from my face before opening my eyes. Looking straight into a light fixture directly above me.

"Fuck!!" the bright florescent light seared my eyes stabbing pain into my temple. I shut my eyes and sat up gingerly so I wasn't staring right into the light again before I slit my eyes open, carefully. Don't ask me why I'm such a dumbass that I can't make the logical leap from increased senses to increased vision and what that might mean. 

VThe world was pulsing with colors and the harsh lighting accented even the tinniest details which I couldn't help but focus on. The pain in my temples was spreading across my forehead from the sensory overload. I'd kill for the grey distortion of my contacts right now. "Jesus Christ, that hurts," my eyes were watering even as they adjusted to the brilliant intensity of my new vision. I didn't have time to appreciate the new way light was reflecting off of the dust motes or how I could see even the tiniest details of the fabric I was now clutching to my chest. Juliet and Rachel were standing not twenty feet from me with differing levels of shock coloring their faces. 

They always looked like they should be on the cover of some magazine when they were together, they were both so beautiful and such a perfect compliment for each other. Juliet with her petite pixie flawlessness, enhanced by the whimsically cut hair and the warm eyes the color of the inside of a honey comb. Rachel who stood more than six inches above her at 5'9". Her hair, a dark almost auburn brown and her blue eyes were the color of the sea in the tropics. A statuesque figure that Juliet and I had always harassed her for not dressing for completed the package. She'd never quite grown out of her tomboy phase, and could usually, when not in uniform, be found in jeans and a vintage tee shirt. Like now, only she'd added a faded college zip up to the look in deference to the cooling autumn nights. 

Juliet was still wearing the short red dress from earlier though now it was coated with blood. My blood. She recovered first and anger transformed her face so that I barely recognized her.

"What did you do?" Jules snarled at me. I guess it's my turn to have my mouth hang open in shock. As far as I knew I'd been mostly dead all day. She started looking around the narrow hall, under the gurney I was sitting on and in the janitor's closet next to her. There were more doors on the other side of me, even across from me but she was giving me a ten foot radius and she would have to breach that barrier to check anywhere else. Ice crystals crawled under my skin, numbing me, thankfully pushing back the choking lump of grief that was forming along with horrifying suspicions. I'd choose numb over emotional hemorrhage any day. Rachel finally snapped from her stupor.

"Shit! Jesus Christ, Rory," she shook her head and looked at me again, "Rory?" She sounded so confused for a second before she gathered her self together. "What the fuck is going on here? I don't understand," anger was beginning to creep into her voice incinerating the sadness and the shock. Her eyes darted between us before landing suspiciously on Jules and staying there. "You said I wouldn't understand, is this what you were talking about," she turned tortured turquoise eyes to me, "But I saw you. You were definitely, definitely dead," she was back to staring at the floor an expression of loss on her face like she didn't know what to believe, but knew the truth was going to hurt like hell. When she looked at Juliet again and there was a hardness in her eyes I'd only ever seen her direct at criminals. 

"What the fuck is going on? No more traumatized bullshit side stepping. Did you two plan this? Is this some insurance fraud type of thing?" the cop voice was back in full on mirrored aviator glasses mode, the voice you'd hear asking you to assume the position and put your hands behind your head. I was still playing catch-up trying to understand what Jules wasn't saying. So the voice didn't have the same snap-to-it for me that it did for Juliet. Maybe it wasn't that scary to me since we aren't sleeping together. Something about the person who shares your bed being angry at you always seems to make people try that much harder to fix things. She spun around to face Rachel, almost but not completely turning her back on me.

I would have laughed except for the complete and total lack of anything funny right now.

"No! God no. We didn't plan this. How could you think that? We didn't plan anything except to go out and dance. This all just happened. I don't know what set off the symptoms but none of this could possibly have been planned. At least not by me" she looked angrily at me for a moment before giving all of her attention back to Rachel. Fear filled her face, starting in her eyes and bleeding outward, stealing the tiny rush of color her anger at me had brought to her cheeks. "Rachel you can't tell anybody about ... this. I know you're sworn to protect and serve but if you talk about this you'll be painting a giant red target on your chest and I can't live with worrying about you more than I already do." Oh yeah, she definitely knows something. Something I would never have imagined could be her secret. It called too many truths into question. 

If you're told too many times that "it can't be true" you believe that. More even than your own senses, your own memories. I'd simply justified everything else around that idea- it can't be true so it isn't. Stupid. I should know better than to trust anyone more than I trust myself, but these things had been told to me when I actually was a child. I'd been as impressionable as any other kid back then. Maybe more so. 

C I had a flash of my old nightmares. A beautiful face surrounded by white blonde ringlets, covered in blood. Blood that she'd ripped from the throat of a wolf that had been a dark haired woman only moments before with her fangs. I remember the feeling of that hot blood striking my face which had been much smaller then. The memory gets interrupted by the remembered burning sting of the switch across my palms. A gift from the pious nuns of the Sisters of Charity for telling "evil, devil worshipping lies". I know, how can lies worship the devil? Silly nuns. 

It had been years since I'd tried to remember that dream, partially because of that remembered pain. I'd long since discounted it as nonsense, but maybe it wasn't. What if it was true? What if my mother is still alive or undead or whatever? Might it be possible to find her, to talk to her? Could I accept that that not only might the supernatural be real but that it might be my past? Accepting powerful invisible presences and viscous amorphous darkness is one thing, but to think that the mother I'd wondered about my whole life might be a vampire who fought werewolves ... is it just too much?

Rachel took a step in my direction, breaching the invisible bubble Juliet had established as a safe distance from me. Jules grabbed her arm and pulled her back with both hands dropping the bundled fabric she'd been holding. Anger so intense, that for a moment I saw the whole hall way bathed in red, filled me. I didn't even know what exactly I was mad about but seeing her keep Rachel, who it seemed was my only actual friend, from trying to get closer to me just tipped me over the edge I hadn't even known I was near.

I stood up and something dangerous must have been written on my face because Rachel took back that small step. A low growl filled the air, it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me.

"So what?" I hopped off the gurney and tucked the sheet more firmly under my arms ignoring the cold sticky tile beneath my bare feet. "You're both afraid of me now," I was momentarily distracted by the shape of my teeth, something I hadn't noticed before I'd tried to talk. It almost felt like I would cut my tongue if I spoke too quickly so I concentrated on my enunciation since I wanted to be clear. Both Rachel and Juliet had wary looks on their faces but there was genuine terror in Juliet's eyes. Terrified, of me? Tears gathered behind my eyes and my throat tightened. I had to look away from them for a minute, suddenly caught up in all the emotions I had been ignoring. Anger had melted some the ice protecting me from this pain and it was leaking through, beginning to overwhelm me. 

Before I curled into a ball and cried, I needed answers.

"What is it you think you have to be afraid of? You're the one who was obviously pretending at friendship. Not me. I was your friend. Everything I ever told you was the truth. I have no idea what the hell you're talking about or alluding to, but you have no reason to be scared and absolutely no right to be angry. I should be angry ... " I took a few deep breaths trying to calm my self, to quiet the hurt rage screaming inside me to make her feel as anguished and betrayed as I do right now. I barely succeeded and realized I would have to stay very calm if I was going to get any answers or even if I was going to want them. 

"You will tell me," I looked over at Rachel who still looked just confused, "both of us" I corrected, "exactly what you're talking about that Rachel has to keep secret," the anger was back instantly when she opened her mouth to interject. "And before you speak another accusation or call me a liar or do anything other than answer my questions sans snide undertone ..." I trailed off.

I didn't know what to say. Would I really hurt Juliet? Actually both of them because it's not like Rachel is just going to stand by and let me. Could I honestly fight both of my friends with this new strength and all this power still coursing through me? It certainly wouldn't be a fair fight. Can I even afford to fight fair? To finally get answers, when a lifetime of abuse and neglect had stolen the even the questions from me. Could I really hurt the only two people in the world I care about? It's hard to realize that the answer is an uncomfortable, yes. 

I don't want it to come to that. I don't want that, but I'm no longer willing to just let my life happen to me or pass me by completely. Remembering the looks on the faces of those girls as they stepped over the man bleeding to death beneath their feet was enough reason to forget my friendships. There would have been more reaction from them to seeing it on TV. Apathy so complete couldn't be anything but evil. My reason for being here, alive, right now is to find a way to combat the darkness I had seen crawling over my city. I can't selfishly save my friendship while the rest of the world goes to hell. I won't.

"You'll what? What? Hurt me? Kill me? Worse? Yeah you could always turn me. That would be a big funny ass joke wouldn't it. The vampire's daughter finally gets turned by the fledgling she's tried to save for half a decade," her tone was hatred made sound but there were tears streaming down her face. I'd thought I'd braced for it, I know I'd been expecting it.

It's just that hearing ultra rational Juliet Martin say the word Vampire in a sentence that doesn't also include the word Buffy was startling. Both Rachel and I had started at the important word in the rant. Though I can see we're going to have vastly different reactions to it. Rachel looked concerned bordering on panic but over that was a calm façade, and she was back to that talk-you-off-the-ledge voice she'd been using when they were headed down here.

"Did you say vampire, honey? You know vampires aren't real, don't you Boots?" Rachel's voice sounded more careful than I'd ever heard it. If she'd really wanted to be careful maybe she wouldn't have used the nickname I'd coined the night we met.

"What? You're back to thinking I'm crazy now huh? How do you explain Rory coming back from the fucking dead, more beautiful and with god-damned fangs? You thought I was having a breakdown when I wanted to come down here. Look what we found," her hand shot in my direction but jerked back when she realized how close to my face she'd just put her fingers, "Why don't you give my sanity the benefit of the doubt and start asking her some questions. Like who did she kill to complete her transformation. Whose life did she drink away to give herself immortality?" she was sobbing openly now. Rachel wrapped her arms around her and bent down to comfort Jules who was only about 5' 3" even in her heels. 

I rubbed my eyes. I don't like to see my friends upset. This whole thing is just one big mess and I have to at least acknowledge to myself my part in it. I might never have lied to Juliet outright but I certainly hadn't just trotted out my whole sad story for her. Even after all these years I'm still partially ashamed of some of the things that I've done. Some of the things that were done to me. More I don't want to be defined by them or pitied for them. Obviously there was a lot being suppressed by her as well. Maybe if I'd had the courage to be fully honest, way back when, part of me wouldn't hate her right now for disillusioning me about our friendship. There might actually have been a friendship. Maybe I could have given her some closure about the mother who'd obviously done the unforgivable. Maybe I could have at least been an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.

What if? What if? What if? It's a child's question, and I've learned the hard way that the world just doesn't function in the simple ways logical to a child. Wondering what might have been won't help me deal with what is right now. As much as I want to mourn for the lost possibilities, I have to live in the present, and deal with the reality of my life now. Even if that reality does include vampires and werewolves and god knows what else, strange as that sounds even in my head. 

I looked over at Rachel, with all of her training and confidence washed away by her lovers wrenching sobs. Her eyes clearly begged for any kind of help. I'd never been able to help myself what the hell was I supposed to do for her. All I could offer was the truth and I was running awfully low on facts today.

I ran my tongue over my teeth and sure enough they were sharper especially my canines. I turned my back on to them and opened the sheet. Faced toward the empty end of the hall, I did a lightning quick assessment of my body before wrapping myself back up and turning toward them again. I looked mostly the same, but better. All my scars and burns were completely gone as if they'd never been there. My skin looked even more lustrous than usual, almost glowing with good health and I had gotten back all the weight I'd lost over the last few months and more. I looked like I'd always imagined I would if I had never been stabbed, shot, burned or even missed a meal. It's incredibly disconcerting to see all the scars and marks of a lifetime washed away with no explanation. I'd never realized how I relied on them to help me recognize myself and remember my life. Not all my scars were from bad memories. Now those marks were gone and I imagine that without them and with the extra weight I would qualify as more beautiful. 




The First Evil Ch. 04



I was tumbling through a kaleidoscope of agony, horror and confusion, the last mostly because of the first two. The pain was abrupt and intense, before it I'd floated in an endless moment of absolute nothingness. Probably my minds attempt to protect me. I'd actually had time to wonder if I was dead and in limbo before the torture began. 

And God did it. My empty stomach clenched at the wrenching, awful, breath stealing feeling of my arm being wrenched from the socket. I think a couple of my ribs may have at least gotten bruised but my shoulder muscles were currently hogging all the attention. I tried to gather my scattered wits to figure out what the hell had happened. Somehow my current theory about being rundown by a shag Land Rover didn't seem all that likely.

Even the dregs of my warped sense of humor got jarred loose when I finally slammed into the stinking garbage strew ground. One moment I was staring up at a fire escape that had probably been condemned a decade ago and the next I had flipped over my own head and was standing on my feet, instinct having taken over. Apparently twenty years of living the cushy pampered life of a successful artist hadn't completely worn away the tempered edges of me, forged on the dark side of survival.

The days of my being the damsel-in-distress were long gone, washed away in some pedophiles blood spraying the walls of an alley remarkably similar to this one. I thought of him briefly as I jammed my wounded shoulder against a brick wall to put my arm back in its socket. My ribs finally screamed loud enough to get all my attention as I felt the uncomfortable pressure against my lungs increase to almost suffocating levels. Maybe I over did the wall slam a bit but it's not the kind of thing you have time to calculate. Especially when whatever had collided with me in the first place is standing between me and the open end of the alley. Growling. 

Growling? 

That's probably not a good sign.

The grayness and spots were slowly receding from the edges of my vision. Yay for me not fainting in the middle of an as yet unknown dangerous situation. Except as I looked up, somehow I'm just not sure whether I should be thankful for my enhanced vision in this situation. Staring up at a giant mythological monster in twenty-first century Philadelphia, it occurred to me that some obscuring of the details might not have been unwelcome.

It, and it was certainly the only proper pronoun, appeared to be a huge two-headed wolf. Complete with all the tooth-and-clawiness you'd expect when those three words make up a real creature standing in front of you. Yeah, I know right, over-kill much. Like it really was going to be that hard to take me out, and to add insult to injury it was roughly the size of a small bus from the tips of its noses to the end of its tail.

Silver moonlight glinted sleekly off of fur every shade between black and white with hints of chestnut thrown in to make up what could loosely be defined as gray. Bright amber eyes seemed to glow softly in the darkness and I knew that I'd have been able to perfectly identify their color even without my new natural night vision. The hair across its hackles was fluffed up standing on end and its mouths were pulled up to reveal identical sets of razor sharp teeth. 

I've seen enough nature shows to know that the show of aggression isn't great for me but so far all it seems to want to do is growl warningly at me. I edged experimentally closer toward them and not coincidentally also closer to the mouth of the alley. They moved half a step closer and the rumble somehow managed to become more menacing without actually increasing in volume.

Ok, message clear, no leaving. The ears on the head on the right twitched and I heard something that chilled me to my toes. Two sets of mismatched footsteps bringing the sound of my name being called closer. Closer to me but also closer to the danger that stood between us. One head turned fully toward the street and its paws rotated preparing to spring in that direction while the other kept its eyes trained on me. 

Ok, this definitely isn't going down like this. I refuse to be the reason something happens to my friends when this thing is obviously here for me. I searched the alley for an escape route that would bring the monster with me and away from the only family I'd ever tried to keep. That'll show me. Nope, nothing but a couple of dumpsters beside me, the decrepit fire escape above me and an unbroken brick wall behind me. 

Not that I have any idea how but I have to protect Rachel and Jukes from an angry two-headed wolf, standing at least three feet over my head, with my own unremarkable bare hands. I'm not much, but right now I'm all that might stop this thing from ripping my two friends apart like some morbid modern fairy tail. I'm not even wearing socks forget having that oh-so-convenient ax at my disposal.

You need to become the weapon.

The voice didn't make me feel like my brain was oozing out of my ears this time but it was still painful and unbearably distracting when I needed focus. I was trying to figure out a plan of attack when I realized that the words seem to have triggered a reaction in my body. As if they had been less helpful advice and more cheat code increasing my hit points. 

It felt like switches were getting flipped inside me. All of my previously extraordinary senses became indescribable. My shoulder and ribs felt tingly and warm momentarily before even the lingering ache washed away in the rush of vitality throughout my entire body. I let a moment of gratitude float away from me and was rewarded with a comforting feeling of gracious acceptance before the presence receded again.

Rachel and Jules' scents were so close now I knew they'd be in sight any moment. I guess the wolf-thing felt the same way because I could see thick ropey muscle bunching under the admittedly soft looking fur as it prepared to pounce. 

Maybe if I can get between the heads I can avoid some damage, I'll at least have control of the parts with teeth. Almost before I'd finished the thought, I was pressed against a densely furred chest with my arms wrapped tightly around two wildly thrashing necks. It reared up on its hind paws trying to slam me against the wall then the ground in its effort to remove me. The ribs felt better but I wasn't about to push my luck and having a giant wolf try to plant me in concrete is definitely that. Using my entire body as leverage I yanked down and used the creatures momentum against it to throw the thing behind me. 

Astonishingly it actually sailed over my head to slam into a dumpster. I didn't have time to question how in the hell I had even moved the damned thing because both Rachel and Jules chose that moment to step into the alley with confusion, concern and annoyance fighting for dominance on both their faces.

"Rory, what the ... hell?"

"Run! Run now. Get to the nearest police station, get armed and get home in any order that you like, but go right now," I was pushing them away from the alley while four glowing golden eyes glowered at me from the deeper darkness at the back end of the alley, rising back over my head as it lumbered to its feet. Juliet and Rachel both opened their mouths to speak but the enraged howl from the back of the alley stopped any attempt at an explanation. Rachel just grabbed Jules, tossed her across her shoulders and began to book it top speed back down the street, never looking back. Completely ignoring Jules' struggling limbs and desperate cries to at least try and help me.

Warmth filled me at her ridiculous insistence though I'm not angry with Rachel for abandoning me. I can't fight if I'm worried about them. Not if I want to win, and that was the only way it looked like I'd walk out of this alley. Besides it's actually pretty impressive of her to be able to move a struggling adult person and not seem to be significantly slowed down. Made me think I'd been underestimating her strength all these years. Maybe I should call her back. At least then I won't have to hope so hard that two heads aren't better than one.

Well good thing refusing to dwell on impossible odds is a specialty of mine right there with over coming them. What did Alice say, "I believe seven impossible things every morning before breakfast,"? Yeah well maybe I could manage at least one. I briefly considered trying to book it now that I had an exit, but how did I know that it wouldn't just go after them instead of me. Nope, I get to stay and make sure that it's momentarily incapacitated before I can run for it. At least I know I'm giving them a pretty good head start. I turned fully facing the creature now stalking toward me. It sprang at me leading with its claws and not its teeth so maybe it wasn't trying to eat me, just maim me and keep me here. This means I might have some advantage. Sort of.

I grabbed the first paw to reach me with both hands and swung the thing into the wall. Trusting that the strength that had thrown it over fifteen feet and over my head in the first place hadn't left me yet. One side of the thing smashed into the bricks sending red dust and brick shards raining to the alley floor. That side seemed disoriented but the other snapped at me grazing my shoulder with teeth the size of kitchen knives. The overly sweet coppery smell of my blood floated around me and the other head seemed to revive, sniffing the air. I let go of the limb I was gripping tightly, reached down blindly and hit the jackpot, a jagged triangle of rusty metal. 

I hefted it carefully because there didn't seem to be any one side of the jagged flaking metal that wasn't stitches and a tetanus shot waiting to happen. Any weapon is better than none, I guess. The size of the thing meant I had to use both hands to swing it and really I think I'd have preferred one of those free right now. Not that I'm exactly sure what to do with it. I missed the fighting two headed monsters day of self defense class.

The wolf lunged at me. I swung out somewhat wildly, using both hands to compensate for the imbalance of the heavy shape. The shiv caught the wolf across the chest filling the air with the sweet scent of its blood. The smell whispered sweet nothings to my new craving, trying to distract me but I fought to remain focused. The tip caught on a bone, halting my swing and causing the back end to slice open my palms as I tried to use force to continue my strike. An earsplitting screech echoed around me making both me and the monster wince. My now clawed fingers had scored the heavy metal creating that so-much-worse-than-nails-on-a-chalkboard sound. Neat, first fangs now claws. 

What's next? I looked at the expanse of fur filling my vision and decided to save that particular question for another day. 

I gritted my teeth against the pain in my hands and forced the blade forward. Hearing the thick snap of healthy bone just as two sets of teeth seemed to wrap around my entire torso and start to pull in opposite directions. Guess keep me alive time is over. Blood spurted, rushing over my hands, spilling down across my entire body, running over all my new cuts and scrapes and puncture wounds. Tingles started in my hands where my shredded palms were still pressed against the gushing wound on its chest, claws trying desperately to cling to the blood soaked fur and get some leverage against getting ripped apart. That being pretty high on my top ten list of ways not to die. 

Power rushed at me from that point of convergence where our blood mixed together. It felt almost like an echo of what I'd felt earlier during that resurrecting kiss, only this isn't coming from outside of me it's coming from me. It set off a domino effect inside so that every drop of blood that touched skin the more power spiraled out of control inside me. More blood rained down on me and every centimeter of skin that got coated felt like it got touched with a blow torch. I was caught in an endless inferno of my own growing power with now idea how to make it stop. 

It was too much. I couldn't contain the screaming agony blazing through every cell in my body. My mouth opened, probably to cry out for mercy but instead the warm spicy taste of their blood coated my tongue, filling my mouth, sliding down my throat. God was it good. 



The First Evil Ch. 05



The storm paused, inhaling. The way everyone says all wind stops just before a tornado touches down. The warmth and taste of the blood filled me. It was like eating your favorite food wearing your coziest pajamas in your favorite place in the world. I could see how vampires had become creatures of nightmare. If this is what drinking blood feels like, not many people would have the will power to stay reasonable and humane about doing it for long. It felt like I was now in the eye of a flaming hurricane of power. I could feel the blistering heat from the fiery winds swirl around me, waiting.

It hurts because you do not accept it. Accept this. This is what you asked to become, a light blazing against the darkness that approaches. That is not without price. Accept it and live.

I could see the winds pick up speed with every word he spoke and realized that his voice was power incarnate. I wanted to question what kind of being has power in the very vibrations of their spoken words but I would just be stalling. Now was not the time for any questions pertinent to the current situation. I knew the eye of the storm must pass and my decision must be made before then. I can't possibly take that much power into myself and remain unchanged at some fundamental level. I'd gotten just a small fraction of this and I was already losing control of the emotions I had kept a tight leash on for decades. 

My instincts just keep urging me to trust in the voice, trust that he is leading me down the path I told him I wanted to take. Maybe I didn't understand exactly what I had asked for but I did ask for it. I won't flinch away from getting it now because it's more than I expected it to be. I had one nostalgic moment for the life I'd been living just yesterday morning. 

Wake up, try and fail to eat anything substantial, paint, sleep, and repeat. Not a great life as far as accomplishment goes but not a miserable one either and really, that's all any reasonable person can ask for. That their misery not outweigh their contentment. 

That doesn't stop it from being boring and monotonous I'm just not one to discount my blessings and those things are safe if not exciting. I've never been the type of person to go out of my way seeking excitement. More excitement had found me than I've wanted in my long life but none had been the pleasant adventurous kind. I've been alive for more than seventy years and never had an adventure that I wanted to have. I sure know how to pick the right rabbit hole don't I?

I needed to trust in that otherness, that he was guiding me where I wanted to go. I need to trust that I actually know what I want out of this situation and out of life. I realize I've never really trusted in myself before. I had contingency plans for contingency plans because I never knew when I was going to monumentally fuck my life up with some slip. I need to feel prepared so that when the dust clears I'm not standing empty handed in the ruins that were the structure of my life. The voice couldn't have chosen a harder path for me to take. My entire sense of self that I'd scraped, stapled and glued together from the remnants of my tattered torturous adolescence was about being in control. Now I was being asked to give up that control to face my second greatest fear, the unknown. Ignorance had never been bliss in my experience.

The power began to pulse against my awareness, warning me that come-to-grips time is almost over. I need to pony up here. This power had a live-and-accept-it-or-die sort of feel and since I'd already chosen to live I'd better get to it. I focused on the subconscious barrier insulating me from the pulsating heat. It felt as if my consciousness and my physical body occupied two separate spaces and time moved differently in each of them. All but stopped in the alley I was standing in and racing inexorably by wherever my mind is. I could feel the rather alarming sensation of teeth squeezing, but not yet puncturing my torso, my skin was still getting sprinkled with fresh blood. But with my eyes squeezed shut I could see the towering manifestation of the power that I'm expected to accept and acclimate too quickly.

I think that the plan had been to let me get power in small increments. However a giant monster attacking me torched that. So now I need more of a boost than I've gotten if I'm going to do more than just barely survive this confrontation. A side benefit seems to be that the voice and I have progressed from vague feelings to whole paragraphs of conversation in just a few short hours. Yes, I know I'm stalling. Thinking about non-issues when time is running out. 

I was standing at the edge of a precipice hoping that when I jumped I would grow wings instead of becoming one with the rocks. Sometimes it's not the falling that's scary but the jumping of your own volition. I could rationalize someone just taking control but giving it up was going to be hard. I focused on the pulse of the storm. I felt my heart beat and tried to breathe so that my heart would match it. The rhythms synced and before I could third and fourth guess myself I let go. I let myself go. I yanked away my shield with both hands and felt that pulsing power move against my skin before filling me up and blowing me away.

I had expected the power to slam into me with all the force of the storming ocean against a single sandbag. But the power wasn't against me, it was me. I'd braced for the pressure of all that towering heat to try and squeeze down into my smallish body. Instead I became the wind, the heat, the velocity of motion that gives birth to power. It was neither peaceful like death nor was it painful like I'd been expecting. 

I don't quite have the words to adequately describe what it is that I'm feeling. I don't know that I will ever be able to express it no matter what means I used to do so. 

This sense of being in two places and of having two states of being all at once was both grounding and disorienting. I was no longer in a separate place from my body but I still wasn't inside it. I could feel my body but also still be spinning around it. I realized that just accepting the power wasn't enough; I was reminded that I need to be physical to be effective. Yet another crossroads in a night full of too many destiny defining choices.

I concentrated on the framework of bones, the flexing strength muscles, and the rough/soft texture of skin. I explored all my senses. First, tasting the spicy sweet blood still on my tongue. Then feeling the slippery soft fur twined around my fingers. Smelling the sharp canine musk mixing with a smell, something like cloves or incense that ran underneath it. Hearing the cadence of our harsh breaths mixing and our strong hearts beating, all in tune with each other. I saved vision for last, needing my sight to truly ground me in myself. I almost didn't want to open my eyes, though it's not as if I can balance here at this precipice forever. 

To be, Or not to be? Well that's probably the easiest question I've answered all night. Actually it may be the only question I've answered all night, it had just never occurred to me in such succinct terms before.

I opened my eyes.



The First Evil Ch. 06



It was different world than the one I'd closed them on. If I'd thought waking in the hospital had been amazing this was phenomenal. Spectacular colors shimmered from every surface, even the iridescent puddles under the dumpsters held their own unique beauty. It was indescribable. 

I try to shake myself from the vanilla sky moment I'm having by looking at the monster, but I don't see a monster. Oh the creature was still there but somehow it wasn't quite as, well, monstrous as it had seemed before. No more evil than a regular wolf is. I mean, it didn't seem less dangerous just more normal as if the existence of a creature like this one isn't as incomprehensible anymore. Bright amber eyes larger than my fists focused on me and there was a cognition there that had been absent before we'd exchanged blood. Before my power crackled around me like the threat of lightning. The stare was intent, intense. As if it, was trying to tell me something. I don't think Timmy's fallen down a well so I was going to need a little bit more information before I knew what that something was. 

I made another leap of faith and loosened my claws over the wound I'd made on its chest and could almost see the flesh knitting back together. I'm glad I decided to stop fighting before I noticed that. Talk about a psych-out. One of my self-defense teachers once told me nothing ends the fight quicker than hopelessness. I can't think of anything more poisonous to hope than not even being able to keep your attacker injured. 

The wolf sat back on its haunches and stared at me. I guess we were going to trust each other. It was so perfectly still I knew it was trying to seem non-threatening. I took a step toward the mouth of the alley. It shook both of its heads then using its nose, nudged me back to where I had been before sitting back down and staring at me. Ok I'm drawing a blank. Can't leave. I looked down at myself, my scrubs coated in blood and sticking to me wetly. Definitely can't stay. 

The red blood seemed to sparkle up at me from my clothes but I noticed there didn't seem to be any on my skin. I ran my hands over my face, then through my hair which was dry and free of any conspicuous sticky spots that might indicate that less than ten minutes ago I had been drenched in the stuff. I think I might know what that might be about but I have more pressing concerns right this moment.

"This all would be significantly easier if we could talk or if you could at least understand me," both heads nodded, one moving up and down very precisely the other more enthusiastically.

"No way. Really?" more nodding. Wow, to say this' unexpected is the understatement of the decade. 

"So you'll just nod or shake your heads and we'll figure this thing out as well as we can with yes and no questions?" more nods. It's odd that the surrealisticness of this moment would stand out amongst all the others from tonight.

"Ok then." I thought about what I wanted to know and how to go about getting that information quickly within my limitations. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where asking the right question was more important.

"Did someone send you to take me somewhere?"

Yes.

"Does that person want to hurt me?"

Yes.

"Are you allowed to let me leave here if you can't get me back there?"

No.

"Are you allowed to kill me?"

No.

"Are reinforcements coming here to see why you haven't brought me back yet?"

No. Yes.

"Maybe?"

Yes.

"Are they tracking me?"

Yes.

"Are they tracking you?"

Yes.

"Can we stop them from tracking us?" they paused and seemed to have a silent conversation with each other before turning back to me with wariness shining in their eyes.

Yes. The nods were much slower this time as if they were reluctant to answer this question. It was the first time they'd hesitated which made me feel somewhat wary too.

"Is it something I have to do or something you have to do? One nod for me two nods for you?"

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

"It's something we all have to do together?"

Yes.

"Can you show me what needs to be done?" again they seemed to be speaking to each other. Grey pink light began to fill the alley and the sounds of the city slowly waking trickled by in the whir of street sweepers and the dry hush of brooms over concrete. The wolf pushed slowly to its feet, moving very carefully toward me. I felt myself stiffen ready for an attack and they stopped. I didn't realize till then how much I had relaxed my guard during our "conversation".

"Are you going to attack me?"

No.

"Is this going to hurt?"

Yes.

"Are there any alternatives that will stop you from trying to take me somewhere I don't want to go or having someone else track me down to try and do it?"

No.

"I knew you were going to say that. Let's get it over with then, whatever you're going to do. I don't want someone to catch me out here talking to a giant monster," at the slightly offended looks I was now getting I felt compelled to add, " No offense but we're talking about human perceptions here." They seemed to accept that and almost before I could blink they were again directly in front of me. 

They'd moved faster than I could see, the wind from it just now rushing over my face. It took me quite some effort to remain still and keep breathing easily, trying not to give away how scared I suddenly was. A warm nose nuzzled each of my arms, getting under my elbows until I held both arms out before me palms facing up. Moving very slowly, obviously, to discourage me from bolting a paw bigger than my face drew a long sharp claw over my wrists. A thick line of blood that began to drip over almost immediately. Each head bent to the wrist closest to them and lapped up the blood, long pink tongues wrapping up my forearm. 

It's the weirdest sensation I've ever felt. Small sting from the cut then warm rough wet tongue that should have hurt but instead spread warmth up my entire arm. I could feel the beginnings of power stirring but not from me this time. Almost before they began it was over. They sat back and used the same claw to reopen the gash in their chest. Guess it's my turn now. 

I wish I could say that I was hesitant, that the idea of voluntarily drinking blood from an open wound was repugnant on any level. But the sweet rich smell of their blood washed over me and knowing I was being asked to drink it just pushed me over the ledge. I lapped greedily since there was no way to wrap lips or fangs around the furred expanse of muscle before me and suck like I wanted to. I could feel the power building again and I braced for more of what had happened before. Instead our combined power wrapped energy around us all. I could see, with my naked eye, their two separate but similar auras twining together, trapped into this body. Around that body was a different power that seemed to be subjugating their own, controlling them or at least all that made them more than human. Don't ask me how I even knew they were more than human.

My aura began to spread out from me instinctively pushing back that other energy and replacing it with my own. Through the connection we both had to the wolves I sensed surprise and then smug satisfaction from that other being. As if my trying to take the wolves was unexpected but welcome. There was a new resistance now and I knew that if I wasn't strong enough, that the other aura could and would engulf me too. Then I'd be under its control just as they were. There is no fear from the being at the other end of the line, no doubt about the outcome that it would be in their favor. 

Which really just pissed me off. 

In the last twenty-four hours I've died, had an out of body experience, been resurrected as a supernatural being and thrown a monster the length of a school bus around an alley like it was a tennis ball. I remembered all the pain from the two huge influxes of power I'd taken in because this being had decided to send a monster after me and got more pissed. I'm not an expert but I'd bet that the amount of power I've gained in the last six hours or so is not a trifling thing to be ignored and brushed aside as no threat. 

I visualized all that power now, moving down into me from the sky, up from the earth, filing me, surrounding me till my aura shone like the bat signal into the sky. I pictured it washing away all other ties from the wolves, wrapping them up with me and surrounding them completely. 

Their back bowed and their eyes opened wide with shock. Nothing was left of what connected them to anyone else only a strong bond between my power and theirs. I realized that a blood exchange is just that without the intent to bind. Well apparently my intent had been clear as the sound of a bell because I could see how tightly we were bound. It looked to me even worse than what I had just freed them from.

I could sort of sense things about them now, bits of information and personality coloring the energy floating between us. Like how I now knew that they were brothers who were almost a perfect complement to each other. Compliment being another way of saying exact opposite. There was more information there, waiting. But I could still feel the other being hovering near, searching for a weakness or an opening to slip back into us. I wasn't about to appease my curiosity when all of our lives or at least our freewill may be at stake. One thing I was getting pretty strongly from both of them was a strong desire to stay free from whatever is still lurking about. Glad we're finally on the same team.

I snagged that seeking tendril of power and held tight even when I felt power building on the other end to try and make me let go. It felt like holding the end of a lightning bolt, equally as real and intangible to the senses. Although it felt more like it should hurt that actually causing me any pain. I felt the hovering blood hunger change then. I wasn't a vampire, or at least I'm not just a vampire and whatever I am now wants power. However I can get it. 

I felt the moment of panic when the other felt the tidal wave of its power hit mine and just get swallowed away. No dueling back and forth in a lengthy game of one-up-manship, I don't have time for that. Besides, the rush of more power was filling me up with that warm tingly feeling. Like a heated blanket over too cold skin. It was good but it skated that line between pleasure and pain so closely that I could have gotten very distracted if I let myself. 

She, and now having tasted that much of her power I'm sure it's a she, was definitely going to take this badly. I really debated whether I should take the time to follow the trail of energy back to her. To try and end this for good right here and now before she attacks me in my sleep, but I just don't know enough about all this metaphysical stuff to be sure I can win on her turf. And even though I won the battle over the brothers, if we didn't get a move on, her army was going to win her the war. 

I looked back at the wolf, wolves, and saw all our energy swirling together. It was really quite beautiful. My energy moving through theirs in twisting patterns of color. It took me a moment to notice that were gradually sorting out into two distinct auras with mine marbling through each of theirs. It was doing what I'd wanted it to do without my conscious thought, bonding us without restriction on their will. Not infringing on their personalities or drawing on mine. Cool. I thought of how the woman had trapped the boys, kept them unchanging and static. What might that feel like for the people it was being inflicted on? And I'd been having attacks about losing control. 

I got the briefest thought that they wished they could be like they had been. Obviously not my thought. Strongly felt thoughts of theirs kept popping up in my mind like hearing an echo from the other end of a cave. There was a new pressure building now. I felt like they were thinking at me really hard, hoping I would hear them. I tried to reciprocate, thinking back at them. 

How were you? Happiness and relief filled me that I knew wasn't my own.

Separate. Two.

What?! Weren't you always like this? Together how you are now. I guess I'd been thinking that they were conjoined twins and that the control had been about them staying wolves. The grotesque cruelty they were describing... I felt nauseous. 

No. Once so long ago it seems like dream we were two, twins, but separate men. Different men. We fell in battle and this is how our enemy punished us.

Oh God. Tears stung my eyes. To be trapped like that. I had no words. No way to comprehend the violation. I didn't know what I could do to fix this but it had just jumped to the top of my list. I now regretted not going after that witch. Even the slimmest chance of victory was worth avenging this... obscenity. A tear landed on the back of my hand in a warm splash distracting me from the black spiral of my thoughts. I looked down and saw a drop of blood. I raised trembling fingertips to my cheeks and looked at them. Dark red blood stained the tips. I was crying tears of blood for the twin warriors that had been turned into a single monster. 

It only took the briefest thought about wanting them to be separate and my power just rose and began to pull their energy apart. It was getting easier to wield, my power. It wanted to do and be what I needed. There weren't't complicated spells and rituals necessary to shape it. It was like my will manifest as action. If the situation wasn't so dire I might have played with it, tested it out and seen what my current limitations are. This is too important for that. I couldn't fuck up and leave those boys as they are or worse. I have to get it more than right the very first time. 

I could see that as their energies were segregated their bodies began to pull apart like soft clay sculptures that had been pressed together. But it was taking more effort and concentration from me to continue making progress. My power really did want to give me what I wanted, I just had to know with concrete surety what that is. Everything I'd ever learned in an anatomy class was blending with all the extraneous knowledge I've gleaned just from being friends with a doctor and running through my mind at a mile a minute. 

Maybe it's my control issues but I know I'd feel more certain that I wasn't about to screw up and turn them inside out if I could have more direct control of what's happening. I remembered that feeling of becoming the wind of my own making and then I was among the paisley swirls of color moving intricately over around and trough the twins. 

The artist in me couldn't help but use what I know about the hows and whys and make it into the whats. How the sixth and seventh vertebrae form the nape of the neck. How the odd short bottom ribs and the butterfly of the hip bones create the waist. The unbelievable complexity of hands and feet. I have long believed the human body to be the most masterful bit of engineering ever. Anyone who's ever doubted the existence of a higher power hasn't ever studied the human circulatory system.

They were stuck now in some amorphous place with two separate torsos only connected at the hip and leg. Not quite as monstrous as they had been but not quite as structurally sound as they had been either. I was inside them where their hips met I could see the muscles straining as they waited for me to push them that last little bit apart. I was a little stuck on how, I was staring at a single bone and the energy was so tightly woven I didn't see how there had ever been two. 

Helplessness began to creep into my mind. I mentally shook my hands out. If I understood more about power and magic maybe this wouldn't be so hard. I could have known tons by now if I hadn't been keeping my head so far down that I'd buried it in the sand. I'd always known there was more to my condition than could possibly be explained by medical science alone. I'd just wanted peace. Maybe I should have taken the blue pill, chosen the easy way out when I'd been offered it. I had kind of surprised myself that I hadn't. 

I remembered my reason for not just moving on like I'd planned. That guy who'd been ignored, abandoned, made a spectacle of, his only reward for doing a good deed. Unlike before, I can help now. "STOP freaking out. Figure out what will help," I yelled at myself. Breath.

I went into one twin and then began to pull all of his energy toward me like I was a magnet. I visualized the energy forming the joint of the hip with the femur leading from it down to the patella and the knee. It felt like I formed his leg almost from scratch and left the other leg behind for the other twin. I hope he wouldn't end up with two left feet literally. Exhaustion began to tug at me and I wasn't sure if I had it in me to mentally form all the delicate interlocking bones of the foot and ankle without giving him a club foot. No. Not good enough to try and fail. I'm still breathing and conscious so how can I truly say I've given it my all. These men deserve nothing less than someone's all after what they'd been through. Someone should try and put things right.

It took almost everything I had but at last I was looking down at five complete toes. Triumph flowed through me faintly but couldn't seem to really reach me. It felt like unconsciousness was looming over me but worse and I realized the danger of this form is not that you could die but that you could just dissipate and fade away like you never were. I was here in an act of will and only my will is containing my consciousness outside of my body. I thought of my body now, as I had before, from my senses out and thankfully after a long struggle I opened my eyes and saw what I had freed.

They both looked like rescued drowning victims, soaked all over and heaving thick breaths through raw sounding throats. Ropes of wavy hair coiled over their fingers, over the debris of the alley floor and down their backs past their hips. The pale pre-dawn light hadn't really penetrated the alley yet but their hair seemed to be the color of polished pewter. I would have thought they were elderly except for the bodies revealed through the hair. Maybe the color is the result of stress, they had certainly been through that. Their faces were still averted, staring at the ground and hidden behind a curtain of tangled hair. I wondered if their faces would show the same ravages, if it was a ravage at all. Natural steel grey hair color isn't the oddest thing I've seen tonight.

Olive toned skin showed on their arms and legs, carved with a relief of scars that told their own brutal story of unimaginable suffering. I could already tell they were each big tall men even from their hunched position. Wiry lean muscles stretched sparsely over long limbs and broad shoulders. It looked like they hadn't eaten properly in years but had somehow managed to stay fit in spite of that. Now that their breathing was starting to even out, I could see that the outline of each vertebra and rib hadn't been caused by either the huge contractions of their diaphragms or the crouched positions they were forcing their trembling bodies into. I knew the signs of overt starvation. I'd be surprised if they ate even every other day.

In such perfect unison it made me blink they flowed backward so they were kneeling. I was still a little dizzy from before and the synchronic movement made me feel like I was seeing double so I focused on the street behind them. It wasn't helping me that they were naked, even with hands resting modestly in each of their laps. 

Despite their muscles trembling and twitching like derby winners, their innate grace was astounding. I wondered briefly what their lives had been like before their...ordeal. Not a truly adequate word to describe what had happened to them but I couldn't dwell on it enough to define it better right now. Maybe later we'd do the group therapy thing. Now, danger hadn't really passed it had just switched lanes. 




The First Evil Ch. 07



The urgency on my face must have finally gotten through the fear that had been freezing her in place. I was sort of surprised at how scared she was considering that she was a decorated police officer in one of the most crime ridden cities in the country. I actually think we maybe the reigning murder capital of the country. Go us. Maybe it was the whole supernatural aspect of it that was throwing her off her game.

She bolted in the vague direction of my house, and not a second later the twins and I joined her. I kept expecting my battered body to put up some protest, but... nope, nothing. I felt the best I ever had with none of the ache or burning that had always echoed through my muscles following strenuous activity.

I heard a wolf howl in the distance, it was maybe a mile away from us now if we were lucky. Of course why should my luck change now?

More baying and howls, closer now. I knew the sound wasn't a warning but an outpouring of the exhilarating rush of the hunt no longer able to be contained now that the chase was on. 

I was worrying myself at how much I could empathize with the creatures pursuing us. It was far too easy to imagine running with a pack, the heady excitement riding the wind. Bodies rubbing against each other literally edging you on. The hunger drives you to run faster harder, pitting you against your quarry in a life or death contest. Where you earn the right live by being physically better and mentally more acute.

The imagined sensations were both a blessing and a curse because while it was distracting me from my own escape it also reminded me that I am the hunter. Not the other way around.

There will be retribution for chasing me through my own city like some prey animal.

I threw myself forward, running faster than I ever had, and saw the buildings begin to blur. I passed Rachel and was just deciding to turn and try carrying her when she picked up speed and was again level with me. The twins were at the head and the rear of our group respectively. Both flowing forward so fast I couldn't say with perfect certainty whether their paws were actually touching the sidewalk or not.

Another excited yip joined the others behind us, somehow more enthusiastic than the previous ones. I thought they might have just found my scent or the twins', either way it was time to push it. It galled me to be running away from danger but without a better idea of what I was going up against I wouldn't just blithely put Rachel's life in danger.

How can we lose them? I thought at the twins, running too fast now to speak aloud. It almost occurred to me to wonder that I was suddenly so comfortable speaking mind to mind like this but I shoved that on the too full shelf for later and hoped everything didn't topple on me before I could deal with it properly.

Can you and your friend Run?

I assume you mean something more than what we're doing now. Look yesterday both of us thought we were normal so as far as it comes to the supernatural world treat me like a child. I know nothing about Running or Were's or Wolves or Vampires or anything else. Besides I'm getting sick of all this emphasis you guys keep putting on words that yesterday just had simple definitions. I could feel the disbelief and confusion swirling through both of them to me. No time for confusion about how, just teach.

Imagine the air at your back pushing you forward. The earth beneath your feet rebounding every step so that you almost bounce forward. Feel every breath you take pull you forward faster. Let the power flowing through you make you strong and push yourself.

It feels like falling but in the direction you want to go instead of down. Like freedom made movement.

It surprised me that the twin who was so challenging and irreverent was also the more poetic one. I could imagine everything he was describing so perfectly I could feel it. That quickly I was flowing forward like they were. Rachel began to fall behind and without thinking I reached out for her hand and let the poetry of Naughtys words flow through me to her. Apparently our long friendship could act as the same sort of connection I shared with the twins now. Who knew?

For a moment it almost seemed as if her eyes started to glow but then she smiled and I was distracted by how beautiful she could be without all the artifice she used to disguise it. Her smile was like the dawn breaking over the horizon. Like I had set her free. She shot forward ahead of me almost even with the forward twin, unbearably graceful. I wondered if I looked like that. 

Yes. Beauty and grace, shining with power.

Hey don't try and make nice now, I thought irritably but I still blushed and struggled not to turn and look at the wolf behind me who I now realize is Naughty. I forced myself to concentrate on the labyrinthine path we were creating to confuse our pursuers. I "told" the twins where we should be heading by sending them pictures of land marks and street signs in that general direction.

In my mind I was vacillating between just going to my house or getting my truck. Somehow I knew that my house wouldn't just remain untouched simply because I avoided it tonight. I decided to compromise. I would get my truck now to go pick up Juliet then we could all go back to my house. It wasn't perfect but this way at least I could grab what's most precious to me and try to hide anything too large to carry on a getaway. Eventually, I know they are going to end up at my house trying to find clues to my current whereabouts.

Tears clogged my throat as I imagined the state of my house after it had been violated. My house had always been sacrosanct. Not even Jules or Rachel had ever even been there. Oh, they both know where it is, even what it looks like, but they've never actually been inside of it. There's just too much of my life, my real life not the one I'd made up for camouflage, in every room. That house was the first thing I'd ever purchased with money I earned from my paintings.

A sharp but small nip on my calf derailed my train of thought.

Stop thinking about what might be and focus on now. Now we are trying to survive with our bodies and freewill intact. Worry about later then.

Anger hit me so fast I realized that it had never really gone anywhere merely taken a back seat, temporarily, to a stronger emotion. I almost turned to attack him when I realized it wasn't his fault that my house is going to get trashed. Or that a pack of vicious monsters were chasing us. Or that my life got so turned around in just a little bit of time that I no longer even understood what manner of creature I was. It was nice to have a convenient scapegoat to direct all of my anger at but I've never been one to just spew at who's closest. I've been on the receiving end too many times and I've never been one to simply pass along hardship.

The hungry sound of the creatures behind us had faded as we kept up the faster speed. I decided it was safe to head in the right direction when I realized we were actually already at the lot where I park my truck when I am not using it. Which, unfortunately, is most of the time. Good thing I have a contingency plan for needing it without planning to. I was already shimmying under the truck bed to get the spare key before Naughty even reached us.

"You two stay in Wolf form until we have a chance to grab Juliet and some clothes that will fit you," I was speaking out loud as much to include Rachel in the conversation as to try and steal some small iota of normalcy back.

"Actually, I was gonna suggest that if we need to get out of town, I go get Juliet, our car and some stuff. Then just meet you at your house after we're all packed up," I was formulating arguments before the sentence had even finished. I didn't want to split up. My gut was screaming for me to keep everything I cared about within arm's reach. I was already fighting off hyperventilation thinking about Juliet home by herself.

"Look, I know what I heard and I could see that those aren't normal wolves even if you weren't just speaking to them like people. If something like them is what's been chasing us then we are all taking a mini vacation far away from this city," I opened my mouth to protest again but was silenced by an authoritative upraised palm. 

"I had already arranged for both of us to take two weeks off when I thought you were dead, so unless you're going to have a spontaneous resurrection, or Jules and I suddenly stop having been your friend for five years, we still need to take that time. I for one am not trying to sit trapped in my house for that time waiting for the huffing and puffing to start," My instincts were screaming at me to say no, to stop her, to knock her unconscious and roll her in the floor mats if need be. I probably would have done just that if I couldn't hear her heart pounding and smell the fear clinging to her skin, instead I pasted a brittle smile on my face and nodded.

"Ok, yeah that sounds like a plan," I fought to keep the tremor from my voice, "You call me when you leave your house and I'll call when I leave mine that way we don't just rush past each other," I couldn't stop tears from filling my eyes. I guess even after all this I still don't have enough self-esteem to stop the words, floating amorphously at the back of my mind from escaping my lips.

"If you don't want to meet back up, that's fine," I couldn't maintain steady eye contact while I said it but I forced the words past the burning lump hovering somewhere between the pit of my stomach and the back of my throat. "Just let me know so I don't die waiting for you to come out of your house or something," I laughed nervously trying to relieve the tension looking at anything but her. She was silent for so long I thought she was trying to gather her thoughts to blow me off until white hot pain snapped my head around. My cheek throbbed with my pulse but I was almost too shocked to feel it.

"Don't you fucking ever..." a small sob bubbled up from the back of her throat, she seemed to be trying to gather her thoughts and catch her breath." I left the love of my life at our house alone to come back and help you face some giant unknown monster with nothing more than my off duty piece...," she took a shuddering breath, "I am gonna go to my house throw some shit in a bag and be at your place in fifteen minutes if I have to knock Jules unconscious and pack for her. You are going to stop being stupid. I love you, I would never abandon you," she wrapped her arms around me pulling me in for a tight hug.

I started to tense up like I normally would with this much physical contact but then I made myself relax and hug her back. She startled then squeezed tighter before letting go and racing off back down the ramp to the street. I blinked the tears from my eyes and opened the door for the twins to get in before hopping in on my side. I turned the fan on in the car to get some circulation. It felt weird not to just put the windows down in weather like this but I didn't want to leave any more of our scent around than I needed to. I was staring out at the sleeping city wondering why the air wasn't blowing and realized I hadn't actually started the car. I went to put the key in the ignition but the key kept missing the wavering keyhole.

The scarred back of a masculine hand entered my field of vision. The touch to my hand was tentative and gentle as he guided the key into the slot and turned the engine over. I raised my eyes and stared into the compassionate eyes of Nice. I shook my head and turned away. As much as I appreciate the probably-necessary concern we didn't have time for the hovering breakdown. If I could just last a few more hours then I'd be able to indulge but not till everyone is safe. I heard another ominous howl in the distance and knew we weren't there yet. But that shelf in my head was about to collapse under the weight of everything I hadn't had time to process since my miraculous resurrection.

I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the too beautiful man and the giant Wolf squeezed into my passenger seat and decided to come up with some better coping mechanisms because I don't think I've hit the bottom of the rabbit hole yet.



The First Evil Ch. 08



The twins had changed back into their fur so we could get in the front door without getting mobbed or arrested. I mean I do live in a neighborhood densely populated with homosexual men, and these two would tempt even the most moral person to crime. And it didn't help that we were two giant men and a woman with red eyes covered in blood. With my luck we would probably get gunned down. Or at least taken in for questioning. Answers anyone? Yeah, me neither. As it was I still had to bolt across the sidewalk in record speed.

I fumbled very quickly in the dirt of one of my window boxes for a rock shaped hide-a-key. I know most people don't bury it, trust me Boots and Rachel have teased me about it enough to last a lifetime. I am just that paranoid about security.

Somewhat ironic in the face of the current situation I'll admit.

I felt tears building behind my eyelids the second I was inside the door and my personal scent mingling with the now permanent scent of oil paint, old books and roses filled my nose. It was the smell of home. My home, of more than thirty years. I felt like I was trying to swallow golf balls as I reached inside my coat closet to pull out a giant black duffle.

The twins, still on four legs, moved around me tentatively as I moved lightly around the first floor, grabbing things and throwing them in my bag haphazardly. I barely looked at the small knick-knacks or the weapons I'd hidden in every room as my hands closed around them. I completely avoided the large paintings on the walls. Work I'd finished and then loved too much to sell. I was moving from room to room as fast as I could almost as if I could outrun the implications of my actions. I was almost done inventorying my life down to a bag that seemed to be shrinking by the second until I came to easily my most precious possessions.

The small glass perfume bottle with the faded pink bulb and tassel on its side that had belonged to one of one of my favorite foster mothers. It was probably forty years old now and it seemed simultaneously a forever ago and just yesterday. When I raised it to my nose I could imagine she had caught me up in a tight hug, pressing my nose against her perfumed shirt. I could feel my tenuous control beginning to fray and suddenly there were hands on my shoulders comforting me with gentle squeezes.

"We would give you a hug but since we still have no clothes we decided it might be misconstrued," it was Naughty again, I was sure of it even without turning to check dimple placement. I was charmed in spite of myself for his attempt at distracting me. But I felt like if I cracked my lips even for a smile I would start screaming and never stop.

"Is there anything we can do to help you? You break our hearts with your pain. We could try and remove anything of value from the house, hide it out of doors or ready it for travel?" Nice leaned forward so his amber gaze met mine. I smiled at his consideration but shook my head no. I wouldn't waste time doing that when we really needed to be getting away from the city. My stuff wasn't more important than everyone's life. I'd learned long ago that possessions are transient unlike death.

"No I just need you guys to play lookout while I throw my life into a bag," I put the perfume bottle into the bag along with several picture frames and two photo albums of pictures no one but me knew existed. I had at least one picture of anyone I had considered family in there, these were holding the silver and bronze of importance.

I went to the back of my closet where there was a concealed weapons closet and safe. I took out what little jewelry I had, more weapons and my run-kit, which contained a new identity, twenty grand in cash and keys to a house and car outside the city. I laid the weapons and the clothes out precisely on the bed organized by where it was going: on me, on one of the twins or into the bag.

I looked down and saw a halo of brownish dust around my feet. The blood had completely dried on the scrubs I was wearing and was now flaking off in a mostly fine powder showing every step I had taken in the room and back out into the hallway. I could see that my skin was clean somehow but I still felt dirty. I wanted a long scalding shower but settled for hastily stripping out of the stiff cloth and wiping myself down with baby wipes. I shoved the entire mess into the trash in the hall bathroom and went back into my bedroom.

I felt like I was losing track of time as the events of the last twenty-four hours began to cascade over themselves in my mind in an avalanche of information. It was like my psyche was trying to create more time to accommodate all the changes I had gone through. I needed to come to grips with all of the new realities of my life.

I am some sort of vampire, hybrid... thing. One of my best friends isn't entirely human either and the other has some mysterious connection to the paranormal world. I am metaphysically connected to two really hot werewolves. Oh and now I also hear voices and apparently have powers.

Somehow laying it all out there was giving me more of a Philip K. Dicks moment than I had been having. Shit like this just doesn't happen in real life. This morning I had a rare but explainable medical condition, sort of like Gary Coleman. Now I supposedly drink blood? I was beginning to seriously wonder if I was in a coma at Jules hospital being kept alive on respirators, dreaming all of this. I closed my eyes and concentrated on not throwing up or hyperventilating. It took me far too long to manage it.

I was bent over wearing nothing but a pair of hastily donned cotton boy-shorts, scooping sweat clothes out of a drawer when I felt a blinding wave of lust break over my head drowning me in a pool of crushing need. My body was throbbing, everything in me was driving me to mate. To fuck. To feel soft moist flesh squeezing my hard...

Abruptly the feeling receded and I could think again. I could feel slick moisture rolling down the inside of my thighs and smell the musk of my own arousal. I knew if I looked down I would be flushed and rosy probably from head to toe. I turned to look over my shoulder and saw Naughty with most of his naked body carefully hidden by the door frame studiously staring anywhere but at me. Now that I saw him I could smell him too, the almost sweet smell of amber incense made smokier with his own arousal. I followed the line of his back down over curving buttocks and fabulously muscled legs and felt my sex throb imagining the crucial part I wasn't seeing filling me. 

He hissed and I realized that he'd felt my lust for him, maybe even gotten an image of what I had pictured. I had been so caught up in my own head that I hadn't been aware of his approach on any level.

"Ummm, I was..ah.. just getting some clean clothes for all of us," I knew my face must be flaming with residual arousal and the beginnings of epic embarrassment.

"I apologize, it's just that it's been so long for my brother and I... but that is truly no excuse to disrespect you so," I felt a brief but powerful pang of disappointment that he hadn't truly wanted me, just any convenient vagina to slake his need. I saw his eyes widen a fraction of a second before he was just suddenly standing directly in front of me. Only the armful of clothes stopped our bodies from making full unimpeded contact. Heat was suddenly roaring through me again and this time I think it was purely my reaction to the searing heat I could feel coming from him, the thick musk wrapping around me consuming my senses. He leaned his head closer to me and inhaled deeply, and I don't know why but for some reason it was about the sexiest thing I'd ever seen before. I fought to keep my eyes from closing to better to savor the stimulus buffeting my senses.

"Don't for a second think that it isn't you specifically that I want. I may tease you because it's fun to feel the burn of your anger, but my brother and I were imprisoned for over a thousand years. I don't take for granted that you were the first person to not only give a shit but then you actually saved us. That tells me what kind of person you are wrapped inside that incredibly sexy package," he licked his lips and then closed his eyes as if he were savoring the remnant of a taste. "There is nothing convenient about my need for you, especially when I can't take the time to convince you that you share it," he took another deep breath and turned away using that superior speed to give me some breathing room.

Which I desperately needed.

Wow.

My brain was looping through the highlight-reel of scenes from just a moment ago. I hugged the now wrinkled bundle of clothes tighter against my chest and exhaled. Ironic laughter filled my head. And I thought I had been conflicted and confused before. If everything else had gotten shoved onto a shelf this needed to get thrown into a safe and pushed into the ocean. Hot body and tortured past aside, I do not fuck strangers. Especially ones that can make me feel their emotions without me being able to differentiate them from mine. It would smack far too closely of rape and I will be no one's victim ever again.

This could also be laid at the doorstep of my now unfamiliar body. I had looked at my self only briefly when removing the dried blood but I could tell my body no longer had the heroin chic model look I'd had before. My curves were now lush, certainly more than is currently fashionable but I was still trim and fit beneath them. Between the added weight and all my missing scars, marks, even freckles, I felt like I didn't know myself any more.

My bra barely fit over my chest. Breasts that had been bountiful before had reached comic book damsel proportions. My hair was so long now it had actually taken me quite bit of time to pull it out from beneath the scrubs. What had once tickled the small of my back was now almost to the backs of my knees. God, what must I have looked like pounding through the street covered in blood with four feet of hair waving behind me like a banner. I pulled a black bandana out and tied it around my head like a headband, my hair was still loose but now it was out of my face. Now clothes.

I was so tempted to just swathe myself from head to toe in a homogenizing jersey sweat suit but I might still have to fight and I do best in tight stretchy clothes. After much debate I finally settled on a stretchy pair of black jeans and a slouchy charcoal sweater with a long dove grey t shirt under it to lighten the effect. I pulled on knee high black Frye boots and slid a matched pair of knives against each of my calves. Then I pushed up my floppy sleeves, slid wrist sheaths into place and slid the corresponding knives against my forearms.

I kept out a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants a piece for each of the twins, in different colors of course. Those along with two matching Ruger .38 Special Revolvers for my coat and a 12 inch hunting knife in a thigh sheath for myself. Everything else got quickly shoved into my giant duffel, clothing packed tightly around the more breakable items hopefully insulating them safely from the weapons.

I hollered for boys told them where to find the sweats, went downstairs and grabbed my jacket putting the extra guns in my pockets. I didn't hear any movement from upstairs indicating the twins were dressed yet or had even gone to get the sweats from my room.

"Hey guys, did you find the clothes ok?" I had already placed my bag on the ground right by the front door when I began to creep silently back up the stairs. I knew where I had last seen Naughty headed. I wasn't worried, though I obviously should have been. It was just instinct that had me drawing a large breath in through my nose. I wasn't surprised that I could smell both of them in the air outside my room, I was though, when their delicious scent continued. 

I followed it up into my studio, which had once probably been a series of servants' quarters or maybe even children's rooms, though I had gutted it all into one open space. The floors were bare laminate to protect the original wood, splattered with paint. A large rectangle of canvas, that looked like a rejected Pollock was the only covering on the floor. There were canvases and stretching materials lining the walls and in the center of the room my lighting set up with my easel and current painting behind it.

The myriad smells coming from the room were incredibly distracting. I was so curious about which colors smelled sweet, which were sharp and which were spicy. Exploring my new senses through my work was going to be resplendent. See there might be a silver lining if only we can survive the escape.

Both men were wearing sweatpants for which I was so grateful that I didn't question where they'd gotten them as they were not the ones I'd left out. The easel was facing away from me so I could see the twins staring rapt at my newest, though still unfinished, work.

I didn't need to see the front of the canvas to know what they were seeing. The entire underpainting was done so there was no longer any blank canvas showing, but about half of it was still in broader less distinct marks. Missing a lot of the smaller details that would come later, but it was clear what I was going for and the most important imagery was there.

It was a life size painting of me kneeling against the steps of a church alter. Everywhere my skin touched the holy ground I was singed and burned badly. My hands were the worse, curled against the unforgiving stone even as the skin charred and blisters wept. Littering the ground behind me, like refuse, were the trappings of wealth, a luxurious fur, money and jewelry with gleaming gold and glittering gems. I was wearing only the barest tatters of what had once been a luxurious crimson silk designer dress. Fibers still clung to the joints of my fingers, evidence of the violent tearing. The most startling thing, or at least the thing that first caught your eye, were the wings trailing despondently behind me.

They were neither the white fluffy downy wings of angels nor the leathery bat-like wings demons are so often depicted with, but somewhere in between. The bone structure of the wing was obviously more bat than bird with a clawed appendage at the rise and a much more complex bone structure. The wings were feathered, however the plumage was more like that of a raven than a swan and each feather came to a vicious point as if the edges could slice like a blade. Those magnificent wings were as much in disarray as the rest of me with the same contact burning as well as bare patches of red angry skin showed where feathers had probably been yanked out. I had even had time to include the little dots of blood where the force had broken the skin. 

Looking at the painting I could only see all the places where the lighting or color was off or the perspective wasn't quite right. I could barely see the beauty for all the flaws.

The twins were enraptured though.

It's been a long time since I've seen someone as genuinely moved by my work as these two. Mostly my audiences consist of sycophants or critics searching for the meaning in hidden honesty. I don't think anyone has ever looked at my work, known it for truth and still been as in awe as the twins were. Nice reached his hand toward the painting, before I could say a word Naughty intertwined their fingers keeping them from the wet canvas. The gesture spoke of solidarity, as if he too had been motivated to touch and if by sharing the restraint they would keep each other in check. Or maybe I just knew that that was how he'd intended the gesture through the link we all shared.

I wanted to dismiss their feelings, we didn't have time for this. It was all just too much right now, dying, fighting with Boots, finding out about Rachel, my anger on the twins behalf, on top of the loss I felt for the potential destruction of my sanctuary. Outside the door the whole world was going to hell. Or maybe just mine was. But even through all that their reverence moved me, made me feel even more attached to them. Until just that moment I hadn't realized that one of the shelved ideas had been unbinding us at the first safe opportunity. Now I don't know if I still wanted that, it was nice to have others in all this with me. On the other hand I didn't want to be trapped forever with anyone that could or would dominate me and or manipulate my feelings. I don't know what to want any more.

I felt hysterical laughter bubble up from inside me and quickly clamped fingers over my mouth to stop it. There were tears gathering in my eyes and my throat was burning. I could actually feel myself going crazy.

Suddenly strong arms and the exotic scent of amber incense surrounded me. I could feel heartbeats on either side of me, and hands running in comforting patterns up and down my arms. 

"Shhhhh shhhh now, if we are not here when they come there is a high likely hood they will leave all relatively as they found it," somehow I just knew it was Nice. Probably because he was lying. It was a beautiful lie, a white lie as equally destructive and harmless as so many others of its kind, told to help you hide from the truth. But I try very hard not to lie to myself, to kill treacherous hope before it can destroy me more surely than any hardship of my life.

"I promise that any who defile your territory will suffer tenfold what you do for their actions," he spoke so quietly I almost missed it, it was almost as if he wasn't even saying it to me per se just making a vow of reciprocal consequence. The words rang all the more powerful because of their soft tone, and I believed them as if their truth rang inside me like a bell. I squeezed both of their hands but wrapped Naughtys words around me like a warm blanket. I let them chase away some of the hysteria and despair bubbling up inside me. I knew part of their ferocity was motivated by the idea that the painting they'd both so admired would be destroyed before it was even finished.

We walked down the stairs together, the twins having pulled on shirts at my insistence. I was as lighthearted as I had been since dying in Boot's lap, not that that was saying much. I reached for my bag only to have Nice's hand beat me there. I didn't have a chance to fight for the handle because, as I was rising from my crouched position I noticed the shadow against busy-body outside the window. Somebody was standing just inches away on the other side of the door.

A busy-body is just a bent piece of shiny metal on an arm attached to the side of the house. In the days before surveillance cameras or even peep holes people had used these to be able to see who was standing outside their doors from inside or upstairs. They are reasonably common among the older houses in Philadelphia. My house was very historical with its boot-scraper still intact, its marble steps and its Flemish Block brick pattern. 

All this extraneous information was going through my head as I saw the shadow of someone standing on my step against the shiny copper of the busy-body I had always been compelled to keep shiny and clean. Despite the enormous effort it took to keep copper from oxidizing in a place that could get almost a foot of precipitation every year. God, I just couldn't stop. It was like mental babbling, which I normally wouldn't mind but now that I had an inner audience I tried to shut it down. If not for the inner chatter I might have had time to ask if the gun in my pocket would work or if I should stick to the blades but I hesitated. 

I thought for just a split second that maybe the shadow was Rachel and I didn't want to answer the door with a gun out that I had purchased off of some bandana-ed teenager in an alley in South Philly. A gun I am pretty sure has a couple of bodies on it already. 

I hesitated to ask any questions or put any weapons in my hands or even use my now increased senses to determine the identity of the person a foot in front of my nose separated only by two and a half inches of solid oak. And because I hesitated when a body burst through the bay window at the landing behind us, raining glass and jagged leading down on us I was completely unprepared.



The First Evil Ch. 09



I dropped down to my knees, throwing my arms over my head to try and protect my face from the glass that never touched me. A wall of olive toned flesh stood between me and the razor sharp projectiles. Nice had used his body to take the brunt of the impact. His teeth were gritted against the pain I knew he must be feeling. The thin cotton covering his back wasn't nearly the protection that my leather coat would have been.

"The bullets will work but your steel knives would do better if you know how to use them," Nices voice had gone gravelly with the pain but I could see him pushing it aside and getting ready for the confrontation waiting at the top of the stairs. I had to move almost three feet of thick pewter coils of hair aside to even be able to see what was happening.

A strange Wolf in animal form landed directly behind Nice, only to have his face driven that much further into hardwood by the weight of Naughty riding his back with his hands on the back of its head. He dug both hands in under the fur of that thickly muscled jaw, his arms strained as he twisted back and to the side. The Wolf beneath him snarled and struggled but it was only moments before the hollow snap of his neck breaking echoed through the hall. 

The sound of metal and glass striking hardwood had barely faded and the intruder Wolf, who was easily two hundred pounds, was already dead. The twins had acted before I even knew there was a threat, to remove it and protect me. It made me somewhat reevaluate my ability to combat the power that had completely subjugated them for some indeterminate amount of time that, I was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion, was going to make my so-called longevity seem like a joke. It hadn't quite managed to slip my mind that the first language they'd spoken had been a rough form of Latin.

The soft sound of a ravens wings interrupted the temporary silence of moments before. All three of us turned at the sound, almost as if it were louder and more important than it should be. The first clue I had that magic might be involved. Yeah, I should probably have clued in sooner but there were a lot of thoughts going through my head right now, not the least of which was noting that despite the commotion the person blocking my door hadn't moved to intervene. Three guesses what his job was and the first two don't count. We'd just need to pick from doors number two through five for our escape. The many entrances and exit routes had been one of the reasons I had loved this house so much. I am not paranoid, it's not paranoia if it proves necessary.

The giant black bird stared menacingly down on us, waiting at the top of the stairs as the ominous sound of the packs approach filtered in through the gaping hole in the side of my house that I was trying really hard not to think about. A howl split the night and a rusty caw answered. Ok, so maybe not so much waiting at the top of the stairs as actively drawing the enemy to my doorstep. I turned to look up at Nice, not even knowing what I needed but thinking that somehow we could strategize a plan. What I got was stark unrelenting terror. The kind that incapacitates you in the face of its cause, which in this case appeared to be an eighteen inch raven perched on a jagged shard of purple glass still clinging to the window frame. 

For the first time I intentionally opened the link between all of us. I had sort of made note of how it had felt when Naughtys emotions had engulfed me and then were so quickly cut off. I got a brief confusing doubled glimpse of a cat-eyed woman in a sheer black himation standing over us before horror and agony overwhelmed every sense but hearing as her cruel laugh echoed in our ears. I could feel all the bones and muscles along the sides of our bodies shatter to dust then get ground against each other in an unnatural fusion. I screamed and fought the memory.

Between Naughty pushing and me pulling I was out in fractions of a millisecond. Nice was still frozen even internally. It took me a few moments to come back into myself, to feel my own flesh and realize that it wasn't my body that had been so tortured. Then I thought about what I'd just seen. A toga are you fucking kidding me. The information revealed by that briefest glimpse into what had happened to them caused chills to start at my center and work their way out to my extremities. I wanted to freeze in the face of the knowledge that the evil being I had fought, who was now in my house, was at least two thousand years old. And so were the twins. Well that'll show me to feel overwhelmed before I have all the information. 

My now shaking hands reached up to cradle Nices face as another series of howls and excited yips filled the air seeming to snap him out of his stupor. Somewhat. 

"Hey," his eyes looked at me but were still seeing through the horror of his memories, "Hey..." I hesitated in no way willing to call him Nice out loud. He blinked and came back to me, his eyes filling with the sweet personality that had prompted the pseudonym in the first place, a small smile flashing briefly. 

"I like that you think of me as the nice one," he ducked his chin slightly and lowered his eyelashes over his golden gaze. I tried not to let mortification actually kill me. At least the heat of my embarrassed blush chased some of the chills away. I studiously avoided looking anywhere in Naughtys general direction.

"So what do we do? Run? Fight? What? I'll follow your lead. If you think we can take them we'll fight," I won't lie, every instinct I had was to run, but I didn't know how she'd found us this time and I couldn't afford for her to follow us to my other places. I was in their heads as they considered the possibilities, many more than I would have thought of.

"Do you think you could incapacitate her? She's how they can find us with no scent trail to follow. We can fight off the first leads but if the whole pack gets here they'll just surround the house and attack in turns till they die or we do," Naughtys voice was deeper than normal. I didn't know if he'd been hurt in the fight or if he was repressing laughter at my pseudonym for him and his brother.

You will need to attack her psychically. Before, you followed our link to her, now you will need to find whatever marker she put on you in your last battle. I startled at that, I hadn't noticed anything but it's not like I'm an expert in metaphysics. I trusted that the Bronze Age warriors might have better strategies than me, who'd spent the majority of her life avoiding conflict and confrontation. 

Nice placed his warm calloused hand at the top of my sternum, his long fingers curled over my collar bone and around my neck. It felt a little like the beginnings of a choke hold but it was the only place on my chest not covered in breasts and I appreciated his courtesy for what is was. 

You must first calm your breathing and slow your heart. Take deep even breaths. He whispered the words directly into my mind and the rich timber of his voice vibrating inside me felt far too intimate, I closed my eyes to avoid his, there was too much faith in me in them. It was too much pressure, having these men rely on me to save us. What chance did I have of triumphing over an enemy they hadn't even been able to escape for thousands of years? It was too much. I tried to focus on myself and solving the immediate problem, slowing my racing pulse. I don't need to destroy her, just evade her and evasion is definitely in my skill set. 

Now imagine there is a force field of bright light all around you, as if the air an inch above your skin is made of light so bright you can see it through your closed eyelids. The timber of his voice had soothed away most of my anxiety without the force of his eyes to feed it. Through my closed eyes I could indeed see a bright light that seemed to be coming from my direction. I was tempted to peek but instinct warned me against it. 

Now imagine that light flowing through our bond to cover us. The air over all of us is made of bright pure light. I concentrated on the pulse I could feel through the hand still wrapped around my throat. It was the same rhythm beating inside my own chest and I would bet inside his brothers. I followed that sound and used the beat to pulse power through us all. He paused before "speaking" again and I would swear that his voice had taken on a note of surprise. Imagine that the light is hot though you can't burn yourself or us with this light.

I felt more than heard it when more wolves arrived. A vicious growl rent the air right next to my ear and then the floor creaked with the pressure of Naughty leaping to meet the threat and protect us. Fear and anger started to speed my pulse but then Nice began again and I focused on his deep melodic voice. 

We can't burn you or each other with this light because it is one light flowing through all of us. The light is so hot it could melt bullets fired at you, it is hotter than a lightning strike. When he mentioned lightning I could feel the light change from something bright but insubstantial into something thick and viscous, crackling and sparking like charged plasma. Good, yes the air an inch above all our skin is made of white hot lightning. Anyone who touches us would feel the pain of a lightning strike coursing through their body. 

He paused and I felt the lightning reach out to a wolf that had been going for his throat and hurl him into a wall with an accompanying thunder like crash. The sound seemed muffled as though the plasma itself absorbed some of the sound. I guess whatever we were doing was working because I didn't hear the scratch of claws seeking purchase on hardwood to come back for a second try.

"Amazing," I don't think he meant to say that out loud, especially not with that breathy awed tone. I felt the minutest flexing of his fingers on my face and knew he was fighting not to caress my face. If anyone asked me why later I wouldn't have any idea but I suddenly found my hand on his pressing his palm to my face, my fingers sliding along his. Somehow that slight caress felt incredibly intimate. He let out a shuddering breath and the musk of his arousal filled the air between us. I let my hands fall away to land folded in my lap. 

Ummm well, yes, so the air an inch above all of us is made of lightning, but it won't hurt us. I heard Naughty grunt as the sound of flesh pounding flesh filled the space followed by another of those muffled thunder claps that still managed to rattle the floor and make the encroaching wolves whimper in pain. I guess he was using the lighting to even the odds somewhat. Now imagine that someone is touching you not with hands, but with power. Their power is as dark as you are light, it might appear as a shadow or a drop of ink. 

The flashes of lightning and the roar of the thunder were now almost continuous. I tried to stay focused on the idea of finding a shadow attached to myself but invading scents pried at my eyelids. These Wolves stank, like unwashed bodies, old cigarettes and even too much expensive perfume. These scents just did not belong in my house with my scent and the scent of rose potpourri and oil paint and even the amber incense smell of the twins which already felt as if it belonged mingled with mine. There were even smells of wet dog and burnt feathers. Burnt feathers? Why would the raven be burning? That incongruous smell helped pull me back on task and away from thought of the destruction of my sanctuary. 

I followed the scent to where it drifted in a thin line of curling smoke from a dark spot at the small of my back, trying to mimic the legitimate shadows caused by the curves of my spine. 

There. That spot is where the witch is trying to breach your defenses. Don't imagine the lightning just burning away that spot, imagine the lightning following the trail of darkness back to its source. 

I followed it to the raven who let out a continuous shriek of pain. Now follow the source of the darkness invading the bird back to its originator.

I was once again floating above the entire city. How many out of body experiences can one person survive in one day? I probably shouldn't ask considering Murphy's Law and all that. Lightning arched from me back to my house where I knew my body remained, guarded by the twins. I felt the ghost sensation of lips against the palm of my hand and "Good luck," whispered into my ear. 

I warmed me that he trusted me enough to just let me go and confront an enemy that only moments before had frozen him in fear. 

I floated out of my house and the air was cold and the bright new sun caused a red glow behind my closed lids. It felt like with all the shit happening right now it should be a dark stormy night but it wasn't. It's a bright crisp autumn day, perfect for laying in Rittenhouse Square Park with a warm thermos of soup and a thick sweater. I pictured that as I traveled for longer than I'd been expecting.

The twins and I cuddled together on a thick fleecy blanket. Nice would tentatively try and hold my hand. Naughty would blatantly throw his arm over my stomach being overtly flirtatious but also reaching for his brother. I would link my fingers through Nices and move our hand up to touch Naughtys. Their heat would insulate me from the chill in the air and the smell of homemade beef and barley soup would entice us to sit up and eat. It was such a nice image I almost didn't sense myself slowing.

I opened my eyes to see myself moving quickly toward a beautiful mansion on what appeared to be Park Avenue. I flew through the walls and opulent insides down through the floor till I was in a dank subbasement. Ahhh. Here was the setting that fit the situation. A woman with her back toward me sat cross-legged in a circle of symbols that looked like they'd been drawn in blood. Shelves lined the walls but I didn't take my eyes off of the witch to examine their contents. 

Dark hair pooled on the ground behind her. Hair that seemed to be getting darker as I watched, shifting from the deep chocolate I'd seen in the twins memories to raven wing black. The olive skin I could see from my perspective seemed to be paling out as well. As the stick-straight now jet black hair began to curl itself into decadent waves nausea began to roil in my stomach. She began to stand her body shrinking in on itself adding curves and subtracting height. I knew what I would see before she turned my smiling face to me. The pitch black of her iris seeming to fill with blood as I watched the last disparity between us disappear.

"How convenient you've made this, I'll have to thank those naughty boys when next I see them," she smiled wider wielding my dimples like weapons. Her voice sounded like exactly like mine, if I were working as a phone sex operator and it infuriated and sickened me. I didn't know why she'd felt the need for this doppelganger moment but none of the reasons I could think of were very good for me or the twins. She stepped carefully out of the circle and walked over to shelves that contained a whole lot of what-the-fuck floating in jars. Yeah all she needed were some tesla coils and a mutant assistant to complete the picture.

"And when do you think that'll be cause I hadn't factored a side trip into the itinerary," I tried to sound like I wasn't almost frozen in fear. I allowed my body to sink so that I was standing on the ground instead of hovering near the ceiling.

I was almost totally outclassed in every way. I ramped up the lightning flowing around me till I looked like a living Jacob's Ladder but I didn't think it would be effective enough to stop her entirely. I was running scenarios in my head though none so far had ended with me the victor. 

Her dusky laugh in a tone my voice had never used filled the small close space before she turned back, "Very soon now I'm going to put your soul in a jar then I'm going use your body like a costume to fuck the twins. Then to just fuck them over," she turned to me running one of her hands over her breasts and down till she was cupping herself between her legs, her other hand stayed behind her back. "I haven't had this much fun in a millennia. I should have thought of allowing the twins to think themselves free before this, now their spirits will shatter and I won't have any more struggles or squeamishness."

Red hazed over my vision in a way I'd only ever read about. The way she was touching herself in my body and the words coming out of my mouth were pushing so many of my buttons I couldn't even sort out what I was most angry about. I wanted my lightning to char her to a cinder so bad I could taste it and next thing I knew lightning flowed from me to her through her tag on me so that it looked like a bolt of lightning thicker than my arm exploded out of her body in every direction. I felt her marker incinerate under the onslaught and briefly realized I'd accomplished my goal just that quickly. Rage as thick as blood flooded my system making me arrogant and I knew I wouldn't be taking this opportunity to just fly out the way I came in.

Her duel toned scream filled me with satisfaction until the hand she'd hidden flung some sort of black powder at me. The look of intense satisfaction on her face froze my blood and stopped my irrational anger. It reminded me of every reason I'd been scared before I got pissed. Oops.

Everything slowed down. Whatever that powder was the cloud of it seemed to be growing as it made its way toward me. I got only the briefest nanosecond of a memory that this was the same substance that had allowed her to incapacitate the twins. I tried to imagine a barrier to protect myself but the cloud passed through it and I knew there would be nothing I could do.

I felt utter despair that I had failed everyone, the twins my friends, the mysterious entity that had tried so hard to save me from myself and teach me in desperate moments. I tried to sever the connection I had to my body, hoping that without a soul it would just die and the twins would be able to escape now that their tie to her was broken. But I was too new at all of this and fear was using up too much of my mind to be able to give anything the necessary focus. The cloud was almost on me and I felt scalding bitter tears course down my face as I braced for the pain I knew was coming. 

Only it didn't. The cloud seemed to hit something and incinerate on contact. The flashes of fire silhouetted the shape of a giant very broad shouldered man. I stumbled back and fell to the ground. He was so close I should have been touching him already if he had any substance to touch. He was barely a waver in the air, not even as visible as heat waves off of the street. If the powder hadn't still been lighting off of his surface I wouldn't have perceived him on any level. 

He waved his hand and the rest of the lingering cloud burst into flames. He stepped onto the outer most ring of the symbols and suddenly he was more there, a fully three dimensional see-through object. He turned and where eyes should be there was only uninterrupted white light. One of his eyes closed and my mouth actually dropped when I realized he'd winked at me.

He was becoming somewhat easier to see as if he were absorbing reality from the room itself. His shape was fully visible now though he was still mostly clear. He was huge, almost seven feet tall and broad enough to look proportional. He was examining the middle circle of symbols with his back to me and I could see what vaguely appeared to be hair in a thick braid dragging on the floor. He turned and seeing me still dumbstruck on the floor walked back over to me and reached down to lift me to my feet. 

I started to warn him about the lightning still moving over my skin but as our skin made contact the earth shifted. 

It was him.

I would know his touch anywhere. I smiled as tears filled my eyes. That complete feeling overwhelmed me as my other half held my hands. I could see how he was becoming more substantial as we touched so that the scarred thumb smoothing over my knuckles looked real but his face was still a mystery. This was the feeling that I'd mourned when I awoke alone on that gurney and tried to forget. The mixed up father-brother-lover-husband thing I was feeling from him right now overwhelmed and confused me. I felt a tickle around my ankle and looked down to see his braid curling around my ankle. My eyes shot back to his and he smiled at me. 




The First Evil Ch. 09



His face was indescribable with all the roughhewn beauty of majestic snowcapped mountains and it was still mostly transparent. He leaned in to brush his lips over mine and it felt like he poured napalm down my throat. Still I pressed closer willing him to consume me if only he wouldn't stop. Of course just that quickly he broke away and stepped back, kneeling to unwind the inches thick coil of hair that had somehow slithered up my thigh unnoticed. When he looked up at me from that position it was all I could do not to weep at the sad resignation I saw in his eyes. He pressed his lips against my knuckles and this time I couldn't quite suppress the whimper that snuck past my lips at the unbearable pain. His other hand smoothed the hurt away then he looked at me and I knew what he would do.

"Please," it was all I could force my overburdened mind to say.

"Soon," the words were spoken in the tiniest whisper and still the entire room shook. Every piece of glass shattered into sparkling sand and a giant crack appeared in the middle of the floor. Huddled in the furthest corner the witch screamed as blood poured from her ears. But it was the sweetest word I'd ever heard.

He stood again and reached out to cup my cheek. I leaned into the touch and then I closed my eyes letting my spirit find my body. The last thing I heard before I was out of the house was the witch's broken voice still screaming.

There wasn't any acclimation delay this time. One moment incorporeal the next I was blinking open my eyes to see dust motes sparkling in the sunlight pouring through the giant hole in my wall. The continuous sound of concussive impacts filled the house. The devastating sound of wood splintering and broken glass being stepped on made me hesitate to move my eyes from the still intact vestibule area. A pained grunt sounded very close to me and I felt something warm fall on my hand. I didn't have to look to know it would be blood.

I got a flash of memory of Nice joining the fight and how both twins had positioned themselves to protect my body as it lay vulnerable on the floor. I sat up slowly still somewhat disoriented. It felt as if I'd gotten another power boost, which I really didn't want. I'd like to have, I don't know, an hour to get used to the status quo before it changed. I looked around and felt my heart wrench. 

The paintings were relatively untouched, only askew here or there but the house itself was trashed. The hole where my beautiful art nouveau stained glass window had been had now grown to include the window seat and some of the inlaid floor. All the walls that I could see were either dented and broken or splashed with blood. Deep scratches crosshatched the entire first floor, most filled with the blood of the bodies of the wolves that still lay where they'd fallen. I felt exhaustion weigh my limbs down even as the power flowing through my body lifted me to my feet. 

Another wolf launched itself from the landing at Nice who already had a man with a cleaver in some kind of a choke hold aiming all the sharp bits away from himself. My hand felt like it raised of its own volition and blasted the wolf away with a lightning bolt before he could do more damage to the already cut and bruised man using his own body to protect my home. I didn't need him to whisper in my ear to try something impossible with the overwhelming power moving through me right now. I didn't know if it would last but I had something that I needed big power for right now. Maybe I'd get lucky and use up a chunk so that when I went to practice I was using a .38 instead of an Uzi.

I closed my eyes and pictured my house the way it had been. Pristine historical condition, priceless possessions intact and any living thing with ill intention forcibly ejected. I didn't try to get them all the way back to New York but I tried to imagine them where they wouldn't cause me any problems for at least fifteen minutes. I pictured the twins whole and unharmed and dressed. I imagined there was a force around my house that would keep anything out while I had to leave it, similar to the fields of lightning that I'd protected us with. 

A demanding knock on the door shocked my eyes open. The house was back exactly as I'd pictured, the twins were both dressed in dark jeans and loose grey sweaters and black boots. Nice in a dove grey and Naughty in a deeper charcoal so I could tell them apart. Thank god. It worked. I smiled at them tiredly and turned to answer the door but my legs crumpled beneath me. The fact that I actually hit the floor told me just how shocked the twins were. 

Naughty got to me first barely and after a second of tense hesitation, Nice went to let in Jules and Rachel though he returned right after opening the door. I reached a hand that weighed a thousand pounds into my pocket to grab the envelope with the keys and address to my other place. I tried to hand it to Naughty who had dragged me into his lap and had wrapped me up like I was his favorite stuffed animal. 

There's a knife perched over my masters throat and I'm too far away. Kind, funny, brilliant, gorgeous and powerful and she's about to die because we were too much the warriors to learn magic when we could. So close. I have to get there. I just HAVE to. Remus can do it he's closer, but does he see. Oh thank the Gods. Blessed be the sacred moon that protects us. 

I shook myself from the vision of how close I'd come to death. Naughty just kept reliving what for him was one of the worst moments of his life. My heart was speeding just as his had been and I hugged his arm tighter to me, just as relieved as he that Ni- Remus had been able to get there in time. I rubbed his arm as I realized that his trembling hadn't subsided. Remus wrapped us both in his arms from the other side, burying his nose in my hair.

"Ummm I guess I don't have to ask if we missed anything, are we ready to go or has the plan changed?" Boots stood there hand on hip looking like she wanted to immolate the twins except that I might get singed. I'd almost forgotten that Jules hadn't seen the twins even in there wolf form before now. Rachel interrupted me with a cat call as she surveyed the twins in all their human glory.

"Well golly, can I send you to the pound for me if all the strays you find look like this. God did you know this," she waved her hand in our direction, "when you told them to follow you home?" comments like that always made me question just how gay Rachel really was, not that I had any reason to find out other than curiosity. I did appreciate her trying to lighten the mood, except I had maybe thirty more seconds of consciousness before exhaustion pulled me under. 

I held my hand out in the general direction of the new arrivals. Boots huffed like an angry bunny and stomped over snatching the envelope out of my hand. 

"There's an address in there, just GPS it and get us there. One of you will have to drive my truck," before Juliette could give voice to the excitement sparkling in her eyes, "I should have just said Rachel, you know you're not driving my truck," Rachel laughed which made me think she was overestimating the time they'd be separated. I yawned so wide my jaw cracked, and my eyes felt like they'd been blowtorched. I was fast approaching the point of feeling sick I was so tired.

Just get us there and we can all talk. It actually took one of the twins translating for me to realize I wasn't speaking out loud. I snuggled my head down and grabbed a twin with each hand and let myself pass out. I wanted to make sure that when I woke up they would both still be there. 

Don't worry.

We will be. Kisses touched my head.



The First Evil Ch. 10



I could feel warmth of bodies next to mine. One large hand rubbing comforting circles on my back and another smoothing over my thigh. The fresh scent of a spring breeze drifted over me swirling my own slightly floral scent with the musky amber incense smell that felt like home and family. Teeth began to nibble at the back of my neck and they were moving toward my ear. I moaned and arched my back stretching my neck to provide greater access and felt the thigh hand move up to cup a breast as warm breath ghosted over my nipple. 

"Are you ready for tonight? The Mating ceremony can be both physically and mentally taxing" Remus murmured against the shell of my ear. 

"Yes, are you sure you want to have both of us forever? With beings like us that is a true possibility," Romulus spoke from my breast sending vibrations from my nipple to my core which clenched in need. 

"You know upon further reflection I'm not sure," I said breathlessly surprised at the sexy husky sound of my voice "I'm not sure I need both maybe I might require further proof."

"Oh do you now?," they said in unison and I could feel myself grin widely, I loved it when they did that.

Remus gently took my chin in his hand to turn my face to his and ran his tongue along my lower lip sending chills over my whole body. I gladly opened my mouth to him, our breath mingled, his soft lips against mine. Even though we had done this many times it felt new and amazing, as if I were learning his taste for the first time. I was loosing myself in the feeling of his hand on my face, the sensation of his tongue caressing the inside of my mouth that I almost forgot the other mouth at my flesh. 

Romulus growled softly and sucked my nipple into his mouth with a strong sure pull. The crisp hairs of the goatee he'd grown as a private joke between the three of us of him as the proverbial devil and Remy as the angel, tickled my areola. Remy drank down my scream sliding the hand at my back to my ass then further down just tickling at my entrance. Rom mirrored him running large fingers lightly over my clit in direct contradiction to the hard suction that had moved to my other nipple. When each thrust a finger inside me simultaneously the orgasm was just there, washing over me, as if I were both a bell being rung and a vessel filling with golden light. I used my bond to share the sensation of euphoria, release and overwhelming pleasure sending them both over the edge. 

We were all climaxing together, filled with the physical sensations of warm skin, hot breath, soft touch, hard nails, sharp teeth. I loved these men and they felt the same, to each other we were home.

I opened my eyes and looked around confused. Silvery moonlight washed my pale skin to silver and painted blue light into my hair which hung loose to the back of calves. The smell of earth and water and growing things surrounded me. I was in a familiar forest, I knew that over that rise was a stream curling like a cat around the wide trunk of a birch tree. I looked down and saw a long jersey dress at my feet, I was naked. Simultaneous echoing howls rent the silence sparking anticipation in my body. Right. I must have spaced but it was the time for the ceremony.

I got down to all fours and called to the lupine half of myself letting her manifest in my skin. There was an almost unbearable pressure just bordering on pain then as if I had pushed through a barrier the change came upon me. Mass redistributed over my whole body, bones both stretching and shortening. Black fur sprouting and lengthening to cover my snow white skin, blending me into the shadows. 

I was a comfortable one hundred sixty-five pounds in my other form and that weight didn't just float up into the sky when I changed. The average female Canis Lupis weighs in at only about eighty-five pounds and is about two and a half feet tall and between five and six feet long counting the tail. Without busting out the ol'measuring tape I figured I was somewhere in the four feet tall eight to ten foot long range and the boys were larger than that. Not quite the Quileutes from Twilight but close enough if they're chasing you. And they were, chasing me that is. 

I lifted my muzzle to the air scenting their direction blowing dust and other allergens from contaminating scent signals. I know the twins will have learned some tricks to hiding their personal odors that they'll have saved for tonight especially. I pawed my dress into the stream letting it both cary away and wash away my scent. I dunked myself in the pool under the birch and then took off upstream the water felt good and cool on my pelt and swirling around my ankles and wrists. 

I had sort of planned out my route trying to be careful of my thoughts. I was actually running back toward the house where my scent had already concentrated and very close to the path I must have taken to get out to where I'd Changed. I ducked my head low to avoid the small bridge that allowed road access to the house over the stream. I was actually the only safe way to get a car from the road to the house in any direction without going into the ditch started by the stream and widened by a small claw machine I kept stored in the empty garage. I jumped out of the ditch on the other side of the bridge, the house blocking any view of me from the woods on the other side of it. I was running full out now going steadily uphill but not yet having to worry about keeping to the shadows.

A frustrated duo of howls rose behind me, far behind me. I laughed which sounded funny coming from lupine vocal cords. I guessed they found the dress. I took a moment to send the image of me sticking my tongue out and teasing them like a child. Rom took a moment to send me the image of him pinching the same tongue as he guided his growing cock between my lips and over the back of it. 

I stumbled and smashed my shoulder into a tree. The pain surprised me enough that I lost the hold I had on my thoughts and I knew the moment when Remy found my current location. Shit. The plan wasn't for me to run forever but to get an agreed upon distance from our starting point to prove my right to remain Alpha without any further fights or shows of dominance. The whole mating ceremony run was to establish the dominance hierarchy otherwise we could have just stayed by the house. But it was important that I retained control of us all because without me being in charge the boys' instincts would force them to fight for both dominance and the right to Mate with me. This was the only way to have them both and I needed them both because with those two it was definitely all or nothing.

I used my vampiric advantage and began to really push it. Vampires are faster than Wolves which are stronger in their other forms. Yay for being both. I was little more than a dark breeze as I flowed through the tall grass in the clearing I was in. I decided to slightly change my route since I didn't know everything they'd gotten from my head. It would take me over some pretty public roads that snaked through the national park lands which abutted my chunk of forest. Whatever. Humans probably won't be out this late and even if they are they see what they want to. It's not like I'm planning on posing for a selfie. 

It was as I was running across an empty baseball field that I heard them crashing through the underbrush less than a mile behind me. Shit I didn't have much further to go but they were close. I drew on even more speed hauling ass through a covered wooden bridge, I could feel my canine teeth lengthening. Shit my eyes were probably glowing too which was a lot harder for the human mind to explain away as a big dog. As if I'd conjured them from fear, headlights washed over my entire body as I came out the other side and saw the idling car that had been hidden by the sides of the bridge. Still if I'd been thinking with my whole brain I'd have realized that the direction of the lights meant car and not street light. Fuck it now. I just kept my head down and continued up the hill letting the car slow down the twins. 

I had to reach the Schuylkill River which wasn't too far ahead of me now but the twins had to catch me be fore I got there. Seemed like cheating to me but rules are rules. I cut across another road and I could see cars ahead coming from both directions as I vaulted the road. I passed between the darkened visitor center and behind some other historical building, a church I thought. I had to slow my headlong rush as I neared the tree line. I could smell the slightly silty smell of the river water ahead and feel the twins behind me. 

I bet it all on a final jump. The wood dropped about eight feet before evening out to the edge of the river. I felt the air seem to lift me up and felt just the barest graze of teeth at the tip of my tail before I was filled with elation. A triumphant howl burst from inside me just as my body splashed into the water. I let the current carry me a little further down the river before kicking to a small island in the center. Little more than a sandbar with some trees but it was private and close and pretty much zero chance of human interruption. I shook my pelt free of water as I climbed to the grass and waited for the disgruntled twins to reach the island. 

I dropped the shields I'd erected between us.

Using the human traffic was brilliant but certainly more Vampire than Wolf, Rom complained good naturedly. I licked their muzzles as they reached land and ran my sides against theirs like a cat. we all changed together to a hybrid form between wolf and human. 

I grabbed one of each of their hands and pulled them backwards. This form supplied the teeth we needed to complete the ritual but allowed for the humanoid bodies I needed to be able to be sexually aroused. Beastiality, ewww. The one drawback is that ther would be no kissing, nor would I be able to indulge in my oral fixation, just too many teeth for blowjobs. 

I felt a tongue trail from under my jaw up the extended tip of my ear. My knees went weak and my eyes closed. Strong hands lifted my thighs around lean hips, pressing my naked core against an incredibly hard shaft. I could feel warm soft fur at my back before a matching hardness slid along the back of me. I felt like lust was carrying me away from my inhibitions. The twins ran clawed fingertips over my nipples and down to my clit lifting me higher and higher but not letting me climax. I felt them each grab a shoulder with a free hand and hold me still as they positioned powerful teeth over each of my shoulders. They started to slowly bite down while moving their lower fingers closer and closer to my weeping cleft someones thumb keeping a steady slow rhythm circling my clit. 

Suddenly they bit down and both curled fingers up inside me. Thrumming my g-spot and my clit shoving me over into orgasm so hard I was blind though my eyes had shot open with the pain that only intensified the pleasure of my orgasm. I felt warm digits rub against my tongue and instinctively bit down and sucked the resulting blood down my throat. It was as if we had completed a circuit. Power and passion flowed from them to me, from me to them all riding the wave of my climax and somehow sending it cresting higher. They bit down harder at my shoulders and I exploded. Black dots swam in my vision I started to struggle to stay conscious but I felt the reassurance from my mates that they would be here when I woke up. Mates. Happiness filled me like champagne bubbles. 

They squeezed me between them licking at the wounds that would show our mating. I had never felt more loved or needed.

I was dancing in an ancient forest. It looked like once it had been a garden or an orchard but nature had long since reclaimed it. There were little colored lights floating in the air that looked like they were dancing. Two men took each of my hands and I didn't have to look to know it was the twins, my mates. There was a brief tug then I ended up in Roms arms swaying to the music.

"So if your brother is Remus, who are you, Romulus?" I said it jokingly to try and break the tension rising between us recreating one of our first conversation.

"Not anymore," he played along and brought my body closer to his. The hard ridge against my stomach was explicit undeniable, before them the sensation of a hard-on anywhere in the three feet surrounding me would have caused an extreme emotional reaction. Hopefully the guy caught a clue before there was permanent injury though everyone hadn't always been that lucky. But now the hardness inspired a reciprocal softness in me that I'd never felt before the twins had come into my life. He leaned down to kiss me and then I was being whirled and spun into Remys embrace. I was subtly trying to peak over his shoulder at Roms falsely forlorn face when he dipped me.

It was so expert and unexpected that it surprised a laugh out of me. I looked into his eyes and felt like I was drowning in the moment. I finally understood what the bug feels trapped in amber. 

"He's not the only one who wants you right now," he whispered into my ear as he arched me back upright. "But I feel," he paused to tuck a wayward curl behind my ear and trailed his fingers down my neck and over my collar bone, "like with so many things," his hand stopped at the center of my chest, almost exactly where it had been before when he'd taught me magic the first time, "that taking it long," his other hand trailed up my back to cup my neck under my hair, "and slow have merit," his hand just barely skimmed my breast to cup my hip as his head lowered.

Another set of hands wrapped around my torso and grabbed my free hand. He swung me out fully extended and back into his chest so fast my head spun. He grabbed my other hand and spun me in a circle as the music increased in tempo, becoming something lighter and more fun. Rom reached out and lifted me into the air and spun me so quickly it felt like I was flying. I laughed out loud and he joined me with his rich baritone 

My feet barely touched the ground when Remy came up again and bowed presenting me with a rose. I took it and when the music changed I placed it between my teeth and he swept me into the teasing taunting dance of the tango. One moment I was smiling and flirting with Remus, then Romulus would take his place. It went on and on. The lights in the outer ring were spinning so fast it looked like we were dancing in a circle of light which was getting brighter.

I twirled out waiting for the next twin to take my hand and instead I ended up sprawled over a massive chest. The light was so bright now that I could barely see but the tingling feedback I was getting from the contact told me who was holding me now. I smiled in what I assumed was the general direction of his face. I had my eyes totally closed against the glare.

"Soon huh, care to put that on a calendar?" I said and his deep laughter resonated in me like I was the epicenter of a quake. He took both my hands and placed one on his shoulder as he placed one on my hip.

"Yes, soon," was the only thing he said before he led me into a traditional waltz. I was confused, hadn't that conversation happened long ago? His hand was warm in mine and so large it completely eclipsed mine. I could feel that mischievous hair climbing my leg again only this time it wasn't impeded by pants and I tensed not sure how comfortable I was with that especially while the twins were watching. Hey wait where were they? I just didn't see them relinquishing me so easily. I tried to look around but the light seared my eyes. He reached up and laid my head against his chest without ever missing a beat. 

"Hey what happened to the two guys who were here just a minute ago?" I tried to lift my head but he just wrapped me up in his arms. God, he could block the sun with a body like this.

"Shhhhh, I'm so sorry," I fought his hold to squint up at his face.

"Sorry?" What did he have to be sorry about? I looked all around but didn't see anything but light and then slowly I let my eyes fall to the ground below us and I screamed. 

***

I felt like I couldn't stop screaming. I shot upright in bed, a bed that smelled new and dusty simultaneously. I didn't know where I was was or what had happened. The dream was fading from my memory and I didn't fight to keep it something about the feelings of contentment and love scared me more than packs of rabid Wolves. Especially if it wasn't real. 

I guessed that we'd made it to my other place. I felt a hand rubbing sleepy circles on my back and another on my thigh which had me screaming again. It sparked a sense of deja vu and loss so strong I wanted to cry. I fought the blankets like I was trying to slay a dragon bare-handed and shot out of bed like I was on fire only to realize once I was there that I was stark naked. I squealed and yanked the cover off of the twins only to realize that they too were naked.

I spun, feeling dizzy from all the movement right as I woke up and the blood rushing from my brain to my face in embarrassment. Yes, embarrassment. Parts of my dream were coming back to me vaguely and I really really didn't want them to pick up on it. Any of it. I put up a bank vault around my thoughts. Gah that had had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. What the hell was all that even about? I felt the blanket get taut and had to fight panic before I calmed myself down and made a snap judgment call about whether it was better to be standing here naked or back there in bed with them naked.

"You've been asleep for two days, if we were going to molest you we could have done,"

"And been done," Nice, I mean Remy, I mean... whoever finished from inside his pillow.

"And been done. Pack feels better together, now get your hot ass back in bed so we can sleep or talk. Whatever you'd like," I let him walk me backwards with the blanket until I was perched stiffly on the very edge of the bed. Despite having fallen asleep as the meat in a hot twin sandwich I couldn't cope with choosing to get into bed naked with two naked men I'd only known for about three conscious hours. Despite or because of all the alien feelings of desire and trust I felt toward them both.

"Maybe you could try and conjure whatever you'd like us all to wear like you did before," his voice was very careful and I realized they were both still getting every thought in my head and he was probably fighting laughter. I put my head in my hands as even more blood flooded my face. I could now feel my pulse in my eyebrows. 

There was an annoyed growl behind me which made me tense. I jumped when hands pushed my shoulders down so my head was between my knees. There was a deep chuckle and then the hands were kneading my shoulders. "Just so you know both me and my brother are covered, but it seems you didn't feel the need to clothe yourself," I huffled out a breath and threw myself backwards with no warning to the person who moments before had been directly behind me. Nice/Remus/Remy hadn't moved anything other than that one arm while Naughty/Romulus/Rom was on his knees beside me. I had no idea where the instinct to call them by those names was coming from but it was whipping my pulse into an even faster more panicked rhythm.

"So if he's Remus, does that make you Romulus?" my voice was rough, I could hear echoes of myself saying this from my dream. I turned my head to look up at him where he was kneeling, now he was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. I had a brief confusing thought that I missed his goatee, but he'd never had a goatee. Had he? The laughter bled from his eyes leaving them serious and a little sad.

"Not anymore," I got tingles from the Deja vu even though I was expecting that exact answer, " we were arrogant and cruel and our... punishment wasn't ...entirely unwarranted. We would prefer to be called..." he ducked his head and a wave of shining pewter hair blocked all but the edge of his profile till he turned his face back to mine and the mischievous light was back in his eyes. God he really was beautiful. Suddenly a wad of delicious smelling jersey covered my face. I pulled it up and realized it must be the shirt I'd conjured for Remus. 




The First Evil Ch. 10



Romulus and I both chuckled as I tried to maneuver myself into the shirt without the sheet slipping at all. I struggled to wriggle myself back up the pillows with the mermaid tail I'd made of the blanket until an arm snaked down and pulled me up. I was suddenly getting spooned against a warm naked chest with an arm caressing the underside of my breasts. A sleepy growl came from the back of my neck and a soft laugh blew over my face.

"He would never act like that were he awake, he may not even believe it when we tell him, but he really needs his sleep and we've been taking turns with you so we weren't both asleep when you awoke. He stayed awake for twenty hours hoping to be the one you spoke with," he moved some hair out of my face, "we knew you would have a lot of questions," He waited patiently, laughter lighting his eyes.

"Well let's start with names, I have to have something to call you," I tried to look menacing enough to stop him from voicing out loud what I'd been calling him.

"You can call me Dominic or Dom and my brother will be Dante. And yes, we were that Romulus and Remus," he anticipated my question. "Do you want to know about us, yourself, or your friends?" I felt a wave of relief at these names see my dream twins weren't these guys, it hadn't been a premonition as I'd feared. I felt another phantom pang of loss and stared into disturbingly familiar topaz colored eyes, we were laying facing each other with our heads only inches apart. 

It felt really intimate, even more than with his brother who was fondling me in his sleep. It made me feel awkward, especially when he ran his hand down the side of my face and stared at me as if he were memorizing my features. I needed a minute to just breathe and get my bearings even more than I needed information. 

"Nature calls," I could hear myself loose this awkward laugh-thing I do when I'm nervous. I went to sit up and Dante's arm slammed me back down into the pillows and bit down right where my neck met my shoulder. Another recognition pang froze me when I might have reacted and gotten out of his hold before he secured it. He brought his hips closer till his growing erection was cradled against me and his knee was between mine pinning my thigh down effectively trapping me. 

My eyes rolled back in my head as warmth flowed through my body. It felt like he'd flipped a switch inside me. A rich feeling of lassitude filled me and I could feel my body getting ready for the hardness now making circles against my back. I looked at Dominic with an emotion as close to panic as I could feel right now.

"Ok so let's do you first," he said. I could see arousal, jealousy and serious focus fighting for dominance in his expression.

"What. Is. Happening. To. Me." I panted out barely able to think past the desire slowly spreading from the bite outward through my limbs. Something about his teeth pressing into my skin made everything right in the world, which scared the shit out of me. Or it would have if I'd had full access to all of my emotions. Nobody knows better than me how not right the world is.

"Your friend explained to me a little about what she thought was happening, before. I've never seen or heard of it, but it appears you are some sort of hybrid," I had to fight my body to stay still and concentrate on the words coming out of his mouth. I could see that my arousal was wreaking havoc with his ability to stay cogent as well. 

"I would say at least vampire, from the blood and memory absorption, sidh or witch because of the high magic you keep doing unthinkingly and Wolf because...of this." I bit my lip to distract myself from everything else but I couldn't really move otherwise. I could see his eyes focus on the gesture and a whimper escaped him, his eyes were lightening as I watched, from golden amber to bright yellow with a thick black ring around the edge.

"Wolves Mate this way. Somewhat like natural wolves and somewhat like humans if they Mated. First a battle or a contest to prove worthiness between the courting males if there are any. Then when one or maybe two was chosen, there would be a chase through the forest to establish dominance. When you caught your female you would bite her, kind of like this, and she would become ready to...receive you. 

You would both return and she would bear your mark and you were mated if she still accepted you. 

When I was a young man she would show it by placing a torque around your throat. It was enchanted to be there through either form and the world would know you belonged to her and her to you," he was panting now and I could see fangs peeking out as he spoke. 

I tried to reach forward to soothe him but Dante growled and the sound through the bite felt like he struck a magical chord inside me. I closed my eyes and lost the fight to sensation which would have made me panic except I couldn't seem to feel that. I could feel Dominic fighting his instincts through our bond.

"God you're so close, and you smell so good. It would feel good I promise," his hands hovered over my heaving breasts were shaking visibly. I didn't even know what I wanted him to do or why we were fighting so hard. He was right it would feel good for the first time ever in real life. I felt closer to them than I ever had to any another living beings in my life. I would just much rather be feeling all my own emotions when I slept with someone for the first time voluntarily. 

I closed my eyes and decided that whatever happened I wouldn't blame them later. I stopped fighting the sensation with my entire being and let it comfort me. Still he didn't touch me and then the scent of blood hit the air.

I opened my eyes to see anguish and need reflected there. His eyes had gone fully wolf and his fangs had cut into his lips, which was where the blood scent had come from.

"Two thousand years, Aurora, can you understand? No of course you can't," he stared desperately into my eyes then moved his face closer to mine, "We would have tried the old way. We didn't plan to take advantage." he shuddered visibly and I smiled at him, I wanted to lessen his guilt. It wasn't his fault that his brother's sleepy mistake had sent all of our hormones going crazy. 

He groaned and leaned forward to kiss me. The taste of his rich blood mixed with the sweet spicy flavor of him and pushed me that last of the way over the edge into insanity. God it was just the most amazing kiss ever. The kind that inspire art and poems and plays. That change the world because they change how we looked at it. I wanted to immortalize that kiss on canvas. The blood mixed into the kiss had given me some control back and I realized he was only touching my mouth with his and no other place.

He pulled back from the kiss and leaned his forehead against mine so that we were sharing breath.

"I need you to move forward into me, shoulder first to get that out of his mouth," he let out a weak strained laugh, "you'll have to move your hips last, that's what'll make him fight, even in his sleep." I was swimming in confusion but didn't argue. I leaned my shoulder forward and I could feel Dante trying to bite down harder but something was stopping him. When my chest pressed into Dominic's a shudder shook his entire body and I froze not trying to push him past his limits. For some reason he'd fought through to try and free me instead of taking advantage. I didn't want to reward magnanimity with teasing.

After many stops and starts the only part of me touching Dante was the part cradling his raging erection. I could finally turn my head to see that Dominic had hooked fingers into Dante's mouth back by his molars to stop him from biting down.

"Did he break the skin?" I shook my head but he wasn't listening, "Tilt your shoulder down and let me see it," I did as he asked though it felt like I was moving through honey. He looked at the mark for a long time then gave a little nod of his head. When I turned bracing myself to move my hips my other shoulder directly in front of his lips, he growled and leaned in placing his teeth over it and biting down. Oh god. Somehow the sensation was so much stronger than before. I arched my body into his in a wave and I heard a growling protest from behind me and then I lost track of events, so gone to sensation that I couldn't see. I only knew that when I could concentrate again Dominic was crouched fully over me growling and Dante was on the floor clicking his now dislocated jaw back into place with a pained grunt.

"What the fuck? What the hell happened and why did you hit me like that?" he stood still rubbing his jaw, so that he was taller than Dominic who moved to kneeling over me, knees on either side of my shoulders, to keep their heads level. Which pretty much put me face to crotch with both of them. I giggled. Even though I thought I might be able to move again there was still this giddiness inside me. I felt like I was high, if I'd ever gotten high, so I guess I assumed this is what being high felt like. 

I giggled again. Suddenly I was upright with Dominic yanking the collar of my shirt aside and exposing the places where they'd both bitten me. The cool air moving over the bites made them feel tingly and I let myself rest back on Dominic who seemed to be having no trouble fully supporting my dead weight. Dante sucked his breath in shock.

"Do you see? Do you see now why I should still rip your fool head off? Any deeper and it would have been permanent," Really? He hadn't mentioned that before, I wonder if he'd been trying to stop me from panicking. I wonder if I could have panicked. I didn't know if I wanted the nice twin or the naughty one yet so I was glad it wasn't permanent. I wonder if they'd let me have both? The image of me between them both, with both of their hands moving all over me caused me to moan and writhe back against Dominic. Whose claws scraped delicately against the shirt as if he were trying really hard not to do anything other than hold me carefully.

"I was dreaming... I didn't know... I didn't mean... Oh my god," he looked totally horrified even though I could still smell the arousal coming from them both. He looked me in my eyes and I swear I could see tears glistening on his lashes. "I am so sorry," he looked it too. I smiled at him, I really wasn't mad. More importantly, I didn't think I would be mad later. I mean, never underestimate my ability to completely sabotage myself, but for me intent carries weight. He'd been almost comatose because he'd tried his damnedest to stay awake for me, to spend time talking with me and answering my questions. If I was getting this turned around by instinct I couldn't imagine what was happening in his body once you factored in two millennia of forced denial.

He let out a shuddering breath and rubbed both hands over his face, which he then used to muffled his frustrated angry scream. I completely understood the sentiment. He looked at his brother like he was seeking a life preserver in a tsunami.

"What can we do now?" he was talking to Dominic but his eyes never left mine. I felt myself being turned around so that I was looking Dominic in the face. I could barely hold my head up straight without the support of his body but I dredged up my once formidable will to look him in the eye and focus on his questions because somehow I knew that's where we were headed.

"Can you hear me? Do you think you can really understand me?" his voice sounded desperate and a little distorted from the fangs that hadn't fully receded. I gave his questions due consideration and even though it felt like my blood had been replaced with champagne. It wouldn't be easy but I could try.

"I can try, I barely understand anything you're talking about, but just keep me upright. I might do something we'll all regret if my head hits those pillows," I'd tried to make a joke but I could hear Dante let out a small sob behind me as he grabbed my hand and brought it to his lips. His face felt wet like he'd been crying but I didn't want to risk turning loosing eye contact with Dominic to check.

"Ok, so a Pack is built up of, at least, an Alpha at the top, his or her Mate, a Beta who is like an enforcer, an Omega who provides emotional support and is able to counter the Alpha's orders for the good of the Pack. The mate bond between the Alpha and their Mate is permanent and lasts as long as they both live. Sometimes the death of one will kill the other but not usually quickly enough to avoid being gutted in retribution if it's called for. 

"The other case of permanent mating is between strongly psychic Wolves, because they live in each other's minds somewhat. Also the first part of even a regular mating, that isn't permanent, is supposed to be conducted in wolf form. It isolates the human half from the mating somewhat," he paused and shook his head as if he couldn't go on.

"Live in each other's minds?" I tried to focus on the only question I'd had during his explanation that I thought I might actually want the answer to. Even in my addled state what it sounded like he was saying was that I had hit the trifecta of permanent "mating" scenarios and there probably wasn't much I could do to stop it now.

"Speak to each other without words and share memories, emotions, that sort of thing," Dante spoke from behind me. I could feel his words against the skin of my hand. The vibrations seemed to flow directly to the center of me where they joined the bell still ringing inside me.

"Is there any way to stop the mating once it's started?" my voice came out sounding like that disgusting witches impression of me which tried to piss me off but couldn't quite make it.

"I don't know, sometimes if the bite doesn't break the skin and another bite replaces it stops the effects so that a winner can be determined," his voice sounded haggard and desperate, "But the system isn't built of absolutes, and you are so unique. I tried the only thing I knew and bit you again hoping to nullify his bite but you just got worse. It's like you're in heat. How old are you?" he looked so distressed by everything, and his eyes had gone all the way wolf. 

"What seals the permanent mating bond? Is it just the bite or is there more?" I said completely ignoring his last questions. We all sounded drained and about as unsexy as it gets but I guess we were going to try and figure it out because this morning or afternoon or whenever the hell in the day it had been when I woke up, before the craziness, had been just about the best feeling ever.

"In the case of psychic wolves the bond is evident before the mating and often there are no other competitors for the hand of a psychic female if there is no indication of compatibility," before I could ask, Rom...Dominic answered.

"If a male were to come into contact with her that was her true mate it could cause complications. The two psychics would be irrevocably drawn to each other. No male wants to be in the position of losing his wife, his children, his place in the pack and or his life later on because he was never his females destined mate to begin with. In the case of the Alpha, it is often someone immune to their command or sometimes they will dream of each other or feel each other's emotions."

"It's hard to know as we never experienced any of it, we never looked for an equal to rule at our sides, in our arrogance we didn't think there was such a person to equal us as our Mothers sons," they both sounded defeated, I wanted to comfort them but I remembered too clearly where we'd been less than an hour ago.

"As for what physically cements the bond, the bite awakens and arouses the wolf, defines the rolls they'll play for each other. During the sex in human form they share pieces of themselves with each other. It binds their spirits to each other. There is no divorce or adultery among psychically bound Wolves."

"But we don't know if it's the sex or the openness in that moment of surrender," I wanted to laugh cynically. Even if I had sex with one of them, which I still wasn't sure I could even do, there would be no total vulnerability on my end. Nothing about sex made me want to let my guard down, and even as good as I'd felt earlier with their hands and teeth on me I wasn't sure I could orgasm with someone inside me. Invading my body. I pushed away all bad memories of past experiences, apparently not soon enough from the murderous looks on their nearly identical faces.

"Sex is out. I don't know you guys yet or even trust everything I feel. I don't want to torture us all forever but I need a few days to consider everything," I thought back to the early days of my childhood, of awkward conversations in plain view of the entire family. 

"I would like to get to know you better, I would like for you to know me better before we commit to something permanently," I looked at them both, eyes glinting like yellow diamonds, lit from within by hunger and regret. They nodded in unison. 

I could feel Dante's tears as they rolled over my fingers and I wondered if he was crying because he'd started this and taken my choices away or because he'd decided to concede to his brother out of a warped sense of fairness. I pushed all of that out of my head and thought about Dominic's question and how best to answer it.

"I think I am about eighty. I was abandoned at least that long ago to a catholic orphanage and I appear to age one year for every four so that's how I got eighty. Obviously it could be wrong since I don't know how many years passed before I first started noting the year," my head had already hit the pillow before I finished speaking but I'd been so focused I didn't realize it till I was staring at the ceiling. I wanted to giggle again and I never giggled. It was weird to realize that if I'd been dealt a better hand how different a person I would be. Without the perpetual fear and distrust fueling so many of my actions and reactions I didn't feel like myself. Even aside from the bite roofie. 

"What!? How can you be almost a century old?" Dominic scrambled away from me till he landed on the floor.

"Have you ever changed into a wolf in all that time? Or blacked out and totally lost time or found unexplainable damage to your home or possessions," I tried to give his question all due consideration, but I really was eighty and that's a lot of time to go over. He'd also done exactly what I told him not to and laid me down on the bed. My body was on fire, the shirt had bunched underneath me and had pulled taut against my breasts. I didn't even notice or care that the shirt had pulled up over my hips. It was incredible how much concentration it took to try and look for a hole in almost a century of memories while ignoring heat throbbing at my center. 

"I really don't think so, especially if strong emotions would have triggered it," my mood soured as I remembered all the times that being able to fight back might have saved me. Large hands holding me down, foul breathe choking me, pain that seemed to tear me in half. If I'd possessed any power that might have saved me I wish to the Gods I'd gotten it then. Growls filled the room in stereo and I was mortified to think that they'd just gotten a shadow of everything I'd felt. Shit. 

"They're dead. They're all dead already," I wanted to soothe them both but all I could get my taxed system to accomplish was grabbing a hand each. I showed them through our bond the horrific death that the fates had visited on all of them, even if they'd needed help sometimes.

"Whatever, what do we do about now, about this," my voice was hoarse from holding in screams and whimpers. Part of me, literally, wanted scream at them to just fuck me already. The other part was horrified, it considered this just another form of rape even if I didn't necessarily blame them for the circumstance. I felt like my body had betrayed me. Wouldn't be the first time but usually I'd be trying to start something with somebody and my body would run with chills, stiffen and I'd get nauseous. 




The First Evil Ch. 10



I was just so confused. I just wanted to be able to think and decide without my body making the call without my input. I closed my eyes and wished I had the ability to think past my hormones. I just couldn't see beginning a permanent committed relationship with anyone I'd never even had a conversation with. 

Just like that I could think. I still wanted to wrap someone around me like a blanket but I could move again, think again. It was like I had insulated myself from the sensations somewhat. 

"It stopped," I laughed and used the hands I was still holding to pull myself up so I could jump up and down like a lunatic. "I can think, I did it," They both looked confused and a lot of other things I was too happy to even try and decipher.

"You stopped the mating?" they said in unison as they both climbed back onto the bed. Dominic reached out to touch the mark on my neck and when his fingers came within proximity of my skin I swear I actually heard a sizzle. I ducked back away from his hand.

"Not even a little bit, I gave myself some space to think without my hormones deciding for me," I was still elated, bouncing up and down on the bed, "God I think this is the first time I've really loved this magic thing. I didn't stop it, I actually didn't even try to, I just really wanted to be able to consider rationally. To discuss it with both of you," a grin split my face but their expressions were very careful.

"Did you submerge your Wolf to do this? Because generally females have a Mate after about twenty years with the Wolf. Do you know who you might like to choose?" again with the unison. The double speak could be really creepy but it gave me a thought that maybe after so long as one being they had to focus on individuality. 

"I have no freaking idea, and that's the point, for all the comfort we feel with each other we don't know each other, not really. You two are fucking myths and I'm some impossible anomaly but there's more to us than that. I'm ok spending the rest of my life with you, both of you," warm amber eyes met cool red filled with vulnerability and uncertainty, I gentled my tone, "but if it's going to be like a marriage instead of simply a family I need to know you both," I didn't know how to make them understand that it wasn't about them being unappealing or unacceptable. It wasn't them it was me. Gee I wonder how well that would go over.

"I need to be able to choose, me, the Rory I've always been, not whatever I'm becoming. Can you understand that?" they both looked stricken but they nodded. A tentative knock on the door interrupted. I heard Rachel's voice through a crack she made in the door.

"Hey guys just wanted to let you know we're back from the store. Let us know if you need a tray brought up. Oh, and Juliette says that if you don't holler the moment Rory comes out of her coma she'll geld you while you sleep," that surprised a chuckle out of me as I pulled the door open and gave her a hug. She gaped at me briefly before hugging me back then leaning back to look me over. Her eyes seemed to get caught on my ears so I reached up and felt the new points at their tips. 

"I don't know what's happening with me but I'd be your bestest best friend forever if you could run interference with Boots for at least an hour," she looked panicked so I jumped in before she could protest, "look I love her to death but I have questions and I need to get some answers and if she has questions you know I never will. At least not until she's rung every iota of information from the entire situation," I could still see an argument in her eyes so I rushed ahead, "Please I just need a little bit of time, an hour maybe two. Pretty pretty please with a cherry on top," I pouted up at her and saw her capitulate before she actually opened her mouth to agree and I threw my arms around her.

"I'm only agreeing because you've actually spontaneously touched me twice for the first time in pretty much ever, so either it's really important or these two are really good for you or both. That doesn't mean you don't owe the shit out of me because you know how pissed she'll be when she finds out. That's all I'm saying," she walked away still shaking her head and muttering to herself about not getting laid again in this century. 

I knew she'd go right down and tell Juliette that I was awake but I also knew she'd stop her from coming up for at least an hour. I was so grateful they were in my life. The heavy wooden door made barely a thump as it closed. I turned back to the room and the twins and got the first good look at the space since I'd purchased the castle more than ten years ago. 

Yes, it's an honest to god castle someone had had flown over from Europe and reassembled here. I'd seen it once while running away from one of my families and fallen instantly in lust. Lust, not love. I loved my house in the city. No, wanting this property hadn't been about feelings of comfort or connection. This had been covetous and greedy. I'd seen it and I wanted it, like I'd never wanted anything before or since. I saw it as a symbol of success and safety, when I had earned enough money I made the owner an offer they didn't refuse. 

I'd only stayed in it a total of nineteen days, to fill it with furniture and some non-perishable food. But it hadn't felt right. Like the cute pair of shoes that pinches your toes, or in this case slides off your foot entirely. I'd never felt as lonely as I had those weeks, here by myself. With every sound echoing off of the cold stone walls even after I'd added tapestries and carpets.

The only thing I had loved unequivocally was the tower. It was two rooms one on top of the other, a sitting room on the first floor that you could now only access via a wrought iron staircase in the bedroom on the second floor. The last owners had taken the windows from other parts of the castle and widened the original defensible sized windows to something normally reserved for industrial style lofts in both rooms. The combination of old stone and diamond shaped panes was romantic and whimsical especially when the light made the stone sparkle. 

There wasn't much light now but it still managed to look warm and cozy. The octagonal room was dominated by a curtained king sized bed on a small dais. There was a small chandelier that I'd hung down into the center of it, inspired by the room towards a little romance of my own. There was a fireplace on the opposite wall from the door with a cozy sitting area in front of it. The three back walls were mostly window with the original mullioned panes of glass, the same as downstairs. 

I was doing it again. Focusing on the mundane to try and prolong the time before having to deal with a crisis. And this was a crisis. I had never openly discussed my life or myself with anyone. I guess no time like the present. Right?