Gilded Destiny



  Vesper

  ISBN-13: 978-1484197417

  Copyright Nola Sarina,

  Published originally February 2013, 2nd edition copyright Feb 2014

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  “Paranormal action, suspense, drama, a bit of romance, and the aching feeling at the end that you have to read MORE!”

  – New York Times Bestselling Author A. Meredith Walters

  “…a fresh paranormal concept, very tight storytelling… explosive new series that is just a tad darker but every bit as intriguing as some of the best...”

  – BittenByBooks

  “I fell in love with this book from the start.”

  -Paranormal Reads Review

  Contents

  Looking Back

  Silk

  Moons

  Vespers

  Brothers

  Don’t Look

  Master

  Awakening

  Let Go

  Slip Away

  Runaway Trainwreck

  Trained Hunter

  Sneak Preview

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Looking Back…

  Calli

  Nycholas didn’t mean to condemn me to death, I knew. He never meant to do the bad things that he did. Bad was his nature… every bit as much as love was his nature. But he was a doomed immortal from the moment I met him. Though forgetting him might have saved my life, I loved him too much to do so. And a mortal like me couldn’t run fast enough to escape the brutal hand of the Vesper master twice, no matter how hard I tried.

  I couldn’t save Nycholas. But at least I brought some fleeting joy into his life before he died, and at least I saved one innocent to cast color upon the shadows in the future. She wouldn’t spend her life hiding and running, weak and afraid. She’d face things with strength and throw light into the darkness that ruined my only love.

  Silk

  Calli

  “Come on, Freddy, wrap it up,” I said, none-too-impressed with my apprentice’s seriously slow closeout of the cash register. I bit down the rest of the words that wanted to spew from my mouth, unwilling to fire his ass at the end of a shift when it was already dark outside and we were the only two left in the tattoo shop. Freddy was unpredictable and unreliable. He spent far too much time eyeballing me with his tongue between his lower lip and upper teeth in that way of his… the way that made me feel like I needed to wash my hands. And my face. And my crotch, and everything else. Way too hairy. Not my type.

  Do I have a type? I decided on no, and scowled at Freddy again as he winked at me and clicked his tongue.

  He tossed the wayward strand of brown hair back from his brow and pushed his sleeve up to his elbow for the third time today, exposing the snake wrapped around his forearm - my latest masterpiece. “Made good sales today, Calli.”

  “No thanks to you. I’m gonna ban cell phones behind the counter. Did you take even one walk-in today?”

  Freddy flashed me what must have been intended as a charming grin. “No thanks to me? But I’m the eye-candy behind the counter.”

  I tossed the log book across the counter at him. “No, I’m the eye candy. Shut up and get done.”

  Freddy made a show of pouting and continued to count the cash under my supervision. I pursed my lips as I studied the snake on his skin. That line needs work, that shading is dull, and the orange could use a touch up. Not like my double sleeves - full-arm tattoo coverings of brilliant, multi-colored daisies, with the most perfect of golden cords wrapped between and around the stems - for which I paid a fortune to another artist. Not perfect gold. Something about the gold – anything made of gold, really - covering the blank spaces of my arms, instilled within me a deep sense of security, yet somehow the color was never quite right. The gold looked false, or not strong enough, or not shiny enough… Gah! Freddy said I was a perfectionist and wasted my time on the little things.

  To me, it was all about the little things. Nothing big could stand up against a storm if the little pieces that composed it were absent.

  Freddy squeezed the drawer shut and swept his arm across his chest in a dramatic bow. “All finished, Milady.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Get out of here, then. Tomorrow morning at ten, you’re on walk-ins all day long. If I see you without an iron in your hand for more than five minutes, you’re done.”

  Freddy tossed his jacket over his shoulders and shook back that untidy hair again. Ugh. I faked a smile as I waved him out the door.

  The door clicked shut. I switched my wave to a middle finger and called him a fuckhead under my breath before popping the register back open to re-count it all. That’s what I got for hiring friends: shitty workers who thought they could skate by. I also knew that if I didn’t count the register my way, paper-clipping together the fives in stacks of fifty dollars and the twenties in packs of a hundred, tomorrow I’d forget that I double-checked. A car accident four years ago left me without much for a short-term memory, but I didn’t remember the accident either. My colleague and sister, Blair, told me a million times how it happened, but the story of a flipping truck and smashing glass refused to stick into my brain no matter how often I heard the tale. The only evidence in my head of the accident was the scar on my cheek, a brutal dent of a line running from the outside corner of my left eye to my chin, wrecking the beauty I once carried.

  The bells on the door chimed as it swung open again and I scoffed, busted in the act of re-counting Freddy’s till. “What now?” I snapped. I was the boss, after all… if I felt like re-counting the till, I could re-count the till, and I didn’t need to explain myself. My heart thudded at the thought of an altercation with a guy like Freddy in the middle of the night… defensive, easily pissed off, and interested in me for far more than just my tattoo training.

  Freddy didn’t answer, so I glanced up and dropped my stack of twenties on the floor. They fanned out over my leather-booted feet and I took a step back.

  “I startled you.” His voice was dark and smooth, and reminded me of wine. He stood a few inches taller than me in a long, worn-out brown leather coat that swung near the backs of his knees.

  That’s not Freddy.

  He kept his head down, long, blond hair spilling over his shoulders in a way that reminded me of dreadlocks, though the hair shone of cleanliness, like cords of solid gold, or yellow steel, or…

  Stranger in my shop. Focus. No gold or wine.

  “Um, sorry, we’re closed.” My voice rang with the high-pitched curl of panic on the ends of my words, and I thought about stooping to pick up my cash but didn’t dare take my eyes off the stranger. Something about his stillness, the unnatural bend of his head, eyes on the floor… it left me with a chill on my flesh. His broad shoulders heaved once as he blew out a sigh.

  “Pity.”

  I waited for a moment, glancing about. “You wanna make an appointment? I’m booked tomorrow, but sometimes we have walk-in space…” I trailed off, that damn breathy tone to my offer again. Big, broad, and seriously long hair.

  I might not have a type, but if I had one, it would look something like that stranger in my shop. At least, that’s what I thought until he raised his head and I realized this gorgeous man was not human.

  My jaw dropped and my heart slammed against my ribcage, pounding my lungs down into submission�
� I couldn’t breathe. Holy fuck! Not good! Not good!

  I sucked in a breath to scream, but a leather-gloved hand – that same, worn, brown leather over a palm so thick I could hardly see around it – clamped over my face. My scream rang more in my own chest than in the shop: a muffled squeal no one outside could have heard.

  I didn’t even see him move before he was upon me.

  Boring into my gaze were eyes of solid black, no whites behind the irises; just a glimmer of silver in the center left the impression of a pupil. His skin was bleached pale, and something black inked across his eyebrows and temples, running down the sides of his face and wrapping behind his ears.

  He wore an angry snarl on his lips - pale lips in a sharply-angled jaw peeled back over pearl white teeth that glinted with an odd fluorescence, like the lights flickering above my head or the neon sign on the door. I stared at his mouth, unable to scream for the hand wrapped over my face, and stilled with horror when I realized the bright teeth nestled behind those pale lips were fangs.

  Fangs. Long, pointed, and deadly.

  I wanted to scream again. I wanted to bite his hand and kick him in the groin and run away, but he raised his chin and glared down at me along his nose, and took a breath to speak.

  I didn’t hear his words. My heartbeat swelled in my ears, ringing with a heady cacophony, and I tried to make fists, to stay upright, anything… but my vision fell away from me, distant, tumbling down a sewer drain like a dropped coin, and everything around me vanished.

  For a moment, all I felt was something smooth along my cheek. The silk of my pillowcase, perhaps. So tired. I blinked but there was nothing to see, so I closed my eyes again and let rest have me.

  It felt like morning when I opened them again, and the silk was gone, replaced by unforgiving air. Cold. Was I outside? No, air conditioner. Energy surged through my fingers and toes and I wanted to sit up, but something weighed me down. I blinked a couple times and rolled my head to the side, gazing at my shoulder… a brown leather blanket draped over my exhausted bones, and memory rekindled my fight or flight response.

  Worn brown leather. Stranger in my shop. I fainted!

  I shot upright and gasped, and then let out a scream with every speck of air my lungs held. I tried to look around me but my vision blurred… I ran out of air and screamed again, scrambling backward, kicking off the coat and trying to get my knees under myself… stand up, Calli, dammit, stand up!

  My legs obeyed, and I launched myself to my feet and stumbled forward. I slammed my hand into the sharp corner of the cash register, caught myself and heard a masculine breath rush out behind me. I didn’t need to see him to know it was him.

  The stranger. The monster. I shoved away from the desk and ran on vacant feet, my heart pounding and my head buzzing angrily like I had a tattoo machine between my teeth. I swiped the back of my hand over my eyes to shed the tears from my lashes and try to clear up my vision. The street looked blacker than usual – shit, still nighttime! - and the air chilled me so bone-deep it hurt my skull.

  My feet pounded on the pavement, and I stole a glance behind my shoulder. He was there. He lingered against a lamppost, wearing that brown leather jacket that had been my blanket while I slept.

  Slept? No, fainted. What had he done to me while I was out? A groan, throaty and mortified, leaked from my chest as I ran faster.

  I stumbled when I saw an alley and bolted into it, desperate to escape my pursuer, the nightmare, the demon. I glanced back over my shoulder once more and he stood in the entry to the alley, illuminated as a silhouette in the night, his figure absolutely black and huge, hulking like the shadow of Death himself. It was as though he hadn’t needed to move to follow me… he was simply always there, and had always been there, every time I looked. His hands were flexed at his sides, prepared to spring into action, and I finally let out a scream somebody might hear, my blood-curdling screech piercing my own eardrums as I shrieked in the alley, praying for anyone to find me and save me.

  Iron clamped around my wrist like a cuff, and my run was halted by a swift jerk on my arm. I felt a yank in my shoulder and I spun with the momentum of the pull. My body crashed against his.

  Soft, worn, brown leather. Like the silk of my pillowcase. I buried my face against it, unable to fight, unable to flee, and helplessly alone. If he killed me here, at least I’d find comfort in that soft leather, and my scream dwindled away into a cry as I squeezed my eyelids shut. His aroma lingered on my tongue in this close proximity, the taste of leather wrapped around steel.

  That huge, hard, gloved hand fell against the back of my head – just a touch too roughly – and he stroked my hair.

  “Don’t run.”

  My cry melted into a full-blown sob of confusion, shock, fear, and the morbid realization that my life was fucking over.

  “Breathe,” he said. I sucked in a gasp and released it with another cry, but I tried to quiet the sound, humiliated. I ended up kind of squeaking as I breathed, and I fisted the brown leather in my hands, smooth buttons pressing into my palms. I shook harder and he slipped his hands behind my back and clasped them against my spine, holding me up, supporting my weight.

  “Get it over with,” I whispered. “Please. No pain.”

  I felt his breath stop for a moment, and then resume.

  “No, I don’t think I will,” he said. “I’ll leave you. I try to be swifter, to not give such a fright… Forgive me.”

  “Forgive you?” He wanted me to forgive him. For grabbing me, scaring me, stalking me into an alley and... What?

  “Yes. I meant to be quicker, to end it before you noticed me, but I was taken by surprise.”

  I blinked and pulled back an inch, daring to gaze up at him. “By me?”

  He pulled back as well, studying me as I studied him. I frowned, inspecting the tattoo on his temples… No, not a tattoo. Veins. Prominent, pulsing veins. Stark, reversed lightning, black on powdery pale, slithering over his brow and temples like spider webs and nightmares.

  I stared, awed and stunned, and some other feeling in my body – a deep, traitorous feeling – overwhelmed my fear. He was fucking gorgeous, his eyes bearing depth and his hair long and strong about his shoulders, those thick, golden cords shielding him like a cloak.

  Gorgeous and terrifying. The scent of steel wafted into my nostrils again, and my hand ached from where I slammed it into the counter upon fleeing the tattoo shop. I grimaced and shook, staring at a demon, stunned into silence, certain death was just a breath away.

  If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die. Best to remember this face. Yeah, I could haunt him. I could haunt him all. Day. Long.

  He shook his head and frowned deeply, a shadow of disappointment glancing across his lips. “Well, now, let’s just make this all better,” he said.

  His motions were fluid but I took note of every millimeter he moved as he released me and slipped one glove off his hand. I stared at the skin of his knuckles – powder white and thin with a vague translucence, like tissue paper, as he reached up to his face. He stretched open his mouth – only two of those pearly daggers… Shit, they’re long! – and stroked his forefinger and thumb down one of his fangs. The fang seemed to glow for a moment, and then he showed me a droplet of bright, neon-white… something.

  “What is that?”

  He shushed me and I lowered my gaze, embarrassed, as he pricked his thumb with his fang. His black blood pooled up on the pad and mingled with the neon liquid. I shook my head, not comprehending.

  “This,” he said, his voice as rich and smooth as it had been when he first walked into my shop, when I thought this demon was merely a man, “is for you. Taste it.”

  I gulped. This monster wanted me to taste the neon liquid from his mouth, mixed with his blood. What the hell? Something about the situation felt wrong deep in my core, in a way that seemed so forbidden and necessary. I couldn’t think, but I opened my mouth anyway and said something totally, completely asinine. “What are you, a roofie-dispenser?�
��

  He tilted his head and dropped his hand. “What’s a roofie-dispenser?”

  If a wrecking ball could have fallen on my head to spare me the humiliation of explaining my moronic question, I’d have welcomed it. “Nevermind. No, thank you, I don’t want any.”

  He laughed lowly, and I jumped at the sound… or rather, I jumped at the way it affected me, sliding into my ears and leaking into my soul, pinning me down with weight and authority. In only a laugh. Jesus.

  “Taste. It.” He spoke each word with precision, and it was not a request. The softness in his voice… hard and soft at the same time… I knew to argue could get me killed, but it wasn’t fear that made me comply.

  It was want. I wanted to comply with the demands of this creature… I wanted to lick his concoction from his skin.

  I shivered at the heaviness in his tone, his command, and stepped forward once. He lifted his thumb to me, and I slipped my tongue out from between my lips and licked the sticky liquid off.

  It was bitter like citrus, and before I could draw another breath, I wobbled on my feet, completely tanked, drunk out of my mind. Heat melted through me from my mouth to my groin like a shot of tequila, and I shook my head. “Whoa.”

  “You never met me,” he insisted. Then he said something else, but though I obeyed him, I couldn’t remember what he said, because I’d never met him.

  Just like that, I had never met him. I stumbled back to the tattoo shop, let myself in, and lay down on the floor with my head beside the pile of twenties I’d dropped. The carpet was rough, and I longed for the silk of my pillowcase, and I didn’t hear another sound but the thrum of my heartbeat loud in my ears as I closed my eyes.

  Bells rang in the morning. I didn’t want to get up. Alarm clocks suck balls.

  Someone shook me. Someone slapped me. I brushed Freddy away and curled up to sleep again. Bells can mean good things are coming through the door, too.

  My mouth tasted like the rind of a grapefruit, too bitter to be bile, and I twitched once before opening my eyes. Freddy’s mouth moved near me. Gross.

  My hearing opened up and I realized he was shouting at me, begging me to wake up.

  “Call the police!” he snapped over his shoulder at someone. Blair. I had forgotten she was coming in to work in the morning. Big day, today. Lots of appointments.

  I shook my head and grabbed Freddy’s arm. “No. No cops. Just… give me a minute.” I dragged myself up to a sit, still dressed in the skin-tight jeans, black boots and black sleeveless top I’d worn yesterday. I cringed because my neck hurt. Then I started to cry.

  Why was I crying? I’d only gone to sleep on the floor. It wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t injured beyond repair, all the money was still there, and I missed him with all of my heart.

  Missed him? Who? I shook my head and tried to slow my tears, and my hand started to ache vaguely.

  “You musta punched the counter when you passed out,” Blair said to me. “Did you remember to eat, Calli?”

  I cradled my hand and chomped on my lip – God, I love grapefruit! ­– and gazed down at my hand. Sure enough, a big, black bruise ran along the bone in my hand from my wrist to the knuckle of my pinky finger. Broken. I didn’t remember doing it, but I was accustomed to forgetting things.

  “I broke my hand,” I whispered, but I couldn’t find my voice. Where was my voice? I wanted to cry again, but I swallowed hard and refused to let another whimper escape my lips.

  That didn’t stop the tears, though, and I wiped them again and again. I thought I smelled a whiff of something strange, like rust or pewter, but I couldn’t make it out and I just wanted him back.

  Who the hell did I want back?! Who had I lost? I didn’t have a puppy.

  The day was a blur, and nothing made sense.

  I closed the shop and cancelled all the appointments, since there was no point in trying to tattoo with a busted hand. I went to the hospital, had it x-rayed and got a splint. The doctor complimented me on properly setting the bone by myself, but I didn’t remember the moment. Blair elbowed me where we sat together on the hospital bed, urging me to tell the doctor about my blackout. I simply elbowed her back and kept quiet. It wasn’t like this kind of thing was new to me, after all.

  Freddy bitched when Blair asked him if he gave me acid or something, and I couldn’t take his bullshit anymore so I fired him. I couldn’t blame my sister for asking. He stomped out with his middle finger high in the air, and I felt a little bad. He had been so concerned when I woke up, and I knew my night blacked out on the floor wasn’t his fault, after all.

  No tattooing for six to eight weeks. I was completely fucking screwed.

  “What did you drink?” Blair asked as we chowed down a pizza in the shop before evening rolled in.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Well… something. Orange juice, I think.” The memory escaped me, but I knew it had tasted off. “It must have been spoiled. I haven’t been that fucked up since mushrooms at graduation.”

  Blair laughed and almost choked on her pizza. “Oh my God, I’m so glad we only did that once.” Then, she sobered. Graduation was two days before I disappeared, only to return in the hospital a year later with a gaping hole in my memory.

  Her company was soothing. She suspected I tripped and blacked out when I broke my hand. Stranger things had happened, I supposed. I was grateful my illness seemed to be behind me, and though I couldn’t remember why I’d dropped the cash, I didn’t really care, either. I knew I should care, but I simply didn’t.

  I locked the door once Blair left for the night. My apartment was above the shop, so there wasn’t much point in her walking me home since the journey only involved a flight of stairs. “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m sorry I spooked you.”

  “Spooked?” Blair snorted. “That’s an understatement. You cannot scare me like you did when you took off five years ago. I didn’t think I’d live through it then, and God, Calli… seeing you on the floor like that this morning…” She shook her head.

  I squeezed her fingers, remorseful but without an excuse, since I didn’t know why I’d been gone for so long before my accident, either.

  Blair straightened and smiled, and I was happy she seemed as eager to put the day behind us as I. “Look,” she said, “tomorrow night Dizzy is staying at Joseph’s sister’s house, so it’s movie night for you and me.”

  “Joseph going out for poker?” The prospect of a girls’ night with Blair – and no caution about waking my sweet little niece Dizzy – sounded fantastic.

  Blair nodded. “Yep, so it’s just you and me!”

  I smiled, but her enthusiasm was only half as sincere as it sounded… Blair had a hard time leaving her daughter anywhere, so fiercely overprotective was she. I couldn’t blame her. The world was full of dark, scary things.

  What kind of scary things?

  I gave my sister a hug and sent her on her way. At least tomorrow’s Sunday. Can call Freddy and hire him back, since I can’t tattoo for a couple months.

  I locked the back door as I slipped out of the shop and climbed the fire escape stairs. Halfway up, I jumped.

  “Jesus, Freddy, you scared me!”

  Freddy lingered with his hands stuffed in his hoodie pockets, glaring at me. His face was bright red, and he looked like he had been crying, but he said nothing as I stopped on the landing between the ground and my apartment door.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I said, shivering slightly in the cool, summer air. Portland had been rainy this summer, and I felt stupid for not bringing a jacket down to work with me yesterday. “I was going to call you in the morning and apologize. I wasn’t myself today.”

  Freddy stuck the tip of his tongue between his lower lip and upper teeth, my skin crawling with maggots in my veins. God, he’s gross. He didn’t speak, only let out a mumble of a chuckle and pulled his hands out of his pockets. He stepped toward me.

  I put my good hand against his chest and tried to push him back, to give me space to breathe. My heart
thudded when I detected the stinging sweetness of alcohol on his breath. Rum. Shit.

  “Freddy, step back, please. Let me go home.” Niceness was the best first defense, I figured.

  Freddy stuck his lower lip out and pretended to pout, and then his eyes lit with dangerous intent as I backed myself against the railing. He advanced into my space and cornered me, and I thought I was going to barf, his silence only making the situation seem worse.

  I took a steadying breath. “Freddy,” I said with more force, trying to shove the waver of tears in my voice away, “Get back. Now.”

  Freddy sighed heavily, blowing his nauseating breath into my face. He must have already vomited once from too much to drink, and I averted my face to try and gasp some fresh air in the hot cloud of stink weeping off him.

  But he grabbed my chin, and I pulled away from him. I wasn’t strong enough to fight him. His thumb dug into the scar on my cheek. I let out a shriek but he silenced me with his mouth, his lips hard on mine, forcing his tongue between my teeth as his other hand grabbed me by the ass. This wasn’t the Freddy I knew. This was the Freddy I feared. I froze for a moment as he crushed me against the railing, his desires obvious as he ground his pelvis against mine. But I didn’t freeze for long, as the stench of his breath washed over me through his moan, so I chomped on his tongue and tasted blood as he jerked away and grunted.

  I spat out a mouthful of blood with a gag. “Get back!” I shouted, shoving him with my good hand. He grabbed it by the wrist and yanked me to his chest, his eyes showing the fog of alcohol mixed with the sharp anger of rejection as a drop of blood slid from the corner of his mouth.

  And then, much to my surprise, delight, and bone-deep terror, a voice as smooth as chocolate and wine echoed from the ground below our feet.

  “She said to get back.”

  Freddy jumped with surprise and released me, and then craned over the edge of the railing to peer down at the stranger, and my heart thudded anew, with panic, fear, excitement, gratitude… some other emotions I couldn’t define, too. Things I’d never felt before. Who was this stranger, and why was he back?

  Back? He was here before. When? I couldn’t remember, and I shook my head violently for a moment, trying to clear some fog I couldn’t touch. Freddy glanced at me and then back down at the stranger.

  “Calli, get upstairs,” Freddy hissed at me. “Go! This guy is fucked up!”

  I focused on Freddy. “Are you kidding me? Like your intentions here are so honorable.”

  “No, Calli, seriously, fuck, get upstairs! Go, now!”

  I glanced down at the stranger, and though his eyes pierced black through a dark-veined brow of pallid skin, no fear shivered through my spine at the sight of him.

  Well, no fear I didn’t like, anyway. The fear I did feel was hot and leaking in my heart, filling me from the inside out like the pleasant burn of wine, like excitement and desire. Like driving too fast or the lurch of my stomach on a steep slope skiing.

  The fear I tasted at Freddy’s presence wasn’t hot. It was cold, gross, and smelled like vomit.

  I shoved Freddy back with more force and he stumbled down a couple stairs. At the bottom, the stranger appeared, having moved so fast I didn’t see him take a single step. Freddy crashed into the worn, brown leather coat of the stranger - my memories seeped back into my mind, and I wanted to touch it, to lick the silken material as I’d licked his thumb – and the stranger grabbed him up into the air by his hair.

  Like, up in the air. By his hair, with one hand, the stranger lifted Freddy’s feet right off the ground.

  Freddy shouted and grasped at the powder-white fingers wound through his hair, but he couldn’t shake himself free. The stranger jerked him once and Freddy’s hair yanked out of his scalp as he crumpled to the ground.

  My stomach rolled and I tasted pizza. I braced myself against the railing with my good hand and couldn’t tear my gaze away for long enough to even blink.

  The stranger dropped his handful of Freddy’s hair. Freddy skittered back against the bottom stair, grunting when his spine hit the metal. He tried to find a grip on the stair, but his hand slipped off and he fell against it again. The stranger bent and took Freddy’s chin in his fingertips.

  “Look at me,” the stranger ordered Freddy. My former employee, would-be attacker and failed rescuer stared into those black eyes, stunned into stillness, helpless to the hypnotic glare of the monster.

  “No way to treat your friend,” the stranger said. I watched Freddy shake, and then the stranger tugged his chin up and exposed his throat, leaned down, opened his mouth and sank his fangs through the flesh and meat. He stared at me all the while, black eyes diving into my body and soul as I gasped.

  He stared at me while he bit my friend. My knees iced and tried to buckle, but I held myself up on the railing and stared right back.

  He left his fangs imbedded in Freddy’s skin for only a moment before he pulled away and tilted his head, watching me witness this weird, intimate, wrong act.

  Freddy wobbled where he sat for a moment, and I tore my gaze away from the stranger to watch.

  He slumped against the stair and fell to the side, and his cheeks crinkled like he was smiling broadly. Then, they crinkled more, and his limbs –twitched and thrashed as though he’d been shot with a Taser. His knees crumpled up and his arms curled at his chest, and his skin crinkled further.

  Drying. Dehydrating. Crumpling before me, Freddy shrank and shrank, choking the whole time but unable to scream, as his body mummified on the ground at the stranger’s feet.

  I glanced up at the stranger and found him still watching me, and I tasted that fucking pizza again. My eyes were only off Freddy’s form for a second, but it was long enough that when I looked back, my former employee was shriveled up smaller than a Labrador retriever, and his cheeks fell fully into his face, highlighting the prominent edge of his cheekbones like a skeleton. He drew gasps that scraped with just a hint of his voice, and I wound my elbow around the railing to keep from falling over.

  The stranger grabbed Freddy by the throat and broke his stare away from me as he lifted the mummy and shook his clothes from his skin. Naked, Freddy looked even smaller than before, his flesh crinkled up as though aged beyond death, and his skin clung to his bones like wet bed sheets as the stranger dangled him in the air.

  And then the stranger lifted him higher and opened his mouth – like really opened it, wider than wide, unhinged in the most monstrous way… I had a brief imagining that he could swallow a car, if he tried.

  No way. This couldn’t be real.

  He dropped Freddy’s choking, dried form into his gape. He used both hands and shoved the wayward, crumpled limbs into his mouth after Freddy’s feet and torso. He flexed his arms as he shoved, his head craned back, stuffing Freddy’s whole fucking body into his expanded throat and unhinged jaw. I watched Freddy’s terrified glare lock with mine as the stranger heaved on the top of his head and wrapped his stretched-open lips around his face.

  The stranger shoved once more and Freddy disappeared into his throat. A vast bulge stuck out from the stranger’s torso as he turned to regard me once more, and then he shuddered violently from head to toe and the bulge shrank, an odd mist seeping up like steam from his eyes, mouth, nose, and even his skin, a hiss ringing through the air.

  A moment later, the air around the stranger cleared, his bulge shrank away, and my friend was gone.

  Gone.

  Fucking gone. Eaten. Bitten, mummified, swallowed and digested, by a creature that looked much like a man.

  The smell of digested human – fucking digested human, are you kidding me?! – washed into my nose and mouth as I gasped, and I dropped back onto my ass on the ground, banging my head on the railing. I heard it, but I didn’t feel it. All I saw was the slow stalk of the stranger toward me on the stairs as he approached, and I wanted to scream, to cry, to vomit, to attack… but all I could do was stare. Paralyzed.

  What a glorious, beautiful,
terrible, disgusting monster… I couldn’t decide what to think. I couldn’t think.

  Freddy was dead.

  The stranger knelt before me and took a breath to speak, but blackness overwhelmed my vision again and all I felt once more was unforgiving steel and the softest of silk.