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.