Page 272 of Evil Hearts

“This does not just happenBeag Truaighe, it is a gift that must be bestowed upon you by a higher power. Sowhogave it to you?”

“I DON’T FUCKING KNOW!” I finally lose my composure and snap into his face. And then the strangest thing happens.

Something even stranger than a being made of shadow and stars seeping through my window. Those shadows? They dissipate slightly. Then nearly completely. And underneath them is a glorious sight I’d have never imagined would be there.

A fearsome beast that most would never recover from. But to me he’s a tearful display of perfection. Layer after layer of rotating glistening teeth that reflect the light in my room like polished obsidian.

I’m breathless.

He drops me from his grasp and leaps away but the shadows keep receding until he’s standing there in what I suspect is his true form. Giant spikes protrude from his shoulders and iridescent light shimmers across his limbs like pulsing veins. His arms lead down to two large points that he leans on; the faintest shadows still whisp around him like steam in the cold.

There has to be something supremely defective inside of me because all I can think about is how he would feel against my bare skin. Nothing could stop my eyes from dropping down between his powerful legs to see if he had anything else to sate the growing need eating me up from the inside.

A thick appendage twined together like the tines of a DNA strand swirls in and out of sight, existing and then not. The closer I look, I realize, parts of him do this intermittently. It’s a mesmerizing phenomenon on its own. He’s parts and a whole, dying stars.

I know from parts of their conversations that this isn’t their regular haunt. They don’t reside here. They come from somewhere in the back of our minds, only conjured forth by some carnal and ancient power that tasks them with duties to fulfill. It’s all been very vague but I’ve done my best to follow along.

“Is this you?” It’s the best I can get to come out of my mouth.

“What are you?” He asks aghast and shakes his head as he backs away further.

I reach my hand out ready to plead for him to stay but my open window aids his escape as he again fades into shadows and stars and flies out and up into the night on his silken wings.

I feel the loss immediately as a tightening ball of spines and burrs in my center. Like my entire being is turning in on itself, ready to devour me to make it all stop. I already feel like I’ve gone so long without them and now I’ve lost them before I hadthe chance to really know them. They were parts of me, and they’re gone.

Gone.

Gone is starting to sound okay again.

2

How many olivesdo you suppose would be lethal? Because I’ve eaten a jar and a half. I’m salty and therefore needed a salty snack to find balance. It’s a delicate science, don’t look into it.

I thought that I had known emptiness before, but this is a catastrophic empty I could never fathom. I can either find something to fill it with or I can continue to lay here on my soft shaggy rug in my overly decorated bathroom and wait to fade away into a putrid stain on the floor. Maybe even both. But would I do that to my neighbors?

I sigh and let the empty olive jar I’ve been hugging roll away, waiting for the satisfying thunk it will make when it drops off of the elevated platform my large bathtub sits on. I don’t make a lot as a burlesque dancer, at least not anymore. Once upon a time though I got a hefty sign on bonus and I swiftly sunk it into this bathroom.

My safe space where my giant tub takes center stage lifted almost a foot above the rest of the room. Pastels and glitters shine on every surface and the only item of black is a large mural behind the tub of my legs adorned in a tutu photographed by a friend. A candid shot before I stopped really caring about the craft.

Hey, where is my thunk?

I glare and turn my head to see where the jar has gone off to and almost swallow my tongue when I catch a pair of eyes so pale lavender they could pass as white staring back at me. And attached to them is a massive wolf head leading down to a massive wolf paw that has stopped my jar from clattering to the floor.

“Ismael.” I gasp at first but then I’m scrambling to right myself and move faster than my brain can function, throwing my arms around his massive neck.

Beneath his fur I can feel grooves and ridges, blemishes as if he’s covered in scars and mutations. His skin is warm but the fur that decorates it is cold and my breath casts icy puffs across it. The tears that form in my eyes begin to freeze to my lashes. I know I should let go, never should have touched him, but I can’t be ripped away again.

“I’ve waited so long just to hold you.” I melt further into the strangeness of him. “All this time you’ve all touched me in ways I can’t live without now. Stoked a fever, teased me in my dreams and then you’re gone when I wake. I’ve always had to keep you a secret from myself. I thought I was crazy for so long and maybe I am. I just don’t care anymore. As long as I go where you go I don’t care.” I squeeze tighter and tighter as I babble, fearing he’ll pull away from me any moment and I’ll be alone again.

Always that fear of being alone.

“Shhh.” It’s the softest sound I’ve ever heard and it calms me immediately.

Like a pup pinched at the neck, I droop into submission and just hang on waiting for what comes next. My face buried in his strange fur, my fingers tangled around knobs and grooves in his marred flesh. This wolf that can’t possibly be a wolf has come to me in my sanctuary and made me feel safer than it ever has. He was here just hours ago threatening to knock me unconsciousand now without a word I feel as though he’d protect me from all harm.

Still silent, he lifts me into his arms, shifting into his humanoid form and cradling me to his chest. My heart beats so fast I feel it in my throat and I do my best to remain still, I don’t want to break whatever spell this is. I don’t want to rupture this moment.

Slowly, I slide my hand from the back of his neck down his shoulder to his chest just in front of my face. His skin looks just like crushed velvet, it’s not black like I thought but an impossible shade of violet. The surface of it gives slightly like Ebon’s shadows do and my palm rests on hard flesh beneath, not the lightly curled fur my eyes see. And under that, if I look really hard, like with Ebon, there’s a deep crimson thrumming throughout his chest.

---