Page 6 of The Arbiter

The beat takes us as we move through the audience touching them without leaving anyone out. We rub our asses against them and slide our hands up their chests, releasing tiny amounts of pheromones to enchant them. I feel heat rising through my body as I move, and my skin begins to glisten with sweat. I’m confused by how my body seems to be exerting more than it usually does but keep dancing anyway. A few of the Damned are having trouble holding their forms as we pass. I see a flash of eyes while working the room. Each minute that passes, I continually feel my skin growing hotter.

The song nears the end, and we make our way back to the stage for the grand finale. The girls fall to their hands and knees, and I lie across their backs. The entire dance has left me winded, and I’m sweating profusely now. I normally heat up from getting a decent workout, but this feels much different, and I had to grit my teeth through most of the dance. Now, as I get ready to strike my final pose, my skin gets this sensation like it’s being pushed out from the inside and on the verge of exploding. Just as the heat becomes too much for me to bear anymore, my body shreds, and filaments of light pour forth from my eyes and mouth, my back arching painfully as they escape. It floods across my body and flashes out in a strobing sequence, causing gasps and screams of shock as I’m rocked by power so intense that it vibrates through me in quick spasms.

A scream is pulled from my throat from the burning agony. A light explodes, followed by every other spotlight on stage bursting and flinging sparks in all directions. It throws the room into pitch black darkness as I collapse on top of my confused dancers.

I hear the bartender trying to explain what happened as part of the show. “Wasn’t that one hell of an ending? Mistress Nocturna pulled out all of the stops for tonight’s performance!”

Taking advantage of the darkness and noise from the now wild applause, a familiar set of arms picks me up and carries me away from the stage. My mind is muddled, and my skin crawls with static electricity. Eyes burning beneath my lids, I keep them closed as we ascend the stairs. I ache all over and whimper when I’m set down on one of the second-floor couches. There’s murmuring around me, and a warm hand palms my cheek before Felix’s voice booms out for everyone to be quiet.

“Did anyone see what happened?” he asks in a loud tone that isn’t helping the headache consuming me.

“Everything was fine,” Jamie answers with concern in her voice. “No one used any powers on her while we were dancing through the crowd if that’s what you’re thinking. We were trying to hit the final pose, and we all saw and felt her grow unbearably hot. It was so bad that we had a hard time holding her up because it was burning our backs.”

What the Damnation is going on?

“Did you all feel that?” Cedric asks over the girls agreeing about the burns on their backs.

“I can still feel the power on her.”

It’s silent for a moment before the others gasp.

“No fucking way!” Dahlia, another dancer, says with awe. “Does this mean what I think it does?”

What is she talking about?I just need a cup of coffee, a good night’s rest, and a whole bottle of Jager to take this edge off. I feel both powerful and weak all at once.

“Cassia must be dead,” Cedric whispers ominously.

“Did the Creator really chooseherout of all the halfies?” Felix questions, though I don’t know who he’s asking.

I grow tired of them talking around me and decide to jump into the conversation. “What the fuck are you guys talking about?” I rasp, my throat tight and parched from whatever the Damnation happened.

Cedric’s large, ice-cold knuckles sweep across my forehead. “Are you okay, Mistress?”

When I finally pry my eyes open, I’m not surprised to see them all either kneeling or standing around me; however, Cedric is the only one that will meet my stare. Grunting as I try to sit up, Cedric and Felix both help me.

“Nocturna, you should take it easy,” Jamie says as she sits by my feet then grabs my hand into hers and starts rubbing her thumb over my knuckles.

I move my head, and my hair falls over my shoulders. I’m not in second form anymore, but it doesn’t look like I’m in my first one either. My skin is flashing back and forth between normal and skeletal, and the tips of my ebony hair are white as a ghost.

“What the fuck?” I say, voicing my inner thought aloud as I finger the ends of my hair in confusion. I raise my free hand to look at my skin.

“You feel different,” Cedric states as he kneels and levels his face with mine. “The power radiating off you is like Cassia’s.” My jaw drops open at what he’s insinuating.

“No. No damn way! I can't be…” I trail off as my skin starts to ease back to its first form. Except for some reason the white-tipped hair stays the same. I glance around at everyone as they look at each other then back to me. “That would mean…”

“Cassia is dead, and the Creator has chosen you as the new Arbiter,” Cedric finishes my sentence.

“Fuck,” is all I manage to groan before blacking out.

***

Monroe

I’ve just barely shut my eyes when I feel it, the shock wave of power indicating the current Arbiter has died and another has been chosen in her place.

Entire realms of both the Damned and Rites had to have felt it. Power like that does not go silently into the night. The Creator takes up the most powerful mantle in the hierarchy of the supernatural races then right below him is Cain in his prison of Damnation. After those two, there are the leaders on the earthly realm, The High Order for the Rites who patrol the Damned that step out of line and The Infernal for the Damned. Each Infernal is chosen from the most powerful of each race, and I rule the Strige. The chosen remain an Infernal leader until either death from natural or unnatural causes or being overthrown by a unanimous vote from the other Infernal. The Arbiter of our races falls between the Order and the Infernal. Like all of the latter, I feel the new Arbiter’s ascendance more deeply in my bones than the other Damned.

Springing from my bed as fast as my inhuman speed can take me, I’m robed, down the staircase, and in my office in less than a minute. Moments like this are why I sometimes hate living in such a large plantation home. Then again, you haven’t truly lived authentic Louisiana culture unless you’ve lived in a plantation at least once. That’s just my opinion, though.

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