Waking up in a strange though lavish cabin, doesn’t help my disorientation when I come to. I’ve been loaded down with painkillers, that I have to vomit out of my system. I pull myself up between one good arm, and an opposing good leg to lean on the balcony and let the cool forest breeze take care of the sweat, and dim the icky feeling.Taking stock of my busted head, stitching in my reset shoulder and the unique aftermath of a bullet in my leg. We’re not in the city. It’s way too quiet. No traffic. No sirens. No bustling.Even though there is nothing left, the new throb of my skull tells me I have a concussion that has me woozy again. And wouldn’t you know, I find a way to topple over the hip-high railing and roll down the branches of a thick tree. Stuck right in at the base of an upper limb, worse than a bad wedgie.The more I blink, the longer I get a clear focus before I go underwater again. All things considered, I seem to be okay……. No not okay. Definitely not okay, Nyx.For a
I may not remember what time it is. Know what day it is, but I’m still lucid enough to remember it’s Harvest Fest. The fact that I’m sober enough to remember my name. All dozen of them actually, says I’m nowhere near the goal of drinking myself to death.As one of the Nine, who has died in every way there is, that particular end is only something I’ve achieved once or twice in the countless years I’ve been alive.That I remember any way.Unlike other ‘immortal’s’ who just won’t go down. I’m as easy to kill as any other human. Sort of. Centuries of self-taught tactics don’t make it as easy as it once was, but se la vi.The ‘wanderers’ say that there are nine tribes of immortals. Each having their own curse. Mine is death because I die at the drop of a hat. It’s just that rather than being reincarnated into a new life or body, the one I’m in resets.Sure, I get the relief of not knowing bupkiss for a fair stretch, but eventually the memories and my reality always wiggles its way back in
…. Twenty Years Later ….I know what you must be thinking. Why?Why would you, retired veteran and practical shut in, Kinsley Nyx Knight, be hiding behind a hedge too tall in a skirt too small? Donned in a jacket that has too many wrappy straps to know what to do with? Let alone one in front of a conglomerate that can get you black listed from every decent job in this city?Nicky. That’s right. You guessed it. Just like everything else that has gone wrong since I got back to Haven, this is all my orphan brother Roman Nikolai Cross’ fault!Ever since the little imp named me after the stray cat outside our orphanage, whenever something smashes, crashes, cracks or breaks, I’m certain to be in the epicenter of said kerfuffle. My current predicament of running through the Upper East Side in stripper wear for a working interview is unfortunate, but something I can live with. Lucy as well as Ryan reassured me that this is what corporate ladies wear, so I’ll go with it. Believe me, weirder
Somewhere I have enough sense to know that a normal person would have just skipped the bank. I, on the other hand, am even more motivated than less to sit across from a notary before my appointment with Courtney.See, Aspies like me, can’t deviate from a plan once they make it.Parts of me may know what a bad idea facing down the man in 1800’s cosplay is, but that nothing compared to the terror of the unknown. Being blind sided or knocked off course are some of the worst things you can do to an autistic.Whether it’s conscious or not, people like me have to walk through every situation mentally before we move physically, and when a wrench is thrown in that.......Well it's not pretty.For me, things like figuring out plans step by step for your day, in the morning with coffee. Mentally taking a drive in your head, planning a shopping trip, or even something as mundane as washing the dishes, became so intrinsic I didn't even know I was doing them.For most of us. The more we complete a
“What part of him showing up at my apartment is not ringing warning bells in your pea brain?!” I shrill. There are things that even I can’t laugh at, no matter how hard I try. Still, as long as I or a body part don’t end up in a trophy case, this might seem as funny to me as it has to Lucy and Shannon.Eventually.“This is not funny, and I am not joking!” Thankfully or unfortunately, whichever works, ‘Jonathan’ chooses that moment to launch himself on a squirrel thinking it’s a bat.“DIE DEMON,” his sharp accented declaration is likely heard by the people in the lobby, it’s so loud. Not to mention every other person doing their best to avoid the lunatic as they walk through the thirty by thirty swing doors.I all but pounce out of the hedge, using a rather portly man as a human shield in case the vampire hunter dares look back. Once inside the pristine lobby, I do not ‘run’ to the elevators. It is, after all, one of five or six major conglomerates that have the ability to blacklist me
"Jonathan!" My shocked gasp may sound as dramatic and excitable as the man’s greeting to me.However, I assure you, I am not in any way shape or form happy to see the young Hispanic twenty-something year old with perfect caramel skin.So young in fact that he cannot even grow a proper mustache. Proven by the fact the one he’s currently sporting is penciled on to his face.‘Jonathan’ seemed normal at first. All psychopaths do, according to my psych rotation. Anyway, I felt bad for the tiny man. Easily falling into a pity conversation with a thousand apologies for Nicky doing this when I’m not ready to date.I’d been through enough rounds with the Witch that I instantly picked up on the fact that the name switch at the corner bistro was an intentional request.Poor guy was so nervous, and by the way that he was sneezing at the green tea we both ordered, I’m fairly certain he was allergic to it.The pity conversation turned into our love of the supernatural, and how Bram Stoker’s Dracula
With the black clad stranger between me and my stalker, I can imagine when I break away that it looks like he’s sucking my neck. At least from Jonathan’s point of view.I’ve already come this far, why not?“Renfield tricked me,” I pant, pointing my shaking finger at the obnoxious blonde man, literally crying, this is all so hysterical to him.Every intake of breath brushing my sensitized body against the iron arms of a man I haven’t even looked at in all my hysterics…. Well, let’s just say it’s not all fake when I practically swoon like the well-to-do British lady I’m impersonating.Liking the first living object rubbing between my legs in months waaayy too much for the rest of my skit not to come out breathless.“Dracula’s spell is too powerful. I can’t fight it, go! Go find Van Helsing!” This development does not deter the businessman I spat at for his indecency.No, my labeling the lithe blonde man a bug eating weasel only worsens his laughing fit.If I weren’t red enough already,
Rolling out of bed, I find my partner already in the kitchen. The Titan, I, personally, find as sexy as I do savage, is gulping down swill, I have no idea how he drinks without ‘unsaintly amounts of cream and sugar’, like I do.Alaric Rourke Farelli, Rourke to his friends, is my step cousin. After my Uncle Gio adopted him at age ten, we more or less grew up together.If we were at his family home or mine, we’d have a full wait staff to deal with the breakfast he’s starting to make. I won’t say that the six-foot seven, yoked out enforcer is a master chef, but he learned basic recipes well before his stint in the Allied Forces.I, on the other hand, never enlisted, and remain allergic to any and every household task. Entirely unashamed to admit that I would be ordering a full spread, including coffee, if Rourke wasn’t already working on it.Even if I feel like I’m quiet, it never takes those blue eyes of his more than half a heartbeat to pick up anyone’s presence in a room. Part of the
Waking up in a strange though lavish cabin, doesn’t help my disorientation when I come to. I’ve been loaded down with painkillers, that I have to vomit out of my system. I pull myself up between one good arm, and an opposing good leg to lean on the balcony and let the cool forest breeze take care of the sweat, and dim the icky feeling.Taking stock of my busted head, stitching in my reset shoulder and the unique aftermath of a bullet in my leg. We’re not in the city. It’s way too quiet. No traffic. No sirens. No bustling.Even though there is nothing left, the new throb of my skull tells me I have a concussion that has me woozy again. And wouldn’t you know, I find a way to topple over the hip-high railing and roll down the branches of a thick tree. Stuck right in at the base of an upper limb, worse than a bad wedgie.The more I blink, the longer I get a clear focus before I go underwater again. All things considered, I seem to be okay……. No not okay. Definitely not okay, Nyx.For a
……… Fifteen Years Ago ………..I’m with my first long-term sub, ‘Heather’. On leave for the first time in months. Just out of the worst attack we’d seen since the initial bombing that started the draft a few years back. I need my girls safe. I want my girls happy. Doesn’t mean that I don’t feel that edge. That need for obedience, and all the alternative ways I have of getting them to listen.Just fucking listen to Daddy and you’ll have more than you can imagine. “Sorry Daddy,” the mock pout from Heather’s wider cheeks and stuck out lip when she looks back, is cute enough I wonder if she'll keep it up. Let me have the rougher side that leads to as many marks as it does ice packs. Have her locked down in my bed for the week that I’m home. That won’t let anything or anyone take her from the bubble of my power. It’s true that I need the release of aggression and stress, and as good as I’ll make it all feel for my sub, it does mean she’ll have to agree to forfeit walking for a day or two.
It takes me a minute to come to. I slept well, I think, but am jolted by the sensory overload of a large empty room. I remember having an absolute fit, but not much else. It's so..... fuzzy, and hurts the more I try to remember things..... I don't know what I did or where I am. Just that my head hurts, it smells great, and I feel awful.I also have this sense of grief. Like my heart’s broken. I know the feeling because regardless of the one beating being on the wrong side, this feeling happens in the left. Or the whole of my chest cavity.I know that I’ve been crying in my sleep. Where some part of me remembers what is so big. What in the schnitzel happened? The only thing popping up in the void of my bandaged noggin is that I was at a bar and a demon saved me from getting married to Jonathan……Holding my throbbing head, all of my thoughts turn to goblty gook again. Every thought that comes in flies right out again, and I reach..... search for those comparisons I need and..... Ooof,
….......Vince........Mid-meeting with one of the family heads I semi trust enough to take intel from, I'm alerted to an emergency situation at the hospital. Normally, I deal with the board, rather than handle things directly, but according to the frantic woman on the phone, a psychopath is making death threats.It’s a new habit, but a habit nonetheless to pull up Tio's location. Needless to say, I move faster than a bat out of hell tugging along Vance, who's every bit the size but nowhere near the personality as Rourke is. Apparently there is another in house problem with Ana, like we don't have enough on our plates. Getting into the doors every one might as well cross themselves and fall to their knees. I only get half the story, with Nico pacing in the hallway rather than in a room with our kid. It's a whole new level of red, hearing fragments of the fact that my son was denied treatment. That mixed with Nico hiring a nanny rather than staying with Tio as agreed just to get som
I’m already out of sorts as is by the time I get to the ER in North-Point. Thankfully I didn’t get lost, and the Witches tracking spell has failed. Otherwise, I have no doubt he’d have arranged a meet cute with the corner apocalypse man for the way I left. I’m not so far gone though, that I don’t recognize the staff letting someone else back while RJ is fighting for breath. “Let's go,” I grab Ryan Senior's arm dragging her through the swing doors into the triage station. She either knows the look in my eyes or is too frantic about her sick baby to care about things like the No Admittance without a medical attendant, signs. I can also guarantee there will be ‘no hair on my tongue’ when I lose my stuffing with these people. No matter how well we dress or behave, Hollow are less than people to Northside prats.I can't really say if it's mom mode, that I'll never truly get to use like I wanted. A threat and insult to my Doctor sense and Hippocratic oaths or flat out soldier bitch perso
Well, apparently the red tags aren’t a bluff this time. With bulldozers parked along with the demolition, notices hanging all over our walls, I call the person I meant to on arriving instead of the man who has a tendency to make things worse, unwittingly. Ryan. She was already there clearing out everything that was left. Catching me up on everything that happened after I left. Turns out Lucy and Shannon had moved in with George. Starting a real relationship with her, while Ryan was just staying at George’s new town house until she could find another place for her and RJ. “You okay with all that?” Ryan asks as we pack up the bathroom. “Yeah,” I lick my lips, finding that I really am. Even if Ryan’s straight, she respects the fact that I’m bi and people like who they like. Is even nice enough and comfortable being close to me unlike a lot of other girls who know the truth about me. And just for old time’s sake, she helps me do my hair and make up before we go to George’s. I’m sur
Hard to say why I always get a zing during pandemonium every year, but far from home or not, I still feel the unique energy that comes with the parade of a thousand demons.Must be a Fey thing.Still, it’s weird that whenever I’m not on assignment during Harvest Fest, I always find myself drinking in a random public place waiting for something inexplicable to happen.A bottle in, I could really care less about the evil eye the little old Cantonese lady is giving me.In a half devil’s mask, I happily tip my head in a happy internal jig, drinking straight from the bottle I didn’t buy from the floor to ceiling bar she’s eyeing me from.Being plastered is one of the few breaks my brain gets being a genius, and sorry, but no five dollar bottle of swill she’s got is going to do the trick, no matter how high she up-charges for it.Grouchiness aside, I’m a good guy.Or at least I’m trying to be. New lease on life and all that. I’ll leave her a hundred before I make my way out into the crowded
After about three days, Nicky relents to cutting me off from the anti-psychotics. Dr. Cross is more than aware that I'm not taking the sleeping pills any more than the mood stabilizers that might as well be elephant tranq darts.I don't like how they make me feel. I would say I don't like how they make me think, if I had the ability to process more than two plus two equals four while on them. I won't say that I didn't consider meds with how weird my life was getting, but a bit of anxiety is worth the ability to feel the wind, and appreciate rather than blur the world around me.The sleeping pills may have stopped the night terrors, but even without the other suppressors those little white dots made it impossible to function the following day. I was sleeping between twelve and fourteen hours rather than the usual four or five I needed every night.Those things make me just as tired as the rest and are just making my icky stomach even more unbearable. I have a sprained ankle, burns on
I know I may look like an over grown gorilla out of the dark ages, but fuck. There's only so much a man can take. Even my big ass. Even though I was more rabid beast than a kid, Gio adopted me regardless. It was Georgie, who got me to live again. Girl got it in her own way, was adopted same as I am. Her parents died in a car crash, and Pop didn't trust the rest of his cousins to step up. That and it was pretty obvious that she belonged to Gio rather than the brown-eyed brute who'd adopted Rico anyway. I'm not stupid and did have a decade's worth of education between eleven and twenty when I went into the allied forces. It was pretty clear, even if it wasn't what Gio intended adopting me, that the pits would never really be out of my system. I was a fighter plain and simple, and in his mind I needed all the structure and honor that went along with that. It was the best and hardest thing that could have happened. Just because I don't believe that numbers and letters will ever belo