Lucera

Untitled Part 2

"Falling asleep on the job, Lucera?"

The maiden startled and sprang to her feet, as the first lady swept into the lobby with flourish.

"Of course not, Your Excellen—"

"Hush gyul," the first lady snapped, her Trini accent bleeding through. "I nuh in de mood for your white girl accent."

Trembling slightly, Lucera pressed her lips together, not daring to breathe, as the first lady closed in.

"I brought yuh here to have a little chat." crimson-painted lips curled their shape into a grotesque sneer, with contemptuous eyes of burning coal that smouldered from a face of porcelain perfection. Something evil lurched behind that seemingly impenetrable beauty, though, something that made Lucera want to bolt for Trinity Hills.

"I would like to know what de fuck a Venezuelan whore doing working for my husband," the first lady spat threw clenched teeth.

Lucera could suddenly feel the stinging slap of her breath on her face, a fowl, rancid smell pouring off the first lady in waves causing a cloying sensation to crawl up the back of her neck. The first lady squandered no more time with frivolous insults and was upon Lucera in the next moment like a vengeful lioness, tackling the helpless young woman to the carpeted floor.

Lucera's heart leapt into her throat and panic began to rear its ugly head, as this woman, this thing, loomed over her like a black cloud of incomprehensible rage.

"I go cut you, bitch," it spat. "I going to feed on yuh till nothing left but a dried-up husk. I go drain every last ounce of that precious crimson elixir zinging through yuh veins, and I go have yuh soul."

Its oily lips twitched at the corners as it raked a serrated claw vertically across the valley of Lucera's breasts. A black, abhorrent cackle bubbled up the back of the thing's throat, greenish bile squirting from its charred lips like undigested avocado.

Somehow Lucera knew that this wasn't the first lady. It couldn't be. It talked and before the swift turn of events even acted like her. But whatever this thing was, it couldn't be remotely human. She had to get away from it. She had to—

The thought was interrupted, as a powerful pang suddenly blasted through her mid-rift. Something wet and sticky quickly soaked through her work shirt as a coppery scent permeated the air, though the feeling was swiftly lost as Lucera began to slip away from reality.

"No!" she heard a familiar voice roar in her mind. "Use the staff—your cane—baby. I am almost there. Don't lose consciousness."

But Lucera felt as if she were being carried away by a velvety, softly wafting breeze. She just wanted to close her eyes and sleep in peaceful perpetuity.

"No, Lucera," the beautiful voice begged with a hysterical edge. "Lucy, the cane. It is a staff of enormous power."

An abrupt burst of adrenalin rocketed through her system, clearing the airy haze enough for her to swing the cane towards her assailant. Although she did not pack a lot of force into the blow, the fallacious first lady replica was sent catapulting across the room, a thrillingly terrifying squeal erupting from the impostor's lips. The little energy boost she was afforded was rapidly depleted shortly thereafter, and Lucera found herself succumbing to the quiet. The last thing she heard was a thunderous snarl that promised retribution in the form of a slow, scalding demise.

A groan slipped from Lucera's lips as she came to, a throbbing migraine threatening to split her head in half. Everywhere hurt. Determining she was in a bed of some sort, certainly not her own, since it dwarfed her petite figure three times more than her own bed, she struggled to pull herself up into a sitting position but quickly cried out in pain and flopped back onto the pillows. Gabe was at her side in the next instance. She always seemed to know whenever he was there with her, long before he took his first breath in her presence.