1
Downtown, Los Angeles; Now:
On the street along the alley where Tessura had just devoured the soul of a man who, in all honesty, should've been enormously inconsequential, the last public transport of the evening slowly passed, its passengers oblivious to her diabolical mischief.
A young woman smirked at the thought of a young man before her attention was pulled into the alley that lingered in shade like a stalker hiding from prying eyes. Just a glimpse of it picked at her suspicions and reeled her in; uncertainties hidden behind the reflections on the window... But why it grabbed her, she was unsure. Just the thought of this inimical, lonely corridor birthed some slimy seed of disquiet inside...enticing her curiosity with a mystery to unravel.
The brakes on the bus squeaked and the hydraulics hissed as it came to a stop not far from the scene of a brutal murder that should have gone unnoticed. Alex stepped off the bus, leery as she'd be every night, and pinched her coat closed, buttoning it at its middle to shield herself from the cold. It normally wouldn't get below forty degrees in the dead of night in these streets she grew to endure, but this night seemed abnormally chilly, and her warm breath rolled from her lips into the frigid air as a dense mist as thick as smoke.
Her heels clopped against the hard cement, her stride speaking without her behest. The inviting sounds of her dressy shoes made her apprehensive when alone – like they were announcing to the local street creeps an unsuspecting and attractive female was close by and plumped for meddling.
Dark denim hugged her thighs beneath a long wool coat that only stopped to meet the top of her black suede boots. Straight black hair and curves proportional to her frame, if Disney's Pocahontas was a city girl, Alex might have been mistaken for her sister.
A nipping breeze caught the skin of her cheek. It startled her with a cold bite and a foul smell so she lowered her chin to avoid the taste as bits of trash and empty bags pushed past her feet like rolling urban tumbleweed. Her confusion then met a sudden worry winding in her chest, her heart uneasy as she neared the mystery that called to her.
Her stride slowed, but her advance was steady. Her gut knew better than to press on, clinching in protest, but her curiosity outmuscled her intuition and her feet foolishly followed her intrigue.
As she got closer, the air grew colder, and the breeze tore passed her face like ripping masking tape from her cheek. It was as if the wind was also trying to push her from her course, and she might've been wise to adhere. But when she reached the alley, she stepped cautious into its opening anyway, almost as much for cover from the current as to sate her curiosity.
When her foot found the alley floor the wind came to a stop. Frantic strands of her hair running from God-knows-what settled onto her back and shoulders almost with a sigh. The path's entire sinister feel dissipated in an instant and suddenly seemed to be more normal than any alley naturally should...
She thought her imagination might be reaching, thinking a "normal" alleyway wasn't normal at all, but she wasn't convinced of its proposed innocuousness. It didn't seem as dark as it did when she passed by it earlier. Instead she found it well-lit and strangely uncluttered. There were no smells of trash, urine, shit, alcohol, or any other signs of the filth that otherwise saturated the rest of the block.
It appeared to offer her nothing of interest other than how disinteresting it seemed...
She hadn't walked more than ten yards in before an inconveniently placed, building wall cut short her detour. She stared at the obstruction with suspicious eyes before reaching out, fingers prodding at its validity. She didn't know what she expected to find or even what she was searching for, but she honestly never realized the alley she frequently passed had such an abrupt dead end.
She put her palm to the barrier, experiencing its texture. It was rough and cold, bulky and obtrusive, just like it appeared. It just had this feel to it – like an obnoxious bouncer at a bar who wouldn't allow you to pass simply to fulfill his role as an obtuse and overgrown barricade.
She ran her fingers over the perfectly flat concrete, longing for an imperfection – a nick, a crack or a bump – then conveniently came across a split in its surface, then a chip not far from that, appearing on cue. She traced a finger over the crack and fondled the small hole next to it, bewitched by its simplicity. She didn't know why, but she wasn't comfortable with testimony of her own eyes, somehow uncertain of the truths they swore by...
If she could see what her instincts were warning her of she'd be staring helplessly at a demonic beast with a man's head dripping from its claws and a butchered corpse at its feet. Outside the illusion of the wall and quiet alley, she unknowingly stood in the center of a pool of human insides that lay soaking into the cracks of the asphalt that bit at her heels—
Tessura towered boldly in front of her outstretched hand which hovered only inches from the demon's yellow fangs. Its carnivorous nature wanted to feed on the girl's flesh and drink of her soul, and it sneered angrily at her presence... But there was something else there, beyond its understanding, forcibly holding it at bay.
She smelled Alex's hand, snorting and huffing like an animal would to identify something as edible, and slightly cocked her demon head in a subtle awareness of what hid beneath the surface. Her cunning eyes pierced the cloth curtaining the girl's figure and a circular shape formed close to her heart. Tessura focused on the object hanging from her neck and, as it became clearer to her, her eyes felt its sting – a reckoning taking roots in the corneas of her infernal stare.
The beast snapped her head back and let loose a roar that should've been heard for blocks, but by wielding the strength of her nether telepathy, she didn't allow her prey to regard the sound. But the protective strength of the amulet Alex wore dampened the demon's influence. With her hand still lost in the illusion of the wall, she abruptly felt the hot breath of the beast's injured howl.
The smell of it coaxed a surprised gag from her throat and she veered her head. Her palm jerked back as a chill ran through her body with the remnants of its breath still numbing her fingers. She shuffled away with a sudden urge to not press her luck and turned toward the street...but again felt that ominous nothingness behind her that'd sparked her curiosity to start...
Her inquiring mind briefly stuttered her retreat – until she had a second notion that warned her not to tread. It was a feeling bound by natural instinct that man and animal shared alike for the mutual benefit of staying alive.
Tessura watched the young woman walk away unscathed, and her malicious fascination distracted her from her time-pressed undertakings. Her overseer beckoned – the night sky itself obeying that will – and the air over her head tore open a fresh wound that bled shards of mysticism from several yards above.
She examined the anomaly unafraid, hair frizzed around her ears and snout while a static buzz bounced off the walls.
Snarling at the fissure in the sky, she protested its intrusion as it yawned open an electric maw and devoured the headless corpse from her feet into a nebulous mass. Tessura watched her victim atomize into streaky tones of flesh and meat then get whisked away inside the voltaic mouth that hounded her before it blinked into nothing. It was a very meticulous extraction of any, and very likely all material evidence. Nothing and no one would ever know of Tessura's demonic dealings...unless, of course, they were unfortunate enough to be involuntarily involved.
The demon-wolf melted away its size until only the form of a strikingly handsome dog remained, with shiny black fur and glowing, yellow eyes. It shook off its transformation like dust on its coat and sniffed around. Combing over the area, it hoped to pick up a scent that would arouse it and give it purpose; the smell of blood and fresh flesh alluring even while heavily masked by a woman's product. Tessura's eyes gleamed and her fangs dripped, her mouth watering in anticipation of the scent that escaped its fate. She growled deeply under her breath a wanting groan. It was the primal whine of hunger unappeased.
2
Alex hurried from the alley, her breathing a bit erratic but she kept a level head. She wasn't sure what provoked such fright but knew by the stillness of the night that whatever it was wasn't going to go away.
When she was a child, she had an extra awareness that reached beyond the plane of a mortal existence. She'd sit for hours at night conversing with her mother, Aiyana, who'd been dead since the night of her birth. She never told a soul about her conversations with her mother's spirit except for her older brother who'd be a part of their talks through her.
A stretch of nearly a year went by when they'd speak to her nightly. Alex and her brother would sit and tell their departed mother about their friends at school, things their teachers would say, and stuff they did they thought would make her proud. Alex was four at the time and her brother twelve, both reaching for something in the world that existed beyond the confines of their callous reality. Eventually her brother started losing his conviction and growing skeptical of his sister's ability to commune with a woman she'd never met. But the way she'd describe her, and the things she'd tell him his mother would say were so much like her that at times he could feel her there in the room beside them; even smell her hair and sense her smile.
As the life of a child would grow more complex, with new friends, homework, and boys and such, Alex saw her mother less and less until she began doubting her own eyes and ears and dismissed her visions as the overactive imaginings of a lonely little girl. Her brother would bring it up at times as sort of a happy memory, but Alex was never very comfortable talking about it. Occasionally she would still see her mother in her dreams as she did as a kid and, through further experience, knew now her visions were more than just a lonely child's fancy.
The amulet she wore around her neck she got from her brother. He said their mother asked him to pass it on when she was old enough to wear it with respect. It had a historical background that was Native American, as was her mother's heritage, and was a gift she cherished and prayed with whenever she needed guidance or strength.
She reached under her coat and clutched the heirloom in her palm as she would whenever she grew nervous or frightened. Its form was made of a silver that would never get cold when it was close to her heart. On one side, it had an eagle's claw clutching a translucent green stone about the size of a marble, its consistency as deep as the belly of the sea. On the other, the green stone sat in the center of an eye, with ancient text encircling its edge and the sun shining behind it all. Neither she nor her brother really knew its meaning since their father didn't share their mother's heritage – or any other hallowed beliefs. He was a heartless, despicable tyrant of a man who'd lost custody of his children long before Alex was old enough to have the displeasure of getting to know him. She'd visited him in prison once, mostly to gain some insight into the "gifts" her life had been burdened with. Her visit proved to be less than heartwarming, but disturbingly insightful—
"Hi...dad."
The word "dad" was harder to pry from her throat than she expected. It tasted bitter when she said it, like a lump of sour mucus on the back of her tongue. She immediately wished she could take it back but hoped to use it to get him to drop his guard.
The middle-aged man behind the prison glass in an orange jumpsuit smiled, although it didn't bring Alex comfort to see. It was a vile and obnoxious split in his visage that reeked of arrogance and deceit. He was a white man in his late forties, with salt-and-pepper hair, broad shoulders, and a face and stare that looked like it'd been dragged through three lifetimes. Freshly shaven to reveal nicks and scars on a square jaw and cleft chin, he spoke to his seventeen-year-old daughter in a twistedly perverse tone.
"Hey, sugar-plumb." His voice was deep and raspy, not sincere in the slightest. "You look...just like yer mom." He sized up his daughter's face and posture, purposely looking her over to make her feel uncomfortable.
Alex swallowed her unease and cleared the lump from her throat. "I, uh..."
"...You wanna know more about yer mother." He arrogantly put his words into her mouth and, when he spoke, wasn't looking at her eyes, but at her lips and breasts. He hadn't seen her since she was four and she'd grown into a stunning sight to see.
She leaned back in her seat as if she could move away from his stare, and he smirked, knowing his attempt to make her feel violated was realized. He knew she came to get information from him and didn't plan on making it easy. She didn't come to see him, he was sure, but he wasn't sure what she wanted. He planned to get his own sickly pleasures out of this once-in-a-lifetime visit, and to keep her there, dangling on the edge of his every word for as long as he could.
"You wanna know what she was like – if she had any other family: sisters or brothers you could call auntie and uncle, who'd welcome yer orphan ass with open arms and loaded wallets." He hmphed while leaning back in his chair, rearranging the look on her face from nervous to cross.
"Mmmmm..." he groaned perversely. "You look even more like her when yer angry." His smile was almost genuine now, but even more deranged. He slid his free hand off the counter housing the glass between them and onto his lap, continuing to mock her civility with his tone.
"You wanna know how such an 'innocent' and caring' young woman could've gotten mixed up with a piece of dog shit like yer father, don't ya, sugar-plumb."
She wasn't sure what to say to him – or even if she should bother wasting the air – but figured she'd give him a few minutes to show his cards. Maybe he'd answer her questions without her having to pry.
"You wanna know how yer beautiful, sweet lil' cherry of an ass coulda came outta the disgusting loins of the ol' con sittin' in front of ya," his hand fiddled under the table between them and she could see his arm moving but tried not to think about what he was doing, "...don't ya, sugar-plumb."
An uncomfortable silence painfully lingered, the stench of it nearly unbearable. Alex almost got up and left, not wanting the old perv to get any more pleasure from seeing her insulted. But then he continued to chirp so she stayed seated and listened.
His voice went softer, and his breathing deeper. He got a sick pleasure out of every unwillingly moment he took from her and displayed his demented enjoyment through a heinous grin (shamelessly exposing obviously neglected dental-hygiene).
"Yer not thinkin' about leavin' already, are ya, sugar-plumb?"
"Don't...call me that." It bothered her to respond to his taunts, but she wanted him to see she wasn't there to be bullied.
"Oh, so you finally found yer words, huh, sugar-plumb." He chuckled at her irritation. "Nice of you to join our special little, family talk." He seemed to be as amused by the sound of his own voice as much as his hand in his pants. "So...let's hear it. What is it you always wan'ed to tell yer dear ol' daddy to his face if you ever got the chance, huh? No wait – lemme guess: 'Fuck you, dad. It shoulda been you that died.' ...Is that it? Or – or 'Why'd you do it, dad? Why'd you rob that store and shoot that poor ol' man and leave us all alone?' "
His tone was purposely childish, attempting to get a rise out of her. He hoped to stir up more anger in her eyes. It turned him on when a woman was mad but her expression hardly changed. She decided not to let him bother her. She wasn't going to react emotionally to anything he said if she could help it.
"Fuck you, dad. It should've been you that died." She said it plainly, without any feeling, as if it were a fact read from a book in school library. "I'd ask what my mother saw in you, but I already know." She smiled the slightest bit. "A challenge to try and make a man out of an animal. ...She probably pitied you more than she ever really gave a shit."
He smiled back at that. Her attempt to insult him didn't take – at least not on the surface. He, instead, embraced it.
"Oh, it wasn't pity, princess. It was perversion. Yer mommy was a sadistic little whore with a taste for domestic drama." And with a grin he added, "You're a brave one, aren't ya, sugar-plumb. Standin' up to yer big, bad father. Comin' down here all by yerself..." Then a thought occurred: "Where's that pussy lil' role-model, athlete-for-a-son I raised for the better part of a decade, huh? He too piss-scared to come look his evil father in the eyes? ...Afraid he might see hisself sittin' here behind this glass?"
"Marty isn't afraid of you. And he isn't anything like you." His comment on her brother irked her more than she was prepared for. "No matter how much you tried to raise him to be as bitter and as pessimistic as you, he turned out to be someone who would make a mother proud," then she added, "and a sorry excuse for a man envious."
That mouthful touched under the stone-cold surface of the old con and she saw it in the twitch of his eyes. The truth hurts, it would seem.
"I'm not here to whine about not having a mother or father—"
"Then why are you here, sugar-plumb? Not that I'm not really enjoying our special little talk." He chuckled provocatively. There was no doubt his remark was a reference to his hand on his "package."
She hesitated a moment, waiting for the right amount of suspense to build before dropping the bomb. The one thing she really had wanted to say to her father when the time came. The thing that would set the tone for her for the rest of her life if she came by the reaction she suspected to get. His reception now could confirm her suspicions about her mother and herself, and the "gifts" she's had to live with—
He could almost see it coming in her strategic silence and tried to brace himself for the blow...
"I'm here to look into the eyes of the monster who murdered my mother."
The Earth stood still.
His facial expression went from "fuck you" to "oh, fuck..." and he leaned back as if he could escape his own surprise. It was as though he was confronted by the only possible thing left in his life that could actually get a rise out of him. She couldn't have known what he'd done... His accomplice made uncovering any trace of it impossible.
He was so noticeably affected that his stupor told her exactly what she wanted to know. It'd almost completely confirmed that, one: her mother didn't die from complications during child birth – unless the term "complications" encompassed premeditated murder due to a lethal cocktail in her saline solution followed by a hospital-pillow-sandwich. And, two: her dreams were real. She had seen her mother murdered by her father...and now she was sure she knew why...
"You're not really my father, are you."
3
Sharp claws clicked against cement in the distance, and Alex clutched the pepper spray in her palm. She hurried down the concrete sidewalk, trying to keep ahead of the feeling that something was watching her, scrutinizing her very existence...
No one was left on the streets at this point, which was odd since her neighborhood never slept. The block was barren, empty and grim. The street lights flickered and struggled against the dark, but were ultimately defeated, quivered, and then burnt out, leaving a black, lightless void ominously lingering in her wake.
She heard what sounded like whispers in the wind that crept through the block but couldn't be sure if they were real or just her hyped-up senses acting on overdrive. She didn't know what exactly was happening but was sure she wasn't alone. Something had followed her, expertly concealing its presence like a predator stalking its meal, and the night itself conformed to its decree.
A chill climbed over her spine that was so intense it rung in her ears just as a gust of wind blew passed her face and nefariously whispered her name...
"Alex......"
She jerked her head, looking over her shoulders.
The whisper was so clear that if it was a real voice, the mouth that breathed it would've been inches from her ears. The wind even felt warm on her lobes when it spoke her name and she wanted to scream in the hopes she'd get some reaction from her surroundings. Maybe a Good Samaritan from an apartment nearby, running out to check on her... Or, hell...even a bum would do. Anything to break the stillness she was drowning in that enshrouded her like a dream she didn't realize she was having.
And like a knife in her gut, her cellphone blared out loud, startling her terribly, shortening her breath. But when that passed, it was a blessing to hear.
She reached into her purse when it rang a second time, pulled it out and placed it to her ear, not bothering to look to see who was calling.
"Hello?" Her voice shook when she spoke, struggling to maintain control.
"Hi... Alex? It's Terry. I'm a friend of your brother's."
She didn't know him well but knew of him. "Terry, hi." Then it hit her. "What's wrong? Where's Marty?"
"Nothing's wrong, sweetheart, he's okay. ...Umm... He's in the hospital, but he's gonna be fine. It's just a concussion. He didn't have his phone on him and couldn't remember yur number." Something in his tone made her feel uneasy, her insides twisting at the conjecture. "There was an, uh, accident on the ice." He paused and the silence between them filled her mind with dread. Then: "Just...just come down whenever you can. Don't...don't worry, though. Really. He's okay."
Nothing else mattered now. Her bad dream was over, she thought...
Or had it only begun?
"Where is he?"