Alex silently crossed the lavish bedroom and passed through the door into the hallway. It was quite dark, but he supposed that he didn't 'see' in the same way a physical being does, or he would be blind all the time not having a retina to reflect light. He paused there for a minute, then walked unhurriedly down the L-shaped hall to the window at the far end where he could look out into the backyard. The unseasonably clear weather was holding and the expansive lawns and gardens encircling the gazebo were bright as day in the pale moonlight. Alex's eyes wandered the grounds thoughtfully, for once finding his prison not nearly so dreary and colorless, and that was an absolute wonder. Jo had taken everything Alex had ever understood, shaken it like a box of Legos, and turned it on its head. All merely by virtue of being herself.
Jo's attitude toward life, the universe, and everything was even more alluring than her physical ability to stop traffic. She could be fierce, coy, aggressive, cute, brazen, shy, sexy, seductive, slutty, or anything else she felt like being at the time, but the essential
her
didn't change. She was a woman who could get shoved headfirst into a reality changing situation regarding how life and death itself worked, and her reaction boiled down to, "Really? Cool, tell me all about it! And by the way, would you like to try sex just to see if it works?"
Jo's sexuality was fascinating simply because it wasn't the most fascinating thing about her. She had incorporated it into her whole self. It didn't define her as a person, it was just one more piece that fit in neatly with its neighbors to create a unique mosaic. This was a woman who liked psychology, flowers, medicine, cats, old sci-fi shows, funny T-shirts, and giggled like a teenager when sexually servicing a man in a mockup of an outdoor French café. Alex found himself admiring her and wondering what else she possessed that she hadn't chosen to reveal to him yet.
Alex's eyes drifted across the back lawn to the corner that no light ever seemed to penetrate. The only thing he could make out from this distance was the faintest glint of the moon on weathered glass, yet still he shuddered. Alex had avoided talking about the greenhouse, mostly because he didn't know what to say. On a shamefully selfish note, he also feared that if he managed to communicate his fears about the place, Jo might decide to get the hell out of the house and Alex did
not
want her to leave. Or worse, and more likely knowing Jo, she would march straight out and demand whatever dwelt there to show itself. And she was powerful enough that she might get her wish.
After satisfying his bizarre need to check on the damn place periodically, Alex meandered back down the hall and paused at Jo's door. 'Wake her up by fucking her'. Just the casual way she delivered the invitation was more enticing than if she slutted it up and appealed to his ego. Alex would grant her a few hours to rest, and then give serious consideration to taking her up on her offer. Jo's 'give-me-one-good-reason-why-not' approach to sex and even love was quite contagious.
As per his very long-term habit, Alex strolled the halls of the house with no destination. Jo had instructed him in her charmingly clinical manner to try and fall in love with her, and Alex felt he was well on his way. He knew he was so starved for certain things that he hadn't realized it until Jo helpfully reminded him, and one of the things he was starved for was the emotion of love itself. Alex wasn't sure if the ratio of what he felt weighed in favor of love for Jo or love for what she could give him. He thought he knew the answer but didn't entirely trust himself. Sue him, he was new at this.
Alex's wanderings led him downstairs to the living room. There were still embers in the fireplace, but they were safely dying. Alex glanced over at the couch and saw Jean-Luc perched on the arm, watching him with his standard casual-yet-intensive feline gaze. "Yo, buddy," Alex greeted him. "How's being a cat tonight? Pretty good?" The animal ignored him which Alex took as a good sign and he decided to take a chance. He walked over to the couch, not abruptly but not carefully either, just nice and smooth, and sat down on the far end. Jean-Luc lazily regarded him but still wasn't perturbed.
"How's it hanging?" Alex asked the cat conversationally as if he were talking with a good pal. "Eat any good mice lately? Myself, I'm more for just lazing around until somebody feeds me, but that's the kind of guy I am. I get all cranky without my naps." Remembering what Jo had said about the effects of energy, Alex relaxed and joked with the cat as if he were his best friend.
Jean-Luc sat up and regarded Alex a moment longer. Then he stepped down off the arm of the couch, gave a long, languid cat-stretch, and strolled calmly over to where Alex sat. He sniffed a few times, giving Alex a cursory inspection, and then lay down and presented his back in the "you may pet me now" pose that cats reserve for showing affection.
"Well, holy shit," Alex remarked. His tone was casual, but the profanity was heartfelt. He gave the animal a stroke, forcing himself not to approach timidly, and Jean-Luc immediately started purring in his loud voice.
The warm, golden glow that flooded through Alex as he petted and played with his new friend kept him busy until the dim light of morning started to peek in the windows.
#####
The thing in the walls watched Alex play with the cat, Its mouth twisted into a wry smile. The boy's carnal adventures had rekindled the little bit of his spirit that hadn't been eaten yet, and his aura glowed with newfound life. Even now he burned brighter simply because he'd found an animal companion that didn't detest him. Every time the feline renewed the sound of appreciation those animals made, Alex's feeble inner fire would grow a little warmer. It was almost touching when you thought about it. It considered reaching up and turning the cat inside out just to see what Alex would do, but refrained for now.
It had watched everything the couple had been up to, but of course It was always watching. There was nowhere on the estate that was hidden from Its gaze. Their burgeoning romance was entirely amusing, and the power of their emotions only made their life force that much sweeter. It might give them a few days to let their passions accumulate, it would doubtless give Alex a nice bit of tang before he was devoured entirely.
It opened Its eye in the master bedroom to look in on the female. Even fast asleep beneath her down comforter, her aura was ablaze with power that could practically be tasted. She was a fine, ripe, fruit ready for the plucking. Smiling, It reached out with invisible tendrils, snaking across the floor and up onto the bed. The female turned over in her sleep and her brow furrowed as It drew close, and she began to whimper as It caressed her curves through the expensive duvet. It moved carefully so as not to wake her, though her distress grew as It reached up to glide along her cheek and trace the outline of her lips. She instinctively shied away from Its touch, her mouth drawn down in a grimace, but It persisted and the tendrils wormed their way into her nose and mouth to explore her from the inside.
The female whimpered and tossed in her sleep, caught in the grip of a sudden nightmare as the spectral tentacles moved across her body. The thing in the walls could barely contain Itself, taking pains to only sip at her abundant life force even as It wormed under the covers to clasp Its coils around her body. She fought in her sleep as It slipped down over her stomach to probe like a blind snake between her legs, searching for all her openings so It could slither inside. The female cried out as she was violated but didn't awaken, trapped in her night terrors and utterly vulnerable. Her fear was the most delicious thing It had ever tasted.
For long moments, the female thrashed in Its coils as it drew a portion of her boundless spirit energy into Itself. It longed to drink deeply, even to drain her dry, but that would be killing the proverbial golden goose. It would gain a substantial boost to Its own power but only a temporary one, whereas if It showed a little restraint It could feed on her for many years to come.
Unsatisfied but with the edge taken off Its hunger, It finally withdrew Its phantom tentacles from the female, away from the bed and back into the walls. She calmed somewhat but her brow remained furrowed, still caught in her nightmares. The portion of her soulspirit that It had eaten appeared as a black void in her aura, but she still had plenty left to give and wouldn't even notice the missing bit. At least not until it was far,
far
too late.
It remained for a time, watching the female whimper in her troubled sleep, and then shifted Its attention away. It spared a metaphysical synapse to check in on Alex and the cat, and then moved Its attention outside to the grounds. The moon was bright overhead tonight, illuminating the gardens and pathways below. Aside from Alex, the new female, and her animal, there were only a few flickers of life on the estate. Even birds and forest animals found the grounds unnerving and steered clear of the place, as if the very earth itself had turned sour. The rats were the bravest of the scavengers that would make excursions into the walled-in estate, and It located one now, scurrying away from the house with some ill-gotten gain in its jaws.
It reached out with invisible limbs and seized the small animal. The rat squeaked with fear and panic as it was lifted off the ground, phantom coils tightening around its body as its heart fluttered in its tiny chest. There was a sharp crack and a crunch as the rat's back broke, its body contorting unnaturally in midair. The small animal's escaping life force was barely a droplet, not even a snack, and was quickly and greedily gulped down. The rat's broken body dropped back to the cold earth, its meagre light snuffed out like a matchstick, its tiny spirit gone forever.
In the darkness, It licked Its lips and smiled to Itself, retreating into the greenhouse to sleep off Its meal. It left a few eyes open around the house should the loving couple get up to anything else worthy of attention, but otherwise withdrew Its awareness. It pulled back through the glass walls of the greenhouse, down through the rotted floor, and into the cold earth beneath where It slept, dreaming Its own infernal dreams.
#####
"Seriously, Alex," Jo said. "I think she might be able to give us a hand. She claims to know a lot more about this than we do, and that book she sold me has been pretty much dead on so far."
I don't know.
The shot glass moved beneath Jo's fingertips.
"I just want to talk to her. Take her out to lunch or something. I'm not going to even tell her where I live, I just want to tell her about you and maybe a little bit of what we've done. Everything else I've found on the subject just tells me how afraid of you I should be, and you're doing a lot of things to me, Alex, but scaring me isn't one of them."
I don't know.
At least there was a little hesitation this time.
"Alex," Jo persisted. "Look at it this way, what's the worst that can happen? She tells the newspapers and gets laughed at? Calls the Ghostbusters? Takes out a billboard reading, 'Hey, this crazy bitch thinks she fucked a ghost'? She's the closest thing to an expert we've got, maybe she
does
know something that can help us."
The glass wavered, drifting a bit to the left and right as if Alex were making up his mind. "Hey," Jo said to the empty room. "I get it, I totally do. You've been safely hidden away in here for... well, basically for your whole life as far as you know. I understand revealing yourself is scary shit. But I don't see any way Vicky could hurt us if she wanted to, and I've got a good feeling about her. I think that counts for something, I got a good feeling off
