Swapped Ch 01

Mary very nearly flung her phone across the room after her boyfriend hung up on her. It was so frustrating that he treated her like a toy. Kris treated her like she was something to be taken down off the shelf when he wanted something, twenty bucks, a ride to work maybe a fuck. When he was done with her she was supposed to be content to sit on the shelf waiting for the next time he'd want something. Most of the time she didn't complain. She didn't ask for much from Kris and one of those things she did ask was that when she had a bad day that he listen to her. Or at least stay on the phone until she was done ranting about her life. She knew perfectly well that half the time he wasn't actually listening to her but sometimes that didn't really matter.

Right then Mary wanted more than anything to scream and the only thing stopping her was the fact that her room mates were all sleeping and the walls of her apartment were thin enough that she could hear it when her neighbors turned on the television. After a long moment she satisfied her frustration by smothering her scream with a pillow.

Unsurprisingly she felt a little better once the scream was out of her but not enough better to sleep. She'd been hoping that Kris would make her feel better about things but he'd only made things worse. When she'd called him she was just upset with her boss. A sexist, racist, piece of shit who didn't seem to understand that her job was watching the front desk and customer service. She was not with room service, she was not a bartender or a waitress and she sure as hell wasn't a bellhop. Mary might have made an exception on occasion; if someone asked her real nice and things were slow enough that she could risk being away from the desk for a few minutes but it sure as fuck wasn't her job. It was all so frustrating and all she wanted was someone who would sit there and listen.

And Kris wouldn't.

Mary felt her eyes welling up with a flood of hot tears that she stubbornly refused to let flow. If she let the herself cry now she had no idea when she'd stop and the last thing she wanted was to show up to work with puffy eyes and Kris would somehow manage to think she showed up like that to make him feel bad and then he'd give her the cold shoulder all day. Crying was not an option no matter how good it might make her feel.

If crying wasn't an option Mary would simply have to settle for something else that usually made her feel better. She took a deep breath and pulled the emergency kit from under her bed. She hastily set up the candles at specific spots around her room lighting them all and kneeling in the center of the room. Her eyes drifted shut and she focused her mind completely on her breathing. In through the nose down to her core then up and out through her mouth.

It took a few moments before she started calming down enough that she was confident that her tears were in the past. A few had managed to escape and streak down her cheeks but the rest had evaporated. She was careful to keep her mind as clear as possible, in the circle she had to keep her mind clear.

An image of Kris leapt into her mind only for a second but it was long enough to twist the Zen like serenity she was hoping to achieve and replacing it with a confused flood of emotion. Why did he have to make life so fucking confusing all the goddamn time?! One moment Kris could have her completely convinced that she was the absolute center of the universe. The sun rose and set for her and only her and he'd always be there. That was usually when he wanted something but sometimes the only thing he wanted was to be near her. Other times, like right then, he could make her feel utterly disposable.

Why he couldn't make her feel like she was the center of his world all the time was a mystery she'd never be able to solve. She happily did that for him. "If he just spent one day in my life he wouldn't treat me like this!" Mary's hands balled into fists, she could feel the tears starting to return when her room suddenly got several degrees cooler.

And she wasn't alone any longer.

Mary remained perfectly still keeping her eyes shut tight. As long as she couldn't see the intruder then she was still alone. She was just going to remain perfectly still. Forever if that was what it took. She had to ignore the faint smell of brown sugar and cinnamon that reminded her of her Grandmother's cooking. She had to find a way to ignore the fact that she could feel a pair of eyes traveling over her.

"You know pretending you can't see me won't make me go away." A silken voice called out from Mary's bed. As much as she wanted to continue trying to ignore the strange presence she was unable to stop from opening her eyes and turning around.

There was a woman lying on her bed, well a female. The thing lying on her bed wasn't human. For one thing it had bright red skin and small black horns curling up from her forehead parting her black bangs. Large leathery wings were folded up partially out of sight behind it and it was too large to be a human. Mary couldn't tell how tall the creature was only that her head was resting on the pillows and her three toed clawed feet were hanging well off the bottom of the bed. Her serpentine tail stretched even farther than that casually swiping stuffed animals off the shelf.

"What?" The creature pursed its full black lips into a mock pout. Mary would have ran but she couldn't seem to get her legs beneath her. "Don't get up." The creature sat up on the bed, legs spread immodestly wide. Kneeling on the ground left Mary at eye level with the creature's tight nest of black pubic hair. "And don't be afraid."

Being told not to be afraid of the seven eight nine foot demon sitting on her bed had quite the opposite effect on Mary. Her legs might not have had the strength to carry her but her arms could pull and her feet could push and in a moment she was backed against the mirrored closet door staring at her door. A door that was guarded by spade tipped tail that had scattered her plush toys all across the floor.

"Calm down. I'm not here to hurt you." The woman's hair fell forward concealing part of her face. "If I wanted to hurt you you'd know by the being dead part." She giggled and flipped her hair back. If she wasn't disconcerting enough already seeing the red demon woman behaving in such a childish way mad her even more disturbing. "I'm just here to let you know your wish has been granted."

"What?" Mary asked wilding glancing around the room for an alternate escape. Her eyes settled on the window equal distance from her and the voracious monster seconds from devouring her soul. If she could get her legs beneath her Mary could make it before the demon reacted. Being two stories up though meant she might only be escaping to a split skull and a demon casually taking it's time.

"Your wish has been granted." The creature repeated.

"Holy shit."

"Not exactly sweetheart, let me explain."

Mary would later point out that in no way did she allow the demon to do anything. Five foot tall human women don't allow nearly nine foot tall demons to do anything. The only thing she could have done to stop the demon from doing exactly what she planned would have been to cover her ears and scream at the top of her lungs and that probably would have just earned her one spectacular kicking of her ass.

The demon introduced herself as Stephanie, Stephanie Succubus. She apparently thought it her name was either hilarious or embarrassing. Either way despite her already red skin tone Mary could clearly make out that Stephanie was blushing at the mention of her name. Her tail was also whipping back and forth like an angry cat at the mention of her name. Stephanie was some kind of special sex demon and usually she punished rapists. Apparently granting wishes was something they did. There was someone she only referred to as 'That Man' who had instructed her to personally take care of this one. After that the gibberish started to make Mary's head hurt and she stopped really paying attention when it became obvious that the demon was more talking to hear herself than trying to communicate. "You'll find out what it's like to be him."

Mary heard that last part but she didn't get a chance to ask about it before Stephanie's eyes turned coal black and something wrapped around Mary. It was like being smothered by a cold, wet blanket. It was so thick it took every ounce of strength she could muster just to draw air into her lungs. After a few moments even that became too much work and she just let it push her down onto the carpet and eventually the world just went blank.

OoOoO

Kris had his phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear trying his best to listen carefully to his girlfriend. The thing was there wasn't really anything he could do about this. It wasn't like he could show up at the hotel where she worked and beat her boss into a stain on the carpet. Actually he could, Kris had seen the guy a couple of times and he was nothing much. Average height, maybe a bit pudgy, had acne like he was still in middle school or something, looked winded from taking the stairs two flights instead of taking the elevator like the lazy fuck that he was. Kris could beat the man into a greasy paste. However he wouldn't and that was roughly the same thing.

What exactly was he supposed to do about the fact that she worked for a jackass who took advantage of the fact that she was the junior employee working minimum wage. She was treated like a gopher but what did she expect? That was just how life was. More importantly, to him, at the moment, was why did she think that he gave a single fuck about that. It wasn't interesting, he had no advice to give her, he couldn't solve the problem and ultimately it was just whining that reminded him of his dog when he wouldn't play fetch. Just that pitch made him want to ram a screwdriver into his ears to prevent that noise from making it to his brain ever again.

He wasn't sure if she was starting to repeat herself because he wasn't listening and had occasionally forgotten that she couldn't see him nodding his head every so often or if the story was just so much like the thing that had upset her the week before and before that and at her old job that he actually knew the rest of the script. Whatever it was he was just about to queue up in League of Legends and that was going to require him shouting a bunch of idiots he'd probably never played with before nor would he play with again.

"Okay babe I'll talk to you tomorrow." He didn't wait for her to protest this time. That was the reason why what should have been a quick five or ten minute phone call had lasted fifty three minutes. He wasn't even sure why she insisted on him calling her when he got home from work. There wasn't a damn thing about his day that was remotely interesting; taking bread off trucks to be put on new trucks was about as repetitive and boring as anything could be. It wasn't a huge concession though so he called her as soon as he walked in the door almost every night and when he didn't he never heard the end of it. There wasn't anything in the world so important that he couldn't take a moment out to at least text her.

As soon as he phone left his ear he quickly silenced it and tossed it on a pillow where it wouldn't annoy him when she called him back and left him no fewer than three messages. He wasn't going to waste any time listening to them because he knew exactly what they were going to say. The first one would be polite asking him to call her back, the second would be angry telling him that he was an asshole and the last one would a sobbing half threat half apology where she told him that he was a jerk and should treat her better and she promised she wouldn't cry.

All that could wait until after he'd finished pwning some noobs.

A familiar tingle on his scalp reminded Kris that she was right, he was being a bit of an ass but he really didn't feel like hearing her complain about things until one of them passed out. That just wasn't a particularly fun way to spend a night and it often seemed like the nights that weren't spent fucking her were spent listening to her gripe about how terrible her life was. Nothing, including him, seemed to make her life worthwhile and as hard as he tried not to take it personally it did hurt to constantly hear her talk about how horrible her life was. He knew he was supposed to just know somehow that she meant everything else in her life sucked and he was wonderful and the fact that she constantly told him that he sucked was . . . fuck it all. He didn't have time to worry about that right now.

"Hey all this is Doc T here, I'll be going mid with Annie and we'll be sailing to a quick and easy victory if you all remember to do your jobs and follow my lead." Sean sang into the headset doing his best impression of an airplane pilot. He smiled happily at the chorus of light chuckles and 'hell yeahs' while the rest of his team picked out their characters.

Fifteen minutes later he was sporting two kills, three assists, zero deaths and the center tower was only a single good push from destruction and for the first time in almost eight hours things were all as they should be. This wasn't going to last, in a half hour or so this game would be over and he'd crash then wake up and go back to his thankless job but right then he could smile.

Then the lights in his apartment flickered once, twice, thrice and went out. The apartment had close to nothing in the way of natural light, he was on the ground floor, the other buildings were close enough to block out whatever moonlight there was and the street lights were placed just far enough apart that Kris could see his window but damned if he could see anything between himself and the window. "FUCK!" He roared. He mad a point to gently set his laptop aside and make sure he wasn't tangled in any of the cords before he got up and stumbled his way over to the fridge. He had a cartoon of cookies n' cream ice cream and he'd be damned if he was going to let it melt without being eaten.

He had only taken two steps when he felt a chill travel the length of his spine. There was someone, or something in the room with him. Reflexively he spun around in place searching for the invading presence expecting to find an extra cat. One of the window screens was loose and Kree was fond of bringing home friends.

Instead he found a pair of glowing crimson eyes hovering near his window. "Kris Taylor, you have been chosen." A deep gravely voice called.

Kris quickly turned his head to the left and right hoping his eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough that he could see around his apartment. He wasn't so lucky though and he was still trusting his memory while he tried to move into the kitchen. He pushed a stool out of the way and started pawing his way deeper. "Chosen huh? For what?" Kris hoped that he didn't sound nearly as terrified as he felt. "I hope it was a Clearing House special, do you have one of those oversized checks for me?"

Beneath the floating glowing orbs or death a maw filled with teeth like tiny daggers yawned open glistening with saliva. "That's right. Make jokes. I can taste your terror."

Kris didn't own nearly enough silverware to justify all the drawers his place had, which was good. It gave him a perfectly place to keep the handgun his father had bought him on his eighteenth birthday. Kris silently made a note to make sure he pointed out to Aaron that having a loaded gun in the kitchen was in fact a life saver. Who said you couldn't learn things from all those spy shows? Kris slowly slid the drawer open and pulled the weapon into his hand, he'd practiced with it enough that it was simple muscle memory to chamber a round and turn the safety off. "Terror?" He forced a laugh. The truth was his heart was beating so fast that he could feel his pulse inside his head. "I'm not afraid of you."

He hadn't expected the thing at the far end of his apartment had a sense of humor but it obviously thought he'd told a fantastic joke the way it guffawed. Kris pointed his weapon and pulled the trigger. Normally he would have chastised anybody emptying an entire clip as quickly as he did but his blood was pumping molten terror through his veins. An inhuman scream brought a smile to his face. He'd hurt whatever it was and that meant he could kill it. He reached into drawer pulling out two more clips, one he tucked into his waistband the other he loaded into his weapon a smooth practiced motion walking confidently towards the creature squeezing off another few rounds at the same time.

"Fuck me." Kris realized his mistake just a moment before the creature in the room with him lunged forward and snatched wrapped its hands around both his wrists and lifted him off the ground. He'd hit his target a dozen times and it hadn't fallen down or retreated a single step. It shook him like a rag doll until he dropped the weapon and then flung him across the room. Kris's hip slammed into the edge of the island and his momentum carried him onto it sliding nearly to the opposite side before he stopped.

Kris was reaching for a knife when something wrapped around his ankle and yanked him off the island slamming his head first against the island then the linoleum before releasing him. "Stop." It snarled. Kris tried to sit up but his head was spinning. He was bleeding, badly, enough that he could feel the warm fluid pooling beneath his neck and around his shoulders. He honestly had no idea how he was still conscious.

The lights flickered back to life and he looked up to see a man standing over him. The man was dressed in a bright red suit with a red fedora tilted rakishly over one eye. Jet black hair cascaded down over his shoulder. Kris noted with a dim sense of satisfaction that the son of a bitch had several holes in his coat and one grazing his cheek. A few more inches to the left and the man's brains would have been splattered all over the wall.

The man reached down and locked his icy fingers around Kris's throat and lifted him up. Kris was already too weak to do much more than weakly claw at the man's wrist. "Let me go. " He hissed angrily.

"No." The man smirked slightly revealing his inhuman teeth again. "You really should be nicer to your girlfriend. I don't normally grant wishes but I promised my Pastor I'd do something good for the community."

Kris's hands fell limp at his sides as the world faded away. The last thing he thought he heard was the man strangling chuckling and then the entire world fell away completely. OoOoO Kris felt a sudden surge of energy flow into body and he was on his feet so fast That Man only had time to blink in amazement. "What are you?" He asked canting his head to one side. Equally confused Kris just shrugged at the inquiry and dropped into an almost forgotten fighting stance from when he'd practiced Kung Fu. His attacker looked more annoyed than impressed, something that changed when Kris flew forward aiming his foot toward the man's skull. The connection sounded like thunder and spun the man around fully. A broad smile played across Kris's features, he hadn't realized he was nearly that fast.

"You said earlier you could taste my terror." Kris was bouncing on the balls of his feet while he spoke. "I think it's time you tasted a bit of my rage!" Kris thumbed his nose and stepped forward launching an incredibly fast combination of punches alternating between the man's gut and jaw until That Man bent double. Kris grabbed the man by the shoulders and violently brought his knee and the man's face together repeatedly until he lost his grip and the man flew backwards and shattered through the coffee table. "Let me help you up." Kris snatched the man by the wrist and yanked him upright twisting his arm behind him in the process.