My strength was leeching away fast and I could hardly stand. I wasn't even sure if the voice I'd heard was real or some hallucination created by my sick mind. The damp wash cloth certainly was real at least. It lay discarded on the floor beside where I'd collapsed. Could I have imagined it? The warm thighs that my head had rested upon. The tender caresses meant to soothe but now I felt terrified and uncertain.
Someone had known that I was sick. Someone had came into my apartment and told me things that they shouldn't know about. Why did he want me to go to O' Donovans'? I was so terribly weak I didn't think I could walk across the room let alone call a cab and make it to the street.
I had nothing to go on and if Michael was truly captured by the same demon who had the weapon that could kill him I couldn't afford to ignore the mysterious visitor.
It took me an agonizing ten minutes before I could control my trembling muscles enough to enter the cab company's number and another ten minutes before it arrived. Once I'd reached O' Donovans' I'd started having violent tremors throughout my body. I scared the shit out of the cabbie when I tried to pay him and my arm jerked wildly sending a handful of bills flying in his face.
The strip club appeared vacant; closed for a few days after Armed Forces Day for clean up and vacation time for the girls. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. I tried the front door expecting it to be locked and to my surprise it opened. Maybe Phil or Dave had popped in?
Clutching my shoulder trying to calm my unresponsive muscles I limped inside. A light was on coming from Phil's office and I started in that direction. A shadow fell across the wall cast by Phil's desk lamp and I froze. Another shadow joined the first and appeared to be thrashing wildly. Low hushed tones could now be heard from within and I moved in closer.
"Do you want to keep your fucking job? Fucking answer me, slut," Phil hissed.
"Please, I-I don't want-" a second female voice answering him in trembling, frightened tones.
"You don't want WHAT?" he bellowed. "You don't want to fucking WORK HERE? I'm not going to ask you again you fucking bitch."
"Ask me what.."
"You know what. Put it in your fucking dirty hole and suck."
It was from that moment on that everything seemed to move as if in a dream. Me stepping over the threshold and seeing Phil holding Sara painfully by the hair forcing her to stay on her knees. Her lips parting allowing Phil to force the head of his cock into her mouth.
"Oh yeah, baby," he groaned obnoxiously.
Somehow all I could focus on were the finer details and perhaps now that I think about it, it was because my higher brain was refusing to accept what was happening. How Sara's mascara had created long black streaks down her face from her tears. The tiny beads of sweat that formed and trickled down from Phil's temples wobbling momentarily at his jaw before landing on his shoulder.
His infuriated scream as Sara bit down as hard as she could and refused to let go. He started hitting her over and over until she collapsed. It was then that he finally noticed me and I saw the bloody ring around the base of his dick as he turned. Everything dilated as my hand closed around his throat lifting him off of his feet, the feeling of his heart pounding against my fingers.
When he had gotten too weak to fight me I threw him back onto the desk sending empty beer bottles and magazines crashing to the floor. My canines elongated, my need to feed overwhelming everything as I lost myself to the hunger that gnawed at my spine.
My teeth brushed over the tender flesh, his life blood running thickly underneath, so hot and so very tempting. But I somehow stopped myself despite my condition, despite what I'd just walked in on. Every cell of my body screamed desperately for me to drink from him and satiate the unbearable hunger.
I swung hard hitting him under the eye and he went limp straight away already weakened from his obvious drunkenness and oxygen deprivation. I sat down on the floor supporting my head in my hands, the steady pounding of a migraine forming behind my eyes.
"Fuck," I said to the two unconscious forms.
I called the police and fabricated an excuse as to why I'd found Phil and Sara together not that they seemed to care much about my reasons. One of the cops told me that I should have beat his fuckin' head in and not just knocked him out. I nodded meekly knowing that I didn't possess the strength to beat a mouse's fuckin' head in.
By the time it was all over I was starting to shake and hugged myself tightly trying to make it stop. I felt like an idiot. No one would have cared if I'd killed Phil O' Donovan. Hell, no one could have even speculated as to what had actually happened. It would have been written off as a freak animal attack. Even if I could leave dna evidence I wasn't in any of the databases.
I noticed a spot on the back of my hand and tried to wipe it off but to my irritation it wouldn't so much as smudge. To my bewilderment I soon realized that it was actually a liver spot. I was beginning to age. No longer could I hold back the effects of time. I was deteriorating faster than I had been earlier that morning.
"Miss?"
A news reporter approached adjusting her earpiece, a look of concern on her heavily makeup covered face. I didn't so much turn my head to look over rather than just letting it fall to one side. There was a fresh coppery odor of blood that hung around her and my mouth involuntarily watered.
"Are.. you okay?" she ventured, trying again. I noticed a line of red that stained the collar of her blouse and she reached up to touch a long scratch on her throat that had created it.
"Damn cats," she muttered thoughtlessly. Unknowing that the very sight of her blood was causing such a visceral and savage reaction within my failing body.
"Fine," I grunted, making myself look away. She seemed to shrug in a "what a weirdo" fashion before returning to the gathering onlookers. I staggered into the alleyway next to O' Donovans' out of sight before falling to my knees, wincing in pain as the concrete tore my skin.
I wondered why or even how I could still exert so much self-control over my hunger. I didn't have to kill anyone but I had a feeling once I let my demon take over for the feeding I wouldn't be able to stop myself from going too far.
"Goddammit," I shouted, just to let out some of the over-flow of emotions.
I couldn't die when Michael's life was in the balance and I was the only demon, weak as I may be, crazy enough to go after him before the Seraphim arrived. If that happened there would probably be another purge and hundreds if not thousands of demons would be sent to hell regardless of the lifestyle they followed. Even me and Art wouldn't be spared.
The only reassurance I could cling to was that the Seraphim didn't know that their prince had been captured. At least not yet. Even that slim hope was paper thin as all Angels shared a mental link. I didn't know how much time I had to find the Archangel but I couldn't do it in the state I was in. There were very powerful players involved here and if some half-assed imp showed up at their front door they would have a good laugh right before obliterating me.
No, I had to think of another way.
*~*~*
The club was the same as before; humans and demons mingling freely at the bar and on the dance floor as I made my way towards the basement. Perhaps Art could offer some insight because I sure as hell was drawing a blank. Isaac snarled at every demon that got in my way sticking to my side defensively.
I was thankful that I'd found him at such a critical time but..
The scent of blood was so dreadfully over-powering in the lower levels and I had to clench my fists so tightly that my fingernails cut into my palms. A torso suddenly blocked my field of vision and I painfully made my eyes cooperate and move upwards towards the face attached to the body blocking my way.
It was amber eyes from the last time I'd been to see Art. He was smiling nastily, "You don't look so good, babe."
I mustered the best glare I could and he laughed openly, "So you DO want to get fucked up?"
I was suddenly being pulled towards the darkened outer edges of the room where we would have more privacy from anyone who might be watching. Namely, Art.
"I wonder if your pussy is as dry as your veins," he sneered, his breath against my neck hot and sour. He crowded into my personal space pressing his body against mine pinning me against the wall. Anger boiled inside me more at my own weakness than at this brainless asshole.
His hands were under my shirt running across my stomach and then higher until he had both of my nipples roughly between his fingers, pinching and pulling them. He tried to kiss me but I turned my head. He seemed not to care very much and instead licked the side of my throat. I could tell he was intentionally trying to unsettle me as much as possible.
His cock dug into my thigh as he re-positioned himself, and that was when I at last heard Isaac. His growl was so low that only I could hear it over the sounds of the demon's grunts while he was trying to undo my pants and the muffled sounds of the music drifting down from upstairs.
I heard rather than saw the sound of my attacker's arm being bitten nearly in two as Isaac viciously threw him down with a toss of his head. The demon looked from Isaac to me with a mixture of fury and surprise from where he now lay on the floor bleeding quite a lot.
He tried to get up but Isaac placed a single, massive paw in the center of his chest pinning him to the floor with no effort at all.
"Jesus fucking.. what the hell is that?"
Art stood a safe distance away staring at Isaac in awe. The hellhound's attention never wavered from the amber eyed demon's face.
"Isaac," I said, not answering Art so much as issuing a command.
He seemed to understand and came back to stand at my side. I could still feel his aggression coming off of him in waves and I gently laid a hand on his back to reassure and calm him.
"Oh my god, Riel." Art noticed me and I knew what he saw. Sunken eyes surrounded by purplish sockets, my cheekbones standing out against the waxiness of my pale face. My legs began to feel weak again and I used Isaac as a crutch. Art started towards me but a soft growl of warning stopped him in his tracks.
