The Last Caress of Victoria Jones
Her final breath was a moan.
But, because the significance of that statement is lost without context, perhaps I should start at the beginning of her ending.
Millennia ago some four legged beasts became two legged beasts. The predator and prey instincts remained and became a contributing factor in the complexity of slavery, genocide, and the more personal of atrocities. When "civilized" society surfaced, those instincts were hidden in the basement and ignored because they were seen as unseemly barbarism.
One would think that with the reliance upon the newer alchemy of "science", they would accept their instincts. But no, with the dependence upon their clockworks, self-made lightning, and the illusionary superiority of their new ways, mortals had willfully forgotten the old wisdoms in that dark basement, dismissing them as bedtime stories or the ignorance of superstition.
One such lost kernel of truth: mundane beasts of two legs or four weren't the only predators. And those hunters hadn't ignored their instincts.
A common ploy for a hunter is to stalk a watering hole. There, just to quench its thirst, prey leaves itself vulnerable. Marcelo had his own private table at the restaurant he haunted. The eatery itself was affixed to a grand inn, and from a second story balcony he could view the hostel's tavern where aristocrats and the harlots that leeched upon them drifted in and out.
Marcelo concealed his nature in the appearance of a great stag, a notion that still amuses me, though at this juncture in the calendar he lacked the splendor of his antlers. His presence must have fed into his guise or vice versa, for the stag drew eyes when he entered a room, walked, or politely coughed into a napkin. Given the wealth of his shoulders, the density of his chest and arms, and the expensive quality inherent in his suit, both genders seemed to find him appealing. The suit served the same purpose as a snake's coloration.
He picked at a salad and sipped at the evening's third glass of wine, occasionally sending a scanning glance down below.
I floated through the furniture around him in a lazy circuit, my attention on his surroundings. The only individuals even aware of Marcelo were a bored waiter milling near the kitchen and a spry young squirrel clinging to her father's table. Neither was worth my consideration.
Soon I found something that did demand my focus. While drifting over the edge of the balcony, I spied downwards into the taproom below. Seated at a table by the edge, a feline woman was not succeeding at being discreet about watching Marcelo. She would try to watch him from the corner of her eye, until his attention moved elsewhere, at which point she would look head on. It was not the stare of a doting admirer, rather that of someone very intent upon their target. She rose from her table and walked from the bar towards the restaurant.
"We are not alone," I thought to Marcelo. His sudden alertness sent a tremble down the link that connected our minds. I dove down to the first floor and glided behind her for a close inspection.
Not only was the lioness's musculature not on par with a proper warrior, but it lacked the half-hearted tone of the contemporary aristocrats who worked at their bodies to appear attractive. Her walk was neither trained for allure nor a confident battle stalk, only a simple determined stride. This was confirmed in the movements of her tufted tail; no quiet twitch amid stillness to designate a poised huntress, but something of a mild, anxious snap. I could spy no weapon concealed under her dress, and her purse was too small to carry little more than a knife.
Lacking in martial prowess did not limit her capacity as a threat. As she ascended the stairs, I looked beyond the material. Gone were the trappings of the grand hostel and the lioness's fur. Tombstone grays and bruise blues swallowed the landscape, interspersed with crackling veins of hot lightning that brought light and energy to the beasts' machina. Before me throbbed her spark, radiating the dense nimbus of her essence.
No energy beyond her own lingered. I expected to find the weighty presence of latent power, designating her as a spell weaver, or a creature like Marcelo, but no. Not even the palpable hum that weapons of significance left in the ethereal, and no sparkling thrum designating an existing spell. Despite my vast experience and masterful skill, I humbly admit I was flummoxed.
Then a more sinister notion struck me. As she crested the stairs. I could see the shine of the other mortal essences on the second floor. Marcelo, whose presence gleamed pristine even here, and his power made the area denser like water. I thought to him quickly. "She is utterly clean, but is likely bait. Engage her while I circuit."
Immediately I drove upwards and viewed the open second floor from above, being careful not to pass through the ceiling. No creatures like me were noticeable. If they were worth conjuring, they would conceal themselves; I would have. I began to move in wider, lower circles, feeling outwards into the ethereal for tremors of power. I could find no brilliant spark of mortal presence heralding a spell weaver.
I looked into the material as I traced my path back. While naturally having selected a table away from a window, some mortal beast might have been hiding off to the side behind a pillar or plant, lining up a shot with some metal wand of thunder. To my disappointed surprise, none presented themselves. .
Resigned to finding no lurking menace, I thought down our connection, "We appear to have no more guests."
After a moment, he replied, "Return to me." As directed I swept down to Marcelo's table, hanging several feet back to continue my circular drift. I was forced to divide my attention between our surroundings and the visitor.
By current mortal standards she was not beautiful, despite the cosmetics around her amber eyes, the rest of her face and her mane of dark curls. The line of her jaw and slope of forehead suggested a lower class breeding stock, and as I noted earlier, the padding along her shoulders, arms, and hips did not bespeak the aristocrats that frequented this inn. The dark, shimmering gown that exposed her back and presented an acceptable amount of décolletage, while expensive, did not mask the flaws inherent in a commoner.
The tilt of her head and smile were not regal, and while it was clear some confidence remained, the flick of her eye, poise of breath, position of ears, it all screamed of anxiousness. While not the awe-struck debutant that often hung to Marcelo, neither was she a cool and collected lady attempting to seduce him.
Having spent so many decades together, I could tell he was as inwardly perplexed as I. The concern he felt did not stop him from engaging her in conversation; the pleasantries were ongoing when I arrived at his table, and I had ignored the talk up to this point, as it was of little interest.
"Well, Miss Jones," said Marcelo over his glass, "it is flattering and pleasant to have a ravishing woman approach me out of the blue."
"Yes, I'm sure you're more meticulous in deciding who will approach you." The hint of accusation had filtered into Miss Jones's tone.
Marcelo smiled as though it had been a joke and, tilting his ears towards her, asked, "Hmm?"
Miss Jones gave a fake smile. "Don't be coy."
Everything about Marcelo remained unchanged except for his eyes, now narrowed. "I'm impressed with where you're drawing this insight from. You have me at the disadvantage."
Despite my quiet assurances, he tensed as the lioness reached for her purse. From it she withdrew a captured image, sliding it across the table. The vibrant features of an autumn colored collie were imposed amid the backdrop of a park; her picture was caught mid-laugh, leaving her face crinkled in amusement. Miss Jones waited with laid-back ears, watching his face.
Marcelo set his glass down and passed the picture back. "She is very pretty."
The lioness merely showed her teeth. "They found her in an abandoned building, weeks too late," said Miss Jones. Even if there was a hint of accusation in her tone, sadness weighed her eyes far more than wrath. "Not very pretty."
"Chicago, three years, eight months ago," I reminded him.
Feigning sympathy, he leaned forward and offered delicately, "I am sorry to hear about your loss. She must have been close to you."
Miss Jones matched his posture, but her expression was far from gentle. "She sold all of her assets, emptied her bank account, and disappeared. Before I lost contact with her, she spoke of nothing but a deer named Marcelo." The woman's voice grew slower, so each word grew with weight. "She told me all about what he could do."
As if intrigued, Marcelo canted his head. "And what was it he could do?" To me he thought, "You are certain she is harmless?"
"Absolutely."
"Just being around him made her breathe hard. A simple touch made her whole body climax. This wasn't a crush, Marcelo," she said with a sharp stare, "It was cult-like." Her tail snapped back and forth.
"Worrisome, but not problematic." Of course I was right; there was little this speck could do without connections to more powerful organizations.
Sitting back, Marcelo regarded her with his curious expression. "Interesting tale. But what makes no sense is why you have come to me."
With a great intake of breath, Miss Jones squared her shoulders. "I want to know if... what she said about you - about what you can do - is true."
We were wondering the same thing. He finally said it aloud. "Why?"
"I will answer your question, if you answer mine."
Marcelo nodded. "Very well."
Her eyes studied him with the level of an inquisitor. "Did she die in pain? Fear? Unhappy?"
"No."
That would depend upon her definition of unhappy.
Leaning forward, Miss Jones said, "Then I want what she had."
Not often have I been stunned, but stupidity is often surprising like that.
Having one's very being sapped from them until they are a near comatose drone aching for the next taste from their master, it's not everyone's idea of perfection. But then the mortal beasts had always been slaves to something, be it their gods, riches, their machinations. This was just more obvious.
Marcelo sat back, as shocked as I. Yet he quickly found his tongue with such ease "Even while knowing the possible outcome, you still-"
"Yes." I believe I detected a touch of sorrow there. "But under one condition."
The only answer from him was a forward tilt of his ears.
"I have a room upstairs. I want it done there, completely." There was a hesitation, then, "I want to die tonight." With those shaky words, a weight was lifted from her.
For several moments we both stewed in silence. Then I requested, "Ask the room number." He did so.
"Uhh..." Miss Jones dug around in her tiny purse, withdrawing the keycard. "1802."
Immediately I flew upwards and through the ceiling, level after level. Either she was properly genuine and utterly insane, or this was just a layer of the trap. I found her penthouse suite and analyzed. Nothing. The surrounding suites were empty. While a modern archer might get a decent shot from one of the adjacent buildings, the bed was not at a good angle for such. Close the blinds, and they were utterly helpless.
"Her bedroom is safe," I whispered through the link.
A few moments later, he replied, "Meet us at the elevators."
Into the hall and down floor after floor I sank. Just as I descended into the foyer of the clockwork lifts, Marcelo and Miss Jones entered one of the boxes.
I raced inside and extended my presence with precision into the portion of ceiling where the scrying device was affixed. As it blinked off, the lights within the lift fluttered. Damn those mortals for placing the "camera" so close to the energy source.
As the box rose, neither of them had much to say. Marcelo broke the silence between us. "She explained why."
It being a point of curiosity, I could hardly help but coax him on. "Do tell."
"Cancer."
Odd; she didn't strike me as an astrology witch. "I fail to see the dire significance of her zodiac; it should be fourteen months before the constellation is at all in line with any hexing-"
He interrupted my lecture with what could be described as a mental sigh. "The disease eating her brain was caught too late." .
"Oh. Yes, well." I often forget about such material trappings as "organs" and "germs" and other such ick. But it is none the less intriguing. Wasting diseases, a desire to alleviate the pain, end oneself with dignity. I took a moment to regard Miss Jones. She appeared healthy. I would not have suspected the malady lurking beneath the surface, gnawing away at her. Though it was ironic she chose a method of self-destruction that would be consuming her interior all too soon. I had never seen a kine throw itself upon Marcelo knowing full well what would happen. "Why all tonight?"
"I did not ask." He slid his arm around her waist. She stiffened a moment, failing to relax. Power crept into the small space, providing a subtle arch to the woman's back just before his fingers crept over the curve of her spine. The balm of his influence sunk in, allowing the tension to melt from her muscles. "But my guess would be she doesn't want to dwell on it at any length. After all, it took much courage to approach me."
"Or idiocy."
Suddenly aware of how near we were to her floor, I pushed through its wall and flew upwards. Before the doors slid open on the 18th floor, the hallway's scrying device sputtered out. As the two stepped out and down the hall, I was certain no evidence remained the mortals possessed could link Marcelo to the woman's suite.
She unlocked the suite door and passed within, Marcelo on her heels. I followed through the wall and began another orbit of the room, wary that I had missed something. My skills are paramount, but I have, in my centuries, been known to make the slightest of mistakes. Yet nothing occurred.
As the two partook of drink, it began. Releasing his restraint, Marcelo's power crashed into the room. It filled like a mist, and I could feel the palpable sensation despite lacking the drives it intended to invoke. Usually more subtle with his seduction, the sudden saturation had an immediate effect; Miss Jones's chest hammered as her eyes glazed in lust, her tail arched and, throwing her glass aside, she came to him in a fervor of licks, kisses and gropes.
For several minutes I took to ignoring the pair. The proceedings have always felt fairly undignified and disgusting to me. Wet noises, frantic grasping, and such a mess, all for some instinctive nudge to spawn. And yet their societies are built on regulating when and with who it can occur. No matter the fanciful, moral or prideful posturing, all beasts are just that.
A pair of undergarments flew through me. Yet another suffered slight of disrespect.
The ruckus forced my attention. Miss Jones must have had a bad reaction to his influences, or stopped consenting after being seized by the fear of her impending doom. Marcelo would manage to pin her down and thrust within, only to have her scrabble away, forcing him to catch her for re-entry. Claws went across his back, her teeth over his shoulder. On occasion she would double back and claim him inside of her, only to leap off after a few mutual thrashes of their loins. This sent them all over the room, furniture toppling once they bounded off of their most recent platform.
Initially I was concerned for Marcelo's safety, but as I started to intervene, he hastily assured me that it was most acceptable. Miss Jones appeared to be doing little damage outside of the furnishings, so I backed away.
The arch of backs, surge of pelvises meeting together under meaty smacks, fingers desperate for purchase - this was of no interest to me. Below the surface was the true magnificence worth viewing. Much like a volcanic eruption, or some other natural force of destructive power, they are terrifying when you are in their path, but they are a beautiful spectacle when observed from a safe distance.
Power exists in many things, as does weakness. Sex is known as intimacy to mortals, and in truth they are right; the heart, the soul, it bares the sensitive underbelly. There is where Marcelo strikes. Yet, that intimacy is a double edged blade to him, for Marcelo is just as vulnerable. Were he attacked in any fashion while feeding... There is a reason he employs me. Although usually it is in a much more secure place, where he doesn't gorge on the feedings. With nothing posing a threat, and he feasting, I partook of the rare sight.
My view switched from the material into the spiritual. There, the glistening kaleidoscope of Miss Jones's being writhed and boiled with energy. Marcelo's presence floated around it like an umbral miasma, and as they tussled together, more of him stuck to her inner being like tar. Soon, her core was cocooned beneath the smothering essence.
As it began to melt away the edges like an ice cube in hot water, a tendril pierced into the center of this beautiful well, and ate at her core from the inside. As he fed, color leeched from her, bringing to the tarry collective a shimmering blush like a phosphorescent jellyfish. If sex were fireworks for the soul, this would indeed be the Aurora Borealis.
Oh, you must think Marcelo a fiend for eating her soul. I would not crudely equate his food source as the soul; I assure that his victims are ushered off where ever that is they go. He sups upon the energy that suffuses the animate body, with which emotion and creativity, the essence of identity spring forth from. Excuse the simple analogy, but were the soul the ignition of life, my master siphons the fumes and some of the fuel, until there is little more for the body to run on.
Usually this takes much longer to kill, and is a pleasant but wasting disease for the host. But even as he feasted so utterly upon Miss Jones, she felt no discomfort or pain. She convulsed in pleasure underneath his merest touch, and his kiss a cyclone of climax through her. For something as frail as her kind's existence, this was perhaps the most pleasure-saturated experience she could have. Until her spiritually emaciated body could no longer handle the stress of the ecstasy bombarding it.
The exhibition was too intriguing for me to keep track of the hour. In truth it could have went all night; Marcelo wished to savor such an enormous meal, and I, a creature not ravaged by time, merely pay lip service to noticing its passage. As I watched, they surged and burned into the night, even as her inner fire shrank beneath the continual consumption.
Finally, she could cling no longer to the vestiges of the material. With a final, ragged moan, Miss Jones breathed her last, and laid still, the remaining spark a sputtering throb before it was snuffed beneath the crushing flex of Marcelo's power.
I almost felt sated after watching that. Returning my view to the physical, I watched as Marcelo sat beside the spent form, stroking her hair as he digested. I gave him a wide breadth, out of courtesy.
He looked down upon the corpse not as food but as... I am not certain, but it seemed similar to how his prey viewed him after his first sips of them. After a time, he went into the bathroom, retrieving a brush and moist cloth, and began to fuss over its fur, cleaning the mess properly. Once finished, he collected its clothing.
By the time he was tugging the stockings into place, I could no longer contain myself. "I've never seen you so concerned over your leftovers. We needn't even worry about disposal; just leave it behind."
He turned upon me with fury I had only seen him unleash on his rivals. Marcelo hissed my true name, which bound his next command with immense power. "Be silent!" So full from his recent feed, his unrestrained power stirred by the sudden emotions left me struggling to move.
The stag finished the dressing and fashioning. His meal was left looking like a well sated queen, modestly covered, beautifully rendered. Leaning down, he left a goodbye kiss on her cheek, and even took a lock of her hair with him.
I could not fathom his sudden change of action, and all he regarded me with was a mere, "Deal with the cameras."
To this day, he has yet to explain the lock of lioness mane he has in a box beneath his bed. I suppose even he is tainted by those mortal emotions he feeds upon.
Silly beasts.