Deep Red, Chapter Five
Bloody Memories
The return trip to Marlo’s cell was different. As she walked, reality bent around her, as if knowing that her memories were altered made them come alive. She saw her four year-old self sitting on the couch reading a book. A little dark haired boy laid next to her on his stomach, also reading. In one of the many open rooms Drew yanked her past, she was five and on the bed, braiding red hair and whispering secrets. She ached for her little giggling self. That little girl, the stolen child, felt companionship and belonging. She felt normal. Reality unbent when Drew cleared his throat. She realized they were at her door.
“I can take it from here,” Marlo said. When she opened the door, the room appeared to have reset itself. She went to the window and pulled open the curtains. The sound was less grating this time.
“The window’s bolted shut,” Drew said.
“What would be the point of running?” she asked. She directed the question more toward herself than at the lickspittle hovering in the doorway. She looked out the window, her eyes adjusting to the light. Mountains rose up around the house, and thick trees covered the landscape surrounding Haven’s main grounds. A deer below nibbled on something beneath the melting snow. Tasty. Marlo winced and turned her back to the deer.
“I’ll be outside if you need anything,” Drew said, closing the door. Marlo heard a faint apology in his voice.
The door clicked shut, and she heard the lock turn. Now that she was alone, and fairly sure that the room was soundproof, she sat down on the bed and tried to stretch herself. She reached down with her mind to pull out her spirit. She had been calling to it since it retreated inside the previous night.
Know thyself had a completely different meaning for kindred. The were the most self-aware of all the Otherworlders, and had the most potential for personal evolution.
Marlo’s spirit came to her in the womb, and chose her after following Marlo’s ancestor, Margaret, from the Otherworld to this one. Stories about Margaret and her brave exodus from the Otherworld to this one filled Marlo’s childhood. At the center of each tale was Marlo’s spirit, and the part it played in executing the Great Plan, making this reality a home. Her spirit was even older than Margaret, and only chose a body every few hundred years. When she was a child, Lucy and Victoria praised Marlo’s magical talent, but the largest part of her gift involved the thousand year-old energy source and built-in teacher that lived inside her.
Spirits were more than the force behind a kindred’s magical abilities. They were also memory keepers. And of a million, perhaps a billion, memories her spirit carried, Marlo was most interested in what happened during her recent series of blackouts. What about what came before? You think it doesn’t remember all Victoria made you forget? She felt unjust suspecting her spirit of hiding anything, which made her resent the voice even more.
Marlo mentally uncoiled the spirit’s hold on her solar plexus and pulled, gently at first, but then more firmly. She felt the sting when it released its grip. “Why are you being so difficult?” she said once it finally came out and manifested into a moth-like shape, which was its favorite.
“I am afraid,” it said.
She indicated to the room around her. “We’re in club fed. Can’t get any safer.”
“There is no where safe for us anymore,” it said. It knows.
“What do you mean?” Marlo forced a smile.
“You have never lied to me before, Marlo. You should not begin now.”
“Can you hear it?” she whispered, as if she could keep anything between the two of them. There were now three.
“No,” her spirit replied. “But I can feel it.”
“What does it feel like?” she asked.
“Dark, angry.”
“Evil?”
“There is no good and evil, Marlo,” it said.
Marlo shook her head. The moth wasn’t its favorite shape. Cryptic was.
“Can you at least tell me what happened?” she asked.
“You mean the other night? I did not see much at first. We were dancing with your friends, then you took the drink from the human, even though you had not taken one in a while.” Her spirit was in monologue-mode, not accusing, so Marlo felt no need to defend herself. “Then you began to lose consciousness, but your body was still moving and talking. I came out to watch over you. The human introduced your friends to his, and you all went onto Fort Carson together. His friends took yours into different buildings, and then you were alone. When he began to undress you, I went inside and tried to wake you up. Then he tied you up, but you still wouldn’t wake.” Marlo remembered that part. Waking up with her arms in bondage and a six inch, pink penis rubbing against her skin. “I was forced out of your body, and then you changed.”
“That’s the part I don’t get. It’s not possible. How could I change?”
“I do not know, but it was just how a changeling changes. I have seen it before, or something like it. You screamed, your bones began to break, and new teeth grew. It was not exactly the same as the transformations I have witnessed, though. You did not become an animal. Not precisely. You became…”
“Became what?”
“Almost like a werewolf. Somewhere between a person and an animal. You frightened me.”
“Don’t say that,” Marlo said. “Please.” Even your beloved spirit betrays you. Soon I will be all you have left. “A disembodied voice?” Marlo yelled. “Not hardly.”
“Marlo,” her spirit said. “Who are you talking to?”