The Pot III
Slipping down off the wall, I slowly walked up to the sliding glass door. My clawed hand slipped under the thick lining of fur at my chest and finally up to my cheek as I pinched one eye shut. "What?"
The night air felt like it was twisting, or maybe it was the mental check I was finally having that made everything look like it was going sideways as my maw opened and I gaped at myself. "What?" Disbelief flooded through me as tears welled up in my eyes and my nose started to hurt from the stuffed inhales I kept making that made the air whistle. "No! No. No. No. No!"
Dropping to my knees, I sank into the wet grass as I started to sob hysterically. I couldn't hear anything around me, but I could see the lights from the adjoining yards flick on. Lights from the house in front of me flicked on, though by the time that door slid open, I was already out of the yard and shakily running back the way I had come. I tripped while trying to clamor over the branches and onto the forest floor, stumbling and bumping awkwardly into trees and pinching my foot in between unseen roots as I tried to wriggle free of the forest that was trying to enact its vengeance for my earlier rampage.
I finally saw the red and white on the floor as I picked up the nearly torn shoe to stare at how tiny it was. My shoe! The ones I was wearing earlier. Finally, I dropped back to my knees, sobbing hotly into the night. I was a complete monster!
-
There was a sharp rustle of branches behind me and I jerked upright, turning to snarl instinctively at what was to come, only to see a familiar face.
"Denise, breathe! Breathe!" Alex's hands were wrapping around my wrist before I could yank back. I tried to shy away from him, but when I felt his hand catch my warm skin, I turned my head back in surprise to see a very much human arm.
"Breathe." Alex told me again.
And I took in a shuddered breath, nodding tightly to him. "W-What happened?"
"I don't know. We were talking and then you slipped off into the dark after you went to get a drink of water. I thought someone took off with you." I could see the worry in his eyes, and despite how much I adored those green eyes of his, I couldn't bring myself to look at them much longer. "Hey," he breathed.
I jerked my head away from him, not letting his face dip into my view as I pinched my eyes shut. My mouth tightened into a thin, sharp line. "No."
"No?"
"No." I breathed.
"I don't get it," Alex finally said. "You know, we were all just laughing a few days ago... Relaxed, like we didn't have a care in the world and then Conner went missing-"
"Don't." I told him.
"But he did. And you've been acting strange since."
Conner was the closest thing I had to a brother since my attachment with my sister had felt strangely... severed, and oddly restricted. He had been my reason, Alex had been my rock while Rachael had been my humor. Richard was another story, but the group was oddly the comfort I had needed in the absence of my family, especially since my aunt was so busy as of late. "I can't calm down," I told him finally, sucking in a sharp breath.
"Why?"
"Fucking Jacob is a piece of shit!" I screamed hotly into the air. "He keeps toying with me. My feelings and then he just... He runs away like a coward when he gets me riled up."
Alex stopped talking. Or at least, he didn't respond immediately, but I was too busy wiping my tears from my eyes to see why. I could only assume he didn't know what to say, but the frustrated sigh caught my attention and brought me to try to steal a look at him to see what face he was making.
"I fucking can't stand him. Honestly." Alex pushed his hand through his brown hair. "He fucking pisses me off so much, Denise. You have no idea. I don't know why you're even talking to him."
"Because he made me feel..." I hated the words that came to mind. Loved... Touched. Warm. God, all of it felt so fucking foul. I couldn't believe I even romantically had any interest in him at all. "Fuck him." I breathed hotly. "He can kick rocks for all I care anymore!"
The Pot II
Claws raked through the air, leaving a trail of heat behind them. And I could hear his breathing restrict as he tried to dance away from me. The bastard was flighty, but I was quick. And my second attempt to snatch at him left me empty-handed while my other hand swung. My fist hit the ground, splitting and I felt my knuckles ache painfully.
"Denise, relax," Jacob tried to tell me. I could hear the seriousness in it, but the dim amused lilt hadn't left and I screamed again. I heard something break under my next punch as I slammed my fist into the nearby light pole and he darted around the fucking thing as I followed his steps in the dimly lit parking lot.
"Fuck you!"
"I see I struck a nerve," he sighed heavily, shaking his head before I caught the end of his hood finally, tearing it from his very body as my lengthened claws ripped the fabric to ribbons. I was breathing hot plumes into the air, and he looked smaller with each passing moment oddly enough. Strangely enough, with the passing seconds as I tried to grapple for him, heat wafted off my breath and rumbled deep from my chest. My body shuddered off the waves of icy Washington cold, somehow leaving me feeling more pissed than calm. "Come here!" I snarled, gnashing my canines at him.
Jacob's eyes were on me, brows rose, looking literally up towards me instead of slightly angled down as usual, like he was staring up a tower. I could see his hands lift in almost a plea as if begging me to calm down and a hot, unearthly roar left my chest that made him shrink back.
I think I heard him cuss, because in the next few moments, I was vaulting over the parking lot fence after him as I chased him deep into the woods. Branches and twigs snapped under my lifted arm and I swung at them like they were mere kindling, but I knew they were much bigger because the trees seemed to groan heavily as I pushed between them.
My hand struck out for his hood again as he vaulted between two closely nestled trees and my hand struck out when I realized I didn't fit through the narrow opening. I stared at him, watching him shrink back as he laughed nervously then turned to dart further between a brick wall just a little beyond the two trees I was stuck between and I screamed after him. I don't even think I was shouting his name, but merely yelling hotly into the air. I could hear the forest shudder and shake at my voice, and I was certain there was nothing I could do to get after him before I turned my gaze up, and started climbing.
The sheer ease of my weight seemed lifted as I vaulted myself up the trunk with ease. I don't remember my body being so light. Limber? Yes, but nothing like this. When I finally stopped scaling the tree, I stood at the top of a large branch that nearly broke under my weight only to vault myself onto the top of the brick wall. I felt my feet dig into the brick, my nails scratching unnervingly against it and possibly chipping off chunks of the material instead of my nails. I don't remember losing my shoes, but the thought finally occurred to me as I worked my way down the edge of the alley.
It was only when the flood light of someone's backyard porch light flicked on that I saw my reflection finally in the darkened sliding glass door. I nearly didn't recognize myself, if it weren't for my lifted hand. I was... Barely myself. I mean, not myself at all. I didn't look human. Fuck! I wouldn't even say I was ever human by the looks of it. I was a big, black burly thing of midnight fur and yellow eyes! Like some sort of haired beast with a dog's head mounted between my shoulders.
The Pot
Blood boiled over, and I could taste the coppery red in my mouth, between my pressed lips and sharp fangs as I stared him down. Something about the way he spoke to me, the arrogant demeanor and change in his confidence shook my own. I was certain something in my mind must've flipped, a switch of some sorts, and I was clenching my fists hard. A few mental images flickered to mind of my hands on his throat, nails digging in and I could almost salivate over the prospect of snapping that thick fucking neck on his twig of a body.
"Jacob," I snarled hotly under my breath.
"So sour," he replied with that lax arrogant tone of his, the one that sent spurts of fire through my body, that made it feel like fire was raining down over my skin in hot sputters as the hair arched on the back of my neck. "You're getting so worked up-"
"Don't." I interrupted him, the rage settling hotly in my blood as I tried to simmer it, to turn the heat down, but my eyes went to his pocket, watching the ring dance between his fingers like a toy. The black one that made my heart go cold, and the bird sing so loud in my heart that I almost felt like I was going to break down in tears. I was certain he saw that change in me, he had to have, because his expression shifted and everything took a turn for the worst.
"I know you loved your brother," Jacob mentioned coolly, pausing the ring between his forefinger and middle to look down at it. "And he meant the world to you. I just wanted to give you a memento back. Something small, since I mean... The rest of him is in pieces."
And I snapped. I don't know what occurred first, the guttural scream or my body flinging forward at him. I remember him dodging out of my newly occupied space as my claws raked down the brick wall. I didn't look to see the tear I'd managed to cut through it, like I was raking my hands through polyester fabric with jagged nails. But I do know that the surprise in his eyes at my speed was caught in those marbled blue eyes, the blue eyes I hated so much.
The Queen’s Garden
Snaking over hills,
winding through rivers.
Her hands are the things that deliver.
Death. Life. Reproach of all the emotions laid within.
She plucks on my heartstrings, making me sing with a grin.
Swallowed pride, mouth open wide, I can gaze at her whip.
The one she cracks smooth, the one with my neck at its tip.
When the jaw pried open, gaping hole and wide.
Staring down the dark hollowed center where I'd be buried inside.
Had my wits been so quick, had I not been as sharp.
I'd be swallowed deep within, another of her children's throats.
Still I wander, far and wide, with my foot pressing wide
Flat blades of green under toe.
Until I travel through her wintery snow,
Ever captured, ever lost in her wintery frost.
Lived another sweltered moon,
cold and white, dusted in blue,
To a warm Spring and Summer where life begins anew.
Nature please, love me so, but be more gentle when you come and go.
I am frail, I am weak when I feel I've lost my peak.
I am human, I need much, but I fear to partake in the hunt that you revel,
The one you force us all to indulge fate.
Where the strong live on satiated and the weak are a plenty.
More of food, more to eat, but I am not as meek.
I am human, and I wall off your creativity so to eat,
in my warm hovel home on the now leveled slope.
No more bears, no more lions. Just my old trusty rifle.
Soup in hand, spoon to mouth, no more hard winter travels.
Nature speaks and she keeps knocking on my porch,
breath so shallow.
Waiting here, peaking there in my frosting up windows.
She can have me when I'm old, she can have me when I'm ill,
but I will not partake in her hunting games to give her a thrill.
Snagged Skin
Pale white in form, her eyes looked hollowed and sunken beneath the textured face. Pasty white would dust off with each unconscious brush of her fingers, but the uncanniness of it all would give me shivers.
"Take off the mask, let me know that it is you." I heard myself say, though my mind was far from my lips, spinning ideas, spinning tales, weaving worthless lies of imagery in queried quips.
"It's just me, silly," Ferrah responded, her voice light and quick. I remember her pulling at the bottom of her chin. Lifting up, tacky sucking as if the mask was plastered on thick, peeling back, while my eyes did a quick little dip.
I found my head dipping, my neck a bow before it jerked back quick. There she was, Ferrah in all her beautiful-faerie-eyed trick. The ghoulish mask of the Forgotten, long left behind in its wispy sick, made me tired as I felt her hands grip my own with an icy prick. I had heard all the stories in my tiny leaf-stitched bed, acorn endcaps, daffodil plumage with a goose down fringe. And when I thought that I'd open my eyes to reveal what was a silly image deep within, my eyes would widen, her teeth would prickly the air with that sharp toothy grin.
And we'd dance, dance down the street in the cold hallowed night, singing our cheer, dancing our dance, letting children scream on our cold, pumpkin night. Pointed ears, sharpened teeth, and beady black eyes. I guess the mask was less scary to the humans with our unnatural guise.
Finger Tips
Turn of the moon,
Wrestle the tongue.
Wrestle of white on thickening gums.
Whistling lips from a forked tongue.
Saliva drips on a foaming lung.
Eyes golden brown,
Liquid gold glazed
Yellow that takes in my sound.
In the teaming midnight glaze.
Tearing gaze from the moonlight,
on a harvestful night.
Fitful frights, fitful tears on a Halloween night.
Chuckle of masters of sharp canine teeth.
Let them howl, for they prowl with their hallowed-ass reach.
Claws will dip, fangs will snap.
Clamp and shut over gurgled red throats.
Lifting off in the night with a brush of clawed toes.
Take your breath, take your last,
On this Halloween night.
For the things that shake the bushes will do more than give you a fright.
Drag you off, make you scream, take you into the seem.
Hallowed hands, hollowed eyes with their devilish gleam.
Take your breath, take your last,
On this Hollowed-Ass Night.
Scrape of boots, scrape of nails.
Because you're in a fight.
Sprits of Pine
Glass bottle on table,
Clank of marbled sand against wood.
Stuffed to the brim with pine needles.
Three days later, I would.
I should.
Guzzle the liquid of the sparkling wood.
Plucked from tree tall branches,
Shaken down from the thick brown wood.
Now shaken to the bottom of my bottlecap mold.
Three days later, I would.
I should.
Guzzle the liquid of sparkling wood.
Top off with sugar,
Swish with clean water and settle the bottle.
Contents cool to the touch.
My bottle, oh bottled.
Pressed against my forehead, making my face flush.
Three days later, I would.
I should.
Guzzle the liquid of sparkling wood.
Nature, thy keeper.
My love, my mother.
Share with me the spirit of sparkling wood.
Share with me the sprite of the pine tree wood.
Cynics in Paradise
Tipping the glass to his lips, his golden eyes darted from one end of the room to the other. He could hear the glasses clinking across the room as the ice settled into his own cup where his lips pressed tightly around the thin lip of his glass and liquid poured in between the part of his mouth.
"Smooth," Gerald added as he slid in beside him, running a hand over the resin-poured wood countertop until his watch loosely clanked and settled on the surface.
"It is," the golden-eyed man answered, turning his sharp gaze back onto the Lycan beside him. It didn't take much to register the friendly face despite the sour disposition that regularly settled over his mouth, setting his jaw stiff and making him look like he was in some foul-ass mood. No, that was just his regular expression. Shifting the glass at an angle, the ice settled into the corner of the round bottom, clinking softly until he jostled it into a new corner, swishing it around. "I only wish it had the same taste when I was human," he breathed.
"You were never human, Augustus," Gerald grumbled.
"And I never had brown hair and gold eyes," he snorted back in response, "but I figured a change in appearance was in order."
"Oh, I'm sure. Though, if your hair was a little more midnight, you might take on the uncanny appearance of a Tepes."
Something about that didn't set right with him. He knew the history, knew the awful semantics of the continued war within the family and how it turned the rest of the Supernatural society inside-out, but he just couldn't settle with the ideal of being intertangled with it all. "You'd think they'd have retired into the afterlife by now," Augustus answered as he took a long sip of the whiskey from his glass.
"You'd think," Gerald agreed. "But they haven't. The old queen is still alive and kicking, keeping us all in line and I've heard rumors that her bastard of an older brother is lurking in the shadows somewhere nearby. No one wants to go looking for him, but after his last stunt on some of the fresher-type, it's a little bit harder to remain aloof about the search for him since he's now made himself public enemy number one."
"When is someone not on the higher powers shit list?" August grinned into his glass, nearly flashing his fangs as he watched the bartender pass them by.
"Good point."
The two sat quietly at the bar, but the silence didn't last long before Augustus was depositing the cash tip under the cup, shoving himself off the stool and onto the floor. For a man of his stature, he was of more average height, but nothing about the way he carried himself seemed ordinary. He was straight-backed, narrow-eyed, and had eyes that could pierce through the soul no matter how he transformed them. Of course, changing ones appearance was a lost art, but he wasn't exactly any of the fresh blood roaming about. No, he was far older than that. Old enough that you could almost say, he was one of the first generation... Not that he cared what anyone called it. As far as he was concerned, he was a myth, a long-dead ancestor and he liked to keep it that way.
"Gerald," Augustus barked.
"Don't call on me like that," Gerald grumped, coming up behind him. "I'm not your lap dog."
"No, but you fetch good like one when I'm in need."
A wry smile spread over Gerald's plump lips and he smiled for a little moment longer before the tired look hit his eyes. "What do you need?"
"Time." Augustus sighed. "And a little more than usual. Keep Rebecca off my back for a while," he told him. "I'm visiting an old friend who's on his way out of life and I'd like to give him a little peace and quiet."
"Of course," Gerald sniffed, turning his head up as he gazed down at Augustus with those dark brown eyes of his. "I know how you get," he smiled. "A good buddy from the last millennia isn't the same as a little lover's fling." He patted Augustus' shoulder despite the man stiffening up under hand and passed him by. "Can't say I can keep her from sniffing too hard, but I know how to distract a woman on the prowl for a time or two."
"You better," Augustus growled. "I won't have her meddle in my affairs again. I'm tired of her antics."
"Maybe don't turn them if you plan to let them be an ex." Gerald waved before waving off to him.
As Gerald stepped out the heavy door of the Tavern, the door slapped shut with a loud groan and Augustus stood there, lip nearly curling into a snarl, before rubbing his hand down the length of his thin, sharp nose. "If only," he groaned.
-Clockwork Excerpt