Oh no. It’s that night again. Hunting night. There’s a creak of light as the closet door opens, and Leviticus is standing there, grinning like a demon.

    She’s a pretty girl, sure. Long hair dyed purple, dark eyes, pale, willowy frame. That voice of hers isn’t too bad either. But I’ve seen her when she gets hungry, when she gets angry. When she gets excited. But she’s not that excited.

    Not yet.

    She grabs me by the heel and tows me into her bedroom, plopping down on the bed. I gaze around at the posters of punk rock icons as she carefully pulls me onto her foot. It’s so cold it almost stings, and the skin is soft and smooth. Her nails scratch just a little as her bare toes poke through the hole in my front. She wiggles them. It tickles. She never wears socks when she wears me. They either get ripped to shreds or so red stained that no amount of bleach in the world could make any difference.

    She says that’s why she likes me. I’m reliable.

    And easy to clean.

    When her foot is snug and comfortable, Leviticus stands and walks over to her full length mirror to check her appearance. I decide to make sure I’m up-to-scratch, too. I was supposed to be a simple clog, but Livy had sent in some money to have me customized. I’m made up of soft denim scraps stitched together and speckled with the faded white stamps of company logos: Abercrombie, Gucci, Dolce & Gabanna, as well as others that I recognize from Livy’s magazines but can’t name. My heel is fashioned from some kind of metal, I don’t know what, and about three inches high. A good height, in my opinion. Not ankle-twisting tall, but not a ballet flat, either.

    Leviticus ruffles her purple locks a bit to give it that “controlled bed head” kind of look she thinks is so sexy, swipes on a layer of cherry red lipstick, and decides she’s ready. She scoops up her favorite black leather jacket and she’s out the door.

Judas is waiting for us down on the gravel driveway. He’s just under a year older than Leviticus, and the resemblance between the two is uncanny. He’s pale as bones, just like his sister, and they share the same dark eyes. Jude is rather thin for a boy, too, but still muscular enough that he can pull it off. His hair is dyed a deep blue, grown to where it brushes his Adam’s apple, and parted over his left eye. He’s wearing his own jacket, a match to Livy’s. He raises an eyebrow at her as we cross over to him, the gravel crunching uncomfortably under my heel.

    “Missing something, sister dearest?” he asks, and holds up the dog collar Leviticus is so fond of. She grins.

    “Why thank you, brother darling,” she purrs. He motions for her to turn around and clips the collar into place as she holds her hair up. I glance to the side at his foot. Unlike Livy, no matter how dressed up he gets, Jude always wears his typical scuffed up motorcycle boots. Livy keeps her own boots under her bed for every day wear, so I don’t see them much, and therefore can’t make a mental comparison of the two. I wonder what it’s like to be a boot. More specifically, I wonder what it’s like to be a boot on Jude’s foot. Is it better or worse than being a special occasion shoe like me? Is it different simply due to the quantity and quality of the work, or because they are shoes tailored for a boy? Oh well. I like being a special occasion shoe, anyway. I may be reliable, but you can only stand to be rewashed so many times a week.

    I suddenly realize Livy hasn’t worn me in a long time. I do some quick math. It’s been…almost a month since out last adventure.

    Hm.

    She must be working on controlling her cravings a little better.

    With the collar secure, Judas turns and lets out a sharp whistle. A moment later the limo pulls out from around the corner. I suppose they keep the garage back there, but I don’t know for sure. I’ve never been back there.

    The limo pulls to a slow, easy stop in front of us and the chauffeur—Jack or Jacques or something—steps out. Like all the other puppets that work for Livy and Jude, his face is blank, his eyes dead. He walks around and opens the door for us.

    “Thank you, love,” Livy coos as she climbs in. She doesn’t remember his name either, then. That’s understandable; his services aren’t used as often as, say, the tour bus driver’s, and he never wears a name tag. He gives the tiniest hint of a smile, the corner of his mouth twitching up, but he doesn’t say anything. Judas climbs into the limo, the chauffeur shuts the door, and, a few moments later, I feel the engine kick in and we’re off. Leviticus settles down with her brother’s arm around her waist and props her feet up by the window. I’m content to gaze through the glass as the trees flashing by slowly merge with small buildings, and soon melt away into the buildings of the city at twilight.

    The limo pulls to another slow stop on a not-so-crowded back street. Livy and Jude climb out of the limo—no help from the chauffeur this time—and link arms. I hear the limo start off back down the street as we head in the opposite direction. I try to ignore the squishy feeling of oil and other discharge, slippery under my heel. It’s bound to get worse in the next couple of hours, anyway.

    It doesn’t take too long to get to the club. It’s dark and seedy and reeks of stale alcohol. The couple passes through the doors easily; they always manage to get into places like this, no I.D. necessary. We are waved in to a crowd of young bodies, pulsing lights, and ear-bleed-worthy music, all shrouded in a fog of smoke I sincerely hope is from cigarettes. I kind of tune out at this point, zoning and thinking of nothing as Leviticus and Judas split up and start scouting the crowd for dance partners. I only start paying attention again when I hear Livy introduce herself with her last name. She never gives away her last name, not unless she’s found a good pick.

    It’s almost time.

    “…Leviticus Rayven,” she’s saying. Jude has drifted over, and she gestures casually to him. “And this is my brother, Judas.” She’s talking to two kids, hardly older than nineteen. They have that strangely eager light in their eyes people usually get when the Rayvens get to work.

    “I’m Danny,” the boys says. His eyes hardly leave Leviticus as he introduces his sister, Sarah. I suddenly realize both Leviticus and Judas left their jackets in the limo, and are showing off a generous amount of skin. I can tell Danny appreciates the gesture.

    “Twins?” Judas asks. He has his hand on Livy’s hip, but his eyes are on Sarah. There’s a mischievous glint in them that makes her giggle as Danny confirms. Yes, they are twins, Sarah the oldest by three minutes.

    “So, you guys actually like it here?” Leviticus asks, shifting her weight to her other leg.

    “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” Sarah says. Her voice is high pitched, but sweet. She pulls some hair behind her ear, glancing shyly at Judas. “It’s our first time here, actually. The drinks are crap, but the music’s pretty good.” Judas smirks and leans forward a little, so the twins can hear him more clearly.

    “If you want, you can come with us,” he says. “We know where there’s a real party going on.”

    It’s obvious by the look the twins exchange that they would like to go, and very badly. Judas’ smirk stretches into a devilish grin. He jerks his head towards a door in the back and the twins follow him through the gyrating crowd, Leviticus taking up the rear. We pass through into a dingy, dark alley. The moon is full by now, a fat disc, like a giant flashlight in the sky. I can see the twins a bit more clearly now. I was wrong—they’re much younger than I guessed, maybe sixteen or seventeen.

    Poor things. Much too young.

    Too late to stop it now.

    Jude leads us down a long, winding path of alleyways, all suspicious to me, as if they were strangers under a flickering street light. The twins follow, obedient as puppies. Livy and I keep to the end of the line, the tail end of a monster called disaster. She keeps glancing behind us. She’s always skittish on hunting nights.

    After weaving deep into the tangle of the city’s arteries, Judas suddenly stops. He turns around, an inhumanly large grin painted across his face.

    “Welp,” he says, spreading his hands to the side, palms out. “Here we are!”

I can feel Leviticus’s muscles tense and relax, flexing, straining in anticipation. Danny looks confused.

    “What?” he asks, as if breaking through a trance. Which, actually, he might be. “But, where—“

    Judas pounces. He tackles Sarah, pinning her to the ground. I see his eyes glow scarlet as he flashes by. Danny almost cries out his sister’s name—almost—but Leviticus suddenly has him by the throat, lifting him a foot into the air. She holds him a little higher, positioning his head so he’s staring over her shoulder. I know what she’s doing.           She can be a sadistic little thing sometimes.

    She’s going to make him watch his sister die.

    I hear screams behind us, going up much too high in pitch before being suddenly cut off by a snarl and a loud, wet crack. Danny’s eyes widen and he struggles, gurgling a little in terror, clawing at Leviticus’s hand. It’s like he’s trying to pry open a bear trap. Her own smirk stretches far too wide, the skin at the corner actually splitting apart, revealing her true hide underneath; thick, dark grey, and leathery. Tough. Grotesque. Just a tiny peak at a succubus in her true form.

    Leviticus draws back her other hand. I can see she’s relaxed her control a little, and her fingers have become long, ragged, razor-edged talons, the claws a harsh yellow, the knuckles knotted and covered in that disgusting grey hide. If she were to hold it still, I could count every one of the tiny bones in her hand, the layer of flesh shrouding them is so thin. But she doesn’t hold it still. She launches it forward and the talons tear up through the flesh of Danny’s chest, burying the hand up to the wrist. A gush of blood sprays outward, coating Livy’s grin, where the teeth have grown and sharpened to resemble her claws. I can see those claws, just short of popping through the skin over Danny’s collarbone.

    I look away at this point. I can only stand it for so long, you see. Even shoes can get squeamish. So I focus on the ground instead, watching the puddles of Danny’s warm blood pool in front of me, feel it splash all over me and soak into my denim. I look away and stare into the dead air when Leviticus throws the mutilated corpse onto the filthy alleyway floor and kneels over it, attempt to block out the sloppy tearing, chewing, and swallowing sounds and the spastic jerking of the body every time Leviticus takes a bite.

    When she finally stands, I can’t help but glance at the body. Much of the flesh has been eaten away. Whatever bones are showing are white and gleaming, sucked clean of blood. His face is still intact, all but the eyes. There are only dark, gruesome pits where they used to be. Livy always calls that her dessert.

    Leviticus turns, licking some gore off of her once again immaculate, delicate fingers, to face her brother. Judas is just as messy as she is; blood all over his face, his throat, his hands. It’s soaked through his clothes, giving them all a ghastly red tint. His boots are still shiny and black, though. He’s grinning like a kid in a candy store.

    “How was he?” Judas asks.

    “Tough, kind of chewy,” Leviticus admits. “And her?”

    “Very sweet, very tender. Fresh.” He suddenly smiles a little sheepishly. “I, um, kind of got carried away.” He nods to what’s left of Sarah. It’s nothing more than a bloody clod of fabric and tangled hair. Livy chuckles and links her arm through Jude’s.

    “Don’t worry, brother darling,” she purrs, walking off down the alley. “You were just hungry. Besides, you’ve been working hard lately, and you deserved a little fun. A young incubus needs to keep up his strength, you know.”

    The limo is waiting for us at the end of the alleyway maze. There are fresh clothes inside, which the Rayvens promptly change into. The blood has seeped through my denim and made it so I squish every time Leviticus takes a step, so she peels me off and sets me delicately on the floor. The chauffeur must take a shortcut or something, because it takes hardly any time to get home. Judas gives Leviticus a piggyback ride up to the doors of the mansion as she carries me, so she doesn’t hurt her feet on the gravel. Once inside, they exchange pleasantries and good-night kisses before going their separate ways to their own rooms.

    Livy gently replaces me in her closet. I catch a brief glimpse of her—blood caked on her white skin, purple hair in a shaggy mess, tired, but still grinning—before she closes the door and leaves me in the dark.

    I sit there, contemplating my life, as I usually do at the end of hunting nights. I feel stiff since the blood has started to dry, but tomorrow Livy will come back and take me to the laundry room to be washed. I’ll come back looking like new, and Leviticus will comment to Judas again on how reliable and easy to clean I am. Then I’ll be locked away in the closet again, smelling of laundry detergent and stale death, to wait for an immeasurable period of time until Leviticus needs me again. It’s a simple life, a humble one. One that’s often messy, but contented. I slowly allow myself to drift off into the darkness, waiting for the next time the Rayvens go out, as the scent of corpses chases me into my dreams.

My daughter keeps running, running, running.

Why is it she must flee?

I must protect my baby girl,

Why does she run from me?

Crying, screaming, begging,

"Leave me alone, Mama, please!"

Panting, resolved, trying to catch her,

Calling, "Sweetheart, come back to me!"

There is danger in the air.

There are whispers all around.

I must save my little angel,

I must shield her from this town.

Running, running, running,

Around dim corners, down strange roads.

I can hear her feet slap the pavement;

Her precious feet, her poor little toes!

"Darling, please stop running!"

The voices shout to stop her, now.

There's monsters lurking in the dark,

Waiting to hunt my baby down.

She doesn't see the puddle.

She skids, and slips, and falls.

Deep inside, my heart skips a beat.

I can save her after all!

Now she's crawling, crawling, crawling,

While her sobs draw curious stares.

I reach her, shield her from their eyes;

Now she'll know how much I care.

She struggles underneath my hand,

Her pretty eyes drowning in tears.

I smile gently down at her.

"Now you can forget about your fears."

A flash of metal, a child's scream,

A bang, and then it's done.

I cradle my baby, now calm and hushed,

And smile as strangers run.

Running, running, running, 

The voices retreat into my head.

I breathe a sigh. My daughter's safe.

I think, I didn't know angels wear red.

We have angered the Gods.

Somehow, in some way, we have earned their displeasure.

That is all I can think of as this madness engulfs me.

Mothers screaming for their children,

Babies stumbling about in confusion,

Thundering, earth-shaking footsteps

Throwing clods of earth and loose gravel high over my head.

There is a little paper mask around my face.

That is my only protection against this unholy wrath.

I am little more than a statue, stumbling through the swarm of citizens.

Lank hair, gritty skin, crusted clothes, chalky tears,

All enveloped in gray,

Hot and flaking,

The color of impending demise.

We have angered the Gods.

What have we done...

What have we done?...

What have we done?!

Coughing, gasping, rasping sobs;

A woman falls to the ground, choking on ash.

No one stops to help her.

We all part around her, like a tide around a crumbling stone.

She reaches out, to crawl, to scramble across the ground like an animal.

She wants to escape, but it is impossible.

Everyone ignores her in their own flight, even I.

More ash, falling about us as if thunderclouds have come unpinned from the sky.

Hard stones, too, pelting the ground

And the bodies scattered at my feet.

Still, we ignore them.

We must flee...

We must outrun the Gods...

We must live!

...But, somehow, I know we will not.

A stone misses my nose by the width of a hair

And rips my mask away.

To be trampled into the earth,

Like my little doll, my home, my innocence,

Like my safe little bubble of an existence.

Burning sandpaper coats my throat as I try to breathe.

I can feel the bruises and aching bones as I am thrown to and fro.

We have become animals.

We are little more than lambs

Spooked by a great monster

With no shepherd to protect us.

We run, we scatter,

Frothing at the mouth, eyes rolling, keening voices ripping through the air,

As calamity closes in on us.

What have we done...

What have we done?

In the name of all that is sacred,

What could we have possibly done?!

I trip over something--

A rock, a head, a dropped infant, I can't tell--

I fall.

Oh, the noise...the noise....

The screaming, the crying, the thunder, the rasping, hacking sounds of destruction...

Make it stop...make it stop...

JUST MAKE IT STOP!

I feel a foot connect with the back of my skull.

Pain...

Darkness...

Silence.

...

A thick blanket lay spread across the land.

Gray and gritty in my eyes, but fine and soft to the touch.

No one would guess what nightmares it hides,

The bodies lying in deep slumber down below.

The bodies of strangers...

Somewhere, the bodies of my parents, of my baby brother...

Somewhere, too, the body that used to be mine.

I feel nothing now.

No pain.

No confusion.

No fear.

I never awoke from that darkness to find myself here.

At first, there was nothing.

And then, there was me.

I am not meant to stay here long.

Perhaps I never was.

No one else is here.

I am all alone.

I wonder why...

...And now, I don't.

After all, questions like these are trivial now.

The air is calm, if still clouded over

Like the sea in the throws of a storm.

There are no screams.

There is no thunder.

The Gods sleep.

My people sleep.

Now, I must sleep.

We had angered the Gods.

Somehow, in some way, we had earned their displeasure.

Now, there is nothing.

Nothing to be displeased with.

It is as if the world had always been this still and silent and heavy with death.

Maybe it always had been.

Maybe we were simply too blind to see things as they were.

A smokey bar, stoned strangers,

The reek of stale sweat and beer.

Slamming down another shot,

Thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?"

A simple glance, a sly smirk,

A nervous chortle on my end.

A few words, soft and sweet,

Then we're leaving, hand in hand.

On a stranger's bed, in the dark,

It doesn't smell much better than the bar.

I'm not excited, but terrified;

I never thought I'd get this far.

They sent me out, on a dare,

And said if I won, they'd leave me be.

But if I lost, I'd still have fun.

Thinking, "This doesn't seem very fun to me..."

Then it starts, the strange ritual.

Tension, heavy breathing, strange sounds.

They didn't tell me there'd be any pain.

I want it over now.

But it drags on and on and on,

Continuing until I just can't take it.

I take advice from those more experienced

And do my best to promptly "fake it".

Feeling empty, as my "partner" sleeps.

They told me what to do from here.

Quietly, carefully pulling on my clothes;

Now I smell like sweat and beer.

I don't leave my number or even my name,

I just want to get myself home.

I slip out the door, breathe in the cool air.

Even now, I feel broken and afraid.

Light streaming through the window,

Tangling with sheets on my own bed.

All I want to do is forget,

But that night plays on repeat in my head.

I feel I can't move, I feel I can't breathe.

I feel I've become a mime.

I thought I'd enjoy it, honestly I did;

After all, it was my first time...

They were right, I suppose.

I did lose, it's true.

But they lied to me about it,

When I was ignorant, when I didn't have a clue.

They said virginity holds you back

From going out and having true fun.

I wish I hadn't tossed it away.

I wish that night could be undone.

They always said

Good little girls follow the rules.

They cook and they clean,

Raise the babies, tend to the husband,

And teach their daughters to do the same.

But they never said

How good little girls need release.

How the chores and the hassles,

Giving, but never getting,

Can leave you with a tired, aching soul.

They never said

Good little girls turn to bad habits.

They do what they can, and then some,

And then turn to the Forbidden Fruit

To handle a sentence dealt to them at birth.

They never said

Good little girls can fall apart.

How they struggle from taste to taste,

From dose to dose,

Needing more every time.

They never said

Good little girls are weak.

But they also never said they were stronger, either,

Than the trance their release imprisons them in.

They never said

Good little girls tear themselves to bits

But they do it gladly

Just to get another taste.

They never said

Good little girls die.

Taken before their time,

Not by another's hand, no,

But by their own as they try to get one last rush

Of the only comfort they thought they could get.

They always said

Good little girls follow the rules.

But they never said what those rules do to you,

And what happens when you try to escape.