The Comfort Of The Knife

The night, which had felt perfectly crafted for Sinaya and myself, had become intolerable. It was still quiet, the streets were devoid of others, and the moon glittered in its lofty place in the sky all the same. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. I couldn’t place what.

“You’re lonely,” Sphinx said.

I dropped my gaze down to where she’d fallen into step beside me having smoothly exited my spirit. Her face flush and gait wobbly like a table with a leg just a hair’s breadth too short. I let my hand—which before I’d been rubbing with the other, perhaps to combat the ‘loneliness’ Sphinx had called attention to—drift to a familiar place atop her head. Fingers dipping into the black flow of her hair to scratch her scalp.

“Why would I be lonely?” I asked. “I have you.”

“Yes,” she said, drawing out the sibilant. “Though the bite of absence is all the harsher when the memory of presence is fresh.”

“Gross,” I said.

“Existence, in its fullness, often is. You’ll not find the clarity of a glaive’s edge when your heart’s drumming is introduced to the pace of others as opposed to the tyranny of adrenaline that you’re more acquainted with.”

We arrived at a square where a fountain stood in stony silence. In the daytime, water passed from its successive bowls in lazy waterfalls, but by night each bowl was a world in isolation. I sat on the fountain’s edge—the lowest and largest bowl—and offered a smile to Sphinx. Who returned my expression with a tilt of her head.

“Hmm, you really are a fast learner, Nadia,” she said. “To taste a new feeling—this time untainted—and incorporate it so adeptly. This speed will do you well if hiding is your aim.”

My smile dimmed at her phrasing. I wasn’t trying to ‘hide’ anything. The framing that I was made it seem as if I knew this was wrong or something when it wasn’t. I wasn’t wrong. I was free from that dreadful specter of feeling which tore me in two…but again there lurked the anxiety that it’d be only myself who saw it that way.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered.

“What for?” Sphinx asked.

“For trying to mask the fact that I’m not the summoner you fell in love with anymore,” I said. “That divided Nadia is gone. It just wasn’t tenable even if it was more desirable to everyone.”

Sphinx snuffed the distance between us. Climbed atop the wide lip of the fountain and laid her head in my lap. She rolled over to catch my downcast gaze with her knowing smile.

“Are you happy?” she asked.

I nodded, wordless.

“Then that is the end of the matter.” She said, “My love for you is not contingent upon one presentation of your nature. While I see them as glittering facets they are just that. Facets upon the gem that is my summoner.”

She wrapped her paws around my neck and used them to pull our faces close into a kiss. It was light, a greeting for the new me—the free me. There was no worry or shame that marred the taste of Sphinx’s love. When we parted her face was firm and eyes steady.

“You need not mask yourself to me, Nadia,” she said, “nor to anyone else. Especially when your eyes are no longer clouded by inherited shadows, and your smile is so bright. My words weren’t meant to wound you. Rather, I only sought to compliment because I presumed to understand your intention when you met me as you did. A consequence of the night’s drinking I say.”

I pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “I’m the one who drank.”

“Conceptual drinks, Nadia, hit the spirit not the gut.”

“I know,” I said.

Sphinx hiccuped, releasing a pink bubble from her mouth.

“And ours are entwined. What coats the strands of your spirit drips down into my own. While your intoxication passes on,” she said. “I begin to inherit.”

Sphinx was drunk. I couldn’t help but snicker at the realization of it. Her flush face and stumbling gait made all the more sense. Of course, I felt minor hints of responsibility—not so heavy as to be guilt—and decided to pepper her brow with kisses to chip away at her intoxication. Then I leaned back up to watch the slow flight of bubbles through the air. The way they rusted over before falling fast as marbles and shattering against the ground to melt into nothing—too weak to uphold reality’s rules.

“What do I do about Melissa and Amber?” I asked.

Sphinx yawned, “Why do anything for the maiden or mummer? Their happiness is their happiness and their displeasure is their displeasure. If they love you as I do, they’ll embrace the broadness of your smile.”

“Is my smile really that different?”

She closed one eye and widened the other to examine me. “Oh, Nadia, this you has been a lonely sort whose company had been but corpses. So you claimed the moniker of monster, but a monster is only such because they’re allowed to have little else. Perhaps it was to keep you sharp and cruel—the last will of an elder self that needed such for a world it found cold.”

“You’re saying I was what, deprived?” I asked.

She reflected my question with another, “You tell me, are you hungry?”

My breath came out as a heavy hiss. The word echoed in the unadorned chambers of my spirit becoming a choir of agreement. That other Nadia—what was me perhaps—had greeded fiendishly for every scrap of feeling that had come our way to repair something broken. She stole our first kiss with Amber, pulled us out when the living had to be ushered into death, and denied us even the chance at worry when Melissa was struck low. I’d lost my first time with Sinaya to something that was dead within me yet continued to eat never sated.

“For now,” I said, “but not forever.”

“Then you’ll find it’ll be more than your smile that changes. Every experience a color, every feeling a shade, and memories the tints by which you’ll paint the diptych that is you.”

“If Sinaya’s grandpa is right, I’ll be painting both of us,” I said. “Choosing the relationship between me and Revelation. Do you have a preference?”

Sphinx shook her head tossing ebon waves this way and that.

“I’m not allowed to advise on such decisions,” she said. “Nor should you feel so pressured as to make a decision at this moment unless you wish to take the trial.”

“I don’t,” I said. “But right now that seems like an easier conversation than going back to the residence and dealing with Amber.”

Sphinx said, “The cost of being is the taste of sour moments.”

“I might as well learn to enjoy the flavor.”

“That you should,” Sphinx said.

She rolled toward me—into me—flowing down into my spirit to settle in that space I’d seen when being fitted by the Nightlord. I raised the hand which had swam within her hair to my face savoring Sphinx’s aroma. It was bright as a cold star with floral notes of lotus. Then I rose from my seat and continued my trek through the night, though this time I smiled when loneliness set in as it was only the reminder of what I had even if it wasn’t present.

* * *

The lights were off when I made it back to our residence, but it wasn’t quiet. I could vaguely make out the short rapid breaths that accompanied the heavy flow of tears. In a quick glance, I noted that Melissa’s door was shut—she was probably with Ina, which meant I’d have more time to figure out how to break the news to her that she’d be hunted tomorrow. Amber’s door was also shut. Mine, however, was ajar.

With careful steps I picked my way across the common room of our suite. Pressed myself against the door. Then surreptitiously leaned just enough that I could spy into my own room. My mouth fell open as I discovered that there in my bed was Amber, the source of the crying.

Illuminated by a shaft of moonlight cutting through the window, she was wearing nothing but a large t-shirt. Her legs and arms were wrapped around my pillow as her tears caused her makeup to bleed into the pillowcase. Clustered near the bed was a small mob of empty liquor bottles—maybe ten in number—which oversaw this complete breakdown in her normally cool exterior. Though from how we’d parted, I could trace an easy line between her exit and the display before me.

If I’d seen this before killing that old Nadia, I probably would’ve felt guilt, or maybe some vindictive pleasure at this collapse. Thinking something like, that’s what you get you traitor, or some other venomous line. Now, it just felt uncomfortable. I—this me—couldn’t marshall up the heat in my chest to take joy in any of this. The feelings of betrayal that I had felt when we parted were like words on a page to me now rather than something I lived. At the same time, per Sphinx, Amber’s feelings were her own to manage, so any sense of guilt on my part failed to form. Yet despite it all, she was crying in my room, and if there was any continuity between this me, my prior muddled self, and the Nadia before it all it was that I hated to see my people cry.

I pushed the door open with my foot, and entered without announcing myself beyond the soft tik, tik, tik of my heels against the floor. Amber’s sobs died. She lifted her head from the pillow, eyes widening at the sight of me, and following my every step with complete attention. Up close, she was reminiscent of some prey animal; weak and fixed on me like I’d pounce on her the instant she blinked. It was the recognition of the power she saw in me that aroused my hunger. Intriguing it with the idea of taking this vulnerable Baron and pushing her even further beneath me. Letting my fangs tease her skin as I gave her some new reason to sob.

The intensity of this sudden train of thought took me by surprise, and it was with the entirety of my will that I forced myself into the chair opposite the bed. Unable to trust myself to not try and angle things into a more carnal light—despite it being without a doubt a tastier one—I kept silent. Allowing the quiet to stretch between Amber and myself.

“I’ll clean up the bottles, Temple,” Amber said. “You can also have my pillow. It’s clean.”

“Mhmm,” I hummed in agreement.

“What happened after I left?” she asked.

The memory of that void in Nemesis and the ever flowing falls of blood from an indeterminable amount of corpses came to mind. My memories before my affair with Sinaya were distant—“words on a page”—but the sight of what lurked within Nemesis was a jagged knife to my psyche. An indelible mark that would haunt me forever.

“I saw Nemesis up close,” I said.

“Temple,” Amber said, “please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid.”

“I tried,” I said, “but I couldn’t move. Even if I could, she already knew somehow.”

“Of course she did, Nemesis is bonded to Bloodlust. The scent of even the smallest murderous impulse can’t go beyond her notice in a space that small,” she said. “It’s why I had to leave, Temple, not because I was scared of her, but because there’s a small number of people in this world who want to kill her more than I do.”

“If you do, then why say it was impossible?” I asked.

Amber’s hands balled the pillowcase up into her fists in an act of rage without outlet.

“The stage isn’t set properly,” Amber said. “Against Nemesis, we can’t miss. I didn’t want you to act prematurely, and I didn’t want my presence to put her on notice.”

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. Amber’s eyes flicked up in concern that she’d done something worth my derision, but I shook my head in an attempt to assuage her worry.

“From how we talked, I don’t think she’d ever be concerned about losing her life. In fact she told me to ‘be more creative.’”

“Temple, did you say you and Nemesis talked?”

I nodded.

Amber’s breath quickened as she crawled to the edge of the bed.

“What did you talk about?” she asked.

“Nothing really,” I said. “She complimented me on my performance over the exam. Said I had eyes like hers—”

I didn’t finish my statement before Amber had flowed from the bed to straddling my lap in the span of a single blink. Her face was distorted in manic desperation as she searched my eyes.

“No, no, no,” she ranted. “Fuck!”

She rose from my lap. Kicked the bottles off into the common room where they shattered. I leaned back in the chair as if that would let me avoid Amber’s erratic wrath.

“Temple,” she said, her head whipping back to me, “you tell me right now when this happened.”

“When what happened?” I asked.

“Your eyes,” she hissed. “They’re flecked with carmine. Her color.”

I thumbed through my memories—I’d been very busy today. “After my shower when I got back from the hospital. I noticed the red and I’d grown fangs.”

“Shit!”

Amber paced back and forth muttering vengeful curses.

“I had Sphinx check me out,” I said. “She didn’t see anything. You didn’t when we danced.”

“Well something changed,” she said. “Nemesis, despite everything about her, isn’t a stranger to subtlety. That’s how she infects you. It slips into your spirit slowly staining you in her own madness and Bloodlust. Twists your spiritual musculature to take on fitting mutations until they take such deep root that they manifest on your physical body. All while you fall deeper into murderous depravity without any self-control.”

She charged over toward me, finger aloft like a sword before leveling it at my heart.

“Something changed in you,” she said. “A shift in your spirit maybe, oh I don’t know. If it’s just flecks in the eyes and your teeth then maybe there’s still time…”

Amber trailed off again into her mind. Pacing and pacing and muttering and muttering about things I could barely follow. I’d had enough, so I rose from my seat catching her by the wrist to stop her. She tried to pull away and I yanked her in the opposite direction with more force than I could account for while in heels. Together we tumbled into the bed. I scrambled on top of her. Pinned her arms above her head so she couldn’t throw me off.

“Talk to me,” I yelled. “Just talk to me, Amber, please. How do you know any of this?”

“Because she did it to me,” she screamed back.

Softer this time, she said, “Nemesis did it to me and all my siblings. Twisted us up until every horrible thing we did felt like drinking the most perfect whiskey in the world. Temple, it’s because of her that I know the taste of a human heart.”

My grip slackened, and Amber threw me to the side. Rolled over to take her position between my legs. Above me, in the light, everything about Amber came into clarity.

“Your eyes,” I said.

“No one just has rose colored eyes, Temple.”

“Your hair?” I asked.

“Dyed in a number of massacres.”

“But you’re not…”

“Crazy?” she asked. “No, I found a way to twist what Nemesis had done to me. Shift the color from hers to what you see now. However, it’s still in me. I could only sublimate it.”

“To love the fight rather than killing,” I said.

Amber smiled, “You’re so smart, Temple. Exactly.”

“Can you remove it from me?” I asked.

Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know. I’ll have to discern the vector—”

“The mask,” I said. “When I went on the wild hunt, I was given a mask as one of…of her dogs.”

The memory of Revelation Living came to mind. She’d called me a puppy, and the other Baron had said that they only say what’s present. In retrospect, it was obvious what my collar was.

Amber slid back allowing me to get up. I fished the mask out from its place in my room next to the skinsuit I’d worn the night of the hunt. She was silent at the sight of it. I couldn’t bear to look at it. When Amber tried to take it from me, I growled at her.

“Please, Temple, drop it,” she said, “for me.”

I took a long inhale, and on the exhale I forced myself to let go. Amber quickly placed the mask into her storage-spell. She then dropped onto the bed. I crawled in after, leaning against her for support.

“I’m sorry I called you a coward,” I said.

Amber sighed, “No, I am. Maybe not to the idea of fighting Nemesis, but acknowledging everything that’d happened? Yeah, I’m pretty cowardly in that respect. I could’ve—”

I tilted her head down toward mine into a kiss before she could blame herself any further. It wasn’t like any of our hungry kisses. There was no game to be had. We were just in need of more quiet. When we broke apart—a thin line of saliva connecting us—Amber brought her forehead against mine.

“Nemesis will die,” she said.

“Not just for killing my parents, but for what she’s done to you and your siblings.”

In one voice we said, “We’ll make her pay.”

Our promise echoed in the quiet until only the shadows still heard it. We parted, and Amber rose from the bed making her way to the door.

“Wait,” I said.

“Yes?” she asked.

I couldn’t help but be a bit embarrassed by the question. “Could you help me take my clothes off? I’m really tired and don’t actually know how.”

Amber rotated her expressions through surprise, lust, and incredulity.

“You somehow received some of the fanciest clothes possible, but you don’t know how to take them off?” she asked. “Temple, you’re perfect.”

She walked back to me, settled on her knees in front of my spot on the bed, and patted her lap.

“Shoes first,” she said.

I raised my leg, settling the point of my heel into her thigh. With deft fingers, she undid the straps and placed the shoe beside her. We repeated the process with the next shoe. Once both had been removed she had me roll onto my stomach. Then she crawled onto the bed straddling me.

“Conceptual clothing is pretty simple,” she explained. “Generally, you engage it like you would your own spirit. Feel for a point on the clothing where you’d like to begin taking it off.”

“And if I want someone else to do it?” I asked.

She leaned over me, whispered in my ear, “Then you do the same, but imagine the person you want to undress you. It’ll make it so only you and them can find that point.”

I closed my eyes, and it took little work to imagine Amber there, in that big t-shirt, straddling my waist from behind. Her breath in my ear. Then I imagined a zipper—dainty, the color of starlight. It wasn’t my imagination when I heard the thin zip of my cosmic catsuit coming undone.

Amber slid back as she helped me up, guided my arms free, and then peeled the suit from my chest. From there we rose to our feet, and I stood while Amber lowered herself to continue removing the garment from my body. Eventually, it was just a puddle of space and stars at my feet. I stepped out of it and turned to find Amber fixed on my body.

“We’re not having sex,” I said.

“Oh.”

“I already did that tonight, and I’m still worn out.”

“Oh,” she repeated but lower this time.

“But if it’s okay, I don’t want to sleep alone tonight. I feel like I’m going to have nightmares of Nemesis or something,” I said. “Can we sleep in your room?”

Amber chuckled and nodded. “C’mon Temple, I have a clean pillow in mine.”

Then I let Amber guide me by the hand from my room to hers. We settled into bed, and I got to be the small spoon. As we curled up together on the edge of sleep, I couldn’t help but ask one last question of Amber.

“How’d Nemesis get close enough to infect you? You’re kind of paranoid about things.”

“Paranoia comes after the betrayal, Temple. No one’s ever paranoid when they need to be,” she said. “I especially wasn’t when I thought I’d found love.”

“You and Nemesis dated?”

“She was my first.”

“If you loved her, can you really kill her?”

“Temple, the easiest life you’ll take is the one that belongs to someone you once loved.”