On the balls of its hind legs, the wendigo prances lightly, almost delicately, to the front door and out into the darkness of the sewer. Purgatory is quiet and still, like a freeze-framed horror on a 3D movie screen.
Chapter 7
CeCe
I’m walking Down Under, aimless, no destination in mind, with the event at Purgatory heavy on my host’s heart. Just knowing a wendigo is living in the area makes me uneasy. I don’t know why, because they can’t kill my kind, only ravage the human flesh we wear. And it’s not like I give a crap what happens to the other creatures. Yet, if the demon runs rampant, there will be nothing Down Under but bloody, fleshless bones. I might miss knowing there’s a place to go where I can be the real me.
Thing is, from what I’ve heard, once the frenzy of killing and feasting begins, a wendigo is out of control and never fully sated. They often go topside and start feeding on human flesh until they’re hunted by their own kind and put down. They’re a big threat to our anonymity. I know that’s why the wendigo are exiled to countries surrounding the North Pole; frigid weather calms the beast in them. That, and there are no doppelgangers that far north. Even though they aren’t a threat to doppelgangers, it’s said, wendigo feeding off the human flesh we wear is what pushes ’the horror’ above ground in their search for more.
Spying an exit, I climb into the night and head home. Well, not home, but CeCe’s house. I’ve never felt more lonely—singularly-alone. I want to be needed, languish in the warm touch of a human, and be a part of something bigger than myself.
I need sex.
Gaire
Watching CeCe come out of the status-emblematic tri-level on Lake Harris, I’m enthralled by the feelings that wash over me. Never have I felt the need to protect and take care of another individual. Never have I wanted someone so badly it strikes fear in my heart. And this is the first time I’ve had the overwhelming feeling I couldn’t live without someone.
My kind doesn’t mate for life. They copulate only when necessary to build and preserve the herd. And that’s only if I’m selected for breeding. I would be corralled in an unknown location with the one I must impregnate, and left there until I did so. It’s not a choice my kind is allowed to make for ourselves. But then, being a half-breed, I’m not allowed to mate at all. Tainting the herd is not acceptable. I’m an outcast, and one who requires constant supervision, or annihilation should I chose not to comply.
Adding insanity to the non-compliant choice I’d made, I followed CeCe to this tri-level home after she emerged from the sewer, watched lights go on in a couple of the upstairs rooms, and heard the sound of the shower through an open window on the second floor. Now, as the lights wink out, I wait for her to come out. After seeing CeCe Down Under, there’s a good chance she is not entirely human. I have never tried to bed an underworld creature. I’ve sworn off relationships, but CeCe has given me hope.
The night above Down Under is lit by a full moon and star-filled sky. The air smells of damn grass, roses, honeysuckle, and humanity: oil, exhaust fumes, frying bacon, metal, leather, plastic, asphalt, brick and mortar, trashcans filled with waste, and flesh covered in the scent of manmade fabric and chemicals.
As the front door opens, I hunker down behind the foliage and watch as CeCe gets into a red convertible. Bright lights flash the tree I’m perched in as the car makes an arc before heading down the driveway.
I leap from the tree, phase into the creature I was born to be, and with long muscular legs, make chase.
CeCe
As I sit in the car in front of the diner and stare into the dark building for the umpteenth time since the episode at Purgatory, I wonder why I’m drawn here. The whole time I’d showered, dressed, and mentally entertained pleasures of the flesh, I knew I would end up here instead of the local bar where I’d met Mr. I’m-Doing-You-A-Favor a couple of nights ago.
As I’d applied CeCe’s makeup, I wasn’t thinking of adequate sex with Blue Eyes. I’d been thinking about Gaire. I’d selected the black dress and strappy three inch pumps, fantasizing how it was going to feel when he removed them. When fluffing my hair and running my fingers through it, I was thinking about how silky Gaire might think it felt. Mr. I’m-Doing-You-A-Favor was never on my mind.
“Damn it!” I said, slapping the steering wheel. “If it’s simply sex you want, idiot, this is the last place you should be, and you know it!”
Gaire had made it perfectly clear earlier in the day that sex wasn’t an option. Yet, I’d tried to sway him with seductive human behaviors. He hadn’t budged when I slipped out of CeCe’s shirt. It hadn’t fazed him a bit. Not even when I’d tossed it at his feet and slid out of my jeans and stood wearing nothing but CeCe’s lace undies. He’d simply picked her clothes up off the cherry wood floor, placed them between our breasts and smiled, eyes twinkling.