Tracey H. Kitts - Lilith Mercury 1 - Red (3 page)

The only thing that can permanently scar a werewolf is silver, to which I appear to be immune. I’m technically not a werewolf. I don’t transform with the full moon, and after that night, it hasn’t caused me any more pain. My eyes only seemed to change when I got angry, but with years of practice, it’s something I can control. I occasionally use them to make my point in arguments with Alfred. Wicked, but effective.

RED

Tracey H. Kitts

13

I pulled my black velvet robe from the nearby hook. Staring at my scars would not erase them. I didn’t bother closing the robe as I opened the door which connects to my bedroom. I closed the sheer drapes covering the French doors to the right of my bed, blocking out the view of the rose covered balcony. The window on the opposite side of the room reaches from floor to the ceiling, gracefully arching near the top. Sheer red drapes hung from above this window as well, and fell in silken folds down either side.

They managed to block a surprising amount of sun. But right then I think I could have slept under any amount of light. I just wanted sleep, period.

I let the robe slide to the floor as I slipped between the red silk sheets. I remember taking a deep breath and must have fallen asleep before I could exhale. The next thing I remember was someone pounding on my door.

“Huh?” I grunted. I’m not sure what sort of response I expected, but the beating continued.

“What?” I tried again.

Alfred’s voice answered, “Elijah’s downstairs.”

“So?”

“He’s got some questions.”

“Good for him.”

“Get up, Lilith.”

I didn’t respond for a few minutes, hoping he would just go away if I stayed quiet.

“You’ve been asleep for twelve hours, for God’s sake.”

That got my attention. I rolled toward the clock. He was right. Not that I thought a scientist couldn’t count, I just didn’t feel like I’d slept for twelve hours. I sat up slowly, afraid the room might spin if I moved faster. I collected my robe from the floor and tied the red silk sash as I crossed to the door. When I stepped into the hall, I found Alfred waiting patiently, arms crossed. I sighed, straightening my resolve along with my robe.

“Why the long face? I thought you liked the little cop.”

I glared at Alfred and he smiled. I had said once that Elijah was cute, and I’d been trying ever since to live it down. As I descended the stairs, I saw him waiting in the sitting room by the bay window, reading the paper. Elijah
was
cute. It was merely an observation, although I thought Alfred’s description of him being ‘little’ was a bit harsh.

Elijah is five foot six, but that was hardly an abnormality. He had dark blond hair, so dark it was nearly brown, a ready smile, and big blue eyes. Elijah was only two years younger than me, but sometimes, it felt like centuries. There was a naivety in his smile that I envied, and a sparkle in his eyes no amount of bullshit ever seemed to diminish.

For lack of a better word, he was innocent. I often wondered what he was doing in my house.

RED

Tracey H. Kitts

14

He was the only one of the local cops I could tolerate. Everyone else seemed fascinated by me, but it was in one of those ‘look at the lion in the cage’ sort of ways. I didn’t like feeling that I was an interesting ‘thing’ on display. I’ve always found other’s reactions to me difficult to deal with.

Elijah smiled as I walked into the room. He reached to shake my hand. I hesitated, not out of rudeness, just surprise that anyone in town would shake my hand. I don’t like to touch people, but in some cases, I’ll make an exception. In addition to being half animal, I am also strongly empathic. When I touch someone, I have the ability to feel what they feel, sometimes even see what they see. I get bits and pieces of imagery from their feelings. Of course, I normally take measures to avoid this. There is much about the lives of others I simply don’t care to know. I’m sure there are nosy people out there who would be thrilled with this ‘talent’, but I had never been one of them. Most of the time, I was able to block it out. It’s something I can control. However, I often wear gloves when I hunt, or shake hands with new people, just to avoid the eventuality of seeing something I really don’t want to know.

I would have a harder time doing what I do if I read the mind of every werewolf I touched. I have enough on my mind without seeing other people’s lives flashing before me. I thought it was safe to shake Elijah’s hand. Like I said, he was innocent. I doubted whether there was anything behind those blue eyes disturbing enough to faze me. I took his hand, and to my surprise was able to offer him a genuine smile. I almost said good morning, but remembered it was afternoon.

“Have a seat.” I indicated the chair he had risen from.

“Thank

you.”

He smiled nervously. Alfred stood propped against the stairs, his arms crossed in front of him, looking every bit like a bodyguard.

“I assume you didn’t stop by just because you enjoy my company.”

“Ah, no … I was hoping you would be willing to share with me exactly what happened last night.”

“Where would you like me to start?”

“The beginning, I guess.” I would have thought anyone else was being a smartass, but he seemed too sincere. I recounted for him the story of the night before. I had received a call at eleven thirty, informing me there was ‘a disturbance that required my attention’ at one of the clubs in a nearby city.

“The Firestarter?”

“That’s

right.”

When I arrived, I found a tall, dark woman standing in the parking lot in what I loosely described as red lingerie. Most of her outfit had been torn from her body and hung in shreds. Even from a distance, I could see the beginnings of the change taking place. The moon was not yet full. If a lycanthrope changes, in the absence of the full moon, there is normally severe trauma involved. From the gang of frightened men standing around, I was betting on an attempted rape.

I jumped from the car, checking my blades as I approached them. The parking lot was empty, except for five men standing frozen to the spot. They watched in horror as the beautiful dancer began to shed her skin. The bones of her face lengthened as her RED

Tracey H. Kitts

15

hands turned to claws. She threw back her head and howled in what could only be described as rage. I came to a stop between her and the gawking men, uncertain which I should be protecting.

I rounded on the men, “What happened here?”

“Monster …,” one of them stuttered.

“ME, a monster!” an enraged deep voice growled. “They tried to rape me.” I turned to see her half transformation. She was unmistakably a werewolf, though not fully changed. In her half wolf form, she was even taller. My guess would be close to seven feet, large, even for a female werewolf.

The men seemed to be recovering a bit. “What makes you think we’d want to touch
her
?” one of them spat. “We don’t do monsters.”

I didn’t have time to ask why it was they were not surprised to see a full fledged werewolf standing in a parking lot.

“And we don’t need no goddamned monster hunter to handle our business.”

The man who’d insulted me went for a gun. Before he could straighten his arm to fire, I’d removed my silver machete from its sheath, slicing through his wrist. It was the same weapon my father had used to save me years ago. It only seemed right that it should still protect me.

The man writhed on the ground, holding his bloody wrist and cursing me for all he was worth. The werewolf behind me let out a roar as the group surged toward us. My father had taught me a long time ago that to hesitate is to die. “You must react without question, fight without mercy. Your attack should flow over your enemy, like water, drowning the mind, crushing the body.”

I took my father’s advice. I dropped to the ground and with one fluid motion cut the feet from beneath three of my would-be attackers. The one who’d tried to shoot me grabbed a stick in his remaining hand and charged. I kicked him in the face, skidding him across the gravel of the parking lot. Before he could attempt to use the stick again, I kicked it aside. With me standing over him, a machete aimed at his throat, he didn’t seem so tough.

“P-p-please,” he stuttered. “Don’t kill me.”

I hesitated.

In a rush of flying gravel, I landed flat of my back with the one handed man, trying his best to strangle me. Without further hesitation, I placed the blade against his throat, jerking swiftly to the right. Arterial blood sprayed across my face, covering my hair. One good thing about lycanthropy, it protected you from contracting any other blood born diseases. I spat out the blood across my lips and got to my feet. The other men were dead. Parts of them littered the parking lot in disgusting chunks.

The woman, human once more, sat in the midst of the gore, her hands covering her face, rocking back and forth. I walked over to her and she jumped at the sound of my boots crunching on the gravel.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She began to moan softly, rocking faster and faster. I knelt in front of her, placing one hand on her shoulder. Before I could ask again, she looked up at me, her face streaked with tears, dark eyes glistening in the neon glow from the sign in the parking lot.

RED

Tracey H. Kitts

16

“Are you here to kill me?”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Yes, I had been sent there to kill her.

But, could I kill an unarmed woman who had only been defending herself? Technically, I was equipped for the job, but I didn’t have the heart. This was the part of the job I could do without. You come across some occasionally who will beg for their lives. Of course, they were just trying to kill you moments ago, but you’re not supposed to remember that.

Do I still kill them? Yes. But, I don’t like it. There are some things you just don’t want to have to remember.

“No.” I finally answered. “I’m not going to kill you.”

She looked surprised. “But you’re Lilith Mercury. They say to see you … is to see Death.”

I felt like shit. Here was a woman who had been fighting for her life and was fully expecting me to kill her for it.

“What will happen to me?” she asked.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m just … shaken.”

“Then I suggest you go home.”

She looked around wide eyed at the bodies littering the ground.

“I’ll take care of this.”

Seeming somewhat reassured, she gave me a shaky smile and walked to one of the nearby cars. “Thank you,” she whispered before getting in the car and driving away.

I sat there for a minute and cried.

Of course, this was not the version of events I told Elijah. Fortunately, it turned out one of the men was a werewolf, the friend of Marco’s I had recognized. He was the one who’d turned up at my house that night, and the only one missing from the pile of gore in the parking lot. I told Elijah he had instigated the attack on the woman and I defended her when they chose to attack.

“They were torn apart,” he said, disbelieving.

I had left out the part about the woman finishing them off.

“Fine,” he said, when I offered no further explanation. “Fine,” he repeated. “I just don’t know how much longer we can cover this up. We’re writing it up as an animal attack.” He ran his fingers through his hair in irritation. “Do you know how many

‘animal attacks’ this county has?”

“What do you suggest, Officer Jasper? Tell the public there are werewolves among them? We’d have a riot on our hands.” Alfred couldn’t be quiet any longer.

Elijah seemed to consider this for a moment, as if it had been a real suggestion.

“No,” he said finally. He laughed half heartedly. “The south is full of enough prejudice without the general public knowing there’s werewolves on the loose. That’s an entirely knew species they could set on fire.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. He was right. Never underestimate the stupidity of other people. Alfred looked at me like I’d lost my mind. After Elijah left, not satisfied, but not getting any more answers, Alfred turned to me.

“What are you not telling me?”

RED

Tracey H. Kitts

17

“What do you want to hear? That I wasn’t going to kill an innocent woman for defending herself? She wasn’t part of a resistance group. She was being attacked!”

“How do you know? Did you ask her?”

My patience had reached its limit. “No, Alfred, I didn’t
ask
her. But I can tell you this, if someone tried to rape me, they damn sure better kill me, or I’m gonna kill them. I would rip them limb from limb, just like she did, for daring to touch me!”

He put his hand on my shoulder and I snatched away as I said, “And I’d enjoy it.”

* * * *

I walked down to the kitchen that evening, after I’d cooled off a bit, wondering what sort of mood Alfred would be in. I’d made a second report to my father just after talking, alright, after screaming, at Alfred. Considering my father comes from a planet that believes in eye for eye justice, he had no problem with my actions. Elijah was a different story, but I liked him. He had never looked at me like I was a monster.

The systems of government on planet Terra are vastly different from that of Earth.

There has been only one world war, even though they are far more technologically advanced. This might be due in part to the fact that remnants of the war have remained in play for thousands of years. There are no courts or juries on Terra. They have what are known as judges. These individuals have the ability to touch someone and tell whether or not they have committed a crime. They are clairvoyant to the extent that if the person is guilty, they may even see images of the crime upon touching them.

The judges are never told what the person has been accused of. They merely tell what they see. If you are innocent, they will know. Most people confess. After all, there is no lying to a judge, and there’s no telling what else they might see. The judges are periodically brought before the Wizard Council to see if for any reason they have been lying about what they’ve seen. Punishments are fairly stiff on planet Terra. To lie about the guilt of another is a crime punishable by death. It’s easier to carry out the sentence if you know for certain the accused is guilty. At least, that’s the theory.