Nos Faux Ratu Ch. 03

Nessa knew that Jenna had used these walls to compartmentalize her life, soul, and heart. It was not unusual for someone who had endure such great trauma to lock it away, but Jenna's entire being had been fragmented. The soul was meant to exist as a single thing, and was weakened when so separated.

The first castle looked to be made of plastic, with all the colors of the rainbow adorning it. It looked like something that could entertain and delight children forever, but it had a heavy lock on the door. The little windows were boarded up, and a moat was dug in the ground around it.

The second castle was huge, and in many ways resembled a Gothic cathedral, similar in style if not scope to Jenna's home. Storm clouds bubbled and boiled overhead, and the still of the plain was broken by the flash of lightning and the crack of thunder. There were two huge doors that led to the main hall, but Nessa saw no lock on them.

The final castle was a bland and barren as the plain itself, made of steel and glass and lacking any definition or personality. The front gate of this castle was open, but there were no spectral people coming and going, but rather just an occasional shade, cast by nothing.

The tower in the center was, in some ways, the most mysterious. It rose up to edge of Nessa's vision, and had no door to speak of. The stones appeared thick and heavy, and the air around it was surprising calm, almost warm. Far up on the wall of the tower was a single window emitting a faint light.

Nessa looked around again. 'The first castle is her childhood,' Nessa realized. It would be a fight to open that lock, especially without a willing guide. Jenna's spirit self was not here, but that was not surprising. A soul divided against itself might not have enough power to manifest the whole person. In each castle, she would find part of the owner.

The third castle was the present as it, like Jenna, was functioning yet lacking in color and ever searching for its own voice. Nessa could not guess as to the meaning of the tower, but the second castle . . . oh, that was all too obvious. The structure made her skin crawl just to look at it for a moment, but she knew that she had to do more than look at the outside. She needed to go in. She needed to see. So she made her way towards those imposing doors, trying not to flinch as the the lightning increased its sky-bound display, and the thunder rattled her to her bones. And as she touched the huge black door knocker, she heard the church bells toll.

Nessa found herself in what appeared to be a normal, family home. Four people were sitting around a table, eating dinner and laughing. It was easy to tell that the teenage girl to the right of the adult male was Jenna, though her expression was so different. This Jenna was smiling and chuckling and making goofy faces at her brother across the table. The parents made half-hearted attempts to reign in their daughter, but they were smiling too broadly to be taken seriously.

Then the doorbell rang, and the father got up to see who it was. Moments later, the others heard a thump of something hitting the floor. Before any of them could get up to check, a strange man walked in. He had a strange device in his hand, which he pointed at the mother. She dropped like a bag of stones when a dart struck her in the chest. The children screamed and tried to run. The man aimed at the little boy, who could not have been older than twelve or thirteen, but the dart stuck Jenna when she lunged in the way. Her sacrifice was in vain, as the man shot another dart shortly thereafter and hit the fleeing boy. The family were then loaded into a transport.

Nessa saw a faint spirit floating nearby, as Jenna's spirit watched on. 'How many times have you gone over this in your head?' she wondered. 'You said you had nightmares. Are we about to see them?'

The spirit Jenna did not seem to hear Nessa's thoughts. She simply vanished, drawing Nessa with her to another place.

Nessa recognized the inside of the church where her guide now lived. The bodies were each taken to a trapdoor beneath the alter and carried down stairs to the basement, then secured to heavy wooden chairs around a table. All in all, it was a mockery of the familial setting they had been kidnapped from.

The vampire stood next to spirit Jenna and watched as the family was woken up. This man . . . the Messenger . . . told them that they were sinners, but that he would save them. He would strip all other things away so that they would be ready for the rapture. But even as he spoke, his eyes were drawn time and time again to the angelic young face of the fifteen year old Jenna.

What happened next came as a blur. The man tortured the whole family, including the children. He raped the mother and daughter, then performed similar acts on the father and son using broomsticks and other devices. he ripped out fingernails, broke arms, disfigured faces . . . Nessa was glad that she could not throw up in this form. She had seen evil many times, but she never got used to it. And this . . . this was evil by someone who loved his work.

The sixth day had come, which was the day that the Messenger normally killed his victims. But for the first time, he changed his routine. He was enchanted by Jenna, who had pleaded and begged for every life but her own. Somehow, even the Messenger's demented brain saw nobility there. And that nobility sickened him, because it reminded a primal part of himself what he lacked.

So he started working over the father, torturing him some more. This time, he spoke to Jenna.

"Only you can end his pain," he told her. "Denounce his mortal love, and promise to love only the Lord, whom thou shall love through me." He moved on to the mother, then to Jenna's brother. Nessa was crying bloody tears in her spirit self as he hurt them so badly that one-by-one, Jenna begged for their release and for the Messenger's love. Their last days on earth had been savage, ended by their daughter who was so afraid of living without them. And when her brother breathed his last, the last glimmer of light in Jenna's eyes died.

The Messenger kept Jenna for another month and a half past when her family died. He treated her as his wife which, for him, mean verbally berating her, taking her sexually over and over while all she could do was lie there, beating her and torturing her to his black heart's content, then left her lying on the floor, lacking the will or desire to move.

Yet when the security forces came barging in after a tip from a suspicious neighbor clued them in, Jenna clung to her captor, screaming that she loved him. The Messenger had no intention of being taken alive, and had been gunned down with a teenage girl clinging to his leg. Social services had tried to calm her down, but she just screamed at them. She begged for salvation, then for forgiveness. Then just as suddenly as her outburst had begun, it stopped. Jenna just stared blankly at the world.

Nessa almost screamed herself as she fled from the castle, wanting badly to escape what she had just seen and clean her mind of it. From the center of the stone circle near the tower, she looked back and saw the spirit Jenna looking out at her. Their gazes met for a moment, and the spirit looked desperate . . . lonely.

'I can't leave her there,' Nessa thought. She ran back to the doors, a motion that seemed to inspire fear. The spirit began to sink back into the depths of the castle, but Nessa caught her.

"You don't have to go back there," Nessa said, reaching a hand out to her hostess. "You don't have to face it alone."

Spirit Jenna nodded, indicating that she did.

"No. That isn't you, or at least not all of you. Stay here. Help me unlock the rest of you." Nessa stepped forward and took the spirit Jenna's hand. It felt soft, like the sides of a balloon rather than flesh and bone. "I'll keep you safe," she promised.

More than anything else she had ever said that she could remember, Nessa wanted to keep that promise. The spirit Jenna's hand became more solid, and Nessa drew her close, holding her like their physical bodies were joined. Nessa touched her lips to the spirit Jenna's neck --

Nessa came back to the waking world with a gasp, her teeth still buried in Jenna's neck. Jenna was trembling. It was as if her body wanted to break down and cry, but had long since forgotten how. Nessa sent her body's natural endorphins down her fangs and into Jenna's bloodstream. Slowly, the tremors and shakes died off and Jenna was breathing slow and steady.

"Stop doing that," Jenna said, but her tone did not reflect her words. She sounded relaxed.

Nessa gave one last influx of happy-juice, then withdrew her fangs. "You're safe with me, you know that right?"

"I'm never safe. No one near me is safe," Jenna whispered, her voice hazy and mild now. "People near me die."

"I'm hard to kill," Nessa replied. Soon, Jenna was asleep, knocked out by the sedative mixed in with Nessa's blood cocktail. Normally she would throw in something to fuck up short-term memory, but she needed Jenna to remember. She needed Jenna to know that she had been with her in that place and had kept her safe.

------------- -------------------

Many hours later . . .

------------- -------------------

Jenna awoke with a start. She was not in her sleeping tube, something she had not done since she was in the service. She was in an enormous, soft bed, under the silkiest sheets she had ever felt. And she was naked. She tried sitting up, but there was an arm draped over her body. She slowly turned her head and saw Nessa lying there, smiling in her sleep. She was perfectly still, almost as if she were --

"Dead," Avery said from a nearby chair. "She always sleeps like the dead."

Jenna had almost twitched out of her skin when she heard a voice, pulling the covers up to hide her nakedness. "What the hell am I doing here?" she whispered, trying not to disturb the other woman. 'What happened last night?' she thought.

"You don't have to whisper," Avery told her. "You could drop a brick on that woman's head, and it wouldn't wake her up. To answer your unasked question, there was no sex or taking advantage. She thought her presence might help you sleep as well. So she brought you back here so that I could brief you when you woke up. You don't sleep much, do you?"

"Four hours is all we need," she replied.

"Damn. I need some of what you're on. In the meantime, there's coffee brewing in the kitchen if you want some. Clothes on the nightstand next to you. When you're dressed and comfortable, we'll talk." He turned and walked to the other side of the room.

Jenna was surprised by a number of things. One, she felt more rested than she had in . . . well, as long as she could remember. Two, she was not completely freaking out like she thought she should be. Three, she was amazed by how beautiful Nessa was in her sleep.

'What the hell are you thinking?' she wondered as she grabbed the pile of clothing and ducked behind a conveniently arranged dressing screen. The uniform was similar to her old one in that it was a body stocking. This one, however, was a little tighter in certain areas than Jenna thought appropriate. On the plus side, there was body armor sewn into it, and it was the most hi-tech stuff known. It did not cover quite as much (in more ways than one) but it was very maneuverable. But were the blue breast cups really necessary?

"Where's . . . uhm, Anabella? she asked when she finally worked up the nerve to approach Avery again. He was seated on the sofa with some files on the coffee table in front of him.

"She doesn't exist right now. Go grab some coffee and we'll get started."

"What do you mean 'doesn't exist' right now?" Jenna asked, pouring herself some liquid life.

"Banshee's don't exist in the corporeal world from sunrise to sunset. Vampires just tend to get really drowsy."

"That explains her," Jenna said, looking back at the bed.

"No, normally they're just sleepy like humans are at night. She just sleeps like a college student after an all night beer bash."

"And she and I . . . there was no --"

Avery looked at her meaningfully. "No. I can't tell you everything about her, so you'll have to ask her for anything about herself. I will say that she has never, to my knowledge or to Anabella's knowledge, ever taken advantage of someone like that. She has never coerced anyone to her bed and looks unfavorably towards any employee that would."

Jenna felt immensely relieved. "So what is all this?" she asked, sitting down across from Avery.

"This are the files of Nessa's financial empire. She likes to keep hard-copies of everything, just in case the computers go down. She wants you to understand her assets and the structure of her organization so that you can better help utilize it to combat the enemy."

"How many businesses does she own?" Jenna asked, looking at the large stack of papers.

Avery shot her an amused look. "If I were just going to tell you, then I would not have brought all the files."

Jenna started shifting through the paperwork. She was an incredibly fast reader and had a near photographic memory, so she was going through much faster than Avery apparently expected. Nessa's businesses were extensive. She owned four clubs besides Devil's Night, all of which were geared towards humans. She also owned a five-star restaurant called the Stone Table, where a dinner cost more than most people earned in a week. And apparently Nessa was the shadow owner of Fortune Favors, the most successful casino on the East coast, as well as Alchemist Pharmaceuticals. Jenna saw Nessa's net worth, and finally just stopped counting zeroes and put the files back down.

"She's had a lot of time on her hands," Avery explained. "She is easily the equal of any CEO in the country, but none of them even know she exists. Now here," he added, putting another stack of files on the table, "are her employees and informants."

It took Jenna well into the afternoon to digest all the information that she was being given. She still had an hour before she had to be at her coffee spot, but she was getting edgy. "I'm surprised that she hasn't found us by now. This is impressive."

"We never thought to look for a top secret government organization creating fake vampires. We probably could find more on our own, but we simply don't have the time, and Nessa was unwilling to start off by utilizing the tactics that have been so effective for her adversary, Mr. Garon Pegg."

"I heard. I'm sorry that it came to this. I never imagined that . . . well, I never imagined any of this."

"I understand," he said. "I've known about the Night Breeds all my life, so I sometimes forget what a shock it can be. But now Garon has a head start on us, so I need everything that you can tell me about your organization."

Jenna's mouth opened, then shut. Then opened. Then shut. Telling him would mean she had truly turned against the Nightwalkers, but not telling him would mean more meaningless deaths. Realizing that she had already effectively committed treason --

"Okay, there are seventy-eight Nightwalkers, each named after a card in a Tarot deck," she began. She told him everything she could think of about the organization, even about Death, though she respectively asked not to reveal his real name. Avery understood.

"Actually, I can contact Death and let him know what is happening. Better yet, do you still have the body of the Nightwalker who was captured?"

"Yes, we've got it on ice in the basement. Why?"

"Tonight, find an out-of-the-way place and put the body there. I'll communicate the location to Death, and he can find it. At least then the Nightwalkers will be on their guard."

"Excellent idea," he said approvingly. "I'll set it up. So can we count on your support?"

Jenna put her coffee down. "Well, my life is pretty much over anyway. I might as well try and make something good come of it."

Avery did not bother to contradict her, though he suspected that her life was simply getting started after a long delay rather than ending. "You and Nessa had a good communication then?"

"Is that the word for when she went traipsing around my mind?"

"Yes."

"Then yes, we 'communicated.' I'm not sure I would call it good. I . . . She shouldn't have seen that. No one should ever see that."

"Jenna, Nessa is thousands of years old. Do you really think that there is a horror that she hasn't seen? Hundreds of thousands of Night Breed, many of them her friends, have been slaughtered through the years, often for simply being caught up in mankind's many struggles and wars. She has endured a great deal of pain herself, though nothing compared to what you went through."

'What I went through,' she thought. 'That's a polite way of putting it.' "Okay, I guess I've got the basics. Listen, I have to run an errand. I'm going to be able to get a hold of my contact in the Nightwalkers --" She paused, still uncomfortable with the notion of speaking of her unit from the perspective of an outsider. "That isn't a problem, is it?"

"You mean are we worried about you betraying us or running off?"

"Well, yes."

"I am," Avery said calmly. "I think that Nessa is putting too much trust in you too quickly. But Nessa is the boss, and I've learned to respect her judgment over the years." He stood up, grabbing the files as he did so. "Throw some clothes on over your body armor, and be back before sunset. We have a long night ahead of us. Oh, and tell your friend to go patrolling down near the aquarium. He'll find your fallen comrade there."

"I'll tell him. And Avery --"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for being honest with me."

He smiled. He wondered what it had cost her to thank someone for admitting that he did not fully trust her. "You're welcome."

----------- ------------------

That night . . .

----------- ------------------

"This is barbaric," the Fool said, looking down at the corpse that had been left in an alley not far from the Home Depot Aquarium.

Death decided not to mention that it was the exact same thing that the Fool would have done to a captured vampire if he had gotten the chance. "Barbaric."

"And these look like dog prints, admittedly from a large dog," Death said. Empress . . . Jenna . . . had told him that it would probably be set up to look like something other than vampires. After all, it had been done by something other than vampires.

"Werewolves," the Fool said.

"I mean, why not? If vampires are real, and you said that the Empress mentioned 'others,' it is conceivable --"

"This is much bigger than we thought. Take the Five of Swords back to base and have an autopsy done, however obvious the cause of death." The Fool's face developed into a wicked visage. "And I'll call the DoD."

"Sir, bring in the Department of Defense to help deal with magical beings? Isn't that going to get you a psych evaluation on a good day?"

"Because they aren't magical. Some corporation figured out what was going on and decided to cash in on the whole ancient monster come to life notion. We figured it was only a matter of time. With the right massaging, we could even set up one of the less scrupulous biotech companies. Kill two birds with one stone."

"Frame an innocent company?"

"They're not innocent. We just have not gotten enough 'evidence' yet," the boss said, making air quotation marks.

"Indeed. What do you want the rest of us to do?"

"We're being hunted by dogs? We set bait."

-------- -----------------

Elsewhere . . .

-------- -----------------

This was not what Jenna had been expecting when she had been called to a "midnight meeting." Strategy, yes. Tactics, probably. Dinner . . . not so much. Then she thought that they were just going to discuss business over dinner. Again, not so much. And when she assumed that she would just be wearing her new uniform --