Mizrah's Ladder Ch. 03

Down near the waterfront, one place looks much like the next. There are hiding spaces galore, shadows thrown by concrete pylons and stacks of crates...barely visible stairs that lead down toward the edge of the silk-smooth, chemical-basted water. The old corpse of a forklift sits nearly tipped over against a pile of abandoned cargo, clearly too heavy for its rotor engine; it throws a patch of darkness such that if you stand within, you'll be able to see him but he won't be able to see you.

Your thighs rub together in the shadows, putting pressure on the throbbing sensitivity of your pleasure-node; your mouth waters for blood and flesh, but also to feel his strength and his deep, adorned thrust; You hunger, and you will take.

There...the engine compartment is partially torn away, a red pipe wrench stuck into its shredded depths. You pull it free with barely a sound, and it weighs heavily in your hand, a mace that will crack skulls and break spines if need be...and considering what he is, what you suspect him to be, he'll survive its blunt kiss.

He steps out onto the wharf, and where once you saw the grandiosity of a rockerboy in his home territory on stage, buoyed by the adoration of a screaming crowd...here in the silence he is at a disadvantage. The chains on his leather jacket jingle quietly, but they may as well be dinner bells / a porno-flick track to your hormone-soaked brain...he's growing closer, and your fingers tighten around the pipe wrench -

"That was cute Mizrah."

Your quarry stops in his tracks, wolf-eyes reflecting the light from a tugboat's passage as he turns to face three figures approaching him from behind.

There's Redhead, her Lynx's smile writ wide across her pretty face, green eyes sparkling with cruel, vengeful malice. She approaches him like she isn't nearly a half foot shorter, like he isn't at least fifty pounds heavier than she is...it helps that she has accomplices.

Flanking either side are...bandmates? No, you don't recognize them. People from the crowd perhaps - no, there's something wild and unhinged in their eyes, and a disdainful, feline cast. Only cats gaze with that kind of loathing.

On her left is a man bigger than Mizrah, cresting him by over four inches and broad like a truck. His hair is bright gold with black streaks, and a bristling beard covers his face. He's shirtless, pelt of blonde hair running down his chest, stopping above work jeans and boots.

On her right is a slender ebon skinned man, his head shaven clean and smooth. A pair of round glasses with blue lenses covers his face, the bent of his mouth tipped downward with disdain. The black sleeveless shirt clinging to his body leaves little to be imagined, and neither do his fitted, stylish khakis.

"I wouldn't call getting dusted 'cute', Lana," Yusuf responds cockily, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that makes the lines in his back move alluringly to your vision. "You being a sore loser, or your sugar daddy not dishing out the kibble like he used to? Gotta wonder how you pay your little troupe."

"You're right, he talks a lot," the blonde giant rumbles, his skin reddening in clearly growing irritation...taking the bait perhaps? "I'm gonna bring you his tongue...Hate," he hisses, pulling his teeth back to reveal his own sharp, inhuman teeth; his pupils are dark slits, and you swear he's growing taller.

"Hate," the panther-like man echoes, drawing around your lover's right side. You watch as his nail beds harden, crackle and bleed, revealing cat-sharp talons that pop forth from the meat. "I'll bring you his heart, Lana."

"No," she purrs with a sneer. "Let him live...but pin him down. Geld him for being a little fuckboy...I know what you did to the Prospect, Mizrah, I smell your fucking cum in her." That Lynx-smile becomes a horrible grimace.

"Hate," she hisses.

Watch. Observe. Measure his strength...is he a worthy mate outside of bed?

Unbidden thoughts roam through the dark, moist corners of your imagination as you watch it happen; seconds drawn out to terrifying, incredibly-violent minutes to your Moon-Blitzed senses.

The titan of a man rushes him like a rugby player; his body changes in a lightless burst of mercurial energies and heat, splitting skin and orange fur. Where once stood a man, three meters of swollen muscle and teeth like curved daggers bear down on the smaller, darker man. The thing is a twisted amalgamation of human and what looks like a saber-toothed tiger; the fell echo of an Icy Age where man knew Fear. The feline death-god bears down upon Mizrah before the musician has time to react...but what could anyone possibly do in the face of that?

You can't see much but the monster's back. He's torn through his own clothing, shoulders broad like a gorilla's but his movements are the rapid-fire intensity of an angry cat. He rips and breaks, mauls and savages; blood pools and bones snap audibly - no way rockerboy survived that. It's over. A pity, really, since the fever still hangs over you, and you'll have to wait until they're done with him before -

crrrrRRRRACK

The leonine nightmare is still...no, convulsing. His blood-soaked hands, tipped with cat-claws that dangle bits of organ like a butcher's display, fall to his sides and twitch. You realize why when you see two similarly massive, black hands, tipped with night-dark claws digging into the blonde monster's head. His skull is twisted to the left, more than it should be; broken-necked and lame, the felid monstrosity is pulled down, thrown on his belly.

Black fur and black claws, white teeth move almost absurdly fast; you watch as a wolf-headed demon, seemingly spawned from rockerboy's gibbed form, snaps his jaws down into its back, digging for the spinal column. There's a shake, a snap, and finally a drawn out, mournful sound from the tiger-beast.

It took all of six seconds for your beautiful, dark-eyed, mighty-voiced musician / prey to become a God of Destruction; sinew-corded forearms are as thick as your thigh, and a luxuriant, black tail strikes the air as he tears something red and bony out with his teeth, letting it drop with a bloody sound.

It's not like the monster movies, filled with howling and roaring, posing and displays of aggression; by the eighth second, the panther-man had turned into something akin to an actual, enormous black jaguar and leaps on your lover-turned-demon's back. Bigger than any big cat has the right to be, its claws rip bloody lines in his flesh that close up again almost immediately; the half-man half-wolf monster thrashes and twists with a frenetic energy that reminds you of a gun being fired, rolling on the ground and leaving a trail of blood and snarls.

The two of them go pitching over the edge of the peer, landing in the water with a heavy splash. The redhead with the lynx-smile casually strides to the edge gazing down into the Gulf and from your vantage point, you watch it boil and seethe. It turns crimson, and is still before a panther's head breeches the water.

The body surfaces soon thereafter, floating in a separate direction and leaving a diverging trail of red. Mizrah, human once more, breaks the surface with a gasp, scrabbling for the concrete rebar sticking out of the wall and holding to it for dear life, choking and spitting up Gulf water.

"Hate," the woman hisses down at him, crossing her arms. "Fucking wolf...hopped the fuck up on something or someone's blood no doubt. Those two weren't worth the time I put into them anyway."

"Plubhblhb, kafk...!" he responds from down below, and you can see how he jams his clawed hands into the levy wall, hauling himself from the water with a rushing sound. "Wait...right there, you bitch. Think you're gonna ambush me and just roll off?!" She's already walking away with disdain, however...she'll be long gone by the time he gets up.

It sounds like a far greater effort than singing before a crowd, slaughtering those two cat-freaks, or seducing you away from your date; climbing up an age-corroded, weed-slimed old levy with only sharpened keratin to grip would be a challenge for any athlete - you hear him lose his grip and fall back down into the water once, nearly sliding free when a section of the wharf crumbles away but catching himself on a piece of protruding I-Beam. After some minutes, he's dragged his frame up onto the concrete.

On his hands and knees, dripping with the slurry of the Gulf of Mexico and smelling strongly of salt and ship-exhaust, you see where fresh blood vents from open wounds. There's a bloody bite mark in his neck that isn't closing fast enough, red trailing down his shoulder and over his chest; you see a mess of claw marks covering his back and ribs in straight, savage lines, and while most are slowly stitching closed of their own brutal accord, some remain open.

Mizrah straightens suddenly, forgetting about the hole in his neck as he casts his gaze about; he looks worried for once, you see the way the corners of his wide, slender-lipped mouth tug downward. Lines of stress and concern you hadn't noticed before crawl across his brow as he pushes his black hair back from his eyes. "Isabel?" he whispers your name, sharply enough that you can hear but only because you're so close.

The muscles in his legs work to bring him to his feet and the sudden motion causes him to slump forward gracelessly onto the ground again with a THUD. The normal inclination to reach out and help a wounded person is replaced in the depths of your murky mind with an...opportunistic desire. He's vulnerable.

"Ow...Ow, ow ow." His hand crawls up to his neck. "Close, please..." but it doesn't, so instead he pushes very carefully up to his knees and looks out across the warm, salty water of the Atlantic. The sun is nowhere to be seen anytime soon, the moon is shrouded by stormclouds. The image gives you pause.

What is this life he lives? When he said that you would soon be like him, did that mean that you too would share in this violent, painful existence? The part of your heart that you recognize all too intimately can't help but want to reach out to him, because kindness and compassion are your most constant companions , but...hasn't he also condemned you, in that same breath?

"I'm gonna find you," he whispers. You're standing close enough that you can hear his words, his individual breaths, the beating of his heart...the growl of his empty stomach. "Don't worry...Yusuf Mizrah doesn't bite n' run."

Why's he saying this? Is he talking to you as if you're there? It's...is it supposed to be sweet...? It's unclear to your addled mind but what stands out to you in vein-shot detail is the way he looks at the other man he fought...the one with the blonde hair. You can hear the defeated Feline's wheezing lungs, hiding in his human shape...his power obfuscated but helpless. Yusuf moves close enough that he can grab his leg, dragging him closer on his back and leaving a trail of gore.

Mizrah crawls over the body. This is it, the moment you've been waiting for, to see the wild animal come loping into his eyes, lips pulling back to reveal lengthening, inhuman teeth like a wolf's. This is his life...an eternal struggle against other monsters in a messy, broken food chain where predators are prey for other predators. He drags his black talons down the tiger-man's belly, splitting it open with a ripping sound and a low, unconscious gurgle of pain from his victim. He lowers his head to sink his fangs into the meat, here it is, the climactic pinnacle moment.

He hesitates, the beast wavering in his eyes as it wrestles the Man.

He doesn't hear you step out of the darkness behind him; the clatter of the wrench is the only thing that gives you away as you raise it high and bring it down on the back of his head with a clank.

He falls forward, blood trailing down his neck.

You drop the wrench, exhale relief and satisfaction and hunger into the humid night air.

"I want to show you something..." you hear yourself whisper as you loop your hands under his arms, and with strength you've never known, drag him away.

Would it surprise people to know that you are so familiar with this district, having spent many formative years here along the Riviera, that you know the hidden places? The abandoned basements; the moldering train cars; you still remember the combination that unlocks the door into the Marron and Parnett warehouse, where that fire killed over a hundred people. They tried so hard, your parents, to give you and your brothers a better life than what they'd known so you never told them you picked up canned food here, dragging it from amidst the rubble and darkness.

He stirred once in the back of your car, and regrettably you had to strike him again; a normal man wouldn't be able to survive concussions like that without some dread effect on his intelligence, but you can already see where you struck him before is closed up.

This is the clearest your thoughts have been since you looked into his eyes for the first time, but it is as if you are somebody else, driving your own body, and you have difficulty recognizing your own motivations. You understand them though, since they come from you...three things you desire:

1. More answers than before - what is he? What will you become? How do you change it back? Why?

2. You want him. You want to feel him inside of you again, yes, but more than that...

3. You hunger for accursed, protean flesh.

Will the chains hold him? You're not sure so you add another, and another; plenty in the company motor pool. Bracketed to a concrete pillar in the warehouse's sublevels, you wait for him to awaken...now that you have him exactly where you want him. Ohhh how the tables have turned since that night he hooked his claws into your mind, took you to that motel, and had his way with you. Yes, you enjoyed it to be fair...immensely, given how deeply within you his length was buried...how you had to adjust to his thickness...and of course, those beads playing along your deep, sensitive places.

You are warm and wet with desire.

When he stirs...you've settled in front of him, seated on an uncomfortable wooden chair that was probably used for smoke breaks down here in the dark. "Nnnhhhot again..." you hear him mutter. You feel a little more cognizant now, the softness of your kind heart warring with these long-buried prerogatives. Were they always there, or did his bite in your shoulder, his cum in your womb fill you with new, alien thoughts? You reach forward with a sleeve and gently wipe away a streak of blood covering one of his eyes, and he flinches away from your touch, threatening, lupine sound rising from his throat.

It makes your belly roil with hunger and need.

"You made a big fucking mistake pal." This is what he sounds like when he isn't sweetening his voice into something smoky and cinnamon; it's like the metal parts of a motor grinding together without oil, low and threatening...but you shush him with your fingers sliding across his lips. He peers through the gummed blood around his vision, and this time allows you to wipe it away. His skin underneath your nails makes your teeth itch pleasantly, lines of excitement shooting from your lower belly to your brain. "Isabel...huh, this is a surprise."

What the hell...he's smiling now - there's that confidence coming back, even though you have him...but the violent impulse to dominate isn't a part of you yet, so you simply lean back and let the tip of the wrench clink quietly on the floor, watching him with luminous dark eyes.

"It looks like you underestimated me," you chide him, and your eyes follow the shape of his forearm, held straight above his head and bracketed by chains to the wall behind him. "You're used to having the upper hand, but it isn't always like that for you, is it."

There isn't any malice in your voice - a little amusement perhaps, a husky overtone of desire...you want to reach out and touch him but you're going to make him wait.

That damnable little smile.

"Nothing is set in stone," he answers you darkly, but you note he isn't struggling against the thick industrial girding he's stuck to - you saw the extent of what he could become, so...why isn't he now? Does he see no hope? Is this part of his game? "This time, yeah...you got me, but I still win."

He wins? No, it's a bluff...right?

You don't fall for it, not openly anyway. Instead you stand, and seated as he is in the chair across from you, you're standing over him this time. You get a good view of the wounded beast in a man's body before you; now that he's here, in the realm of your senses, thought comes more clearly...your choices stand before you, unobscured by overwhelming hunger and lust, although your belly still cleaves to your spine. He's still bleeding from his neck, and it would be very easy for you to to simply latch your teeth on and tear out the flesh, swallow down his potent blood because you know that would relieve the ache in your stomach...but that isn't your nature.

You're not a cruel, vicious, predatory thing, even if you stalk and ambush and strike. That's why you brought the small box of industrial rags and tape, and that's why your nimble long fingers work to staunch the bleeding. Mizrah leans into your touch, the soft sound of exhalation from his nostrils. It's raining outside again, a storm lashing The City from the seaside.

"How do you win?" you finally ask, the low, soothing quiet of your voice breaking over the hiss of precipitation. You watch him speak, raising a bloody finger to your lips.

Tasting it brings everything into brighter detail...it's like the fiery-sparkle edge of meth, coke and booze without the negatives.

"I have you where I want you," your Persian mate Prey answers. Frustrating as the answer is, you can't help but chuckle and find yourself charmed at confidence that never seems to surrender. You don't ask for details...that would be satisfying him too much, in the way he wants. It gives him too much power.

He doesn't struggle against his chains, he's even...good-natured about his capture. When you're not under the searing weight of his animal magnetism, drawing you in like prey to a trap, he's still terribly alluring and confident; you remember the warmth of his personality up on the roof of that motel, how even given the circumstances of your meeting you desire contact with him.

You interrogate him, while you have him...even though he supposedly has that advantage (you can't see how).

"What are you?"

"I'm a Turnskin, baby...a Firstblood. A Moon-Beast." He waits for a shadow of recognition to cross your eyes, and then sighs self-consciously. "I'm a Werewolf." Oh. Right, that would explain a lot, but not everything. "Those people I tangled with, and I know you watched me, they were Turnskins too...but we call them Colony. The uh...cat version of what I represent, you dig?"

"What did you do to me?"

"I seduced you, took you to bed, and we had sex four times." He grins proudly, and it's a terribly handsome, confident expression. "You loved it, and so did I, and I was honestly looking forward to round five." Yes well, so you were, and rounds six, seven, eight...but that doesn't answer your question, and you press him even though it makes you smile.

"I bit you, and I passed on the Change...it's taken to you well, and it means that when you see the moon in the sky next, you'll be a Turnskin too."

"So without asking, you turned me into a monster and ruined my life?!"

"Oh come on Isabel, it's not that bad. Ask yourself, were you really happy with what you had before? You worked for a fucking bank - now now hey, hey hey lower the wrench, I'm not sayin' you're bad or nothing, we hate the system cuz it gives us no choice but to play the game, right?" You do lower the wrench, in fact.