The Gift (18 page)

He would have believed the room he was brought to was an office but for the intricately carved bed in the middle of the room. A fire burned cheerily in the grate, two wine glasses sparkled on the desk, and August relaxed a little. Okay, if all he was going to have to do was fight off the advances of some disturbing self-important sleaze, he could handle that. Or maybe, just maybe, he'd let Anton do it. After all, that ought to teach that jerk Doren a lesson. Who knows? Maybe if he played his cards right he might end up more important than Doren in a year. Maybe he'd be the one calling all the shots.

"Ah, August." Anton's voice raked over August's skin like nails on a chalkboard.

Yeah, right, August corrected himself. Like he'd let this guy get anywhere near him. Not for a million dollars. Not a billion.

Anton shut the door behind him and walked into the room, all cock and swagger, as August's grandmother would have said. He helped himself to a glass of wine and took a long drink without offering one back. "Thank you so much for coming over, August. Are you well? You really didn't sound yourself on the phone."

August lifted his chin; that was not a conversation he was going to have with Anton. "I'm actually a little busy tonight so if we can get right down to business, that would be great."

"Your choice," Anton waved, his voice suddenly cold. "Morana?"

She seemed to appear from nowhere but had obviously been hiding in the shadows of the room. At least, August hoped that was the truth. That was the truth he was going to believe anyway.

"You remember our mutual friend, don't you, August?" August looked into the woman's shining black eyes and everything from the night at the club flooded back to him: her rough hands, the dank bathroom, her warning. August spun on his heel, his mind already summoning a "fuck this, I'm out of here", and stepped directly into Anton's arms before he had a chance to spill the words. August bit his tongue to hold back his reaction, and Anton laughed despite the recovery. As though he'd heard August shriek anyway. As though he knew.

"Oh, my." Anton leaned in and glared. "You're right, Morana. So very tasty."

The cold smile on Morana's face made August's knees weak. "Yes, but such a shame he gave it away to your boy. It would have been so much more fun to take it from him, don't you think?"

He almost told them they were wrong. He almost said it hadn't happened. Not really, not the way they were thinking anyway. He didn't. And he immediately shut the thought from his mind as well. Just in case.

Anton tossed him towards Morana who caught him easily, holding him tight, crushing his chest against her hard body.

"That's all right," Anton said, reaching for the poker and resting it in the fire. "I'm sure we can make him scream regardless."

They hadn't driven two blocks before Medea's hands started to explore him, rubbing him, teasing him; making it too hard to think of driving. He pulled into an alley and pushed on the emergency brake, clicking on the interior lights as an afterthought. "I want to see you," he growled. "I want to see all of you."

Grinning, Medea pulled back and yanked off her sweater. Bare white skin shone in the light, tiny hard nipples and that body—so slim he could count rib bones if he cared to.

Cherub lips pouted, her big eyes glinted like the Devil's own. "That's not fair. I don't get to see you."

Doren opened his jeans and released himself. "Yeah well, life's not fair."

August struggled against him, and the more August did, the more excited Anton grew. "Oh, August," Anton growled against his neck, egging the boy's reaction, winding the little prick up. "So sad, so heartbroken. How is our Doren doing these days? Has he started to finally develop into the talent that he really is? Come on now, gorgeous, let's share. All up close and personal-like, hmm? Be honest, August, I'll listen. Did Doren break your heart, darling?"

August's refusal to answer his question annoyed him. He picked August up and threw him on the messy bed. He laughed as August gagged on the scent wafting up from the sheets. "Do you like that, pretty boy?" He leaned over the foot of the bed, grabbing August's ankle before he could scramble away. He took a deep breath and waved the air with his free hand. "So lovely, no? Do you know what that wonderful odor is, August? Do you recognize it?"

He watched the panic grow in August's eyes, smirking, enjoying August's fear. It made him hard. He couldn't wait to hear August screaming. Begging. Promising anything if Anton would only stop. A hundred prayers spoken, wept, and every one of them as sweet as the last had been. Futile … but sweet. He grabbed August's shirt and pulled August forward until August knelt in front of him, face to face. He pulled his lips back over his teeth and snarled, "It's death."

Though his body was responsive his mind was barely on the mass of red hair in his lap. Seventh track, final verse—hear the lyrics, feel the music—remember it all, know it all, let it pound, pound, pound. His fingers itched to break something, to feel it crumble in his palm, to tug something apart and spill its insides out. Teeth bared, he reached into the tumble of hair and snagged Medea up to look at him. Her lips were plumped from her efforts, her cheeks flushed with exertion, but it was her eyes that drew him. The music raged inside his mind, tearing through his senses and flying along his nerves like angry wasps. Somewhere, someone whispered to him, in words he could barely hear, "It's death."

Oh God, it couldn't end like this. Not like this, with some sick freak and his even sicker mistress. His parents would never even know what happened to him. They would probably never even find him. He would just become another number, another missing body. Another lost soul in the midst of millions.

August closed his eyes, shutting the sight of Anton out. They were too strong. Morana was right, he should have just left. If only Doren was there. He'd tossed Anton like the man had been a feather. August remembered how the air had seemed to surge when Doren did it. How angry Doren had been. August had been furious too. The exchange between them, between Doren and him, had been almost electrical. "Don't let him fucking touch me," August had screamed at Doren even though the words had never left his mouth. And just like that Doren had … summoned would be the closest word … this power. Like Doren had been possessed or something. Hadn't he? Or had he? Doren hadn't been looking at Anton; he didn't think Doren had even been thinking about Anton at the time. No, he'd been the one who'd seen Anton reach. He'd been the one who had hated the thought of Anton's touch. He'd been the one who wanted to shove Anton away. And yes, he was the one who had pushed the thought into Doren's mind. He just hadn't admitted it to himself.

It wasn't the first time either. He'd seen it before. The right person, with the right skill, and August would be drawn to them in a moment of need, and things would just … work out.

He'd used whatever it was that tracked into Doren's mind, whatever it was that Doren picked up and transferred into the energy and power that had made Doren the star he was, and August had twisted it into a physical force that had been strong enough to throw a man across the room. Knowing that, however, didn't do him a damn bit of good if Doren was nowhere to be found.

He watched Morana approach the bed, fear gripping his throat, compressing the pleas that should have been tumbling from his throat. A slap, strong enough to send him reeling against the filthy sheets, shook August's face.

"God damn you, you ignorant little cur," Anton hissed. "You fucking look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Doren couldn't say why he did it. Only that the feeling was so powerful, so intense, it alone could have finished the job that Medea had started in his lap. She turned back to him, the blood dripping from her split lip, and grinned. "So," she smirked. "You like it rough then?"

His knuckles smarted where they'd met her teeth and Doren brought them to his mouth, tasting her blood. She watched his every move, lips parted, leaning close, and when she looked up with a grin and a mock in those devilish eyes of hers, he hit her again.

Medea fell back into the passenger seat and he grabbed her face with both hands, dragging his thumbs over her jaw, through the blood that spilled from her nose and lip. With painted hands Doren reached for her throat, his body hard and tense.

"Yes," she moaned, resting her head back and exposing the full expanse of her neck to him. "Yes!"

Doren gritted his teeth and tightened his hold.

The old woman was on him before August could squirm out of the way. Bright red drops fell from his broken lip, further staining the already filthy linen. Morana grabbed him by the hair, twisting his body and pulling him so that he faced Anton with his back against Morana's heaving breast and torso. Anton slapped him again, his head snapping to the right, and a fresh gush ran freely from his nose.

"That's better," Anton whispered, crawling over the end of the bed towards him. "That's a good boy."

August closed his eyes tight and bit his tongue as hard as he could. For although his mind was screaming, howling, August refused to give this man the satisfaction of hearing him cry. Not for as long as he could hold out anyway.

The CD skipped, bouncing lightly, and it pulled Doren's attention. What was that? Something faint, in the distance—an animal, a child? The CD whined and began to spin, once again filling the car with sound and Doren turned confused eyes on the girl in front of him. She pulled his hands back towards her. "Don't stop, Doren, please ..."

That sound … Doren's slippery mind tried to grasp it but it was so hard to hold anything. The CD skipped again, bubbling over several notes, distorting the insistent vocals. For a second there was silence, and then the CD warbled and wiggled in a desperate attempt to re-seat itself. But he had heard it ... Yes. Yes, something was wrong with the music. No, not with the music, something was under the music—layered below it, hidden in it. It scratched and mewled beneath the surface, grating and crunching against reality, and once he had found it, once he recognized it, it became a singular entity, screaming and clawing at his soul.

"Doren," Medea panted, urging him back to her with pleading eyes and pouting mouth, "Doren, please." His eyes fell to her neck—were those his finger marks on her throat? Had he done that? Was that blood?

He looked at his trembling hands, turning them over again and again, and his body began to shake. Again the CD found its foothold and spun to life and Doren turned towards it in a fury, smashing the player, hammering it with his fist, until the player gave up and slowly detached the CD. It sat, shining mystically, on the plate of the machine, a seemingly innocent disc between a gasping man and a shocked girl. Doren grabbed it and tossed it in the back seat, snapping the handle of the car door in a desperate attempt to get it open, stumbling over the automatic seatbelt when it finally came free. He fell to his knees beside the car, gripping his head as the emptiness that had been, mere seconds before, coursing with evil sound became bone-gripping pain. He cried out, trading confusion and distortion for agony. Yet even as it slipped away, and he sat against the car dragging breath into overworked lungs, the feeling of apprehension did not pass.

He felt the first scream, then another and another, and with nothing else within his power to do, Doren laid his head against the car and wept.

He screamed without sound as Anton approached again, crawling over the bed, teasing August's sanity. His arms were held so tight that he felt they would snap under the pressure.

Do it! Do it now! Do it!

The words came at him from nowhere. They filled his mind and he opened his mouth, screaming with an animalistic fury, pulling from everything around him.

Morana stiffened behind him and it dawned on August that Doren was not the only one in this clique with power. He sought for, and held, the skill he found in the old woman's body. With everything he could muster August formed a picture in his mind and then let it go, flinging it mentally back to Morana. She gasped, released her arms and, in a surprisingly accurate and brutal lunge, raked her fingernails across Anton's face, ripping open his left cheek and sending him sprawling to the floor.

August didn't give either of them a chance to regroup. He scrambled from the bed and threw himself out the door, running past the pictures of the beautiful women, racing down the imposing stairway and out into the blackness of the night. He flew down the driveway and over the lawn, hurling himself at the locked gates, choking a frustrated cry at the barred exit. With tears streaming down his face August watched the magnificent limo creep down the lane and stop beside him. The window descended slowly but it was neither Anton's face nor Morana's that met his exhausted eyes. The driver that had brought him, surely come for him on Anton's command, surely bound to grab and retrieve him, reached towards the dash and pressed the release button on the remote. The iron gates began to inch open.

"Run, child," the driver whispered. "Run like the wind."
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It was only by the grace of a power mightier than all of them that when Doren walked into the lobby, there was no one else there but the desk clerk. His eyes were red from tears. His hands were still bloody. He was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and it was hard to force his steps to continue bringing him forward.

But the clerk looked up and smiled, and Doren could swear that there was gratitude shining in the man's eyes, maybe even pride.

"Ah! Doren, sir! What a pleasure to see you've made it back!"

Doren watched, swaying softly, unwilling to expend the energy to form words.

"You've had a busy night then, I take it?"

Again, silence followed the man's question.

The clerk, however, didn't seem to mind. He walked slowly around the desk and leaned towards Doren, cautiously, before grabbing Doren's shoulder in an effort to steady Doren's body. Doren gave in to the fatigue and slumped against him. "There, there, sir," the clerk said, patting Doren's shoulder. "You're going to be just fine now. Just fine indeed." The clerk reached around and slipped his hand around Doren's clasped one.