TITLE: The Mark of Power
AUTHOR: Stormrazor
PART 10
As promised, nurse Lori did come back but there were other visitors present at the time, so she just treated him to sultry looks. Both the spine surgeon and Brenda saw him that morning, and both had to be “convinced” that his miraculously healed wound was, in fact, normal. Devon sensed there was something bothering them both, like something they were not telling him. However he had no intention of staying in the hospital any longer to find out. With a slight push Brenda went ahead and signed his discharge papers but extracted his promise that she could check in on him later that evening. He was happy to agree, even though part of him questioned if he could resist taking advantage of her more than he already had.
He walked out of the hospital wearing a scrub shirt that the nurses had given him to replace his ruined one. Glad to be moving again, he still couldn’t help but glance around, feeling hunted. He took a cab home, and as soon as it drove off he ran over to Jen’s.
Approaching the front door Devon’s senses were alert. The storm door was closed, but the main door was slightly ajar. Fear for Jen and Tara gripping him, he carefully opened the door and quietly entered the house. There was no sign of either. The dishes from their breakfast the day before were still out. Heart now hammering, he checked the garage. Jen’s Miata was gone which eased his apprehension down a few notches. He reasoned that Jen could have taken Tara back to her place and stayed there, or simply gone out for some other errands. After all, there was no sign of any kind of struggle. Still, he couldn’t explain the unlocked front door. A single woman didn’t just forget something like that.
Admitting to himself that he wasn’t going to unravel the mystery by wandering around her house any longer, he headed home. Still paranoid, he checked his own house thoroughly, but it seemed undisturbed. Finally relaxing a bit he lowered his guard long enough to take a glorious hot shower and to put on clean clothing. Next he raided the fridge to satisfy a ravenous hunger he had been too keyed up to acknowledge earlier. After what seemed like an endless amount of food, he felt human again at last. The light was blinking on the answering machine. Punching the button, Jen’s voice on the recording was upbeat.
“Hi, Master! Tara and I missed you yesterday after you left. Sorry, but we just couldn’t wait for you to get back and had to entertain ourselves. I hope you don’t mind. Tara is awfully demanding! We have a lot of things to do at the branch office today to get it ready for opening tomorrow, so I’ll be staying at Tara’s apartment since it is closer. I hope to see you soon!”
Devon felt pent up tension lift. Unlocked front door or not, by the sounds of it they were safe. He was still on edge, but that particular concern could be put aside for now. It struck him as interesting that Jen still called him ‘Master’. It had been a day since he used his power to put her into that role. He reflected that he really didn’t know anything about the long term influence of his gift on others. It was something he needed to figure out. The sooner the better. All morality to the side, he was wise enough to understand that manipulating someone like that could come back and bite him in the ass if he was not very, very careful.
So far he had willfully used his gift without understanding it. First with Jen and Tara, and then on Brenda and the spine surgeon after being backed into a corner trying to cover his unusual healing. Finally on those two detectives to keep the police from digging into his life. Not that he really had any crime to hide. At least none that would be believed, he amended. The last thing he needed right now was the spotlight while he came to terms with how to control his power. Not to mention the small matter of finding out who tried to kill him and why. He could only hope the power he already used wouldn’t come back to bite his ass anytime soon.
Devon grabbed a beer from the fridge and settled down on the couch. It was just past noon. He figured it was about this time yesterday he was shot. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced the group whose ritual he disrupted was behind it. Who else would want to see him dead? Sure, his ex disliked him, but not enough for that. No, he had fucked up that group’s plans and people had died. He had thought it was all of them, but how did he really know?
Perhaps some of them had escaped. Or there were others nearby who he hadn’t seen. Regardless, they had tracked him down. He wondered how long they had been watching him, patiently waiting for the right chance to strike. If they had waited that long, they sure as hell were being cautious. Devon shook his head taking a long swallow of beer. Would they go through the effort for simple revenge? It didn’t add up. Plus an assassin’s bullet was hardly a satisfying method of payback for people who had planned to get their hands bloody.
A thought struck him. Maybe they weren’t actually trying to kill him. Hell, they could have been waiting in his house when he got home this morning. Ready to finish the job. So why shoot him in the first place if they weren’t going to follow through? Devon held the cold beer bottle to his temple in frustration. He was grasping at straws. Thinking in circles. He needed more information. Needed to do some research. Wild assed guessing was getting him nowhere.
He struck upon the idea to start by trying to dig something something up on old rituals, or human sacrifices to a pagan goddess. It was crazy, but he felt better at least having resolved to a direction. Devon spent the rest of the afternoon scouring the internet, sorting through all manner of research and fiction. Unfortunately there was far more of the latter than the former. Out of the pile of reasonably reliable links one caught his eye. It was an excerpt from a paper by a Dr. Asheema Ranjan of Bangalore University.
“It is interesting to note that pre-Abrahamic religion emphasized the central importance of a goddess who was the source of life, death and rebirth. She went by many names, Semiramis, Inanna, Ariadne, and Athtart (Astarte) among others. It was she who brought forth the life of spring from the long death of winter. Because of this focus on the divinity in the feminine, the inheritance through the male line was rarely in practice. There is evidence that some cultures even required women who were about to marry to prostitute themselves in service of the local temple. This made paternity exceedingly difficult to ascertain.
Further there is ample evidence of human sacrifice, especially that of children, meant to ensure the goddess would bring forth the life sustaining crops each spring and ensure healthy offspring. I have in my own field research gathered evidence of special sacrifices, held to grant the favor of the goddess on the bloodline of new rulers, granting them influence, fertility and extraordinary long life.
Roughly around 2000 BCE, for reasons which are still unclear, Abraham came into power and influence. An influence which promoted male divinity and firmly established the bloodline of dynasties through the father. In a striking similarity to earlier ritual, according to biblical texts, Abraham was involved in a sacrifice of a child as well, his own son, but was stopped at the last moment by an angel. For this show of faith he was blessed by God with not only extraordinary long life (175 years), but eight male heirs through a previously barren wife, a handmaiden and a second wife. He is hailed as the father of the nations of both Islam and Israel, and was promised by God (Genesis 13) that ‘.I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted ‘. ”
Devon was so engrossed that he startled when the doorbell rang.
Glancing at the clock, he remembered that Brenda was supposed to check in on him when she got off work. Excitement—and a certain dread of being exposed to temptation—ran through him when he opened the door.
“Hi,” she said as he pushed open the screen door.
Her curly hair was down around her shoulders instead of in its usual pony tail. She had changed out of her scrubs. Instead, a moderately low-cut black blouse gently framed her large, obviously natural breasts beneath. Charcoal gray slacks molded her hips and thighs. She suddenly seemed both sexy and businesslike, and he wondered how she’d look with her hair mussed and her lips swollen, the blouse half unbuttoned.
“May I come in?” Brenda asked after a long moment, a hint of nervousness in her voice.
“Of course.. I’m sorry,“ Devon muttered, suddenly aware he had been just standing there staring at her like an idiot. Hastily he stepped back and held the door open, beckoning her in.
She glanced around at his living room for a moment, fishing for her front pockets with her thumbs. “It’s not what I imagined,” she admitted.
“What did you expect?” he grinned. “A swinging bachelor pad with mirrored ceilings?”
Brenda visibly relaxed a bit with the familiar banter, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “I expected it to be messier,”she teased. “Or is your new hot girlfriend cleaning up after you?”
“I have better things for her to do than clean,” he fired back.
She shot him a look, her cheeks visibly heating. There was an awkward silence that stretched on a moment. Just when he was about to apologize, she lifted her chin, giving him the same kind of professional once-over she’d done that morning. “You look like you’re getting around pretty well. How are you feeling?”
“Great,” he admitted. He couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or irritated by the change of topic. Part of him wanted to dig at her a little more for being so... bossy.
“Is that a beer?” she frowned, spying the half-empty bottle by the couch. Irritation it was.
Devon cocked an eyebrow, “It’s not on my workout plan, but hell... I got shot. I think I deserve a beer.”
Brenda frowned at him. “You know, Devon, you were shot. And had surgery. ‘Deserving’ a beer doesn’t make it interact any better with anesthesia.” She sighed faintly and bit her lip.
The irritation flared, dowsing the flirty mood. “Is that why you came by?”
“To check on you? Yeah. You were in the ICU less than twelve hours ago, for Christ’s sake. I can’t believe I let you talk me into letting you go home.” She gave the bottle a pointed look. “And obviously some of my concerns were valid.”
“Your concerns?” he asked incredulously. “That I was going to kill myself with a beer? Look at me! I’m doing just fine.”
“Kill yourself with a beer or something else.” She bit off whatever she was about to say and visibly gathered her composure. She turned to face him squarely, her fingers dug down deep into her pockets. “Devon, I sent your blood to a reference lab. Whatever you’ve got going on, it’s only making you feel “fine”. It’s going to derange your whole endocrine system if you keep it up. I’m not here to pick a fight over a beer. I just want to help. Maybe you can’t see it, but you’ve changed... so much.”
Devon felt the irritation sour into dull anger. “I told you I’m not taking anything. And what the hell does that mean? I’ve changed? You don’t have a clue who I am.”
“Yeah?” she said, anger flashing on her own face. “I know you were a nice man. And now you’re... you’re some caricature of a ‘guy’. I have your blood tests, Devon. I know you’ve been using something.”
“No, Brenda,” his voice dropped menacingly, anger at her probing flaring hot. “You don’t know. You think you have all the fucking answers, but you don’t. You ‘thought’ I was a nice guy? Because I was some no-life middle-aged gym rat? Or was it because I listened to you when your husband wouldn’t?” Yeah, that one hit home. “And now you come over here with the nerve to judge my life? To call me a liar?” He stepped closer, his eyes dangerously dark.
She swallowed, her face going pale and then flushing deeply. “You know what, Devon? You think everything is all about you. You need to just get over yourself and your little mid-life crisis.” Her voice was hoarse. “You are a liar. You’re a fucking liar.”
Devon felt something black and ugly unravel inside him. Brenda took a sudden step back at whatever she saw in his face. He followed, crowding her until her back was against the wall. “You want the truth?” His face was inches from hers, his voice cold, deadly. “The truth is it doesn’t matter what you think. You have no idea what I am capable of.“
She was pale, her eyes huge where she looked up at him. He could smell her, feel the heat of her, the rapid rise of and fall of her breasts. “Please,” she whispered.
He could see her pulse under the pale skin of her neck, hear the vulnerability in her plea. Devon’s blood flared, his cock thickening as he leaned into her, pressing her hard against the unyielding wall. His hand snaked up, his fingers curling around that slender throat. He could take her right here. “Do you really want to know who I am?”
He felt a low vibration of a moan beneath his hand, and she swallowed, turning her head slightly. He shifted his grip to her jaw, squeezing her face as he forced her to look at him. Her eyes dropped from his, her breath coming in the fast panting of a trapped animal.
“That’s why you came here.” He almost growled it. “Isn’t it.”
She shuddered beneath his hand, and closed her eyes tightly a moment. “Please, let me go,” she whispered hoarsely.
Devon’s eyes grew hard. She’d called him a liar. Had the gall to judge him. She had no idea. Fury wanted her to kneel and beg his forgiveness for doubting him. To grovel at his feet, weeping and pleading for his favor until he relented and ordered her onto her back, legs spread for him, and took the punishment of his body.
He could do it. He could taste the power, taste the scent of her, the knowledge that here and now, she was his to do with as he pleased. But even as the thought came to him, something inside him struggled to hold it back, a hastily erected stone wall damming a flood of darkness. Something like doubt and a promise of regret.
Darkness splashed over the dam and his hand found her soft breast, squeezing it, and eliciting a whimpering sound of pleasure from her.
“Do you really want to go, Brenda?” His voice was low and dark, hardly recognizable.
She looked at him a long moment, her eyes filled with both heat and fear, then shook her head before lowering her head and eyes. Her voice was barely audible. “No,” she whispered.
Devon pressed against her, his free hand lifting her chin until her mouth met his in a hungry kiss. Brenda made a low noise in her throat and he sank into her heat, finding it so sweetly lush and soft and hungry. The power surged in him to take more, to bend her to his will and make her beg for it, to take that hunger he could taste and send it raging between them until the darkness was slaked and sated. He tore his mouth from hers, looking into her face, greedy for the knowledge of his power over her.
Brenda’s eyes were dark with lust and shame, shimmering with unshed tears. He watched, unable to look away as it spilled over, rolling down her soft cheek. Another vision of her rose – his dream of her from months ago. Again he saw Brenda crying, tied to the sacrificial slab of rock, used and broken. The suddenness of it shocked him out of his burning anger and lust.
Jaw working, Devon forced his grip to relax and stepped back, his body taught with the effort. She shivered at the sudden change, looking down. Still pressed against the wall, he could see the tight peaks of her breasts beneath her blouse.
He closed his eyes shaking his head as if to clear it. For the first time he felt fear. Fear of what was inside him. What he was capable of. “You.. need to go,” he said through clenched teeth.
Like a frozen doe, released once the hunter has passed, Brenda finally moved. She slid to the side, pressing her lips together to stop them trembling. “Devon, I.. ” she started, her voice nearly breaking. She swallowed, obviously forcing herself to look up at him. To meet his eyes. He could see the pain there, the fear and uncertainty, and yes, even still the lust. But something more than that pressured her to speak. “You,” she said, taking a deep breath. “You should be dead, or at least paralyzed.
“The first scans. They showed the bullet had completely transected your spine and nicked your aorta. You had no movement below the waist. You were losing so much blood, we couldn’t pour it into you fast enough to keep your blood pressure up. But when we got you on the table, the bullet was right there... just beneath the surface. Like it’d been rejected. Pushed out.” She took another deep breath.
“I thought maybe we’d just read the scans wrong, but I looked at them again today and I swear it still looks the same to me. And your arm... I saw the needle marks when you came in. I thought it was a failed IV start, at first. But they weren’t there this morning. It’s like it never happened.”
She swallowed. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Devon tried to take that in. His head hurt and he involuntarily looked down at his arms, which were completely unmarked. “I don’t either,” he admitted. He wondered if he should do something. Make her forget all of it. Make her leave him alone. He pushed the urge aside with effort. “I’m sorry, Brenda. You need to go now.”
She stared at him, then she nodded slowly, her eyes on his. She wiped her cheeks with one hand and self-consciously straightened her blouse. Something inside him wanted to stop her. Stop this. She looked away, tucking her hair behind her ear as she walked to the door. She opened it and paused , turning back to look at him with something sad in her eyes. “I want to help you Devon. If you’ll let me.” With that said, she left him, closing the door behind her.
Devon paced for several hours like a caged animal. His anger had long since passed, leaving a cold pit in his stomach. He went over and over what happened with Brenda, and even now he could sense a part of him regretting not controlling and taking her. Which made him feel even sicker. Brenda had said he had changed. She had challenged him to see it, and now he couldn’t avoid it even though he wanted to. The power the goddess had given him had somehow changed him in ways he didn’t understand, and that chilled him.
“Once I am summoned, I must bestow the power that I was called upon for. It cannot be otherwise, though it is a burden you may not wish.” The words she had spoken came back to him.
If it was a burden, then he was stuck with it. Which meant he had two choices. Give into the urges blindly as he had been, or learn how to take control of them. “So how in the hell am I supposed to do that?” Devon wondered aloud.
For a moment he thought about the woman who was going to sacrifice the little girl for this power. If she was willing to kill for it, he shuddered to think what she might have done had she received it. He somehow doubted she would have had the same moral qualms Devon was struggling with. On the other hand, they probably knew a lot more about how to control it than he did. After all, she or they had figured out the ritual to summon the goddess in the first place.
Perhaps it was time to turn the tables on them. Track them down and find out what they know. After all, he reasoned, they might have guns, but he possessed something far more deadly. He just needed to find their trail. A trail that started with the witness to his shooting. Susan Li. There could be more she had seen than the police had gotten out of her. Devon was certain of one thing. If she had seen more, he would not be denied the truth.
Resolved to a plan of action, he fell into bed and exhaustion finally claimed him.