R. G. King - The Skin Underneath.rtf

The Skin Underneath

R.G. King

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Copyright 2010 R.G. King

Life does not end simply at death.

Good Morning, Sunshine. Black Stilettos. Home.

Even before Damon opened his eyes, he knew that he was dead. It was the stillness in his chest like an empty attic, the heaviness settled in his bones. He tried to excuse it as just an irrational thought, but while he was able to move his arms in the tepid moisture he was lying in, there was something vital missing. He opened his eyes and focused through the dim and dusty light, on the hairline crack in the ceiling. Oh, yes. He wasn't breathing.

Damon let his eyes roll in their sockets, debating whether or not to allow his heavy eyelids to wander back to sleep. It didn't feel like an after life. It felt like he'd woken up embalmed, his skin chapped and brittle. His mouth was a dusty tomb; dry mouth like a bitch. He moved his head to the side, felt the cold stone against his cheek. There was a pulse there, what felt like the irregular heartbeat of a stone giant. He imagined the despondent rubble of the structure crumbling as the beast stirred. He'd woken up inside of some Grimm's Fairytale nightmare.

The vintage army cot with the coffee brown stains underneath showed no signs of his body having ever been laid to rest there. It explained why his skin felt raw. A sheer layer of dust covered everything. The orchids on the wallpaper where cracked and chipped, the ceiling scarred with water damage. The place was rotting from the inside, out. It was rotting away at the seams. So although he felt as if his body had been lying in that wetness for decades, it hadn't been there long enough to grow dust or mold. He hadn't become part of the floors, a dank organic waste decaying back into nature. The thought frightened him, as he had no recollection of coming into that lost and forgotten room. It was odd to be detached from one's body; suddenly the mortal vehicle had virtually no connection to his existence on the earth. It was coincidental.

Damon looked left, looked right, and then began to inhale rapidly, intent on releasing his pure terror in the form of a scream worthy of any Hollywood B movie flick, but caught dust in his throat instead. It was a fit of coughing that finally lifted Damon from his reclined position, and the shock of it made his head swim. The hair he pushed out of his face somehow seemed too long. He put his head between his knees, and decided it as easier to avoid the act of exercising his vocal cords since it involved uncomfortably expanding his useless lungs. Air was vital in speaking only.

Damon couldn't remember the last place he'd been, where he lived, his birthday. His name was still there: Damon Everett Stevens. Age, 27. Male. Gray eyes, black hair. Shoe size? He drew a blank. Social security number, ditto. We don't need no education/We don't need no thought control. Pink Floyd; a piece of random information. The disembodied voices gave him chills.

The room was much smaller when he was sitting up. The only source of light peeking through the slats of the blinds looked artificial, neon. He swallowed, his throat sore and dry, his body tense, his mind finally finding a memory in the empty expanse of his brain, and a familiar feeling rose in his stomach, the feeling of being haunted, the feeling of being touched by God. The memory made him uneasy, made him wonder if maybe he'd become conscious of some old dream, or maybe he'd finally arrived in Hell. Damon wanted to hit himself just for daring to think it, and he knew that he needed to move from that place if only to spare his sanity.

He stood up, shaky at first, ignoring how his joints wanted to stick, but eager to depart from the uncomfortable moisture on the floor. He used the wall to support himself when he thought his knees would give, hating how the wallpaper crumbled under his fingers when his hand balled to a fist. Damon closed his eyes and lowered his head, trying to control the nausea and dizziness that made it hard for him to think. Teacher leave them kids alone. His tongue felt swollen against the taste of metal in his mouth.

The brown shirt he was wearing had been an unconscious thought, but when he fully opened his eyes, he felt like the bottom dropped out of the floor. What he realized was that he'd actually been wearing a white shirt, which made so much more sense because Damon didn't think that he'd even owned a brown shirt, maybe in a wrinkled heap in the bottom of his closet, but Damon was not an actively brown shirt wearing type of guy. The white jockey shirt he had on was stained brown though, and while it was dim and it wasn't the precise shade of red he would've expected, the sticky consistency told him that what he'd assumed was water, was actually blood.

Something horrible had happened while Damon had been asleep. Panic and disgust made him pull the stiff fabric over his head, while thinking every frightening thought he'd ever had in the middle of the night, the chills he'd felt when he read about serial killers, irrational thoughts about ghosts and monsters, fears of the dark, of never seeing the age of thirty, of never again fucking a woman. Damon threw his shirt into a puddle of blood and water. Drowned. He ran his hands over his clothes and tried to look into the individual threads in order to tell if he'd been soaked in blood or water. Damon had no pain, no sign of wounds when he ran his hands over his body. Someone else's maybe? The pounding under his feet floated up to his ear and made it hard for him to think. He thought it was music, but the low decibels reaching his ears would have required subwoofers the size of a Volkswagen to be able to resonate through the stone floor.

First using the wall and then the sink with a layer of dust as thick as the lint screen in a dryer, Damon began making his way to the door. There was no toilet there, no mirrors, or soap. Embarrassed that he had to shuffle because his legs wouldn't work, Damon made his way to the door opposite the cot so that he wouldn't trip over it. More than anything in his entire life, he hoped that the door would be unlocked. He didn't know what he'd do if the room was a prison. Lose his mind? Crawl up into the fetal position and pull out his hair? With the holes in the drywall near the floor that were just the right size for rats, his own blood seeping into the stone floor, and the overwhelming emptiness of the lack of life in his chest, he didn't think it would be long before he lost his mind.

Damon laid his weight on the cold metal of the antique doorknob of the only exit. The door itself was made of natural and worn sturdy oak, perfect for a prison. But the knob turned easily and he pushed it open using all of his weight. Once the music blasted into his ears, he lost control of the balancing act on his numb feet and he fell onto the landing of the stairwell, barely managing to grasp the railing to keep from tumbling over the edge. He pushed against the back wall, covering his ears and feeling frantic to comprehend what he was hearing. It sounded like pumping tribal music, the bass imitating the heartbeat of an animal being hunted. It was driving the atmosphere extending directly from the sound system to assault his brain. Damon sat on the dirty landing, with just a single light bulb to keep him company. The stairs were covered in threadbare red carpeting, and the one flight ended with a black doorway. Nowhere to go but down. There was heavy bass thudding where his heart should have been. Dead. He was dead. The music pounded against his skin and made him feel claustrophobic. Everything felt too harsh, too raw.

With nowhere else to go, Damon rose to his feet and started down, gritting his teeth, leaning against the wall for support. He was careful not to misstep and fall, but he had a feeling that it probably wouldn't matter. Whatever had happened to his body was permanent. He suspected that there was nowhere else for him to go. It was easier to handle the pressure as his ears adjusted. He'd been invited to a party? He wondered how he'd appear to other people, and raised a hand to his cheek instinctively, expecting rough stubble but was surprised to find himself clean shaven, closer than he'd ever been before. His hand was still rubbing his chin when he stepped off the bottom step and was enfolded in black velvet curtains.

Before he passed through them his hand rose, in memory, to a specific spot above his left eye and paused there. He'd had the strange realization, almost a reminder of self when most of who he had been was forgotten; that he'd had a scar or some kind of indentation there, but his mind had lied and his fingers found only smooth skin. Damon wondered why he'd thought that in the first place. Had there been a scar? He couldn't remember. No memories were logged in his head. He wanted a mirror badly, to make sure that he was still himself; that his hair that felt too long was still black, that his eyes were still the same ethereal silver hue. He crossed his arms in front of his chest as he pushed himself through the smooth and heavy fabric, and felt the soft skin on the inside of his elbows, the upper arm, up to his shoulders. He didn't know what he was looking for. He'd thought he would find something there to comfort him, but he had no idea what it was.

Once Damon had been freed from the claustrophobic weight of the curtains, he stopped. His mind wouldn't let him consider the idea that all of the people dancing under the black lights and strobes were all there because of him. That he had any place to be waking up dead there. It was a fucking rave. He stood and stared. A fucking rave. The intermittent light source showed people consumed in the act of dancing, normal young adults and teens. Party kids. It was like he'd fallen asleep and woken up on a Saturday night, dead, yes he knew, dead; not breathing, no heartbeat, cold as ice, and woke up in a club, music pumping, bodies swaying, laughing, smiling, happy. He stood there, not able to move, leaning against the doorframe, and trying to contemplate how in the Hell he could've gotten there.

And it wasn't an ordinary nightclub. Damon recognized that it was some underground party. The kind of stuff that he was afraid of getting too sucked into, the parties that are thrown in warehouses and barns in the early morning hours, outside of the city, and entry by association only. You've got to know people. It was the kind of place that people from his industry, people in the business, would disappear for days at a time and come back and crash at Damon's place to sleep it off and wake up with crazy stories about what went on; funny that this was his first solid recollection of being an ordinary everyday human man. Here, this was deep underground, heavy metal pumping from the speakers, beautiful people, flashes of needles, people snorting off the mirrored buffer of the bar. Damon absentmindedly scratched at an itch in the inside of his elbow. All the drinks in sight were various shades of red, some thick burgundy and set on fire, others chili pepper red glowing embers, downed straight. These were black leather wearing, pierced, tattooed, and branded people, who partied for days on end. The crowd parted briefly for Damon to get a glance at the pile of naked bodies writhing in the middle of the dance floor. Unreal.

Damon pushed the hair out of his face and wondered if he looked presentable. He'd never had the typical college boy look; he'd always been pale, which made him look sick next to such black hair, and almost translucent eyes. "Like an old spirit." He heard a voice in his mind, a memory. It was a female voice, distinctive, like someone he knew he shouldn't have forgotten, but couldn't recall a name or face. The darkness may have saved him.

Looking at the bar made Damon's stomach clench. He wanted to fill the void that was forming his stomach. There was a succulent smell coming from behind the bar. It was a pungent meaty smell that made something move in his stomach. He moved towards the bar, reaching for his wallet, and found it missing. He didn't even know if he'd have money if it had been there. Who knew what had transpired in his life prior to his departure from the living, but the reflex was a comforting return to something that no longer existed. Sure normal people had a license, a library card, video membership and pictures of cute children in their wallets, credit cards. What had happened to him? What kind of man had he been? All old comforts were gone. For the first time, Damon thought he was going to lose it.

Fuck. All the anxiety he'd ever had about death crowded his brain. All fears of the afterlife were resurrected because, fuck, he'd forgotten to repent all of his sins and find Jesus or Buddha or whatever crazy God allowed his soul to remain conscious and in its body long after that same body had ceased functioning. He needed a drink from the bar, he told himself, to be steady. He needed to wake the HELL up.

Damon leaned against the wall and ran his hand along the plaster popcorn. There were deep-set benches lining the dance floor. He needed to sit. A blonde with hair to her waist seemed to catch his movement out of the corner of her eye and gave him a smile from the corner of her mouth. She was gorgeous, and practically naked, when you counted the rips in her stockings, but he didn't hold her eye or smile back. He had no idea where he was or what kind of people he was dealing with, so he walked by her as quickly as he could to sink into the soft leather seat. He was acting like a creep, like he was so sure that he'd become some kind of monster.

Damon sat and forced his lungs to take yawning inhalations in an effort to calm himself, but it didn't help. Each inhalation of air made his lungs feel like crumpled brown paper bags expanding. He leaned against the wall and looked further down on the red leather bench that ran along the wall as far as he could see. There was a man within reaching distance, big, muscular, and bald headed, kissing the neck of a woman with teased curly hair straddling him. Her smiling face met his eyes and his eyes darted away. The insistent smell of good food made him finally think to find an exit. He couldn't just stay there. The people who'd brought him there would be looking for him, and he needed to get home, get something to eat and straighten things out. Standing up seemed easier. He tried to look over the crowd to decide in which direction to move, but a swift motion out of the corner of his eye made him turn in the direction he'd come from. Two men with sunglasses on and dressed all in black lift up the curtain he'd just exited and disappeared behind it.

Damon's stomach dropped. It was forming in his mind. He had been brought there for a reason, he did have captors. He worried that the repetitive and increasingly faster pumping of the music was intensifying his anxiety. It felt like his heartbeat was back, only it was now being hunted; it was terrified, and it was in theater quality surround sound. Damon started through the crowd, heading in any direction in hopes of some quiet, or some clear thoughts. A severe pang in his stomach made him stop. It was hunger and something else, an emotion he couldn't quite place. Doubling over, Damon noticed what looked like blood splattered on the concrete floor. His vision blurred. He wondered if he had been unconscious for days, weeks. Murdered? The smell remained and gave him the will to stand up straight. His body was screaming at having to use so much energy with no fuel in return. He'd be okay if he could fill the hole in his stomach.

He ducked as best he could, but people were dancing so close that they looked as one, arms and legs flailing out of a mutual being. There seemed to be no end of the crowd. It was when he'd completely lost all of his sense of direction that the music stopped. It not only stopped, it sounded like someone had literally yanked the sound system's cord out of the wall. Everyone stopped moving and for a moment Damon heard silence as absolute as he'd ever imagined. Then the lights came on.

Damon froze. He wouldn't even be able to describe the starkness of the scene. It was as if God had pulled the night out. Pale skin, moist with sweat and red, white, red, red, red, intermixed with sets of green, glowing eyes. Sometimes, when an animal's eyes hit the right angle, you can see their night vision lenses. He was seeing theirs. One hundred people, and not one breath in the room. Impossible. That was the word of the day. Damon heard the footsteps approaching and he dove headfirst into the crowd, but the suckers were fast and managed to get their hands on his ankles. The men in black. Except these weren't wearing sunglasses and their eyes were as black and dead as night. Damon's face hit the concrete and he tasted blood. Before Damon even remembered to inhale in order to scream, the music is back on, and the crowd were insects squirming against him as the linebackers in suits led him back in the direction he'd came. Someone plugged in the juice, and it was if nothing had ever happened. And the Beat goes on.

Damon fought with the conviction of someone who thought they were about to be dragged back to the place where they'd died. Instead the rock solid arms, raising him inches off of the ground, forced him past the bar and through the folds of a royal blue drapery veined in gold. An antique crystal chandelier hung over the stairwell in the adjoining room, red wallpaper with golden vines and daunting candelabras held flickering Victorian candlesticks along the path. There was actual carpet there. He relaxed in their hands. Damon couldn't complain much about his accommodations there, even if he remained a prisoner. On the stairwell, the hands squeezing his arms loosened and he could hear murmuring coming from above them. He caught the smell again, and his stomach was beginning to speak to him. It seemed to have a voice.

It was calmer there, he realized as soon as he'd entered the doorway. The lighting was dim, small spotlights of light pointed at the floor from between slats in the gritty old blinds clinging to a small window. He could smell food. The entire west wall was a vertical half dome in which he could see the party he'd been physically removed from. The lounge was still part of the club, but managed to hover above them. Higher up in the proverbial food chain. Damon couldn't help but shudder. He didn't want to keep thinking like that. They had looked like animals. He was beginning to believe he was among monsters. He assessed the room of well-dressed people and high security. This was as VIP as you could get. Where did the monsters hide among the beautiful?

Was he part of some kind of medical experiment? Rich people did shit like that all the time.

A distinguished older gentleman with a seaman style navy blazer glanced at him but his conversation didn't stop. Eyes darted his way, but no one stopped or acknowledged his presence. The men who'd lugged him up the stairs now let him go and then went back through the magic curtain, the beat to a song that seemed familiar distracted him but then they fell shut and he was trapped on the other side with the classical music playing. It was while taking a few steps following the enticing scent that would quiet the voice in his ear, that Damon first saw her.

She was talking to a man in a pinstriped blue suit. Damon was too far away to hear anything they were saying, but he took a step forward, trying to get closer and almost knocked over a chair. What was he doing? He didn't even know this woman. But there was something about her that seemed familiar, and the scent was strong there, it was by her, so it seemed he had no choice. Her curly blonde hair was loose in a bun, sophisticated but not formal. Her green blouse was sleeveless and clung to her body, rose up her long neck. The skirt was black, knee length and made of a slinky material that showed every curve and the slit up the back was nearly illegal. He made his way through the crowd, past the bar and groups of people talking, trying to get closer without seeming obvious. She was all Damon could see.

Black stiletto pumps, conservative, except for the way the thin strap rose above the heel and wrapped around the ankle. They made him think of whips and chains, those shoes. This was a woman of detail. This was a woman who had a purpose for every movement. Her green eyes flicked his way and he caught them. She didn't give him any acknowledgement, just returned her eyes to the man speaking to her. The Suit was all business, uninteresting, and unimportant. Damon tried to get closer, dodged bodies, and her eyes caught his again. This time he was rewarded with a tiny smile from those glossy pink lips. She knew he was coming. With a thin and delicate hand she raised the glass to her lips, the ring on her middle finger glinted in the light that told him without a doubt that it was a diamond. Her drink was thick and left a pink haze clinging to the sides of the glass. That great smell, he knew, was coming from her.

Damon was disappointed when her eyes returned to the man again. He paused. Maybe he wasn't thinking clearly. What about his escape? He'd never done anything this crazy, had never so much as gotten up the nerve to start a conversation with a girl sitting next to him at the bar. Just, suddenly, he didn't care. Her green eyes met his again. She was calling him, he knew. He walked over and somehow, without saying a word, she'd sent the businessman away. There was a sly smile playing at her lips.

"My name is Lilith," she said, her words deliberate, her voice deep and calming.

"I'm Damon." His voice sounded harsh to his own ears, as if he'd been screaming.

"It's a pleasure to meet you properly." She took a sip of her drink and Damon realized that he had nothing to say to her. "You must be cold," she said.

He wrapped his arms around his chest, as if it would actual shield his flesh from her. "Freezing, actually," he said, subconsciously looking around as if there might have been clothes lying around. Freezing was an understatement. He felt raw.

Lilith nodded to one of the security men standing off to the side. This one was dressed like the others, fully equipped with his sunglasses on. The man went into a closet that blended in and was flush with the wall and pulled out a shirt much like one that he'd torn off his back in the bleak, filthy room. "You must be hungry, too," she said, handing him her own glass. He took it but just looked at it. What good would this do? How about steak and shrimp? He shook is head and handed it back. Lilith narrowed her eyes. "Let's go. I don't want to be here anymore than you do."

She started to walk off, but Damon held his ground. "Where are we going?"

Lilith paused and smirked at him with pouty pink lips. "You're going home."

She led him through a back exit that was really just a narrow stairway that opened into an alley, and a limo pulled up almost immediately, as if it had been entirely pre-planned. Damon hoped that she knew where he lived, that he'd been right and they did know each other, and she kept her word because he couldn't remember where he lived. Images came, like his record collection, his guitars, and a front door lock that stuck half the time. Gene Simmons's autograph. But no specific number or street name came to mind. He kept his distance from Lilith as he walked behind her. She moved with a slow gracefulness that seemed to threaten violence. The driver opened the door for them but wouldn't meet Damon's eyes.

Damon sank into the leather upholstery facing the driver and Lilith chose the seat directly in front facing him and crossed her legs, letting her toes linger on the inside of his leg. His eyes followed the curve of her leg up to her face and he instinctively put his hand on his stomach, which felt sore from the hunger. There was something behind his ear whispering, eat. Now the goddess before him smelled like fresh cooked meat. It wasn't right. But then, nothing was anymore.

He met her eyes and he knew for sure that she was the reason he was like this. It was all there. He didn't know why he was so sure of this, but it was the truth. "Please," he said. "Tell me why I'm like this."

Lilith's face held no emotions. "They'll be plenty of time for explanations."

Damon knew she was playing with him. Everything about her told him that; her posture, the hand on her knee, her flirting eyelashes. Pink lips. She was every woman in his life who'd ever led him on, lied, used him, stomped on his heart and wasted his time, all rolled into one. Lilith was A Rachael, A Gabrielle- that was the last one wasn't it? A Leslie, A Nicky, that girl at the staffing party who'd gone down on him in the copy room, and God, he'd loved them. He could see the laughter in Lilith's eyes. She knew she was manipulating him. Suddenly, he was hit with a pang of remorse at his missing life and memories, and the only thing he found in the empty expanse of his brain was a still shot of himself having a cup of coffee at his Mom's kitchen table. And he'd rather have been there than anywhere else at that moment, dead or not.

"Let me out," Damon said, softly at first. "Tell the driver to stop."

"No," Lilith said firmly.

"Let me out," He said, louder. Lilith didn't say anything, she just stared him down with those green eyes that he was sure could stop a Mack truck dead in its tracks. Damon was the first to look away. "Where are you taking me?"

Lilith didn't reply, just examined her manicure. Damon sighed and tried to ignore the terror that was threatening to take over his mind. He tried hard to remember anything about his death, now that he was so sure of her involvement. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, but nothing came. She was silent for the rest of the ride, until he was well into her territory.

Lilith opened the door and walked in, not turning back to watch him enter, acting unconcerned if he ran. But they'd passed two security guards posted at the end of the hallway, and if he tried anything, they'd be on him in less than thirty seconds. Damon entered just enough so that he could close the door behind him. It had been evident when they'd pulled up in front of the upscale, luxury, resort style apartment building that it wasn't where he belonged. Still, he'd followed her, because he was a prisoner, and because he needed to see what she knew about his death. Damon stood there in the arched entryway and watched as she took off her jacket and draped it over an expensive looking chair. Everything in the apartment looked expensive. It was like walking into one of those stupid decorating shows. He'd always thought of wealth as not worrying if something spilled on the cream colored silk feather down chez lounge. He could just buy another. This is what Lilith's place reminded him of, with the massive mahogany furniture, crystal chandelier and real flowers on the hall table. He was afraid to touch anything, to fully enter the formal sitting room. He was afraid, period.

Lilith disappeared from his view without saying a word. How would he escape? Damon swallowed, scratched the inside of his arm. He was at her mercy. But answers were coming. If there was a God, answers would arrive with the click of her heels on the marble floor. Then, she was next to him, halfway up the hallway. It was like he was watching her in one of those flip books that seemed to just be pictures, but when you bent them back and let them slip past your thumb, you could see it move in a halted animation. She had let her hair down, her curls hanging low beneath her shoulders, and she was wiping her hands on a paper towel. The food smell was getting stronger. The little bug in his ear was beginning to shout.

Lilith gave him a genuine smile and went into the kitchen to throw out the paper towel. It was the first real positive sign she'd given him. His eyes undressed her for a moment, visualizing red lace underwear, and then he shivered. Was she the same as he was? Would her skin be icy, too?

"Make yourself at home," Lilith said, coming back into the room much sooner than Damon had expected. He took a few steps forward only because she'd told him to, but wasn't sure if he wanted to sit on the couch, loveseat, oversized reading chair, the sofa sized ottoman or piano bench. Lilith just stood and looked at him. He'd always assumed he'd enjoy it. He didn't, though. "This is the first time for me too," she said. Damon detected a slight accent that he couldn't place. She sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. "Come here," she paused. "I won't bite." Damon hesitated but sat next to her. The couch sank down slowly under his weight and for a brief moment he had an irrational thought that it was trying to swallow him. "I know you have questions for me."

"What happened to me?" He asked, looking into her green eyes for the first time since they'd arrived.

Lilith smiled, looked at him like the child she'd created by forcing him to bend to her will. "There's nothing wrong with you. Your body has evolved into a completely different species, Damon."

Damon, whose elbow rested on the arm of the couch, kneaded the skin of his forehead with his thumbs. "What?" He asked the lush beige rug. This idea was too big for Damon to wrap his head around. He shook his head and pushed his hair out of his face. To look her in the eyes, and see if she was lying. "Explain this to me in words I can understand."

"Damon, you're dead," she said, her voice was gentle, trying not to crack his fragile brain.

"I figured that part out on my own, thanks," he snapped. "But what the hell does it mean?"

"It means you're a vampire."

She'd said it so simply that Damon had to take a moment to let it sink it. He was working at half speed.

He stood up and with both hands pulled his hair. No. It wasn't possible. Was she insane? Was he? Then the knowledge grew in his chest, that there was no way to restart his heart. And he just stood there.

"Where are you going?" She asked, like he'd just backed out of a business deal. Damon's mind paused. Good Question. He fell back onto the couch, putting his head between his knees. He was starting to lose it. A small moan escaped his lips. There was no heartbeat. He couldn't breathe, no, not couldn't. Didn't need to. Why would she lie? Suddenly, he couldn't think of anything else to ask her. His mind had gone blank. "You'll live here with me," she added. Oh, good. Just like a new pet. Who was this woman and who did she think she was?

"You did this to me, didn't you?" Damon asked her. He was beyond horror. He was a normal dude. He took his nephew to the park every other Sunday, met his friends at the game, he went to church on Easter and Christmas, called his Mom once a week, and paid his fucking taxes. These kinds of things didn't happen to people. Vampires were not real, unless it was Halloween or you were crazy. Hadn't they proven that vampires don't exist by now? There's got to be scientists or something somewhere.

"Damon," she said, her voice soft all of a sudden. She must've seen in his eyes that his mind was unraveling. "The moment I saw you, I knew I wanted you."

"When did you see me?" He asked. How long had she watched him in the shadows before she made her move? "How long before?" He couldn't even finish because he didn't know what she'd done.

"None of that matters now," she said, but he interrupted her.

"How long?" He demanded, his fingers on both sides of his head, in a strange attempt to massage his temples although he didn't have a headache. He did feel, however, that a mental break down was eminent.

"You don't remember." It wasn't a question. "Any of it."

She didn't continue. "Fuck, Lilith. How long?"

She paused and he thought she wasn't going to give him an answer but then she said quietly, "Earlier tonight. Some friends dropped you off. I'd been feeding and I saw you walking."

"Earlier," he repeated, and he couldn't help but feel humor tugging at his lips. "Earlier," he said again and shook his head, this time grinning as he looked at Lilith. Of all the gin joints, in all the world. . . He paused a moment. "So what happens now? You take my life away and now what am I supposed to do?" He was too tired to leave, to storm out, to get angry and yell in her face. Fuck, yell? Slap that smirk off, wring that skinny neck. He had a vision of her still and stony face, lifeless. But he'd always been passive aggressive, hadn't he? The hunger was growing more insistent. He wanted to ask for something to eat. It was right under his skin and he felt it nibbling at his consciousness. The bug.

"You'll live here with me," Lilith said again. "You'll be my companion."

He removed his hands from his face and looked at her. "You're lonely?" Her eyes were the color of autumn green apples.

"Yes." She had done something to him, didn't she? She had some power.

"I'm hungry," Damon said. There was something about her that wouldn't allow him to be angry about what she'd done to him. In the back of his head he knew there was something wrong with that, but he couldn't focus on the thought. The fact was that it was out his control. All he could focus on was Lilith. And the voice telling him to eat. It didn't matter that she was leaving out chunks of the story, or the entire story itself. She hadn't told him anything, but he didn't care. He wanted a full belly and some sleep. Because if he didn't soon, he suspected his undead enchantment might have still been just temporary.

Lilith nodded and stood up, and the whole world was suddenly gone. "I have food for you." She went into the kitchen leaving him shivering on the couch. She was back before he'd even turned his head to follow her out. He jumped when he saw the wine glass in his face. "Drink this."

Vampires drank blood. It slapped him across the face. That was what Lilith had been drinking. That was the smell he'd been following. Even the color seemed to awaken the bug, the way the light played in the surface. He looked at her again for reassurance because no matter what he had to do, he was desperate to rid himself of the hunger burning a hole in his belly.

"This is what you'll live on," Lilith said. "You know that, don't you? Surely you've felt the hunger by now."

As soon as the blood touched his lips, Damon felt the wings of some great fiery beast envelop his body. The intense icy feeling in his core was gone. H...