Since the girls were awake and able to comprehend most of what was going on, I decided against rushing them to the ER in Flash-Gordon style. They may have been able to rationalize away my inhuman speed and strength in the alley, but there would have been no mistaking the superhero-like power of my speed later on. With me as their walking stick, the girls limped along until a good Samaritan pulled his car over to the side of the street to see if we needed help. While the girls were busy telling their story, I slipped away before they involved me. They didn't need me anymore, and I had another matter to attend to: investigating the recent strangeness of Tristan.

He managed to elude me for the rest of the day. Wherever I followed his scent to, he was already gone. Technically, I was stalking him, but technically, he had bailed on me for no reason.

I had to find Tristan the old-fashioned way, by looking. On my feet, all day long.

Then again, there had to be a reason why he had left without a word. There also had to be a reason why he didn't want to be found. All of the possible reasons I could think of amounted to no good. Tristan and I had been seeing each other for over a month, and we had been comfortably attached at the hip for most of that time. By "attached at the hip," I mean, well, you know, attached at the hip. Our relationship wasn't complex, but I did feel it was meaningful. At times. He made me laugh, he was smart, and it was nice to be able to be myself around another person.

"Person" was the wrong word because Tristan was not a person. Nor was I, not fully. Still, my gap between freak and humanity was a lot smaller than his, and it was that gulf of space that I always felt between us when we weren't bumping hips or exchanging jokes with each other.

Being apart from Tristan for a whole day stretched that gulf even larger in my mind. He wasn't human. He wasn't trustworthy. He was a Djinn. Before we had helped those two women in the ally, I had seen a glimmer of something in his eyes that I hadn't liked. The silver sheen of his demon heritage was always there, and a reminder of what he really was to me, true, but what I had seen was a different kind of something. It had been fascination, or pleasure, or an emotion in that same family tree of perversion when it came to women being tortured. Perhaps his reaction had been a hiccup, like a reflex. It could be that even Tristan was horrified at his response and had left the ally in shame, not wanting to face me just yet.

Armed with justifications for a demon I felt deserved it, I went to the one place that reeked of his scent, his apartment. Under the standard welcome mat was a key he had left there for me. I used it to open the door and let myself inside. I would wait for Tristan so that we could talk.

As it was, Tristan was already at home. Or else, some wild animal was running around in his bedroom. The noises I heard from behind the closed door of his room weren't normal. There was slapping, grunting, screaming, and—oh.

Did he? Was there...another....

* * * * *

"Imogen!"

Tristan's naked body was a sight I was well used to by now. However, his body wasn't wet from the shower or sweaty from exertion, seeing as demons didn't sweat.

He had come out from his room a second before I had been about to open the door. With dizzying Djinn speed, he closed the door behind him before I could get a look inside.

"What are you doing here? Thought you'd be out hunting."

"Funny. I thought you'd be out as well, especially since I haven't seen or heard from you for over twenty-four hours."

Tristan's easy laugh didn't fill me with tingles as it usually did. "We aren't married, love. I had a life before you came into town, and I still do."

"Secrets, you mean."

"Well, yeah. Everybody has secrets."

Rafe

"Yes, but do yours involve dead girls?"

"C'mon, are we going to talk about that again?"

When Tristan turned his head in indignation over my suggestion, the glisten of his body became even more noticeable in the light. I reached out with my index finger to swipe it across his chest. What came off on my finger could only be described as—

"Oil?" My lip curled in disgust. "And why are you naked?"

Muffled moans from the closed bedroom door amplified my questions.

"Who's in there with you?"

Tristan opened his mouth, and then closed it. He seemed to make up his mind, dropping his pious stance for a more relaxed one.

"I may as well tell you. I reckon if you don't accept it, then we're not meant to be. But I'm betting you're going to like what you find behind this door."

Based upon my assumptions of what was behind that door, "I doubt it."

I expected to see a naked girl, guy, or even a sacrificial pig, but I did not expect to see two naked girls, let alone recognize them.

"The girls from the alley. God, why?"

They were both facing the bedroom door Tristan had opened, their elbows and breasts resting on the bed as they bent over the side of it. Next to them were phallic toys, handcuffs, and bottles of oil. On the dresser were shining sharp objects that looked less fun, but were probably the sort of fun Tristan was hoping to inflict on the girls once he was done with them. Maybe during, who knew?

Even through their heavy-lidded eyes, I could see the silver presence of thrall. Their thoughts were blocked and I hadn't been aware of them earlier. Soon, they would be completely turned and I would have to kill them along with Tristan.

"Hmm, it's blood you're after?"

Tristan had picked up on my intentions. He strode into the room, positioning himself behind his two new groupies. "I was hopin' you would want to go next, but, no worries. I'll make do."

Uncharacteristically savage, he buried his fangs and sank them into the lower back of one of the young women he planned on fully devouring later. She arched against his mouth and moaned. The girl next to her looked on in yearning.

I turned my head away. Things had become too sordid for me to continue watching.

"Come now. Don't be shy, pet."

No blood was smeared on Tristan's lips when he pulled away from the limp young woman. He was a pro.

"Why now? Why these girls?" I was going to kill him regardless, but I had to know.

Easy as you please, Tristan put his chin in hand, using one of the girls' back as his resting place. "At first, I merely wanted to seduce you. I knew who you were straight off, and I wanted to conquer you. Hell, I just wanted to fuck you."

He laughed at his own imprudence. "Succeeded, didn't I? But," here, his tone took a different turn, "I did not expect to actually fall for you." I gave a serious roll of my eyes when he said that, but I let him continue. "Somehow, I found myself trying to fast off of human blood, or killing of any kind. See, I wanted to be better for you, more human. But then, I saw these lovelies in the ally, and I knew I wasn't a changed man. Not at all."

Identical hisses from the girls signaled to me that their transformation from thrall to Lillin was over. In unison, they crawled toward me, their exposed fangs speaking volumes. I resolved to make their deaths as quick and as painless as I could. A small band of heat coursed through one arm, and I let the heat transfer to my sword as I withdrew it from its sheath.

Red, angry, and true, I raised my sword in a quick movement, arcing it up and down so fluidly it looked as if I hadn't even moved the sword at all. Both Lillin stopped crawling, and I could see their silver eyes turn black. With a sound of wet detachment that I rather would have missed, their heads slid from their bodies, exposing the cauterized stumps of their necks. Their naked bodies dropped to the bed a space of a moment after their heads did.

One of the heads had an open mouth and open eyes, and I recalled how I had felt when the girl had told me, "Thanks."

My breakfast came up revisited in a loud lurch. Thankfully, I was able to turn away from Tristan's smile before I threw up on his bedroom floor.

"You must've slain hundreds of Lillin, and those two made you sick?"

I had to take a breath and wipe my mouth before answering. "You knew this would happen."

"You are completely right. And the only thing more delicious than defiling those two innocents was feeling your guilt and revulsion while you murdered them." As he spoke, he walked around behind the bed to pull one of the corpses close to him. He picked up the headless body and smelled it as one would a rose bouquet. I was glad I had just emptied my stomach, because it was a distasteful thing to watch, and yet, I couldn't look away. When he flopped the body on the bed, it lolled around. I wondered what he planned to do, but figured it out as he began writhing on top of the bent over corpse. Jesus Christ.

"What did I ever see in you?" I said in wonder.

"You didn't see anything in me. What you wanted was me inside of you." To illustrate, he thrust himself inside of the dead girl. He kept a steady pace while he spoke. "Despite my moral ambiguity, which you suspected from the start, you couldn't wait to spread your legs for a Djinn. Now you'll pay the price for that."

"Can you please stop doing that?" He ignored my request. "And what price?"

"The same price that any woman pays for spreading her legs: a child."

"What?" But there was no nightmare, no sinking morning after feeling? How—

"Well, this time was different, was it not, love? You willingly let me in. There was no reason for forced...insertion." Tristan kept on at his task.

Forgetting his despicable actions, I went on with the conversation as if everything were normal. "You're lying."

"No, you're in denial. Ever since my father managed to slip it to you, you couldn't wait for a second taste. Part of you wanted it, knowing full well of the consequences. Part of you wants to die, to join your sisters."

I swallowed what he said, and it was a hard lump of coal going down my throat. I had wanted death, but that was before. My suicidal days were behind me, or so I thought. He had reached deep inside of me to yank out the ugly, and I wanted him out.

"You may think you know me because you can feel what I feel, but you don't know me. Not like I thought you did." I tried to keep the disappointment from my voice, but didn't succeed.

"I know the real you. You are dirty and dark, just...like...me. Ahhhhhhhh."

Tristan's head was thrown back in abandonment, silver eyes closed. Apparently, he was all finished. His hold on the body went lax, and it fell back onto the bed with a ragdoll effect.

"Okay, enough."

Fire rose wildly inside my body. I had control of it, containing it for the moment. Tristan could see the burnt orange liquid that my eyes had become. The crackling energy of my fire lore hovering in the air tipped him off to his impending death.

"No matter what, I will always be inside you, with you." His cliché that was mainly used by parting lovers made me feel sick again.

"No, you won't."

The roaring tide of the fire took over the room, and eventually the entire apartment. I let it burn hot and long before I commanded it to taper off. Though I couldn't physically see it, I envisioned the paintings, the bed, the bodies, everything turning to ash. It filled me with satisfaction knowing that I was destroying everything he had touched. As for the demon himself, he was only a few feet from me, allowing me to watch terror overcome him as the flames dissolved him into nothing. When it was over, I was left with blackened walls and piles of ash. I was reminded of my first burning of Samael, Lillith, and Constanople. Except that the feeling I was filled with now was entirely different. I was vindicated, to a point. Mostly, I was empty. If what the demon had said was true, I was carrying a demon inside of me. Again.

I had to escape, get outside and feel the slap of the night air instead of the charred stink of death. In a swift rush that took only seconds, I was in the alley next to the apartment building. Stars winked at me, and I forgot for a moment all of the horrible things I had done and witnessed. Until I saw it was a full moon. The silver disc in the sky made me think of Tristan's eyes and how they—

"Damnit!" I yelled out to no one but myself.

What the hell was I doing? What had I done? I had just wasted a month on a Djinn who had turned out to be exactly what he was supposed to be, a killer. And somehow I was surprised shitless by that revelation. And those girls...god, those girls. I had saved them for nothing. Killing them had been a reversal of all the work I had been doing. Tristan had been a reversal of every good thing inside of me. My feelings of vindication sunk into crazy remorse.

I shouted

at the sky, "A distraction? Really? Being a skoche more specific

wouldn't have killed you! You're already dead!"

Deep in my heart, I hoped my ranting would make Rosalind appear so she could comfort me. She didn't.

"If this thing is inside me again, it's over! Do you hear me? I'm done!"

Jesus, what is that racket?

Who's down there?

Shut up!

I heard the thoughts of people nearby wondering at my outburst. It was very late, but had it been noon, my behavior still would have been questionable.

"Yo, what the fuck's your problem?" One of the neighbors leaned out of their windows.

At her scowl, I bolted. Sticking around after committing arson was never a good idea. Out of habit, I unconsciously followed the faint trail of Rafe.

****

A/N: Now that distraction is out of the picture, Imogen can finally find Rafe, but once she does, can their relationship ever be what it was?

Dedicated to a great horror writer, and a supportive Wattpadian, HarlotFire

Thanks for all the feedback, which inspired me to write and edit even more!