Authors: Miss Merikan
That was his future.
Hunter parked his bike in front of the
cream-colored building with tacky columns and pictures of women in lingerie
painted under plaster arches. With its fresh colors and bright neon signs
depicting pole dancers, the Vanilla Lounge looked like it had been recently
renovated. There were only a couple of vehicles in the parking lot, but Hunter
wasn’t surprised considering it was barely past mid-day.
He wasn’t too fond of strip clubs, as it
always irked him to think women would be paid to do sexual stuff with him.
Sadly, they were also among Ray’s favorite places, and so from time to time,
Hunter found himself entering a dark room with a brightly lit stage where girls
who weren’t even his type danced for a bunch of geezers and creeps.
He spotted Ray at a little plastic table by
the stage, watching a peroxide blonde shake her fake tits. The sight
immediately made Hunter think back to Astaroth’s big brown eyes and her dusky nipples.
“Over here!” Ray yelled from afar and waved
despite Hunter already approaching.
Hunter looked at the blonde, who winked at
him before leaning back against the pole and sliding all the way down,
spreading her knees to expose a strap of fabric that dug in between her pussy
lips.
“What’s up?” asked Hunter as he sat next to
Ray, focusing his attention on his cousin’s face. He hated how these places
were always so thick with cigarette smoke that it felt like entering the
seventh circle of hell, where the violent were burning in fire and blood. The
stench was so prominent it made him want to kick his own habit, though those
resolutions only lasted until the need for a smoke struck Hunter again.
Ray grinned and took a swig of beer,
watching the stage like a sated tiger. “I thought we should talk. Come up with
a plan, you know.”
Hunter raised his eyebrows and ordered a
drink from a waitress in a skimpy red dress. “Like, how not to die this year?”
Ray laughed, and his voice carried even
through the loud beat of the electronic music. “We need to think how to
approach that sonofabitch who killed our own blood. All those traitors in our
former club can go fuck themselves if they’d rather be Coffin Nails than act
loyal.”
Hunter groaned and leaned over the table,
as he took his time to answer, stealing a glance at the blonde. Yep, Astaroth
was hotter.
“We need to be rational,” he finally said.
“Take this slow, get to know the enemy …” He hoped that taking their time would
make Ray cool off. “Head was the one to antagonize the Nails, went behind the
Hogs’ back. No wonder the guys aren’t all that eager to start another war. No
one wants to die. No one
wants
to kill.”
Ray stilled with his eyes on the girl, but
a second later, they darted to Hunter, sharp as razors. “It’s your uncle and my
father we’re talking about. I want to feel their blood on my face for what they
did. And for what? For a fucking pervert!” he spat out, leaning toward Hunter,
already tense like a cornered bulldog.
Hunter shook his head and took a deep
breath, not ready for this conversation after quite a nice, if awkward,
morning. “Listen to yourself. You really want to kill some of these guys?
There’s no going back from that. There’s a reason it’s one of the biggest sins.
If you can avoid it, you should. It will weigh on you. They will then
retaliate, and you
will
die. To be perfectly fucking honest, no, I don’t
want to make a plan for killing anyone.”
Ray stared back at him, not even paying
attention to the stripper anymore. He kept silent as the waitress came back
with Hunter’s beer, but the moment she was gone, Ray shifted so far into
Hunter’s personal space, it was making him uncomfortable. “Sins? Are you
stupid?” hissed Ray, grabbing the front of Hunter’s shirt and pulling him
forward. “Don’t you remember anymore who took you in when your fucked-up family
chose Jesus over you? They deserted their own kid, and somehow the sky didn’t
fall on them. My dad fed you, gave you a home, and you will just let this go?
He’d be so fucking ashamed of you!”
Head also beat Hunter black and blue whenever
he felt it was “necessary,” forbade him from going back to high school, smashed
his cello, and pulled him into a life around the club that wasn’t all pussy and
roses. Hunter had done quite a few things he wasn’t proud of because of Head,
and a homophobic vendetta against the Coffin Nails was the least of them. Sure,
Hunter could have ended up homeless after he told his family he didn’t feel
there was a God and they staged an intervention that was basically an ultimatum
of: “you can’t stay under our roof unless you accept Jesus into your heart” and
a lot of crying on his mom’s part. And it wouldn’t have been easy to be on the
streets of Detroit at sixteen, especially in winter. Hunter’s cello wouldn’t
have saved him, and he would have turned to a life of crime anyway.
With Head and Ray, he at least had a
lifeline—something to fall back on and someone to depend on when shit hit the
fan. And then the other Hogs were a kind of support as well. Someone would
always know someone who was a mechanic, or a doctor, or someone who had a
dentist daughter who would see Hunter in the middle of the night after he’d had
his tooth broken in a fight. It wasn’t safe to be alone.
Hunter took a deep breath. “Don’t you ever
wonder though? About hell? Isn’t it better to be on the safe side and at least
not kill people?”
Ray snorted, his eyes cool as ice. “You’re
a fucking coward. Must run in your side of the family. What next? You become a
priest yourself? Stay celibate?”
“It’s not cowardly to think things through,
you asshole. You have a death wish or something?” Hunter hissed and leaned
back, wrapping his arms on his chest. He wouldn’t waste his breath on someone
who didn’t have enough brains to question the world around him.
Ray shrugged. “I’m not stupid. They’re not
gonna suspect it was me, so the plan needs to be foolproof. Doesn’t have to be
tomorrow, but I am gonna break Priest’s neck and sprinkle his blood over Head’s
grave,” he muttered and downed his beer in a few chugs.
“We’ll need to make sure it’s a good plan,”
Hunter said, even though he didn’t feel particularly eager to join in. Despite
having rejected the idea of God in his teens after growing up in a house as
religious as his, there was still that flicker in him that asked, “what if?”
“Yeah. We have time to regroup and think of
something in the meanwhile.” Ray looked up at the stage and tapped his empty
bottle. “His daughter would be up for a tape after some convincing. Just think
of how humiliated he’d be if that kind of shit came out.”
Hunter stilled, surprised by how visceral
his own reaction was. He had to hold back his fists to not bring too much
attention to the fact that he didn’t want to see Astaroth hurt. And he didn’t
want her on tape either. He wanted her naked and moaning his name.
“How about you stop distracting yourself
with pussy and think of some actual plan?”
“That would only be the beginning. All we
need is some booze, and she’d go with it. It’s not rocket science,” said Ray,
rolling his eyes.
“You’re not going there,” Hunter growled,
looking back at Ray. This wasn’t a game anymore. Ray’s idea was filth, and the
thought of treating a girl that way made Hunter cringe. And not just Astaroth,
any girl. But to do it to a girl so focused, and so set in her ways, seemed
like a double insult. Hunter enjoyed the challenge she presented and wanted to
find out more about the ritual he’d taken part in, but not like this.
“Are you gonna tell on me?” Ray mocked him,
and Hunter took a drink of his beer to keep his hands busy. He had always known
Ray was a self-centered dick, but this was too much. At least now he wasn’t a sixteen-year-old
Catholic school boy against a nineteen-year-old meathead. No, he’d toughened
up, been in his share of fights, and in the last few years, when he’d gotten
into scuffles with Ray, he’d won most of them to the dumbstruck surprise of his
“born and bred Rabid Hog” cousin.
“No. You go anywhere near her, and I’ll
smash your face in.”
Ray stared at him. “Fuck. Did that skank
bewitch you, or something?” At least his resolve to hurt Asty wasn’t nearly as
primal as that to kill her father.
“Are
you
a coward that you want to
involve women in business between men?” Hunter stared back without even
blinking.
Ray’s resolve was melting like the polar
caps. “She’s putting herself out there, but whatever. No taping,” he said with
a dismissive gesture. “I still wanna fuck her tight pussy even beyond the day I
kill Priest.
Hunter clenched his fist, and the homicidal
rage burning up in him could definitely take him to hell if released. “Keep the
girl out of this.”
“Fine,” growled Ray, and he uncovered his
teeth. “We don’t touch her. That includes you.”
Hunter chewed on those words for a long
moment, but nodded. If this would keep Ray away from Astaroth, he’d shake hands
on it. “Deal.”
The blue plus sign stared back at Asty,
making her heart gallop. She was content. This was, after all, the purpose of
the ritual she had performed two weeks ago. But there was still this tense itch
in her joints, and her head became strangely light when she saw the same result
for the third time. She placed the pregnancy test on the side of the tub next
to the two she used earlier.
She would be having a baby.
In the fleeting glow of the aromatic
candles she lit all over her bathroom, she felt like the only person left in
the world. Shadows were dancing around her, but she heard no whispering and
could not recall her mother’s voice to reassure her that everything would be
fine. This wasn’t as she had imagined. She’d have to go through this alone,
with nothing but her mother’s personal journals as guidance.
It had been two years since Bell’s passing.
He had died instantly—a bullet to the head—or at least that was what Tooth and
Dad had told her. They wouldn’t let her see the body. She couldn’t believe at
first that he was really gone. She had half-expected to see him in the kitchen,
with Mom feeding him pancakes for breakfast, or have him unexpectedly pinch her
when she was at the club. But he was no more after being there for her all her
life. A true older brother, Bell had always stood by Asty and scared off kids
who teased her, at least until she got older and was too embarrassed to ask him
for help.
Dashingly handsome and charismatic, he was
the future of the motorcycle club. Since Astaroth had been little, she had always
remembered him hanging out with Dad all the time. He knew how to fix bikes
before he got into junior high, and he dropped out to venture into club life as
soon as he could. Their parents had been fine with that decision, even though
they had tried to pressure Asty to finish her secondary education. She would
never have a chance at doing the job Bell was doing, and she’d never be a
member of her Dad’s beloved club. With Lucky more interested in trimming beards
than fighting anyone, after Bell’s death there was no one to carry on their
family legacy.
Asty knew her parents loved her, but she
couldn’t help but feel useless when her mother fell ill soon after Bell’s death
and ultimately followed him to hell. The last months of her life had been
dedicated to writing down the secret spells she wanted to pass on to Asty, but
most of all, she had been focused on one ritual—one that could bring back
Bell’s soul and have it reborn in the body of a baby. Several conditions had to
be met.
The bearer of the baby needed to share
blood with the one they wanted to bring back, which made Asty the sole
candidate, and she was certain that was what her mother had tried to tell her
when she had given Asty the journals on her deathbed. But it wasn’t enough to
present the devil with the baby, an empty vessel to pour a dead man’s soul
into. After its birth, there needed to be a trade. Asty had to go to hell in
Bell’s place. Saying she was “fine” with it wouldn’t tell the whole story. It
was just something that needed to be done, and her life was the best she could
offer. If the trade were completed, according to her mother’s journals, Asty
would stay in a part of hell guarded by demons, a place for the enlightened,
where her mother would be awaiting her, and where her father and brother would
arrive eventually.
It made sense. It wasn’t as if she could
add much value to the world the way she was now. Earth seemed more like
purgatory for sins she hadn’t committed than anything else. She loved making
things from scratch, so Dad even got the guys from the club to build her a candle-making
shed by the house. She was quite good with hair and makeup and she liked
reading, but none of these things had any true purpose. None of them had her
dad interested the way her mom was. He’d already lost his wife, so if Asty
could, she would give her life this one meaning—bringing Bell back to life.
She took a shuddery breath and dumped the
tests into the trashcan. The hot bath was ready for her, smelling of ginger and
herbs meant to soak into her and fuel the baby growing inside her. Slowly, she
put her feet into the shallow water and rested against the sloping back of the
tub, letting her skin adjust to the intense heat. Her heart was drumming so hard
she felt as if her breasts were trembling from the impact of it as she
whispered her prayers, looking into the white ceiling above. The ritual dagger
was at an arm’s length, sharpened just a few hours ago and ready to be used.
But as her back became numb to the temperature it was immersed in, her front
seemed hypersensitive, vulnerable. And when she looked at the lines she had
drawn on her stomach earlier, she couldn’t help but tense up in fear. There
were so many of them in the symbol of the demon she’d been named after, and for
the good of the baby, she needed to make the drawing permanent.
This was the next step. To create
Astaroth’s seal on her belly once she knew she was in fact pregnant. The cuts
didn’t have to be deep, but they needed to leave scars, even if small ones.
Asty took a few more deep breaths and began cutting along the marks. Lines,
dots, a pentagram with three circles around it. The task made her hiss, and
droplets of blood spilled down her sides and into the water. From now on, she’d
need to drink five drops of blood from the seal every day. She only noticed by
the end of the cutting that she was panting, and sweat beaded on her face. But
she didn’t cry. Pain couldn’t make her cry the way losing her loved ones did.
She slowly moved her index finger along the
round line encircling her navel and gathered the first drop. It melted in her
mouth as if it belonged there. Salty, with a hint of sweetness, it fueled the
agitation coursing through Asty’s body. Once she drank five drops, she slowly
gathered some water into her hands and poured it down on the open cuts. It
stung, and Asty winced, watching the red layer disperse from her skin,
revealing the symmetrical shape that would now protect the baby and aid its
transformation. Some of the lines were deeper than others were, but she didn’t
really care much. She could always cut her skin again if some of the shallower
scars started disappearing as they healed. It was done. She was one step closer
to her ultimate goal. She would bring Dad’s beloved son back and make her
mother proud.
As adrenaline lost its effect, Asty’s body
started feeling heavy and sluggish. She slid lower over the sloping back,
immersing herself in the warm water that now had a distinct rosy tint. Pretty.
Growled vocals resounded in the air,
pulling Asty out of the pleasant throbbing in her abused skin. She grimaced,
but with the phone lying within her reach, she couldn’t find an excuse not to
respond to a call from Dad. She briefly squeezed her hand on a towel to dry it
and grabbed the cell.
“Yeah?” she asked, brushing her fingertips
over the wounds.
“Hey, Asty. Don’t panic, but Beast is
acting very strange. You should come over and see him. Decide if he needs to go
to the vet or not. He’s bleating, has diarrhea … it’s messy.”
The moment she’d been told not to panic,
her heartbeat skyrocketed. “What do you mean?” she uttered, rushing out of the
tub with so much haste she spilled some water on the tiles, and the blood still
dripping from the cuts wasn’t helping. “When did it start?”
Asty wanted to use her towels, but
remembering the fresh wounds she didn’t want infected, she used a bunch of
tissues instead. She had some dressing materials prepared, but she had never
expected to leave the house that evening.
“Half an hour ago Prospect noticed that he
was unusually loud.”
“Oh, no ... we need to take him to the vet.
Can you put him in the trailer? I will be there in like ... fifteen minutes?” She
frantically put gauze over her wounds and fastened it with white body tape.
“Will do. I’m really sorry, Asty. I hope
he’ll be fine. I’ll get one of the guys to go with you in case someone needs to
carry Beast.”
“Okay, see you,” she said and dropped the
phone.
She put on her clothes so quickly that she
managed to get to the clubhouse before the time frame she gave her dad. The
small trailer was already in the front yard, and Asty stopped her scooter as
quickly as she could, rushing to answer the calls of her furry baby. It seemed
as if Beast sensed her arrival, and his shrieking became frantic as she ran
past two guys, straight to the open trailer, where her pet was lying on its
side in some fresh hay. It moved its front leg, shifted its head, and cried
again, searching for Asty with its eyes, begging for help.
Asty put her hands on Beast, scared when
she sensed him shivering beneath her touch, and the foul smell that exploded
from the small compartment made her gag. This was bad. “He needs to go to the
clinic. We need to go now,” she called, finally looking around to find her dad.
Priest stood at the back of the trailer
with his bushy eyebrows in a frown. “Sorry, baby. I’ve got business. I’ll get
the prospect to go with you. Prince!” He walked out of her line of vision.
Milk’s blond head emerged from the shadows,
and he scowled, pulling over a cart with piles of boxes. “Tooth sent him on an
errand. Our guys are all working. Maybe we could spare the Hogs, since they
aren’t involved in this thing?” he said, gesturing at the boxes
“Get one of them. Fast,” Priest said and
walked up to the trailer again. “I’ll get one of the new guys to take you to
the vet. I hope Beast will be fine.”
Asty could hardly focus on his words as she
stroked her pet’s muzzle, trying to keep from getting more frantic. That
wouldn’t be good for Beast. He needed her strong, not a crying mess. She nodded
and took a bowl and a bottle of water from a meal basket hung on the wall of
the trailer. Beast lapped at the water a bit, but that didn’t stop his shaking.
It was physically painful to see him like this without being able to do
anything about it. “You’ll be okay, baby.”
And to make matters worse, she saw Hunter for
the first time in two weeks. He came into view in the open door, drilling holes
in Asty with his gaze. “You wanna stay in the back?” he said in a voice that
reminded her of how his hands had held her.
Asty gave a shuddery breath and gently
squeezed Beast’s horn before getting to her feet. The trailer was too small to
hold her alongside a large goat, and as much as she wanted to be with her pet,
she couldn’t. “Sorry, Baby,” she muttered as she closed the door.
Hunter’s presence was burning her back when
she rushed to the car and jumped into the passenger seat. Not talking too much
would be the safest option. He was the last—maybe before his sleazy cousin—person
she wanted to be with that evening, but Beast’s health was priority, so she’d
bear with it just like she bore with the pain radiating all over the skin of
her stomach.
As they sat in the front and drove off in
uncomfortable silence, she couldn’t help but admit to herself that even though
she had avoided going to the clubhouse after getting back that tarot card, a
part of her had hoped he’d come visit her again. Maybe in a less creepy
fashion, but still. He would ring the doorbell so she’d come down and tell him
he wasn’t welcome. To which he’d have some cocky, sexy comeback, and maybe,
just maybe, she’d reluctantly invite him in for coffee.
She hated herself for fantasizing about the
heat of his cock inside her while Beast was suffering in the back, but the
moment she and Hunter were in close quarters, her nose picked up on his cologne
and her skin on his body heat. It was purely physical. She couldn’t help it.
Hunter cleared his throat after a good ten
minutes of silence. “So, what’s the deal with the goat?”
Asty brushed her hand over her face and
froze in terror when she realized she had absolutely no makeup on. She was
bare, with her big eyes and small nose that combined to make her look like a
child if she didn’t apply any products. Her eyelashes were short, barely
visible, and the uneven skin tone around her eyes and lips had been a major
issue for her since she could remember. She looked away, hoping her big hair
would protect her from his prying eyes, but her stomach clenched in shame. It
had been years since she had let anyone, other than her immediate family, see
her without makeup. Hunter would surely notice how different she looked, how
childlike and plain her face really was. He’d stop being interested in her.
He’d stop teasing her. That was exactly what she wanted, so why did she care?
“It’s my pet,” she muttered eventually and
pointed him in the direction he should take at the crossing.
“Are you fattening him up for a ritual or
some shit? Or do you pray to him?”
Of course, he didn’t take her seriously.
Why would he. He didn’t understand how the world was truly constructed, that
demons were more real than most people thought. If he knew what she did, he
wouldn’t joke about these matters.
“Do you even listen to yourself? He’s back
there, crying, and he needs help. Why are you making stupid jokes?” she uttered
and suddenly burst out with a sob, turning away so he wouldn’t witness her ugly
cry.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that
way. I just wanted to distract you. Please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” sobbed Asty and rubbed
her eyes with the heels of her hands. She pushed her whole body against the
door and looked outside. When she flexed her stomach, the cuts on her skin
screamed at her not to, and she quickly pulled on the front of her hoodie so
the fabric wouldn’t be too close to the wounds. She just wanted this day to
end.