And the sp0op keeps coming.
Ch. 5, Dessert First
Ruby leaned heavily on the arm of the country chic armchair. It was a ratty old thing; it smelled thickly of cigarette smoke, the backrest was lumpy, the arms had pilling up and down them, and the seat cushion had a ragged hole in it where Melanie's mean old Yorkshire, Binky, had chewed it open long ago.
Yet, it could have been a velvet chaise to Ruby's exhausted body.
She sank further into the chewed cushion, though she knew she should sit up, and struggled to say focused on the TV across the room. A coffee mug dangled from her fingers, empty but still warm to the touch. She needed to refill it again.
A shrill giggling made her start, and her hand went to the knife inside her coat.
"Eww!" Emmy said, giggling again as Zeke grinned and put a second marshmallow in other nostril. Ruby let go of the knife.
"Baby, don't do that," she said, and Zeke looked back at her. He took the marshmallows out and went back to watching the movie.
It hadn't been difficult to keep the children in the living room where they could be watched (and protected); all Ruby had had to do was open a bag of marshmallows and pop in "The Lion King" tape she'd found sitting on the VCR. The movie was almost over, though, and she would need to put in something else.
Coffee first.
Grunting, she heaved herself out of the chair sideways; her thigh had stopped bleeding, but it still burned whenever she moved. Emmy turned around to look at her.
"Can we watch 'The Little Mermaid?'" she asked.
"No!" Zach and Zeke groaned in unison. Ruby grimaced as the beginnings of a headache pulsed at her temple, and she held up her hands to quell the boys' protests. She pointed at the VHS rack against the wall.
"All of you," she said, "pick something together. I'll be right back. Stay in this room." She pointed at the carpet. "Don't go anywhere else." The children crawled quickly for the tapes, squabbling over what to watch next, and Ruby left the room.
"I hate that movie," Zeke's voice carried as she stepped cautiously into the kitchen. The winter sun had already set, and the only source lighting the room was the small night-light above the kitchen sink. She tried the light switches by the doorway, but overhead fixture stayed dark. Her hand settled inside her coat.
"It's my house! They're my movies!"
Ruby crept over to the coffee pot, listening as Emmy tried to make a case for "The Little Mermaid." The boys were having none of it, though.
"Ruby said we all get to pick," Zach said. VHS boxes shuffled around. "I don't wanna watch that one."
"Yeah!" Zeke said.
Ruby poured the last of the coffee, her eyelids drooping in the comfortable dimness of the kitchen. The children continued their bickering in the living room, but their voices were sounding further and further away. That was all right; she had a headache. Ruby let the coffee pot rest on the edge of the countertop, her eyes almost shut. God, she couldn't remember ever being tired like this. She was so tired that her head felt heavy.
The coffee pot ground warningly against the countertop's edge, and Ruby came to with a jerk. She was putting the pot into the sink to wash when a scream made her drop it entirely. She reached frantically for the knife and ran toward the living room.
"Zeke, stop it!" Emmy screamed. "My sister'll beat you up!"
"She's not even here!" Zeke taunted.
Ruby opened her mouth to call for Zeke, to tell them not to scream like that again, when a hand slapped across her mouth. Her feet came off the floor as she was lifted around the waist by a vise-like arm, and then she was being carried back toward the dimly-lit kitchen.
"Stay quiet," her assailant growled, and as he did, the smell of sweet smoke filled her nose. Feathers brushed her cheek. Ruby struggled wildly to free the knife from her coat pocket, but the arm around her waist was pinning it tight.
"Mmph!" she grunted, feeling the blade poke through the fabric. It nicked her side, and she tried to squirm away from it. Laughing Jack squeezed her harder, a warning to hold still, and she did.
They reached the kitchen, and Ruby let out a weak cry as she was tossed bodily to the vinyl floor. She landed on her stomach, and it knocked the breath out of her. The knife made a metallic, clattering sound as it slid out of her coat and across the floor.
"Well, well," Jack said. "What's this?" He stepped over to the knife and took it in his claws. Ruby looked fearfully up at him, wheezing for air, as he crouched beside her and dangled the knife tauntingly. Her blood stained the tip of it.
"Eager to play?" he asked, his coarse voice sending a bone-deep chill through her body. His inhuman eyes flashed deviously, and, as Ruby watched, he lifted the knife to his mouth and ran his black, oil-slick of a tongue across the blade's tip.
Ruby pushed herself upright and scooted away from the clown, too afraid to notice that her contact with the floor had not caused a crippling ache. Jack gave a low, multi-toned chuckle, and then his white face grew frighteningly serious.
"Explain something to me, sweets," he said, setting the knife down. He reached into his pocket and withdrew something to place carefully on the floor between them. Ruby's eyes darted from the clown's face to the object. Her lips parted in disbelief.
It was the faded box. Not splinters of the box, the way she'd left it under her car tire, but the full box itself. It was perfectly in-tact and precisely the way it had been when she'd received it, down to the crooked music crank.
"Did you truly believe that was going to work?" Jack asked. "That you could be done with me, just like that?" Ruby looked back up at the clown and trembled. His eyes were wide, and his lips were peeled back to show his teeth. He leaned forward, claws scraping gouges across the floor.
"You'll never be done with me, sweets," he hissed. "You belong to me."
Ruby pressed back against the cabinets as Jack crawled toward her, his face looking less and less human the closer he got. By the time he was near enough to plant his hands heavily on either side of her head, his horrible jaws seemed to hold a dozen more teeth. He brought his face close to hers as though to bite her.
"Ruby!"
Ruby twisted her head toward the kitchen doorway, eyes wide with horror. Emmy appeared around it, holding "The Little Mermaid" tape in her tiny hands.
"They're gonna play Legos now, so can we watch-" She froze when she caught sight of Jack, hunched over Ruby like a monstrous spider. The clown had turned to look at her, too. He breathed a low hiss.
Ruby and Emmy screamed at once when Jack shoved off of the cabinets to lunge for the child. Emmy dropped the tape and tried to run, but the clown was fast; he caught her easily by the arm and dragged her, squealing, toward him.
"No!" Ruby shrieked. She scrambled for the discarded knife and snatched it up.
Emmy kicked and screamed as Jack held her above his head. His jaw gave a sickening series of pops, unhinging itself and growing wide enough to swallow the child whole. He chuckled, rolling his tongue out.
Ruby darted up behind him and stabbed the knife between his shoulder blades, right above the giant pull-string's beginning.
Jack let out a monstrous, multi-toned roar as the knife sank into him. He dropped Emmy to the floor and whirled around to face Ruby. She had enough time to blink before he lashed out savagely with an arm, catching her directly in the temple. She collapsed in an unconscious heap, sliding a few feet into the cabinets.
Jack reached behind himself and took hold of the knife's handle. The blade slid out easily, if painfully, and he hissed through his teeth. Black blood spattered the floor as he flung it away.
The girl-child had fled after he'd dropped her, and so he was left alone with his toy. He could hear the children crying softly in the living room. His hate and anger, spurred by the pain of the knife wound, flared madly, and he debated hammering all three of the brats to the living room walls. The idea was deliciously tempting, and he knew it would soothe him…
But there was the matter of his toy.
Jack stood, flexing the pain out of his back as the wound knitted itself closed, and stalked over to Ruby's unconscious form. He ran his tongue along his black lips, remembering the taste of her blood. She would be devastated to find her precious boys dead, and her pain would be unimaginably beautiful, but then what? Her fear was made as strong as it was because of the brats. If he were to kill them, she might change, lose fear for even herself. He'd seen humans do that after they'd lost something dear to them.
That wouldn't do.
Ruby stirred vaguely as Jack scooped her into his arms. He was angry with her, for his healing knife wound still throbbed and burned, but he forced himself to be gentle with her anyway. He carried her, cradled against his chest, out of the kitchen and through the living room. The children quailed inside their pillow fort as he stopped to peer at them, his silver eyes huge. His voice was deep and rough when he spoke.
"Stay in there, or I'll eat you."
The children hid under blankets as he carried his toy into the nearest bedroom and kicked the door shut. He placed her on the narrow bed, righting her limbs to lie straight, then climbed in beside her. She stirred again as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him, enjoying the heat that she produced. He made no heat of his own, and had no need of it, but it was pleasant to him nonetheless.
Though she didn't know it right now, she was hurting badly from where he'd hit her. He took a deep draught of her pain, his nose brushing over the bruised and swelled skin of her face. She twitched.
Perhaps she did know.
Jack hooked a long leg around hers, drawing her closer and coiling tight as a serpent. He knew when she started to wake more by the presence of her fear than her movements. Her fear was fantastic, sweeter than any candy he'd ever tasted, but he was fully aware of how it filled him in a distinctly different way than a child's. Her fear was dessert to him, exquisitely tempting and delicious, but children's fear was what sustained him. It always had been, and it always would be.
His eyes flashed in the dark as they sought the door. He could hear the children sniveling and whispering to one another.
"Uhh," Ruby groaned, twisting in his grip, and he looked at her. Her head turned, putting her face-to-face with him. The room was too dark for her human eyes to see him, even this close, but he knew she could smell him.
"Shh," he hushed when her eyes grew wide. Her fear spiked so hard that he couldn't suppress a shudder. "Sleep," he whispered. "We're going to play tomorrow."
"What did you do to-" she began, her eyes welling with tears.
"Nothing. Listen."
She trembled against him, but he could tell by the way her eyes sightlessly ticked around that she was listening for and could hear the children in the living room. Her muscles loosened almost imperceptibly, then tightened again.
"They're crying," she whispered hoarsely. Jack made an irritated sound in the back of his throat.
"They're fine," he insisted. "Now, I'm hungry, and I want you to sleep." His toy gave a whimper, wriggling a little in his grasp, and he knew that she'd misunderstood him.
"Please, don't hurt them! They're just kids-"
He scowled, his arms constricting hard enough to make the girl gasp. He put his mouth next to her face, purposely letting her feel his teeth scrape against her temple when he spoke. She cringed.
"I know what they are," he hissed. "And I'll do worse than hurt them if you don't shut up and sleep."
His toy went very still, saying nothing more, and Jack sullenly buried his face in her hair. Her attachment to the wretches was useful, but it stoked his temper. He closed his eyes and began to feed, finding the action immediately soothing. He took one slow, deep breath at a time, like a man taking careful bites of a savory meal.
Jack didn't expect to feed for long; he knew that her fear would subside when exhaustion took her. A half-hour passed, however, and then another, and the fear remained present. She was wide awake in his clutches, her eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, and Jack realized that she wouldn't sleep without his intervention.
Not unless he left her be, which he wouldn't do.
He could feel her shallow breathing against him, the chilled sweat on her skin. She was still terrified. He knew that he could sap the energy right out of her if he fed long enough like this, but then she would be tired tomorrow. He needed to put her right out if he wanted her to get any rest at all.
She gasped as he shifted abruptly, drawing himself up over her. Her arms were freed in this new position, and she thrust them up against his chest.
"No," she cried, her fear spiking again and sending another shudder through him. He fought the sensation and grabbed a fistful of her hair. She struggled under him, pushing at his chest and crying. Her fear heightened further, leaving him in a near constant state of shuddering, but it was nothing compared to sensation that shot through him when he covered her open mouth with his own.
The sheer power of her fear made him growl.
His cold lips moved against hers in a cruel mockery of a kiss as she snatched hold of his hair and yanked, trying to pull him away. Her desperation struck a realization in him, and his mind found darker territory as he considered doing exactly what she thought he was about to do.
Some other time.
He yanked her hair in kind, drawing a muffled cry out of her, and then sucked in an inhumanly deep breath. His toy shivered hard, her fingers curling tightly in his hair as he forcibly drained every bit of energy from her body. He saw her eyes roll back in her head, felt her moan the last of her consciousness into his mouth, and then she was limp.
Jack pulled away, shivering himself as he attempted to process everything he'd drawn from her. His body thrummed violently with energy, but it wasn't energy that he could use. Instead of being absorbed, it pulsed along his skin like an electric charge, made him see spots and caused his mind to float. It was almost painful, and he'd never experienced anything like it.
When the energy faded many minutes later, drifting naturally wherever it was meant to go, Jack found that he had somehow dispersed himself to smoke. He drifted aimlessly for a moment, then coiled lazily to the floor and solidified into the form of the faded box.
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