James Hackett

A mysterious melancholy seeped into the tavern and settled into the bones of the patrons as the door swung open letting in the oddly gaited waif of a being. The unease was palpable.

Everyone shifted and looked on restlessly as even more strangers filtered soundlessly into the formerly pleasant atmosphere.

His presence ensured the attack was over before the people in the tavern even knew it had begun.

The women watched children die as their own blood spilled onto the floor. Men who fought back were disabled and angled to witness a carnage they could do nothing to stop.

At the end of it all, men who were once proud warriors lay broken in mind andbody covered in the blood of their kin.

Layla awoke with two distinct tastes on her tongue. The now familiar metallic twang of fresh blood and the cold satisfaction of the revenge she would be delivering that night.

Andrew felt her tense while she lay sleeping. Turning towards her, he studied how her face twisted mirroring the pain her subconscious thoughts brought. Breathing shallow Layla came to with eyes focused but unseeing.

Common sense drew him out of her reach till he was sure she was aware of the now and not still caught in her dreams of the past.

“He made sure that they lived to talk about their worst nightmare. That is his trademark.” Locking eyes with Andrew the words he wasn’t sure he could continually handle crossed her lips. “Tonight I face him. If I do not kill him, he will kill me.”

“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Why not?”

“Because when you accepted me you accepted all of me. I am both Layla and La Femme, I have to be otherwise…well you know better than anyone how I get otherwise.”
“That is a lovely choice, suicidal or homicidal.”
“It is not really homicide.”

“Excuse me? Killing people is not homicidal, I think I need Webster hold on.”

“You are soooooooo very lucky the sex is really good. It is homicidal but I am not going out killing random people. I wouldn’t even really classify them as human. Humans do not live for generations causing pain and devastation. I am avenging deaths and giving justice as my bloodline was made to do. I have to do this, they have been running around unchecked for over a hundred years.”

“So they have a hundred years experience on you, thanks I now feel so much better…go forth and kill oh babe in the woods.”

“Sometimes I hate how none of my gifts work on you. Because I would love to…”

“I love you. It worries me, but you know I would not stop you.”

Layla sat up in bed and faced him. She could stare at him all day long but Iyin Hasad wouldn’t show her a thing. Somehow Andrew was immune to her powers. It was nice on one level, as it meant with him she would always just be Layla and never La Femme in the true sense. She had gone through enough to know that there had to be significance to this, as usual the waiting to find out the what, was killing her.

Looking back at her, he could see her thoughts racing, it made him smile in spite of his fears. This woman of his was a one in a hundred year wonder and…”You were made for her…” the ancient voice that lead him to Trinidad echoed in his head.
“What’s wrong you just went really pale?”
So Layla didn’t hear that.
“Don’t even try to say it was nothing”

“The voice I dreamt, I always thought it was you calling me but, I kinda just heard it again, so…”
“It wasn’t me.”

Leaning over she kissed him with a big smile plastered on her face.

Planting her chin on his chest she laughed and teased him. “Spooky loves company welcome to my world.”

“This doesn’t change anything. Logically, being around you could just be inducing similar…”She is yours to guard…”

When his face paled even more, Layla settled more comfortably with her cheek rubbing soothingly against his soft mat of chest hair. His heartbeat though slightly erratic steadied her inside and out.
“When you don’t fight and just listen it goes by faster.”

Instinct had them reaching for the other’s hand, just as the last sentence filtered through Andrew’s mind.
“She will not make it without you…”

“You shouldn’t worry so much Andrew, it’s not our personal spirits we should fear, it’s those nightmares that live beyond us, those are the ones that bring true pain and death.”

MovieTowne was near dead on a Wednesday night, only a few stragglers roaming the food places looking for a quick food fix. Shakers for once had open tables and only a few token fat pocket drunks hugging the stools by the bar. Curiously all the free tables were towards the center, even though there were two men sitting at the centermost table having a quiet drink. Looking at it, there seemed to be a wall of empty cordoning off those two. No one wanted to be close to them. On closer inspection they seemed to be a father and son or an uncle and a nephew chatting casually about the things that interest men. The reality was though no one, could, be close to them.
“Why do you always insist on meeting in public areas?”

“What is wrong mon petit cauchemar? I thought you would love being out in the open making people cringe just with your very presence. Isn’t that why you came to us?”

His French accent did very little to disguise the menace that crawled along your flesh when the bigger man spoke. A few bar stool huggers left, apparently there was not enough alcohol to numb him out.

“Why I came to you is of no consequence now, I have always done as you bid and you have never complained.”
“Until now mon ami, until now.”

“Richard was a good soldier and an ally, he killed the grandmother as we needed him to”

“And left the real threat for too long, those we both work for are un peu concerned. There cannot be a Femme De Mort!”

His fist hit the table in outrage, and that, emptied the rest of the open air bar.

The little nightmare also pulled back as he felt the anger rising off of his immediate boss.

“This is very important ay cauchemar, get rid of the pretend femme, for she cannot be real non?”

“Of course not. For a hundred years the bloodline was not able to produce anyone who could …”

The older Frenchman waved away the forthcoming speech, irritated that the little waif would try to tell him of the history he had help create.

“We do not care about what was cauchemar, we want whatever she is to be destroyed. Tonight. Comprenez vous?”

He hated being dismissed but he knew his place in this hierarchy, nothing more than a hired hand with a dismally dreadful talent, he tightened his facial features and nodded his agreement.
“Oui.”