The Merciless Alpha(erotica)

“Actually, that isn’t a bad idea. I could raise money for the precinct that way and –”

*You ARE going to the fund raiser! (click)* Grom was trying to sound authoritarian, but Sadie could tell he was holding his laughter just on the other side of his teeth.

“So, no community outreach programs that have free massages and ‘happy endings’ then?”

She heard silence on the other end of the line.

“This keeps happening to me,” Sadie said, staring at the device. “These things always stop working. Okay Grommie, I’ll behave. But I think I should get a g-string budget for this job. Over and out.” She turned off the device and then looked at Devlin, her expression becoming more serious. “Okay, I get it. You don’t like the way I do things. But unless I’m actually breaking the law, you deal with me first before you go crying home to momma. That clear?”

Devlin physically shrank in his seat. Sadie shook her head and pulled out of the parking lot. ‘Even if I Turned people, it wouldn’t be him. Too many ways that could go wrong.’

———— ———————-

Shortly before sunrise . . .

———— ———————-

Sadie hopped into the shower shortly before sunrise after hurrying home from the station. Word of her unusual mingling style had gotten around and she had found a basketball on her desk with “For a good time call” written on it. She’d gotten a laugh out of it and decided to take it home. Devlin didn’t seem as amused, but she kept catching him staring at her. She was concerned about that relationship, but she’d deal with it another time. She’d given Vladimir the message from his nephew, which had been received with a monosyllabic grunt and a sigh, but no explanation. And Melissa had left her a note saying that she was supposed to meet her parents for breakfast and so wouldn’t be able to rendezvous after all. She did, however, promise a rain check.

“I smell like crud,” she muttered as she wiped the stink of basketball and young male sweat away before changing into some sweat-pants and one of her few long-sleeved, non-cleavage-revealing shirts. She figured she might as well continue getting to know the community while she was on a roll. So she was heading down to New Plymouth. Population . . . one. New Plymouth was a wraith town.

Sadie wasn’t sure why she was more comfortable with wraiths than other people, but she was. It generally wasn’t easy to find someone willing to go talk to a creature whose basic mission in the afterlife was exact revenge. Wraiths were the physical embodiments of creatures who had died in unpleasant ways and couldn’t sleep without vengeance. Once their own vengeance was satisfied, they sought it out for others. Some relished the work, others moved away so as not to be tempted. This wraith seemed to be in the latter category.

She jumped in her truck and started down a winding set of roads to get to New Plymouth. The wraith had apparently moved in sixty years earlier, and the town had been mostly dead by then anyway. So the roads out that way weren’t maintained that well, but Sadie wasn’t worried: her truck could take anything these woods threw at it.

But even for an Arbiter and vampire, there was something about a wraith town that just set you in a state of unease. Whatever light came into it, whether directly from the sun or reflected from the moon, seemed cooler . . . taking on tinges of cyan as it made its presence known. And there were no cars on the street, no movement, no talking and certainly no laughing. Nobody had ever even bothered to board up the abandoned buildings in the small town square. No one would come to New Plymouth to vandalize anything. No one with sense would go there for any reason.

She drove around for a few minutes, using the unusual chill in the air to provide some kind of guidance. Then she saw it . . . a faint light flickering in front of a large, double-story house just behind the courthouse. It was an eerie bluish-white light that clearly had no place in this world. Wraith put the pixie-flames out in front of the houses so that people who sought their service could find them.

“Turn . . . left,” her GPS system said unnecessarily.

“Thanks Scarlett,” she responded. She wondered if Scarlett’s maps were even current for this town. She pulled her truck up to the curb, not sure if it constituted bad luck to park in a vengeance spirit’s driveway. ‘It’s not like he or she is going to use it. Wraith’s don’t drive.’ But she decided to play it safe.

The house was surprisingly intact compared to those around it, making her wonder if there was something about the mystical energy of a wraith that helped preserve their surroundings. While she had dealt with wraiths before, she’d never actually been to the home of one. ‘How does one knock?’ she wondered. There was a pretty wrought iron fence surrounding the property that had been painted white, and just inside the fence all along the perimeter were beds of annual flowers. Sadie pushed open the gate and walked the small cobblestone trail leading to the front porch steps, and it was during this journey that she saw that the front door was open. No, not open . . . gone. There weren’t even hinges for a door. All the windows were open as well, though through more conventional means.

She had been expected the boards of the stairs and porch to creak when she walked on them, but they had that heavy and hearty “thump” to them of a solidly built structure. The wood actually seemed kind of new. She drug her eyes up from the floor and back to the door. She apparently didn’t need to knock: the wraith knew she was there. Without noise or even enough motion to activate a vampire’s peripheral vision, the wraith had appeared in the door.

The wraith was a female, and a beautiful female at that. Not “erotic and sexy” beautiful like Sadie, but rather a noble and classical beauty. She was slim and had features that could only be describe as elegant. If it hadn’t been for those eyes, this creature could have gotten a job on any modeling runway in the world. But those eyes . . . pure white. There were no eyeballs to speak of, just glowing white light. She stood easily six feet tall and was dressed in the flowing blue and black robes so typical of her kind. Except for the fact that she reflected visible light, Sadie could detect nothing about her. She had no smell, her clothes didn’t rustle in the chilly northwestern breeze: a painting of person left more of a record on the senses than a wraith did. Those eyes could see things that no mortal or vampiric eyes ever could, and they were looking at Arbiter Sadie Hewitt.

“Yes?” came a voice, clearly emanating from the wraith though her lips didn’t actually move.

‘That’s so very creepy,’ Sadie thought. “Hello,” Sadie said, calling on all of her cheerfulness, “my name’s Sadie Hewitt. I live up the hill from New Plymouth and just wanted to drop by and say hello. You’re actually my closest neighbor I think.”

The wraith just stared. No one came by a wraith to “say hello.” It was like dropping by a dragon’s cave to borrow a cup of sugar: it just wasn’t done. The wraith seemed to breathe in through her nose. “I do not smell the hunger on you,” the wraith continued. “Why are you here?”

Sadie smiled. “Again, just saying hello. By the way, I love your landscaping. Sorry, I just never figured wraiths for being into the hole ‘home and garden’ scene. You did all this yourself?”

The wraith was confused, and that didn’t happen to wraiths very often. Most people thought wraiths were simply apparitions who only appeared when called upon. This was not really correct. They existed in the world in some form or fashion at all times.Text © by N0ve/lDrama.Org.

“Yes,” the wraith replied at last. No one sought out wraiths and yet this woman seemed only mildly concerned.

“Cool. I’m pretty much going for the natural look up around the trailer. I probably couldn’t keep a cactus alive.

“These flowers are actually quite easy to maintain,” the wraith said, almost as if she forgot that she was supposed to be intimidating. “There is sufficient rainfall so that –” She stopped. ‘Why am I talking to her?’ the entity thought.

“I didn’t catch your name by the way,” Said said, offering the wraith a handshake.

The wraith stared at that hand. No one was supposed to act this way, not even vampires. “Mary,” she murmured softly, shaking the woman’s hand.

Sadie was surprised that she wasn’t more creeped out than she was. A wraith’s touch was always cool, regardless of the outside temperature, and there was just enough pressure to realize that you were being touched but not enough to guage her strength.

The two stood on opposite sides of the door in complete silence. Sadie was just smiling, and the wraith was looking on blankly. If the woman didn’t want vengeance, then — “Would you . . . like to come in?” Mary asked.

“Love to!” the intruder responded.

Mary moved aside and waved the girl inside. Sadie entered a small hallway complete with coat closet leading back into a very tastefully decorated living room. It wasn’t warm and flowery like living rooms so often were, but might better be described as “proper.” The furniture was black leather and was actually nicer than Sadie’s. The floor was well cared-for hardwood, and even the black curtains seem to have a soft elegance to them. There was, however, one thing more interesting than the fact that this wraith seemed to have exceptional taste in decoration, and that was the cats.

There were so many felines wandering around the living area and kitchen that Sadie couldn’t keep track. There was at least one on each windowsill and multiple on every piece of furniture. Yet none of the furniture looked like it had been clawed.

“Pardon me,” Mary said, gently picking up a short-haired tabby and placing it in another comfortable-looking location. The cat looked at its new surroundings, glanced up at the wraith as if to say “I find this acceptable” and then went back to sleep. Sadie took the offered chair.

“Actually,” Mary started, “I had heard of your coming, though never expected you to be gracing my doorstep.”

“You heard of me? Some kind of prophecy or –” Sadie stopped. Was it her imagination or had Mary almost cracked a smile.

“No,” the wraith replied, pointing to a corner of the room, “Internet.”

Sadie hadn’t even seen the laptop over their in the shadows of the room. “Wraiths have internet? That seems awfully . . . mundane.”