Episode III - Part Two

Prepared according to Lady Zhanna's whims, their headquarters was almost unrecognisable. Seated around a large table, draped with a black cloth, it was hard for most of them to see much but the centre, where a candle, the only source of light, flickered and danced. Valentine could see well, though, with his cat's eyes. He could see each of his peers as they waited nervously to hear what this seer had to say. Zhanna herself was a glamorous young woman, with a confident voice barely affected by her Ukrainian accent. She wore the trappings of a fortune teller, hooded and robbed, but tailored to fit her figure and reveal a tactical amount of flesh. Her shawl stopped short of her breasts, where the tops were left bare by her bodice, and her sandals were the only clothing she wore from her knees down.

'I will speak to each of you, in turn,' she announced, 'a glimpse into your future is all I ask as payment for the information I hold. If there are any objections, I will hear them.'

No reply came, and she began, going clockwise around the table, starting with Valentine himself, who sat opposite her.

She stared for a while. He could not feel her entering his mind though he wondered if it would even be possible to feel such a thing. 'The monster you fear will die by your hand. I am sure of it,' she said. It had to be the wolf, the thing that haunting his dreams, but he still did not know what it was.

She moved on then to Joshua.

'There's a hardness in you,' she announced, 'it will serve you well, until it won't.' The ominous message did not seem to faze his guard, however. Next, she spoke to Judah, saying, 'now here's a boy with a long road ahead of him, I think you will surpass your brother, your father, and even the master of your order.' That seemed more auspicious but the boy emulated his brother and met the proclamation with stony silence. Next was Aaron, the person Valentine knew least of all, though he barely knew any of his sister's friend. 'Your father's son,' the strange woman smiled, 'you're in this world now, young man, and you will only slip ever further. Embrace it, and you may thrive.' Another good one and, this time, its recipient smiled widely.

After that was Mark, a man who never seemed to take anything seriously. Valentine was mildly curious to see what he'd make of this.

'There are jokers in this world too, though their japes are far crueller. You friends will keep you safe at first but you will need to forge a much deeper connection if you want to survive.' Mark smiled too, despite the ambiguity of her pronouncement. Valentine wondered if it was out of disbelief or mere habit.

'So, you're telling me to get a girlfriend?' he asked her, breaking the tradition of giving no reply that Valentine had apparently started.

'Or a boyfriend,' Zhanna quickly replied, eliciting a few chuckles, including from the man himself. She then moved onto Adam. His sister's boyfriend was the closest thing Valentine had to a friend of his own so, again, he was curious. 'Adam. You'll be tested, much sooner than you think. I can't say more than that. I have no right to.' If the young man was disturbed by that, it did not show on his face.

Next, Zhanna's attention turned to the girl sat right beside her, Pri. Watching the girl's face filled his head with some many thoughts and feelings. For her part, she seemed very nervous.

'You don't remember me, but I saw you once when you were much younger. You've grown so beautiful in mind, body and spirit but I think you know what you are lacking. The fate you are so eager to achieve is right there, just across from you, and you need only reach out and grasp it.' At that, the girl stared out into the darkness, peering into Valentine's shining yellow cat's eyes.

After Pri, came Lydia. Valentine's sister was something of a mystery to him. Dependable and responsible, except when she wasn't. She could make his life hell as easily as she could comfort him in those rare instances where he let her in. If it came down to it, he would die for her.

'What I see in your future, Lydia, scares me half to ****. In the dark days that lie ahead for you, remember to heed your heart,' the fortune teller repeated the words for emphasis, 'heed your heart, girl.' The words troubled her as much as they troubled him.

Sat next to Lydia was Tiffany, her real best friend, as opposed to her official best friend: Teresa. The details were lost on Valentine, but they involved the kind of high school drama he was very glad to be well shot of. The girl herself was bubbly and kind and very easy on the eyes, blonde-haired and blue-eyed with a pretty face, a lovely figure and a great rack. She was popular with the boys, though always the heart-broken and never the heart-breaker.

'Lovely girl, you think too little of yourself. This world of darkness needs all the light it can get. The future is open for you, Tiff, I can say little else.' The girl in question didn't seem to know what to make of the pronouncement but some part of it must have touched her, as a single tear had run down her cheek. After her, came Teresa. The two girls were quite a contrast, with Teresa being quite flat-chested, with long straight black hair and narrow monolid brown eyes. She also had a mean streak a mile wide, and attained her popularity on account of having a large house and parents who were often out-of-town. 'You'll find the answers you seek, Teresa, have no doubt of that. As for the price you'll have to pay, that is a little less clear to me.'

Teresa's face was as stony as ever, letting nothing show. The strange prediction had a visible effect on many of the other faces at the table, however.

Finally, Zhanna reached Sam. The girl always stood out amid her group of friends, from her denim jacket, her messy black hair, her lack of makeup and her aggressive, almost boyish, demeanour. The details, again, were lost on Valentine but it mainly seemed that she was Tiffany's friend, the one the girl needed to keep the more envious girls off her back. They'd been friends forever, it was said, long before Sam had ditched dresses and dancing for jeans and motorcycles. 'Ooh,' the strange woman howled, 'if I'd only known you in my youth, Sam. You'd have had a lot more trouble staying in the closet with me in your pants.'

The comment bewildered the girl and she frowned, amidst chuckles from her friends.

'As for the future, yours is a path very few will ever tread. It is dangerous but you're no stranger to that. It can be painful but you've been through so much pain already. When it comes, embrace it.'

What all of that meant was unclear and, as soon as it was said, the candle was snuffed out and Tanvi flicked on the lights, eliciting a few groans.

'Now,' the woman said, not missing a beat, 'I've got some useful information for you. You're after a devil. He's quite powerful but his form has been weakened by his first ****. He was destroyed by the Wolfheart a few years ago. He was unwilling or unable to challenge him again, so now he's settled for the next best thing, killing his successor. He's been shopping around for a monster for quite some time, which is how I came across this information. Presumably, he found one. It's a trifling thing for you, Valentine, or, rather, for the Beast. If you insist on repression, well, you'll probably survive but it'll take longer and innocent people could die in the meantime.'

Josh, inevitably, began to object but the woman silenced him.

'I have said all I came to say. Tanvi, I'll will see you tonight for some catching up. As for the rest of you, give my words some thought. Take comfort in them, analyse them to ****, discard them like so much trash, whatever you like, just think on them at least a little.' And, with that, she was gone.

Pri had already gone to work, scurrying up to the library. Most everyone else seemed to be in varying states of confusion. 'She called me Tiff,' Tiffany said, which presumably meant something, and Sam went to comfort her.

He wondered if he should say something to his sister, but she was clinging close to her boyfriend. Instead, he went up to find Priyanshi. By the time he got to her, she'd already found something. 'I've got it,' she exclaimed, 'in Émile Boucher's journal, he wrote about an encounter with a devil. He learned its true name, Koglarath, and destroyed it but he later learned from a contact that it had reconstituted itself and gone into hiding.'

'Good find,' Valentine said, causing her cheeks to redden. 'So, I assume we can use its true name for something?'

'Um, well, yeah, but we'd have to encounter him first, at least once, or have a picture of him. Once you've seen a devil's face, you can summon him. We could basically lay a trap for him, or an ambush, and then invoke his true name.'

By now, Tanvi had joined them and she said to her daughter, 'that's a good plan. I'll get in touch with the Society. If they've got a picture of him, we should have it by tomorrow evening.'

With that settled, the group began to wind itself down. Valentine, however, was tasked with patrolling the town centre that night. He did not mention that the Beast would be able to sense a monster, assuming it chose to attack, and draw him to it. Instead, he focused on restraining himself. As he walked the winding streets and back alleys, occasionally alive with the sound of drunken revelry but generally dark and quiet, he took the time to think about what Zhanna had said to him.

He feared the wolf but he would slay it. When and how, he did not know. Of course, how accurate she was, he didn't know either. He didn't even know what the wolf was. He'd consider the notion that it was the Beast, some kind of psychic manifestation of the animal within. But, in his dreams, he was a lion, so it seemed unlikely. Plus, Zhanna had told him to embrace the Beast, and warned him against not doing so. His pocketbook mentioned dreams, and even included a guide to their symbols, but assigned too many meanings to the wolf to really help. He didn't think it was a coincidence that his predecessor's animal spirit had been a wolf, nor that his guard was a member of some cult that hunted werewolves.

He sifted through some of his memories but, again, there were far too many. Some previous Lionhearts had befriended werewolves, others had killed them. A few had never encountered one. One memory that stood out, for perhaps the wrong reasons, came from a Lionheart who'd given himself over to the Beast entirely. In his werelion form, he had actually mated with a werewolf. As remarkable and peculiar as the event was, however, it didn't seem relevant and only served to distract him. He was eventually pulled from his memories by the sounds of loutish fury.

Four young men, drunk and stupid, with weapons were shouting at him. They apparently had been doing so for some time, as they seemed to demand an explanation for his presence. 'I can do as I please,' he said, not feeling very threatened. He flashed his cat's eyes at them and two of them were struck by fear, dropping their weapons and bolting without more than a second's thought.

The other two came at him, however, and he responded immediately. The first dove at him and Valentine let his momentum do most of the work, sidestepping him and throwing him over. The guy landed hard on the pavement, groaning in pain. Before he knew it, however, the other thug had swung at him with a tire iron. It hit Valentine hard across the head and hurt like hell. The Beast roared and the pain prevented him from doing anything to restraint or repress the lion spirit. A further series of agonies wracked his body, his clothes were torn, practically exploding from his warped flesh as he transformed. Upon seeing him in this state, the two men became paralysed with fear.

Easy pickings for the Beast. He eviscerated them with tooth and claw. By the time he had wrested control of his body and mind back from the lion spirit, he found himself naked, standing in pile of viscera. He picked up what scraps of his clothes he could find and ran home, hurriedly dumping them into the trash and jumping into the shower. Horrified and alone, he felt a grotesque mix of despair and exhilaration. Not knowing what else to do, he went to his bedroom. He was thankful not to have woken up his parents or his sister but he knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep. As he sat, naked, on the side of his bed, he noticed the scrap of paper that woman had given him, with her phone number on it.

He wouldn't have contemplated it under, probably, any other circumstance but he decided to call her, at three o'clock in the morning no less. She answered quickly and didn't seem to have been roused from sleep. 'Who is it?'

'You gave me your number,' Valentine said, feeling more than a little stupid as he sat, still naked, in his unlit living room in the middle of the night, 'you said you might know something, that I should come to your apartment.'

The woman chuckled lightly, 'I'd love to spent the night with you.' She was teasing him, he thought. 'Come along, then, I'll let you in.' She gave him directions and soon after, he was sat in the strange woman's apartment.

Her building was very run-down and it didn't seem as though she took any pride in her living conditions. He was too preoccupied to pay it much mind, however. 'I'm sorry for dropping in at a time like this,' he said, as she paced around.

'It's fine. I don't get much sleep, truth be told.'

'Alright,' he said, before remembering that he was supposed to be here for a reason, 'so, what do you know about this devil we're after?'

'Oh, honey,' she replied, before sitting down next to him, 'you didn't really think I knew anything, did you?'

'I don't understand.'

'I was giving you an excuse to come and see me. I like fucking shapechangers. The offer's open, for the record.'

That threw him for a loop and he coughed out an awkward laugh. 'I guess I got the wrong end of the stick.'

She smiled at that, 'there's a reason you called me at three in the morning. If it wasn't because you were hoping to bump uglies, what was the reason?'

Valentine swallowed hard. 'I don't know. Something happened to me. I don't know how to process it.'

The black-haired woman seemed to intuit what he was referring to immediately and her eyes went wide, 'your First Change?! On my God, what was it like?'

He really didn't know how much he could tell her. 'A group of men attacked me and,' he stopped himself, unable to continue.

'You killed them,' she said. It wasn't a question and it seemed to light a fire in her. She rubbed his back and got close to his face, 'I wish I could've seen it.'

His brow furrowed at that, 'it was horrible.'

'Aw,' she said, her tone almost mocking, 'you poor baby.'

'Losing control terrified me.'

'I can help you,' she said, as her hand caressed his neck. 'You need to anchor yourself to humanity. Indulge your human passions.' Her voice drew closer and closer, 'fuck me, and I'll teach you how to control it.'

Rationally, he want to rebuke her but his cock had grown hard from her caresses. 'I've never even had sex,' he managed to say, on some level hoping that it would turn her way.

'But you know how good it feels. You're the Chosen One, you've got all those memories of past lives inside your head.'

She was right. He'd seen it, felt it, almost tasted it. Whether he made the first move or she did was hard to recall but, within seconds, he had his lips on hers and she had her hand around his cock. Once she'd pulled it free, she climbed onto his lap. 'I don't even know your name,' he said, breathing in her scent as she guided his member into her hot, wet, cunt.

'Davina,' she said, 'God, I need this.' The woman drew herself down and his body shook. The sensation was hard to comprehend, as he felt something he'd experienced over a thousand times and also never at all. He must've growled because she admonished him, 'easy there, kitty cat,' as she found a good rhythm.

'Ah,' he choked out as he grabbed her fleshy waist. He wanted to imagine that she was someone else, that he was losing his virginity to his soulmate but Davina was too tall and too pale. He looked into her eyes. She looked tired, as she had the only other time he'd seen her, almost bored but her body told another story as she writhed against him and dug her nails into his back.

'I couldn't think of anything but fucking you, the moment I saw you,' she confessed, between gasps and seething breaths. 'I stayed up, waiting for you to call.'

'Sorry.'

'Don't be sorry, baby,' she returned, before cutting herself off with an ugly grunt. She quickened her pace and he felt his release threaten to emerge.

'I'm gonna' come,' he said, unsure of what to do.

She held on tight and almost screamed, 'don't you fucking dare.' He squirmed under her and she fell against him, harder and deeper. 'You can last longer if you bare your beast,' she said, her voice weary and strained.

The rational side of his mind wanted to disagree but the animal part only wanted to please her. He felt his cat's eyes show and his body become charged with energy as he rocked her hard and fast against his crotch. He growled, his voice low and dark, as she let out choked screams and slurs. When she stared into his eyes, now yellow and monstrous, he saw pleasure in her face for the first time, heat and need and painful want. She kissed him and their mouths were sore by the time he finally came, exploding inside her. 'Oh God,' he said, once he'd come to his senses.

She comforted him as they collapsed onto her bed, half-clothed, and fell asleep.