Scars (Doors of the Dreamer, Chapter 14)
Whore of Babylon
Author’s note: For the month of July I am challenging myself to write and post one chapter a day every two days with minimal planning and outlining. You can read the first chapter of Doors of the Dreamer here.
For a moment, David thought he was back at the camp. But the woman straddling him was certainly not a vagabond. She had violent orange hair and pale skin completely exposed by her nakedness.
When his eyes and nose finally caught up with his brain, he recognized her.
“How…?”
“Does it matter?”
She caressed his cheek. He found himself leaning into the warmth of her hand. He breathed in her scent. She was using that perfume she liked. She smelled good. No, the smell was overpowering. No, it was nostalgic. His thoughts bled together and his mind was on fire.
“I’m here now, don’t you want me?” she purred.
He grunted. His tongue was like lead.
“Let me help you get these clothes off.”
She pulled his shirt over his head and threw it aside. Her fingers found his scar and traced it, sending a shiver down his spine. David reached out. He had to get her off him. His body disobeyed. His hand groped at her flesh.
“You’ve been alone for so long. Relax, let me take care of you,” she said.
Alone. Was he alone? No, someone was here with him. Someone had taken the first watch. Lance. If he could just raise his voice. Lance. Lancelot. The hero. He looked at the woman’s face. Her foxy smile. Her gleaming cerulean eyes. Hadn’t he already learned this lesson? He was alone.
She leaned in close. “David.”
David. The hero. The king. What makes a hero? Something was missing. Fear. Why resist her? He was unafraid. Shouldn’t a hero be unafraid? Fight or flight. He had not yet lost everything. For that reason, he should be afraid. For that reason, he should fight. He needed a weapon. Silently, he cried for help.
A weight was lifted from him.
“Equip silver shortsword.”
He swung haphazardly and the intruder jumped back. Its look of surprise faded quickly. David scrambled out of bed, pulling his pants up with one hand.
“Was this body not to your liking?”
The thing changed. Its hair, its skin, its face, its chest, its legs—all morphed into someone else. He recognized this form too. It was the lady he helped on the day he found the black door. The shapeshifter’s stench assaulted him. It made him want to know how she felt to his fingers, how she tasted to his tongue. It made him want to gag.
“Lance!” he choked out.
“Perhaps this would be more to your taste.”
The door swung open. The knight stood there in full armor, greatsword in hand. However, whether by blind luck or intentional malice, the form the intruder had chosen made Lance pause. It was the vagabond shaman. David rushed forward, meaning to run the thing through. It was faster. Twisting the shaman woman’s face in a cruel grin, it slipped past Lance, who realized what was happening too late. He cast wind cutter and turned to go after it, but David heard the sliding door open and knew it had jumped off the balcony.
Lance returned a moment later. “That thing was damn fast. What was it?”
“I don’t know,” David threw up his hands. “Mimic? Vampire? Succubus? You tell me.”
“I’ve never seen a monster capable of shapeshifting. How did it get in?”
“I think it was already here.”
Lance sniffed. “The smell.”
“Something is out to get us,” David said, sitting on his bed.
“What do you mean?”
“I had a dream. There was a voice that kept mentioning an exit. I didn’t understand it then, but it was definitely a threat. Ever since then I’ve had this feeling—I don’t know how to explain it.”
“When was this?”
“A few days ago. After the dullahan.”
Lance unequipped his gear and leaned against the door frame. “Likely just a dream. You were feverish and a bit delirious at the time.”
“I disagree. It’s clear to me now that there is a demonic force at play in this world.”
“Demonic?” Lance scoffed. “The shapeshifter. Did it appear to you in the shaman’s form?”
“Not at first.”
“Do you know the person it imitated?”
“Yes.”
David could feel Lance’s eyes on him, but he remained silent.
“Anything you can tell me about this enemy will help us fight it next time,” Lance said eventually.
David exhaled. “It looked like my ex-girlfriend and it was trying to force itself on me.”
“Oh.”
He had never seen Lance look so uncomfortable. It almost made him laugh.
“That smell,” he continued, “must be some sort of—what’s the word, pheromone? It was hard to move or speak.”
“How did you free yourself from it?”
David shrugged. “Divine intervention.”
Silence descended again. Lance rubbed his beard. David unequipped his sword and found his shirt.
“Can I just… talk for a minute?” He didn’t wait for Lance’s reply. “We were in college. I thought she was the best thing to ever happen to me, and I was quite generous with her. Paid for everything, took her wherever she wanted to go. At least to the best of my ability as a nineteen-year-old. I was raised to treat women ‘right,’ you know?
“About a year in, I asked what she thought about marriage. Less than a week later she ghosted me. When I tried to find out why, she blocked my number and blocked me on social media. One day I waited for her outside of one of her classes and confronted her. What do you think she said? ‘I’m not looking for anything serious.’ At first I thought it was my fault—that if I had taken her on more dates, bought her more gifts, spent more time with her, she wouldn’t have dumped me. But it’s the other way around. Some people go through life just fulfilling needs. They don’t love, they don’t dream, they barely even think.
“I don’t know what I’m trying to say anymore. I guess seeing her face dug up some bad memories.”
He collapsed to the floor and leaned against the wall. To his surprise, Lance sat beside him.
“Do you mind if I also speak for a while?” he said.
“Don’t force yourself.”
“Trust is a two-way street, remember?”
David chuckled. “I’m listening.”
“When I was a child I was convinced that all I needed to succeed in life was intelligence. All problems could be solved with knowledge and reason. When I became an adult I realized how wrong I was. I needed social connections, I needed to stay healthy, I needed to know how to cook and clean… You know that character you see in fiction sometimes who is extremely smart but inept at everything else? That was me. Once I figured this out, I tried to find ways to solve these problems. I exercised a certain number of times every week. I found a handful of easy but healthy recipes online. The one thing that eluded me, however, was socializing. I could not solve people.
“When I came to this world, I enjoyed the solitude for a while. Then I found Robin. She was a beautiful woman—looked a lot like the shaman, actually—and if there is one category of people I am especially bad with, it’s beautiful women. But she surprised me. She was patient, easygoing, and genuine. Even so, I had a hard time communicating with her on anything more than a basic level. It was like there was some invisible X factor she had and I didn’t. When I expressed as much to her, she just laughed and said I was thinking too much. After she died, I started to hate being alone.”
Lance cleared his throat. His eyes were fixed on something David couldn’t see.
“If you ever felt I was being too strict or domineering, I apologize,” Lance said. “It’s true that I’m bad at communication. But I also don’t want to lose anyone else.”
David put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re getting out of here.”