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"She'll do it," snarled my captor. The old gypsy who had stolen me from my mother's side when he saw what I could do. He was a disgusting vile man with teeth the color of yolk, he smelled acrid, soaked in sweat and tobacco and he always snarled when he spoke.
"If she doesn't, her mother pays the price."
I shuddered, knowing she'd been tortured and hung naked in the back of a camper for the past week. The fucker had raped her, beat her, and made her suffer while I watched, caged up and helpless. I cried for her, begging her to forgive me. She never spoke another word, and I was sure she had gone into shock.
"Does she fuck?"
"I'm sure she will do whatever you ask…"
"Not for me!" The man raised his voice as if he couldn't bear the thought. "But my clients would pay good money."
My captor snarled and almost grinned. "For your price she'll do it."
"Fine." The man went to his desk and pulled out a check book. He was much better looking than the men I’d been with, wealthy too. You could see it in the way he walked. Holding his head up high, looking down his nose at the gypsy. He seemed to have perfected that demeaning gaze and in it, he'd also gained a look in his eye that demanded fear.
"Five hundred thousand," he stated, handing the gypsy the check.
"It was a million!" He snarled, his four foot frame leaning forward and banging his hand on the table.
The man stared up at him and slowly stood from his chair, towering over the gypsy a good two feet.
"When I see her shift."
The gypsy looked back at me. He shoved his cane at my ribs through the cage and I yelped, cowering further.
"You obey him in every way, bitch. If not, you'll never see your mother again."
The door slammed as he walked out of the room and I shivered. The man seated at his desk looked at me, his eyes narrowing.
"I know creatures like you. I’ve come across quite a few in my lifetime. All vile, all belonging in cages.”
He stood, a looming presence in the small space, and slowly approached the cage where I couldn’t help but recoil in fear of anyone that came near me. My muscles trembled and ached from my hovered form, and I scrambled backward against the metal frame, the cage barely big enough to hold a medium size dog, let alone a human.
With deliberate and unhurried movements, he reached into the cage, his fingers like cold steel as he gripped my chin, forcing my gaze up to meet his. His eyes, two pools of darkness, seemed to swallow me whole.
"You will dance," he seethed, his voice a sinister whisper that echoed in the dimly lit confines of the office, "you will sing, and you will shift on command. And you willfuckanything and everything that walks through those doors and desires you. Do you understand?"
I couldn’t do anything but tremble, but I managed to nod, my compliance born of a terror that threatened to consume me.
"Your life," he continued, his grip on my chin unyielding, "belongs to me now. Lucifer's Embrace will cradle you in its bosom and offer you protection. But if you disobey me, in any way, I will destroy you, not before sending for your mother and making sure you’re a witness to her destruction first.
Once again, I nodded, the weight of his words sinking deep into my mind. In those chilling moments, I knew without a doubt that he meant every word, and I was bound to a dark fate from which there was no escape.
Nobody really knows where our curse came from, but it's been a part of my family for centuries. It turns the women in our family into nighttime messengers with wings. It's something we keep secret and only talk about quietly when we’re alone. The initial transformation happens at the turn of your period. As soon as the first drop of blood falls, we shift. It never gets any easier. It’s shocking and violent and it makes us sick at first. Eventually we learn to control. My mother was good at that, and she taught me everything she knew.
“It’s not the feathers that give you power, Raven. It’s your voice.”
Ravens are known to mimic, but my mother and I held power in the melodies we formed. She never quite taught me everything she knew, but she did teach me to sing, and that’s been the only thing that’s helped me to survive. The gypsy knew nothing, he only knew he’d trapped a pair of raven shifters, but he enjoyed torturing my sweet mother. It pained me to see her hurting. Maybe it would be best if I was gone, I could keep her safe as long as I did what was asked of me.
3
SPECTRE
"Hey Charlie!"
"Well if it ain't the ghost of Christmas past."
I grunted in retort. The man behind the counter just stared at me from beneath his faded truck hat while chewing the tobacco he had built up in his cheek.
