Covet (Fallen Angels 1)

She had such lovely eyes.

Marie-Terese of the lovely French name had absolutely lovely eyes. And she was gentle with her hands, carefully cleaning him up with that warm washcloth as if his nicks and scratches were something important.

Shit, he wanted to get into another fight just so she could nurse him again. "You should probably go to the doctor," she said, patting the little towel across his cracked knuckles.

Absently, he noted that the terry cloth had started off white but now was pink from his blood, and he was glad that she'd put on the latex - not because he was HIV positive, but because he hoped the gesture generalized and meant she protected herself in what she did for a living.

He'd hoped all she did was dance. He really had.

She rinsed out the washcloth. "I said, you should see your doctor."

"I'll be fine." But would she? What would have happened if he and Jim hadn't come along?

God, there were so many questions he had all of a sudden. He wanted to know why someone like her was in this line of work. He wanted to know what harshness had brought her to the place she was at. He wanted to know...what he could do to help, not just tonight, but tomorrow and the day after that.

Except none of that was any of his business. More to the point, he had a feeling that if he pressed her for details, she would close up on him.

"Can I ask you something?" he said, because he couldn't help it.

She paused with the cloth. "Okay."

He knew he shouldn't do what he was about to, but he could not fight the overwhelming draw of her. It had nothing to do with his mind and everything to do with his...okay, heart was too stinkin' melodramatic. But whatever was driving him came from the center of his chest.

So fine, maybe his sternum was really into her.

"Will you have dinner with me?"

The door to the locker room swung wide, and the flame-haired prostitute who'd triggered Devina's exit strode in.

"Oh! Excuse me...I didn't know anyone was in here." As she stared at Vin, her bright red lips widened into a false smile that suggested she'd known exactly who was in the locker room.

Marie-Terese moved away from him, taking her warm cloth and her bowl of water and her soft hands with her. "We were just leaving, Gina."

Vin took the cue and stood up. As he cursed the redhead's interruption, he caught an eyeball full of all the makeup on the counter and reminded himself that she had more of a right to be here than he did.

Marie-Terese went into the bathroom, and he imagined her cleaning out the bowl and rinsing the washcloth off, then snapping free the gloves. She was going to come out of there and he was going to say good-bye and...she was going to take off that fleece and go back into the crowd.

Staring at the door she'd gone through, while the prostitute next to him chattered away, the strangest feeling came over Vin. It was like a fog had gathered on the floor and sent tendrils up his legs and over his chest and all the way to his brain. He was suddenly hot on the outside and cold on the inside...

Shit, he knew what this was. He knew exactly what was happening. It had been years, but he knew where this constellation of sensation went.

Vin grabbed onto the stool and let his ass fall back upon it. Breathe. Just breathe, you big dumb bastard. Breathe...

"So I saw your girlfriend left," the redhead was saying as she sidled up to him. "You want some company?"

Hands with blood-colored nails as long as talons reached out and drifted up his stained lapel. He brushed her off him with a sloppy palm. "Stop it..."

"You sure?"

Oh, God, he was even hotter on the outside, even colder on the inside. He had to stop this...because he didn't want to know the message that was coming to him. He didn't want the vision, the communication, the look-see into the future, but he was the telegraph who was powerless to deny receipt of the letters sent to him.

First the man in the elevator, then the two outside...now this.

He'd exorcised the dark side from himself years ago. Why was it back now?

The redhead rubbed herself against his arm and leaned into his ear. "Let me take care of you - "

"Gina, give it a rest, would you?"

Vin's eyes moved toward Marie-Terese's voice and he opened his mouth to try and speak. Nothing came out. Worse, as he stared at her, she became a vortex into which his sight was sucked, everything but her going blurry. He braced himself for what was coming next - and sure enough, the trembling started at his feet, just as the fog had, and moved up his body, taking over his knees and his stomach and his shoulders...

"Whatever, I don't need to beg," Gina said as she headed for the door. "Have fun with him - he looks too strung out to party anyway."

"Vin?" Marie-Terese came over. "Vin, can you hear me? Are you all right - "

The words bubbled up out of him, the voice not his own, the possession overcoming everything such that he knew not what he spoke because the message was not for him, but for the one he was addressing.

His ears heard only nonsense: "Theio th lskow...Theio th lskow..." She blanched and stepped back, hand lifting up to her throat.

"Who."

"Theio...th...lskow..."

Vin's voice was deep and dark and senseless to him, even as he tried to hear the syllables correctly, tried to unscramble in his head what he was telling her: This was the very worst part of his curse - he could do nothing to affect the future, because he didn't know what he foretold.

Marie-Terese backed away from him until she smacked against the door, her face pale and her eyes popping wide. With shaking hands, she fumbled to open the thing and then burst out of the locker room, desperate to get away from him.

Her absence was what brought Vin back to reality, snapping the hold that had been clamped onto him, breaking the strings that had turned him into the puppet of...he didn't know what. He'd never known what. From the very first time he'd been taken over, he'd been clueless as to what it was or what he spoke of or why, of all the people on the planet, it had to be him who chose to bear this terrible burden.

Good God, what was he going to do? He couldn't function in his business or his life with intrusions like this. And he didn't want to go back to his years as a young kid when people thought he was crazy.

Besides, this shouldn't be happening. He'd taken care of this.

Planting his palms onto his knees, his let his head sag on his shoulders, his breathing shallow, his locked elbows all that held him upright. That was how Jim found him.

"Vin? What's doing, big man? You got a concussion?"

If only that were the case. He'd so choose a brain hemorrhage over the speaking-in-tongues thing. Vin forced his eyes over to the other man. And because his mouth evidently wasn't through with its independent streak, he heard himself say, "Do you believe in demons, Jim?" The guy frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Demons..."

There was a long pause; then Jim said, "How 'bout we get you home? You don't look right."

Jim's pointed pass on the question was a reminder of the polite way people dealt with the freaky in life. There were a lot of other reactions, though, from Marie-Terese's taking off at a dead run to outright cruelty - which was what he'd gotten as a kid.

And Jim was right. Home was exactly where he needed to go, but damned if he didn't want to find Marie-Terese and tell her...what? That between the ages of eleven and seventeen he'd had these "spells" happen to him regularly? That they'd made him lose friends and gotten him labeled a freak and forced him to learn how to fight? That he was sorry she'd gotten scared twice tonight?

More to the point, that she needed to take whatever he'd spoken as the gospel truth and protect herself? Because he was never wrong. Fuck him to hell and back...but whatever he said always happened.

Which was how he knew it was never good news. Later, someone on the periphery, or maybe the person him- or herself, would tell him what he'd said and what it meant. God, how the aftermath of the truth had horrified him. When he'd been young and had scared easier, he would go to his bedroom and shut the door and huddle under the covers, a shaky mess.

Just like he saw dead people, he foretold the future. The bad, bloody, destructive kind.

So what kind of trouble was Marie-Terese in?

"Come on, Vin. Let's go."

Vin looked toward the locker room door. Probably the kindest thing he could do for the woman was leave quietly - all that explaining was only going to draw her in deeper and frighten her more. But that wasn't what was going to help her avoid whatever trouble was coming her way.