Chapter 7

Kiran

She remembered. It was like a weight had lifted off of me.

“You’re Kiran.”

I smiled, but something in my gut stuck.

“Oh my god!” She looked me up and down. “You’re so different now!”

“Didn’t I just say that?” I said still working off the sniffles.

“Holy shit. How does it feel? I would be terrified!”

“My body?”

"Um…" I took stock of how I felt being in such a different form. After everything that had happened with first Matt and then Meg, my murder, and my occasional demonic accessories, I had totally dissociated away any feelings toward my body. Even thinking about getting out of the shower felt like ages ago. I was likely still dissociating, but as I adjusted my posture a bit, I felt as normal as I ever had before.

“It’s a body.”

“But you’re like, not freaked to be a girl?”

“...No?”

Right? That was weird. Why wasn’t I freaked out?

Boobs… were nice. A bit more of a butt… was comfy. My face… when not a disheveled mess, was pretty.

To be honest, of all the occult and macabre things that had happened to me, being this girl was more fascinating than it was scary.

This was of course, not including the horns and wings.

“I dunno, I've had a lot happen. I kinda stopped thinking about it.”

“Sorry, yeah. I guess there’s a lot going on for you. I can pull out, like, vague strands. It all feels like a dream. It's so far away.”

“That’s what it feels like for me too, kind of. I can remember everything that happened before this weekend, all as Kiran, perfectly fine. But the party is in a lot of bits and pieces. Definitely, like a dream I’m struggling to pull back.”

“Your murder. Do you remember who… you know?”

“It was so dark. I don’t really know. They whispered in my ear though, before it happened. So it must have been a guy.”

“One of the guys in our group?”

“Uh…” I didn’t say it, or even nod my head but the implication was there when I didn’t deny it.

“Holy shit! You think one of our friends murdered you!?”

“Shh!” They lived just inside the building.

“Right!” Audry said in a strong whisper, “Sorry…”

“I, uh, don’t know if you’re gonna wanna hear this but…”

“What?” I could see her clenching her teeth. I figured she knew where I was going.

“I think Jack had something to do with it.”

She froze for just a second before she showed her shock. Guess I took her by surprise after all.

“Oh…” She looked down at the floor for a moment before looking back up at me. She looked suddenly nervous, even above the shock. “I guess there’s something I need to tell you. Jack and I… broke up.”

“What!?”

“Shh!” This time she was the one to quiet me.

“When!? How? Are you okay?”

“It’s fine. It happened during your little blackout. I was gonna tell you when you woke up, but you were freaking out. So I waited and there was never a good time.”

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry.”

“Well, I’m glad I did it if it turns out that he fucking murdered you.”

We sat there in silence for a moment.

Murders, demons, and a comatose triste were likely what should have been occupying my thoughts. I should have felt guilty or slighted or something other than excitement.

Audry was single for the first time since the beginning of freshman year. Holy shit.

I'd had a huge crush on her since, like, forever. We were so similar. I felt like we were constantly talking about stuff way deeper than we did with anyone else. But she had been in a relationship and it was not my place to say anything about my feelings to her. At best it would have been awkward and at worst I would have lost her entirely as a friend. I was comfortable with how things were. It’s more than okay to be friend-zoned if that's how things shake out.

But now that she was single…

Her eyes always looked big and cute behind her glasses.

Audry froze and her expression changed. All the stiffness and worry from talking about her breakup and the murder disappeared. It was like she was lost in thought looking at me.

“Kira, I…”

She kept looking at me. For a moment her vision flickered down to my lips and then back up to my eyes.

Fuck, I’d wanted to kiss her for so long.

She kept moving closer to me. I leaned up against the door of my car.

“I love you.” Something inside of me pushed me to say it.

For a split second, her eyes got big. Maybe it was in surprise, but it looked almost sadder than that. But the look was quickly washed away by an expression of resolve as she leaned forward to kiss me.

It was delicate but full of feeling. It was like the music was swelling as the two leads kissed. My hands on her face, trying to soak in as much feeling from this moment as I could. We parted slowly and it was apparent that neither of us quite wanted it to end. The honey-like warmth returned, and with it, flashbacks to Meg’s lips on mine and then her body undead on the floor. Flipping her over. Violently trying to shake her out of a coma. If I loved Audry, I couldn’t do that to her. And yet it took every bit of restraint in me not to continue.

As I pulled away she opened her eyes and looked a little blank. It was the third time I'd seen that look. Fuck! I’d already started killing her.

“Hey?” I touched her arm lightly, afraid of having to shake life back into her.

“Yeah?” She asked, appearing to snap out of whatever thought she’d been lost in.

“I thought maybe I’d… done it again. Like I did with Meg.”

Her eyes went big as the revelation dawned on her. But then she surprised me.

“It’s true…” She was looking above me. Possibly behind me?

“Huh? What's ture?”

Oh.

My hands went to my head. I couldn’t feel anything.

“Look.” She pointed to my reflection in the car door.

Ethereal translucent horns had appeared on my head. They were identical in size and shape to last night, but like they hadn’t quite cemented into reality.

I squeaked, and immediately put my hand over my mouth.

“I…” I started to squirm away from her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“No!” She whisper-shouted. “It's…” She was thinking through something. “It’s okay. I love you too.”

I stopped.

“What?”

“I—”

“You’re just out of a long-term relationship. I did something to you. You’re not thinking straight.”

"No. I…" She cocked her head to the side, still slightly lost in the fog I'd brought over her. "Why didn’t you ever tell me?"

I was shocked to my core. Of all the insane things that had happened, this was genuinely topping the list of the most surprising.

“Because,” the tears were back, “You were with Jack and I didn’t want to mess that up and…”

She reached out and took my hands in hers.

“If I knew… I wouldn’t have wasted a second.”

The tension that had been building in my body released in a microsecond.

I lept toward her, wrapping my arms around her neck in a tight embrace.

“You idiot,” she said as it sounded like she started to tear up. “I’ll always love you.”

“What does this mean? For us?”

She coughed up a laugh congested with the aftermath of her tears. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.”

We held each other on the ground for a little bit before she stood and offered me a hand.

“Come on. I don’t think this is the best place to be right now.”

I laughed nervously, “No kidding.”

I handed her my keys as she got into the driver's seat and we started driving.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere not here.”

“I’m in.”

Audry interlaced her fingers with mine as we got onto the highway. For the first time in a long time, I was starting to feel okay.

Brianna

For the first time in a long time, I was starting to feel uneasy.

I saw that girl, Kiran, transform firsthand. Horns and while the human couldn’t seem to notice it, the faintest echoing of wings manifested like a hologram.

It wasn’t the "blink and it's there" way that thralls could be transformed. What I witnessed was a slow and specific materialization that I could watch happen.

It was like nothing I’d ever known could exist. For perhaps the first time in two years I was scared to discover that there were other types of inhuman beings.

And she was… like me, I thought.

The whole "put in a new body and different gender with little-to-no consent" really struck a chord.

Fuck!

How could I feel so powerful and have such knowledge of the inhuman... and yet be so blindsided!?

The feeling of helplessness latched into me. I was supposed to be past this. There wasn't supposed to be anything else. I couldn't handle another—

Crack!

Uh oh.

I looked over to see a fissure double my height where I had slammed my fist into the nearest tree.

“Shit. And now I broke a tree.”

I needed more information, desperately. I slunk back to the site of Kiran's death, looking for clues now that I had context.

Her smell was certainly present. I took it in, looking for that other scent.  Knowing that she had a different body before her transformation explained one of the other smells. The lingering hint of life I smelled on her person confirmed again that she wasn’t a vampire, or at least not a full one. I took another inhale. The rancid-sweet scent of blood had been treated with something. There was a subtle heavy odor mixed in. The disturbance evident on the ground indicated that in addition to the bloodletting and fire, there were other elements of a ritual. Whatever extra scent I was picking up must have been a part of it.

I hated the implications of my discoveries. Humans had turned her into this, without a vampire present. That was disturbing. But of all the extra elements present, it was unclear what was necessary and what had been thrown in possibly for aesthetic or arbitrary reasons.

Kiran and the girl she was with were nearly a mile away. I could smell them driving, but I was otherwise occupied. Whoever had done this to Kiran must still have been here. I tried to take in as much of the scent from the woods as I could. I wanted to be able to in a blink determine whether I’d found the perpetrator.

I hiked out of the woods and started walking in the alley behind the apartments, sniffing out each one.

The amount of concentrated dog smell back there was making it difficult to discern the subtler ingredients used in the murderous ritual.

From what I could tell, the highest intensity was coming from the area that I assumed was the other girl’s apartment. I dug my nails into my hand, angry that this wasn’t clear cut. Whoever did this was still out here, but I was getting closer. And I wasn’t going to leave until I found them and made them pay.