by Stef Nuñez
Noa ran a tired hand through her long mane of curly, dyed-too-bright maroon, hair and exhaled a heavy plume of smoke from her mouth. The club she was haunting had let out for the night, and she was standing across the street, watching the inebriated patrons make their sloppy ways home. One of her foster mothers had always gotten off by saying that nothing good ever happens after midnight.
Noa grunted at the unwelcome memory of Beth — her 2nd or 3rd foster mother — it was sometimes difficult to keep track of them all. The government referred to them as gracious for taking in a scrawny kid with a bad attitude, but according to Noa they could take ‘gracious’ and stick it where the sun didn’t shine.
Just then, a memory tried to claw its way out of the darkness of her mind where she kept everything unpleasant. A memory from when she was a teenager. Hot hands gripping the skin on her thighs; a crowd of strange looking people surrounding her, closing in; a deep, and haunting voice that dripped sweet honey into her soul. The bad thing.
Noa exhaled sharply through her nose and forced those memories back into the secret spaces of her mind. Instinctively, she fingered the little inked symbol on her wrist. It was a protection ward she had gotten as a teen, around the time the bad thing stopped.
She had just raised a tiny blunt and took another deep drag, relishing the burn, when she spotted trouble on wheels. Big, shiny Harley’s wheels, to be specific. The bike’s owner was wearing big black boots with spikes on them over tight leather pants. As her eyes traveled upwards, she was liking the view more and more, that is, until she got to his face. The lips were thin, set into a smirk and the teeth behind them were slightly crooked. The eyes that lit up that face were devastatingly magnetic — one was baby blue and the other was hazel, both rimmed in heavy black eyeliner. There was something else in those eyes, sparkling behind those mismatched irises that spoke of old danger, unearthly confidence and even a little… familiarity.
Noa dropped the ghost of her cigar and kissed it into the ground with the heel of her boot. She raised her now free hand to the back of her neck where the hairs were standing on end. Assuming that this person had to be a past blackout hookup, Noa pulled her jacket close around her and headed in the opposite direction. She wasn’t the type of girl who played in the same pool more than once.
Back in her tiny apartment, Noa had drawn a flowery bubble bath and was soaking to try and wash away the grime of the day. With her eyes closed, she rested the back of her head on the edge of the old, claw-footed tub she kind of liked. Across the bathroom, her iPod dock sat on a small shelf, crooning a 90s grunge rock hit. Noa felt all the tension she’d been holding in her muscles release at once.
There were herbs in her bath. The kind she used when she was in almost desperate need of a good sleep, a borderline coma. Valerian, Lavender, Chamomile and Rose petals floated dreamily around the curves of Noa’s body. She felt her eyelids grow heavy, heavier, closed.
The iPod crackled with white noise, and Noa’s eyes snapped open. A soft chuckle could be heard just behind the static. The water didn’t feel hot anymore, there was ice in Noa’s veins. The laughter grew louder and was now a harsh, angry sound.
Her wide eyes were on the open door and as she watched, long, slender fingers curled around door frame. A pair of luminescent eyes blinked back at her from the darkness beyond the bathroom.
Noa scrambled out of the tub, huddling soaking wet and shaking in the corner. This was everything she had ever run from, here now in the flesh. There was nowhere she could run.
The pale hand withdrew and in walked that mysterious motorcycle rider from outside of the club. Familiarity struck Noa again like a knife to the chest, and the memory came back with much more clarity. She was lost in it, drowning helplessly on her bathroom floor.
Surrounded by strangers in masks, a much younger Noa was on her knees with her hands tied behind her back. Before her stood a tall, devastatingly handsome man. His teeth were slightly crooked, and one of his eyes was baby blue… the other hazel.
“Who am I?” He asked her, his voice deep and silky.
“The Erlking,” answered Noa. Her lower lip trembled.
“Did you come with me willingly?”
“Yes, but-,” Noa protested before The Erlking cut her off.
“You called to me when you were at your loneliest. Very clearly, you said, ‘Someone please take me away from here,'” he said.
Noa’s shoulder’s slumped in defeat. “Yes, I came with you willingly.”
He brandished an ornate knife and smiled wildly. “Your body, your soul and your blood now belong to me.”
Cries of surprise rang out behind her, and Noa felt hands grab the rope binding hers roughly. Then all at once the ropes were gone. She smelled cloves and a girl’s voice in her ear said, “Run, Noa.”
“Yamiyah, what the hell are you doing?” The Erlking growled at his daughter. But Noa had run.
She came slowly out of the memory and blinked hard at the figure standing by her sink, looking at her anxiously. The person every reflex in her body had told her was the Erlking, but was really —
“Yamiyah?” whispered Noa, reaching out her hand.
Yamiyah came to her and held her face gently in her hands.
“The Erlking is dead, and I’ve come to take you home with me. You don’t have to run anymore.”
Stef Nunez is the editor-in-chief of Sage Cigarettes Magazine.
