The Company of Shadows



  The Company of Shadows

  By Lisa Olsen

  Copyright 2013 by Lisa Olsen

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my editing team, Beckie Pimentel (Lady Bex!), Marilyn Weaver, and my James for helping me to sharpen my writing skills. Randi Pandi (who read the first draft in one night!), thanks for reassuring me that it’s okay to go a little darker sometimes.

  Chapter One

  Need.

  Not wants or desires, but need drove Asherik to seek the company of shadows. The sunlight didn't pain him in a physical sense, but he preferred the darkness. All manner of interesting things grew bolder under the cover of night, all driven by need. Street toughs openly flashed makeshift weapons, demanding tribute of those stupid enough to look prosperous on the seamy streets of San Francisco. Junkies smashed car windows, searching for anything portable worth a few dollars, desperate to slide oblivion into their veins. Women sold their bodies, some to chase that same oblivion, some to feed a deeper need. Scuttling vermin and insects; night was the perfect time to feed, and Ash felt a hunger that couldn’t be satisfied by tender bits of veal sautéed in an excellent Marsala.

  Though he enjoyed the comforts of excess (the elegant meal, black satin sheets, and panoramic views of the bay that stretched from every window of the modern house he’d appropriated), Ash preferred the seedy squalor of the Tenderloin district when it came time to satisfy his true hunger. There, among the dregs of human society, he felt a kinship. His sins were no worse than the sins of man. There were plenty who fed from terror, pain and lust. Tonight he was after something far more elusive – innocence.

  He could pluck a victim from the streets at any time for the taste of fear; it was corruption Ash sought. Corruption of innocence above all else, a feat made all that much more elusive for the hunting ground he chose. It would be nothing to lay in wait outside of a church or a library and find all manner of easy prey, but he wanted more. Nothing so simple as virginity, though that was a keen pleasure to be had, but an innocence of spirit was all the more satisfying to consume. Far tastier than the gobbets of quivering flesh he fed upon when the mood struck.

  Though he enjoyed the occasional grapple with men, Ash preferred the softness of women. There were women to be had on the streets, but their dead eyes offered him no joy. He wanted to hunt. He wanted the thrill of discovery.

  And so he’d dressed himself in an elegant suit of virgin wool, soft against the skin and pleasing to the eye. Black on black, open at the throat, with a shock of scarlet peeping out of the breast coat pocket. Perhaps a bit warm, given the muggy night, but Ash didn’t mind the heat. He enjoyed a good sweat.

  He pushed the silver coupe he’d appropriated through the squalid streets with a squeal of tires, daring a policeman to stop him. There were none in sight, having abandoned that part of the city for the night unless called. Parking a short distance away from his chosen destination, he didn’t bother to lock the car, preferring to make it easier on thieves. It made no difference to him if the car was there on his return, and after a brief consideration, left the keys in the car; a lucky find for a comrade.

  The neon and pumping music called him to his purpose. Inferno – the club brought him everything his delicate palate could desire. Here, women were used in the dirty bathrooms and no one looked twice. One could obtain all manner of mood altering drugs through sale or trade. Sometimes Ash chose to indulge. Turn on, tune in, drop out… the concept hadn’t changed much since the sixties, and there was a draw to that kind of nothingness.

  If he was in the mood for a quick fuck, there were women who required less than a crook of his finger to follow him wherever he led. The body he’d chosen was well formed and desired by women. Dark, smoldering eyes that promised a garden of delights, strong jaw covered in a rasp of stubble, designed to raise a flush of tender pink on delicate flesh. Lips full and constantly quirked in a half smile that implied he knew secrets. Secrets he might share with the right woman.

  That was all that mattered, be the woman pretty or plain. Make a woman feel special and she became yours, body and soul. Sometimes Ash allowed himself to become lost in the pursuit of debauchery alone. To bury himself in soft, slick heat, chasing pleasure until the dawn. He left those women with nothing more than a satisfied soreness and a love bite or two.

  But always the need returned.

  Need drove him to push past the crowd, plucking a full glass from an unguarded table (it mattered little what it held), settling on a white vinyl couch in the rear of the club to watch. Ash liked to watch. He liked it very much.

  There was an air of indifference to the swaying throng; an almost tangible apathy, as though none of them expected to live to see the dawn. Peppered among them, like writhing tongues of flame burning brightly in the gloom, were those who were in over their heads. It was there that he hoped to find the flash of innocence he sought.

  It was there that he spotted her. Long, raven hair spilling down her back, beckoning to him, begging him to wrap its length around his fist and pull her close. But he would watch and wait. The night was still young and he enjoyed the pleasure of allowing the need to build.

  For now.