Chapter 6
Vie
Despite my deep sense of shame, I stayed with Willow until she was home and locked inside her shabby apartment. The moment I was sure she was safe, I floated up and hovered high in the sky over her building.
I debated what to do next.
Kissing her had been intoxicating. Then she’d put her mouth on me, and everything had happened without my conscious thought. I wanted to apologize to Willow for having such poor control over my body, but I hadn’t even realized I was capable of that!
I needed to talk to someone about this. The only brother I thought could help me was Sorrow.
It didn’t take me long to move in my mist form to Sorrow’s building.
As usual, he was in his office. He sensed me the moment I entered through a vent in the wall.
There was a man and woman sitting on a couch opposite him, clutching each other’s hands.
Both of them looked haggard, as if neither were getting enough sleep.
They weren’t crying at the moment, but it was clear they’d been weeping earlier.
“I think this is a good place to stop for today,” Sorrow said, his voice the perfect calm he’d practiced for centuries.
“Yes,” the woman said, nodding her head. Her long braids escaped the loose knot she’d tied them in to flow around her shoulders. “Thank you, Teo. Talking to you has really helped.”
Her husband let go of her hands so he could rub her back. “I don’t know what we would’ve done without these sessions.”
“The death of a child isn’t something any parent should go through,” Sorrow said. “I want you both to realize that most marriages don’t survive this kind of trauma. You’re both amazing individuals working hard to be there for each other. Your daughter would be proud.”
The wife’s eyes teared up, but she smiled at the same time. “Yes, that’s nice to think about.”
Everyone stood up and the husband and Sorrow shook hands.
The wife ignored Sorrow’s outstretched hand and hugged him.
The couple's dark skin was a sharp contrast to my brother’s paleness.
Despite their exhausted appearance, they both looked healthier than Sorrow.
We wraiths might have muscular physiques, but we looked like we were dying of tuberculosis.
It was one of the reasons I always wore my hood up. I hated being asked if I was sick or had albinism. Why was it anyone’s business but my own? I hated how nosy some humans could be. Those humans were so determined to pester me that they were able to ignore the discomfort I caused them.
Sorrow was my opposite. People were drawn to him, and he enjoyed their company and didn’t mind their questions.
He’d been created some time in the 1600s.
It was hard to trace where some wraiths came from, but we thought Sorrow might’ve been the result of the slave trade.
He fed off depression and sadness. He drew it from humans and helped them cope with whatever caused the issue.
He’d told me once that the despair of people who’d lost someone close to them was the most nutritious to him.
Before he’d gone to school to become a licensed therapist, he’d been a priest, counseling anyone who sought him out. This shift in career suited him.
Out of all the wraiths, he was the most approachable and understanding, which was why I sought him out.
“We’ll see you next week, right?” the husband asked.
Sorrow nodded his head. “I’ll schedule for the same day and time. Remember the exercises if either of you start to feel overwhelmed. Most importantly, practice grace with each other.”
They chatted for a few minutes before Sorrow gently moved them out of the office. There was no one else in the room beyond. They were probably his last clients for the day.
Once they were gone, he shut the door and turned to me with a frown.
“Vie, get a fucking cell phone and call instead of showing up while I’m in session! An old-fashioned landline doesn’t count as a phone anymore.”
The words in session were shouted. He tended to be the calmest of all my brothers, so this outburst was a surprise. It was an indicator that he was truly upset at my arrival. Normally I’d simply leave and not seek him out for another ten years, but my need was urgent.
I shifted into my corporeal form. “I have to speak to you.”
His expression shifted from rage to confusion. “You need to speak to me? About what?”
“Something’s happened,” I said, unsure where to start.
“Has another wraith appeared?” he asked. It was a good guess. We weren’t born often and when one of us appeared, it was important we found him and taught him how to exist in the human world. Especially now that almost everyone carried around phones with cameras and access to social media.
“Not that I know of,” I answered. “It’s about me. I’ve met someone.”
He stared at me, confused. “You met someone?”
I nodded. “Her name is Willow, and she’s perfect.”
“A human?”
“A human, yes. She was about to be attacked by some men, and I ate them in front of her. She smells good! Not like humans normally smell good to me because they're evil. I don’t want to consume her, I want to…” I searched for the right word.
“I want to know her in every way possible. But now I have a problem. What if I’ve lost her forever? ”
Sorrow was staring at me with an open mouth. He was like Pain, rarely at a loss for words. His continued silence was annoying.
“Say something!” I demanded.
Sorrow collapsed into his therapist’s chair and kept staring at me. “You’re in love with a human?”
I scoffed. “Love. That word isn’t enough.
Humans fall in and out of love all the time.
They declare their love for all kinds of things that aren’t even alive, like gold or money.
Love doesn’t begin to describe what I feel for Willow.
She is my everything, and I’d be with her right now if I hadn’t ruined it! ”
“You should write for TV,” Sorrow said, relaxing back in his chair. “All this drama is wasted on me.”
I paced in front of him, unable to remain still. “This isn’t funny.”
“Not for you, but it’s amusing from where I’m sitting,” Sorrow retorted. “Start from where you met her and tell me everything.”
The words flowed from me as I described seeing her trying to lock her shop door.
I skipped over eating the men, Sorrow was well aware of how I fed.
I took my time to give every detail of kneeling on the other side of the door.
Handing her my hoodie. Her dark eyes watching me.
I did my best to describe how all her different emotions smelled.
Sorrow listened to every word, watching me closely. He didn’t make a sound until I got to what had happened before I’d come to him.
“You orgasmed?” he burst out, standing up and grabbing me by the shoulders. “You felt human pleasure?”
“Yes, but didn’t you hear what I said? I ruined everything!”
Sorrow laughed sharply in my face. “Don’t you understand what this means? We can feel! I want that!”
I knocked his hands away, my power flaring. “Willow is mine! Don’t you dare go near her!”
Sorrow rolled his eyes. “I don’t want Willow. I want a human of my own. I want to feed off pleasure instead of other people’s despair. I can feel it, you’re satiated. It’s as if you’d feasted on a dozen men. I want that!”
“That’s the problem though,” I said, dropping my face into my hands. “I lost control.”
“Like a human teenager,” Sorrow said with a chuckle.
I groaned. “Help me! What should I do? I can’t lose Willow.”
“I’ll help you, but I want something in exchange.”
I looked up. “What?”
“I want to meet Willow.” He held up a hand before I could protest. “Not to try to take her away from you. I want to feel her. There might be someone out there like her for me. I want that.”
“You can’t touch her.”
“I get to shake her hand,” he countered. “And talk to her for several minutes.”
I considered his request. Wraiths couldn’t lie to each other.
While we were here, it was easy for him to agree that he wouldn’t try to take her away from me and believe it.
Once he met her, he might be overwhelmed and attempt to draw her to him.
He was better at talking and interacting with humans than I was.
It was a risk to let him near her.
Did I trust Sorrow? Out of all my brothers, I only trusted Pain more, but that was because I’d known him longer. I decided the risk was worth Sorrow’s insight and help.
“Fine, you can meet her and shake her hand,” I agreed. “But you have to help me first.”
Sorrow’s smile showed all his teeth and made his amber eyes glow a little. “Follow me. I know the perfect place to go.”
I didn’t expect to follow Sorrow’s mist to a mostly empty strip mall in the southern area of the county. We took solid form at the far end of the parking lot. After misting and traveling such a distance, my pants were dry, and my skin was clean again.
“This way,” he said, striding through the parking lot to a store with darkened windows. The red neon sign read Pleasure Palace.
“Your answer to my need is to take me to a sex shop?” I hissed, grabbing Sorrow’s arm before he could step inside.
“This isn’t simply a sex shop,” Sorrow said, pulling his arm free of my grip. “This is where Inola works.” He moved inside, and I followed.
“Inola?”
“Teo!” a tall, auburn-haired woman called out from behind a counter. “Nice to see you!”
“It’s good to see you also,” Sorrow said, opening his arms to let the woman rush at him. She was tall and muscled. She nearly lifted him up when she hugged him. When they finished hugging, she looked at me curiously. “Is this your brother?”
“Yes,” Sorrow said with a warning look at me. “This is Vie. He needs your expertise.”
Inola turned to me with a broad smile. “Nice to meet you Vie. How can I help you please your partner?”
I felt my eyes go wide. I wasn’t prepared for that question. “Uh, I, uh.”
Inola burst out laughing. “Oh honey, you really need me! Let’s start easy. Is your partner male, female, intersex, they, them, furry, or what?”