~2~

The night was bright green. Or, at least it seemed that way as Edward lay on his belly and concentrated all his attention through his nightscope.

He had a clear view of the woods and meadow below aided only by the heavy moonlight that made everything a cloudy jade.

A number of strange figures moved about that circle of space and Edward could hear Harley counting the monsters off to himself as he lay beside him looking through his own scope.

“… thirteen…fourteen…fifteen…”

Edward coolly phased the whispers out. Two glittering shadows had moved into the clearing and monopolized his concentration – one tall, golden and naked. The other, small dark –

Anita.

And then she let the long black coat fall from her body and she glowed. All that pale, exposed skin shimmered and glowed, out-shining the other woman completely. There was something different about her that hadn’t been there a few hours ago at the Circus. He chuckled nervously

Anita moved toward the naked woman, her hands touching her own body and kneading her milky white skin. Edward found he couldn’t take the bead off of her. She was caught in the crosshairs, and the laws of attraction were bending to her will. It wasn’t just an inner strength. It was…

Power. Yes. And one seemingly not entirely her own. That //had// to explain what he was feeling now. His stomach coiled with it. Rivets of cold fire pulsed along the veins in his shoulders, neck and arms as they supported him rigidly to the earth floor.

Was this really his Anita? All he could do was keep himself alert and watch as the naked figure stepped back in fear, conquered, and Anita let the energy she’d been holding fly, washing everyone around her with the stench of sex and blood, missing no one and attracting everyone watching.

Edward was no exception. Hell, she could always manage to surprise him. But shock him – very rarely. He was too unsettled by the rush of false feelings to find it amusing. He prided himself on his own stark cold humanity and how his skin and bones weren’t sensitive to things like aura and magic. He wasn’t stupid enough to deny it existed, just lucky enough to be unaffected – except in really unusual cases.

He was surprised that Anita was one of those exceptions.

Edward tossed it off as best he could, grounding himself with the earth around him, but his finger itched on the trigger as he watched her sway over to Richard. The kiss was violent and brief as if she were making a statement; passionate and selfish at the same time. Edward’s lips felt momentarily bruised just watching it, as if it had been him standing down there before her, hard and ready.

The large head of a wolf – whom he immediately recognized as the young Jason – moved up to nuzzle Anita’s naked thigh affectionately. She reached out a hand, and the nightscope traced its movements, as if on it’s own accord, ever so slowly. He was forced to watch as her slender fingers dove into thick, downy fur, achingly stroking over canine muscle.

Edward jerked involuntarily as a series of old memories crashed into him.  They were slightly ludicrous images, as if they had been cut up and pasted back together by an insane taxidermist. He loathed the loss of control, knowing that something external was fucking with him. His jaw clenched so hard that he tasted bile in the back of his throat and solemnly realized that his always-accessible Off Switch had just been pushed out of reach…

~ ~ ~

They always seemed to be in the bathroom of her apartment when they were physically close. Not a particularly erotic location, but, then, neither were the encounters at the time. Now the images were enhanced as if he were looking through bleached crystal.

Her hands were on him, splayed on his chest, keeping him steady. The pain of holy water – the same that they used to cure each other with – was now the pain of unrealized attraction, like some sort of feral desire eating away through his skin as she touched him – just as the holy water liked to burn him inside and out. It was only in that moment of painful clarity that he could see it.

This was glamour and falsehoods.

As he told himself this, suddenly the roles reversed themselves. His hands were now on her bare skin as he bandaged her wounds, cradling her. He felt the velvet of her nakedness at his fingertips even as he felt the heaviness of the rifle in his grip in real-time.  The images began to fly so fast, happening in mere, bright milliseconds, that they were simply a blur of hands and skin. Of fallen, bloody clothing and clean white tile. And the sweet spicy scent of her dishelved hair. All buried in past moments – all  previously meaningless impressions – deep in his psyche.

And what of the truth of it?

Their confidence in one another was unequaled; their offered help an unspoken and open invitation when they needed it the most. The usual distance of The Job or duty would be cast aside. Otherwise, they would never dare to creep so close to one another, violating the others sense of space, or breaking a secret code that killers often kept shrouded around them.

And yet now here she was, touching him through that thick veil, violating him without knowing she was even doing it, even with the great distance of the meadow full of monsters and night looming between them.

~ ~ ~

There was a sudden movement to the left and Edward tore himself from the sight of Anita’s hands, which were now on her Browning. The aura that he earlier perceived around her was fading fast as reality set in. Only seconds had passed and he immediately took a bead on Marcus, the werewolf pack’s reigning alpha, who didn’t look to be reigning much longer.

Edwards’s blood coursed hard with relief as he found himself watching the heart of the bloodletting, the distraction forgotten. God, how he’d love to put a bullet through that monster’s head and watch it explode on his shoulders if only to rid the rest of the night of Anita’s would-be killer.

Fuck werewolf politics. If he got a chance, he’d take it. In a heartbeat.

But no sooner had Richard emerged victorious, was Anita at his side.

“Edward?”

Harley was restless, but Edward need not look away from his scope to see that his backup was acquiring a nervous trigger finger.

“Easy,” he whispered, not just to the man beside him, but to the woman he refused to look away from as well. “Easy.”

And then, silently, to himself: //Leave, Anita. Now.//

But his willpower fell futile and he was immediately confronted with the sight of her trapped under the shifter’s rapidly changing form. Anger threatened to take over, and he cursed her stupidity.

Even from the hilltop he could hear her screaming.

The shifter – Edward could no longer think of it as Richard – stood before her in it’s large humanoid animal form, it’s outreached paw open to her in invitation as the other wolves crowded around to feast on the kill.

“Prove me wrong, Anita. Get out,” he caught himself whispering over the rifle, still held steady.  The bright green of the nightscope glowed with a false envy as he saw her hesitating – actually hesitating! – as she looked up at her lover. It was false because he certainly did not envy Richard this curse of power – he was disgusted with it – but for Anita.

This wasn’t an epiphany of lust. But lately, she had this horrible habit of refusing to see Richard or the bloodsucker for what they really were. Yet, she could turn to him in the same breath and see a monster. She may not say the words, but he could see it in her eyes.

He tried not to take it personally.

Especially not now that she was backing away from the creature before her. He found himself smiling coldly. He kept her in his sights as she backed out of the woods, and every step she made renewed his faith in her common sense. Maybe now she’d see the real truth.

After all, they were the same, he and Anita. And killer’s shouldn’t be prone to such fantasy.

~ ~ ~