Chapter 2

Forty years later, less one week, Aurora sat alone in a small booth nursing a Diet Coke and lime, watching the revelling crowd dancing in abandon to the local cover band. Disco lights flooded the dance floor in a thousand multi-coloured flecks, reflecting off whirling dancers. The cover band, named after a Disney mutt, consisted of a young woman with a crystal clear voice who eschewed auto-tune, backed by three talented guys playing drums, guitar and bass. Complete with wide-brimmed hat and cloak in honour of the upcoming devil’s evening in exactly one week, the lead singer dressed as a stereotypical witch. The boys wore civvies.

As the lead singer transitioned smoothly to a slower ballad, a jock accompanied by his shorter wingman approached Aurora’s table. The jock was tall, sported bulging biceps, medium-length straight blonde hair and a chiselled face. Aurora sighed resignedly to herself. He’d certainly be attractive to most women, but Aurora simply wasn’t in the mood tonight for silly games.

He stopped at the base of the table, leaning down on the surface, both hands planted firmly. The table flexed with his weight.

“You know?” he announced confidently. “You look exactly like the next girl who is going to dance with me. After that, you look exactly like the next girl I take home to rock your world.”

Aurora looked up tiredly, her eyes flashing dangerously. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the bartender pause slinging drinks. Aurora liked the regular barkeep at The Portal; she sported a mane of crimson hair, a fit body, and possessed a talent for advice and listening. In this case, if sporty dude became a problem, the crimson-haired bartender would intervene faster than Aurora could blink.

Aurora had always been more than capable of taking care of herself.

She smiled sweetly.

“You know?” she replied evenly. “You look remarkably like the next dude I’m going to turn down in the next five seconds.”

Did pick-up lines like his ever work? Aurora supposed they must, especially for a pretty boy like this one. The irony? If he’d simply asked her to dance, forgoing the games, she might have agreed.

A flicker of anger twitched his tight lips. He straightened and stalked away without another word, his wingman trailing along dutifully behind him. The bartender relaxed and continued to pour JD into a shot glass. Aurora waved and flashed her a quick smile. The bartender merely nodded reassuringly.

From the safety of her small table, Aurora sipped her Diet Coke and lime, watching the ebb and flow of the ocean flooding the dance floor, pairs of whitecaps swaying to the music. The girl on stage caressed the microphone with her sultry voice.

Aurora didn’t regret declining Cheesy-line Guy, or even the few subsequent tipsy suitors who found more respectful opening gambits. Being truthful with herself, she wasn’t sitting at this tiny booth to find love or even a physical connection with someone else. Long ago, she had accepted that her nature, her secrets, even while she desperately denied both, would not allow her the comfort of a normal relationship, not even for a simple dance. Her DNA screamed at her; she screamed right back.

Nobody here knew her secrets, nor cared, except possibly the red-haired bartender. Aurora didn’t quite know what to expect from her; she seemed frighteningly wise beyond her years, somehow seeing beyond flashy exteriors deep into one’s soul. However, if the red-haired barkeep divined any of Aurora’s secrets, she was also extremely discreet. When Aurora needed a reminder of humanity, The Portal always welcomed her.

Privately, she envied the dancers, some openly groping, some lost in kisses, most simply enjoying an easy connection in a lonely world.

Amongst the dancers, Aurora spied Cheesy-line Dude swaying with a girl at least as tall as he. From the back, her long, straight, raven hair cascaded over her shoulder, reaching her waist, her body effortlessly matching the rhythm of the ballad. She wore a very short, very tight black mini, her legs encased in dark fishnets, expensive high heels gracing her feet. Even from the back, she appeared way out of his league, especially considering his boorish pick-up techniques. Aurora supposed the slightly misogynistic line might work for some women, but his raven-haired dance partner didn’t howl desperation. As Aurora watched the two rotate, the woman’s long fingers entwined over his broad shoulders. His hands slid from her waist to cup her sculpted rear, visibly squeezing. The woman made no visible attempt to curtail his brazen exploration.

Idly, Aurora wondered about the woman’s judgment regarding men.

After the slower ballad, the band segued into an eclectic mix of eighties, nineties, and dance music, the singer finding a groove of music keeping the dance floor full and energetic under the flashing lights. More guys approached her table; Aurora politely declined all subsequent offers to dance, and in some cases, blatant offers to fuck in the bathrooms. Most of the guys mildly amused her. The restroom wanna-fucks irritated her, but she refused to allow such crassness to ruin her solo evening. All in all, at least in regards to the ever-present horny guys, it was a typical evening.

Mostly, Aurora watched the crowd and sipped at her soda.

During one raucous dance number resurrected from the sixties, a raven-haired girl climbed up to a raised dais to the left of the stage with a glowing hula hoop languidly rotating about her wrist above her head. With a shimmy, the hoop descended to her waist and twirled to the beat of the music. The girl clearly possessed the innate rhythm of a dancer; her body moved sensually across the small platform. Envy crept into Aurora’s soul; Aurora had neither the rhythm to rotate a hula hoop about her waist nor the exhibitionism to dance on a platform in front of the crowd. Aurora’s were not the only eyes on the girl; it seemed most on the dance floor watched the girl as she whirled. Most of the women, like Aurora, appeared envious; most of the men stared in untamed lust. In the middle of the song, the girl’s eyes locked onto Aurora’s for a few seconds before she laughed and twirled away. For those few seconds, Aurora felt a supernatural shiver descend her spine; it was unclear if the sensation resulted from desire or fear. Either way, Aurora tingled at the brief connection.

Aurora was reasonably certain Dais Girl had previously danced with Cheesy-line Boor. Privately, Aurora again questioned the girl’s judgment, even if she clearly knew her way around a hula hoop.

After the girl descended from the platform to scattered applause, Aurora forgot about her.

Forgot about her, that is, until the chaos intervened later.

The Portal resided in a zone of the city renowned for its violence and criminality. Yet, this location where the nightclub operated never experienced the rampant crime of the regions present beyond the ethereal border surrounding the establishment. Aurora sometimes wondered why this enclave of relative peace existed here; as long as she didn’t stray far from the club, Aurora felt safe stretching her legs and breathing the chill night air away from the reckless dancers, intoxicated suitors and pounding bass lines. The thumping bass of the high energy music permeated even beyond the solid walls to tickle her ribcage. High heels clicked like a slow metronome against the concrete of the sidewalk, night breezes caressing her bare legs. The tranquil evening projected a misleading placidity as she walked, her thoughts wandering seamlessly between the pulsing dance floor participants and the intriguing hula hoop woman.

As Aurora approached the rear corner of The Portal on her second circuit of the building, a nearly inaudible moan reached her ears. It was the sort of guttural moan a man might utter when approaching orgasm, or it might be the sort of desolate moan a dying man breathed.

Tendrils of unease suffused Aurora as she stepped around the corner.

Behind The Portal, green dumpsters lined the alleyway. The alley was relatively tidy; any refuse constrained to the bins. While not overpowering, an undertone of decay settled behind the club, perhaps wafting from the emerald containers. A flickering light wanly illuminated a set of deserted metal stairs leading from a blue steel door emblazoned with a sign: The Portal, Employees Only. A black cat arched upon the nearest dumpster, its yellow irises glowing in the dim light. Deep shadow stretched across cracked, uneven asphalt.

The moan repeated, the source unclear and indistinct. Aurora guessed the voice originated from the far end of the alley, where shadows melted together impenetrably.

Hesitantly, Aurora stepped towards the shimmering stairs, her high heels echoing in the otherwise silent air. A low ground mist curled across the pavement. As she passed the metal stairs, the cat hissed, startling Aurora. Nearly inaudible sucking sounds floated through the air. The moan did not reappear.

The low bass from the band squeezed at her heart. Her heartbeat synchronized with the sound, pounding insistently in her ears.

Aurora halted only four steps beyond the base of the stairway, her legs suddenly unwilling to proceed. She raised her right hand, palm upward, fingers splayed. The orb had never appeared since she’d been four years old, a frightened toddler. Despite knowing exactly what she was, Aurora only possessed vague memories of the phenomenon, mostly a sense of warmth and comfort chasing daemons from her young mind. Her grandmother Celeste called it a manifestation, a word her four-year-old mind could not fully grasp. Even in the mists of time, Aurora had never mentioned the manifestation to anyone else, not even her parents.

Despite its long absence, the orb appeared now, aglow in its own luminescence, reflecting eerily from the mist caressing her ankles. Arcs of silent lightning flickered within the phantom manifestation resting in her palm, attuned to the heartbeat throbbing in her ears and the bass thumping in her ribcage. Ahead, the mists wavered, revealing a motionless man’s leather shoe attached to a muscular leg clothed in denim. The sucking sounds faded and Aurora sensed movement beyond the shield of the last dumpster, behind which the prone leg receded. The mist eddied over the shoe again, obscuring it from Aurora’s vision.

Before her wide eyes, an indistinct silhouette stepped from the shadows, undeniably female, a singular click of her heel audible against the uneven pavement.

A scream rose unbidden to Aurora’s throat as the woman stepped into the now pulsing light generated by the orb resting in her right hand. The mist parted briefly and the shoe resting against the ground twitched weakly before the mist again churned to veil it.

The woman from the dais, now separated from her hula hoop, smiled and licked her blood-stained lips, her tongue mesmerising. Her eyes glowed in the faint light, reminding Aurora of the ebony cat’s eyes. Aurora focused on the extended dangerous canine teeth kissing the woman’s lower lip; if the teeth were fake, they were remarkably realistic. Aurora guessed the girl’s age similar to her own, in her early twenties; the girl still wore her tight black shimmering dress hugging every graceful curve of her breasts and hips, her toes encased in very expensive Louboutins, her legs draped in dark fishnets. She wore black opera gloves covering her long fingers and slender forearms, gloves that had not been present earlier while she danced provocatively with the glowing hoop.

“Welcome to the party,” the girl breathed. Her voice hypnotised, calm and placid, belying the madness of the scene. “You. Smell. Divine.”

Even in the high heels, the woman flowed with the grace and power of a dancer. Every movement of her body, and even her siren voice, projected raw, unbridled enticement. For a crazy moment, Aurora wanted the woman, all of her, wanted to surrender herself, mind, body, and soul, to this creature. With a superhuman effort, Aurora pushed away the thoughts and mentally fortified her mind, her sanity.

As the siren tendrils reluctantly retreated from her mind, Aurora swallowed and fought her urge to run. She sensed, correctly, running would be completely ineffective. Like a wild animal, she must face the threat without blinking. The girl looked momentarily confused and uncertain, her eyes dropping to the pulsing orb. The orb grew brighter by the second as the women faced one another.

“Is he dead?” Aurora asked apprehensively, voice wavering.

The girl regarded her as if she were a mutt who had spoken unexpectedly. The girl stepped forward, her heels sharp against the ground. Aurora desperately wanted to step back, but held her ground. Retreating, while perhaps the better option, seemed akin to running. Wild animals.

“He’ll live,” the girl shrugged. She stepped forward again. “He intended to rape me.”

If the leg and shoe belonged to the boor the girl had danced with earlier, the same boor using lame pick-up lines, the information failed to surprise Aurora. She wondered how the girl knew his true intent, or if the statement was even accurate. Somehow, Aurora sensed the girl spoke the simple truth: he would live, and he intended violence. The certainty quelled none of Aurora’s terror.