Dark Leather

Later that night, after Ilana had cleaned things up and Celest returned
from checking on her mother, they made ready for bed, Ilana started to put her
blanket and pillow on the floor but Celest stopped her.

\"No, put them on the bed, you\'ve been good and may sleep on the bed
until you do something to anger me.\"

Ilana clutches the bear close and does as she\'s told, putting the pillow and
blanket on the bed, then lays down, her whole body is tense, exspectant. Celest
climbs into the bed beside her and moves under the blanket. Celest wanted
nothing more then to cry, her mother is so close to deaths door, so long has she
been gone in her life, and Willis is becoming even more persistant, but she
wouldn\'t allow herself to cry, only the weak cry, but she did allow herself one
thing... She pulls Ilana close, hugs her to her, like a giant teddy bear, they go to
sleep like that, Celest drawing comfort from having someone near, she\'d never
allowed herself such comforts before, never allowed herself to be that weak, but
so much had happened and would still happen, she had to allow herself a
moment here or there or she\'d loose it entirely.


****


The week goes by in a haze, almost the same routine as before, go to
school, go home, Ilana cleans house while Celest goes to work, Ilana stays up til
Celest gets home, has a snack ready for her, then they go to bed, Celest allows
herself one moment of weakness by hugging Ilana close at night, though the
other thinks it\'s just another way to try and scare her. Before they know it it\'s
Friday and the end of school for the week, only something is about to change in
their routine, drastically change.


****


Jenilynn, once a beautiful and captivating woman, lay on her bed the shell
of what she\'d been. She had no will left to live, it\'d fled a long time ago at the
sight of her daughter, so much like her father, even now, as much as she\'d tried
to stop it, Celest had become the very thing her father was, is.

She sits up a moment, filling the needle on the table and jabs it into her
arm, she didn\'t worry about doing anything special, she didn\'t plan to live past
this, this had to be the one. She lays back as the world around her spins and
images appear in her minds eye.

\"Well, what do we have here.\"

A figure in dark appears at the end of her bed, his voice holds
disappointment.

\"You were once a great creature, Jenilynn, now look at yourself, your
barely a skeleton, your own daughter hates you. Do you even realize that she\'s
come so close to being killed, so close to being hurt so badly as to be beyond
repair. If it weren\'t for my interferance our daughter would be dead or worse by
now.\"

\"And so it should be, that thing you call our daughter is nothing more then
a spawn, your spawn. I certainly didn\'t wish for it, oh, sure, I fooled myself into
thinking I was inlove with you but I saw through that one quickly, thought it
seems not soon enough because you got what you wanted, a child.\"

\"Yes, and you kept her away from me, though I have no complaints, she\'s
grown far better then I\'d expected living as she has, even through her
hinderance. Actually I think she\'s what she is because of what you\'ve done, of
what you\'ve become. Jenilynn, how does it feel to know that your the reason
your daughter is what she is. Did you know that the girl who\'s been staying over
is her chosen companion, even now her presence gives her more power, gives
her the strength to manage through what will happen to her next.\"

\"No, I\'ve tried my hardest to keep her from her birthright, this can\'t be
happening...\"

\"Think of it as your own personal hell, that is why I\'m here after all. Your
dead, Jenilynn, and I\'m here to claim your soul.\"

\"NO...\"

She cries, but no one is there to hear her as she finds herself standing in
hell, the last thing she see\'s before she\'s consumed by the pain, the visions, is
the man in black smiling down at her.

\"Welcome to my world.\"


****

As their walking home Ilana talks idly of something at school, more to
keep herself from going crazy because she knows that Celest doesn\'t care, but
when they turn the corner onto the street where the house is Ilana stops
midsentence and stares at the police and ambulance that surround Celest\'s
house, when she glances over at Celest she notices that she\'s drawn into
herself. Ilana takes a chance and touches her arm, Celest shrugs it away and
starts walking again, Ilana right behind her.

An officer met them as they tried to enter the yard, he was young, couldn\'t
of been more then twenty-five, and far too good looking with his blond-green
eyes then any cop should be.

\"I\'m sorry, I can\'t let you pass.\"

\"That\'s my house, my mother\'s home.\"

Something crosses his face and he turns to call his chief over, the chief is
older, late forties early fifties with an obvious beer belly and balding head. The
two whisper to themselves then turn to the girls.

\"Ma\'am, I\'m sorry, we recieved a call from a concerned neighbor about
some strange noises and when we arrived...\"

\"She\'s dead, isn\'t she.\"

Celest says matter-of-factly interrupting the chief.

\"Yes... She OD\'d.\"

Celest lets off a string of curses, enough to make both officer\'s red in the
face, Ilana moves a step away from Celest though she\'s also afraid to move too
far away.

\"We\'ll need you to come and I.D. the body, just to make certain it\'s her,
the body has already been taken to the morgue.\"

Celest wanted to scream, to cry, anything but what she did do, calmly go
with the officer\'s to identify her mother\'s body. She\'d OD\'d on the drugs Willis
supplied to her, he had helped her mother to reach this point, before he\'d come
around her mother had tried to quit, tried to clean herself up, but then he\'d
appeared and she had lost sight of her goals, of her child, and surrendered her
soul to oblivion, and now she\'s gone. Celest would like to think she\'d gone to a
better place but she knew better then that, her mother at this very moment was
most likely roasting in hell.

Their wasn\'t much that could be done, Celest had reached her eighteenth
birth day earlier that month and could, legally, live on her own, and as she was
the one supporting the household she was able to retain the house, her name
was on it after all. After all the paper work, after all the questions, they were
finally allowed to return home, Celest too awake to go to bed, but to sleepy to do
much, sits down on the couch to think, Ilana joins her not sure what else to do,
but before long Ilana falls asleep, her head resting in Celests lap.

Celest thinks about her next moves as she plays with Ilana\'s hair
abscently, she knew she had to leave soon, something would happen to make it
necessary, so she needed to plan it, their was a house at the other side of town,
just out of the city limits, that she could live in, it was diguesting and dirty but it
would do, from there she could save enough money to leave the state. She had
no special bond towards the house, in all actuality their were so many bad
memories that she hated it more then anything and wouldn\'t be hurt at all to
finally be able to leave it, even if it meant living in a sewer.

Before long Celest drifted off to sleep and they spent all night on the
couch, Ilana\'s sleep was thankfully blank but Celest\'s sleep was filled with
dreams and nightmares, figures reached for her, cried out her name. Flames
where everywhere around her, though she didn\'t fear harm, and creatures of the
shadows themselves bowed before her, it was so confusing, nothing made
sense, and when she woke up the next morning she felt exhausted, as if she
hadn\'t slept at all.


****


Their was a little difficulty at school, Celest might not of been bothered by
the death of her mother but she didn\'t like that everyone asked her about it,
especially Michelle, her once bestfriend had become more of an annoyance to
her then anything.

\"Do you have somewhere you can live or are they letting you keep the
house?\"

Michelle asked, starting a long string of questions.

\"I own the house, Michelle, it\'s been in my name for a long time, nothing
was owned by my mother, so it really doesn\'t matter, and I\'d prefer if you would
stop talking about it. I\'d rather prefer to be able to forget about it, not dwell upon
such negativity.\"

\"It\'s good to talk about it, get it out of your system, it\'ll make you feel
better.\"

At that moment being able to smack Michelle, or even shoot her, would of
made Celest feel a world of a difference but she held herself in check, no
reason to get suspended from school for trying to kill a fellow student, she
needed the cover for a little longer. So instead of making a comment she stands
up and walks away, Ilana who\'d quietly watched everything stood up and
followed behind her. They hadn\'t gone far when Andrew stepped infront of them.

\"I\'m sorry to hear about your mother...\"

Several other\'s from Ilana\'s old group came up behind him expressing the
same sentiments but instead of their words being comforting like they\'d
expected it only served to make her angrier.

\"Everyone in this school, possibly the whole two, knew what my mother
was, it was only a matter of time before she died. Just get over it.\"

Celest pushed Andrew away and walked off.

\"Ilana, you doing alright?\"

She didn\'t say anything to him just followed Celest, scared to do anything
that might provok her anger even more. Celest stayed away from everyone for
the rest of the day, making a point to ignore anyone who tried to talk to her. She
was tired of hearing about her mother, especially from kids who had either
ignored her or tortured her most of her life, they knew what her mother had been
because they\'d made jokes about it, taunted her with it, did they really expect her
to just up and forget about all they\'d done to her just because her druggie mother
was dead and she is all alone in the world. She\'d long ago gotten use to being
alone, taking care of herself, and that was when her mother was still alive.

When she got home that night after school their was a message for her
from Peter, he had a job for her, they were to meet up at the usual place.
Feeling a little insecure, Celest takes Ilana with her the first time since she\'d
originally taken her, Ilana didn\'t like the idea but she also didn\'t want to provoke
Celest\'s already boiling temper and went without question, without complaint.
Celest decided that they\'d walk the whole way and so they left early giving
enough time for the walk to make it on time and it\'s where they ran into trouble.

\"Celest, Ilana, you two want to join us we\'re going to get some pizza and
soda.\"

Andrew called out to them, oddly enough Michelle was with him, Celest
tried to ignore them but he came over, followed by everyone else from Ilana\'s old
group, the look on his face said he wasn\'t willing to stop yet. Celest thought
about loosing them but some dark thought within her made her go slow enough
that they could follow, she wasn\'t sure what was going to happen but if they
really wanted to bother her then she wasn\'t going to stop them. Ilana was
becoming more frightened the closer they got to the meeting place, she knew
what had happened when she\'d went along, alone, she wasn\'t sure what Celest
had planned, wasn\'t certain she wanted to know, but she was unable to do
anything for fear of invoking her wrath something she had done on several
occasions and still bore the scars of.

After what seemed like an eternity they finally made it to the meeting
place, the deserted store seemed extra eery tonight and who would of thought
such a spooky place would be directly behind the library. Something was odd
about the place when they walked in, Celest thought that maybe Peter had seen
the other\'s coming and left, but he tended to trust whatever she did and would of
stayed, so why wasn\'t he around? Something was deffinately up.

\"Hey, what are you doing?\"

Andrew finally spoke up after following them for several blocks, Ilana
looks up at Celest, asking her silently what they were going to do but she doesn\'t
say or do anything, it\'s almost as if, at that moment, nothing around her exists
and so Ilana allows herself to fall back with the other\'s, it was odd being around
the old group, seeing old friends.

\"Ilana, what\'s going on?\"

\"I don\'t know...\"

Celest found herself wandering out the back door to the old parking lot,
she really didn\'t care if anyone followed because she had a strange feeling in the
bottom of her stomach that Peter was in trouble and that Willis had something to
do with it. When she pushes open the back door and steps out she stops dead
in her tracks at the sight that meets her, Willis is standing two yards away from
the back door he was as well dressed as always, hair slicked back, and had a
gun pointed at the casually dressed Peter. As if in slow motion Celest walked
outside and towards the two men stopping only with she was three feet away,
she didn\'t even notice when everyone that had been following her spilled out of
the back door and onto the parking lot, didn\'t even hear their sounds of suprise
and shock as her full attention was on Willis.

\"Willis.\"

\"Randy, I told you. It\'s really impolite to ignore an elder.\"

\"I hold no respect for anyone their for why should your age matter in how I
treat you.\"

He laughs and forces Peter to a kneeling position, the look on Peter\'s face
is serene, peaceful, he had known he would die eventually and he was willing to
except it, what she didn\'t know was that he had already died once and had been
given an extended period in his life, all that was going to happen to him is he
would merely be reentering hell, this trip would just be a little easier with prior
experiance.

\"I\'ll give you one last chance, Celest, come work for me or Peter dies.\"

Randy motioned with his gun to the now kneeling Peter, as if to try and
seem threatening, Celest didn\'t care, her and Peter had discussed things like
this, what would happen. No matter what, you do not agree to anything, even to
save another\'s life, friend or no, because if the other person is willing to go this
far then you don\'t want to work for them. Celest looks down at Peter, their eyes
lock for a moment.

\"Be a good girl, Celest, and never stop raising hell, and never forget your
promise.\"

The promise... If he should ever die while on a job or anything simular
she was to make it look like natural causes, he didn\'t want his family knowing
what he did for a living. She nods her head in affirmation and breaks eye
contact to look at Randy, her eyes growing cold as they go.

\"Business, Randy, I\'m sure you understand that. It\'ll be a cold day in hell
that I work for you.\"

She used his first name to drive into him that she was serious, she wasn\'t
going to play his game. She had barely finished speaking when Randy pulled
the trigger and shot Peter in the head, execution style. The other\'s behind her
jump, scream, and make alot of noise but Celest doesn\'t flinch, doesn\'t blink, not
even when she gets spray\'s of blood on her, she acts as if it hadn\'t happened.