Night Feast

Disclaimer: I don\'t own any of the characters from Sublunary. Khameleon, however, belongs to me and me alone. No money was or will be received for this work.


NIGHT FEAST


Khameleon sat back on his heels and studied the SLATE safe house with unabashed glee. The sweet nectar that bled from the building nearly sated him. Teenaged hormones and war didn’t really mix; a situation that pleased him to no end. He had been sorely disappointed when he had visited the COI stronghold; the only time he had been able to feed off the emotions coming from there was when the youngest member of the opposing group had made his abortive attempt to steal information from the laboratory. That delicious feast lead him here to their hiding place.

The three that still occupied COI’s bunker (if you didn’t count the human ice pop and he didn’t) consisted of an automaton, a jealous psychopath and a pedophile. Not much to feed a growing boy like himself. SLATE on the on the other hand lay before him like a banquet, so many of his favorite dishes just waiting for him to stir and devour.

The wind caught and tossed his unusual hair around. Flame red with black and white tabby stripes. The whole mass hung about his fox-like face in wild tangles. That combined with his sharply pointed ears and turquoise, cat-slit eyes gave him a feral fey look. Of course, the lack of anything near sanity in his eyes didn’t help either.

He rubbed his hands together and danced a bit of a jig, just like a child offered first pick from a box of candies. He swirled and dipped, pirouetted and balanced on the narrow ledge he had chosen to spy on his intended victims, the whine of the wind creating the music for his dance. With a sudden, fluid movement he returned to his crouch, trying to decide which of the delicacies laid out below him to select.

Life’s like a box of chocolates, he thought, giggling manically to himself. And which of these lovelies do I want? Hm that’s the question. Do I want the little one that led me here? No, too much sugar. What about his chauffeur? Now that’s a lovely thought, but no, too nice. The little white-haired one who lost his lover might be good, but I’m not interested in that kind of angst tonight. Besides, he wouldn’t be any sort of a challenge, too easy to bring up the memories. I’m really in the mood for hunting. He considered the remaining choices carefully. The healer he wouldn’t touch with a very long pole. That type tended to be either so balanced that he couldn’t shift them or so totally insane that contact threatened to drag him in and devour his mind. He knew, somehow that his tenuous grasp on reality wouldn’t stand up to the onslaught of a deranged mind. Of course the mind of the spy could be fun to play with. His own self-loathing and low self-esteem (combined with the fact that the only person he trusted had buried himself deep within the little water boy before he had be gone from his bed a week) made the blonde a very tempting morsel. That had possibilities, but not tonight. Tonight he would be stalking the leader of the pack.

“Theo Cruea, c’mon down,” he murmured, a sly grin drifting across his face. “Let the hunt begin.” He reached out and forced the young insomniac into a deep, restful sleep, waiting just long enough for the youth to enter the REM or stage four level of consciousness where it would be easier to manipulate his every thought, dream and action.


@ @ @

Theo awoke with a start, his face smarting from where it had a close encounter with his computer keyboard. Normally he didn’t drift off like that, something strange had happened and he had fallen asleep despite the energy drink that he had taken to boost his flagging awareness. The wind whined and groaned around the windows, acting as a counterpoint to the sepulcher silence that surrounded him. The eerie stillness didn’t feel right, usually he could hear his teammates even when they were sleeping. The soft litany of snores, sighs, moans and groans that accompanied the act were missing. What the hell was going on around here?

He got to his feet and staggered out the door of the control room, calling softly for his companions. “Tobi? Oliver? Yuushi?” His voice began to crack under the strain of staying calm. “Eekie? Robyn? Where the hell is everybody?” The sound of his faltering footsteps was the only thing that broke the tomblike hush that hung over the safe house like a shroud. That and the slow drip of fluid added to his ever-growing terror. After checking all the bedrooms and finding them empty, he raced into the common room, hoping against hope to find his charges sitting around the table enjoying the practical joke they had cooked up for him. A heavy, coppery smell (that was more of a taste really) coated his tongue, nearly causing him to gag. The dripping noise had slowed and the sound had become more viscous, like glue that had spilled and started to dry. He hesitantly flicked the switch to turn the light on, part of him not wanting to see what he feared he would.

Each sight that greeted his eyes was worse then the last. The first thing to meet his horrified gaze was Robyn hanging from a noose with a placard that read, ‘I AM a murderer’. Eekie’s body rested in one corner, a three-inch diameter pole shoved up his ass and the word ‘SLUT’ carved in the skin of his belly with a knife. Yuushi had been crucified then eviscerated. His sweet face frozen in a spasm of fear and pain, showing the torture he had lived through before the gentle release of death overtook him. Tobi lay on the table, his beautiful eyes gone and a mass of bloody meat hanging out of his mouth. Theo turned his face away, but his eyes caught the bloody mess that had been the purple-haired man’s groin. He knew then what the gory mess was hanging out of his friend’s mouth. He retched, his stomach churning in disgust at the sights in front of him. The only member of the team, other than himself, that might still be living was Oliver and he didn’t see the white-tressed youth anywhere. Hope blossomed in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, Oliver had escaped the horror.

He turned to leave the room, only to have his hopes dashed. Oliver stood, chained to a thick copper post, in an antique hipbath filled with water. From the way things looked the Electrokinetic’s power had been turned against him and he died of electrical shock. Wisps of snowy hair caressed the pale cheeks like the hands of a lover. Theo fell to the floor, his mind blank from shock and his emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” came a velvet purr from behind him. “Looks like all your playmates are DOA. Whatever are you going to do?”

“Who the hell are you?” Theo said, choking the words out through his constricted throat. He drew himself into a defensive crouch and awaited the man’s answer.

“Most people just call me Khameleon,” the man responded, leaning against the wall with arms and ankles crossed.

Theo took the time to study the intruder. He stood over six feet tall, lithely muscled with wild, weirdly marked flame colored hair, blue-green cat-slit eyes and delicately pointed ears. Lounging against the wall, the man could be considered handsome, maybe even beautiful, if it weren’t for the lack of anything resembling mental stability in those turquoise orbs. “What do you want, Khameleon?” he demanded.

“Why Theo, what makes you think I want anything at all?” he said in an innocent voice before it broke into a fit of maniacal giggles. “Maybe I just want to comfort you in your loss.”

“Thanks, but no. I’ve got things to do, so if you’ll show yourself out …”

“I don’t think so, little man,” the redhead drawled. One corner of his mouth twisted into an evil grin as he unwound his limbs and sinuously detached himself from the wall. He paced forward on silent feet and drew Theo into his arms before the confused man could resist. “Look around you, Mister I’mtheleaderman. Over in corner number one we have the human horn-I mean-corn dog. Next to him is a dope on a rope and in corner number two we have an Oliver burger.” The manic laughter started again. “Continuing in the same vein--Tobi must have truly enjoyed sushi, seeing as he’s eating…well, never mind. And of course, we all know that Yuushi was a homebody and really enjoyed hanging around the house.”

“STOP IT!” Theo screamed, clamping his hands over his ears. “God! You’re a sick fuck! Why the hell are you doing this?” His skin shivered in revulsion at the touch of velvet lips against his ear.

“Because … I … can,” came the whispered response.

The green-haired young man struggled futilely against the steely grip that held him powerless. For the first time, in possibly his entire life, the over-achiever knew failure. Even his powers, weak as they were, aided him better than all his strength did against the immovable force of Khameleon’s might. Vulnerable, that’s how he felt right now. Vulnerable, weak, exposed, defenseless were a few of the devastating feelings rushing through his brain. The emotions were the most intense he had ever experienced, like they were being amplified.

Khameleon pulled the unresisting man tighter into his arms and began to dance a wild reel amongst the rapidly cooling corpses. The taste of Theo’s anguish, angst and self-loathing rolled over his tongue like a rare wine. This was the best meal he had eaten in ages and the wonderful flavors would continue until he no longer plumbed their depths. How delightful were the rarified emotions of teenagers. No matter how grown up they seemed the young ones were always the best repast; their young minds not yet able to handle the subtleties of adult life. How he loved SLATE and all its little members that played at grown up games.

Theo moaned in distress, the room spinning wildly in the macabre dance the redhead forced him into. His friends, colleagues and fellow warriors lay dead in this room and he was being tormented by some sadistic bastard who shouldn’t have been able to get into their home. He almost envied the others; at least they weren’t left behind to mourn his death and to be persecuted by a mad man. The room began to shake and he could hear Khameleon swearing as it did.

@ @ @


Yuushi shook Theo’s shoulder, trying to wake the poor thing up and to help him escape the nightmare that gripped him. It wasn’t often that their leader fell asleep and he deserved a peaceful rest, but from the look on his sleeping face, he wasn’t getting it.

“Theo, come on, wake up,” he quietly said, continuing to shake the man. “Theo, wake up. Come on, it’s time for breakfast.”

“AUGH!” the lime-haired man screamed, coming awake at last. He looked around the room, blinking owlishly. “Yuushi? Is that really you?”

“Who else would it be, silly? The boogie man?” He smiled down in bemusement. “Now, come on, breakfast is ready and everybody’s up.”

“Everybody?” came the weak, confused question.

“Uh huh, everybody. We’ve got a big day ahead of us, so come on.” He walked to the door and let himself out. Theo sat up, rubbed his left cheek to restore feeling in it and to remove the imprint of the keyboard. The otherworldly feeling of the dream had started to dissipate and the nightmare itself was dissolving in the harsh light of reality.

Gods, he thought, shaking his head to further clear it of the gossamer remnants of fantasy. Remind me not to eat anything spicy late at night. He stood up and went out to join the others. There was so much to do and so little time to do it in. The memory of his night slipped away, forgotten, under the pressure of what needed to be done.


Khameleon wobbled and nearly fell off the narrow precipice he balanced on. Being thrown out of Theo’s mind before the scenario had played out left him feeling dizzy and not quite sated. He should have been paying more attention to what was going on in reality, but the feast had been so good that he had forgotten that they weren’t alone in the safe house. He hopped back from the edge and found a cozy spot next to one of the chimneys. With hunting grounds this good, he’d be a fool to leave. All he had to do was find a place to stay and he could glut himself on the pretties in the building below him. Time and patience always made the hunting and eating better. He had plenty of both and now he had a smorgasbord laid at his feet. As he grew to know his victims better, he’d be able to manipulate them like puppets and extract the more subtle nuances of taste from them. But until then, he would enjoy the bounty he had been given. With a contented sigh, he settled in and dozed off, dreaming of future conquests and feasts.