Crystal and the Damned - Possession (5 page)

The historian Paladine put down the little mirror into which she had been gazing before the others arrived.

“No, I’m redoing my makeup while waiting for my beautician,” she grated with a touch of nervous irritation. “And you, why do you happen to be up at such an indecent hour ?”

“Crystal was amusing herself by going out in secret to have a party with the Dark Clan and Prince Dimitri,” Glory summarized, somewhat displeased.

The young woman tried to defend herself :

“I just wanted to have a normal sex life.”

“A normal sex life ?” Miranda asked, astonished. She had just entered the library, awakened by the noise her friends had made coming in. “No, don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know what you’ve subjected the poor girl to this time. Come over here, Crystal, I’ll treat your cheek before it gets infected,” said the red-headed sorceress, putting her hand on the wound.

Crystal felt her injury sealing up. A gentle heat emanated from the palm of the Paladine’s hand and healed her cheek. In her Care Bears pajamas, Miranda looked just a tad slow ; a little plump and totally inoffensive. And yet, her gift for white magic, which was exceptional, always left Crystal speechless. She loved Miranda immensely.

As was to be expected, Sybil, scrawny in her shapeless clothes, burst into the library in turn.

“You’re all up ? Why ? Are the evil Damned attacking us ? It’s open war, isn’t it ? I’m ready.”

“Calm down, Zorro,” Falada soothed her kindly. “Crystal tempted the Devil, but everything’s fine now. You can go back to bed, we’ll tell you about it tomorrow, at the meeting.”

“Oh ? In that case, would you happen to have a light ? I lost my lighter,” Sybil resigned herself to the situation in a surprisingly disappointed voice.

Cornelia tossed her a box of matches under Glory’s irritated gaze. Helen had furtively tucked her mirror into her pocket and started to leaf through her grimoires again. Miranda was inspecting Crystal from head to foot in order to be absolutely certain she did not have any other injuries. Seeing the Paladin wink a conspiratorial eye at the young woman, Glory felt her blood boil.
A band of incompetents. Without me they would already be six feet under
. In an energetic tone she decreed :

“Alright, I’ll stay with Crystal the rest of the night.”

“You’re sleeping together ? Unbelievable,” Miranda said.

Helen carefully washed her glasses.

“What is really unbelievable is your unfailing stupidity.”

“How could you be so stupid ?” Glory shouted, dragging Crystal into her room by force. “All that to screw a dirty human ! You really are dumber than you look, you little moron !”

“Stop yelling at me !” Crystal protested, slamming the door before throwing herself on the Paladine’s red, silky bed.

Glory paced back and forth in front of the bed, arms crossed across her chest, reprimands pouring out of her mouth in a continuous flood.

Her head buried in the soft pillows, the young woman pretended not to hear. She stopped up her ears, mocking her protector like a five-year-old child would. Glory, knowing perfectly well that Crystal heard her, said so in a dismissive tone.

Her protégée sat up savagely, her eyes filled with anger.

“You think I’m having fun ? I’m a prisoner in a life that I didn’t want ! You cannot shut me in. I am twenty-two years old ; I have the right to get laid. It’s the only thing I have to look forward to while I wait for the slaughter. In any case, you’re more interested in your precious career than you are in me,” she finished, tears in her eyes.

Her last words were like a cold shower on the Paladine. She calmed down.

“You’re wrong. I’m not like the others, I didn’t dream of being a Paladine, I wasn’t always one. I’m not even like you, Crystal ; I am not a chosen one. I fought to be unusual. Hearing you whine about your fate, seeing you scorn everything you
have makes me sick to my stomach. You don’t deserve your position as the future All Powerful.”

“Do you hate me ?” the girl worried, horrified to discover a Glory that she did not know. “Would you want to be me ?”

“No, I love you, and I wouldn’t want to be anyone other than myself. I’m angry, that’s all. I’m trying to teach you but I’m failing. You are not worthy of your rank and I’m taking it as a personal failure.”

“That’s harsh,” Crystal sniffed. “But you’re right. I’m shit. If I feel good with you, it’s only because I’ve never felt that way anywhere. Before, I never felt like I had a real family. I’m trying to be what you all want me to be, but I’m just incapable of it,” she confessed in tears.

The Paladine felt the fury drain out of her. She put her arms around Crystal, settled her comfortably on the satin bed, stretched out beside her and tenderly caressed her hair.

“You are capable of it.”

Crystal let herself go, abandoning herself, clinging to Glory. Feeling her heart melt, the Paladine cuddled with her, like a mother. She had not expected to assume that role. Playing the big sister was more painful for her than anyone could have imagined. Her past was catching up with her, but maybe, thanks to Crystal, she had
the opportunity to put it right. She no longer thought about anything, and simply reassured the young woman crying in her arms.

They ended up falling asleep holding onto to each other tightly.

Crystal stood in the middle of the training hall, her eyes closed, concentrating.

She and Cornelia faced each other, both wearing form-fitting black leather workout clothes, and prepared to begin the lesson again.

Her eyes still closed, Crystal sensed the shift of the two long daggers that the Paladine pulled from her spike-heeled boots. Her muscles tightened as she seized her own knife.

Cornelia crossed the space that separated her from her pupil, striking at her. Crystal miraculously dodged the blow, then struck in turn but hit only empty space.

The warrior evaded her attacks with the agility of a cat, fending off the few clumsy blows that she succeeded in hitting home with her dagger. Annoyed, Crystal threw herself at her adversary with all her strength. The blades of the two daggers cleaved through the air and collided with a crash. The young woman’s dagger broke under the impact.

Cornelia stood stock-still, contemplating the broken weapon with disappointment.

“Shit, you really are a pain in the ass. You wrecked my Ming dagger. It was a present from my grandmother.”

“Which proves that you are descended from a long line of raving lunatics,” Falada half joked, entering the training hall.

Crystal shot him a sullen look. For two days the Paladin had been ignoring her, spending all his time with Glory. She felt horribly vexed. After the attack by Prince Dimitri, Falada had been too sweet with her, to the point that she thought things were progressing between them. He had behaved almost like a person in love. And now, this – Glory, the job, the other Paladines – and he turned into an iceberg. Crystal decided to feign profound indifference.

“Weren’t you supposed to have dinner with Glory and some human, Secretary of Something-or-Other ?”

“He’s not a cabinet official ; he’s a big shot in the secret service. You should start to pay attention to that kind of nuance ; governments do not have official relations with the Damned. Be that as it may, the dinner was cancelled. Whatever the Order of Hell is up to is very disturbing. Glory and the others are expecting reports any minute now. So the three of us could go to a movie ; I want to see….”

“Not me. I’m totally fed up with you, Casanova,” the young woman shot back, leaving the room in a huff.
So much for indifference.

“Can you tell me what her problem is ?” Falada groused.

“Well… all old ladies are probably like that,” Cornelia said philosophically ; absorbed in her shattered weapon, she had not followed the subtleties of the conversation. “In any case I don’t think I’ll tell her about the dagger. You know, my grandmother has a really strong personality.”

Crystal made her way to her room to take a long bath. She had the unpleasant feeling of having a grudge against the whole world, and most of all against herself. With a shiver she remembered all the horrible accusations Prince Dimitri had hurled at her the night they met. The worst thing was that there was some truth in what he had said. She was good for nothing. Incapable of winning a single fight, incapable of behaving according to her rank, incapable of finding a boyfriend.

Bitterly she thought about Falada again. She was madly in love with him and he….

She sank into the bathtub, her body bruised and worn out. The warmth of the water soothed her ; she gently rubbed her skin, obsessing over the image of her Paladin. His velvety glance, his irresistible smile. Crystal closed her eyes, pressed her back a little harder against the bathtub and imagined him opening the bathroom door and sensually walking toward her. Images of moments he had spent with her mixed together in her head in a delicious haze. In her fantasy, Falada wore his usual smile, a provocative and reassuring glint in the way he looked at her. He
pulled off his shirt, uncovering his tanned, well-muscled chest. She examined it, not saying anything. Finally, it was happening. Then he knelt down at the edge of the bathtub and slipped a hand into the water. Crystal felt a wave of heat rise up within her at this idea. With her small hand, she sensuously brushed her neck, then her breasts, delicately rubbing her hardened nipples. She let out a sigh and murmured the Paladin’s name. In her dream he slowly moved his hand over her stomach, then down between her thighs. With her eyes still closed, she took the hand-held showerhead and offered her innermost self to the jet of warm water, imagining that Falada’s hand was caressing her. She moaned with pleasure at the sensation and walked the jet around between her legs, then intensified the pressure of the water on her clitoris. Shivering, her breathing uneven, she let waves of pleasure ripple through her.

She imagined him accelerating his movements, and pressed the showerhead more firmly against her womanhood. Burning with desire, her imaginary lover slipped two fingers into her. Crystal let her free hand slide along her thighs and touched herself deep inside. She swayed under the onslaught and felt herself take off. Her fantasy became reality, he was there, now. She was no longer pleasuring herself ; he was.

She moved her fingers faster inside herself, and abandoned herself to the pressure of the water jet. The Paladin was going to make her come. Alone in the bathtub, her back arched violently as she was shaken by orgasm.

Once she had come back to her senses, she climbed out of the bathtub and dried off, then slipped on a white silk nightgown. Once again, she found herself alone. Loveless. Falada wasn’t interested in her. A feeling of deep sadness swept over her. The sadness and the loneliness that always came after this kind of moment. Bleakly, the young woman shrugged her shoulders and opened the door to her room.

“I really have to stop,” she lectured herself aloud.

“You have to stop what ?”

Crystal let go of the handle of the bathroom door.

Prince Dimitri.

He was there, in her room, nonchalantly sitting on the edge of her bed. In her apartment, which was supposedly protected by the five Paladines and Falada.

She opened her mouth and closed it again.

Dimitri smoothed the blanket with an absent-minded hand, tilted his head and looked at her, a half-smile on his lips.

“So ? Stop what ? Murder ? Drugs ? Stupidity ?” he scoffed with amused self-possession.

Crystal’s eyes widened ; she couldn’t believe it. The Dark Prince had succeeded in getting into the apartment, in spite of the Paladines and the protection spells.

Frozen in place, she managed to speak.

“What… how… how did you….”

Terror shooting through her, she glanced at the closed bedroom door.
The girls…
did she have a chance of warning them before the Prince killed her ?
If she cried out, did she have a chance ?
Dimitri seized on Crystal’s glance, as if he were reading her thoughts.

“I wouldn’t advise it, my pretty.”

“How did you get in here ?” His prey pulled herself together.

He raised his head again, casting a domineering look at her.

“You don’t imagine that your flimsy little protection spells have the power to stop me ? You don’t seem to understand. It’s just you and me, little one.”

“You can’t kill me here.”

“Why not ? Nothing is stopping me. Except, perhaps, you pleasuring yourself….”

The young woman blushed from head to toe with shame. He had heard. He had listened to her getting off in the bathtub. It was horrible. She almost forgot her fear, she felt so humiliated.

Excited by the reaction he had provoked, Dimitri smiled.

“Relax, kitten. Your mewing saved your life. I was after moans of suffering, but I have to admit that – ”

“You filthy creep !” Crystal insulted him, beside herself.

“Don’t speak to me in that tone. I am not….”

Agonized roars coming from the rest of the apartment cut off the Prince’s words.

They looked at each other, then stared stupidly at the wall, as if they could see through it.

Crystal frowned, disturbed by the continued yelling, then ran to the bedroom door and opened it, throwing herself into the hallway.

Dimitri moved forward to catch her. But it was too late. She had fled. For an instant he was stunned. No one had ever….
And on top of that, she didn’t even do it on purpose.

Furious, he brooded, and ended up dematerializing, exasperated that she had once again slipped away from him, right under his nose. Next time he would not blow it !

Crystal hurtled into the white living room, panic-stricken by the yelling, which had yet to stop. The scene she came upon made her freeze in astonishment.

All the Paladines were there, as was Falada. In the middle of the room, Sybil was in the grip of an appalling attack of hysteria. She was frothing and foaming at the mouth, wreaking havoc on a stack of files that were lying on the table in front of her. Glory and Cornelia were trying to control her, without any luck. Miranda was hunched up in a corner of the living room.

“What happened ?” the young woman stammered, shocked.

Helen reacted with an astounding lack of restraint.

“Why aren’t you in your bedroom ? No one wants you to see this. So be nice and go back to your room, that’s where you belong at this hour.”

“I can’t. Prince Dimitri….”

Sybil suddenly stopped gesticulating. Her eyes rolled in their sockets like those of a madwoman. She pointed at Crystal, her hand shaking.

“Do not utter that name again.”

“I’d prefer not to. But Dimitri....”

“I don’t want to hear it !” Sybil thundered.

“I get it, but the problem is that the Dark Prince is....”

“Shut up !” the anorexic Paladine bellowed with all her strength, throwing herself at an off-balance Crystal. Cornelia and Glory caught her just in time.

“Sweetie, get out of here, please,” the Barbie doll pleaded.

“But I’m trying to telling you that....”

At a look from the Paladine, Falada grabbed the young woman by the arm and pulled her out of the living room where Sybil continued her shouting and bawling.

When they were far enough down the corridor, Crystal stopped the Paladin.

“I don’t know what’s happening, but it can’t be more important than what I have to tell you. Prince Dimitri is....”

Falada silenced her by putting his finger to her lips.

“Little flower, don’t talk about him anymore. Sybil is going to go completely crazy and I will too if we don’t change the subject already.”

“Evidently she already has. As for you, you aren’t much better.”

With the most serious expression in the world, the Paladin put both his hands on the arms left bare by her negligee and pushed her against the wall. Their gazes locked. He felt a drop of perspiration pearling at the nape of his neck. He cleared his throat before speaking.

“Be reasonable for a minute, please. Listen to me a little. The girls didn’t want to tell you, but I believe we no longer have a choice. Sybil wasn’t always like this. Several years ago, Dimitri murdered her husband, abducted her little five-year-old girl, and killed her. She’s never recovered from it. This evening we discovered that the Order of Hell has kidnapped several children from highly-placed families of the Damned. He’s using them as a means of pressure. I imagine that this reminded
Sybil of her own story. She flipped out. I’m sorry that you witnessed it,” Falada apologized, obstinately fixing his gaze on the patterns in the wallpaper.

“That’s horrible,” Crystal sympathized, with no idea of the effort that the man of her dreams was making to control himself. She thought only of the hell that the Paladine must be experiencing. “Dimitri is vile. And it’s me that he wants. In the end he’s going to get me. I’m so alone that I want to die and he knows it.”

His hands on his hips, the Paladin took offence.

“And what about us ? Don’t we count for anything ?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she told him bitterly. “You’re not always with me. After all, you’re not with me. And that’s the problem.”

“Wait. What are we talking about ? I’ve always been there and I’ve always taken care of you.”

“Yeah, as a friend. But Falada, that’s not enough. I want more. I adore my girlfriends, but I’m twenty-two ! I need to feel safe in the arms of a man… I’m too alone without a guy. Without you. Falada, I….”

Confronted with the Paladin’s distant expression, the words stuck in her throat. Crystal was afraid that he would reject her, but she could no longer stand to play games. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she lacked the courage. So she didn’t say anything. On an impulse, she rose to her tiptoes, put her hand on the Paladin’s chest and pressed her lips to his.

A gentle touch.

Falada gripped her by the shoulders and held her away from himself.

“What are you doing ?” he pushed her away. Then, seeing her distraught expression, feeling at the bottom of his soul that he had not always been completely honest, that he had not always been as upright as he should have been, he tried to pull her back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Fighting tears, Crystal raised her chin with a defiant air. Proud.

“I have enormous affection for you, Crys. And you are beautiful, you are tempting, that’s true. I admit it, the way I’ve acted is wrong. I’ve sometimes let you believe I could be more than a friend. But friendship is all I can offer you. I can’t explain it to you, but we will never be together. Don’t hate me for this, please, because I do love you. I love you like a sister.”

“Go away !” she dismissed him in a low voice. “Go away right now.”

She watched him leave. Tears had flooded her eyes and her spirit, but she did not cry. She would not give him that pleasure. Her back against the wall, she hugged herself. Painfully she remembered these last months spent with him. All those moments spent laughing and sharing their feelings. Those moments when she believed they were but one person. Their relationship may have been platonic, but it was the greatest and the most profound love that she had ever experienced. Such a deep bond, so much familiarity, it was an unhoped-for happiness and comfort.
The Paladines were her best friends, but they had never been that close, never. And now Falada had sent her packing, shattering all her dreams. And for the first time, she didn’t want to fight because she felt empty. He was her whole life ; she could pretend, but without him, the world was cold.