Downworld

Chapter 10

Content Warning for this chapter: I know there are some pretty extensive warnings at the beginning of the story, but I feel like this chapter needs a special mention. In it, Jay describes the way the Black Bear groomed and then raped him, not in a graphic way, but in a way that might be upsetting. It's three paragraphs, which are marked with *** at the beginning and end, so that you can avoid reading it you want to.

I'd assumed that Malik would either drop in uninvited, or leave a message for me at Tinder's for the next time I visited, which I did once or sometimes twice a week these days. He didn't. And I had no way of contacting him except to see him in person.

That was the problem with downworld -- well, one of many problems with downworld -- there were no phones, because there were no lines and there was certainly no service. No internet either, in this bloody, black hole in the ground. Some of the buildings in the Glen had electricity, run down from Gateway, but most of the place ran on magic energy, which was at best inefficient and at worst creepy as fuck, like the timeless "daylight" that inhabited the Glen.

After I saw Raven and Tinder that week, I walked back through the Glen the long way, trying to figure out if I was pathetic enough to go to the castle and ask to see Malik. I was certainly angry enough to try tracking him down to demand to know what his problem was, but not if it involved the whole of downworld knowing that there was something going on between us, which would probably happen if I went to see him anywhere near the Red King's home.

I didn't go to see him, but I did walk past the castle, close enough to the main entrance to see those coming and going. I felt like a stalker, but Malik had done more stalkery stuff to me, so I felt entitled to be a little bit of a creeper.

It turned out to be a bad idea, because there at the gates that the one person I never wanted to see again.

The Black Bear.

He was a little hairier, a little softer and a lot rounder, but it was him. He was less scary than in my memories, but still a big, ugly fucker who looked like he could strangle me with one hand.

I'd known there was a possibility that I'd see him the more I came back down, but all the worrying just hadn't prepared me. I was so surprised, I forgot to be scared or angry or anything. Instead, I just stared, numb, frozen, stupid.

Thank the fucking god and devil -- and whatever other higher powers want in on this -- that he didn't see me. The Black Bear was too busy to notice an insignificant bastard like me. He and his servants were clearly hurrying to a meeting with the Red King. I watched as they formed up, waiting for the Red King's people to escort them inside.

A smaller figure among the group caught my attention. A boy among the men and women. The Black Bear put his hand on the boy's shoulder, and said something in his ear. The kid stiffened at the touch, though nodded and wandered away a little distance to sit on the grass. The Bear and his people went inside, leaving the boy alone. He was too young, maybe thirteen, to be in his own in a foreign territory, except the Red King's people were milling about. The Red King protected all in his territory.

That kid was me. I mean, he wasn't. He didn't look like me; he was a skinny, Asian kid. He wasn't an incubus, or any kind of parasitic energy-thief, or even going to be a guardian; I guessed some sort of shifter, something with death magic, certainly, and maybe a retainer, though it was difficult to tell when they were that young. But the way he'd reacted when the Black Bear had touched him, that was me.

I was pretty sure the kid was the Black Bear's latest.

I knelt and breathed through the urge to vomit. For all my shit, I'd never been suicidal, not seriously, but right then, I wanted to die. I didn't though. I knelt there until I could manage to stand and then I walked over to where the kid was sitting.