No sleep for the wicked.

Eve sat up in bed, slipped off the bare arm draped across her stomach, and slid to the edge of the mattress. Sat there for a moment, half-turned, observing the naked body tangled in the sheets, the blonde locks visible even in the gloom. Idly, she brushed the back of her hand across her mouth. It came away slick with blood.

She saw the blood, dark and glistening, and licked her hand. Pressed her lips together, making sure none of it went to waste.

A dazed arm reached out after her, searching, grasping air and falling.

“Come back to me,” she murmured, voice husky, trapped between oblivion and wakefulness. The woman turned and twisted, the two puncture wounds in her neck stark against her pale skin.

Eve grinned into the darkness, teeth sharp, the desire still smoldering in her pit. But, there was a night to live.

Oh, night. Always so pitifully short. Moving to Canada or Norway to extend it had always seemed like the most boring fucking idea ever. So here she was.

Eve slipped on a kimono and padded through the room on bare feet, floorboards barely creaking, down the staircase and into the entryway. Grabbed the crumpled packet of Virginia Slims on the stand next to the door and exited, the mosquito barrier wheezing as it swung back inward.

She took the lighter out of the pack and lit one. Took in a lungful. Savored the harmless poison and then sharply blew the smoke out.

Skipped a couple of steps across the porch and sat down on the wooden steps leading up to it. Stretched her legs in front of her. Stuck out her tongue, inviting the coolness of the night. It tasted as sweet as ever. Crickets chirping, frogs croaking, the rustle of the bent willow tree in the breeze. There was something about the South and the bog that felt infinitely more alluring than kissing goodnight to the foxes in the frigid North.

“You didn’t say you got company,” a voice behind her back remarked, dry as a thousand-year-old coffin and about as fun as genteel lords and ladies having afternoon tea and biscuits.

Eve barely moved, didn’t really have to, but of course she registered the presence on the porch. She took a quick drag and exhaled, her patience running thinner than she’d thought. The night’s spell didn’t even last for one smoke.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your fucking business.”

She felt a rush of wind, an invisible push on her back as if a sudden gust of wind blew against her. And then it passed, just as quickly, a presence right above her right shoulder, only a thin, seesaw-like whisper remaining, murmuring into her ear: “I smell her all over you.”

A sharp intake of breath, not hers, and the presence retreated. She dared a sideways glance and there he stood, as he always did, precisely because no one invited him.

Scarecrow. He looked like someone had the brilliant, and regrettable, idea of digging him out of the grave and applied makeup powder to fix the mistake. The dated, moth-devoured tailcoat and grubby ruff didn’t improve the cadaveresque look.

“Will you invite me in?” he asked, his smile too wide for such a narrow face, stretching it beyond its form. It was anything but innocent.

“You know the answer, old man.”

You don’t dare the Devil. Or rather, any one of the Devils. There were a few of those, let loose in the world. Eve never quite got the memo, her present condition being the punchline. Perhaps it was the recent pleasures of the flesh that had her punching above her weight. Or the metallic tang of Faye’s blood still on her tongue.

Scarecrow’s murderous grin remained unperturbed while he toyed with a stray lock of grey-blond hair. “I appreciate the bite, never mind you’re an insolent child. I’m sorely tempted to pull you apart. Alas, no one would remember the lesson.”

Eve strongly considered flipping him a bird while she killed the cigarette. Thought otherwise.

“What do you want, Jean-Auguste?” Eve stared ahead intently, keen on avoiding eye contact. The Scarecrow prowled the edges of perception, a nightmare waiting to come to life. To look him dead in the eye was trouble. He loved to make it unpleasant on the poor sods who’d cross his path.

“You’re either incredibly brave or incredibly reckless, Eve. Perhaps you feeding makes you so.” The icy glee behind the voice was making her hairs stand upright.

“I think I’d enjoy having my way with her.”

“I staked my claim first,” Eve retorted, gaze still fixed ahead. There wasn’t going to be an easy, fast way out of this. Not with him.

“Prima noctis, Eve. I am your better. You should cede.”

Like fuck I will. Wrong century for that, Scarecrow. “Name your business and be on your way. The night is already way too short and you’re killing the vibe.”

Perhaps she pressed her luck too much.

A violent shift in the air — Eve’s stomach dropped as she was hoisted into the air like a ragdoll, a cold, dead hand gripping her by the neck, crushing and making it unpleasant. Scarecrow was peering up at her, his wide, madcap grin lined with too many teeth. Still, she squirmed, her own muscles straining with supernatural force but powerless, twisting her face away, trying to avoid his gaze. He laughed, the sound of sandpaper grating on shards of glass. A hideous thing.

“Your Maker really ought to have taught you proper etiquette, child.”

She dangled from his grip like a puppet. He turned her this way and that, examining her from all the angles, savoring her inhuman nakedness, reveling in her fear.

“Please convey my disappointment to Her. I had come with a message for your Maker, but you have made this infinitely more amusing. You sure you won’t invite me in, Eve?”

“I’m glad. You’re having. Fun. And. No.”

Behind them, the mosquito barrier sighed, and it was just enough interruption for Scarecrow to relax his grip on her neck and Eve to turn her head around just so, to see. Faye was standing in the doorframe, eyes sleep-riddled, wearing Eve’s faded Audioslave T-shirt, bare-footed.

“What’s going on here?”

“STAY INSIDE! DO NOT LET HIM IN!” Eve thundered, summoning her voice and throwing it at Faye. Faye swayed, took a half-step back inside and blinked. Shook her head as if there for the first time, taking the scene in. She frowned as she saw Eve in the air and her eyes started to slide over to Scarecrow.

“DO NOT LOOK HIM IN THE EYES!” Eve cried.

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” Scarecrow bellowed humorlessly, his voice a crack of the whip.

But of course, Scarecrow was already moving as soon as he forcefully threw Eve into the wooden deck, and before she hit the planks with a crunch.

“Oh, what have we here?” he rasped, voice sticky, inches away but still outside the threshold. Faye stood frozen like a deer in the headlights, eyes wide, cheeks mottled with lipstick and feverish dreams. Her eyes were shying away from him, shoulders hunched, but she couldn’t move.

“Pretty, pretty doll. Will you let me in to play?” he asked, hungrily drinking in her figure, all feigned innocence, sharp teeth gleaming.

Eve scraped herself off the deck, just barely, splinters stuck in flesh, clavicle at an unnatural angle, and watched with mounting horror Faye’s hand moving to the door handle.

….

This was a loose follow-up to an earlier story, Night Shift. You don’t need to read it to savor this tale, but a few things may be clearer. Happy reading!